I'll Be Home for Christmas

by Barbara J. Scott

  And Dan would have something he’d set out to get. Enough land to build at least five estate houses.

  One sister was all he needed.

  And she’d played right into his hands.

  She’d been quiet all the way home. Dan wondered if he’d gone too far, taking Amy to see the cabin, telling her he cared about her. Maybe she wasn’t ready, being a widow and all.

  “Did I blow it today?” he finally asked when they were almost to the turnoff to their old horse farm. The snow fell in hushed flakes, but the roads remained clear.

  “I don’t know,” she finally said. “You tell me. Do you want my seventy-five acres so badly that you’re willing to act like I’m special to you?”

  “What?” Dan pulled off onto the long drive to her house but stopped the SUV. “What are you talking about?”

  She opened the door to get out. “You planned this all along, didn’t you? You decided if you can’t convince all four sisters, go for the one who needs this more than the others. The pathetic widow who doesn’t care about this place anyway, right?”

  Dan’s heart fell like a chunk of plaster and seemed to shatter at that moment. “Amy, I told you how I feel. Why would you think I’m lying to you?”

  “I want to know the truth. Your father seems to think you cut a deal with me for my share today. Where would he get that notion?”

  Dan closed his eyes. He’d mentioned that to his dad long before he’d met Amy. But before he could explain, she hopped out and started walking.

  Dan cranked the Escalade and followed her. “Amy, get back in here so we can talk!”

  “No. You can leave now. I’m not selling.”

  Frustrated, Dan finally ditched his vehicle and got out. By the time they’d made it to the front yard, snow covered both of them, and she shivered in her light wrap.

  He took off his jacket and tugged it around her. “Your pretty dress will be ruined.”

  She pushed the jacket away. “It won’t be the first time something I love gets ruined.”

  And then she burst into tears and ran into the house.

  Amy cried most of the night. All the angst she’d held so tightly inside came pouring out. Her sisters and Sarah tried to console her, tried to understand what had happened, but she couldn’t talk about it. So she held an old Bible tightly to her chest, hoping to absorb some peace.

  She sobbed for her parents and the time they’d wasted . . . and then she cried for Tim and the love they’d shared. The others kept Timothy occupied, but late in the night, she heard a timid knock on her door.

  “Go away.”

  “Mommy, it’s me. I need to talk to you.”

  He opened the bedroom door before she could pull herself together. Amy sat up in bed and tried to smile. “What are you doing up so late?”

  “I know you’ve been sad, and I wanted to sit with you the way you sit with me when I’m sad.”

  Amy couldn’t speak, but she willed herself to try. “That’s so nice. C’mon then.” She patted the bedspread and he hopped up to stare over at her. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “My grandpa,” Timothy replied. “The one you never mention.”

  On Christmas Eve, all was quiet at the farm and no one had seen Dan Wentworth all week.

  Amy told her sisters what had happened. “I think he wanted my share all along. He was so smart about things. He never once mentioned that he’d be willing to buy one share. But I know now that’s what he was trying to do.”

  “Then why didn’t he just come out and say that?” Sophie asked. “He had you right there, all cozy in that cabin.”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think he was waiting until the very last minute.”

  Until he had me hooked.

  “Do you love the man?” Miss Sarah asked, sympathy in her eyes.

  “I thought I was falling for him,” Amy replied. “But—”

  Bella ran into the great room from the kitchen. “Dan’s here.”

  Everyone scattered, leaving Amy to stomp toward the door, flinging it open before he could knock.

  “I’m not selling,” she said, about to close the door in his good-looking, sad, hopeful face.

  But his hand on the door and his boot on the jamb stopped her. “I have a plan, and you need to hear me out,” he said. “Because I’m not leaving until you do.”

  Amy stepped outside and closed the door behind her. “What are you trying to do?”

  “Keep you,” he said, his eyes bright with humility and hope. “But I need everyone here, so I can explain this. Please, Amy.”

  Amy wanted to send him away, but her traitorous heart told her to listen.

  Just listen.

  She hadn’t listened when her daddy needed her, and she regretted that. Dan had taken her to the cabin, and he’d made her feel so wonderful. Surely, there had to be more between them than just this expensive dirt underneath their feet.

  Be still and know.

  “You have about fifteen minutes,” she said, opening the door.

  “I only need ten,” Dan said from behind her.

  “I’ll get everybody together.”

  Dan prayed this would work. He didn’t want to lose Amy. And he couldn’t help feeling like his plan was more than a little brilliant. Now to convince the family.

  Amy gathered her sisters and their men in the great room and turned toward Dan.

  It looks like I’m on.

  “You’d better state your case before Timothy and Miss Sarah get back from the stable,” Amy warned.

  Dan swallowed. “I think y’all might like what I’ve come up with.”

  “We’re not selling,” Amy replied, her boot tapping on wood.

  “You don’t have to, but . . . just consider this. How would y’all feel about keeping the main house and ten acres, and—”

  “That’s selling,” Jo-Jo interjected.

  “Let me finish.” Sweat sizzled underneath Dan’s cotton shirt, but he kept right on talking. “You keep the main house as a lodge where guests could come and stay . . . and the additional thirty-five acres to use for your riding academy and rehab center. Then each sister gets ten acres surrounding the central area of the house and the stable to build whatever you each want.”

