“Now?” Mary asked doubtfully.
“If I finish the chores now, I won’t have to go out to take care of them in the middle of our Christmas Eve party with Hope and Celeste,” she said.
It was a flimsy excuse but not unreasonable. She did have chores—and she had plans to hang a big red ribbon she had already hidden away in the barn across the stall where she planned to put Lou’s new horse. She could do that now, since Louisa had no reason to go out to the barn between now and Christmas morning.
She grabbed her coat and hurried out before any of them could argue with her.
Outside, a cold wind blew down off Brannon Ridge and she shivered at the same time she yawned.
She hadn’t been sleeping much the last few weeks, which was probably why her head ached and her eyes felt as if they were coated with gritty sandpaper.
Maybe she could just go to bed and wake up when Christmas was over.
She sighed. However tempting, that was completely impossible. She had hours to go before she could sleep. It was not yet sunset on Christmas Eve—she still had to make it through dinner with her sisters and their families. Both of them were coming, since Hope had been cleared to return to her normal activities.
They would want to know where Chase was and she didn’t know how to answer them.
Not only that but her kids would likely be awake for hours yet, jacked up on excitement and anticipation—not to mention copious amounts of sugar from the treats they had been making and sampling all day.
She should take sugar cookies to Chase. He loved them and probably hadn’t made any for himself.
How could she possibly face him after their last encounter?
Tears burned behind her eyes. She wanted to tell herself it was from the wind and the lack of sleep but she knew better. This was the season of hope, joy, yet she felt as if all the color and light had been sucked away, leaving only uniform, lifeless gray.
She was in love with him and she didn’t know what to do about it.
The worst part was knowing that even if she could find the strength and courage to admit she loved him, she was afraid it was too late.
He had looked so bleak the last time she saw him, so distant. Remembering the finality in that scene, the tears she had been fighting for days slipped past her defenses.
She looked out at the beautiful landscape—the snow-covered mountains and the orange and yellows of the sunset—and gave in to the torment of her emotions here, where no one could see her.
After a few moments, she forced herself to stop, wiping at the tears with her leather gloves. None of this maudlin stuff was helping her take care of her chores and now she would have to finish quickly so she could hurry back to the house to fix her makeup before her sisters saw evidence of her tears and pressed her about what was wrong.
How could she tell them what a mess she had made of things?
With another sigh, she forced herself to focus on the job at hand. She walked through the snow to the barn and pushed the door open but only made it a few steps before she faltered, her gaze searching the interior.
Something was wrong.
Over the past two and a half years, she had come to know the inside of this barn as well as she did her own bedroom. She knew it in all seasons, all weather, all moods.
She knew the scents and the sounds and the shifting light—and right now she could tell something was different.
Someone was here.
She moved quietly into the barn, reaching for the pitchfork that was usually there. It was missing but she found a shovel instead and decided that would have to do.
No one else should be here.
She had two part-time ranch hands but neither was scheduled to be here on Christmas Eve. She had given both time off for the holidays and didn’t expect to see them until the twenty-seventh. Anyway, if it had been Bill or Jose, wouldn’t she have seen their vehicles parked out front?
With the shovel in hand, she headed farther into the interior of the big barn, eyes scanning the dim interior. Seconds later she spotted it—a beautiful paint mare in one of the stalls near the far end of the barn.
At almost that exact moment, she heard a noise coming from above her. She whirled toward the hayloft that took up one half of the barn and spotted him there, his back to her, along with the missing pitchfork.
“Chase!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
He swiveled around, and for an arrested moment, he looked at her with so much love and longing, she almost wept again.
Too quickly, he veiled his features. “Feeding Lou’s new horse. While I was at it, I figured I could take care of the rest of your stock in the barn so you wouldn’t have to worry about it tonight. I was hoping to get out of here before you came down from the house but obviously I’m not fast enough.”
He had done that for her, even though he was furious with her. She wanted to cry all over again.
Happiness seemed to bloom through her like springtime and the old barn had never looked so beautiful.
She swallowed, focusing on the least important thought running through her head. “How did you get the new horse down here? I never saw your trailer.”
“I didn’t want Lou to see it and wonder what was going on so I came in the back way, down the hill. I rode Tor and tied the mare’s lead line to his saddle.”
“You came down through all that snow?” she exclaimed. “How on earth did you manage that?” There were drifts at least four feet deep in places on that ridgeline.
“It was slow going but Tor is tough and so’s the new little mare. She’s going to be a great horse for Lou.”
She felt completely overwhelmed suddenly, humbled and astonished that he would go to such lengths for her daughter.
And for her, she realized.
This was only one of a million other acts over the last few years that provided all the evidence anyone could need that he loved her.
