by Dylann Crush
“Yo, Cash.” Dwight ambled across the parking lot, headed his way.
“What are you doing here? Going to sit in Santa’s lap?”
“Hell no. But I wouldn’t miss the bake sale. I’ve gotta get my hands on one of your mom’s pumpkin pies. She make any pecan this time?”
Cash’s stomach rumbled at the mention of his mom’s pecan pie. “No. But she promised for Christmas. Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Just make it quick.”
“About Jinx’s bike. She said it’s almost ready. You think you’ll have it done before Christmas?”
“At the rate I’m going, I don’t know why not.”
“Would there be anything that might delay your work?”
“What are you gettin’ at? You want me to break something else?”
“No, nothing like that. I just know Kenzie will be crushed if she leaves before the holidays, that’s all.”
“Then why don’t you ask her to stay?” Dwight squinted at him from under the brim of his baseball cap.
How could he tell the man that’s the one thing he could never do? “It’s not that easy.”
Dwight shrugged. “All right. You want me to take a hammer to it, you just let me know.”
“Um, no. Definitely do not damage the bike. We clear on that?” Cash shook the hand Dwight thrust at him.
“Fine. But if you want to make a move, you’re running out of time.” Dwight dropped his hand.
How could Dwight somehow sound like the voice of reason? “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Cash managed to find his father, exactly where his mom thought he would be. Tom had cornered Cooper Justice by the juice table. Cooper had some fancy degree from Texas A&M and had taken over a failing tract of land on the outskirts of town and turned it into a working vineyard. Tom had been keeping an eye on his progress and got a wild hair to try his hand at wine making as well. As he approached, Cash caught tidbits of the conversation. Something about the acidity of soil. His mom was wasting her time hoping his dad would fully retire and leave the ranching to Waylon. He’d go to the grave with a handful of Texas dirt in his grip. It was in his blood.
By the time he’d rustled up his dad, snagged three cups of coffee, and made his way back to the table where he’d left Jinx, the line for Santa stretched around the perimeter of the room.
“Here you go, ladies. Coffee, as requested.” Cash set the three cups down and collapsed into a chair. “It’s going to take us an hour to get through that line now.”
Dixie checked her watch. “Better get to it then. Santa’s only here until eleven.”
“Who’d you sweet-talk into taking on the role this year?” Cash scooted his chair closer to Jinx.
“Kermit volunteered again. He only comes into town once a year. Poor guy, out there all alone. I wish he’d socialize more.” Dixie stood. “Thanks, Jinx, for saying you’ll help. See you tomorrow night.”
“What’s tomorrow night?” Cash gave Dixie a small wave, then turned his attention toward Jinx.
“I don’t know. Something about a fund-raiser auction she wants me to help with.”
He nodded. “That’s right. The elf thing. Good. Now should we go find Kenzie and get in line?” The more Jinx got involved in the town, the more she might want to stay.
Jinx grabbed her coffee and scooted her chair back. “There she is. Why don’t you go get in line, and I’ll grab her?”
Cash held the back of her chair as she stood. “Sounds good.”
He took up a spot at the back of the line while he watched Jinx fetch Kenzie. The way his daughter smiled up at Jinx filled his heart with warmth. For a moment, he could see the possibilities—making pancakes on Saturday mornings together, swinging Kenzie between them on a walk to the park—possibilities he’d never allowed himself to imagine. Maybe it was time to open up his heart again. Maybe it was time to take a chance.
Chapter Sixteen
Jinx and Kenzie joined Cash in the long line for Santa. “You want more coffee?” Cash offered. “I’m going to go grab a refill.”
“Sure.” She handed him her cup, then leaned against the wall. Kenzie moved in closer, resting her shoulder against Jinx’s side. Jinx wrapped an arm loosely around her. This kid reminded her so much of herself as a child. At least before her dad died. Up until that point, she had been curious, had laughed a lot, and was always ready for a hug. Just like Kenzie. But then it all went to hell.
