A Rancher for Christmas

by Brenda Minton

  “I stayed because I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t have a real education so I couldn’t get a decent job. My income kept me where I was.”

  “You didn’t call your sister?”

  She shook her head. “I was five when Maria took me. I didn’t remember Mia’s last name. I didn’t know where she’d been taken to.”

  “What happened to Maria?”

  The lid clanged a little on the cooker. She righted it and set the spoon on a plate. “She died when I was nineteen.” She cleared her throat. “This will be ready in an hour. Let’s put the tree up.”

  “Breezy...”

  She shook her head. “No. Let’s stop with the past. We all have one and we all have to make choices about how we live today, how we live tomorrow. I’ve had great experiences and bad experiences. I define who I am today.”

  “Experiences do change who we are.”

  “Right, but they don’t have to destroy us. Those experiences don’t have to take our joy or make us afraid to take chances.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  She grinned and he noticed the slight dimple in her left cheek. “I know I’m right.”

  * * *

  After Jake put the tree in a stand, he disappeared into the garage to find ornaments. Breezy brought a box from the kitchen and set it on the table. The twins peered inside, smiling and reaching for the decorations they’d made with dough. She’d found the recipe in an old cookbook, one that said it had belonged to Lawton’s grandmother. At last she’d found family recipes. It made her feel connected. She’d had a grandmother. She had a past, ancestors, connections. She now had what so many people took for granted: her history.

  “What’s this?” Jake returned carrying a tub that he sat on the floor next to the tree. He sat down on the sofa and watched as she strung ribbon through holes in the baked and decorated dough decorations.

  “We made these.” She handed a star to Rosie and a tree to Violet.

  Jake picked one up, tapped it, held it to his mouth. Breezy watched, not sure he would actually take a bite. Surely he wouldn’t. He started to.

  “Don’t eat it!”

  He pulled it back and shot a look at the twins. Both girls wore big grins and now had their decorations up to their mouths, ornery looks in their blue eyes.

  “No eating, girls,” he said in mock seriousness.

  They giggled at him, all three of them. Breezy wanted the moment to go on. She wanted to decorate a tree, maybe drink hot cocoa and eat the cookies she’d also made that morning. Maybe this would become a tradition, their tradition.

  “So we have a tub full of decorations and yet you felt inclined to make your own?” he asked as he pulled lights and a few other decorations from the tub.

  She shrugged slim shoulders and he noticed a faint pink in her cheeks. “It seemed like the thing to do.”

  “Making decorations?” He really didn’t get it. Maybe he didn’t need to.

  “I found the recipe in a family cookbook and there were paints and glitter in a craft room upstairs. I hope that’s okay.” She had felt strange, wandering through the house last night after the girls had gone to sleep.

  “Of course it is. I’ll repeat, you live here.”

  Yes, it was her house, but it wasn’t. The craft room had an abundance of supplies and a half-finished toddler-size dress on the sewing machine. The bedroom that had belonged to Lawton and Elizabeth still had towels hanging next to the shower.

  She’d found family photo albums with pictures of her father, his parents, his siblings. There were pictures of Lawton with his parents. She’d sat for a long time with that photo album, picturing herself in their lives and being unable to, because she hadn’t existed to them.

  But she had her own life. She had memories of who she had been and where she had lived. It was tough but she had to blend who she had always been with the person she now knew herself to be. The daughter of a senator.

  “Let’s decorate the tree.” She stood, ready to let go of the thoughts that brought her nothing but regret. She reached for the ornament she’d bought at Oregon’s shop.

  “That’s new.” Jake took a closer look.

  She nodded and hung the ornament up high on a sturdy branch. “Do you want to string lights before we get too far into the process of hanging decorations?”

  “Sounds like a plan.” He opened the tub and pulled out a box of lights. “You’ll have to help.”

  She shifted away from the tree and noticed the girls were still sitting with their decorations. They looked perfectly innocent.

  “You girls sit and as soon as the lights are up, we’ll hang your ornaments.”

  They smiled at her, perfectly sweet smiles. She looked to Jake. He glanced at the girls, then at her. “Suspicious.”

  “Very.” She shrugged it off. “If you go behind the tree you can string them on that side and pass the lights for me to wrap around this side.”

  From her side of the tree she watched as he started the lights at the top of the tree and then wrapped them around, handing them off to her. She took the lights and wrapped them around the front, passing back to him. And down the tree they worked. At times their hands would touch briefly and she would wonder how this would be in a year or five years. What if he found someone and married?

  What would it be like if he had his own family? Would he still include her and the twins? Would they all get together on holidays? Would the twins spend half of their time with him and his family? Round and round the thoughts went, like the lights being wrapped around the tree, and she had to stop.

  “Where’d you go, Hernandez?” He pushed the string of lights at her.

  “I’m here.”

  “You’re quiet.” He handed her the strand of lights for the last time.

  She finished and the two of them stepped back to survey their work after Jake plugged the lights in. The clear lights twinkled and the tree was beautiful, even with just the one ornament in place. The twins were in awe. At least for a moment.

