Hometown Holiday

by Caro Carson

  Ryan unbuttoned the coat and tossed it on a folding chair. Underneath, he was wearing a fitted black T-shirt with the baggy red velvet pants. He pulled her into his arms and held her against his strong chest almost as tightly as she’d dreamed for the past lonely week.

  “I don’t want you to settle for a Scrooge when you want a Santa,” Ryan whispered. “I don’t want you to settle for a lawyer when you want a cowboy.”

  “I don’t want a lawyer or a cowboy. I want a Ryan.”

  “Michaels or Roarke?”

  “Both, as long as he’s happy with me.”

  “He couldn’t be anything else with you in his life, and that’s the whole truth.”

  Kristen kissed him almost as passionately as she knew she’d be kissing him tonight. In her house. Finally.

  The cast of the play had begun filtering back out of the dressing rooms. A man in street clothes whistled at their embrace. Kristen tried to brazen it out, giving the crew a nonchalant shrug of one shoulder as she broke off the kiss she’d initiated. She smoothed her gown into place over her hoops.

  “Some things go without saying, but this needs to be said. I love you, Kristen Dalton. It’s been seven days since I’ve held you, and I never want to go seven days without holding you again.”

  Ryan dropped to one knee in front of her, and Kristen thought her heart stopped. Cast, crew, costume—all were forgotten as she focused on Ryan.

  He patted his oversize pants pockets and got a little of that deer-in-the-headlights look, but then he slid on his knee to the discarded Santa coat and dug through it until he came up with a gray velvet box. The theater people gathered around them began to buzz with excitement.

  “I wanted to wear the Santa suit to show you how precious you are to me.” He opened the gray box and held it up. The diamond ring inside sparkled with every color of every Christmas light ever strung on a cozy house for two. “This is the other way I want to show you how precious you are to me. I love you with all my heart, Kristen Dalton. I will never deserve you, but I’m not going to let that stop me from being happy with you. Will you marry me?”

  * * *

  The photographer by the town Christmas tree was tireless in his effort to capture the happiness of the newly engaged couple.

  Kristen had changed into her street clothes, including a chic white jacket with faux-fur trim and the most flattering nipped-in waist. She’d bought it this week in a futile attempt to use retail therapy to soothe her heartbreak, but now she was thrilled to have something fabulous to wear for her engagement photos. Ryan was looking handsome and sexy and cute all at once. That was possible when the fine tailoring of a man’s coat contrasted with the bright red Santa’s hat he wore.

  “Wassail!” One of the street vendors came up to their little cluster of friends and family. “It’s on the house. Wassail to toast the happy couple.”

  Kayla was standing next to Kristen, so Kristen took the chance to offer her some sisterly advice. As surreptitiously as she could, she gestured toward her sister’s thickening middle. “If I were you, I’d pass on the mystery punch this time.”

  Kayla colored. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I know your secret. I want you to be as happy as I am. We’ve got to talk.”

  “Soon. Don’t worry about me right now. This is your special night.”

  On Kristen’s other side, Ryan scrutinized the two cups he held. “Do you suppose this is safe to drink? They still haven’t solved the case of the Power of the Punch.”

  “I was just saying the same thing to Kayla. You and I have so much in common.”

  “On the other hand, we just got engaged. Who cares if the wassail is a little too strong?” He grinned at her, looking more carefree than she’d ever seen him look.

  “It is a very old Christmas tradition.” She took one of the cups from him.

  “You know, Christmas is rapidly becoming my favorite time of the year. If I’m going to be a changed man like Scrooge, I believe I need to fully support all the traditions.”

  Kristen tapped her cup to his. “In that case, down the hatch.”

  “In that case, Merry Christmas to the future Mrs. Roarke.” They drank to their own happiness, and kissed under the lights of the tree.

  “From now on,” Kristen sighed, “I’m always going to love wassail-flavored kisses.”

  “From now on,” Ryan said, “I’m always going to love you.”

  * * * * *

  SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM

  Evan Cruise is haunted by his past and refuses to celebrate the festivities around him—until he meets Daphne Taylor. But when Daphne uncovers Evan’s shocking family secret, it threatens to tear them apart. Will a little Christmas magic change everything?

  Read on for a sneak peek of

  the latest holiday romance in the

  Montana Mavericks: What Happened to Beatrix continuity

  A Cowboy’s Christmas Carol,

  by Brenda Harlen.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Desperately Seeking Daisy.

  Desperately seeking a woman named Daisy who was born in 1945 to teenage parents and placed for adoption somewhere in Montana. Your birth family would like to meet you! Please contact the Abernathy family at the Ambling A Ranch, Bronco Heights, Montana. Time is of the essence!

  Evan Cruise clicked his mouse to close the open window on his desktop that displayed the company’s Twitter feed. It was at least the tenth time in three days that he’d spotted the notice on different social media sites, and something about it made the back of his neck itch, though he wasn’t eager to dig deep and figure out what that something was.

