Christmas on Crimson Mountain

by Michelle Major

  Wouldn’t turn. Because if she looked at him now, she was a goner. And as bad as the past few days had hurt, there wasn’t enough left of her heart to keep going if he broke it again.

  “Every moment I miss you,” he said quietly. “Every time I take a breath, so I’ve actually done some experiments with holding my breath that would make David Blaine proud. It doesn’t help. You are my breath. You are my heartbeat. You’re my whole world, April.”

  She heard a broken sound and realized it had come from her.

  “Turn around, sweetheart.” His voice was gentle, coaxing. “Please turn around.”

  She did and the look in his eyes leveled her. It was open and real, and everything she’d wanted was right there in his gaze.

  “I don’t want to trust you,” she whispered, because it was the truth and it was difficult, but she was finished being scared of either.

  “Then just give me a chance to prove you can.” His hand lifted before he pulled it back, running his fingers through his cropped hair. “The way you showed me that I deserve more than the half-life I was living. The way you proved to me that I can love again. I love you so damned much, April. Give me a chance. Give me forever.”

  She swallowed, but there was no stopping the tears now. They flowed hot and fast. She swiped at her cheeks. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  His smile was tentative, hopeful. “I’m going to hold you now,” he said, moving closer, crowding her against the door. “I’m going to hold you and never let you go.”

  Then he was wrapping her in his arms and she buried her face against his shoulder and cried. For what they’d both been through, what they’d lost and found and almost lost again. Everything in her heart poured out. The dam that had kept her emotions in check for so long simply burst under the force of her love. It was messy and real, and true to his word, Connor only held her tighter.

  “Those are happy tears, right?”

  April lifted her head as Connor shifted. Shay and Ranie stood in the doorway from the foyer to the family room, all the people she loved in the world watching behind them.

  “The happiest,” she whispered, and opened her arms. Both girls ran forward and the four of them hugged. The joy April felt in this moment was so complete, nothing could compare. Nothing except the peace that descended a few moments later. Because she’d finally found her family, and she was never letting them go.

  Epilogue

  Six Months Later

  Connor looked up from the podium as he finished his reading and the crowd gathered in the San Francisco bookstore started to clap. He took a deep breath, only exhaling when his gaze found April and the girls standing at the back of the room.

  She smiled, and both Ranie and Shay waved. Because it was summer break, they’d been able to join him in several of the six cities on his current book tour. Of course, after the first two readings Shay had decided that his book was too “growned up” for her taste, and the three of them usually arrived at the end of each appearance. Every single time, seeing them made his heart expand with love and gratitude.

  He owed April more than he could ever repay. She’d brought him back to life and given him the second chance he hadn’t realized he’d so desperately needed.

  The bookstore manager allowed a few minutes of questions from the audience before leading Connor to the table stacked with his books. He signed copies and spoke with fans for almost an hour before the event was over.

  April and the girls were waiting for him in the tiny coffee bar next to the store’s main entrance.

  “We got ice cream,” Shay announced, holding up a half-eaten cone. “But April said we still have to eat dinner at the party.”

  “Since you’re growing like a weed,” he said, nipping at the ice cream, “I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

  “Unless they serve brussels sprouts,” she told him. “Those are yucky.”

  “Hey,” April protested with a smile. “I roasted brussels sprouts last week. They were delicious.”

  “Whatever you say.” Shay licked at her ice cream.

  “Margo’s mother is a wonderful cook,” he told the girl, slipping into the chair between her and April. “She’ll have something there you’ll like.”

  “And you’re sure they’re okay with all of us coming to the party?” Ranie’s blue eyes were filled with worry. “It’s not going to be weird?”

  “It might be weird at first,” Connor admitted. They had a hotel room downtown but were driving out to the suburbs to have dinner with Margo’s family and a few of Connor and Margo’s mutual friends. He’d slowly gotten back in touch with the people who had loved his wife, bolstered by April’s support and encouragement. He’d found that, instead of sorrow and guilt, sharing memories of Margo and Emmett now triggered a quiet peace. That peace strengthened the love he felt for the family he’d lost, but also allowed him to move forward with the family he was creating with April and the girls. “The Malones are really nice and they love kids.” He leaned over the table. “Just don’t pick your nose at the table.”

  She snorted. “I don’t pick my nose.”

  He flashed her a grin. “Then you should be fine.”

  “You had a lot of super fans in the audience tonight,” April said, reaching for his hand. “Everyone was excited to meet the famous author.”