“I can’t believe you would do that.”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he said, his tone distant.
“It is a big deal to me. It’s huge. Oh, Chase.”
The tears from earlier broke free again and a small sob escaped before she could cover her mouth with her fingers.
“Cut it out. Right now.”
She almost laughed at the alarm in his voice, despite the tears that continued to trickle down her cheeks.
“I can’t. I’m sorry. When the man I love shows me all over again how wonderful he is, I tend to get emotional. You’re just going to have to deal with that.”
Her words seemed to hang in the air of the barn like dust motes floating in the last pale shafts of Christmas Eve sunlight. He stared at her for a second, then lurched toward the ladder. Before he reached it, his boot heel caught on something. He staggered for just a moment and tried to regain his balance but he didn’t have anything to hold on to.
He fell in what felt like slow motion, landing with a hard thud that sounded almost as loud as her instinctive scream.
* * *
He couldn’t breathe—and not because her words had stunned him. No. He literally couldn’t breathe.
For a good five seconds, his lungs were frozen, the wind knocked hard out of him. He was aware on some level of her running toward him to kneel next to him, of her panicked, tearstained features and her hands on his face and her cries of “breathe, breathe, breathe.”
He wasn’t sure if the advice was for him or herself but then, just as abruptly, the spasm in his diaphragm eased and he could inhale again, a small breath and then increasingly deeper until he dared talk again.
“I’m...okay.”
She was reaching for her phone when he spoke. At his voice, she gasped, dropping it to the concrete floor of the barn and throwing herself across him
with an impact that made him grunt.
She immediately eased away. “Where does it hurt? I need to call an ambulance. It will probably take them a while to get here so it might be faster for me to just drive you.”
The panic in her voice seeped through his discomfort and he reached out a hand to cover hers.
“I don’t...need an ambulance. The breath...was knocked out of me...but I’m okay.”
The alfalfa he had been forking down for the animals had cushioned most of the impact and he knew there was no serious damage, even though everything still ached. He might have a broken rib in there, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.
“Are you sure? That was a hard fall.”
“I’m sure.”
Her hand fluttered in his and he suddenly remembered what she had said and his complete shock that had made him lose his footing.
He sat up and wiped at her tears.
“Faith. What were you saying just before I fell?”
She looked down, her cheeks turning pink. “I... Nothing.”
It was the exact antithesis of nothing. “You said you loved me,” he murmured.
She rubbed her cheek on her shoulder as if trying to hide evidence of the tears trickling down. “That was a pretty hard fall,” she said again. “Are you sure you didn’t bump your head, too?”
“Positive. I know what I heard. Why do you think I fell? You shocked me so much I forgot I was ten feet up in the air. Say it again.”
Her hand fluttered in his again but he held it tight. He wasn’t going to let her wriggle away this time. After a moment, she stopped and everything about her seemed to sigh.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I’ve known it for a while now. I just... I’ve been so afraid.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He hadn’t wanted to make her suffer more than she already had. But maybe they both had to pass through this tough time to know they could make it through to the other side.
He pulled her toward him and his breath seemed to catch all over again—and not at all from the pain—when she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest.
Joy began to stir inside him, tentative at first and then stronger.
She belonged exactly here. Surely she had to know that by now.
“After Travis died, I never wanted to fall in love again. Ever,” she said, her voice low. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t.”
He frowned in confusion, nearly groaning at the possibility of more mixed signals from her.
And then she kissed him. Just like that. She lifted her head, found his mouth and kissed him with a fierce emotion that sent joy rushing through him like the Cold Creek swollen with runoff.
“I didn’t need to fall in love,” she said, her beautiful eyes bright with more tears and a tenderness that made him want to weep. “I was already there, in love with my best friend. That love surrounded me every moment of every day. I just had to find the strength to open my heart to it.”
“And have you?”
She kissed him again in answer and he decided he wanted to spend every Christmas Eve right here with her in her barn, surrounded by animals and hay and possibilities.
He had no idea how all his Christmas wishes had come true but he wasn’t about to question it.
“I love you, Chase Brannon,” she murmured against his mouth.
He didn’t want to ask but he had to know. “What changed?”
“Why am I not afraid to admit I love you?” She smiled a little. “Who said I’m not? But I have been thinking about something my dad told us over and over when we were held prisoner in Colombia. Remember, girls, he would say in that firm voice. Faith is always stronger than fear. He was talking about faith in the abstract, not me in particular, but I have decided to listen to his words and apply them to me. I can’t let my fear control me. I am stronger than this—and during the times when I’m not, I’ve got your strength to lean on.”
He kissed her, humbled and overwhelmed and incredibly grateful for this amazing woman in his arms, who had been through incredible pain but came through with grace, dignity and a beautiful courage.
