The Construction of Cheer

by Liz Isaacson

  He got out of the truck and rounded the back of it so he was approaching Holly Ann as she got out of her SUV. She carried an oversized purse, a forty-four-ounce soda cup, and a bag of take-out.

  “Ace,” she said, her voice full of shock. “What are you doing here?”

  He hadn’t memorized Bishop’s speech, but Ace had never really had a problem speaking his mind. He held up his phone. “I don’t want to take a break.” He cleared his throat. “Life is busy, Holly Ann. We can’t break-up every single time you have something going on in your life. That’s not how real relationships work.”

  She stared at him, her eyes wide. She was stunning, even with only the light from her car spilling onto her, and the house lights haloing her from behind. She wasn’t wearing a jacket over her nearly sheer blouse, as it was the same one she’d worn on-camera.

  He’d been able to see the outline of her black camisole underneath the blouse, which was cream-colored and covered with multi-colored stars. She’d paired it with a black pencil skirt and a sexy pair of ankle boots that gave her an extra three inches.

  He did not want to break up with her. He was not going to let her break up with him. He wished she’d say something.

  The tension in her shoulders broke, and she eased out of the way of her door, using her foot to close it. “Do you want to come in?”

  “Yes,” he said instantly. “Let me help you with all of that.” He stepped forward and took her drink and her food. She smiled at him, and it wasn’t the horrible, fake smile he’d seen on TV. His hope rebounded and shot into the sky, because maybe—just maybe—doing something he’d never done before would get him something he’d never gotten before.

  Sneak Peek! The Secret of Santa Chapter Two:

  Holly Ann Broadbent put her heavy purse down on the built-in desk in her kitchen while Ace Glover set her food and drink on the counter. Her little brown and white dog, Snickers, yipped at her, jumping up on her legs in excitement.

  “Yes, I see you,” she said, grinning at the dog. “I left you home for so long, didn’t I?” She scooped him into her arms and took him to the sliding glass door. “Go out and go potty.” The little dog ran into the darkness, and she flipped the switch to turn on the lights in the back yard.

  Turning around, she faced Ace. She couldn’t believe he was here. He had a lot of nerve to be sitting in her driveway this late at night. She could’ve called the cops on him for loitering and scaring her half to death. If she hadn’t recognized that half-ton truck in an unusual matte gray the color of river mud, she would have.

  At the same time, every cell in her body vibrated with a new kind of energy, all of it screaming, Ace Glover is here!

  Ace Glover didn’t just give up this time!

  “Did you eat?” she asked, reaching for the white paper bag her Chinese food had come in. “I have plenty.” She glanced at him, but she’d never been able to just take a casual look. Ace demanded that she really soak him in, even when she tried not to.

  Tonight, he wore a sexy pair of dark wash jeans that made his legs look impossibly long. He always had the cowboy boots, the cowboy hat, and the belt buckle. Always. They were three of her favorite things about Ace.

  His gray shirt peeked through his jacket at his throat, only a triangle of light against the dark brown leather. He lit her up every time he walked in the room. Every single time.

  “I ate,” he said, and she wondered how much time had gone by while she drank him in. She hadn’t even taken one container out of the bag yet, so probably not much.

  “Did you hear what I said outside?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, opening the box and getting a nose full of orange mixed with fried food. Her stomach growled, and her mouth watered. “That’s why I invited you in.”

  “So…we’re not breaking up?”

  “You said you didn’t want to.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m going to be incredibly busy.” Not only that, but Holly Ann didn’t deal well with stress or exhaustion. She would be both stressed and exhausted, constantly, from now until New Year’s Day. “And Ace, you thought I was bad when I was taking care of Snickers after his surgery, and catering events, and no one was sleeping. This is going to be ten times worse.”

  “I’ll come sit with you while you sleep,” he said quietly.

  Holly Ann saw no point in dirtying a plate she’d have to wash later, so she took the whole bag and a fork to the table and sat down. A groan came out of her mouth, because while these boots were adorable, they also pinched her toes and reminded her that she carried fifty extra pounds and doing that on a heel no wider than a penny was hard work for her feet and calves. Really hard work.

  “I’ll come rub your feet after a long day of baking and then Christmassing.” He stepped over to the door and opened it for Snickers, who hopped inside and trotted right over to her side, clearly wanting some Chinese food too.

  She grinned at Ace, and he took that to mean he could sit at the table with her, which he did. He didn’t touch her, though Holly Ann wouldn’t have objected to that either.

  She didn’t want to break-up with him, especially now that he’d shown up to fight for their relationship.

  “I can support you while you’re busy,” he said while she opened her ham fried rice. “When I’m busy, and you’re not, you can support me.”

  “Sounds romantic,” Holly Ann said, tossing him a dry look. She loved the romantic things of the world, but she was practical too.

  “It’s called real life,” Ace said, his voice somewhat sour. “You don’t see marriages breaking up when someone gets too busy.”

  “Actually,” Holly Ann said, spearing a piece of orange chicken and rolling it around in her ham fried rice. “You do see that.” She put the food in her mouth, at least a dozen things getting satisfied with just that simple action.

  “Holly Ann,” he said. “Not every marriage is going to end the way your parents’ did.”

  She sucked in a breath and glared at him. “I know that.”

  “Okay.” He backed right down, and Holly Ann wasn’t sure if she liked that or not. No one usually spoke to her like that. They let her wallow in her reasons why she didn’t date too seriously—or at least why she hadn’t until Ace Glover.

  They said things like, “You’re right, Holly Ann,” and “It’s hard to maintain a relationship with someone who’s so busy all the time.”

  Ace might have even said those things in the past. He hadn’t tonight.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, pinching a tiny piece of chicken between her thumb and forefinger and feeding it to Snickers. “It’s just, I…I don’t know how to keep everyone happy.”