  “Not as excited as the author was to get back to his wife,” he whispered, and lifted her fingers to his mouth, gently kissing the diamond band on her left hand. They’d married in a small service a week into the new year. It had been a whirlwind, but Connor had no doubt he wanted to spend the rest of his life with April at his side. They’d agreed that it was important for the girls that they get married before he relocated to Colorado to move in with them.

  With Ranie and Shay as witnesses, they’d had a ceremony at Cloud Cabin. He’d joined them in their rental house, but they’d recently purchased an acre of land outside of town to build their dream home. April’s friends had quickly become his friends, and living in the shadow of the rugged beauty of Crimson Mountain was just one more thing that added to his healing.

  “Can I go look at books?” Ranie asked.

  “Me, too,” Shay shouted around her last bite of ice-cream cone, jumping up from her chair.

  “Yes, but stay together,” April told them with a gentle smile. “And don’t plan on buying anything more. We’re going to need a whole room in the new house for the books you’ve collected on every stop of this trip.”

  Both girls looked at Connor.

  He glanced at April out of the corner of his eye. “How can you say no to books?”

  “You’re totally throwing me under the bus,” she said with a laugh.

  “I’m not,” he protested, drawing her closer and kissing the top of her head. “But we’re talking about books,” he whispered into her hair.

  “One book each,” she told the girls with a sigh.

  They fist bumped and then headed for the children’s section.

  She pulled back, her dark eyes gentle. “How are you feeling about tonight?”

  “Nervous but positive,” he admitted. “When I spoke with Margo’s mother earlier, she was excited about meeting you and the girls. I think the guilt and blame I carried was a burden for more than just me. They really were my family, and somehow it helps their healing to know that I’m moving forward.” He leaned in for a kiss. “But I’m happy that this is the last stop on the book tour.”

  She smiled against his mouth. “We’re going home.”

  Home.

  The word that had l
eft him hollow for so long now filled him with a happiness he hadn’t believed possible.

  “You are my home,” he whispered, cupping her face between his palms. “I love you, April. I’ll love you forever.”

  “I love you, too, Connor. Forever.”

  Connor understood that life held no guarantees, but through the darkness and light, with April at his side he would appreciate each step on the journey. He’d never again take for granted the peace that filled his soul, and he intended to spend every day proving his love to April and the girls.

  * * * * *

  Be sure to catch Michelle Major’s next book, A FORTUNE IN WAITING, the first book in THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: THE SECRET FORTUNES continuity, coming soon!

  And don’t miss the previous installments in the CRIMSON, COLORADO miniseries:

  ALWAYS THE BEST MAN

  A BABY AND A BETROTHAL

  A VERY CRIMSON CHRISTMAS

  SUDDENLY A FATHER

  A SECOND CHANCE AT CRIMSON RANCH

  A KISS ON CRIMSON RANCH

  available now wherever Harlequin Special Edition books and ebooks are sold.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE HOLIDAY GIFT by RaeAnne Thayne.

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  The Holiday Gift

  by RaeAnne Thayne

  Chapter One

  Something was wrong, but Faith Dustin didn’t have the first idea what.

  She glanced at Chase Brannon again, behind the wheel of his pickup truck. Sunglasses shielded his eyes but his strong jaw was still flexed, his shoulders tense.

  Since they had left the Idaho Falls livestock auction forty-five minutes earlier, heading back to Cold Creek Canyon, the big rancher hadn’t smiled once and had answered most of her questions in monosyllables, his mind clearly a million miles away.

  Faith frowned. He wasn’t acting at all like himself. They were frequent travel companions, visiting various livestock auctions around the region at least once or twice a month for the last few years. They had even gone on a few buying trips to Denver together, an eight-hour drive from their little corner of eastern Idaho. He was her oldest friend—and had been since she and her sisters came to live with their aunt and uncle nearly two decades ago.

  In many ways, she and Chase were really a team and comingled their ranch operations, since his ranch, Brannon Ridge, bordered the Star N on two sides.

  Usually when they traveled, they never ran out of things to talk about. Her kids and their current dramas, real or imagined; his daughter, Addie, who lived with her mother in Boise; Faith’s sisters and their growing families. Their ranches, the community, the price of beef, their future plans. It was all grist for their conversational mill. She valued his opinion—often she would run ideas past him—and she wanted to think he rated hers as highly.

