The Rancher's Holiday Hope

by Brenda Minton

  “You’ve lived in town too long, City Girl.”

  She laughed. “I haven’t. You know I still love the auctions. And I’m not the only one who’s lived in the city too long. Look at you, it’s almost looking like you still belong here. I like the hat.”

  It had felt good, getting ready this morning. No suit and tie, just jeans, boots and his favorite cowboy hat. He was used to long hours and long days in an office. Fresh air felt good for a change.

  “So what do you really want?” He slowed so that she didn’t have to run to keep up with him.

  Ahead of them, their dad had the truck hitched to the stock trailer. Aldridge St. James had always been a farmer but he’d traded this for life in town, and a factory job. He’d done what was needed to get Max out of trouble and through college. Then it had been Max’s sisters, Melody and Cadence, in college. Cadence had married last year and was living in Texas.

  A family ranch traded for the future of his children. Traded for lawyers for his son, who had driven a truck through a school building when he’d drunkenly confused the brake for the gas.

  Max had worked hard to get back on track. Now he was giving the life they loved back to his parents. He saw the difference in their expressions. They were able to retire now, knowing they could farm and live in the community they loved so much.

  “Well?” he prodded, because Melody still hadn’t answered and looked uneasy. “Melody, if you need something, tell me. Is it the wedding?”

  “No, of course not. You’ve done everything for the wedding. I can’t even begin to thank you for all your help. Financial and otherwise.”

  He stopped and waited. “Spit it out.”

  “Coats for kids. I know you’re already invested in helping with the Christmas at the Ranch event. But the weather is getting colder and you’d be amazed at the number of kids who show up to school without a jacket.”

  “I’ll bring it up to the planning committee at the next meeting.” And he’d take the curious, sometimes questioning looks that some of the older folks on that committee would give him. He’d been in town for a month and had gotten used to the fact that, to a lot of the people in Hope, he was still the kid who’d crashed a truck through the school. He was still the kid who had driven recklessly, drank too much and hurt the nicest girl in town when he’d left her sitting at home the night of the prom.

  “Give me a few days to work on this. You and your friends start putting together names. If I have to, I can call in favors from friends in Dallas.”

  “Yes!” Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “You’re the best, Max.”

  “I try.”

  She cocked her head to the side, the way she’d been doing since childhood. “Max, are you okay? I know it’s been hard for you, being here.”

  “I’m thirty-three, Melody. I’ve put a lot of years between myself and my mistakes.”

  “I know. I just think you’re still trying to make amends with everyone, and I hope you understand that the past is forgiven.”

  “I do understand that. Don’t worry about me, I’m good. But I want you to know something. If Andrew doesn’t show up in town soon, I’m going looking for him and it isn’t going to be pretty when I catch him.”

  “He was here when we first met with Sierra and he will be back soon. He just didn’t expect me to take this teaching job in Hope. He likes to have a plan and this wasn’t on the list.”

  “If he’s marrying you, he’ll have to get used to spur of the moment.”

  “You’re just trying to change the subject,” Melody accused her big brother. “And since we’re both good at that, isn’t Sierra the best? She’s on the planning committee for the Christmas event, too, isn’t she?”

  “I think they’re asking for her help, yes.”

  “I like her,” Melody continued. “She is much nicer than she lets on.”

  “I’m sure she is. And before you continue this, I’m not interested. I’m only here until after Christmas and then I have to get back to Dallas. My company can’t run itself, you know.”

  “You have Roger and you have an assistant. Give yourself a break. And I don’t know why you’re not interested in her.”

  His little sister made him dizzy. “First, I’m taking a break while I help Dad get this ranch going again. Second, I’m not interested because I don’t have time for a relationship right now. And, third, I’m leaving in a month.”

  She saluted and looked more determined than ever. “Whatever, Big Brother, whatever. I’ve got to run. Don’t forget the coats. And try being charming once in a while.”

  He watched Melody walk away and couldn’t help but think about Sierra. The last thing she needed was a man who wouldn’t be sticking around. She had enough to deal with. He wasn’t going to add to the list.

  Besides that, Sierra didn’t strike him as a woman seeking a relationship. Her expression was guarded and shadows lurked in her eyes, telling more about her past than words ever would. He’d met other wedding planners. They tended to be a perky bunch with great social and organizational skills.

  Sierra Lawson didn’t fit the mold. Wedding planning seemed to be the last thing she would ever want to do with her life.

  She struck him as a loner, the type who had a cat or two, piles of books and a ready excuse for why she preferred to be alone on Christmas. Strike the cats. She wouldn’t have cats. Maybe she didn’t even have a dog.

  She did have friends, though. Isaac, Kylie and the other residents of Mercy Ranch were her friends. She probably kept her circle close and resisted outsiders.

  That would be him.

  “What did Melody want?” his dad asked, stepping around the back of the stock trailer. He wore a plastic cover over his good hat, to keep the rain off. It was pulled down low, keeping his unshaved face in shadows.

  “She wants me to ask the Christmas committee if they can buy coats for children who might be in need.” He explained everything his sister had told him and watched as his dad mulled it over.

