She ripped the wrapping paper away, then stared at the box as laughter and tears both fought for control inside her.
“You bought me a steam oven!”
He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “Most women would probably bash me over the head for buying them something to go in the kitchen, but I thought you might see it a little differently.”
She couldn’t quite believe it. She had wanted one for so long, but it had been way out of her budget! How had he possibly known? Suddenly she remembered when she had first seen his kitchen at Raven’s Nest, how she had gushed over everything in it, especially the steam oven. He had noticed such an insignificant moment and tracked one down for her.
“There’s more,” he said. As she watched, he dumped a bag out on the floor and her heart seemed to turn over as she saw silicone spatulas and chef’s cutlery and ball-tipped whisks. There seemed to be every gourmet tool she had ever dreamed about.
She gazed at the pile and then back at him. “Tell me you were joking about San Francisco.”
He looked embarrassed again. “I drove to Jackson but everything was closed and to be honest, I didn’t know what kind of selection I would find there anyway. On the other hand, I have a business contact who owns a chain of gourmet cooking supply stores in California.” He shrugged. “He owed me a favor so he met me at one of his stores and let me in.”
“Let me get this straight. You’ve been to San Francisco and back today.”
He seemed inordinately fascinated by the twinkling lights on the garlands going up the stairs. “It’s no big deal, Jen. I just wanted to give you something meaningful. And I did promise the boys the video game prototype we were working on. I was able to run by the office and pick that up while I was there and then I found a few other little things I thought they might like.”
She could see several huge boxes behind him and had to wonder what his definition of “a few other little things” might entail.
All day she had fought despair, certain that she wouldn’t see him again except on a casual basis. Now here he was in her living room bearing gifts for her and her children and she couldn’t quite adjust to the rapid shift.
“Why, Carson?”
“I wanted to do something for you and for the kids.”
“You didn’t need to fly to San Francisco and back in a day to do that.”
“I know.”
His sigh was heavy and he finally met her gaze and she was astonished at the emotions brimming there. “I told myself I couldn’t come back. I didn’t plan it. But I was up at Raven’s Nest looking down at your house and the smoke was coming out of the chimney and then the boys came outside to play in their new snowsuits and I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to leave, so I started driving and before I knew it I was at the airport chartering a flight.”
Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear herself think. “Why couldn’t you come back?”
“Sorry?”
“You said you told yourself you couldn’t come back. Why not?”
He gazed at her for a long moment and then he looked away. “I don’t belong here with you and your family, Jenna. It was just a brief interlude in both our lives and now it’s over.”
He was going to leave again. He was even reaching for the doorknob. As she saw things, she had two choices. She could let him go, let him return to his empty life in San Francisco, to that huge empty house on the hillside.
Or she could swallow her pride and offer one more Christmas gift to him, even if he wasn’t willing to accept it.
She had no choice. Not really. She stepped forward, until they were only a few feet apart, took a deep breath and plunged forward. “It’s not over for me, Carson. I’m not sure it ever will be. I won’t forget you or how wonderful it was to have you here these last few days.”
His eyes widened and something deep and intense flickered in his gaze. “Jenna—”
“I didn’t expect to fall in love with you. I certainly didn’t want to. You told me yourself you’re not looking for a family. I know that. I accept it. I just…wanted you to know how much you’ve come to mean to me these last few days. To all of us. The children love you and…so do I.”
Before she even murmured the last word, he rushed forward to close the gap between them, grasped her face in his strong, wonderful hands and kissed her so fiercely all the oxygen left her lungs in an instant.
He kissed her with an almost desperate hunger and she reveled in it. She wrapped her good arm around his waist inside his coat, savoring his heat and his strength against her and the joy and peace that soaked through her.
“It killed me to leave you,” he whispered against her mouth after several breathtaking moments. “I was completely wrecked, Jenna.”
She heard regret and sorrow in his voice and she kissed the corner of his mouth gently. “Why did you, then?”
“Because I’m an idiot. A stupid, terrified idiot afraid to reach for the incredible prize in front of me.”
She held him closer, astonished that this could be happening. The night was magical, full of sweet, healing hope.
“I love you, Jenna. That’s why I took off. I’ve loved one other woman in my life and I failed her. I was supposed to be able to take care of her and I couldn’t. When she and Henry James died, I thought my life was over. I told myself that if I blocked out anything deep or meaningful, if I focused only on business, I could protect myself from the pain and mess of love. Things were working out just fine, I thought. But then you came along and made me realize how very alone I was.”
She held him tighter, astonished and grateful that she had been so very richly blessed in her life to love two such wonderful men.
He kissed the top of her head. “You showed up with your snickerdoodles and your boys and darling little Jolie and knocked down every single one of my defenses.”
She smiled against his chest, even as she fought tears of joy. “I get it now. You just love me for my snickerdoodles.”
He laughed softly and it was sweetest sound she had ever heard. “And your spinach rolls. And your pumpkin cheesecake. And your crostinis. And your hot cocoa with whipped cream and peppermint candy. And your…”
She stopped his recitation with the simple act of throwing off his Stetson and kissing him again.
He settled onto the sofa and pulled her onto his lap. As the tree lights flickered beside them and the fire crackled in the grate, she remembered how she had dreamed of making the ideal Christmas for her family.
She never could have imagined she would find herself here in Carson’s arms with this dazzling joy surging through her.
But now, at long last, everything was perfect.
Epilogue
Raven’s Nest was in chaos.
Hayden was up in his bedroom upstairs with the door open, playing “Little Drummer Boy” at full volume on the drum set his crazy mother and stepfather bought him for his eleventh birthday a few months earlier.