He wiped a tear away with his thumb, grateful beyond words that such a woman was willing to face her completely justifiable fears for him.
“I thought I was going to have a heart attack just now when you fell. For an instant, it was like Travis all over again—but it also confirmed something I had already been thinking.”
“Oh?”
She pressed her cheek against his hand. “I’ve been worried that I’m not strong enough to open my heart to you. The real question is whether I’m strong enough to live without you. When I saw you fall, in those horrible few seconds when you weren’t breathing, I realized the answer to that is an unequivocal, emphatic no. I can’t bear the idea of not being with you.”
He couldn’t promise nothing would ever happen to him—but he could promise he would love her fiercely every single day of his life.
“I love you, Chase. I love you, my kids love you, my entire family loves you. I need you. You are my oldest and dearest friend—and my oldest and dearest love.”
He framed her face in his hands and kissed her with all the pent-up need from all these years of standing on the sidelines, waiting for their moment to be right. He almost couldn’t believe this was real. Maybe he was simply hallucinating after having the wind knocked out of him. But his senses seemed even more acute than usual, alive and invigorated, and the joy expanding in his chest was too bright and wild and beautiful to be imaginary.
People said Christmas was a time for miracles.
He would never doubt that again.
Epilogue
Christmas Eve, one year later
“Okay, help me out, Mary. Where do you keep the salad tongs since you and Pat have renovated the kitchen?”
With whitewashed cabinets and new stainless steel appliances, the new Star N kitchen was beautiful, Faith had to admit—almost as pretty as the renovated kitchen at the Brannon Ridge that had been her wedding present from Chase. But after two months, she still couldn’t seem to figure out how to find things here now.
Mary headed to a large drawer on the island. “It made more sense to keep all the utensils in the biggest drawer here where they can all fit instead of scattered throughout the kitchen. I don’t know why it took me fifty years to figure that out. Is this what you’re looking for?”
“Yes! Thank you.”
She added the dressing to the rest of the ingredients in her favorite walnut cranberry salad and tossed it with the tongs. “There. That should do it. Everything looks great, Mary.”
“Thanks.” Her aunt beamed and Faith thought, not for the first time, that Mary seemed years younger since her marriage to Pat.
“Thank you for hosting the party here at the Star N.”
“Christmas is about home and this old house is home to you girls,” Mary said simply. “It seemed right, even though all of you have bigger places now. Your kitchen up at Brannon Ridge is twice the size as this one.”
As they were discussing how they would merge their lives after they were married, she and Chase had looked at both houses and decided to run both ranches from Brannon Ridge. The house was bigger for all three of their kids and assorted horses, dogs and barn cats.
It had been a good decision, confirmed just a few months after Faith and Chase’s wedding, when Mary announced she and her beau were getting married and wanted to renovate the Star N—a process now in the final phases.
“Anything else I can carry out to the dining room?” she asked.
“I made a fruit salad, too. It’s in the refrigerator,” Mary said.
Faith grabbed it and, with one bowl under each arm, headed for the two long tables that had been set up in the great room to hold the growing family.
She was arranging the bowls when Hope wandered over. “Hey, do you have any idea where I can find tape? I’ve still got one present to wrap.”
“Let me get this straight. You run the most famous Christmas attraction in the Intermountain West and you’ve illustrated a holiday book that was turned into a movie currently ranked number one at the box office for the fourth consecutive week. Yet here it is five p.m. on Christmas Eve and you’re still not finished wrapping your presents?”
“Oh, give me a break. I’ve had a little bit on my plate. You would not believe how much of my day this little creature takes up.”
Faith smiled. “I think I would. I’ve had two of my own, remember? Here. Give.”
Her sister held up the wriggling adorableness that was her six-month-old son, Samuel, born healthy and full-term, with no complications whatsoever from that early scare more than a year ago.
“You can have him if you tell me where I can find tape.”
“The desk drawer in the office.” She grinned and admitted the truth. “That’s where I put it a half hour ago, anyway, when I finished wrapping my last present.”
Hope snorted but fulfilled her part of the deal by handing over the boy.
After she left, Faith nuzzled his neck. Oh, he smelled delicious. Her heart seemed to burst with happiness. “Hey, Sammy. How’s my favorite guy?”
“Wow. I guess that puts us in our place, right, Barrett?”
She looked up to find Chase and her son in the doorway, stomping snow off their boots after coming in from shoveling the driveway.
He was smiling but she didn’t miss the light in his gaze as he watched her cuddle Hope’s cute little boy.
How was it possible that, even after a year, she loved Chase more every single time she saw him?
The Holiday Gift Page 16