  “Come on, girls, let’s hang your ornaments.” Breezy held out the box to Jake and he took several. “You get the top half.”

  Violet and Rosie hung their ornaments side by side and came back for more. Violet took an angel. Rosie took a shepherd. Each time they hung their ornaments side by side, jabbering in a language only they understood.

  Jake pulled another box of ornaments from the tub. He handed Breezy one that told the birthday of the twins and their names on one side. On the other it had a picture of them as newborns. She hung it closer to the top so it wouldn’t fall and get broken. Jake hung a snowflake with a family picture—Lawton, Elizabeth and the twins.

  Each ornament felt like a piece of history, a piece of her family. As Jake finished, holding the twins to hang decorations on the higher branches, Breezy stepped back to survey the job they’d done. Jake caught her eye and she gave him a thumbs-up before picking up the box with the nativity Lefty Mueller had given her. She touched the hand-carved pieces, took them out and arranged them on the fireplace mantel with Christmas lights behind them. Jake came to stand near her right shoulder.

  “One of Lefty’s?”

  She nodded as she watched the lights twinkle and the nativity caught the soft glow. “Yes.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Yes, it is. I’ve always wanted one.” It was one of her contributions to their new traditions, but he wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t understand what it meant to have keepsake ornaments, a nativity and something handmade with the twins to keep year after year.

  This was the place where she would stay. She would be here next year to carry on these traditions with Rosie and Violet.

  She would create memories for all of them. And stability that made them feel safe each night, not afraid to sleep
, not afraid of where they would be the next day or next week. She would give them everything she’d never had, including family.

  “I think we should finish the tree and then eat, because I’m starving,” Jake suggested. They stood shoulder to shoulder. He touched his fingers to hers.

  Something came over her. She wanted to lean against him, put her head on his shoulder. Instead she pulled away, coming to her senses. Better late than never.

  “Yes, we should definitely eat.”

  “I think the twins are having an appetizer.” He nodded toward the girls. “They’re eating your popcorn.”

  She laughed at the sight that greeted her as she turned. The twins were sitting on the floor with popcorn she’d spent the previous evening stringing to make a garland for the tree. As they kept a careful eye on the adults, they nibbled kernels of popped corn off the string.

  “I hope you weren’t planning to use that again next year,” Jake teased.

  “No, I hadn’t planned on it. And I think our helpers are definitely ready to eat.”

  Traditions started this way, she thought. As she sat at the table she also realized that Christmas was far more than these traditions. But the traditions reminded people of the real meaning of the holiday.

  Throughout the Bible people had held to traditions and celebrations in order to remember what God had done for them. Passover, Hanukkah, Palm Sunday, Easter each holiday held a tradition that was a reminder of God at work.

  For Christmas, the tree, the lights, the nativity, all were reminders, but the real meaning went so much deeper. And this year the reminder touched a little deeper because Breezy could look at the people sitting with her at that table and she could see what God had done for her.

  He’d given her what she’d always wanted. She had a family. She had a home. She even had a plant. The poinsettia Joe had given sat in the center of the table, a reminder that she was staying. People who stayed had plants.

  After they finished dinner, Jake helped by clearing the table and doing dishes. Breezy gave the girls their bath. He found them when they were out of the tub and wearing matching pink gowns and matching polka-dot robes. He peeked in the room they shared and waved.

  Breezy ran a comb through Violet’s hair. “They’re ready for a story and then bed.”

  “I could make coffee while you get them down.”

  “I’d prefer hot tea,” she answered.

  The conversation was so normal it took her by surprise. They weren’t a couple. They didn’t end their evenings with coffee and discussion of the day’s events. As kind as Jake might be, she knew he still didn’t trust her. She knew he had his own life and she was added baggage.

  “I can make hot tea,” he offered.

  “You don’t have to. I mean, if you have things you need to do.” But she was lonely and company, any company, would be so nice. The closer they got to Christmas, the more she missed Mia and the people she’d met in Oklahoma.

  “I don’t have anywhere I have to be.” He leaned against the door frame. “Do you have a hot date?”

  She snorted at that. He really didn’t know her. “I don’t date.”

  “Interesting.” One dark brow arched and she turned her attention back to the girls. “Is that a warning?”

  He should go now. She thought about telling him to leave. But the twins were pulling away from her, wanting their uncle Jake.

  “No, not a warning at all. It’s a simple statement.”

  He grinned and she was startled by how much that smile of his changed everything.

  “I think Lawton might have thought...”

  She pulled Rosie back to her lap. “Lawton couldn’t have planned that.”

  He shrugged, picked up Violet and hugged her before setting her back on the ground. Both of them were silent. They looked at each other and looked at the twins.

  “Herbal tea,” she reminded. He exited the room and she was left with the girls, with tears she tried to hide and with doubts. So many doubts.

  Each day got a little easier as she got to know the twins and understand this new life. But each day also grew a little more complicated as she got to know Jake and felt her heart moving a little in his direction.

