"That's why I was smart enough to marry a woman who's brilliant at the whole thing," another voice interjected and Nate looked over to find Wade had joined them.
Some covert ops specialist he was. He hadn't heard the man's approach over the noise from the pool. For one wild second, he wanted to shove the bastard into the water, but he knew that was unfair. Probably.
"We're comparing notes on being thrown into the deep end when it comes to kids," Seth said.
"My only advice is, just try to keep your head above water and paddle like hell. Not much else you can do," Wade said.
Despite his—okay, he could admit it—jealousy, Nate had to smile. "My arms are just about ready to fall off," he admitted.
"You've got it tough because you're on your own," Seth said. "Wade did that for a few years after his first wife died."
"It wasn't easy on anybody," Wade agreed. "At least I had my mom to help out. I don't know what we would have done without her."
His voice trailed off and he looked embarrassed for a moment, as if he'd suddenly remembered what had happened between Nate's mother and Hank Dalton and why Linda Cavazos wasn't in the picture.
"Caroline tells me you're thinking about closing the guest ranch," he said after an awkward moment.
"Thinking about it. I haven't made a decision yet, but as I've been going over the ranch accounts and familiarizing myself with the books, I'm figuring out it's a small part of our revenue base, but ends up taking a disproportionate expenditure of energy and resources. Besides that, I'm not sure I'm cut out for the hospitality industry."
"You planning to expand the ranching side of things, then?"
Why is it any of your damn business? he wanted to ask, but he wouldn't be outright rude. "I haven't decided anything yet."
"I'm asking because I might have a lead on some summer grazing allotments that are coming up for bid, if you're interested."
He blinked, stunned by the offer. Grazing allotments from the federal government that allowed ranchers to move their cattle onto forest service land for the summer were highly coveted, more valuable around here than gold. "Why don't you want them?"
Wade shrugged. "We've used the same allotments for thirty years and they meet our current needs just fine." He paused. "I will add, though, that if you think you might end up selling Hope Springs altogether, I'd like first crack at it."
He stared at the other man as all his old feelings of resentment and suspicion welled up in his chest.
"I'm still weighing my options," he said firmly, when what he wanted to say was that he would sell the ranch to the Daltons the minute palm trees started growing at Hope Springs in January.
"Fair enough," Wade said. He didn't seem at all offended. "I just wanted you to know."
After Christmas he was going to have to make a decision. He couldn't continue waffling. Either he had to give a hundred percent to the ranch or he ought to sell it and take the girls somewhere else. Maybe not sell it to the Daltons, but to someone.
He didn't know what he would do besides being a soldier or a rancher, but he could figure something out.
If he didn't keep paddling, the only other option was to sink like a stone, and he wasn't ready to do that yet.
* * *
She didn't belong here.
The food was delicious, the conversation interesting, the company warm and friendly toward her. As she sat in the kitchen surrounded by women talking about their children and the holidays and memories they shared, Emery couldn't escape the inevitable conclusion that she was once more on the outside looking in.
She took a small bite of a cranberry tart. On some subconscious level she registered it was delicious, with just the perfect combination of sweetness and edge. But she was barely aware of what she ate.
Part of her longed, quite fiercely, to be part of their close-knit group. She wanted to be teased by Seth Dalton, to have the right to shower gifts on her nieces and nephews, to have these women as her friends and sisters.
This craving for a big, noisy, crazy family was as fierce as it was unexpected. Maybe it was because her mother had been her last remaining relative and her death left Emery unutterably alone. Or maybe that longing had always lurked somewhere inside her, buried deep by the reality of being an only child of only children.
Or not.
She swallowed the last morsel of the tart. For all she knew, maybe Hank Dalton had a dozen brothers, and she had a fleet of cousins she knew nothing about.
How would the Dalton brothers and their families react if they knew the outsider from Virginia shared half their DNA?
One brief sentence. That's all it would take. She could tell Caroline or Jenny Dalton right now and the word would spread in a moment.
What would they think if they knew she was Hank Dalton's daughter with a tourist who had indulged in a brief affair twenty-seven years ago?
She sighed. The idea of spilling the news to them all seemed selfish and desperate suddenly. How could it be anything else? She was the one with everything to gain by sharing the information. She would have an instant extended family. Noisy children and darling chubby babies and three instant sisters-in-law to love.
What would they all have to gain? Only her. A boring textile designer who had spent her entire life trying—and failing—to be perfect.
She was quite certain telling the Daltons about her blood link to them would have unexpected ripples of consequence, like the ripples from a rock thrown into a pond.
"Emery, do you mind taking that plate of spinach pinwheels out to the great room?" Jenna McRaven asked. Her hostess was warm and friendly and, true to the girls' assurances, cooked like a dream.
"Oh, and don't let my husband near them or no one else will get any," Jenna said with a grin. "You can tell Carson if he puts up any kind of a fuss that I'm saving a private stash for him for later."
Emery managed to return her smile then walked into the great room where most of the guests had gathered. Several new people had arrived while she was in the kitchen. As she was setting the spinach rolls on the overflowing buffet table, an older woman in a glittery silver lamé blouse snatched one up.
