Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set

by Cari Lynn Webb, Linda Warren, Mary Anne Wilson

  Georgie pressed her knuckles against her mouth, knocking back her gasp. “How old were you?”

  “Seven. Cody was five.” His fingers uncurled from the armrests. “We were always the first ones on the school bus and the last ones off.”

  “Where was your father?”

  “Dad was a cross-country truck driver.” Zach rose and flipped the rocking chair over in one swift motion. “He was always hauling loads from one state to another.”

  And left his sons to fend for themselves. Georgie grimaced.

  Zach picked up a hand sander and drew it across the runner. Back and forth. Steady and smooth, the motion almost dulling the sharpest parts of his memories. “Dad did his best for us. He always told me, Son, don’t forget your hands. If all else fails, you can use your hands to provide for your family.”

  “And did he follow his own advice?” she asked. “Did he provide for you and your brother?”

  “He provided the money for Mom’s vodka.” His hands stilled as if the sandpaper had caught on a nail. “If I got to the mailbox first, then we had food, too.”

  Georgie pushed off the swing, wrapped her arms around her stomach and wandered across the porch. She willed the sun to rise faster. Looked for anything to drive the cold away. “How did you and your brother…?”

  “Survive,” he cut in. He ran his palm over the runner. “I learned to use my hands. The neighbors never asked questions if the yard was mowed. The front door painted. The blinds straight and the screen repaired.”

  “But you had to eat. You were children.” Not once had she ever worried about food or gone to bed hungry. Not once had she been scared to go home. Afraid in her own house.

  “My dad taught me about woodworking and tools,” he said. “When I got older, Dad brought home old dressers, tables, chairs, whatever fit in his truck. I fixed them in the shed in the backyard. Then we sold them.”

  “We,” she said.

  “Dad took pieces to the different towns and sold them.” Zach flipped over the chair again, set it right. “I mowed the neighbors’ lawns and repaired things for them. Cody raked leaves. Whatever they needed.”

  “But you shouldn’t have had to work.” Anger trembled through her words. “You were children like Rosie.”

  “It made me who I am.” Zach picked up the scattered tools.

  “And who is that?” she challenged.

  He was so much more than the laid-back cowboy she’d met on the plane. And his sixty-second short was just that—entirely too short. He’d kept up his childhood house for appearances. Refurbished furniture for food. Worked as a child to support his family.

  “I’m a man who doesn’t dwell in the past.” He set the tools inside the toolbox he’d left in the corner of the sunporch.

  But the past dwelled inside him and he suffered all the same. Still. Loneliness and pain bracketed him like steel grips. She asked, “Remind me again—why the rodeo?”

  He shook his head. “It started with a girl and then I made a promise to my brother.”

  The sun finally slipped above the horizon. The rays pulsed against the windows, shining into dark corners of the porch. The more the day awoke, the more Zach closed down. No more secrets would be revealed this day. She said, “My dad made a promise to my mother to see their daughters happy and married.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” A slight tease had returned to his voice.

  “I don’t intend to get married,” she said.

  He set his hands on his hips. “Then your dad will break his promise to your mom.”

  “He’s not my biological father. Thomas Blackwell, Big E’s son, is.” She brushed her hair off her shoulders. Clearly, her secrets weren’t safe during the daytime. “None of us knew the truth until a few months ago.”

  “That explains the part about you not having met any of your Blackwell relatives.” His eyebrows drew together. “But not the part about marriage.”

  “My parents lied to us. Mom even asked my oldest sister, Peyton, to lie.” Georgie twisted her hair into a bun. “Dad could’ve lied to Mom about seeing us settled into happy married life, too.”

  “What did your dad do?”

  “Career military,” she said. “Rudy Harrison was an admiral in the navy.”

  “That’s impressive,” Zach said. “He didn’t lie to your mom. Men like him live by a code. He intends to follow through on his promise.”

  “Dad will have to break his promise,” she argued.

  “Or you’ll have to fall in love.”

