Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set

by Cari Lynn Webb, Linda Warren, Mary Anne Wilson

  Lily and Fiona flanked Georgie and Zach, making the introductions to every family member. Hugs were offered and accepted as if standard greeting behavior. Zach couldn’t recall another time he’d embraced so many people. Or that so many people had embraced him. Heady and addicting, if he allowed himself to believe he really belonged.

  The family-style, help-yourself dinner only escalated the lively and spirited conversations. Ben and Ethan Blackwell, brothers and identical twins, tossed dinner rolls to their other brothers, Jon and Chance, across several tables, earning cheers from the kids and scoldings from Dorothy. The brothers happily changed to underhand bun tosses until Katie, Chance’s wife, seized the bun basket. Undeterred, the brothers plucked candy canes from one of the Christmas trees and rewarded the kids for their support.

  Georgie’s sisters joined the conversations easily, doled out and received their own ribbings as if they’d always been a part of the Blackwell clan. Georgie and Zach sat on the fringes, at the end of one table. As the evening progressed, Georgie had retreated more and more into herself, her hugs awkward, her greetings simple and quick. Zach hadn’t left her side.

  Dinner concluded and the kids shouted for s’mores outside. Cleanup became another family affair. Everyone knew their role and responsibility in the process. Within minutes the dining hall was put back to rights and prepped for breakfast the following morning.

  S’mores supplies ready and the kids bundled up for the cold weather, the group drifted outside to the firepit area. Before Zach could catch her, Georgie escaped to the firepit the farthest away from the others and sat on a river-rock bench.

  Zach carried over the s’mores ingredients and set them on the tree-stump table beside Georgie.

  “There are too many marshmallows and too many Blackwells.” Georgie’s shoulders slumped inside her heavy coat. “I don’t belong here.”

  “This is your family.” Zach unwrapped a chocolate bar, broke it and handed her half.

  “My family is my four sisters and my dad.” She snapped off a corner of the chocolate bar and nibbled it.

  Once again, Lily and Fiona wove through the Blackwells, laughing and teasing the others. The Blackwells were the kind of family he’d wished for growing up. The kind of family he’d thought his ex-girlfriend had invited him into. The kind of family that had always been out of his reach. That fact he had to remember. “They all seem like very nice people.”

  “That’s not helpful.” Georgie dropped the piece of chocolate back onto the plate. “We’re deceiving them, remember?”

  “We can come clean,” he suggested.

  “And tell them that I picked up a virtual stranger on an airplane to deceive them?” She gaped at him. “They really won’t like me then.”

  “You want them to like you?” He handed her one of the extra-long stainless-steel roasting forks.

  “No. Yes.” Georgie stabbed a marshmallow onto one prong and waved it in and out of the flames. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “To at least know who is who,” she blurted out. “I know all their names on paper. But now, in person, my mind keeps skipping. I should at least know who my family is, shouldn’t I?”

  Zach watched the flames scorch his marshmallows. He’d spent years altering the truth of his family. Years not wanting to admit what his family really was: broken and damaged. Money had been tight after his father passed. Zach’s mother had been cremated without a memorial—Zach had chosen his brother’s treatments and care over his mother’s funeral.

  He’d spent more nights than he cared to remember watching the moon rise and wishing for some unknown relatives to enter his life. Anyone to lessen the relentless loneliness. Georgie Harrison had been given a gift, and rather than embracing it, she wanted to run.

  “I mean, I know the entire periodic table by heart. I can recite every bone, muscle and tendon in the entire body,” Georgie continued. “Names to faces shouldn’t be difficult. Not for me.”

  But fear scattered common sense. And Zach sensed Georgie’s fear. Yet he wasn’t quite sure how to help her. Knew only that he wanted to.

  “You have to put the marshmallow in the fire if you want to roast it.” A young girl, her big blue eyes wide and her pink snow boots even brighter, circled the firepit and tapped a glittery pink fingernail against her cheek. “Unless you like to eat them out of the bag like Uncle Ethan and Mama K.”

