A Season to Celebrate

by Fern Michaels

  “We came out to see the new foal,” Maria explained.

  “She’s right in here.” Billy pointed at the stall and stepped back. “Don’t go in yet, okay?”

  “I know that.” Maria rolled her eyes as if she’d lived on the ranch forever. “Why don’t you two go in? Chase can keep an eye on me, and Jay was looking for Mrs. Williams.”

  “Then we’d better go,” Bella said.

  Maria had one last thing to say. “You know, Grandpa, if you keep behaving like this you should do what I suggested and ask Mrs. Williams to marry you.”

  Billy nodded. “I just did and she said yes.”

  Chase grinned and slapped Billy on the back. “That’s awesome ! Congratulations. I can’t wait to see Jay’s face when he finds out about this.”

  “Then maybe we’d better mention it to him before Chase starts spreading rumors,” Billy murmured as Chase and Maria walked away hand in hand. “Are you okay with that?”

  “Yes, better to be safe than sorry,” Bella agreed, and squeezed his fingers as they retraced their steps through the snow to the guest center.

  They paused outside the kitchen door to remove their boots before returning to the warmth of the dining room beyond. Leaving Bella in the kitchen, Billy went and found Jay and persuaded him to step away from the noise, and into the quieter part of the building.

  Knowing Jay was a plain speaker, Billy didn’t bother with a long, flowery speech.

  “I wanted you to know that I asked your mother to marry me, and she said yes.”

  Jay stared at him, a muscle moving in his cheek. “Okay.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?” Billy asked.

  “She loves you. That’s all I need to know.” Jay took a step closer to Billy. “And all you need to remember is that if you hurt her I’ll come after you, and no one will ever find your body.”

  “Understood.” Billy nodded.

  “Then we’re good.” Jay stuck out his hand. “Welcome to the family.”

  * * *

  Bella helped clear away the food and then returned to the dining room to watch Jay and Erin cut the cake. She’d barely had a moment to speak to Billy, but seeing as both he and Jay were still alive and smiling, she assumed everything had gone as well as it could’ve.

  Billy wanted her to marry him . . . and the funny thing was that she wanted it, too. She hadn’t expected him to propose so quickly, but as Maureen would probably remind her, they weren’t spring chickens so they might as well enjoy their time together. The thought of that—the thought of being with him every day made her so happy she still couldn’t quite get her head around it.

  She watched him now, as he passed Erin the knife to cut the cake, his blue eyes gleaming, and the harsher lines on his face disappearing beneath his smile. A man who had disappointed others, had paid dearly for his mistakes, and yet had come home to face his demons, and repay his debts.... That took courage and humility, qualities she could appreciate and strive to improve in herself.

  And what about her? She pictured Ron and imagined him smiling down at her. She truly had been blessed in her life.

  “Mom?”

  She looked up, startled as Jay called her out to stand beside him and Erin.

  “I’d like to thank my mom, Bella, for organizing this amazing party for me and Erin. I’d also like to thank Erin’s parents for coming all the way from the East Coast to celebrate with us.”

  Everyone clapped, cheered, and drank champagne.

  “And I’d like to thank Billy and Sonali for providing all the amazing food and Morgan Ranch and their staff for their hospitality,” Jay added. “I had completely the wrong idea about why Mom was making me come up here to the ranch this evening.”

  “What did you think she wanted then?” BB called out.

  Jay’s smile was crooked. “I knew she was up to something, but I thought it had to do with her and Billy Morgan.”

  “Well, we all know about that ,” BB joked. “It’s hardly a secret that they’ve got the hots for each other.”

  Jay raised an eyebrow. “As it happens, there is something to announce about that as well, isn’t there, Mom?”

  Bella tried to frown him down, but Billy stepped forward.

  “Bella Williams has agreed to become my wife.” He held out his hand to her. “And she’s made me the happiest man on this planet.”

  Bella walked toward him, aware that she was blushing. None of the Morgans looked particularly surprised by the announcement, and they all looked thrilled. Ruth was dabbing at her eyes and Maria was doing some kind of victory dance.

