Brenda Minton - The Rancher's Christmas Match

The young person standing in front of him seemed to be making a valiant attempt to fight tears. If she hadn’t looked sad he wouldn’t have handed her the horse brush. As much as he didn’t consider himself to be a kid person, he’d kind of grown fond of smaller humans since Carson had shown up with his two. Maggie and Andy were as cute as two kids could be. This one seemed the same. She was smart and funny, and when a tear trickled down her cheek she dashed it away with an aggravated flick of a finger.

“How about brushing Shorty for me?” he offered.

She looked at the brush and looked at the sixteen-hand Quarter Horse. She didn’t seem quite as sure of herself as she had when she first peeked up over the stall door.

“So where’s your mom?” he asked as he grabbed a step stool and lifted her to stand on it. She looked unsure, so he guided her hand to brush the horse’s neck.

As she brushed Shorty, Isaac glanced toward the double-door entrance to the stable. No sign of anyone looking for a runaway kid.

“She’s meeting with Mr. West. That’s your dad,” she informed him.

He chuckled and she kept brushing.

“Did you stay in town last night?” he asked. He hated that he was so curious. But there was something about Rebecca Barnes. She was a mix of strength and sweetness, and then there was that slightly wounded and not-so-trusting glint in her eye.

Someone had hurt her. Maybe more than one someone.

He shook off the questions that he considered asking the little girl, who was busy brushing his horse, talking to it as if they were sharing their best-kept secrets.

“Nope.” Allie handed him the brush. “We stayed here.”

“Here?”

She gave him a curious look. “Are you going to be sick again?”

“I wasn’t sick,” he insisted. “And no, I’m not. I’m just surprised. I didn’t know you stayed here.”

“Because you were sleeping,” she said, sounding matter-of-fact. “We had dinner with Jack. He told us Maria made the casserole. It was better than anything my mom can cook. She burns stuff. She says it’s because she’s distracted.”

“She wouldn’t want you telling everyone that she can’t cook,” he warned.

“You’re not everyone. Anyway, we stayed here. In the garage. It’s a nice garage with no cars in it, so I don’t know why it’s called a garage.”

They’d stayed on the ranch. The thought unsettled him.

How much could he or should he ask without seeming too curious? He felt like a sixteen-year-old with a crush on the new girl. That wasn’t happening. No way. No how.

“Hey!” A shout from the front of the stable caught his attention.

“Hey back,” he returned.

Eve, a resident of the ranch, glared at him, then managed to soften her expression as she approached. Smile or no, she didn’t appear to be too happy, and it seemed his pint-size stable hand might be the reason.

“You ran off.” Eve pointed at the girl. “And you didn’t ask permission or tell me where you were going. That really isn’t very nice.”

“Eve,” he warned.

If there was another person on the ranch not naturally kid friendly, it was Eve. She’d come around by degrees as she’d gotten attached to Carson’s children. But she would be the first to admit that she didn’t have a lot of experience with children. She’d been an only child to what she referred to as her “hippy parents.”

He wanted to laugh, because somehow she always got stuck babysitting.

“Do I look like a day-care provider?” she asked him.

“You seemed to do a pretty good job,” Isaac teased. “Except you have a tendency to lose children. That can’t be good.”

“I wanted to see the horses,” Allie explained. “I should have told you, but I thought you’d say no.”

Eve maneuvered her chair around the horse, giving the animal a less-than-trusting glance. Shorty didn’t even twitch.

“What if something had happened?” Eve asked the little girl.

Allie’s shoulders hunkered forward and she sighed. “I didn’t think about that. I just wanted to see the animals. Did you know there’s a llama?”

Eve melted. She could act tough but on the inside she was a marshmallow. “Yeah, I know there’s a llama. Do me a favor—next time ask. And if you’re going to wander, take Maximus. Now we need to head back to the house. Your mom will be finished talking with Jack and she’ll be looking for you.”

“Do we have time to see the llama?” Allie moved close to Eve’s chair and leaned on the armrest.

“I think so. But I don’t do well in the dirt out there, so Isaac will have to take you.” Eve shot him a look.

He glared back, the way he would have done if he’d had a little sister that pestered him. He did have a little sister, a half sister named Daisy. But since they’d never met, he didn’t know if she was a pest.

“I’m kind of busy.”

Eve smirked. “Doing what?”

He glanced down at Allie. “Work.”

“What work would that be?” Eve continued.

“Believe it or not, Eve, ranch work is real work. There are fences to fix, cattle to work, horses we’re training.”

She saluted. “Gotcha, Sarge.”

He held a hand out to the child at his side. “Even a spitting llama is better than a stubborn female.”

As he walked away, Allie’s hand in his, Eve called out, “When you get done, could you take her to the house? I have to get some work done.”

“No problem,” he called back to her.

Allie was silent for a minute. “Isn’t she your friend?”

He glanced down at the blond-haired child. “She is my friend.”

“Did you date and get mad at each other?”

“No, we just like to tease. She knows how to...” He cut off the explanation because a kid wouldn’t understand Eve getting under his skin the way she did. “We just like to give each other a hard time. But no, we haven’t dated. We’re just friends.”

Neither of them dated. It was the code on the ranch. This was a place for healing, for getting lives back in order. Relationships were unnecessary baggage for people dealing with physical and emotional problems they’d brought back from war.

The last thing he needed was to drag a woman into his messed-up life. He remembered all too well what it had been like living on this ranch with Jack, back when he was still fighting the nightmares of Vietnam. He remembered Jack climbing into the bottle and not climbing out for weeks, the ranch crumbling around his ears and livestock begging to be fed.

He wasn’t Jack, but he feared the what-ifs.

What if he became Jack? What if he hurt a woman and children the way Jack had hurt his wife and kids?

Nah, it wasn’t worth that kind of guilt. And fortunately there’d never been a woman who had made him consider getting serious.

* * *

The room Jack West used as an office was on a back corner of the sprawling log home. Massive windows offered a view of the wide-open fields belonging to the ranch. One wall of the room was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The shelves were filled with books and family pictures, as well as trophies the ranch had won at different rodeo events in the tristate area. Tristate meaning Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.

Jack had explained it all at the beginning of the meeting. He’d shared personal details that had been uncomfortable to hear. Stories of his wife, his children, his road to recovery and, now, today, trying to forge a relationship with his estranged, adult children.

So far Carson was the only one of the three who had agreed to meet with him. Isaac was not a full brother to Carson and his siblings, Colt and Daisy.

“I’d love to show you the building I have available,” Jack told Rebecca. “I think a salon with the potential to expand to a day spa is a terrific idea. I could see how it would benefit the resort we’re renovating. Now I admit, I’m concerned with your ability to bring in local traffic.”