  Mama K was Katie Blackwell, and she managed the ranch. Zach searched for the girl’s name. Summer or a flower or something from nature. He’d been associating names and characteristics since he was a kid to help himself remember first names. The neighbors had always responded better to his partial truths about his mom if he recalled their first names. The twin red spots on the young girl’s cheeks clued Zach in. The adorable bundle of pink cheer was Rosie Blackwell.

  Zach knocked his burned marshmallows into the fire. Then he doubled up with fresh marshmallows on his roasting fork, gripped the wooden handle and set it over the fire. “I’m Zach and this is…”

  “Auntie Georgie.” Rosie climbed onto the bench and scooted over until she bumped right into Georgie’s side. “I know. Auntie Georgie is a doctor and she cures people.”

  “That’s right.” Georgie smiled and zipped Rosie’s coat under her chin. She handed Rosie a marshmallow for her stick.

  “What do I do for a job, Rosie?” Zach grinned. Rosie had flipped off the tops of her mittens and left them to dangle near her wrists. Cute mitts for a cute kid.

  “The grown-ups aren’t sure.” Rosie rolled her marshmallow through the flames. “Auntie Georgie never really talked at dinner.”

  Georgie had seemed to lose her voice and her place amid the happy chaos of the group dinner. Zach said, “I like to ride broncs in the rodeo.”

  Rosie nodded and pulled her stick from the fire. “I like horses a lot. Just like my mama K.”

  Zach liked friendly, easy-to-talk-to kids like Rosie. “Do you like games, Rosie?”

  “Definitely.” Rosie built a s’more quickly and handed the finished sandwich to Georgie. “Want to play one?”

  “We do.” Zach slid his slightly toasted marshmallows onto a graham cracker and eyed Georgie. “We want to play the name game.”

  Georgie took a bite of Rosie’s s’more. “You definitely have the magic touch. This is the best one I’ve ever tasted.”

  Rosie beamed. “What’s the name game?”

  Zach lowered his voice into confession soft. “Georgie and I need practice learning everyone’s names.”

  “There’s a lot of new people here.” Georgie wiped a napkin over her mouth and nodded at him as if acknowledging his plan. “We don’t want to get a name wrong and hurt someone’s feelings.”

  Rosie nodded. “Want to know a secret?”

  Zach and Georgie leaned in.

  “Even Uncle Ethan mixes up the cousins’ names all the time.” Rosie licked chocolate from her finger. “He’s always calling us by the names Aunt Grace gives to the petting-zoo animals.”

  “Let’s start with the Blackwell family.” Georgie set her unfinished s’more on a napkin on her lap. “We can move to the animals tomorrow.”

  “I’ll test you to see who you don’t know.” Rosie snatched a plain marshmallow from the supply plate. “Mama K tests me on my spelling words and then I’m not scared to take my spelling tests.”

  Leave it to a child to point out the obvious. But Zach wasn’t sure what scared Georgie more: the Blackwells’ acceptance or rejection.

  Between Zach and Georgie, they knew most of the family. The game paused and Rosie added, “Auntie Rachel—remember, she’s married to Uncle Ben. Well, she won’t eat any s’mores. She didn’t eat anything at dinner either.”

  “Why not?” Georgie frowned.

  “Aunt Rachel says the babies are making her stomach angry
every day.” Rosie patted her own stomach. “And she hasn’t found any food the babies like.”

  “That’s not good.” Georgie wiped her hands on another napkin. Her focus remained on Rachel, who sat between Katie and Hadley. The three pregnant women had propped their feet on the rim of a firepit.

  Zach recognized Georgie’s distracted tone. The assessing, deep-in-thought voice every one of his brother’s doctors had lapsed into during their first appointments with Cody. Zach wasn’t certain if Georgie—the patient-care doctor or the research doctor—had stepped forward.

  His brother’s early doctors had only ever wanted to qualify Cody for their trials. To turn him into a statistic. After the last failed trial, Cody had ordered a cease and desist and finally located a doctor who treated Cody, the person, first. Zach would be forever grateful to Dr. Holloway and his team for the care they’d given his brother in his last year.

  Zach searched Georgie’s profile and wanted to believe she was interested in more than the research data and clinical trials.

  “I got sick once after my friend’s birthday party.” Rosie swung her booted feet back and forth. “Mama K said I ate too much cake. I asked for extra icing.”

