All I Want for Christmas

by Sandra D. Bricker

  “Did you drive all the way from Indiana? You must be exhausted. Are you hungry?”

  The truth was . . . Joanna was famished. She hadn’t eaten since grabbing two tacos at a drive-thru before crossing over into Ohio. “A little. But you go back to bed. I can find something on my own.”

  Sarah ignored the suggestion and shuffled toward the refrigerator. “Jedediah and I had stew for supper. There’s plenty left over.”

  Jedediah.

  The mere mention of his name pinched a corner of her heart that Joanna had all but forgotten. Her first crush. How she’d followed that boy around like a big-eyed puppy! And when her sisters filtered away to start their own lives and Joanna considered doing the same, she didn’t have to wonder what to do about the homestead. Jed had loved the place almost as much as she had for most of his life.

  Jed’s father had come to work managing the ranch before she could even remember, bringing along his lovely wife, Sarah, and their young son, just six years older than Joanna. Tuck and his buddies had converted the original bunkhouse into a small home for them. By the time Mr. Weatherly passed away, Tuck was off somewhere in the Middle East and Jed took over where his dad left off.

  Joanna was only twelve years old when eighteen-year-old Jed stepped into his dad’s shoes. His first act had been to work with Marlena, Joanna’s mother, to fulfill her longtime dream and add the presence of a rescue ranch of sorts, a haven for former racehorses to retire or be adopted out for non-racing purposes. To offset the cost of their care, Jed devised a plan so kids could come and ride them or take lessons and get an afternoon of a genuine ranch-like experience.

  The clank of the bowl as Sarah set it on the kitchen island brought Joanna back to the moment. The savory fragrance of beef stew and warmed biscuits drew her to the counter-height stool in front of it, and she sat down as Sarah folded a paper napkin.

  “I can warm some more if this isn’t enough to curb your hunger.” She placed the napkin next to the bowl and set a spoon on it.

  “This will be plenty, Sarah. Thank you.”

  “Sweet tea?”

  Joanna smiled, wondering how long it had been since she’d been offered a glass of sweet tea. “Absolutely. Please.”

  Sarah’s slippers scuffed as she walked to the row of glossy white cabinets and pulled open the one with a shiny glass insert and retrieved a glass. As she poured, Joanna dunked a biscuit into her bowl to sop up some of the gravy. She moaned with pleasure at her first bite.

  “This is delicious, Sarah.”

  “Thank you, Sweet Pea,” Sarah said as she delivered the tea. Joanna had forgotten that Sarah had always called her by that name. It flooded her heart with warm comfort.

  After a couple of bites, Joanna decided to broach the topic of the heart-thumping, attractive elephant in the room. “So you said you had dinner with Jed. How’s he doing?” She wondered if her attempt at sounding casual had clanked as off-key to Sarah as it had to her.

  “Oh, he’s just dandy. Tired as all git-out though. He took a job out at the Triple Z on the outskirts of town after your daddy passed to help with the expenses ’round here until the lawyers could get a line on one of you girls.”

  He’s covering the upkeep himself?

  “Why didn’t he call one of us?” Joanna asked.

  “He tried. But your voice mail never picked up, and your emails started bouncin’.”

  “Ohh.”

  In an effort to make ends meet, she’d given up her landline months ago, and then her cable and Internet. Then she’d lost her job.

  “Did you get any of his emails, honey?”

  “No. I changed Internet providers and got a new email address. I should have called one of you to check on things. I don’t know why I didn’t do that.”

  Sarah walked over to her and rubbed her arm briskly. “Listen . . . Your daddy passed peacefully. I’m guessing you probably wondered about that. He fell asleep right over there in that club chair he loved so much.” Joanna glanced at the worn leather chair, imagining her father sitting there, all six-plus feet of him stretched out. An imposing figure when looking down at one of his four daughters . . . but somehow, when he curved into the right side of that chair, he looked as approachable and cozy as a sleepy old hound. “Matt was with him. I hope that brings you some comfort.”

  Joanna lifted one shoulder in an attempt at a shrug. “That’s good at least.”

