Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne

“As always Ms Thayne writes a fascinating story that will keep readers interested from beginning to end … a feel good romance that takes place over the holidays in snowy Idaho, with sleigh rides and sparkling Christmas trees. It is sure to meet with readers’ approval.”

—Romance Reviews Today on A Cold Creek Noel

“I love RaeAnne Thayne. She is the best when it comes to crafting an engrossing mystery and characters you’d love to know personally. She deftly creates a love story that makes us believe that true love, such as that which happens to the characters in this story, can and does happen in the real world.”

—Idaho Statesman on A Cold Creek Christmas Surprise

“A sometimes heartbreaking tale of love and relationships in a small Colorado town … Poignant and sweet, this tale of second chances will appeal to fans of military-flavored sweet romance.”

—Publishers Weekly on Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

“Once again, Thayne proves she has a knack for capturing those emotions that come from the heart. Crisp storytelling and many amusing moments make for a delightful read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Willowleaf Lane

“Thayne pens another winner by combining her huge, boisterous cast of familiar, lovable characters with a beautiful setting and a wonderful story. Her main characters are strong and three-dimensional, with enough heat between them to burn the pages.”

—RT Book Reviews on Currant Creek Valley

“Hope’s Crossing is a charming series that lives up to its name. Reading these stories of small-town life engage the reader’s heart and emotions, inspiring hope and the belief miracles are possible.”

—Debbie Macomber, No.1 New York Times bestselling author, on Sweet Laurel Falls

“Thayne, once again, delivers a heartfelt story of a caring community and a caring romance between adults who have triumphed over tragedies.”

—Booklist on Woodrose Mountain

“Thayne’s series starter introduces the Colorado town of Hope’s Crossing in what can be described as a cozy romance … [a] gentle, easy read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Blackberry Summer

The Christmas Ranch

RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RAEANNE THAYNE, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author, finds inspiration in the beautiful northern Utah mountains, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her books have won numerous honors, including RITA® Award nominations from Romance Writers of America and a Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers and can be contacted through her website, www.raeannethayne.com.

To my wonderful readers, for sharing this amazing journey with me. I consider myself extraordinarily blessed that I can spend my days spinning stories with happy endings, while hoping that my words might make someone’s day a little brighter. Thank you!

Contents

Cover

Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Though Thanksgiving was still a week and a half away, Christmas apparently had already rolled into Pine Gulch, Idaho, in all its snowy glory.

Hope Nichols looked through the windshield of the crappy old Ford pickup truck she had picked up for a cool thousand dollars at the edge of a Walmart parking lot in Salt Lake City. On a late afternoon in November the storefronts of the small but vibrant downtown area were alive with Christmas displays—trees, lights, toy soldiers, the occasional Nativity scene.

As she drove through more residential areas on her way to Cold Creek Canyon, she saw the holiday spirit extended here. Nearly every house had decorations of some sort, from inflatable snowmen to a full-fledged Santa and reindeer display.

She didn’t mind even the kitschiest of decorations, even though to some it might seem early in the season. Considering she hadn’t spent the holidays at home for the past five years—or even in the country—she couldn’t wait to embrace the whole Christmas thing this year.

She supposed that was a good thing, since her family’s Ranch was the holiday epicenter around here.

This area of eastern Idaho already had a few inches of snow—not much, but enough to cover everything in a lovely blanket of white and add a bit of seasonal charm to the town she remembered with such warmth and affection.

While Pine Gulch wasn’t exactly her hometown, it was close enough. Hope and her sisters had lived here through most of their formative teen years, and she loved every inch of it, from the distant view of the west slope of the Tetons to the unassuming storefronts to the kind people who waved at her even now, though they couldn’t possibly recognize her or the old blue pickup truck with the primer on the side.

She had come to be pretty fond of the old Ford. It didn’t exactly drive like a dream, but it had four-wheel drive and all its working parts. Buying it had been an impulsive decision—she had intended to rent a car in Salt Lake City to drive home after she flew in from northern Africa, but had suddenly realized she would need transportation permanently now. This truck would get her through the gnarly winter season until she figured out what she would do next. After a decade of wandering, she was ready to stay put for a while.

Nerves in her stomach danced a little, as they had been doing throughout the five-hour drive from Salt Lake, while she tried to anticipate the reaction she would find at the Star N Ranch when she showed up out of the blue with her duffel bag.

Aunt Mary would probably cry, her older sister, Faith, would be shocked and her younger sister, Celeste, would smile in that quiet way of hers.

The children would at least be happy to see her, though she knew Louisa and Barrett—and everyone else, for that matter—were still reeling from the death of their father. Travis, Faith’s husband and childhood sweetheart, had died four months earlier in a tragic accident. Hope had come back for his funeral, of course, but her correspondence and video chats with her family since then had mostly been superficial.

It was time to come home. Past time. Since Travis’s death, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her family needed her, despite their protests that all was fine. The holiday season was insane at The Christmas Ranch and all hands were necessary, even when those hands belonged to the wanderer in the fam—

Whack!