Not willing to let herself go there, she ran a hand over Kenzie’s hair. “You’ve got Christmas break coming up soon. What do you want to do over vacation?” All kids loved Christmas break, right?
“I want to ride my pony.”
Jinx nodded. “That sounds like fun.”
“And play with all my new toys.” Kenzie tapped her index finger to her lips, no doubt giving the question the level of seriousness it deserved in the mind of a seven-year-old. “Can we have a sleepover?”
“You want to invite some friends over to stay the night?” Jinx had never invited friends over to her place as a kid. She’d never really had good enough friends, plus the idea of exposing anyone else to her mom and the current deadbeat boyfriend almost gave her hives.
“Yeah. You.” Kenzie giggled and poked Jinx in the belly.
Cash returned, two fresh cups of coffee in hand. “Y’all haven’t moved much.”
“Jinx is going to spend the night, okay, Daddy?” Kenzie peered up at them, her gaze bouncing between them.
He’d been about to swallow a sip of coffee. Instead, he spurted brown liquid from his mouth and let it dribble down his chin. “Say what?” He lifted a thin paper napkin to wipe his chin clean.
“We can watch a movie and eat popcorn. It’ll be fun. Just like Aunt Darby and Uncle Waylon do when I go over there.”
“And when is this supposed to be happening?” Cash asked.
“Can we do it tonight? Oh, please!”
“Jinx has to work tonight, Tadpole. Some other time, okay?” He nudged her forward in line.
A sleepover… Jinx mulled the idea over, expecting to feel the telltale signs of an oncoming freak-out at the mere thought of spending an official night with Kenzie and Cash. Instead of the walls of her chest squeezing together, she took in a deep breath. Her lungs expanded. Her heart warmed at the thought of snuggling next to Cash on the sectional with Kenzie tucked between them. The fact that she wasn’t having a panic attack almost sent her reeling headfirst into a panic attack. As she listened to Cash tell a particularly bad holiday joke, she tried to figure out what that meant.
By the time they reached Santa, Cash had exhausted all his cheesy jokes and even a few he looked up on his phone. The man would stop at nothing to amuse his little girl. Jinx used to take up major real estate in someone’s heart like that. She hadn’t let herself remember how it felt to be the center of someone’s world in a long, long time. It hurt too much. Being around the two of them made her miss it. Even though the pain still cut like a hacksaw through her chest when she let herself recall the happy days before her dad died, she’d found herself reliving them more in the past couple of weeks than she had in years.
Kenzie was lucky to have a dad like Cash. He might come across as callous, stubborn, and bullheaded in his interactions with grown-ups, but he melted like a pat of butter on a stack of his homemade buttermilk pancakes when it came to Kenzie.
“Ho, ho, ho! Happy holidays, Kenzie. Hop on up here and tell Santa what you want for Christmas this year.” Santa patted his thigh with a gloved hand.
Kenzie clambered onto his lap, leaving Jinx and Cash behind.
Cash leaned into her, whispering against her ear, “Are you next?”
“For what?” Jinx asked.
“Sitting on Santa’s lap and telling him what you want for Christmas.”
“I’m not going to give some pe
rvy old man a thrill. Besides, Santa never came through for me as a kid, so why would that change now?” She regretted the words as soon as she said them. “Sorry, it’s just that Christmas was never a big deal when I was growing up.”
“Well then, you’re in for a treat, Ms. Jacobs.” Cash’s mouth split into a grin. “Christmastime is the best time to be in Holiday.” He whipped his phone out of his pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting Charlie. Telling her I want to steal her star employee for the evening and make you late for work tonight.”
Jinx wrapped her hand around his arm. “No, I can’t.”
“Did she tell you how slow it would be? Nobody’s going to be there anyway. It’s the annual tree-lighting ceremony.”
“She did say we probably wouldn’t have anyone come in until later because of that.”
“What do you say? I think it’s high time you see how much fun embracing the holiday spirit can be. I can run you over after.”
“But—”
He held his phone out to her, showing her Charlie’s reply. “Charlie said it’s okay.”