  “That’s not your job,” he said. “I know how to make myself happy, and Holly Ann, you’re a big part of that. I’m very unhappy without you, and I’d rather bring you dinner so you can keep working, or volunteer to pick up the popcorn for an event so you don’t have to, or coordinate with the pastor to make your life easier, than not talk to you. Than not see you at all. Than think about you all dang day and all night, wondering why I’m not good enough for you.”

  He pulled in a breath, which inflated his chest, widening it the same way Holly Ann’s eyes had widened with every word he’d spoken.

  He thought about her all day and all night?

  He’d rather bring her dinner and call that a relationship?

  He thought he wasn’t good enough for her?

  Holly swallowed and dropped her gaze to her gooey orange chicken. “I apologize if I’ve ever given you the feeling that you are not good enough for me,” she said. “That is simply not true, nor has it ever been true, and whatever I did to give you that impression, I’m sorry.”

  Ace said nothing while she rolled around another piece of chicken, popped it into her mouth, and ate it.

  She fed Snickers another chicken snack and finally looked up at Ace, and he seemed to be warring with himself.

  “You made me feel like that when you
chose Three Cakes over me,” he said. “And you did it again tonight, by suggesting we end things between us so you can run the Christmas Festival.”

  Holly Ann opened her mouth to deny such a thing, but her mind thankfully worked faster than her voice. She snapped her mouth closed when she realized he was right.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t realize it.”

  “You didn’t realize it?”

  “I—” She stabbed another piece of chicken, wishing it was her own eyeball. “I sometimes get caught up in things, is all,” she said. “I have a hard time focusing on more than one thing at a time.”

  “You can use your ADD or your dyslexia all you want,” he said. “I understand they’re real, and they’re hard for you. But I’m sitting right here, telling you that I’m not going anywhere. In fact, I can help you focus on us when it’s the right time, and the Christmas Festival when it’s time for that.”

  Holly Ann nodded and doctored up her next bite of chicken. “You’re the one who’s too good for me, Ace.”

  “That’s nonsense,” he said. “We really should stop thinking that about ourselves.”

  “I will if you will.”

  “Deal,” he said, and she loved this back-and-forth between them. They’d always gotten along so well, and Ace was one of the easiest men for Holly Ann to talk to.

  “I don’t want to break-up,” she said.

  “Good,” he said. “Neither do I.”

  She ate another bite of chicken, and then asked, “So where do we go from here?”

  He grinned at her and reached over to take her forkless hand between both of his. “You open your calendar, sweetheart, and you tell me when you’re available for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I’ll take you out or bring the food to you. Whatever you want. If it’s twenty minutes, it’s twenty minutes.”

  He looked at her with those beautiful, sky-blue eyes, so full of hope and desire, and Holly Ann loved being looked at by Ace. “I just want to be with you. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she said, a yawn immediately following. “Will you stay while I change into something that’s not squeezing me like a python?”

  He chuckled and slid his hands away from hers. “Sure.”

  “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?” she whispered. “I’m so tired.”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice quiet too. “Go change and come lay with me on the couch.”

  Holly Ann took one more bite of chicken and rice and went to do exactly what Ace had suggested. She could admit that coming home alone added to her burden, and when she’d realized it was Ace waiting for her in the driveway, she’d been almost giddy.

  “Come on, Snickers,” she said to the little dog, who trotted into her bedroom after her.

  After closing the door, she stripped out of her confining clothes and tossed them toward the closet. The red Santa suit hanging there caught her attention, and she pulled in a tight breath. Crossing the room quickly, she closed the closet door so the suit couldn’t be seen from the doorway.

  Not that Ace would be there. She’d closed the door besides.

  Still. “He can’t know about that,” she whispered to Snickers. “That’s why I needed to take a break.” She looked from closed door to closed door, her heart battling with her brain.

  We can do it, her heart said. He’ll never know. He works up at that ranch a lot. It’s fine.

  This is too risky, her brain said. We don’t care how handsome he is, or how many times he says such perfect things. He can never know you wear the suit.

  “He won’t,” she vowed, going with her heart for maybe the first time in her life. She could only add a prayer to her internal debate that following her heart wasn’t going to be the biggest mistake of her life.

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  About Liz

  Liz Isaacson is a USA Today bestselling author and a Top 20 Kindle All-Star Author. She is the author of the #1 bestselling Three Rivers Ranch Romance series, the #1 bestselling Horseshoe Home Ranch Romance series, the Brush Creek Brides series, the USA Today bestselling Steeple Ridge Romance series (Buttars Brothers novels), the Grape Seed Falls Romance series, the #1 bestselling Christmas in Coral Canyon Romance series (Whittaker Brothers and Everett Sisters novels), the Quinn Valley Ranch Romance series, the Last Chance Ranch Romance series, and the #1 bestselling Seven Sons Ranch in Three Rivers Romance series (Walker Brothers novels), the Christmas as Whiskey Mountain Lodge Romance series (Hammond Brothers novels), and the Shiloh Ridge Ranch in Three Rivers Romance series (Glover Family novels).

  She writes inspirational romance, usually set in Texas and Montana, or anywhere else horses and cowboys exist. She lives in Utah, where she writes full-time, walks her two dogs, and eats a lot of peanut butter M&Ms.

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  THE CONSTRUCTION OF CHEER

  Book Three in the Shiloh Ridge Ranch in Three Rivers series

  by Liz Isaacson

  Copyright © 2020 by Elana Johnson, writing as Liz Isaacson

  Published by AEJ Creative Works

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Cover Design by Blue Water Books

  Interior Design by AEJ Creative Works

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