  “I think that’s a good idea. You don’t mind helping her?”

  “I don’t mind. If I can help, I should. I’ve been blessed, Dad. I don’t know why, but I do know that God wouldn’t want me to sit on what I have and not help those around me.”

  Aldridge clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I agree. I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”

  A short time later he was behind the wheel of the farm truck, dragging the empty stock trailer in the direction of the livestock auction. As he drove, his mind drifted and he found himself thinking about Sierra. Again.

  She was a puzzle. She was a woman who protected a child, hid in corners, stared at him as if he were the enemy, then accepted invitations from his grandmother to bake Christmas pastries and work on a honeymoon blanket.

  She wasn’t his problem to solve.

  Chapter Five

  Sierra got a call from Jack West on Tuesday. He wanted to have the Christmas planning committee meeting in her office, with her in attendance. Thus far she’d avoided the bimonthly meetings. Now that they were just weeks away from the event, they were bringing her in to help finalize the plans. The group included various community leaders, pastors of the town’s churches and Jack’s sons, Carson and Isaac West.

  Before they arrived, she put on a pot of coffee, set out an assortment of cookies and started dragging extra chairs into her office from the storage room. It was dark, smelled of spiders and dust, and, just in general, it creeped her out.

  She grabbed a couple more chairs and scurried from the room just as someone came through the front doors of the building. She jumped and shrieked, not expecting to see anyone standing there.

  She hadn’t expected to see Max.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said as he reached for the chairs she still held on to.

  “You didn’t scare me,” she denied. And it was a
n outright lie. “Okay, a little. I didn’t expect you. They’re having a Christmas committee meeting and I’m grabbing extra chairs. What are you doing here?”

  He grinned. “Surprise!”

  “They’ve put you on the committee?” She wiped her hands down the sides of her jeans, knocking off the dust and hopefully not any spiders. She shook at the thought. Spiders starred in some of her worst memories. She still dreamed of them, crawling around the dark, dank cell she’d been held in during her captivity. She ran her hands up her arms.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Yep. Of course.”

  “I can help you get chairs. I don’t mind.”

  “I only need a few more,” she told him as he handed her the two chairs he’d taken from her.

  “You take these to your office and I’ll get the rest of them.”

  “Thank you.”

  He shot her a look. “Well, now, that didn’t hurt, did it?”

  “I can be polite.”

  “I wasn’t talking about thanking me. I meant allowing me to help.”

  “Oh, that,” she said. “Yes, that did hurt.”

  She started to laugh and it eased the tightness in her chest. She took the chairs to the office, wiped them down and waited for him to return with more. Moments later he did, a cobweb hanging from his cowboy hat.

  She wiped down the chairs then reached up to swipe away the web. A spider crawled across his hat.

  She jumped back, scrunching her eyes shut. “A spider. On your hat.”

  He pulled off his hat and headed for the door.

  “Kill it!” she yelled.

  “It’s harmless. I’ll brush him off outside.”

  “It’s a spider.”

  He gave her a look that questioned her sanity. “It’s just a spider, Sierra. It isn’t going to hurt anyone. It’s probably one of the good ones who likes to eat other bugs.”

  She shook her head, watching as he exited the building, hat in hand.

  He returned a few minutes later. “Better?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not.” She circled him, making sure there were no other spiders hitching a ride.

  She was inspecting his shoulders when Isaac West walked through the door with his father. Heat immediately scorched her cheeks.

  “He sure is a fine-looking man,” Isaac teased. “Any special reason you’re inspecting him like a horse at auction?”

  “He had a spider on him...” she started to say. Then she saw the teasing glint in Isaac’s eyes. “Go away.”

  Isaac laughed. “Sierra’s funny bone was fractured and never healed correctly.”

  “That wasn’t funny.” She started to leave but Jack was eyeing her suspiciously. She loved Jack. He’d done so much for all of them. He was the father to everyone on Mercy Ranch. “Hi, Jack.”

  She would do anything for him. Even be on this committee. Be his wedding planner for however long he thought she needed the job. She believed his goal was to show her happy couples. Over and over and over again.

  Jack patted her hand. “Ignore him. He can’t help being a doofus.”

  “I’m not sure how Rebecca puts up with him,” Sierra quipped as she led Jack to the office.

  “She loves me,” Isaac called out.

  Sierra knew that to be the truth. She led Jack to her chair behind her desk because it was the most comfortable in the room. Her own father hadn’t paid much attention to her, except to yell and occasionally wound her emotionally. He ‘d never hit her. That was one thing he’d reserved for her mother.

  Jack was the closest thing she’d ever had to a real father. She cherished him for that role in her life.

  “Can I get you coffee?” she asked as he settled behind the desk, weak from fighting Parkinson’s.

  “I’d like a cup,” he told her. “And a smile. I asked you to help us because you’re just about the most thorough person I know.”

  She laughed. “I’m a wedding planner, Jack.”

  His eyes sparkled with humor. “Well, there is that.”

