Love Inspired December 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Rancher for ChristmasHer Montana ChristmasAn Amish Christmas JourneyYuletide Baby

by Brenda Minton

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Robin.”

  She had not expected to hear her father’s voice.

  “Can you hang on a minute, Daddy? I’ll be right back.”

  She dropped the receiver onto the bed before walking slowly into the bathroom. Why would her father be calling? In many ways, she felt closer to him than to her mother, but he usually let Sheila take care of the communication end of things, especially since Robin had come to Jasper Gulch against his express wishes. She rinsed and returned to sit on the side of the bed. Gingerly, she lifted the telephone receiver to her ear again.

  “Sorry. I was brushing my teeth when you called.”

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt. We just haven’t talked in a while.”

  Robin had twisted her hair up out of her way. It wobbled as she leaned back against the headboard of the bed. “I’ve been busy. The museum here opens on New Year’s Eve, and we have nearly three dozen displays to get ready.”

  “Is that why you aren’t coming home for Christmas?” he asked.

  “Partly.”

  “And the other part?”

  “I’m involved in a bunch of stuff at church.”

  “At church,” he echoed. “Sounds like you’re really settling in there.”

  She wanted to settle in, but that didn’t seem possible now. An ache started in her chest and moved up into her throat. She tried to clear it away with a cough.

  “Not so much as you might think, actually. It, um, sort of has to do with my job here and the centennial.”

  “Speaking of jobs,” he said. “I thought we ought to get some things straight about that.” He went on to tell her that her mother might have mischaracterized the position that would shortly become available for funding. It was not a pure science position but a position researching grants, studies, corresponding data, fellowships and even individuals. “I know it sounds dry,” he went on, “but some of it is actually very interesting, and it keeps us from repeating the same studies over and over. It’s useful work, essential for the foundation, really, and it pays well. We’ve just installed some new cross-referencing software that is state-of-the-art, and you would get to decide who could access it for what purposes. It’s a researcher’s dream, really.”

  “I see,” she said, trying to keep tears at bay. Was this God’s solution to her dilemma?

  “Besides,” her father added, “we want you home. We miss you.”

  “I miss you, too,” she said, and to her surprise found that it was true. But, oh, how she would miss Jasper Gulch—and Ethan—when she left here.

  “You’ll think about the job, then?” Gary asked.

  “I’ll think about it,” she promised, knowing already that she would take it, that she likely had little choice in the matter. She could hear her father’s smile.

  “That’s great. That’s just great.”

  He asked about her plans for Christmas, and she realized to her dismay that she really didn’t have any beyond the pageant and the Christmas-morning service. Shoving aside those thoughts for the time being, she put on a brave front and launched into a recitation about the centennial Christmas that she had helped Ethan plan for the church. Without once actually mentioning Ethan’s name, she described the decorations, the Hanging of the Green service, the pageant, the planned Christmas-morning service, even the printed programs and the a cappella quartet. She left out the bells; that secret belonged to her and Ethan alone, at least until they shared it with the church and town.

  “What about the Shaws?” her father asked when at last she wound down.

  “Oh, them,” she said in as offhand a manner as she could manage. “Their eldest daughter is getting married on Christmas night. They’re all wrapped up in that. I don’t imagine they have time for a distant cousin who won’t be hanging around much longer anyway.”

  “Well, I’m glad you got that out of your system,” he told her, not bothering to hide his relief. “Look, I know we’re short on family,” he said, “but one day you’ll meet a nice young man and start a family of your own. Then it won’t matter. You’ll see.”

  Will I? she wondered. Or have I already met him and ruined it all with my lies?

  They chatted a few minutes longer, then hung up. Robin felt both better and worse. She thought she could survive leaving town without the Shaws knowing who and what she was. She could get along with just the little bit of family she had; she’d done so to this point. Even the job that her parents were holding open for her didn’t sound too bad. If it paid the bills and pleased her parents, she could always find ways to indulge her interest in history. She would miss her friends, but she’d lost friends before and survived. Perhaps if she left town, Rusty wouldn’t tell what he knew, and the truth about the accident on the bridge would remain hidden. The bridge was being rebuilt after all, and what good would it do to reopen old wounds? If her great-grandmother could live with that lie, Robin supposed she could, too.

  What cut her to the quick, what killed her, was the idea of never seeing Ethan again, of never knowing how he fared, what he needed, who helped him, if he made peace with his sister and got to see his niece and aunt again. To think that he had family from whom he was estranged pained Robin, not only because she identified with his need for family, but also because she knew it pained him so very deeply. If she could give him one thing before she left, it would be what she herself could not have: family.

  And why not? she wondered. Maybe it was none of her business, but he could hardly hate her more than he was going to anyway. Why shouldn’t she try to fix things between him and his sister? What her father had said about cross-referencing had gotten her to thinking about how she could find Ethan’s family.

  Recalling all that he’d told her, Robin pulled out a pad of paper and a pen and began making notes. His aunt’s name was Molly Johnson. His sister’s name was Colleen Connaught. They lived in the Los Angeles area of California. All she had to do was find a Molly Johnson and a Colleen Connaught with the same address in the environs of Los Angeles. Shouldn’t be too difficult. Might take some time, though, and she didn’t want to use the computers at the museum for the search, not that she had much time at work right now for anything but putting together exhibits.