"I love these things," she said with an expression of glee. "I was hoping Jenna would make them."
"They are good," Emery said politely.
"I don't think I know you," the woman said, squinting at her. "Are you a friend of the McRavens?"
"I'm actually a guest at Hope Springs until the end of the week. I'm here with Nate Cavazos."
The older woman's features lit up into a particularly lovely smile. "You must be the woman from Virginia. Caroline and Wade told me you might be coming. I'm Marjorie Montgomery. Used to be Dalton. Wade's mother."
If she hadn't already set the platter of food down, Emery was certain she would have dumped the whole thing all over Marjorie Dalton Montgomery's feet in her shock.
This was the wife Hank Dalton had neglected to mention to Emery's mother while he was busy seducing the starry-eyed girl fascinated by the romance of the West. The little she had eaten all night seemed to churn greasily in her stomach. Hank Dalton's wife. How foolish of her not to have even a moment of consideration for the woman in all this.
"How are you enjoying your stay?" Marjorie asked.
"It's been lovely," she managed to say through her suddenly dry mouth. "Everyone has been more than kind."
"Folks around here take care of each other, whether you've lived here all your life or just dropped in for a visit," she said with a warm smile. "Why, take my second husband. Four years ago, he moved here without knowing a soul but me. And Caroline, of course. She's his daughter. Which makes her my stepdaughter and my daughter-in-law both. Anyway, four years later, now Quinn has his own real estate office and he's on the Pine Gulch town council. Everybody warmed to him real quick."
"I've found everyone around here very friendly," Emery said.
"Carrie tells me you're a textile designer."
"That's right. I design fabric, mo
stly for the home. Pillows, curtains, that sort of thing."
"Fabric stores are my favorite places to shop!" Marjorie exclaimed. "I belong to a quilting group in town. It's one of my passions. We get together every other Thursday and do about eight or nine quilts a year, then we auction them off for charity every year."
"I'm making a couple of quilts right now, actually," Emery said. "I could have used your help today when I was piecing them."
They talked a few more moments about quilts, until a petite Hispanic woman who reminded Emery of Maggie Dalton approached them. After a few moments, their conversation shifted to a recent library board meeting.
As she listened to their conversation with half an ear about people she didn't know and future events she wouldn't be part of, the grim truth settled over her, dank and overpowering.
She couldn't tell the Daltons her identity. Not when doing so would force ugly secrets up like sludge from the ground. If she shared with them the story her mother had told her, she would have to tell Marjorie Dalton Montgomery that her husband had cheated on her when she had three young boys, the youngest probably only in kindergarten.
As much as she would love a ready-made family, the chance to have a genuine place among them, how could she justify the hurt she would likely cause along the way?
Her chest ached at what she would be giving up, but she knew it was the right decision.
She should never have come to Pine Gulch. Better never to have met the Daltons and find them people she was almost certain she could like and admire than to have to carry that knowledge with her when she left.
But if she had never come here, she wouldn't have met Nate and the girls.
As if her thoughts had summoned him, she heard Nate's deep voice and then Tallie's higher-pitched one. She turned to find them in a corner of the room. His niece must have decided she was tired of swimming. She had dressed again and Nate was busy toweling off her dark hair with a beach towel decorated with the Little Mermaid.
Something fluttered through her chest as she watched the tough, dangerous soldier take care of the little girl.
Leaving them would be extraordinarily difficult. All three of them—Nate, Tallie and Claire—had somehow sneaked into her heart when she wasn't looking.
She would have to, though. And she would survive. She had endured the loss of her child and her marriage and her parents. She could endure few more losses.
At least she hoped so.
Chapter Twelve
Christmas Eve was her least favorite day of the year.
After the alarm on her cell phone buzzed her awake just before sunrise, Emery lay in bed and gazed at the log beams of her rented cabin, wishing she had more of a stomach for drinking so she could spend the day in an alcohol-induced stupor.
Her arms never felt as empty as they did on this day, little Gracie's birthday and date of her death.
If her world hadn't changed so painfully and abruptly two years ago today, her baby girl would have been toddling around their house in Hampton, pulling ornaments off the tree, gabbing away little nonsense words.
She would have been a good mother. Her experience the past few days with the girls verified that for her. She would have adored showing Gracie the magic and wonder of life in general and Christmas in particular.
She sat up and used the corner of the flannel sheet to dab at her eyes. She had far too much work to do to indulge in sitting here feeling sorry for herself, swallowed by her grief, and she was suddenly enormously grateful for that.
Though she had worked late in the night after the party at the McRavens' to finish Claire's quilt, she still needed to bind it and then finish machine-quilting Tallie's. She was going to have to sew her fingers to the bone in order to get them both done in time.
The reminder energized her, renewed her, and she slid from the bed. The best cure for self-pity and sadness was to pour all those negative energies into doing something positive for someone else.
Sewing those quilts for the girls was better for her psyche than months of therapy.
Several hours later, she sewed the last seam on the binding of Claire's quilt, then eased her chair away from the sewing machine, suddenly conscious that every muscle in her body ached, from her tense shoulders to her dry eyelids to the arch of her foot from pressing the sewing machine pedal.