  Billy took her hand in his and faced the guests. “Thank you very much, but tonight is about Erin and Jay, so let’s get back to cutting the cake, toasting their good health, and wishing them the very best of everything for the rest of their days.”

  While everyone got on with that, Billy and Bella ended up in the kitchen, which felt right somehow. Billy grinned as she rolled up her sleeves, pinned up her hair, and set to work.

  “I don’t think I’m going to persuade you to leave this time, am I?”

  “Not a chance. If anyone wants to come and say good-bye they’ll know where to find me.”

  He threw a dishcloth in her direction and she threw it back and they ended up wrestling over it and giggling like two kids.

  “This is going to be fun,” Billy said.

  “What is—us?”

  “Yeah, us.” He kissed her nose. “I love you, Bella.”

  “And I love you.”

  “Will you stay over?”

  “At the speed we’re cleaning up I’ll probably be here all night anyway,” Bella joked.

  “We’ll work things out.” Billy looked down at her. “We’ll make this work.”

  “Yes, we will.” She nodded. “Despite my son and all the Morgans offering us advice.”

  “They mean well.”

  “Yes, but sometimes I wish they’d all butt out.”

  “We could build our own house halfway between your place and mine,” Billy suggested.

  “Or we could share our time between both places.”

  They smiled at each other. Whatever happened next, Bella was quite certain that Billy was right and that they would have fun. Maureen would be so proud of her....

  Billy’s Mini Fruit Pavlovas

  For Pavlova

  6 egg whites at room temperature

  1½ cups white sugar

  2 tsp cornstarch

  1 Tbsp lemon juice

  ½ Tbsp vanilla extract

  For Cream

  1½ cups cold heavy whipping cream

  For Topping/Decor

  4 to 5 cups fresh fruits (berries are my favorite)

  Instructions

  1. Using stand mixer, beat 6 egg whites on high speed for 1 minute until soft peaks form. With mixer on, gradually add 1½ cups of sugar and beat 10 minutes on high speed or until stiff peaks form. (Should be smooth and glossy.)

  2. Use a spatula to quickly fold in lemon juice and vanilla extract, and then fold in cornstarch until blended.

  3. Pipe meringue onto parchment paper and indent the center with a spoon. Bake at 225 degrees F for 1 hour and 15 minutes, then turn oven off. Without opening the door, leave for 30 minutes more. Outside of meringue should be dry and crisp to the tap.

  4. Allow to cool. Can be stored for 3 to 5 days in airtight container. Or topped with whipped cream (follow instructions on carton) and fruit and eaten immediately!

  For more recipes,

  check out my Web site at

  www.themorgansranch.com .

  Christmas in Blue Hollow Falls

  DONNA KAUFFMAN

  Chapter One

  “Weddings on Christmas? There should be a law.”

  “For or against?”

  Moira Brogan drained the last of the Coke from her glass until the straw made a slurping sound, jiggled the ice a bit, then found one last sip. Because you need more sugar. And more caffeine. Ignoring her little voice, as she
had been all day—week, month, year —she glanced up at the bartender, pondering the question with all the gravity of the attorney she was. “Against, your honor. I mean, who wants to share their anniversary with Santa’s big day? It should be all about him.”

  “Unless you don’t believe in Santa,” replied the bartender.

  The bartender—Sally, according to her hotel name badge—looked about five or six years older than Moira’s own twenty-seven, and eons wiser.

  “Even if you don’t, it should be recognized that many people do,” Moira countered, warming to the debate. Debate she understood. Debate she knew how to win. Life outside the courtroom? Not so much with the winning there. Case in point? Sitting in a rural hotel bar drowning her sorrows in a gallon of carbonated sugar and caffeine instead of dancing the night away at her brother’s lovely and beautiful wedding reception up in Blue Hollow Falls.