  The room went quiet for several moments that seemed frozen in time.

  “What about the rest?” Amy asked. “That’s just the seventy-five acres you wanted from me. So you’d get two-hundred and twenty-five?”

  “Could we take a vote?” Sophie asked, turning to stare at the others.

  “Are you serious?” Amy cried, deciding they were all intent on betraying her.

  “Listen to the man,” Jed said, apparently another traitor in the room. “Together, you’d all have seventy-five acres to do what you want with.”

  “What we want,” Jo-Jo clarified.

  “What we want,” Jed repeated with a grin. “Each sister would have plenty of land to build, and the money to do it.”

  “In the shape of a horseshoe around the back of the property,” Dan interjected. “I have it all planned out. The subdivision can start beyond the creek and the tree line to the south. There’s another pretty stream located down there, and I can reroute it through all the properties. You won’t even know there are any houses around you.”

  Amy glared at her sisters. “What do I care? I’ll be gone.”

  Dan’s heart crumples at her remark. Dejected, he was oh-so weary from staying up all night devising this plan.

  The sisters huddled with their men, Amy the odd one out, but she listened and finally nodded before turning back to Dan, bringing his hope back to life.

  “We split it—half and half,” she said. “We keep a hundred and fifty acres, and you can buy the rest of the property located on the other side of the creek bed near the stream. That means we’d have thirty acres for the main house and stable, and thirty acres each to build on or . . . do whatever we choose.”

  He let out a sigh and wiped at his brow.
This next part was why he was really here, and he steeled himself for her reaction.

  “I can only agree to that under one condition.”

  Amy marched toward him. “Take it or leave it, Dan Wentworth. I just want you out of my hair.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Dan said, opening his heart for all to see. “And I can’t do that . . . unless you stay here with your thirty acres. I want you, Amy. I’m doing this for you. And for Timothy. And for the house I want to build for us on that ten . . . I mean . . . thirty acres.”

  Bella stood. “So you’d buy half our land, and we’d get the rest. I like the idea of a lodge here that we could all run together.”

  Jo-Jo beamed, turning to Jed as she thought aloud. “Each of us has something to offer a venture like that, don’t we? I mean, Sarah and Amy can run the nuts and bolts of the lodge, like a big B&B. Bella can do the PR and promotion to let the world know we’re here. And while Jed continues to manage the place on a grand scale, I could work with him to run the rescue and rehab end of the stable.” After a moment’s thought, she gasped. “Oh! And Soph, you can start that equine vet practice you’ve been dreaming about and run it right out of a new clinic and paddock and still build a house for you. It’s like a bunch of puzzle pieces that suddenly fit together. Like it’s all just . . . meant to be!”

  Dan fought off the inappropriate urge to hug the stuffing straight out of Jo-Jo. Her innocent, baby-of-the-group sensibilities thrilled him to no end. If only Amy could catch her creative vision.

  “I do like the idea of each of us having our own acreage around the lodge,” Bella said. “I think I can live with that.”

  They all nodded in agreement and turned toward Amy in unison.

  “What do you think?” Dan asked, reaching for her hand. “I’m guessing you’re thinking about . . . building a house with me and Timothy . . . and how you’d be near your sisters, but not in this house where all the memories still live. And you’re thinking we’ll make new, happy memories. We’ll be a family, surrounded by family.”

  “Wow,” Bella exclaimed, beaming at Amy. “Sis?”

  Amy stared at Dan with misty eyes. “I . . . uh . . . I don’t know.”

  “Amy,” Sophie said. “Take the deal. It works for everyone. We can use the money to fix up this place. At last, it will come alive again.”

  “You can call the place Leatherneck Farms,” Jed said with a grin. “Your daddy would like that. He used to say this place was just an old leatherneck, same as him. Tough and solid, but in desperate need of some tender-loving care.”

  Silent tears streamed down Amy’s face. “I can’t fight all of you.”

  She reached for Dan’s hand, but he scooped her into his arms and kissed her tears, and then he held her head with both hands. “Best deal I’ve ever brokered. I’m not letting you get away.”

  Later that night, Amy stood by her daddy’s old leather chair, one hand touching the soft grain. “I’m home, Daddy,” she murmured. “I’m finally home.”

  Dan stepped next to her and kissed her on the cheek. “We’ve got a lot of unfinished business, you and me.”

  “I know,” Amy said. “I know.”

  Outside, snow covered the land in a white blanket that made Amy feel warm and safe and cozy.

  And loved. So loved.

  The front door whooshed open and Jo-Jo appeared, a broad grin plastered across her face. “Jed will drive the sleigh up the hill in just a few minutes. Is Timothy ready? He’s going to love this.”

  Before Amy could reply, the long-familiar jing-jing-jing of the sleigh bells of their childhood sounded from the front of the house. Her heart soared as she rushed toward the open door and placed an arm around Jo-Jo’s shoulder.

  “Remember what Tuck used to say?” she asked her younger sister.

  “Every time the sleigh bells ring—” Jo-Jo began, and Amy chimed in to finish it with her. “—one of my girls gets their wish.”

  The two of them laughed at the memory.

  “I guess it works. All my wishes are coming true,” Jo-Jo said.