The Secret of Santa

by Liz Isaacson

  She wasn’t helping, and Holly Ann had the very real desire to pack her own bag and skip town.

  The next day, she met with her committee that had been by her side every step of the way for the Christmas Festival. They had a ton to go over and finalize for the last event they’d be responsible for—the New Year’s Eve light parade.

  To make things easier and to push them all through one more event, Holly Ann had stayed up late last night making buttermilk bars. She laid them out on the table in the meeting room on the second floor at the mall, along with napkins and cups. She brought in the milk and juice she’d bought that morning, and she smiled as the crew started to arrive.

  “Help yourself,” she said, gesturing to the spread on the table. “We have a lot to go over.” She exhaled as she gathered her hair into a makeshift ponytail and secured it with an elastic from the middle of the table.

  People chatted and ate, and Holly Ann moved to the front of the room to fiddle with the projector for her presentation. Ten minutes later, Rachel signaled to her from the end of the long table, and Holly Ann raised her hand to get everyone’s attention.

  “All right,” she said, really laying on her Texan accent. “Let’s settle down and get started.” She tapped on her laptop track pad. “The light parade is being narrated by Kimberly and Aaron Jacobs this year.”

  She let the bomb drop, and a moment of silence passed while everyone absorbed the picture of the celebrity man-and-wife team who wrote and recorded the best country music in the country.

  “What?” Jim yelled from two feet away.

  “You’re kidding,” someone else said.

  “Holly Ann, how did you get the Jacobs?”

  She basked in the wonder and shock and delight coming from the committee. She gestured for them to keep telling her how amazing she was, laughing as the praise continued. Once they’d mostly quieted down, Holly Ann indicated Rachel.

  “Rachel’s sister knows Kimberly, and she somehow got them to come. So it wasn’t me at all.” She grinned at Rachel, who she hoped would be the chairperson for the Christmas Festival next year.

  At the same time, Holly Ann knew the City Council usually had the same person do it for several years before passing the torch to the next person. Holly Ann had been working with Craig Manchester for five years with him as the chairperson, and while she hadn’t signed anything committing her to continuing her service for the festival, it was implied.

  She did draw a salary from it, and she’d needed it this year, because if she dedicated over two months of her time to the festival, she couldn’t build her catering as much.

  The vision of Ace’s handsome face floated through her mind, and she didn’t think their relationship would survive another Christmas Festival with her as the chairperson. Their relationship hadn’t survived this festival.

  In fact, they had no relationship right now.

  Frustration filled her, and she clicked to get to the next slide. It took a couple extra seconds to focus on what she needed to say next, and then she said, “We’ve got three new balloons this year, thanks to a generous donation from the Texas Rancher’s Association. They’ll lead the parade, along with the three we’ve already got.”

  She tapped and showed two of the new balloons that had arrived yesterday. “The first is a horse, which seems fitting. The second is a cactus, which I don’t really understand, but it’s really cute in the dark. Bright green, with pink lights for the blossoms.”

  Another tap, and the last balloon came up. “This one is a little boy with a dog. It’s actually an extra-large balloon, so it’s really expensive and beautiful.” She gazed at the picture of the lit balloon, a smile filling her soul.

  She continued through the slides, highlighting the big entries and why they were important. About halfway through, she wiped her brow of the thin sheen of sweat there and pulled off her sweatshirt.

  Rachel took over for a few minutes to detail the mayor’s car, which would drive down the parade route right in the middle of the shindig, and Holly Ann draped her sweatshirt over the back of her empty chair and took a drink from her water bottle.

  She breathed, hating that giving a twenty-minute presentation about entrants in the light parade made her sweat. Perhaps that was the doughnut she’d consumed this morning, or the two she’d eaten moments before bed last night.

  Rachel finished her presentation about the mayor and his Southern belle wife, and Holly Ann took her place at the front of the room again. She went through another slide, knowing she needed to wrap it up quickly. The buttermilk bars on the table weren’t the only glazed things in the room, and a few seats away, Christina actually nodded off for a moment.