  “Stomachaches are no fun.” Georgie rubbed Rosie’s back. “What did you do?”

  Zach watched Georgie’s hand move in circles on Rosie’s back. She didn’t lean away from Rosie or dismiss her past experience. If anything, Georgie edged closer to listen better. Bedside manner could be taught, he supposed. But the medical professionals with the best bedside manner possessed a quality Zach couldn’t name, but that he recognized. Like now, between Georgie and Rosie.

  “I only eat cupcakes at birthday parties now.” Rosie slipped the tops of her mittens back over her fingers. “And I only eat half the frosting. Do you think Aunt Rachel has to stop eating food now, too?”

  “I think the babies would be really upset then,” Georgie said. “We just need to find foods Aunt Rachel and the babies like.”

  “You can do that?” Rosie asked.

  “I can try,” Georgie said.

  And Zach would try to show Georgie why she belonged in the Blackwell family.

  “Can you try to find something for Grandma Dot’s knee, too?” Rosie clutched her hands together even though the worry lifted from her voice. “She won’t rock in her favorite chair in the dining hall anymore ’cause of her knee.”

  Zach watched Dorothy massage her right knee. Lily and Fiona sat on either side of the older woman. Their significant others, Conner and Simon, stood on the other side of the firepit and handed the women toasted marshmallows. “Did she hurt her knee?”

  Rosie shrugged. “Grandma Dot says when you get to be her age, every bone inside your body seems to have a complaint.”

  Zach was only a few years into his thirties and most mornings he woke to his whole body complaining. The rodeo lifestyle wasn’t kind to the bones. But those eight seconds on a bucking bronc provided a thrill that life never could. A thrill he didn’t think he could live without.

  “Grandma Dot also says she tells herself every morning that the complaint department is closed.” Rosie giggled and lifted her legs straight out. “I tell my toes that when we have to walk really far and they get really tired.”

  Zach grinned at Georgie over Rosie’s curly blond head. “So, we shouldn’t complain to Grandma Dot. Good tip. Anything else we need to know?”

  “Aunt Hadley and Mama K are about to pop with their babies and that means they’re the only ones who get to complain out loud,” Rosie added. “Everyone says so.”

  “Any tips for telling Uncle Ethan and Uncle Ben apart?” Zach asked.

  “That’s easy.” Rosie smashed her hat over her curls. “Uncle Ethan smells like animals. He makes them feel better. Uncle Ben smells like a new book. He’s a lawyer and studies books all the time.”

  Zach could not rely on a sniff test to tell Ethan and Ben Blackwell apart.

  “That’s very helpful,” Georgie said. “I think I’m ready to run through the name game one last time.”

  Now that final identifications had been made, Zach only needed the evening to practice what would be his conversation with Ethan Blackwell. A conversation that would not include coming clean. If he confessed now, Ethan would definitely refuse to talk to him. That wasn’t an option.

  Tomorrow, he saved his horse and his rodeo lifestyle.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ZACH PROMISED DOROTHY he’d return for her homemade bourbon French toast, so ten minutes after sunrise he slipped out of the house. He’d dropped an extra blanket on Georgie and dressed without disturbing her.

  He’d overheard several of the Blackwells discussing the morning chores the previous night. They’d been dividing and conquering, since the ranch staff had been given time off to spend Christmas with their families. With luck, Zach would catch Ethan at the stables.

  Zach knew Rain Dancer wouldn’t survive without Ethan’s treatment. He wanted to ask Ethan for his assistance before the truth came out.

  Zach rubbed his hands together, but the chill and fear lingered. He just had to find Ethan and talk to him alone. Face-to-face. He tugged open the stable door and stepped inside.

  Ethan wasn’t the Blackwell twisting around to scowl at him.

  Rather, Katie Blackwell—Chance’s very pregnant wife and the Blackwell ranch manager—pointed at Zach. “Do not tell me I should be in bed. Or resting. Or sitting down.”

  Zach took off his hat and rubbed his head. His experience with pregnant women was limited to sows, cows and mares. “I was going to ask if you’ve seen Ethan.”