Jinx flip-flopped back and forth. He couldn’t just take control of her schedule like that. But on the other hand, the thought of spending the evening with Cash and Kenzie did sound pretty appealing.
“Okay. But we have to leave early so I can get to the Rose before the crowd.”
“You’re going to love it, I promise. It’s the kickoff for the Jingle Bell Jamboree. Kenzie and I always go.” He leaned in close to nibble on her earlobe. “And if you’re really good, I’ll let you sit on my lap later and tell me what you want for Christmas.”
Smiling, she nudged an elbow into his ribs. “I told you I wasn’t up for giving a pervy old man a thrill.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I plan on being the one delivering the thrills.”
Chapter Seventeen
The small downtown sparkled like someone had doused it in spray-on glitter. Twinkle lights outlined the buildings, and iridescent snowflakes dangled from the streetlights. Two of the Belgian draft horses from Waylon’s stock pulled a flatbed wagon that had been decked out to look like Santa’s sled and was full of kids. Bells hung from the horses’ necks, jingling and jangling as they passed through the main street of town. The diner had gone so far as to rent several snow cone machines and were making “snow” for the Make It Before It Melts snowman contest.
“What do you want to do first?” Cash asked. He held Kenzie’s hand in her pink-and-purple-striped glove in one hand and Jinx’s ring-clad fingers in the other.
“Can we make a snowman?” Kenzie pulled them toward the snowman contest. “They ran out of snow last year before we got a chance to do it. Remember, Daddy?”
He and Jinx followed behind her, linked together like a three-person chain.
“Be careful with that critter, Kenz.” Cash nodded toward where Hendrix nestled against her chest. His mother had made Kenzie a carrier for him like that infant sling thing he’d seen on Charlie’s baby shower registry.
Kenzie dropped his hand to pat Hendrix on the head and adjust his little Santa hat. “Don’t worry, Daddy. He’s fine.”
“Until he pees on you,” Cash muttered under his breath.
“It’s like fifty-some degrees out. How’s she going to make a snowman?” Jinx stepped next to him as they stopped in front of a long table.
Ruth, one of the regular waitresses from the diner, set a tub of freshly shaved ice in front of Kenzie. “Here you go, sweets. Build your creation, then make sure we get a picture of it before it starts to melt so we can enter you in the contest.”
Kenzie gripped the sides of the tub, trying to lift it up off the table. Cash stood behind her to put his hands over hers. “Where should we do our building?” he asked.
“Over there.” Kenzie nodded toward an empty spot in front of Whitey’s Western Wear. Together, they hefted the tub of snow.
“What are we trying to do here?” Jinx didn’t appear to be all in on this one.
“We’ve got to make a snowman or something before the snow melts. Kenzie, what do you want to make?” Cash dumped the bucket onto the plastic tablecloth. The ice had already started melting. Water ran off the edge of the table to drip onto the sidewalk.
“We could just make a snowman.” Kenzie shrugged.
“You want to win?” Cash couldn’t keep his competitive side from coming out. Didn’t matter if it was a friendly family football game or a snowman-building contest geared toward kids.
“What do you win?” Jinx stood a little more than a foot back from the table.
“Bragging rights. Oh, and your picture on the wall of the diner. Big stakes here, huh?”
Jinx shook her head. “If you say so.”
Kenzie took off a glove to dip a finger into the snow. “How about a snow family? A daddy, a mommy, and a little girl.”
Cash glanced to Jinx to gauge her reaction. Her eyes widened. “How about we do Pork Chop out of snow?” he suggested. Steering Kenzie away from creating the perfect snow family seemed like a better option.
“Can we do Pork Chop with her mom and dad?” Kenzie didn’t seem ready to give up on the idea of a happy family holiday, even if it had to be pig-friendly.
The corner of Jinx’s mouth tugged up. She took a step toward Kenzie to swipe at the end of her braid. “Now that I have to see.”
Yeah, he wanted to see how they were going to pull that off too. “Okay, let’s get moving.” Cash dug his hands into the ice, smashing it together to form a denser ball. “Kenzie, why don’t you get started on Pork Chop, okay?”