  Of course, he’d lived in Bronco his whole life, so he was familiar with the Abernathy name and knew the location of their ranch. What he didn’t know was why the Abernathys were suddenly searching for an apparently long-lost relative. In any event, he didn’t have time to waste worrying about some decades-old mystery that he’d decided, despite the itch at the back of his neck, had no connection to him. He had a business to run.

  He moved his cursor over the desktop to click on the icon labeled “This Week.” The seven-day calendar popped up to reveal each of the scheduled tour slots highlighted in pink, indicating that it was fully booked. He clicked to advance to the next week and saw all the dates in pink again and had to smile, despite the fact that it was the middle of November, which meant that the holidays—and all the hoopla that went along with them—were just around the corner. Because pink translated to more money in the bank, and more money was the surest sign of success.

  Of course, he only ran tours three days a week during what was considered the off-season for Bronco Ghost Tours. Still, the numbers had convinced him there was interest enough to justify adding a fourth weekly tour through to the New Year. The extra tour, along with the supplemental income he made selling Bronco Ghost Tours merchandise in-store and online, guaranteed a very healthy bottom line for his business.

  Lucky for Evan, everyone seemed to enjoy a good story, and quite a few of those liked scary stories. Since even more got excited about the holidays, he’d come up with the idea of a seasonal Yuletide Ghost Tour. Just because he didn’t share their enthusiasm didn’t mean he couldn’t capitalize on it.

  Eager to sell this tour as something different, he’d committed to finding new legends and venues rather than just adding a seasonal spin to the locations visited on some of his other tours. It was a happy coincidence that he happened to overhear a group of old-timers chatting at the coffee shop near his office the previous week—more specifically the mention of “ghost horses” at “the old Whispering Willows Ranch” and the claim that they “always kick up a fuss th
is time of year.”

  Though Evan habitually drank his coffee black, he’d taken his time adding cream and sugar to his to-go cup that morning and, at the same time, making careful mental notes as he listened to the men.

  When he got back to the office, he jotted down the brief details for his assistant to dig deeper into the story and determine if the old Whispering Willows Ranch might be a suitable addition to his tour. Considering that the first Yuletide Ghost Tour was scheduled for the Friday after Thanksgiving—only nine days away—he needed to finalize not just the destinations and the route but the storyline to entice his guests every step of the way.

  As if on cue, a tentative knock sounded on the open door, and he glanced up to see his assistant hovering in the entranceway.

  “What is it, Kelly?”

  “It’s Callie, sir.”

  “What’s Callie?”

  “My name is Callie,” she clarified.

  Another man might have been embarrassed by the slip, but Evan wasn’t one to dwell on emotion. Besides, it was hardly his fault that he couldn’t keep straight the names of the assistants who seemed to rotate through his office as if they were in a revolving door. No, the fault could be laid squarely at the feet of Brittany Brandt. Since she’d abandoned her position at Bronco Ghost Tours early in the spring, he’d been at the mercy of a local temp agency that sent a different candidate every couple of months—and sometimes even more frequently than that.

  Apparently his former assistant was now an event planner for Bronco Heights Elite Parties and making quite a name for herself. In fact, she was reputed to be the talent behind the recent Denim and Diamonds fundraiser that had been hosted by Cornelius Taylor and his third wife, Jessica, to benefit programs for low-income families in Bronco Valley. Evan knew that he should be happy for Brittany, who’d moved on to a career that she obviously loved—and had fallen in love and married, too—but he was still a little annoyed that she’d left him with only two weeks’ notice and an explanation that still rankled: You’re impatient and demanding and it’s not a lot of fun to work here.

  “What is it, Callie?” he asked the temp still hovering in his doorway, looking as if she was standing on the edge of a cliff without a safety harness.

  He tried to be patient, but honestly, he felt as if he’d wasted so much time training new employees over the past six months that he might have been further ahead if he’d done the work himself. But this one had been a quick learner, and at least when she wore skirts to the office, they covered more than just the curve of her bottom, and with shoes that were more serviceable than sexy. Her immediate predecessor had been more interested in earning the title “missus” than “administrative assistant” and had flirted outrageously with any man who walked into the office—including her boss! Sure, she was attractive, and Evan might have been flattered if he wasn’t terrified of a sexual harassment suit, which he told her from a safe distance on the other side of his desk.

  “I finished the research you wanted, on the former Whispering Willows Ranch,” Callie said.

  He held out his hand because, more important than either her skirts or her shoes, she was smart and a hard worker, if a little on the timid side.

  She stepped into the room to offer him the sheaf of papers.

  There were a lot of pages, attesting to the thoroughness of her research, which he appreciated. However, he had a meeting in less than an hour, so he asked, “Can you summarize for me?”

  She nodded and immediately began. “In 1912 the Milton family bought the property on which they operated a cattle ranch for almost fifty years. Just before Thanksgiving 1960—”

  “Wait.” He held up a hand. “Are you sure about the date?”

  Because the way the old guys in the coffee shop had been talking, it was as if the property had been haunted for more than a hundred years. Not that the timing mattered, really. All that mattered was that there was some corroboration of the haunted part.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, her head bobbing for emphasis.

  “Okay, then.” He gestured for her to carry on.