  The drive to Idaho Falls earlier that morning had seemed just like usual, filled with conversation and their usual banter. Everything had seemed normal during the auction. He had stayed right by her side, a quiet, steady support, while she engaged in—and eventually won—a fierce bidding war for a beautiful paint filly with excellent barrel racing bloodlines.

  That horse, intended as a Christmas gift for her twelve-year-old daughter, Louisa, was the whole reason they had gone to the auction. Yes, she’d been a little carried away by winning the auction so that she’d hugged him hard and kissed him smack on the lips, but surely that wasn’t what was bothering him. She’d kissed and hugged him tons of times.

  Okay, maybe she had been careful not to be so casual with her affection for him the last six or seven months, for reasons she didn’t want to explore, but she couldn’t imagine he would go all cold and cranky over something as simple as a little kiss.

  No. His mood had shifted after that, but all her subtle efforts to wiggle out what was wrong had been for nothing.

  His mood certainly matched the afternoon. Faith glanced out at the uniformly gray sky and the few random, hard-edged snowflakes clicking against the windshield. The weather wasn’t pleasant but it wasn’t horrible either. The snowflakes weren’t sticking to the road yet, anyway, though she expected they would see at least a few inches on the ground by morning.

  Even the familiar festive streets of Pine Gulch—wreaths hanging on the streetlamps and each downtown business decorated with lights and window dressings—didn’t seem to lift his dark mood.

  When he hit the edge of town and turned into Cold Creek Canyon toward home, she decided to try one last time to figure out what might be bothering him.

  “Did something happen at the auction?”

  He glanced away from the road briefly, the expression in his silver-blue eyes shielded by the amber lenses of his sunglasses. “Why would you think that?”

  She studied his dearly familiar profile, struck by his full mouth and his tanned, chiseled features—covered now with just a hint of dark afternoon shadow. Funny, how she saw him just about every single day but was sometimes taken by surprise all over again by how great-looking he was.

  With his dark, wavy hair covered by the black Stetson he wore, that slow, sexy smile, and his broad shoulders and slim hips, he looked rugged and dangerous and completely male. It was no wonder the waitresses at the café next to the auction house always fought each other to serve their table.

  She shifted her attention away from such ridiculous things and back to the conversation. “I don’t know. Maybe because that’s the longest sentence you’ve given me since we left Idaho Falls. You’ve replied to everything else with either a grunt or a monosyllable.”

  Beneath that afternoon shadow, a muscle clenched in his jaw. “That doesn’t mean anything happened. Maybe I’m just not in a chatty mood.”

  She certainly had days like that. Heaven knew she’d had her share of blue days over the last two and a half years. Through every one of them, Chase had been her rock.

  “Nothing wrong with that, I guess. Are you sure that’s all? Was it something Beckett McKinley said? I saw him corner you at lunch.”

  He glanced over at her briefly and again she wished she could see the expression behind his sunglasses. “H
e wanted to know how I like the new baler I bought this year and he also wanted my opinion on a...personal matter. I told him I liked the baler fine but told him the other thing wasn’t any of my damn business.”

  She blinked at both his clipped tone and the language. Chase didn’t swear very often. When he did, there was usually a good reason.

  “Now you’ve got my curiosity going. What kind of personal matter would Beck want your opinion about? The only thing I can think the man needs is a nanny for those hellion boys of his.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment, just watched the road and those snowflakes spitting against windshield. When he finally spoke, his voice was clipped. “It was about you.”

  She stared. “Me?”

  Chase’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “He wants to ask you out, specifically to go as his date to the stockgrowers association’s Christmas party on Friday.”

  If he had just told her Beck wanted her to dress up like a Christmas angel and jump from his barn roof, she wouldn’t have been more surprised—and likely would have been far less panicky.

  “I... He...what?”

  “Beck wants to take you to the Christmas party this weekend. I understand there’s going to be dancing and a full dinner this year.”

  Beck McKinley. The idea of dating the man took her by complete surprise. Yes, he was a great guy, with a prosperous ranch on the other side of Pine Gulch. She considered him a good friend but she had never once thought of him in romantic terms.

  The unexpected paradigm shift wasn’t the only thing bothering her about what Chase had just said.

  “Hold on. If he wanted to take me to the party, why wouldn’t Beck just ask me himself instead of feeling like he has to go through you first?”

  That muscle flexed in his jaw again. “You’ll have to ask him that.”

  The things he wasn’t saying in this conversation would fill a radio broadcast. She frowned as Chase pulled into the drive leading to his ranch. “You told him I’m already going with you, didn’t you?”