  “Okay, so let’s skip ahead to refreshments.” She’d been planning a hot chocolate bar for the entire town for the past month, and she knew she could get some good business from it.

  Before she could say anything, though, her phone rang on the table in front of her. Ward’s name sat on it, and everything inside her body stopped. Her heart. Her mind. Her breathing.

  Only the shrill, old-fashioned ring penetrated her awareness, and she leapt toward the device. “Ward,” she said, realizing she still stood in front of her whole committee.

  “Ace is back,” he said. “He’s currently in the shower. I just got home for lunch, and he was here.”

  “Thank you,” Holly Ann said, her mind racing now. She hung up and started for the exit. “I’m so sorry,” she called over her shoulder. “I have to go. Rachel?” She didn’t even wait for her second-in-command to confirm before she broke into a jog and left the conference room.

  Her name got called behind her, but she couldn’t slow down.

  Ace had returned.

  The late December air nipped at her bare arms as she left the mall, and it wasn’t any warmer in her car, as the day had been clouded and windy since dawn. She drove to Shiloh Ridge Ranch as fast as she could, not even glancing down at her speedometer. She wasn’t sure what she’d say when she got there, and she wished she’d had the foresight to grab her sweatshirt. Or her jacket.

  Or a buttermilk bar.

  She groaned. “Ace would’ve loved those buttermilk bars,” she said. As it was, she had nothing. No speech prepared. No peace offering. She hadn’t even put on makeup that morning and she currently had office supplies holding back her hair.

  She reached up and pulled the elastic from her hair, using the rearview mirror to check the state of it. Horrendous. Her hair hung in dark, limp strings, and honestly, it would be better back in the ponytail.

  After coming to a stop in front of Bull House, she grabbed the rubber band again and scraped her hair back into its ponytail. She got out of her car and looked down at her clothes. Plain blue jeans and a pale pink tank top that held a stain from the apple juice she’d dripped on it at some time in the past.

  Nothing felt right about this outfit, and Holly Ann’s heart zipped through her whole body. It wasn’t a pounding beat or a fluttering beat. It felt like a buzz, like it was thumping so fast that it created a steady stream of noise.

  She wiped her hands down her jeans, noting the multiple cars in front of the house. She wasn’t the only one excited Ace was back. She felt like she might throw up, and she steadied herself against the hood of the car.

  Because of her father, Holly Ann could see the slightest flutter of curtains in a window, and someone was definitely standing there, watching. The buzz in her veins increased to a chainsaw-like hum, and she told herself to take a step.

  Just one step. If she could just get started, she could get through this. She could finish it.

  Focusing on the front door, which had been painted a bright red since the last time she’d been here, Holly Ann gathered her courage. “Super festive,” she muttered to herself, and that red door increased her bravery.

  She took the first step.

  Before she knew it, she’d arrived on the porch, and she’d raised her hand to knock. The door opened a moment later, and Ida stood
there. “Holly Ann,” she said, stepping right into her and hugging her as if they were old friends.

  Holly Ann held onto Ace’s sister and drew from her strength. Behind her, the foyer expanded into the living room, and then the kitchen and dining room at the back of the large house.

  All of Ace’s siblings were there, as were Cactus and Bishop. Ward had obviously called them all, and obviously before her.

  She couldn’t see Ward, though, and Ace himself wasn’t in the room either.

  “Ward’s been stalling him,” Ida explained as she stepped back and turned to face the other Glovers too. “Until you got here.”

  Holly Ann looked at her, shock flowing through her veins. “Why?”

  Ida hooked her arm through Holly Ann’s. “This is what we do, Holly Ann. We’re loud, and messy, and we say things that hurt each other. We do things wrong, and we try to fix them. We’re in each other’s business all the time—like all the time—and I guess Ward wanted to make sure you knew that’s what you really wanted when you say you want Ace.”

