The Rancher's Christmas Promise

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  His dimple appeared. “There you go.”

  “Have you told Adelaide?”

  He smiled slightly. “Who do you think reminded me that a bride should have flowers on her wedding day?”

  And just like that, her chest felt tight all over again. “You called my family, but will she come, too?”

  He shook his head. “She doesn’t travel anymore, remember?”

  “Has she met Layla?”

  “I had sort of figured I’d visit for Christmas. A few days. Can’t spare a lot of time away from the ranch.” He was silent for a moment. “We could go. You know. As a family.”

  “That sounds nice.” She lifted her small bouquet and inhaled the lovely, calming scent, though it wasn’t quite enough to soothe away the disconcerting butterflies flitting around inside her. “Did she tell you to choose fresh lavender, too?”

  “Didn’t need to. They were the only flowers that seemed fitting for a woman who lives in a house like yours.”

  “Lived,” she corrected, and looked down at her family. “Well. We can’t stand here forever, I suppose. At least they’re smiling.”

  “Yep.” He muttered an oath when Layla yanked his tie again. “You’re gonna strangle me with it, aren’t you, Short-Stuff?”

  “I’ll take her.” Greer handed him her clutch and bouquet, lifted Layla out of his arms and propped her on her hip. Then she took back her bouquet.

  He gave her clutch a wry look, then slid it into his pocket. “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  And they continued down the stairs.

  They’d barely made it to the bottom before a collective command came for them to stop where they were. Out came a half dozen cell phones to take their pictures. But then, clearly too excited to wait a second longer, Meredith darted up to greet them, throwing her arms around Greer and Layla, engulfing them in her familiar, uniquely Meredith fragrance.

  “Oh, my darlings,” she cried, and somehow Greer managed to lose Layla to Meredith in the embrace. But then her mom always had been sly that way. She kissed the baby’s face. “You’ve grown so much! And you!” Meredith dragged Ryder’s head down and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek before he had a hope in heaven of avoiding it. He gave Greer a vaguely startled look. “I knew you were a special man,” Meredith was saying, “and when you called us last night, I—”

  “Last night!” Greer gave him a look.

  “You were home doing your thing. I was doing mine.”

  Meredith laced her free arm through Ryder’s and pulled him the rest of the way down the steps. Since his hand was locked onto Greer’s, that meant she went, too, and they didn’t stop until they came up against her father’s stalwart body. Carter’s service in the military might have ended decades earlier, before Greer, Ali and Maddie were even an idea, but he still carried himself as though he wore a uniform and a chest full of medals.

  He and Ryder were about the same height. But Ryder’s brawny build, hidden so spectacularly beneath his tailored suit, made him seem even larger than her dad.

  The men were eyeing each other. Taking measure.

  Predictably, her dad went on the offensive. “Guess you didn’t figure you needed to call and get permission to marry my daughter before you just did it.”

  “Dad! I don’t need—” Greer broke off when he lifted his hand. She looked to her mother. “Mom.”

  Meredith just gave her an amused look. She was as unconventional as her husband was conventional, and yet together, they were the perfect couple.

  “If I’d done that, and Greer had found out, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be standing here this morning with my ring on her finger,” Ryder replied easily.

  “Darn right,” Greer started, only to break off again when her dad gave her the same silencing look he’d given all of them growing up.

  “The fact that you didn’t call for permission makes me feel you know my girl pretty well. The fact that you let us know so we could be here this morning makes me think you’ve got a few good brain cells.”

  “Dad!”

  “But the fact that my girl chose you, well, that says a lot, too.” He looked over at Greer’s sisters. “I didn’t raise any of my daughters to choose badly. So.” He stuck out his hand. “Welcome to the family, son.”

  It was ridiculous, but Greer’s eyes stung a little as her father shook Ryder’s hand.

  After that, it was pretty much a free-for-all. She wasn’t sure if they would have made it from the courthouse steps to Josephine’s diner if Ryder hadn’t taken charge and made it happen. There was a general jostling for seats and the usual chaos of menus and ordering for such a large party, but the diner was half-empty and nobody else there seemed to mind.

