Christmas in Three Rivers: Three Rivers Ranch Romance Novella Collection

by Isaacson, Liz

  Because Jon didn’t go to parties. Certainly not Halloween parties. He certainly saw nothing worth celebrating about the holiday.

  Movement caught his peripheral vision and he reached to unbuckle his seatbelt. “Hey,” he called to Grace as he got out of his truck. “I brought the dry ice.”

  “Perfect.” She met him at the tailgate with a rolling cooler. “You need this?”

  He pulled the cooler full of dry ice from the truck bed. “No, I think I got it.”

  “Okay, let’s put it in the kitchen. Most of the party will be in the backyard, but I’ve never trusted coolers to keep things cold.”

  Jon chuckled as he followed her into her house. He’d never been inside, because they either went out after he finished working, or she stayed out at the ranch for the evening, or he followed her home and kissed her pressed up against her front door.

  He kicked the door closed behind him and put the cooler where she indicated he should. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, his nerves settling and his stomach swooping with her eager response. “I’ve missed you the last couple of days,” he murmured into her hair as he rubbed slow circles on her back.

  “Mm, that’s nice to hear.” She pulled back and grinned at him. “Now come on. You promised to help and well, this isn’t exactly helping.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Not the kind of help I need right now.” She handed him a stack of serving trays and indicated a row of folding tables that had been set up in her backyard. “Put these trays on those tables.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He allowed her to boss him around, putting brownies on some trays, and cookies on another, and tarts on still more. By the time Heidi arrived, Jon thought Grace had surely done everything worth doing.

  But Heidi brought in a basket filled with black and orange decorations, and she and Grace set about placing and adjusting and fixing every witch and each skeleton and all the bats until they were exactly right.

  Jon helped at first, but when he caught Grace moving a cauldron he’d placed too close to the edge of the table, he took to carrying things from the house to the yard until the women declared things done.

  By then, Chelsea and her family had arrived, along with Kelly and her family. Garth Ahlstrom, the foreman at Three Rivers Ranch, pulled in just as Jon closed Heidi’s trunk and pocketed her keys.

  He exchanged a hello with the foreman and his wife, a sharp stab of unexpected longing knifing him between the ribs as Garth put his son on his shoulders and headed through the garage. Jon stood stock still, staring after them, unsure as to what he was feeling and why. He’d never thought much about having a family. Never envisioned himself as married. Never even considered being a dad.

  But now…his gaze wandered to the glowing square of a window in Grace’s house, and he thought he’d like to be a family with her.

  Anger accompanied the thought. So what? he asked himself—and God—with an edge of fury in the question.

  “I’m not moving here,” he vowed as he marched through the garage and into Grace’s house. “I’m not.”

  Jon managed to act his way through the party. He mingled and mixed and played games and ate more than a man should be able to consume. He held Grace’s hand, and kept his arm around her waist, and pressed his lips to her temple. If anyone had any doubt about the status of his relationship with her before the party, they certainly wouldn’t after.

  The last of the partiers finally departed, leaving Grace and Jon with Heidi. Her husband had been smart and driven a separate car.

  “Feedback was amazing, Grace.” Heidi beamed at her. “I think the recipes we used today are the ones we should go with.”

  “I still want to try something different with that pumpkin pie tart.”

  “That will be a seasonal item anyway.” Heidi’s joviality faded.

  Grace sighed and her eyes closed in a long blink. Jon knew she didn’t stay up until eleven p.m., and he wondered if she’d be able to sleep past three tonight. “You’re right. I’ll tweak it as we go.”

  “Thank you, Grace.” She picked up one basket of décor.

  “Let me help you, ma’am.” Jon collected a box of empty trays, which had held loaves of bread when she’d arrived. It took him a couple of trips, but he got everything out to her car and Heidi on her way in just a few minutes.

  When he returned to the house, he found Grace fast asleep, her head cradled in her arms on the dining room table. He paused and watched her, the gentle rise of her upper back as she breathed in and out bringing a smile to his face.