  She retrieved her tablet from her bag and logged onto the Wi-Fi provided by the inn. By the time she collapsed into bed two hours later, she’d succeeded only in eliminating all the Molly Johnsons in Los Angeles proper, by virtue of the fact that no Colleen Connaught cross-referenced with any of them, and making a list of the dozens of smaller towns that comprised the greater Los Angeles area, but she wasn’t going to give up. She was going to find Ethan’s sister and speak to her before she left this town, hopefully before Christmas.

  Her alarm woke her at seven-thirty. She showered, then gulped down a cup of coffee and frozen pastries heated in the microwave before blowing dry her hair and outfitting herself for another cold day. Choosing warmth and comfort over style, she caught her hair in a ponytail low on the back of her head, slipped on a wide, thick, navy blue knit headband and stepped into her oldest jeans, which she paired with a snug brown rib-knit sweater. To this she added her hiking boots and down-filled coat. The sun shined bright out of a clear blue sky, so she donned a pair of sunglasses as she went out the door, the strap of her bag over her shoulder.

  She arrived at the church a few minutes early, but she’d hardly put the transmission into Park before she spied Ethan via her side-view mirror, coming out the front door of the parsonage. Slinging on his coat, a piece of toast in his teeth, he ran across the street. She let herself out of the car in time to meet him as he arrived. He swallowed what he was chewing and tossed aside the remainder of his breakfast, dusting off his face and hands.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “I told you I would.”

  “I know. I didn’t doubt it.” He huffed out a deep breath, fogging the air. “But I realize you’d rather not.”

  She reached up to remove her sunglasses
. “That isn’t so.”

  “Are you sure? I know you say you aren’t put off by what I told you about my father, but some think the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. That’s why you’re the only one here I’ve told.”

  Touched, she smiled at him. “You don’t have to worry that I’ll tell anyone else.”

  “I don’t,” he said, “and not because you’re good at keeping secrets. I intend to reveal all of mine, just gradually.”

  Frowning, she leaned back against the car door and looked down at her toes. “Sometimes there seems no point in revealing secrets.”

  “Why? Become some might disapprove? I can’t imagine your parents, for instance, would approve of someone who has close family serving time in prison.”

  “They don’t approve of me,” she reminded him. That might change, though, if she returned home, took the job. When, she reminded herself. When she returned home and took the job at the foundation.

  She realized suddenly that the job her father had pitched last night was not the same job her mother had pressed her on before. One had been funded through Templeton at the university; her dad had essentially offered her a spot at the foundation itself. This went beyond a simple “mischaracterization.” This was her big “in,” a tailor-made position to fold her into the bosom of her family, the only family she truly had. Perhaps she should be thrilled about that, instead of desperate to avoid thinking about it.

  She glanced pointedly at her watch, saying, “We ought to get busy.”

  Ethan raised his hand, and she preceded him up onto the boardwalk. As they drew near the front door of the church, he slid around her, pulling his keys from his coat pocket. He unlocked the door and let her inside, reaching around her to flip on lights. Stepping in behind her, he closed and locked the door. The stone antechamber felt chilly despite the low hum of the central-air unit, but they quickly went to work removing the shelves and getting out the ropes, which they stretched across the vestibule. He held up a long, blunt wooden dowel with a metal ring screwed into one end.

  “This,” he said, “is apparently a thread needle. We attach the clip on one end of the rope to the ring, push the needle through the eye in the wall in the closet there and pull the rope through up top. Then I detach the clip from the needle and attach it to the arm of one of the bells.”

  “And we repeat the process with the other rope.”

  “Exactly.”

  He opened the trapdoor, pulled down the ladder and, after donning a cap and gloves, climbed up into the belfry. When he gave the order, Robin lifted the ladder and closed the trap, then hurried into the closet to push the rope through the eye as he pulled. While she waited for him to send the thread needle back down, her cell phone rang. She tugged off her gloves and answered the call.

  It was Olivia, wondering if Robin could meet her at the museum to work for a while. With only ten days left before the opening and Christmas smack in the middle, time was short.

  “Uh, sure,” Robin told her, “but I have to be at the church by four for dress rehearsal, and it might take me some time to get over to the museum.”

  “It’s okay,” Olivia assured her. “I’m not ready to head into town yet myself, and I’ll take whatever help you can give me. I’ll text when I get to the museum, and you can come over then.”

  “Deal.”

  Just as she rang off, Ethan called through the closed trapdoor. “One down and one to go. Open the trap.”

  She did so, and he dropped the wooden dowel, watching as she hurried over to pick it up and clip on the rope. She closed the trapdoor again then moved back into the closet. Pushing the thread needle through the eye proved more difficult the second time, partly because one side of the channel in the center of the eye was already filled with rope and partly because the second channel was on top of the eye. She had to stack up some hymnals on which to stand in order to force the long wooden needle through the space. Finally, she heard Ethan shout that he had it.