  She opened her mouth. Love. Her mouth closed. About that we. She shook her head. “Why are we talking about this?”

  Zach spread his arms wide. “It’s a new day. Time to face what the day brings.”

  But she didn’t have to face certain truths. “I need coffee to face this day.”

  “Coffee is already brewing.” Dorothy walked into the sunporch, dressed for the day in a thick cable-knit sweater, pants and fur-lined boots.

  “I hope we didn’t wake you.” Georgie accepted a quick morning hug from her grandmother.

  Dorothy laughed. “And I always considered myself an early riser.” Her gaze shifted to the rocking chair. She gasped.

  “Zach fixed it,” Georgie announced. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind in the least. May I?” Dorothy motioned to the chair.

  “Please,” Zach said.

  Dorothy lowered into the chair and sighed. Pleasure filled her face, and she whispered, “My mother rocked all her babies to sleep in this very chair.”

  The tradition touched Georgie. And Zach had given Dorothy a piece of her family history back. She reached for his hand, grateful for the gift he’d given her grandmother.

  Dorothy ran her hands over the armrests. “I thought Mama’s chair would have to go to the Once Was Barn. But I wasn’t ready to lose the connection to her, so I hid the rocker out here.” Dorothy wiped at her eyes. “Such silliness over a simple chair.”

  Not silly. Not in the least. Georgie wore a simple bracelet that had belonged to her mother every day. Georgie asked, “What’s the Once Was Barn?”

  “It’s where all the best memories go.” Dorothy chuckled. “It’s really where all the meaningful but no longer useful furniture and trinkets go after they’ve been retired from use. Things have been piling up for years in that barn, especially as we seem to favor the new over the old more and more these days.”

  Georgie squeezed Zach’s hand. “Can we see it?”

  “After coffee and the last of my homemade bourbon cinnamon French toast.” Dorothy rose and walked into the kitchen. “I’d like to take a walk through the Once Was Barn, too. Been too long.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHY HADN’T GEORGIE walked away? Gone back to bed? Zach had told her the truth about his childhood and his parents. He’d revealed the sorrier side of his past in the dark. She hadn’t turned away. She’d sat on the porch swing and listened. No judgment. No pity.

  He’d rambled even more, as if safe in the predawn hour inside the enclosed sunporch with Georgie Harrison. As if they’d crossed an invisible barrier. As if they were more than pretend and building toward something more than short-term.

  But he was safest when alone. Keeping his own counsel and his own secrets.

  Georgie was lightness and good. He was ruthless and harbored too many shadows.

  He’d tallied favors owed. Selfishly and intentionally. He’d repaired a Blackwell family heirloom. Helped at Grace’s family store. Joined Georgie to assist Eli and Rachel.

  Never mind that he’d really liked working with Frank Gardner and would help the Gardners again. Anytime. No favors required in return. He thought Eli was adorable. And he liked Ben and Rachel—two strong individuals who together made an even stronger couple.

  He wanted the Blackwells to feel slightly in
debted to him. It was entirely wrong. He was entirely wrong for Georgie. Certainly, she’d recognized that on the sunporch that morning, too.

  Zach pushed the ATV faster. Dorothy had insisted he take the vehicle and he followed the directions she’d given him to the Once Was Barn. The barn stood by itself in its own private corner of the Blackwell property, far away from the guest lodge and activity on the working ranch. As if the old barn and its occupants deserved a peaceful last resting place. There was resilience to the old barn despite the icicles dangling from its weathered roof and the snowdrift leaning against its faded exterior wall.

  Zach parked and grabbed the flashlight strapped behind the passenger seat. A path had been shoveled to the double doors recently, so his boots only sank into the snow several inches rather than up to his knees.

  He eased inside and spotted the light switch immediately. With the lights turned on, the barn was lit from the rafters, highlighting the space. Furniture and oversized pieces filled the ground level. Plastic bins, their tops color coded, sat stacked in rows up in the loft.

