RaeAnne Thayne - The Christmas Ranch

“Faith—my sister—is understandably overwhelmed. She’s hardly had time to grieve and so she and my aunt Mary and my sister Celeste all decided to take a break from operating the holiday side of things. Since I’m here now and don’t have anything going, I offered to take over and run The Christmas Ranch this year. As you can imagine, I have a gazillion things to do if we’re going to open in little more than a week. That’s where I need Joey’s help.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think he knows anything about reindeer.”

She made a face. “He won’t need to deal with the reindeer unless he wants to. But I could really use him after school helping me get everything ready in time for our traditional opening the day after Thanksgiving.”

Ten days. She had no idea how she would accomplish the tiniest fraction of what she had to do but she had to start somewhere.

“If Joey can help me every day after school for a few hours that should make us square on the three hundred dollars it’s going to take to replace my truck window.”

“It would be far easier for me to just pay you the three hundred dollars now and be done with it.”

She made a face. “You’re absolutely right. But raising boys into men isn’t about the easy. It’s about consequences and accountability. What lesson would he learn if you stepped in to fix his problem for him?”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Fine. I’ll bring him out tomorrow after school. You said it’s in Cold Creek Canyon?”

“Yes. You know where that is?”

“Yes.”

“Great. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, then. Thanks. Have him wear boots and warm clothes. And don’t worry. I’ll find something fun for him to do.”

“Sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? Seems only fair, after you did all the work.”

She was extraordinarily tempted. She liked the man, entirely too much, but the hard reality was, she didn’t have a minute to spare. Even the fifteen minutes she had spent here already was too much.

“I appreciate the invitation and I really wish I could, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass.”

“I think you’re just chicken your sauce won’t be edible after all, for all your big talk.”

She gave a short laugh. “Wait and see, sailor. Wait and see. Bring that cute nephew of yours over after school, whenever he’s done with homework. We’re on the north side of the road, about three miles up the canyon. You can’t miss it. There’s a sign over the driveway that says The Christmas Ranch.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Great. See you then.”

He started to walk her to the door but she shook her head. “I can find my way out. You need to stay and stir that sauce.”

And she needed to do her best to figure out how she was going to keep from losing her head over a man with hazel eyes, a sweet smile and shoulders made for taking on a woman’s cares.

Chapter Four

By the time she finally made it back to the Star N, spaghetti with Rafe Santiago and his nephew sounded like the most delicious thing she could imagine, even if the man somehow ended up burning the sauce again.

She was exhausted and starving and trying not to feel completely defeated at the magnitude of the task ahead of her.

Nothing seemed to be going the way she planned. Of their six regular temp employees in years past, three were unavailable or had already found other positions for the season and one had moved away. Only two of their regulars were available to help this year—Mac Palmer, who had been their Santa Claus for years, and Linda Smithson, who helped out in the gift shop.

She was glad to find workers where she could, at least, but she would definitely need to find extra help—in a town she hadn’t lived in with any regularity in a decade. It was an overwhelming undertaking.

She was most concerned after her last conversation with Dale Williams. The retired schoolteacher had been their general handyman for a decade and also stepped in to play Santa Claus sometimes, trading off with Mac when needed. But he had had bypass surgery just three weeks earlier and wouldn’t be in any shape to help her this year.

She faced the most uphill of uphill battles. A truly epic vertical slope.

While she was tempted to throw in the towel now, before she even started, she absolutely refused.

This might not be the most memorable holiday season The Christmas Ranch had ever enjoyed but she was going to make darn certain it was still a good one.

She repeated the mantra that helped her through the jitters she always had when taking a new teaching job. She could handle this. Heaven knows, she had faced tougher obstacles before.

She and her sisters had survived being kidnapped with their parents by leftist rebels in a foreign country—being held for several weeks in very tiny rooms with no running water and a bucket for a toilet, watching her mother growing increasingly sicker from the cancer ravaging her body while they were helpless to get her the medical help she needed, watching her father die in front of her just when they all thought they would be rescued, then losing her grief-stricken mother just a few months later.

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