  She returned the hymnals, put the box in which the ropes had been shipped back into the closet and waited for Ethan to tell her to open the trap so he could come down. It was almost nine before he stepped off the ladder onto the floor of the vestibule again.

  “Quick,” he told her, hurrying for the closet as the carillon began to play.

  She used the pole to push up the ladder and close the trapdoor. Suddenly, the whole room seemed to vibrate with the deep resonance of the bells overhead. Running to the closet, she found Ethan with one leg braced against the wall as he pulled first one rope and then the other, his face alight with joy.

  “This is definitely a two-person job!” he shouted, obviously laboring.

  She laughed. “So I see!”

  To stop the bells from ringing, he wound the ropes securely around the anchors bolted into the rock wall and stepped out of the closet, throwing his arms wide. “We did it, Robin. We roped the bells. And we’re going to ring them for Christmas,” he vowed, grinning broadly.

  “Everyone’s going to be so surprised,” she enthused, clapping her hands.

  “And pleased, I hope.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  Reaching out, he looped his gloved hands around her neck and pulled her to him, dropping his forehead to hers. “Thank you. Again. For everything.”

  She shook her head, rubbing her forehead against his, her heart full to the point of bursting. “It’s been my pleasure, all of it.”

  Her phone beeped, letting her know that she’d received a text. Taking full advantage of the interruption, she jerked away, whipping the little technological wonder from her pocket.

  “I have to go. Olivia needs me.”

  Sighing, Ethan waved a hand. “Go. Go. But I’ll see you at four. Right?”

  “At four,” she promised, beating a hasty retreat.

  Saved by the beep.

  After the bells.

  She couldn’t even get her metaphors right, she thought grimly, but at least she hadn’t made a fool of herself, though with Ethan that was increasingly a near thing.

  Chapter Ten

  “Whose idea was this log cabin?” Livvie grumbled as she shoved at the stump beside the back wall of the small structure that took pride of place in the center of the museum gallery. The preserved stump had been placed picturesquely, the blade of an ax affixed into a precisely carved cut in its top.

  “You know it was Mayor Shaw’s,” Robin muttered, applying an aging compound to the hewn ends of the small logs. A construction crew had erected the structure to Olivia’s specifications. Now she and Olivia were dressing it for display. “That’s why the plaque says that he and his wife endowed the exhibit.”

  “It does make an interesting focal point,” Olivia conceded, sprinkling dirt over the tracks she’d made.

  A pot of faux beans hung over the faux blaze in the rock fireplace inside, visible through the open door, while a seasonally appropriate pair of hares waited on the porch for skinning and cleaning. In spring they would trade the hare for fish and add onions and field greens. Summer would see berries, potatoes and larger game rotated into the display. Autumn would provide the greatest bounty. They’d set up smoking racks in the “yard” to show how meat had been processed for storage. Except Robin wouldn’t be here to assist Olivia with any of those displays.

  She wouldn’t know what Christmas was like in Jasper Gulch next year either, or the Fourth of July, for that matter. She would never see this valley at normal, after the six-month-long centennial celebration had concluded, the bridge was reopened and life had gotten back to its everyday cadence. She would only ever have these months and this time of the centennial.

  Robin stopped what she was doing and looked around her at the displays in their glass cases. Here unfolded the history of Jasper Gulch, Montana, from its earliest settlement to its founding through the following century to today. Just over nine hundred souls called this little stopover home, yet it bore a proud and noble heritage, sheltered by the surrounding mountains, its r
oots sinking deep into the valley floor. She was shocked to realize that the city of Albuquerque alone contained a population of well over half a million people, while the whole state of Montana, the fourth-largest in the United States by area, boasted barely more than a million, and every one of them hardy, determined, independent and, at the same time, neighborly in every sense of the word. She’d come to Montana to find family, but Montana was family, one big, far-flung, let-me-give-you-a-hand family. And she was leaving it all behind her.

  It had taken a concerted effort to mess up things this badly, but she’d managed it.

  Not a single person in this town deserved the dishonesty she had dished out since her arrival, nor the cowardly retreat she planned. Olivia, who had befriended and hired her, didn’t deserve it. Rusty, who had kept her secret and tried to help her, didn’t deserve it. The parents and children and performers in the pageant didn’t deserve it. The ladies on the decorating and costume committees didn’t deserve it. The women in the a cappella quartet didn’t deserve it. Mamie Fidler, who had been almost a second mother to her, certainly did not deserve such treatment from Robin. Even the Shaws, who had shown her nothing but respect and kindness, did not deserve to be lied to, tricked and ultimately dismissed for her pride’s sake.

  Most of all, Ethan did not deserve to be treated the way she was treating him. He deserved every consideration, all honesty, every bit of support she could give him and all the happiness this world could provide. To think that he’d worried she would look down on him because of something his father had done made her feel small and unworthy. He deserved the truth from her, and she deserved whatever came after that. Her pride had no say in the matter anymore.

  Robin finished up what she was doing, then put away her tools before checking the time. Almost fifty minutes before she had to return to the church.

  “Liv, do you mind if I call it a day? I have something to do before dress rehearsal.”