  He stepped toward her and crouched. “Grace,” he said, but she didn’t stir. For the first time—the first real time—he considered relocating to Three Rivers. He brushed her hair off the side of her face, the touch as electrifying as it was soft.

  “I don’t know if I can do it, Gracie,” he whispered. “I really don’t like small towns.”

  She sighed, and he tried to wake her again, this time succeeding as her eyes flew open. He soothed her by rubbing his hand up and down her arm. “Hey, you should go to bed before falling asleep.”

  She gave him a bleary smile, he helped her stand, and she leaned into him, her eyes already closed again. “Thanks for your help, Jon.”

  “Anytime, Gracie Lou.” She didn’t protest at the use of her nickname, simply tilted her head back and stretched up to kiss him good-night. He obliged, a river of guilt flowing through him. He shouldn’t kiss her, lead her on, feel things for her when he was planning on leaving by Christmas.

  Grace leaned in the garage doorway and watched Jon back out of her driveway. She closed the garage door, the rumbling sound matching the quaking in her stomach.

  “He’s not going to stay,” she said as the echoes of sound rattled around the garage. “You heard him.” She turned, let the door fall closed, and locked it. She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped Jon would do when she pretended to stay asleep when he tried to wake her. Kiss her like Sleeping Beauty? Declare his undying love for her when he thought she couldn’t hear?

  She shook her head, the danger of crying very real and very close. She certainly hadn’t expected him to whisper that he didn’t think he could stay in town. She’d stirred the next time he said her name, and she couldn’t help kissing him good-bye. She didn’t want to have a hard conversation near midnight, when her brain wasn’t operational and her heart felt like it had been punctured by a coil of barbed wire.

  A tear fell and Grace swiped it away. Would she ever feel successful? Her failed cupcakery hung over her like a thundercloud, and she couldn’t hold back the waterworks this time.

  After a good cry and a long shower, Grace took a steeling breath and squared her shoulders. She’d just do here what she’d had to do to get into pastry school. Try, try again. She’d dreamed of attending culinary school in New York City, and it had taken three attempts before she’d gotten in.

  Maybe it’ll just take a third time with Jon too. She pulled on pajamas, brushed out her hair, and fell into bed, exhausted. But she didn’t want to break-up with him now and hope for a third chance meeting in the future.

  Help me understand, she prayed. At once, a sense of calmness filled her, and she knew she needed to trust in the Lord’s timing. She’d done it before with culinary school. With her cupcakery—although she’d lost her first shop in Dallas, Grace knew it was only a matter of timing before she’d own another bakery.

  She’d just have to trust God regarding Jon, too.

  Rain came with November, and Grace spent days inside, baking. Since Halloween and tasting her treats, the townspeople had been calling Grace and placing custom orders. With the bakery’s storefront unavailable, she fielded the calls, managed the payments, and either did the baking herself or called Heidi to get the orders filled.

  At first it was a birthday cake for a five-year-old’s party. But by the third week, with Thanksgiving around the weekend, Grace found her phone ringing while she was on it.

  She hung up with Amy Garrison,
who had just ordered a half-dozen pies for her family’s celebration the following week. Before she checked her messages, she dialed Heidi.

  “Hello, dear. How’s the baking going?”

  “We have a bit of a problem,” Grace started.

  Heidi sighed. “What is it now?” Though she sounded tired, she didn’t show signs of frustration. Grace admired her for her baking ability as well as her seemingly endless well of patience.

  “Amy Garrison just ordered six pies for pickup on Wednesday.” Her phone beeped, indicating another incoming call. “And my phone won’t stop ringing. When do we cut off the orders?”

  A few beats of silence had Grace picturing Heidi’s wise face contemplating her choices. “I’d hate to turn people away….”

  “We already have sixty-six pies to deliver on Wednesday alone,” Grace said. She could only bake four at a time. Heidi could cook an additional four. Without professional ovens and bakery-grade equipment, she’d allocated eight slots of baking time for her and Heidi for a total of sixty-four pies.