She needed a long soak in a hot tub.
Or at least a nap.
She glanced at her watch and was stunned to see it was after four. She had been sewing virtually nonstop for ten hours. No wonder she felt as if she'd been trampled in a cattle stampede.
She picked up the quilt and carried it into her bedroom, where she had spread Tallie's quilt earlier in order to admire the finished product.
Though she had used the same mix of fabrics pieced from their parents' clothing in both of them, she had opted for different designs to show their individual personalities. Tallie's was whimsical and cute, a trail of colorful butterflies dancing across the pale pink background, offset by the brown edge. Claire's was a little more grown-up, a traditional Lone Star pattern with a large six-pointed star in the center, radiating color out to the edge.
She had used a mix of materials snipped from Suzi's and John's clothing in complementary colors and she had chosen brown backing for Tallie's and pink for Claire's. Considering the short time she had to work on them, she was amazed at how they'd turned out. She only hoped the girls would like them.
Her stomach grumbled and she frowned when she realized she hadn't eaten since the quick egg-white omelet she'd made for protein that morning.
She was standing at the refrigerator poring over her limited options for Christmas Eve dinner and had just about settled on a grilled cheese sandwich when she suddenly heard what sounded like muffled crying, followed quickly by a knock on her front door.
The girls!
"Coming. Just a moment," she called out, then rushed to the bedroom where the quilts were still spread and yanked closed the door, grateful she had already gathered all the scraps from the clothing she had cut up and tucked them carefully away in the boxes Nate had left on her doorstep.
Her tight shoulder muscles yelped in protest when she reached to open the door, but she forgot all about her aches and her worry that they would discover the quilts prematurely when she saw the two distressed little faces on the other side.
"What is it? Are you hurt? Is it your uncle?"
"Everything's ruined!" The cry was all the more distressing coming from Claire. Solid, dependable, serious Claire.
"What's ruined, honey? Come inside out of the cold and tell me what's wrong."
Both girls hurried into the room in tears, though at first glance it appeared to Emery that Tallie was crying more in sympathy with her sister than out of any real upset.
"We messed up everything," Tallie sniffled.
"I tried so hard," Claire said. "We wanted everything to be perfect for Uncle Nate but the masa is lumpy and gross and won't spread on the cornhusks and I burned my finger on the chili peppers and now the stupid tamales won't roll right."
She blinked, more than a little lost. "You're making tamales?"
Claire nodded. "We always have tamales on Christmas Eve. Our mama used to tell us she always had tamales on Christmas Eve so we thought Uncle Nate would like them. Joanie helped us buy the stuff before she ran off and I've been hiding it in so Uncle Nate wouldn't know. Only I can't make them right and now everything is ruined."
Her tears seemed disproportionate to the current crisis and Emery pulled her close, her heart aching as she realized Claire's distress likely had more to do with missing her mother than out of any tamale-induced trauma.
"We thought maybe you could help us," Tallie said. "You can fix everything."
"Me?" She hoped her gulp wasn't audible to the girls. "I'm afraid I don't know anything about tamales."
"We have Mama's recipe book," Claire said. "I know what we're supposed to do, I just can't seem to do it."
She wa
s exhausted, her muscles tight and achy, and cooking wasn't her area of expertise in the first place. But how could she simply ignore their suffering?
"Where's your uncle?"
"Doing chores," Claire answered. "He was supposed to be back already, but he called and said he had a problem with one of the horses and he'd be up as soon as he could. Dinner's never going to be done because tamales have to cook forever and we only rolled four of them."
"Will you help us?" Tallie begged.
"Oh, please." Claire added her voice. "Christmas Eve will be completely ruined if you don't."
They sounded so dramatic that she would have smiled if they hadn't both been perfectly in earnest.
This wasn't about tamales, she thought again. This was about two grieving little girls trying to hang on to traditions that had been lost with their parents. She didn't have the heart to refuse, even though she didn't think she would be any more proficient at the task than they seemed to be.
"Of course I'll help you." She ignored the twinge in her muscles when she reached for her coat and scarf. After she had put them on, she reached a hand out to each girl.
"Let's go. Christmas Eve tamales coming right up."
* * *
The girls were going to skin him.
He was late and they were going to be starving by the time he managed to heat up the lasagna from the freezer he had planned for dinner. He should have called again and had Claire put it in, but he'd gotten distracted in the barn and it had completely slipped his mind.
So dinner would be late. No big deal, he assured himself. Maybe if the girls stayed up later, they might have an easier time getting to sleep on Christmas Eve. Of course, they probably wouldn't be happy about having to wait for their dinner, but he hoped he could make it up to them when he explained the reason for the delay.
He pushed open the door. "Hey, girls," he called, "I have a surprise for you."
And then the scents washed over him, wave after wave, and he froze.
Suddenly he was a kid again, spending Christmas Eve surrounded by the delectable scents of corn flour and peppers and pork roast, in an endless agony of anticipation as he waited for their traditional tamales to steam.
A Cold Creek Holiday Page 14