  Holly Ann had no idea what to say, because there were a lot of Glovers up here at this ranch. They were loud, and messy, and they loved each other with big hearts. They weren’t perfect, but Holly Ann certainly wasn’t either. Her father had security cameras on his own driveway so he’d know the moment Holly Ann pulled in, for crying out loud. If she wanted two seconds to herself before she went in to deal with her own loud, messy family, she better take them before she pulled in the driveway.

  “I’ve had someone in my business my whole life,” she said. “Two people, actually.”

  “There are a lot more than two of us here,” Ida said, passing her to Etta, who also hugged her. How they could just drop everything to be here in the middle of the day astounded her. She and Ace hadn’t talked about too many serious things yet, though they had mentioned children in the past, as well as where Ace would live up here on the ranch. Oh, and all of Ace’s money.

  They also all wore concern on their faces, and Holly Ann’s anxiety fired on all cylinders. “What’s going on?” she asked, glancing around. She hated towering above the twins, and she stepped closer to Bishop.

  “Ace left the ranch,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Holly Ann said. “That’s what Judge told me.”

  Ranger rose to his feet from the dining room table, his eyes serious and his chin down, his cowboy hat concealing his face. He looked up, and he said, “He’s never left the ranch before.”

  “Ever?”

  “Ever.”

  Holly Ann looked around, unsure of what this all meant. But it felt serious. “Because of me?”

  “Because he stood in the homestead and raged out all of our secrets,” Ranger said. “And he was embarrassed and needed some time to himself.”

  “We don’t get much of that around here,” Cactus said. “That’s for sure.”

  Holly Ann’s vision turned white. Raged out all of our secrets.

  Had he told them that she dressed up as Santa Claus?

  Looking around at all of the people in the living room and kitchen, she couldn’t tell if they knew or not.

  Before she could flee, voices came down the hall, and one struck her right inside her heart. She loved that voice. She loved the man who owned it. She loved him more than dressing like Santa and holding children on her lap.

  “…just saying I’m hungry, and you’re driving me crazy already. I’m thinking of going back to New Orleans just to get away—” He cut off as he entered the kitchen. He scanned the area, his eyes skipping over Holly Ann completely and returning to Ward. “You called everyone? But you couldn’t call for pizza? Why is there no pizza here, Ward?”

  “I didn’t have time,” Ward said crisply. “There were a lot of calls to make.”

  Ace gestured to the room again. “Clearly.”

  Holly Ann pressed her hands together, thinking maybe she could simply get lost in the crowd. Ace was not in a good mood, and she didn’t think he’d appreciate her being there.

  “I got something better than pizza,” Ward said. “If you’d take two seconds to look.”

  Holly Ann felt every eye zero in on her, but she couldn’t look anywhere but at Ace. He turned to face the room again, a dark storm raging across his handsome features. He didn’t have his cowboy hat on, and his dark hair was damp as it fell across his forehead. She wanted to brush it away and kiss him, but he hadn’t even seen her yet.

  He wore a pair of black jeans and a faded gray T-shirt with the words Don’t Mess With Texas across the front in what had probably been black lettering at some time in the past.

  His eyes met hers, and everything cleared from his face.

  “Finally,” someone nearby Holly Ann muttered, but she didn’t know who. It didn’t matter who. The world had narrowed to just the two of them, and Holly Ann stepped forward. One step, then two.

  Before she knew it, she arrived in front of Ace and ran her fingers up the sides of his face. “Hey,” she said, the words of her heart streaming through her now. “I know you said you wanted time and space, and I’m fine to give you more if you need them. Wait.” She smiled at him, a light giggle coming from her mouth.

  “No, I’m not. I’m not fine to let you break up with me. I don’t want to break up. You drove to my house once and refused to let me put us on pause. This is me doing the same thing.”