  Greer now had stiff competition for Layla’s attention. Between Ali and Maddie and her mother fawning, Layla was wholly and delightedly occupied. Linc, with tiny Liam sleeping against his shoulder, was holding his own in a debate about politics with Vivian and Hayley’s husband, Seth, who had tiny Keely sleeping against his shoulder. Hayley was trying in vain to change the subject before Carter blew a gasket and jumped into the lively exchange. At the other end of the tables, Rosalind and Archer were giving each other the same fulminating glares they’d always exchanged growing up. Which left Grant. Sitting on the other side of Ryder.

  Greer considered offering to switch seats with Ryder, but decided not to. Instead, she just stood up from her own chair and crouched a little, wedging herself in the narrow space between them. A human buffer between her new husband and his former brother-in-law.

  The looks she earned from both of them were nearly identical.

  She wanted to point that out but knew better. Among her relatives, there was already the likely explosion over politics before too long. She didn’t want to chance adding more combustible material because of Ryder’s and Grant’s mutual grudges.

  The fact that Grant had accompanied Ali was promising as far as Greer was concerned, and she gave him a bright smile. “Ali tells me you’re working on something new. I think that’s great. How’s it coming?”

  “Fair.”

  She looked from him to Ryder. Grant’s hair was blacker than Ryder’s, his blue eyes lighter. Grant had a swimmer’s build. Ryder, a linebacker’s. Grant was an author who’d already made a fortune several times over with his military thrillers. Ryder was a rancher, whose resources were considerably more modest. They couldn’t be more different.

  Their only common ground was Layla and the mother who’d abandoned her.

  “Ryder was in the army,” she said brightly. She rested her hand on his shoulder. “How long were you in?”

  He knew what she was trying to do. She could tell. “Four years. Right outta high school.”

  “And you, Grant?” She glanced at Ryder again. “He served in the air force. That’s how he started writing the CCT Rules series. From his experiences there.” She looked from Ryder’s face to Grant’s. “You put in a fair amount of time, didn’t—”

  “Yoohoo!” The loud greeting came from across the diner and Greer automatically glanced over. Ryder, on the other hand, shoved back his seat with an exclamation and strode toward the tall, gangly woman who’d entered the restaurant.

  She had hair dyed black, and turquoise dripping from her ears and her neck and surrounding nearly every finger. A designer dog carrier hung from one skinny shoulder and Greer could hear the yapping of a dog.

  There was no question in Greer’s mind who the woman was when Ryder swung her right off her feet in a boisterous hug.

  No matter what he’d said, Adelaide had still come.

  Across the table, Vivian suddenly stood. She was staring at the woman, too. “Oh, my word! That’s Adelaide Arians.”

  “Who the hell’s Adelaide Arians?” Grant asked.

  “She raised Ryder.” Greer had to push the words through the ache
in her throat. Across the restaurant, Ryder had set Adelaide back on her feet and she’d handed him something. As Greer watched, he shook his head as if refusing, but then he looked her way and seemed to still.

  “She’s only considered one of the seminal artists of our age,” Vivian was saying as if it were a fact any person should know. “Her work hangs in the Museum of Modern Art! Wyoming and culture are simply two different universes,” she huffed. “Sometimes I wonder why I bothered coming here.” She tugged at the sleeves of her Chanel suit, and the diamonds on her fingers winked.

  “Spoken like the snob you are,” Carter observed acidly.

  “Dad,” Hayley started to caution. She was always trying to be the peacemaker between their father and his mother.

  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, son.” Vivian spoke right over her. “You just save your judgment for me.”

  “You are impossible!” At the other end of the table, Rosalind had risen from her seat and was glaring at Archer. In turn, he wore the goading expression he always had around her. “Just crawl back under your rock!” Rosalind was practically shrieking.

  Liam and Keely were no longer sleeping like little angels against their daddies’ shoulders. They both were crying. Which had their mamas jostling to get out of their chairs to resolve the situation.