  “Just before Thanksgiving in 1960,” she continued, picking up where she’d left off, “Henry and Thelma returned home from a trip into town to find the barn engulfed in flames. The firefighters would later describe the horrifying screams of the dying animals that they couldn’t save, but no one knew that Alice had also been trapped in the barn…perhaps having raced in after the fire started to save the horses…until her charred remains were found in the wreckage the following day.

  “Her father—inconsolable over the loss of the daughter—took his own life a week later.”

  Evan had been flipping through the pages as she recited the facts, but he looked up now, his brows drawing together as he spotted a glint of silver on her shoulder. “Is that tinsel?” he demanded.

  “What?” She followed the direction of his gaze. “Oh, um, yes.” But she removed the offending metallic strip from her shirt and scrunched it in her hand. “Other local businesses have started to decorate for the holidays, so I thought Bronco Ghost Tours should get into the spirit, too.”

  “I don’t pay you to decorate,” he said.

  “Of course not, sir,” she agreed. “I only put a few things up while I was on my lunch break.”

  “Okay then,” he harrumphed, understanding that he couldn’t dictate how she spent her free time.

  But he would absolutely put his foot down if he heard Christmas carols coming out of the speaker by her workstation.

  “Now tell me what you found out about the ghost horses,” he said, returning to the matter at hand. “Has anyone claimed to see shimmery apparitions or hear unusual noises?”

  She nodded. “The most recent former owner apparently decided to sell the ranch because he was creeped out by the sound of horses whinnying in the dark—and he didn’t have any horses.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Evan said, rubbing his hands together. But then he wondered aloud, “Who buys a ranch without having any horses?”

  “Some Hollywood stunt double who wanted a quiet retreat to get away from it all,” Callie told him. “Until he realized it wasn’t so quiet after all.

  “Neighbors and passersby have also claimed to hear the horses, usually at night, and some have even reported smelling woodsmoke, as if something was burning.”

  “What about the current owner?” he prompted. “Has he heard anything?”

  “The current owner is Daphne Taylor. She acquired the property almost six years ago.”

  “Cornelius Taylor’s daughter?”

  Kelly—Callie—nodded.

  “Hmm…” He considered this complication. Not that he had any issue with the wealthiest family in town, but he suspected they might not be thrilled to have rumors of ghosts associated with their property. “I forgot that she started an animal sanctuary.”

  “Yes, sir,” she confirmed. “Whispering Willows is called Happy Hearts now.”

  “Do you have contact information for Daphne Taylor?”

  “It’s on the front page.”

  He handed the papers back to her. “Give her a call and set up a meeting. Tell her I want to discuss a business proposition, as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said again, turning to make her way back to the door.

  It wouldn’t hurt to say “thank you” every once in a while.

  They were the words Brittany had said to him as she was packing up her belongings on her last day of work, and they echoed in his head now.

  And to let your employees know you’re grateful for their efforts—if you are.

  Apparently he needed to remind himself that, sometimes, a paycheck wasn’t appreciation enough.

  With the echo of Brittany’s words in his head, he said, “Kel—Callie?”

  His new assistant pivoted on her heel to face him, her expression set as if she was braced for a reprimand.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You did a good job on the research.”

>   Her eyes went wide, as if she wasn’t quite sure she could believe what she was hearing, then her lips slowly curved into an appreciative smile. “Thank you, sir.”

  He nodded. “And don’t forget to unpack the delivery from BrandYou before you leave today. We can’t sell Yuletide Ghost Tour merchandise if it isn’t on the shelves.”

  * * *

  Daphne Taylor lived and breathed Happy Hearts Animal Sanctuary. It wasn’t just her job or even her home, it was her passion. And while she felt good about the work she did and the life she was living on the purportedly haunted property, that didn’t prevent her from dreaming sometimes about being stretched out on a white sand beach under a tropical sky with a fruity drink in her hand and a handsome man rubbing sunscreen over her body.

  She frowned as she shoved the pitchfork into the soiled straw and transferred it to the waiting wheelbarrow, acknowledging that it wasn’t really possible to enjoy a drink at the same time as a sensual massage. Since her shoulders and back felt tight and stiff, she set the imaginary drink aside and focused on the fictional man with magic hands.

  An impatient grunt interrupted her mental fantasy.

  “Don’t worry, Tiny Tim.” She took one gloved hand off the fork to rub his bristly head affectionately. “You and Barkley are still my favorite guys.”

  After a few more rubs, the potbellied pig lumbered past her to his pen, with the heated pad on the floor, a rooting box to keep him busy, and lots of hay and water.

  She thought wistfully of her own living room, where she was usually curled up with a mug of hot tea and a couple of cookies and her devoted yellow lab by her chair at this time of day. But she usually had a lot more help on the farm than she’d had today, without which she was a few hours behind schedule.

  It was her own fault for not remembering that it was Career Day at the high school and that her co-op students wouldn’t be showing up for their afternoon chores. She glanced at the clock on the wall again, unable to shake the feeling that she wasn’t just running behind schedule but actually late for something.