  But it didn’t feel good at all. Sure, she supposed it was great that Tuck died in a quiet way. But . . . Tuck died. Without one of his four daughters by his side. Or even speaking to him. Fort Wayne was just a little over four hours—and yet an entire lifetime—away from that club chair where her father had taken his last breath. She wondered if that final breath had been tainted with resentment. A sense of abandonment. Loneliness.

  The thought of him feeling lonely just about killed her. Six feet four inches of imposing confidence—that was how she remembered Robert J. Tucker. But in his last moments, had her self-assured father wavered at all? Had he been frightened?

  “Joanna,” Sarah interrupted her thoughts with a honey-dipped drawl. “Are you all right, honey?” Joanna hadn’t realized she’d been crying until Sarah wiped the tears from her cheek with the corner of her napkin. “You’re fretting about your daddy, aren’t you?”

  Joanna sniffed back the emotion, aware of the increasing heat radiating across her cheeks. “I just hope he didn’t hate us for leaving him alone.”

  “Ah, Sweet Pea, your daddy loved y’all with his whole heart,” Sarah crooned.

  Joanna turned and looked into Sarah’s pretty blue eyes. “He wasn’t . . . scared?”

  “Scared? No, he wasn’t scared. Your daddy knew where he was headed, and he wasn’t frightened of that at all.”

  Joanna narrowed her eyes as she considered that thought. Her mother had deep, abiding faith for all her life, but Tuck? She didn’t ever remember hearing one word about faith in God from her father.

  “Can I get you anything else to eat?”

  “No, that was really good.”

  “Let’s get you settled in your own room then, shall we?”

  Sarah extended a hand and Joanna took it, picking up her purse and bag before following the older woman down the hall to the buttery yellow bedroom behind the last door on the right.

  “While you get ready for bed, I’ll just take this quilt—” Joanna watched as Sarah yanked the covering off the closer of the two double beds with the familiar ornate iron headboards. “—and put it into the dryer for a few minutes so it’s nice and cozy for you to slip under and get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Sarah, you don’t have to—”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll be back straightaway.” Sarah reached the doorway and then turned around. Dropping the mound on the foot of the bed, she tugged the embroidered cases from the pillows. “I’ll just put these in there, too, and add a little lavender so they’ll be warm and fragrant for you.”

  Joanna shook her head and chuckled. “Well. Thank you.”

  After Sarah had gone, Joanna set her bag and purse on the bed against the window—Bella’s bed. Joanna and Bella had such good years together, sharing this bedroom. Sarah used to help her mom keep house, and she’d changed the linens on those beds hundreds of times. Maybe more. But tonight was different somehow. It had been so long since anyone had looked after Joanna in that way.

  In the dryer? With lavender?

  Her eyes misted over with tears before she even recognized the emotions hitting her. She unzipped her bag and tugged out the pajamas she’d rolled and pushed in just that morning.

  As she changed, Joanna’s focus went to the light-gray floorboards covered by the dark-gray area rug with large, loopy, pink flowers around the border. The edges were somewhat tattered in places, but she didn’t much care because that rug represented the sweet memory of shopping alone with her mother—something that hardly ever happened, the two of them alone without the other girls—for a rug to cover the cold
floors of her and Bella’s bedroom. They’d driven all the way into Lexington that day and stopped at the food court for a hot fudge sundae before heading back. More tears spilled just as Sarah returned.

  The woman who had been like a second mother to her tossed the warm quilt and pillowcases on the bed and sat beside Joanna. “Coming home after a long time away is always emotional, isn’t it?”

  Joanna could only nod, and she dropped her head to Sarah’s shoulder.

  The sunrise called her name that morning, and despite the frigid thirty-degree temperature encouraging her to remain inside, Joanna wrapped herself in the bed quilt, brewed a cup of coffee in the Keurig on the counter—no need for a paper-towel filter!—and tucked her thick-socked feet into her boots before stepping outside.

  Resting the cup on the wide armrest of the redwood chair, she tucked her legs beneath her and set out to enjoy the vibrant blues, pinks, and oranges of the Kentucky sky coming alive for the day. She’d all but forgotten the beauty of the place sprawled out before her. Sipping the steaming hot coffee, she basked in the unexpected joy of coming home.