She tossed her other glove onto the table and grabbed two handfuls of snow.
“What are you waiting for, a special invitation?” Cash flung a glob of snow at Jinx.
“Careful, cowboy. Paybacks are hell.” She rolled her eyes at Kenzie. “I know, I know. The curse jar.”
Cash couldn’t keep his grin to himself. As they molded the frozen bits of ice into something resembling a trio of pigs, he let himself wonder what it would be like to actually be a family of three. He’d been so focused on his baby girl for so long, trying to give her everything she needed. But there were certain things he couldn’t do for her. His mom was right. Kenzie needed a positive female role model in her life. Until now, he’d assumed his mom or his sister could fill that role. They’d done a fantastic job of being there for her. But they couldn’t be everywhere forever.
Now, with Charlie starting her own family and his mom and dad talking about retiring and spending half the year traipsing around the country in an RV, he had to give serious thought to who would fill that void. Watching Kenzie with Jinx made him more aware than ever of how much she’d been missing out on without a mom in her life—how much he’d been missing out on without someone to share his life with too.
Aside from making the parenting stuff easier, there’d been a hole in his heart since Lori Lynne had left. They hadn’t been right for each other. Odds were it never would have lasted, even if she hadn’t walked out on them. But he’d opened himself up to the idea of sharing his life, his love, and his heart with someone when she’d told him she was pregnant. He’d been excited about the possibility of a future, of building the kind of life his mom and dad shared.
Looking at Jinx, the polar opposite of the type of woman he’d expected to share a future with, the possibility of forever didn’t seem so unimaginable.
“There. What do you think?” Jinx lifted her hands off the pile of snow she’d been molding to reveal a pretty good-looking pig.
“That’s perfect!” Kenzie hopped up and down in front of her puddle of melted ice. “Will you do mine too? Please?”
“I’ll help you with it. Hurry, before it all turns to water.” Jinx and Kenzie set to constructing another pig.
By the time they had finished, Cash had perfected his v
ersion of papa pig. He set his snow creation in between the two they’d made. “There we go. They’re perfect.”
“Don’t you mean… Oh, forget it.” Jinx shook her head.
“What?” Cash pressed.
“Nothing. It’s too cheesy, even for the two of you.”
“Come on, Jinx. Tell us.” Kenzie grabbed on to her arm with both hands.
“I was just going to say”—Jinx snorted, channeling her inner sow—“don’t you mean they’re pork-fect?”
“Aw, you’re right. Way too cheesy.” Cash grabbed a handful of leftover ice and lunged at her, trying to slide it down her back before she wriggled away.
Kenzie erupted into a fit of giggles and joined in the chase. Hendrix yipped and yapped from his perch while Cash caught Jinx in one arm and wrapped the other around Kenzie, pulling them all together for a group hug. He couldn’t remember the last time his heart had felt so light or that everything had seemed so right in his world.
“Y’all done? I’d better get a picture of that before it melts.” Ruth held her phone out to snap a picture of the trio of snow pigs. “Now let me get one of the three of you. Smile and say cheese.”
“Cheese!” Kenzie smiled so hard, Cash could barely see her eyes.
Ruth checked her screen. “I’ll text that one to you, Deputy. It’s perfect.”
“You mean pork-fect?” Kenzie clapped her hands together.
Jinx burst out laughing. Cash could barely catch his breath. He’d never again be able to think of anything as perfect without remembering the magic of this night.
“Okay, enough hog humor. Let’s go see what other trouble we can cause.” He lifted Kenzie onto his shoulders and took hold of Jinx’s hand. “The tree lighting ought to be happening soon. Should we go check?”
“Giddyup, Daddy.” Kenzie pummeled his chest with her heels, urging him forward.
They joined what appeared to be the entire town of Holiday plus a good portion of the surrounding communities near the giant pine tree at the end of the downtown area. As promised, a big flat screen sat next to the tree, pictures from the Kissmas Cams captured all over town playing while the church choir sang Christmas carols. Someone had even set up a petting zoo for the kids.
