Gena Dalton - Midnight Faith

All he wanted was to get this Christmas over with.

Tonight he would simply look at Caitlin as a sister-in-law, exactly as he did Darcy, Jackson’s new wife. That was the one bright spot of the past year—Jackson’s sudden marriage and his gradual rejoining of the human race.

Clint tucked in his shirt, went to the armoire for a belt, selected the saddle-tan one that matched the boots, put a buckle on it and threaded it through the loops of his pants. It would serve Caitlin right, pushy as she was, if he did convince Bobbie Ann that this riding school business was a bad idea. He had a ranch to run, he was responsible for everything that happened on it, he didn’t have time to deal with the trouble Caitlin was bound to bring to it and he didn’t owe her the time of day.

He hooked the buckle, gave his hair one last, quick swipe with the brush and headed for the door. Well, if he were perfectly honest, he did owe Cait an apology. That crack he’d made about family traditions had been cruel and he hated the sharp pain it had brought to her big dark eyes.

Least said, soonest forgotten, though. No sense in bringing it up and hurting her feelings all over again.

He strode across his room and out into the hallway, glancing toward the guest rooms on that wing. Cait had slept all day, Bobbie Ann had said—not that he’d asked about her—and he’d heard that before breakfast, even, Manuel had asked her for instructions so his crew could feed her horses and take care of them for her.

Poor Manuel. Evidently he was as goofy as all men were about the tall, black-haired, long-legged horsewoman with the million-dollar smile. He’d probably hire a couple more stable hands just to wait on her hand and foot.

He started down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Manuel had said her horses were good, sound stock but not world-class. Said half of them weren’t tall enough to compete in English classes, which was Cait’s specialty over at Roy’s.

That right there made him wonder what she was really up to. Maybe she was planning a horse-trading business here on his ranch, where all the chores were done efficiently and on schedule and any problems would be taken care of by him and Manuel.

Which, come to think of it, would explain her smiling at him this morning and teasing him and saying let’s not fight, when they had never been in the same room in their lives when they didn’t fuss and wrangle about something. That must be it.

All Cait wanted from him was free rent at an efficiently run stable.

Even if that were true, though, it didn’t excuse him for not helping her unload and get her horses settled. He felt ashamed every time he thought about that—he would’ve extended the courtesy to anybody else in the world, since none of the hands had come to work yet.

He had never shown anyone such a lack of hospitality.

What was it about Cait that made him behave like a stranger to himself?

What was it about Cait that made him obsess about her every time he saw her?

Cait hardly knew the woman who looked back at her from the mirror.

She wore a skirt, for one thing, a very feminine, clingy, black velvet skirt cut with a bell flare at the below-calf hem, and with it, a white silk blouse that had cost as much as a good work saddle. Never in her entire life had she owned such an expensive garment. She still could not believe she had bought it.

Or that the moment she’d tried it on at that expensive shop in Dallas, she’d thought of Clint. Had imagined Clint seeing her in it.

Tears stung her eyes at her own foolishness, but she forced herself to blink them away and meet her own gaze.

“Face reality,” she told her reflection.

She hadn’t survived this long without knowing how to do that.

Lifting her chin, she looked it right in the eye: Clint might be attracted to her, too—maybe—but what he also felt for her was scorn.

And she was not accepting any scorn tonight.

Tonight was Christmas Eve. She was invited to a family celebration. Of her family.

For the four months of her marriage to John, the two of them had lived on the ranch in a small house about two miles away from headquarters. They had come back from their elopement in time for New Year’s Eve and she’d been in the family for Easter that year, but this was her first Christmas.

Tears stung her eyes. How could she ever have believed it would be a true Christmas without John?

If she had gone with him to Mexico instead of doing her job for Roy, would it have saved him—as Clint believed it would?

Dear Lord, I hope I wasn’t the cause of his dying. Please help me know, once again, that I wasn’t.

Most of the time she clung to the assurance she’d achieved through hours of prayer after the very first time she’d heard that theory, which was by accidentally overhearing a conversation between Clint and Jackson at John’s funeral. Today, though, Clint’s accusation had shaken her.

Her heart beat faster. She tightened the combs holding the mass of her hair on top of her head and pulled at the tendrils curling along her neck.

John was gone. Nothing could bring him back. He would not want her to be sad and mourn for him when she should be happy. He would want her to help make his family happy, too.

Deliberately she set her mind to that goal.

It would be a storybook Christmas—family and friends, a huge tree with ornaments that had been in the family for years and years, a festive dinner, gifts, traditions and singing. They would have hot chocolate late, right before they went up to bed. After the old family friends and their Christmas guests came and then left after appetizers and drinks and a dance or two, after the family dinner was over and they’d all sat around telling stories and singing carols and after they’d opened one gift apiece. She would be here for all of it because she was one of the family.

Eagerly she turned and went out into the hallway, savoring the spacious, secure feeling of the old stone house around her. Closing the door of her room behind her, she leaned back against it for a moment, just taking in the scents and sounds of the house before she saw anyone else.

This was the most wonderful house she’d ever been in. The center of it was old, a classic, two-story Texas Hill Country farmhouse squarely built of big, rectangular chunks of limestone carved more than a hundred years earlier out of the dusty land itself. It had the typical wooden porches front and back, and wings on either end of the old house, which had been added on fifty years later.

When those wings were built, the once-small oldest rooms in the center had been converted into a couple of huge ones—the great room and the dining room. The part of the kitchen that held the fireplace also had been in the original house. There were nooks and crannies in these rooms and huge rough-cedar posts and beams bearing the weight of the second floor. All the rooms had high ceilings and wide windows and ceiling fans and the solid feel of a home that had its roots deep in the ground.

She looked up and down the hall of this bedroom wing. Old Man Clint, John’s grandfather, had believed every bedroom should have the south breeze or the east breeze or both if possible, so this east wing was family bedrooms and guest rooms, while the west one held a pool room, music room, saddle room, library and spaces for Bobbie Ann’s sewing and other activities.

But what Cait loved most was not the space—although it amazed her every time she walked through it—it was the old, settled, secure atmosphere created by the worn oak floors, the square Mexican tiles of the kitchen, the leather furniture that had been there since the house was built, the Navajo rugs on the floors and the walls, the wood worn smooth by much use and many hands, the gorgeous Western paintings and sculptures that had gradually come into the house over the years and now looked as if they’d been born there.