  Jake was the kind of man most women dreamed about. She’d had her share of dreams over the years. Long, long ago she’d thought maybe someday a man would rescue her. But dreams were not reality. Men like Jake didn’t date women like Breezy. They didn’t take the girl home to meet the family, or even want the family to know about her.

  As she joined him in the kitchen, she reminded herself it was nothing more than a cup of tea and a minute to catch up. They would do a lot of this in the coming years. Now was the time to adjust and accept his presence in her life.

  Chapter Ten

  On Thursday evening Breezy made it to town for the choir practice Margie Fisher had asked her to be a part of. She had wrangled the twins into warm clothes, fed them pasta and green beans. She’d even managed to do the dishes and throw in a load of laundry.

  And she was exhausted. She had always thought children would be a lot of work. She knew babies took time and love. She didn’t know that two could turn a person’s world upside down and inside out. As she’d tried to put one girl in pants, the other had taken off running, giggling and losing hair clips as she made her escape. She’d chased Violet with Rosie under her arms and managed to snag her only to have Rosie escape and run through the house like a wild thing on the loose.

  At Oregon’s All Things shop she parked, got out of the car and for a minute she stood there, unwilling to unbuckle the twins from their car seats. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, needing a moment to give her strength to get through this night. She had no idea how Marty managed, but she now realized the woman deserved a medal.

  She wasn’t a quitter, but the girls had definitely worn her out. A part of her had almost expected them to tie her up and ransack the house! A quick peek in the window of the car led her to wonder how such innocent little girls could wreak such havoc on a house!

  She leaned back against the car. A few deep breaths and she’d be ready for round two.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  She opened her eyes and saw Oregon. “I’m good. Just needed a breather.”

  “Those twins are something else, aren’t they?”

  She nodded and closed her eyes again. The air was cool and the sun had set, leaving a dusky, lavender light on the western horizon. She worried that if Oregon said anything too sympathetic, she might actually cry. It had been that kind of day. The kind that made her wonder if she was really cut out for raising two little girls.

  The western horizon reminded her of times in the past when Maria would say, I think it’s time for a new adventure.

  Sometimes Breezy had looked forward to those adventures. And other times she’d wanted to just stay, to let her feet stay rooted in that spot, let it become familiar.

  “Breezy?”

  “I’m good. I’ll get them out and meet you at the church?”

  Oregon closed the shop door. Breezy noticed then that her daughter, Lilly, was with her. Lilly grinned and held up a puppy.

  “Want one?” Lilly asked. “They’re nearly weaned and Mom said I can’t keep any of them. Well, except the mama dog, Belle.”

  “What kind are they?” She opened the car door and started to unbuckle Rosie. Oregon moved to the other side of the car and did the same with Violet.

  “They’re mutts,” Oregon offered. “The mother is a border collie. Dad is anyone’s guess.”

  Breezy glanced back at the fawn-and-white puppy that Lilly was holding. The girl had moved closer and her blue eyes fairly twinkled. Breezy studied the girl more closely, taking in her dark hair, her blue eyes. Interesting. She smiled and refocused on the puppy.

&nbs
p; “How long did you say you’ve lived here?” she asked Oregon.

  “Breezy, the puppies are almost weaned. I’m sure the twins would love one.” Oregon returned to the subject of puppies. “Really, a person with twins should have a puppy. That border collie half might be good at keeping these little girls rounded up.” Oregon bit down on her bottom lip and gave Breezy a look. The subject of puppies was safe. The subject of Lilly was off-limits.

  “A puppy, huh?” She looked back at the dog again, noticing its slightly long hair, gentle brown eyes and the way it leaned into Lilly. “I’ve never had a pet.”

  Lilly practically gasped. “No way.”

  “Yes way,” Breezy confirmed. “I’ve never had a dog or a cat. I’ve never stayed anywhere long enough to have an animal.”

  “You’re not going anywhere this time, Breezy.” Oregon had Violet out of the seat and was kissing her cheek. “I love these little girls.”

  “Me, too,” Breezy said. They were a part of her. They weren’t little strangers shoved into her life. They were her flesh and blood, her DNA. They were her family.

  Oregon joined her and the five of them, plus the puppy, headed down the sidewalk in the direction of the church. Lilly put the puppy down and held its pink leash as they crossed the road. The little dog wagged her fluffy tail and sniffed the ground as they walked.

  “You don’t have to take a puppy,” Oregon offered.

  “I think I’d like to have one. Is it a boy or a girl?”

  “That one is a girl. We call her Daisy, but you can call her whatever you like.”

  “Daisy.” Breezy looked at the dog and the girl holding the leash. “I’ll take her when she’s weaned.”

  As they walked, Joe joined them on the sidewalk. He was wearing his usual tan jacket, tan pants and work boots, his bent-up hat pulled down on his thin gray hair. But today he looked tired. His skin looked as gray as his hair.

  “Are you okay, Joe?” Breezy asked as he stepped next to her.