  The men entered the room, discussing a horse Isaac wanted to buy. Max seemed to be trying to talk him out of it.

  “You just want that horse for yourself,” Isaac accused.

  Max shrugged as he poured himself a cup of coffee and grabbed a cookie. “There might be some truth in that. But that horse came from my dad’s first mare. I’d like to build our new herd with him.”

  “Oh, fine, take advantage of my sentimental side. Buy the horse. But I get the first colt from him.”

  “Deal.” Max held out his hand.

  The other committee members started to arrive.

  Sierra took a seat off to the side. When Max grabbed a chair and pulled it next to her, she frowned. He merely winked.

  * * *

  Max had met with the planning committee the previous month, when he’d first arrived in town. He knew what to expect. Some of the townspeople were curious about the return of the St. James family. Some were thrilled to have their old neighbors back. More than a few were skeptical of Max and his intentions. He guessed he should expect that.

  What he hadn’t expected was the father of the girl he’d hurt more than any other. Amy’s dad, Davis Stanford, walked into the room and stopped cold. He gave Max a long look then he took his seat next to John Stevens, the new pastor of Hope Community Church.

  Max sat listening to the other committee members discuss the gifts that had been collected so far, the donations of money for food, the groups that would sing. The churches that owned buses would help haul families and children who had no other transportation.

  Jack cleared his throat. “I have a couple of things to add. First of all, we’ve all heard about the situation at Lakeside Manor. The new owners of the nursing home seem to be cutting the budget and that affects the residents’ Christmas celebrations. I would like to suggest that we transport residents who are able to check themselves out or who have family members capable of checking them out.”

  “That’s a great idea.” Carson spoke up. “Also, Max and his sister, Melody, have brought to our attention the need for coats for school children. I suggest we start by figuring out who needs what sizes and go from there.”

  “I’ve talked to Melody about the situation and she’s going to pass that information on to other teachers,” Max chimed in.

  “I’d like to say something.” Davis Stanford stood and moved toward the door. “I don’t think I can do this. Max, I’ve worked at forgiving you for what you did to my daughter, but I can’t allow you to come back to town and start buying yourself into everyone’s good graces.”

  “I didn’t think grace could be bought,” Max stated simply, allowing for the other man’s right to his anger. “I’m not trying to buy anyone or anything, Mr. Stanford. I’m trying to give back to the community that raised me, to people that I care about.”

  “Throwing your money around isn’t going to make amends, Max. My daughter wore your ring on her finger, thinking she was promised to someone who would put her first. You only put yourself first.” Davis brushed a hand through thinning gray hair.

  “I know.” Max stood up, facing the other man the way he should have faced him years ago. “I’m sorry for hurting her. I have no excuses. I can only apologize. And I’m thankful that Amy has forgiven me. She has a husband who loves her now and a beautiful family. I can’t buy grace, Mr. Stanford. It can’t be bought. It’s a gift. And I hope that as we celebrate the birth of a savior who offers us grace that you can forgive me.”

  Jack cleared his throat. “I’d like to see if we can return to what is truly important today. We have real problems in our community. Children who are going without. We could get caught up in these old arguments, but I for one understand forgiveness. I have two sons that are here with us today because they were able to forgive me. Dav
is, you and I have been friends for a long time.”

  Davis laughed at that. “Not that long, Jack. You weren’t very likable until Isaac moved in with you and you had to make changes.”

  “I guess that’s the truth,” Jack acknowledged, knowing that his son claiming him as a father almost twenty years ago had changed things for him. “I don’t want to get in the middle of this feud, but I’d sure like for us to put it aside so we can do what is best for the community. If that means taking some of Max’s hard-earned money, I’m willing to overlook his past sins.”

  Davis scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll stay.”

  But he didn’t say he would forgive.

  Max sat back down. A hand touched his arm. Without thinking, he covered it just briefly with his own. He slid his gaze to meet Sierra’s and, although she didn’t smile, he saw understanding.

  She struck him as someone who’d had her share of hurt. He, on the other hand, had caused his share of pain. He didn’t expect mercy from her, he expected caution. Because he had a history of letting people down.

  He didn’t want to add her to the list.

  The meeting ended with Jack asking Max to continue with the coat drive. He had the resources to bring in donations from outside the community.

  Sierra would continue keeping everything organized, making sure the event went off without a hitch. Jack had no doubt she could and would make it happen.

  Everyone got up to leave and Max had every intention of following the crowd. However, when he got to the doors to leave, he found himself turning back.

  “What are you doing?” Isaac asked, like he was Max’s conscience.

  “I’m going to talk to Sierra for a minute.”

  “About the coat drive?” Isaac asked.

  He’d never been one to lie. Even as a teen, he’d always owned up to his actions.

  “Nope.” He settled his hat on his head.

  “She’s like a sister to me, you know.”

  “How is Daisy?” Max asked, because he hadn’t seen the youngest West sibling in years, not since Jack’s wife had hightailed it out of town with her three kids in tow. Not Isaac. He didn’t share the same mom as the other West offspring.