  “You talked about an assembly line once,” Heidi said. “Tell me more about that.”

  “Well, we make all the pie crusts and fillings—it helps that we’re only offering three varieties this season—and send several uncooked but ready-to-bake pies out to the ranch. Chelsea and Kelly could probably bake…sixteen or so pies each.” Grace felt bone-weary, and doing the math right now seemed impossible. But if Kelly and Chelsea could take two pie-baking slots each, they could bake sixteen pies in the morning and Grace could get them out to customers in the afternoon.

  “So we can take on thirty-two more.”

  “Only thirty,” Grace said firmly. “We’re already over by two on our own lists.”

  “Thirty more then,” Heidi said. “I guess I better get to the grocery store—and call Kelly and Chelsea.”

  Grace agreed and said good-bye. She answered the two messages she’d received and then updated the community Facebook page that only two dozen slots remained for pie orders. A thrill ran from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.

  Though backed by the iconic Heidi Ackerman, her baking seemed to finally be striking the right notes with people. Her mother’s voice snaked through her head, eliminating the rising euphoria.

  You should’ve started in your own kitchen, Grace. Her mother had been trying to help, Grace knew. But that didn’t make her words hurt any less. You should’ve gotten established before trying a storefront.

  In the end, her mother had been right. Grace knew it. Her mother knew it. Everyone knew it. And many bakers did exactly what she’d tried to skip—what she was doing now with Heidi, baking from her home kitchen and trying to fill as many orders as possible.

  The last pie slots sold out in the next half hour, and Grace headed over to Heidi’s to make the master shopping list. Along the way, her phone chimed, igniting a sense of dread in her stomach as heavy as a brick. She didn’t want to tell another person no. She’d put it on social media that they were full.

  She didn’t check the message until she’d parked at Heidi’s. Jon had texted, and that sent Grace’s stomach toward the heavens. She’d cooled their relationship over the past few weeks, citing her increased workload and the fact that she wasn’t coming out to the ranch everyday. He still called, and texted, and took her to dinner sometimes. They sat next to one another at church, but she hadn’t gone to another picnic, unable to face that park where she’d experienced the most perfect kiss of her life.

  She hit call instead of texting him back. “What’s up?” she asked as she got out of her car.

  “Nothing’s up. Just checking in.” Like he was her father or something. Grace couldn’t put her finger on why his statement annoyed her so much.

  “Busy,” she said. “About to meet with Heidi.”

  “I saw that you filled all your Thanksgiving pie slots.”

  “Yep.” Had he called to talk about her baking? He’d never done that before, and Grace wondered if they’d hit a new low in their conversation.

  “That’s too bad,” he said. “I was hoping you and I could enjoy a candlelit dinner for two, with a pecan pie for dessert.”

  She frowned at the flirty tone, at his suggestion that they’d spend Thanksgiving together. “I thought you were going home for Thanksgiving,” she said. “You’re not working, right?” She distinctly remembered him telling her that Brett wanted to be home to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family, who would then be coming to Texas until the project was finished. Jon had complained about having to move into one of the empty cowboy cabins and “fend for himself.”

  “Those plans fell through,” he said.

  “So I’m your second choice, is that it?” Her words flew from her mouth before she could tame them, and they had definite bite.

  “Grace—”

  She paused on the sidewalk at the base of Heidi’s condo. “Look, Jon, I think we should just be done. We’ve been playing around, and it’s been fun, but this isn’t serious.”

  The silence on the other end of the line made her check her phone to make sure they hadn’t been disconnected.

  “It isn’t?”

  She almost rolled her eyes. “No, it isn’t. You don’t live here, and you have no intention of moving here. I do live here, and I’m happy here, and I’m hoping this bakery will be a huge success so I can keep living here.”