  Home.

  The word echoed inside her as one of the horses whinnied in the stable. Joanna grinned. After she dressed and had breakfast, she determined to take a walk down the hillside and check out the farm’s four-legged guests. She wondered how many of the stalls were filled these days.

  “What on the Lord’s beautiful, green earth—?”

  Joanna’s head jerked toward the voice, her heart pounding, hands trembling at the sound of it. She nearly dropped her coffee as Jed Weatherly stomped up the steps and leaned one hip against the wood banister, his light-brown eyes flashing and the dimples caving in on both cheeks.

  “Jo-Jo?”

  She took a moment to purposefully breathe before she smiled at him. “Hi, Jed.”

  He shook his head and stared at the scuffed tips of his boots, and she noticed the sun streaks in his dark-brown hair before he looked up and made the connection again. Those gold-flecked eyes of his had always done her in.

  “You are the last thing I expected to see bundled up on the porch at the crack of dawn today. You’re a sight for these sore eyes. Get up out of that chair, girl, and give me some sugar.”

  Pulse thundering, Joanna rose from the chair and set her cup on the arm. Pulling the quilt snugly around her, she casually put one foot in front of the other while screaming inwardly. “It’s Jed! It’s Jed!”

  When she reached him, he hauled her into a bear hug and rocked her back and forth. “I can’t believe you’re here. This old place has sure missed you, girl.”

  But have YOU missed me?

  He gently pushed her away, holding her a couple of feet from him as he looked into her eyes. It felt like an electrical connection to Joanna, one that had been fired up and waiting for years to be plugged in again. The intensity was almost too much for her.

  “I tried to reach you about Tuck,” he said in earnest, pulling her back to reality. “I’m real sorry.”

  “It’s my fault. I should have contacted you with my new information. I learned to put thoughts of this place behind me . . .”

  “Well, you’re here now. C’mon and let’s get inside and have some breakfast before the second string comes in.”

  The second string. She’d forgotten the term inherited from Tuck that referred to the ranch hands.

  Joanna picked up her coffee mug and headed through the door as he opened it. He trailed her inside.

  “Whoa, that sure smells good,” he called out to Sarah, who was flipping pancakes on the griddle. “Look what I found hanging around on the front porch, Mom.”

  “Yes, I see that. I found her myself in the kitchen in the middle of the night.” Sarah looked up at Joanna and grinned. “We had quite a nice time catching up, didn’t we, Sweet Pea?”

  “We did. I’m like one of those old raccoons. She fed me, so I stuck around.”

  Jed and Sarah laughed in perfect harmony, and it warmed her heart. Joanna set her cup in the sink and asked Sarah, “Do I have time to get dressed?”

  “About fifteen minutes and it’s on the table.”

  “I’ll be back in ten.”

  She hurried off down the hall, wondering how in the world she could transform into someone else entirely—someone Jed might notice and be attracted to—in just ten minutes. She imagined that with her hair unbrushed, her face scrubbed clean, wearing winter boots and a bed quilt, there wasn’t much there to inspire the attraction of a man as beautiful as Jed Weatherly. But oh, how she’d loved him once upon a time. And how she’d dreamt of the day when he might notice the woman burgeoning inside of her.

  Why hadn’t she thought of Jed when she chose the few items she’d pack for her trip to the horse farm? Everything she might have worn to look more … What? Womanly? … had been tossed into cardboard boxes and moved to a friend’s basement with the rest of her possessions for safekeeping before leaving Indiana. That irritable landlord of hers would have deposited all her belongings in a dumpster when he stormed the gates to evict her, of that Joanna was certain.

  After slipping into jeans and a taupe, cable-knit sweater, she tamed her wild hair into a loose braid that fell forward over one shoulder. She smoothed a little tinted moisturizer over her face, curled her eyelashes, and applied pale-pink lip gloss. While poking small, hooped earrings into her ears, she suddenly wondered if Jed had a woman in his life these days. After all, she’d been gone a long time. Maybe he was married! Maybe she was braiding her hair and wearing earrings for a married man. In fact, perhaps a gorgeous blonde wife with a big bustline and tiny little feet waited for him at the house, wearing an apron, and—

  “Stop it!” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Stop it right now.”