  “Those people, the believers,” Moira went on, perhaps more doggedly than required given the judge and jury was bartender Sally, “might, and quite probably would, construe a person marrying on such a day as being . . . well, sacreli-gious. Or, at the very least, unimaginative. Like, said person could only improve on the most celebrated day of the year by getting married on it. Somewhat self-aggrandizing, don’t you think?”

  “Point taken,” Sally said judiciously.

  Gaining momentum, Moira said, “I mean, I suppose we might include a clause for people like my wonderful and completely besotted brother, who are just so madly in love they think what could be more festive than getting married on Christmas? Because, really, what could be?”

  “Getting married in Disney World?”

  “Ha,” Moira said with a grin, raising her empty glass in toast. “Point to the prosecution.” Then she caught the look on Sally’s face and set her glass down. “Oh my God. You didn’t. Did you? Was Mickey Mouse the justice of the peace?” A splutter of laughter threatened and Moira tried to frown it into submission. Firstly, because it would be rude to her new friend Sally, and secondly, because she knew she was one-too-many-insomnia-riddled-nights away from the kind of laughter that would quickly devolve into a run of convulsive, bordering-on-hysterical giggles. And she doubted Sally would join in, given it was her nuptials that had triggered them.

  “Not me, your honor.” Sally smiled and lifted a hand, as if she was being sworn in. “Maid of honor.”

  “Me too!” Moira replied, perhaps a little too loudly. In addition to far too little sleep, she was definitely way too hopped up on wedding cake. “Well, co-maid of honor, anyway, with the bride’s sister.”

  “Yeah,” Sally replied, with a smile and a nod toward Moira’s outfit. “I gathered.”

  Moira looked down to the strapless, silk and organza, emerald green formal she was wearing. She probably should have changed when she’d first gotten back to the hotel. She’d left the reception right after Seth and Pippa had taken off for their honeymoon in Ireland. She’d done her due diligence, smiled and laughed her way through all of her sworn duties. But once her brother and brand-new sister-in-law were gone, Moira had wanted nothing more than to be alone with her stupid, self-pitying misery. She was not proud of herself, of her apparent inability to get over her latest life disaster. Either of them. But the romantic disaster had been last spring, for God’s sake.

  Only when she’d gotten back to the hotel in Turtle Springs, itself a tiny town tucked into a curve of the Hawksbill River, in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, she’d realized the very last thing she wanted was to be alone.

  She just hadn’t wanted to be with people who knew her. People who would expect her to be overcome with joy and happiness for her brother, Seth, and his new bride, whom Moira adored almost as much as she adored her older brother. And she was quite sincerely thrilled for them. She was. It was just the host of painful memories watching them say their I do’s had rousted up, coupled with the recent collapse of all her future career plans, that had her escaping the family-clogged reception like Cinderella from the ball.

  She didn’t know which had made her more miserable, the tough love “oh, come now, Mouse, get on over yourself, lass,” looks from her oldest brother and sister, Aiden and Kathleen, the “you poor, wee thing” pats on the shoulder from her dear Aunt Margery, or the endless variations of “don’t you worry, you’ll get married, too . . . someday,” comments from what felt like every last one of the rest of her relatives and family friends. And given she was the youngest of six, as were both of her parents, their collective clan was a small army. And that was just the Brogan side.

  Pippa’s family, straight over from Ireland, was just as prolific when it came to propagating the family tree. And they brought those lovely, awful accents with them. Lovely because that beautiful lilt was still music to her ears, and her heart. Awful because she still missed that particular lilt and the man it had belonged to, and hearing it all around her, in conjunction with a wedding no less, had doomed any chance she might have had to avoid reliving every moment of their whirlwind love affair. All the good parts, which had been every moment of it, and the very, very sad parts . . . which had only been right at the end of it. Because it had been the end of it.

  And no one in her family even knew that her big, bold career plans of being a trial attorney in Silicon Valley had suffered an equally swift and demoralizing demise when she’d learned she’d flunked the bar exam. Yeah, won’t that be a fun reveal.