  Layla was banging her sippy cup against the table and joyfully knocking down the towers of plastic creamer containers that Meredith built for her.

  And there was Ryder, drawing his aunt up to their table, which had suddenly lost its collective mind. Whatever his aunt had given him was no longer in evidence.

  “And this must be her.” Adelaide had an unexpectedly booming voice that carried over the bedlam. She gave Greer an appraising look, but there was a glint of humor in her heavily made-up eyes and a smile on her deeply red lips that helped calm the sudden butterflies inside Greer’s stomach. “I’ve got to say, Ryder my boy, your taste has sure improved since that last one.”

  Grant shoved his chair back and stood. He tossed down his napkin and walked out of the restaurant.

  “Oh, dear.” Adelaide’s voice could have filled an auditorium without need for a microphone. She set the dog carrier on the chair he’d abandoned. “Did I say something wrong?”

  Ryder looked at Greer.

  She exhaled. “So. Not everything can go as smoothly as it did with the judge.”

  He frowned. But the lines beside his eyes crinkled slightly and his dimple came out of hiding.

  Greer held out her hand toward his aunt. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Ms. Arians. I’m Greer.”

  “Call me Adelaide,” she boomed, and jerked Greer into a nearly bone-crushing hug. “Oh, yes, indeed, the next few months are going to be great fun!”

  She let go of Greer so suddenly, she had to catch her balance. “You’re going to stay for a while, then?”

  “Right through Christmas, sugar pie.” Adelaide adjusted the eye-popping tie-dyed scarf she wore around her wrinkled neck. “Now where’s the little peanut at the center of all these goings-on? Oh, there you are.” She strode around the table. “Cute little thing!”

  Layla’s eyes went round as saucers as she stared warily up at the tall, loud Adelaide. She banged her cup a few times, but without her usual emphatic enthusiasm. Then she opened her mouth and wailed.

  Adelaide whipped one of her chunky rings off a finger and waved it in front of Layla. The distraction worked enough to have Layla grabbing the bauble, but not enough to silence her plaintive howling. Adelaide laughed delightedly. “Little thing already knows what she likes and doesn’t like!”

  “She’s gonna put that ring in her mouth,” Ryder warned.

  “And why not? You used to do that when you were a little mite, too. Stone’s the size of a golf ball. She’s not gonna choke on it!” She stood there, hands on her skinny hips, and grinned down at Layla.

  Greer’s arm brushed Ryder’s. She was curious about what Adelaide had given him, but figured if he wanted to mention it, he would. Meanwhile, the cacophony around them was only increasing, made worse by the dog’s shrill yipping from inside the carrier. She had to raise her voice. “Still think the one-big-family thing is going to be all it’s cracked up to be?”

  He dropped his arm around her shoulder. “Time’ll tell, Counselor. Time’ll tell.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “...Happy birthday, dear Layla, happy birthday to you!”

  While their party guests finished singing, Greer set the cake she’d gotten from Tabby Clay in front of Layla. It was shaped like an enormous white cupcake with huge swirls of pink frosting on top, and had a single oversize white candle.

  “No, no, no,” Layla chanted as she looked at the confection facing her. It had become her favorite word of late. Along with “Dadda” and “bye-bye” and “sus-suh,” which Greer had figured out was her version of “Short-Stuff.” She even had a name for Brutus and Adelaide.

  But there had been no more instances of “mama,” inadvertent or otherwise.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Greer told her, and shooed Brutus away so she could scoot Layla’s chair with its booster seat closer to the table. “It’s the prettiest cake for the prettiest girl.”

  “You guys need to sit next to her,” Maddie ordered, gesturing at Ryder. “I want a picture of the three of you together.” She had Liam strapped to her chest in a fabric carrier and a camera in her hand.

  It was October 27.

  And though they’d planned to have Layla’s first birthday party outdoors, an early snow had put paid to the notion. Which was why the family was instead crowding around the dinner table inside.