  He hadn’t shaved in several days, and his facial hair was soft beneath her fingertips. She looked at his mouth, quickly pulling her gaze away and clearing her throat. “I love you, Ace Glover,” she said. “I love you more than my caramel chocolate brownies. I love you more than Three Cakes. I love you more than Sa—Christmas.” Tears filled her eyes as she searched his face, trying to read the emotions in his expression.

  “I won’t keep any more secrets from you,” she whispered. “Please forgive me. Let me explain a little more. Sit with me and stay with me, and please don’t give up on us.”

  Holly Ann closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his. “Please.”

  A few moments of silence passed, and then Ace whispered, “Well, that was pretty dang perfect, and anything I say now is going to sound lame.”

  Holly Ann giggled, the sound bursting from her with an airy beginning. “All you have to do is say yes, that you’ll forgive me, and then I can kiss you.”

  “Mm.” His arms came around her, and that was as good as a yes for Holly Ann. Her body warmed, notwithstanding the audience they had, and she swayed with him. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m going to kiss you, Holly Ann.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  Instead of answering verbally, Ace leaned down and kissed her. A round of applause and loud cheering filled Bull House, complete with an ear-splitting whistle that came from only a couple of feet away.

  Holly Ann broke the kiss, laughing but also flinching away from Ranger and that whistle. She cuddled into Ace’s chest as he laughed too. Then he swatted Ward in the chest and told him he should’ve warned him. Ward just grinned at him with the widest smile Holly Ann had ever seen on the man’s face.

  She stepped away from Ace and into Ward’s arms. “Oh,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said right in his ear. “I had no plan, and…thank you.”

  “You’re enough, Holly Ann. He doesn’t need anything else.”

  Holly Ann settled flat on her feet again. “Actually, I think I heard the man say he was hungry.”

  Behind her, someone knocked—more like pounded—and she turned toward the front door. A moment later, Bear entered carrying no less than six pizza boxes. “Pizza’s here,” he called, and Holly Ann turned back to Ward, her eyes wide.

  “I made a lot of calls,” he said, grinning.

  He hugged Ace too, and then went to get plates out of the cupboard as Bear spread food across the countertop.

  Holly Ann stepped back to Ace’s side and put her hand in his. She looked at him, and while they still had a lot to talk about, she figured he
should get some food in him first.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Ace loved his family with the power of gravity. He ate almost half of the frosted cinnamon pizza Bear had brought, and he didn’t feel bad about it like he had in the past.

  He’d been gone for only five days, but it felt like a lot longer than that. He and Preacher had enjoyed themselves in New Orleans, and he’d miss the beignets, that was for sure.

  He glanced over at Holly Ann. She could most likely make beignets for him every day of the week, and he couldn’t wait to be alone with her. He had so much more to say, including the three words she’d said to him several times. He wanted to listen to her explanations, and he wanted to run his hands through her silky hair while he kissed her without his entire family watching.

  They needed more time to talk, to work out the finer details of how they’d merge their lives, and to make sure they had the same goals moving forward.

  When most of the boxes were empty, Ace stood up. “Thanks for the pizza, Bear,” he said, picking up Holly Ann’s paper plate too. He took them both to the garbage can and moved back over to her. Leaning down, he put his mouth right against her ear and said, “I’m getting my jacket and my boots. Wanna go for a walk with me?”

  She tilted her head, exposing more of her neck, and his pulse pounded through his whole body. “I sort of ran out of a meeting without my jacket or sweatshirt.”

  “I’ll get you something.” With that, he hurried away from the fray in the kitchen, only slightly worried about leaving Holly Ann there with them. She’d obviously integrated into the Glovers at some point, and Ace sure did like that.

  He pulled on a clean pair of cowboy boots, grabbed a hat from his closet, and pulled a hooded sweatshirt from a hanger. Back in the kitchen, Holly Ann had stood, and he handed her the hoodie. He collected his jacket from the front closet, and he stepped out of the house amidst a couple of jeers and a few catcalls.