  The barn wasn’t as forgotten as Dorothy had led him to believe. Zach rubbed his hands together. His gaze skipped from a claw-foot tub to tractor parts, to a half dozen brooms leaning against the wall. Doors and window frames had been propped against another wall. Furniture from past decades, some pieces broken, some pieces simply outdated, huddled together as far back as Zach could see.

  Had he been given access to such a barn as a kid, he’d have had a continuous stream of projects and items for his father to sell on the road. The barn was a treasure trove of links to the Blackwell past and he was merely trespassing.

  Still, he couldn’t quite keep from working his way around the furniture, running his hand over the large scroll swerving through an aged wrought-iron headboard and imagining.

  “Zach, did you get lost in here?” Dorothy called out.

  Zach worked his way back to her and stopped beside a sturdy oak headboard and footboard. His fingers curved around one of the twisted posts of the headboard. Dorothy hadn’t arrived alone. Grace, Hadley and Georgie stood around a pair of dining chairs and examined the cracked leather seats. “This is quite the barn, Dorothy.”

  “There are pieces here from before Big E and I were born.” Dorothy unwound her scarf. “Buried, I’m sure, underneath the items we considered all the fashion at one time.”

  “Everything becomes popular again at some point.” Hadley pressed on a chair’s leather seat as if testing its durability.

  “What’s old is new.” Grace tapped a broken wood bucket with the toe of her boot. “Unless you’re like me and can’t quite see how to make the old new again.”

  Georgie stepped beside Grace. “You’re not the only one who can’t see it.”

  “That’s a relief.” Grace grinned. “Why are we here, anyway?”

  “I wanted to revisit the barn.” Dorothy clasped her hands together and walked closer to Zach. “And I wanted Zach’s advice on several pieces.”

  “If it’s the value you want to know about, I can’t help you.” Zach studied the vine carving following the curve of the headboard’s frame. “You’ll need an appraiser and more qualified eye for that.”

  “The value of these pieces is in the memories.” Dorothy set her hand on the intricate headboard. “And the idea that they could be useful once again.”

  Zach eyed her. “What do you have in mind?”

  “This headboard once belonged to my grandmother. Hand-carved by my grandfather.” Dorothy traced her finger over the vine design.

  “Grandma Dot, you shouldn’t have let me put this out here.” Dismay spread through Hadley’s voice.

  “Nonsense,” Dorothy said. “It had no place at the lodge. It’s quite bulky as a king bed.”

  Zach studied the solid wood construction and the handcrafted workmanship of the headboard. One-of-a-kind pieces shouldn’t languish in an old barn, unseen and unappreciated. Cody had claimed that they’d crafted unique pieces all those years ago. Zach had only been interested in earning a few dollars and sneaking to the store for a frozen pizza. He hadn’t let his mind simply envision possibilities since his dad had given him a crate and told him to make it into whatever he wanted. He’d made it into the seat of a tree swing for his brother. “You could take the headboard and footboard to make a bench.”

  The four women crowded around Zach.

  “Is that possible?” Georgie wedged in beside him.

  “It would make a stunning entryway piece,” Dorothy said.

  “You can do that?” That from Hadley.

  Zach shrugged. “I could with the right tools.”

  “We have tools.” Grace chuckled. “A lot of tools all around the ranch, and there’s power in here, if you wanted to work inside the barn.”

  Hadley shifted toward him, her movement more of a shuffle as she tried not to bump her stomach. “Could you repurpose other things in here?”

  “We have several cabins to update.” Grace’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “If we used what we already own, we’d save money.”

  “Money that we can use to build the next phase of cabins,” Hadley added.

  “That’s brilliant,” Grace said. “The accountant in me is singing right now.”

  Zach wasn’t singing. He would be leaving in less than a week. Repurposing or refurbishing the furniture inside the Once Was Barn would be an ongoing project with an unending to-do list. The idea appealed.

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked away from the women. This wasn’t his barn. His family. And these weren’t his heirlooms to repurpose or fix up. He’d have to move on.

  “Well, we’re starting with my bench,” Dorothy said. “You can make the bench, can’t you, Zach?”