Amid the “ba-rump-bump-bump-bumps,” Drew was chasing Kip around the great room trying to retrieve the book of Christmas mystery stories his little brother had stolen from him. But since Kip was faster than anyone in the house—and knew it—Drew was having a tough time catching him.
Frank—the new border collie puppy the boys had conned Carson into getting that summer—chased after both boys, barking at this fun new game, which Carson supposed was at least a change from the dog yanking all the ornaments off the tree.
Jolie was hanging onto his leg and gabbing a mile a minute about her dolls and the snowman they made earlier and the kitty she wanted for Christmas. And Pat, who had come to spend Christmas Eve with them at Raven’s Nest, wanted to know what time they were eating and when she was supposed to take her medicine and how much it cost to heat this mausoleum.
It was Christmas Eve.
And Carson loved it.
He picked up Jolie in his arms and answered Pat. “The radiant-heat system saves a lot of money. I’m going to have to ask Jenna about
your prescriptions and what time we’re eating. Hang on, I’ll be right back.”
As he headed toward the door with no small degree of relief, he snagged Kip by the collar of his holiday-patterned sweater as the boy jumped over an ottoman. “Give back your brother’s book,” he ordered.
Kip giggled but handed the book over willingly with that gap-toothed grin that had only become wider now that he was seven.
“Sorry, Drew.”
His brother made a face as he snatched the book out of Kip’s hand.
“You guys need to chill out a little, okay?” Carson said, though he knew it was a losing battle. “Santa’s going to take one look at this place and think only wild monkeys live here. And last I heard, he doesn’t make deliveries to wild monkeys.”
“Why not?” Jolie asked with a little frown on her features. “Don’t monkeys get presents from Santa?”
“Only if they’ve been good little monkeys.”
“Have I been a good little monkey?” she asked.
He smiled and kissed the top of her blond curls. “You’re always a good little monkey. You’re my good little monkey.”
He was crazy about this little girl, just as he loved her three brothers, drum sets, mischief, barking dogs and all.
“Go tell Hayden to either shut his door or save the recital for after dinner, okay?” he said to Drew as he carried Jolie with him into the kitchen.
Inside, Jenna was standing at the stove stirring something in a pan. By the looks of it, she had about four cooking projects going and his heart bumped at the sight of her, all pink and tousled and warm, just as it always did.
She looked up when they entered and her smile gleamed more brilliantly than the hundreds of lights on the huge Christmas tree in the great room.
He would never get tired of that smile. After six months of marriage, he adored it more than ever.
“Mommy, I’m a good little monkey,” Jolie said proudly.
Jenna looked amused. “You are indeed, sweetheart.”
“Put me down, please,” she directed, in her best princess-of-the-manor voice, and Carson complied. Jolie raced to the sitting area off the kitchen to play with her toys scattered there.
Carson moved behind Jenna and kissed the back of her neck. “Something smells delicious,” he said, his voice low.
She leaned against him with that sexy sigh of hers that drove him crazy. “It’s my sticky buns.”
He breathed in the scent of her, of cinnamon and vanilla and that indefinable—but infinitely sexy—scent that was plain Jenna. “Well, I do love your sticky buns,” he murmured. “But I was talking about this spot right here.”
He pressed his mouth again to that warm, sweet patch of skin at the back of her neck and she shivered, as she did whenever he touched her.
Their six-month wedding anniversary was in three days and he had a hard time remembering what his life was like before the Wheelers barreled into it.
They had changed everything.
He couldn’t help laughing at his own stupidity whenever he thought about how certain he had been a year ago that he had all he could ever want or need. This ranch, his varied business interests, the penthouse in San Francisco.
If he had to, he would gladly trade all of that to hang on to this life he and Jenna were building together.
He had no idea a year ago how much he would love being a stepfather. Helping with homework, fishing trips in the mountains above the ranch, long weekends in San Francisco so he could catch up on work he couldn’t finish long distance from Raven’s Nest.
His soul filled with a quiet contentment he never realized was missing when he was lying next to Jenna while the wind hurled snow against the windows and the fire in their bedroom fireplace burned down to cinders.
He had been given more precious gifts than he could ever have imagined.
He kissed that spot on her neck again and Jenna sighed softly. “Keep that up and you’re going to make me forget all I still have to do.”
“That’s the idea.”
She turned around, her mouth set in a mock frown. “Well, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself if your Christmas Eve dinner is ruined, then.”
He couldn’t resist kissing away that frown, pretend though it might be. “Even if we had nothing to eat but gunky orange mac and cheese or soup out of a can, Jenna Wheeler McRaven, this would still be the happiest Christmas Eve of my life.”
Her eyes softened and she gave him a vivid smile as she returned his kiss.
“Do you know what the best part is?” he asked.
She shook her head, her arms around his waist.
“I have absolutely no doubt that next year will be even better. And the year after that will be better still. And I can’t even imagine how great the year after that will be.”
She rested her head against his chest and he wanted to freeze this moment in his memory—the snow falling outside, the drums still banging away upstairs, the boys’ shrieks, the puppy barking, Jolie jabbering to her toys.
The memory album in his head was bulging at the seams.
“I wouldn’t be so confident about future Christmases if I were you,” she said with a rueful laugh. “We’re going to have teenagers by then and I’m afraid all bets are off.”
He didn’t care. All those years and Christmases stretched out ahead of them, shiny and bright and full of promise like the presents under their tree, and he couldn’t wait to unwrap every one.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2411-1
THE COWBOY’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
Copyright © 2008 by RaeAnne Thayne
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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The Cowboy's Christmas Miracle Page 20