  “So we don’t really know for sure this is her birthday?” Even after two months with them, Adelaide’s voice could still reach the back row of an auditorium.

  Greer, sitting down on one side of Layla, looked over at Ryder, who’d pulled out the chair on the other side.

  He returned her wry look. “No, we don’t know for sure,” he told his aunt, not for the first time, “but since we could never find out exactly where or when she was born, it’s as close as we can determine. So this is what we’ve chosen.”

  “You know it was your grandmother’s birthday, too!” Adelaide now had her camera out. But since she was just as likely to take a photo of a dust mote that caught her interest as she was to capture Layla’s expression when she smashed her hands into the cake, Greer was glad Maddie was there with the fancy digital camera that Linc had gotten after Liam’s birth.

  Ryder caught Greer’s eye above Layla and winked. He hadn’t shaved in the last few days, and Greer hadn’t quite decided whether she liked the stubbled look or not. “I know it was, Adelaide,” he said patiently.

  “Don’t you think it’ll be confusing if you ever find out where and when she really was born?”

  “It won’t really matter,” Meredith answered before they could. She slipped closer to the table, snapping off pictures with her cell phone while skillfully managing not to trip over Brutus. “Layla’s going to have a brand-new birth certificate once the adoption’s final.”

  Ryder’s hand went to the back of Layla’s chair, and his fingers came close to touching Greer’s.

  But didn’t.

  “You going to let my niece demolish that cake, or what?” That came from Grant, who was leaning against the couch with Ali beside him.

  It might have been two months since he’d walked out on Greer and Ryder’s wedding breakfast, but there had been little sign of softening between Ryder and him. The two men were grudgingly polite whenever there was a family event, like today, but that was as far as it went.

  Frankly, it made Greer want to smack their two stubborn heads together. But generally, she didn’t have time to worry about it too much. Not with taking care of Layla, who was walking now and getting into everything. It was almost impossible to take the
toddler with her to the Victorian, where she was trying to supervise the work of the two-man crew Ryder had found. Luckily, Meredith had come to the rescue. She never missed an opportunity to babysit. She’d started on the day of the wedding, insisting that Ryder and Greer should have a proper wedding night.

  What Ryder and Greer had had was an awkward wedding night spent sleeping on opposite sides of his wide bed. As if their marathon of lovemaking the night of the rainstorm had never occurred.

  She’d never believed that night would be a one-and-done, as he put it. Yet it basically was. Sure, they’d indulged themselves several times that night. So was it a one-and-done or three-and-done? What was the difference?

  There had been no repeat performance.

  “Of course she’s going to demolish her cake,” she assured Grant, blocking the memories as she drew it a little closer to Layla. “This is all yours, sweetie.” She pulled one of Layla’s fingers through the icing and caught it in her mouth, sucking it off noisily. It was more whipped cream than frosting. “Yum yum.”

  “Num!” Layla lovingly patted Greer’s face. Her green eyes were full of devotion. “Nummy.”

  Feeling like her heart would burst, Greer pressed a kiss to their toddler’s palm. She couldn’t keep herself from looking up at Ryder.

  He was grinning; he looked dark and piratical with his short, stubbly beard. “Nummy, indeed.”

  She tried to ignore the heat shimmering through her, but it was futile.

  Instead, she turned her focus back to Layla. Camera shutters clicked all around them as she suddenly launched herself toward her cake, squealing with pure, excited delight, sending Brutus into a frenzy of yipping.

  It was, Greer decided, a very perfect first birthday for their little girl.

  Eventually, though, it was time to clean up the mess.

  Not surprisingly, at that exact moment, everyone conveniently found something else to do.

  Vivian and Meredith took off in Vivian’s ostentatious Rolls-Royce; heaven only knew where or for what purpose. Her grandmother was a terrible driver, but as long as Vivian didn’t run her car over something or someone, Greer wasn’t going to worry about it. Maddie and Ali were upstairs, giving Layla and Liam a bath. And all of the men, along with Adelaide and the dog, were out checking the cows Ryder had gathered in the big pasture over the last few weeks.