  He turned and his gaze skipped from the veiled delight on Dorothy’s face to Georgie. She touched her grandmother’s arm as if she’d heard the fragile hope in Dorothy’s voice, too. Then she looked at Zach and his breath stuck in his throat. Disappointing Georgie became the last thing he wanted to do.

  “Of course he can.” Georgie’s chin dipped ever so slightly, as if she wanted his consent. Wanted to know she hadn’t overstepped.

  He’d overstepped. In more ways than he could count. And staring at Georgie, he wanted nothing more than to cross more barriers. But holding her in his arms, kissing her, would be like climbing onto a bronc without the cotton rein to hold. He’d never recover from a fall like that. “I’d be more than happy to make the bench.”

  Pleasure stretched Georgie’s smile into brilliance, bursting into her gaze and overflowing into Zach. He captured her look, recorded it to memory. Months from now, stretched out in the bed of his truck with only the stars as company, he wanted to be able to close his eyes and see her face. Remember how she’d looked at him—a drifter cowboy—with such admiration and affection.

  Dorothy hugged him and turned to Grace and Hadley. “If you two like Zach’s work, you can talk to him about other projects.”

  “Deal.” Hadley set her hands on her stomach. “While I’m seeing this barn in a whole new light, I need to get back to the house and put my feet up.”

  “Are you feeling okay?” Georgie asked.

  Zach smiled. Georgie might claim to want to be inside a lab, but the nurturer inside her kept surfacing. She cared about the people around her. Zach cared about her. His smile faded. No harm in caring about someone. He just had to make sure he stopped there.

  “I’m ready for this little one to arrive,” Hadley said.

  Grace curved her arm around Hadley’s waist. “Let’s head back and run some numbers. Numbers will get your mind off your swollen feet.”

  “Or put me to sleep.” Hadley laughed.

  “I’ll join you.” Dorothy linked her arm around Hadley’s. “I promised Ty I would help him with the last of the nursery setup.”

 
“Georgie, you want to come with us?” Grace asked.

  Georgie shook her head. “I think I’ll stay and explore, if you don’t mind.”

  Zach minded. Very much. He’d be alone with Georgie. Again. And every time he was alone with her, he spilled more truths. Revealed parts of his life he’d never wanted to share. Every time he was alone with Georgie, the lines blurred, and he forgot he was only supposed to be pretending to like her.

  “Stay and enjoy, you two.” Dorothy tucked her scarf inside her jacket.

  “I’ll let you know if I find any treasures,” Georgie said.

  “If you do, it’s yours for the effort,” Dorothy said.

  The women stepped outside, and the barn doors closed.

  Georgie spun in a slow circle. “Where should we start?”

  With me taking your hand. Pulling you into my arms… Zach coughed. “I’m going to check the ATV for tools, a tape measure.” And something to disconnect his unwise attraction to Georgie.

  Twenty minutes later, Zach had taken the measurements of the headboard and footboard. He had a basic idea of his plan and a list of supplies he’d need. And one ear listening to Georgie’s every move through the barn, taking note if a cabinet door opened or a hinge squeaked. Two muffled grunts had him dropping his tape measure and heading into the furniture to retrieve her. Only her calls of “I’m fine, really, I’m fine” kept him from intervening.

  “I found it.” Georgie emerged from the back of the barn, dust on her pants and cheeks, her ponytail crooked and her full smile all too appealing.

  Zach set the tape measure on a round table and brushed off his hands, but not the pull he had to be closer to her. “What?”

  “Our lock-and-key item. For the scavenger hunt.” She held up a tall antique jewelry box. Wonder flickered in her hazel eyes. “Look, the little key is still in the door.”

  The door that was no longer attached to the jewelry box. She held the door in her hand and gave it to him. He pulled his gaze away from her and studied the frosted glass door. “I can’t believe the glass isn’t broken.”

  “I know.” She stepped closer, clutching the jewelry box like a valuable possession and not a scavenger hunt find. “Can you fix it?”