  “Emergency with one of the mares out at Shadow Ridge Ranch.” She crumpled a piece of paper in her hand. “You and I both missed him by about fifteen minutes.”

  Fifteen minutes. He’d lingered too long over his cup of coffee. The one Dorothy had already poured before he reached the kitchen. Now he faced another morning without obtaining help for Rain Dancer. Frustration knocked against his fear. The only outlet he’d ever relied on was work. “Is there anything you need help with?”

  “I don’t suppose you can help me see my ankles, can you?” Katie rubbed her lower back.

  “That I can’t do.” Zach tugged off his gloves and moved to the first stall. A paint peered out, assessing the early morning disruption. He stroked the horse between its ears. “But anything equine and ranch related, I’m your guy.”

  “How do you feel about retirees?” Katie asked. “We call them our Blackwell Ambassadors.”

  “I like horses, all ages, any temperament, working or retired.” Horses he understood. And they understood him. No words required. Besides, he needed time alone to revise his approach to Ethan.

  Even more, to rework his feelings for Georgie. He had to stop confessing truths to her. He had to stop before he started wanting more than a temporary relationship. Before it became harder to convince himself that what he felt for Georgie was pretend and far from real.

  “The Ambassadors are at the end of the stables.” Katie motioned in their direction. “They’ve more than earned their free time, but Ethan likes to make sure they get plenty of attention and daily exercise.”

  “Turnout is essential for all horses,” Zach said. “Too much time indoors can weaken the Ambassadors’ health.”

  “Exactly.” Katie’s eyebrows hitched higher. “Are you a fan of the Ethan Blackwell school of equine medicine and therapy?”

  Most definitely. And he was desperate for Ethan Blackwell to apply his own equine treatments to Rain Dancer. “Ethan is quite well-known in the equestrian world and for good reason.”

  “He does have a gift with animals,” Katie said. “Now he has Grace to help polish his people skills.”

  Georgie came instantly to mind. She’d wanted him to be less cowboy, as if that was possible. Perhaps his boots could use a good polish. His cynical natu
re a good smoothing out. Georgie could… No. Zach’s people skills were fine. And he didn’t need a woman, or specifically Georgie, to improve his life. He was okay as he was.

  He walked toward the back stalls. “Anything special I should know about the Blackwell Ambassadors?”

  Katie grinned and moved to a stable. A cream-colored draft horse popped his head out. “Elmer here is our resident chairman of the Ambassadors. He likes a longer, slower stroll and extra hay cubes for his effort. I’d take him last.”

  Zach stroked the large horse’s neck. “I bet Elmer also likes a good rubdown.”

  “He’ll follow you anywhere for the reward of a rubdown.” Katie laughed and indicated the two stalls across from Elmer. “Misty Day and Ms. Aggie prefer their stalls heated and their mash wet and warmed. They can be stubborn. We listen, but eventually get our way.”

  Zach glanced at the two mares. “The ladies will go first.”

  “Good choice.” Katie pointed to the next stalls. “Monty suffers from cataracts and likes his fly mask to block the sun’s glare off the snow. Add salt to Lumber Jack’s warm water to encourage him to drink more. They’ll both enjoy a walk through the pasture.”

  Zach studied the names on the stalls. “Does Ethan stable Butterscotch in another barn? I read about her on the Blackwell ranch website.” Butterscotch was listed as the honorary ranch mascot. He’d heard about Butterscotch’s condition—the same one as Rain Dancer’s—and Ethan’s experimental treatment from a vet in Colorado.

  Katie inhaled. Her eyebrows pulled together and her voice cracked. “Butterscotch passed away earlier this fall.”

  “I’m really sorry.” More than he could express. More than he could put into words. Dread clenched the back of his neck like sharp talons. No wonder Ethan had refused to take his calls about Rain Dancer. What was he supposed to do now?

  “Everyone took it hard, but Ethan the worst. Butterscotch had been their mother’s horse. After their mom died, Ethan became even more attached to Butterscotch.” Katie reached for Elmer, as if she wanted to hug the older horse. But her stomach stopped her. She wrapped her arms around her belly, clearly drawing comfort from her baby. “Please don’t mention Butterscotch to Ethan. He hasn’t talked about her since she passed.”