  So, she’d fled back to the small hotel she’d booked herself into down in the valley, claiming she’d be fine there as all the lodgings in Blue Hollow Falls were fully taken by her family and the equally extensive MacMillan clan. In truth, she’d been relieved for the excuse. She’d liked knowing she had an escape route, a bolt hole, somewhere to hide, if needed.

  Upon her return, the small hotel lounge had been packed to the gills with reporters from all over the globe, along with a fair number of the less-than-savory paparazzi, who’d all rushed to the rural mountain region—in most cases, judging by the bevy of accents in the room, from far, far away—in hopes of getting photos or footage of Moira’s new sister-in-law, Pippa MacMillan. Well, Pippa Brogan now, she presumed. It just so happened, Pippa was a very famous Irish folk singer. The reporters hadn’t been successful, though. Blue Hollow Falls had well and truly adopted Pippa, and they protected their own. The ranks had been locked up tight, and not so much as a single long-range lens had intruded upon the happy couple’s special day.

  From the raucous noise level inside the hotel bar, Moira presumed the collective journalist horde had apparently decided to drown their defeat as well, only in something far stronger than her Coke.

  Moira took another long sip of her soda, the fizzy bubbles tickling her nose, absently realizing that while she’d slipped back into her melancholy, Sally had refreshed her drink. Moira continued to sip while she watched Sally deftly handle the gaggle pressed up against the bar. Moira shifted away, into the shadows where she had tucked herself at the very end of the bar.

  The only reason she had a stool at all was because Sally had spied Moira edging her way around the periphery of the dimly lit place and had slid one under the exit gap at the end of the bar. Sally probably kept one on her side of the bar specifically for forlorn-looking creatures such as herself. Sally had even taken Moira’s long, winter coat and tucked it back in the office, making Moira initially wonder if perhaps the bartender was angling for some kind of wedding scoop herself. But, even sleep-deprived and on a cake-frosting high, Moira was pretty good at reading people. Bartender Sally was a good egg. She’d bet her one and still only law license on it.

  Moira really didn’t want to think about that second law license, the one she didn’t have. The lack of which had crushed all her future plans. Instead, she tilted up her glass, intent on crunching a few pieces of ice, only the full cluster slid down and splashed her in the face. Sally appeared like the magical genie Moira was beginning to suspect she was, and proffered a clean napkin to Moira while quickly mopping up the
spill. “Thanks,” Moira said, checking the front of her gown, relieved to see she hadn’t stained the fabric.

  She caught Sally checking out the dress, and held her arms out slightly. “I thought the bride did a pretty good job picking these out,” Moira said. “I mean, they’re tasteful, and they don’t make me look like I’m playing dress-up as a Grecian goddess or anything.” She looked back at Sally and sighed. “It still has bridesmaid written all over it, though, doesn’t it?” Lifting a hand to her short mop of auburn curls, she said, “At least I don’t have the teased and lacquered beehive up-do to go with it. It could be so much worse.”

  “Actually, you look great. Amazing even,” Sally said, appearing quite sincere. “The green dress, with your red hair and fair skin? And don’t get me started on the green eyes, which I’m just going to pretend are colored contacts, because, honestly, so not fair.”

  Moira blushed and laughed at the same time. “If you’re angling for a bigger tip, done. I’ll just be emptying my wallet on the bar right now.”

  Sally laughed, waved her hand. “Just being honest. But I’d have known it was a bridesmaid dress no matter what it looked like. This is Turtle Springs, Virginia,” Sally added dryly. “Out here, we don’t have much call for formal anything.” She pulled another two beers from the tap, put them on a tray, and handed them to one of the waitresses, while taking three more orders from the other waitress, which she’d already started filling with her free hand. People jammed up against the bar shouted their orders nonstop and somehow Sally managed to pull their drinks, smile and joke with them, all while continuing the conversation with Moira as if they were seated at a café table alone together, dishing over wedding gossip.

  “You’re very good at your job,” Moira told her, vaguely wondering what kind of money a bartender made. Maybe she needed to completely rethink her life. And maybe you need to steer clear of the caffeine and sugar and get more than a catnap at night. She prudently pushed her once again empty glass away.