  Joanna glared at her reflection and shook the train wreck of thought from her mind. When she finally closed the bedroom door and headed down the hall toward the kitchen, a new mission occupied her thoughts: Check for a wedding ring.

  “Perfect timing,” Sarah announced, but her voice sounded like a dull hum behind the light-brown eyes that momentarily waylaid Joanna. And then came the ultimate obstacle—those sunken dimples on either side of his smile—that took over where the gold flecks left off. “Go ahead and doctor your coffee the way you like it while I dish up some breakfast.”

  What had she said? Something about coffee . . .

  Jed slid the tray bearing cream and sugar containers toward her.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  As he removed his ring-free hand, her unbridled glee forced Joanna to grin like an idiot.

  “You look happy this morning.” Jed took the stool next to her at the island. “Glad to be home?”

  She gave a noncommittal nod as she concentrated on stirring cream into her coffee, silently thanking God for evaporating all thoughts of the imaginary, apron-wearing blonde who had occupied his kitchen for a few dreadful moments.

  Sarah set a plate down in front of her, and Joanna gasped at the sight of it. Two large pancakes, an egg—sunny-side up—a mound of home fries, two sausage links, several orange sections, and two large strawberries. “I don’t think I’ve had this much food over an entire day, much less for breakfast.”

  Jed chuckled as his mother set a plate in front of him, even more heavily laden. “Food is love in my family, Jo-Jo. Don’t you remember that?”

  She smiled. “I could have come back to find you pushing five hundred pounds and too fat to sit in a saddle.”

  “It takes a lot of willpower to keep that from happening.”

  “Hush now,” Sarah said, her back to them as she rinsed a dish in the sink. “Say a prayer over your food and eat your breakfast.”

  Jed and Joanna exchanged grins. Jed bowed his head and spoke a blessing before they dug in.

  “Speaking of family,” Joanna said, wiping egg from the corner of her mouth, “how’s your cousin? Sarah said he was here with Tuck. Is he still a soldier boy?”

  Sarah clicked her tongue several tim
es, shaking her head. “Matthew would not tolerate being called a soldier, Sweet Pea. He’s a Marine through and through, just like your daddy.”

  The reference tweaked her heart. Jed’s cousin Matt had always admired Tuck so much, and about thirty seconds after his eighteenth birthday he’d enlisted.

  “Matt took care of Tuck for months after he got sick,” Jed told her.

  The fork froze in the air a few inches from her mouth. “He did?”

  “Matthew trained as a navy corpsman and then as a medic in the Marines,” Sarah chimed in. “When he came home, he went back to school for his R.N. degree. Since Tuck had been discharged because of his condition, Matt stayed here at the house for a while. He worked closely with the doctors to make sure Tuck had everything he needed.”

  Why didn’t I know this?

  “That’s . . . surprising,” she admitted. “And very sweet. So where is he now?”

  “He moved into a small place not too far away,” Sarah said, sipping her tea.

  Conversation flowed smoothly as Sarah and Jed caught her up on life in Bluegrass Crossing. Before she knew it, Joanna had consumed every speck of food on her plate.

  Chapter Three

  Joanna stopped as one long nose poked over the stall door. She placed a halved apple on her flat palm and held it out to the gray mare, who chomped it happily.

  “That’s Lucinda,” Jed said as Joanna stroked the horse’s neck. “She has some calcification in her knees that prevents anything more than light riding. We’ve been using her as a therapy horse. She gets requested more than any of the others on property.”

  A cocoa gelding caught her attention from the next stall, sniffing the air and extending his neck over the door. “I have a little something for you, too.”

  “Stanley,” Jed told her. “He’s a showman from down Louisville way. He’s still being rehabbed, but he’ll be ready for riding lessons—and hopefully adoption—in the next month or so.”

  Joanna fed him a carrot and tickled the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “Any familiar faces left over from my days here? I don’t guess Sally’s still alive.”