  “It’s a—”

  “Don’t say it’s a technicality,” Grace said, her emotions spiraling up and out of control. She’d let him console her before, whisper words about how they didn’t need to decide anything now. But not anymore. It was time to end this relationship, and she knew it.

  “I’m sorry, Jon,” she said. “I like you. Given enough time, I’m certain I could fall in love with you. But I’m not willing to do that over the phone or on the Internet.” She took a deep breath to subdue the tears, but they wouldn’t be tamed. “I have to go.”

  “Grace—” She heard him say as she hung up. In the next moment, a sob wrenched itself from her throat and tears painted her cheeks. She quieted herself quickly, taking a few precious minutes to make sure she was presentable before knocking on Heidi’s door. The woman still saw her distress—or maybe she sensed it. She seemed to have a way of knowing things no one said or exhibited.

  “Grace.” She rushed forward. “What’s wrong?”

  Grace wanted to tell someone. She wanted support and encouragement from her friends, from Heidi. So she told her all about Jon.

  Jon stared at his cell phone like it had morphed into a four-headed dog. Had Grace seriously just broken up with him? Over the phone?

  You haven’t really given her a reason to stay, he told himself as he stuffed the phone in his back pocket. Her accusation about being his second choice rang true. So true it hurt Jon’s heart to think about.

  She had come second these past two months. Second to the job. Second to his own desires. Second to who he’d spend Thanksgiving with. And now that his brother had given his parents a trip to New York for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, they wouldn’t be in Oklahoma City next week.

  Jon suddenly had nowhere to spend the holidays. He couldn’t join the Ackerman’s festivities, as Grace would be there.

  “I’m heading back to get a drink,” he yelled up to Brett, who called back to bring him a bottle of Gatorade. Jon stomped away from the construction site, angry at himself, at Texas, at the world.

  What should I do? he asked as his fury faded, leaving only desperation and helplessness.

  Make a decision, came into his mind, as loud as if someone had appeared next to him and spoken aloud.

  Jon knew he hadn’t made a decision regarding Grace. And that his indecision had hurt her, though he’d been trying not to do so. If he were being honest with himself—and there was no better time to be honest with himself—he’d known something was off since Halloween. Grace hadn’t inconvenienced herself to see him. She didn’t drive out to the ranch when she could’v
e. She arrived late to church and claimed she was too tired to go to the picnic. Even when he invited her to dinner and kissed her good-night afterward, he didn’t feel the same level of passion as he had previously.

  “You messed up,” he practically yelled at himself as he entered the basement. He tore a bottle of water from the fridge and drained it, but it didn’t cool the fire raging in his chest. With certain clarity, he knew only one thing would: Grace Lewis.

  Even the thought of her name acted as a fire extinguisher, and the flames cooled. He still didn’t know what to do short of calling a realtor and then a moving company to get everything he owned from Oklahoma City to Three Rivers.

  He plucked his phone from his back pocket, but he didn’t call a realtor. He called his brother instead. “Hey, Cam. What are you and Erika doing for Thanksgiving?” He listened while his brother talked about the celebration Erika’s family had planned.

  “Think they have room for one more?” Jon closed his eyes as he waited for his brother to answer. He wasn’t ready to go crawling back to Grace, not yet. If he did that, he knew there’d be no turning back. And that decision required thoughtful prayer—and a talk with his brother, who had always been able to steer him in the right direction.

  By the time the last pie got picked up on Wednesday evening, Grace never wanted to see another pecan again. Or another can of pumpkin. Or another dozen eggs. She collapsed in the armchair in her living room, her eyes drifting closed.

  A sense of accomplishment flooded her. She’d done it. She’d organized, made, baked, and delivered ninety-five pies in one day.

  “Just think what you could do with an industrial kitchen,” she told herself as she went to put in a frozen pizza for dinner. Tomorrow, she’d drive out to the ranch for the first time in weeks, and the thought of seeing Jon drove her nerves into a frenzy. He hadn’t tried to call her, not once. He hadn’t texted. He hadn’t liked anything of hers on Facebook.