With a noise as loud as a gunshot, something hit the passenger-side window of her truck, jerking her thoughts back to the present. In the space of a heartbeat, the window shattered as Hope slammed on the brakes, ducked and instinctively yelled a curse word her mostly Berber students taught her.

What the...?

Who would be shooting at her? For a crazy moment, she was a terrified, desperate thirteen-year-old girl again, heart pounding, adrenaline pulsing. She didn’t have flashbacks very often, but when she did, they could roll over her like a bulldozer.

She drew in a breath, forcing away the panic. This was Pine Gulch. There were no snipers here, no rebel factions. Nobody would be shooting at her. She glanced at the window. Because the truck was older, it didn’t have tempered glass and the entire window had shattered. All she found was a melting pile of snow amid the shattered glass—and a healthy-sized rock.

Not a gunshot, then. A dirty trick. Tentatively, she raised her head to look around. At first, she didn’t see anything, until a flurry of movement on that side of the vehicle caught her gaze.

A young boy stood just off the road looking shocked and not a little guilty.

Hope pulled over to the side of the road then jumped out of the driver’s side and headed for him.

The kid stared at her, eyes wide. He froze for only a moment as she approached, then whirled around and took off at top speed across the snow-covered lawn just as a man walked around the side of the house with a couple of snow shovels in hand.

“You’re in luck, kid,” he called. “I found shovels for each of us.”

The man’s voice trailed off as the boy raced behind him, using what were quite impressive muscles as a shield, as if he thought Hope was going to start hurling snowball-covered rocks right back at him.

“Hey. Come back here. Where do you think you’re going, young man?” she demanded sternly in her best don’t-mess-with-me teacher’s voice.

The big man frowned and set the snow shovels blade-down on the sidewalk. “Excuse me, lady. What the he—er, heck is your problem?”

She told herself her heart was racing only from adrenaline at her window suddenly shattering. It had nothing to do with this large, muscled, gorgeous man with short dark hair and remarkable hazel eyes. Somehow he seemed even bigger as he bristled at her, overpowering and male.

She, however, had gone against bullies far worse than some small-town cowboy with a juvenile delinquent and an attitude.

She pointed to the pickup truck, engine still running, and the shattered passenger window.

“Your son here is the problem—or more accurately, the rock he just tossed through my window. I could have been seriously hurt. It’s a miracle I didn’t run off the road.”

“I’m not his son,” the kid snapped. He looked angry and belligerent at the very idea.

She supposed it was only natural her mind immediately went to kidnapping, especially after the sudden flashback.

“You’re not?”

“I’m his uncle,” Sexy Dude said, with a frustrated look at the boy. “Did you see him throw it? I’m sure you must be mistaken. Joey is not the kind of kid who would throw a rock at a moving vehicle—especially a stranger’s moving vehicle.”

Was he trying to convince her or himself? His words rang a little hollow, making her wonder if Joey was exactly the kind of kid who would vandalize a vehicle, whether he knew the owners or not.

“Then explain to me why my window is shattered and why he took off the moment I stopped my truck to talk to him about it.”

The guy frowned. “Joe. Tell the nice lady you didn’t throw a rock at her window.”

The boy lifted his chin obstinately but after meeting her gaze for just a moment, he looked down at his snowboots. “I didn’t throw a rock,” he insisted, then added in a muffled sort of aside, “It was a snowball.”

“A snowball with a rock inside it,” she retorted.

He looked up and gave his uncle an imploring look. “It was a accident. I didn’t mean to, Uncle Rafe. I swear.”

“Joey.” The uncle said the single name with a defeated kind of frustration, making her wonder what the situation was between the two of them. Where were the boy’s parents?

“It was a accident,” he repeated. Whether it was genuine or an act, Joey now sounded like he was going to cry.

“An accident,” she corrected.

“Whatever,” the boy said.

“Using proper English is important when you wish to convey your point.” Yes, she sounded prim but six years of combined experience in the Peace Corps and teaching English across the globe had ingrained habits that were probably going to be tough to break.

“Okay. It was an accident,” he spoke with such dramatic exaggeration that she almost smiled, until she remembered the crisis at hand.

“That’s better, but I’m still not sure I believe you. I think you were aiming right at my truck.”

“I didn’t mean to break the window. I wasn’t even trying to hit the window, I was trying to hit the hubcap. My friend Samantha and me are playing a game and we get five points for every hubcap.”

“My friend Samantha and I,” she said. She couldn’t seem to help herself, even though she noticed the correction only made the uncle glower harder, making him look big and rough-edged and even more dangerous.

She suddenly felt small and not nearly as tough as she liked to think.

“Can we deep six the English lessons, lady, and focus on your window?”

She was nervous, she suddenly realized. Was it because of his military haircut or the muscles or because he was so great-looking? She pushed away the uneasiness and forced herself to concentrate on the real issue.

“Sorry. Reflex. I’ll stop now. I’ve been teaching English in northern Africa the past few years and was in the Peace Corps before that. I’m just returning to Pine Gulch to visit my family. They live in Cold Creek Canyon and...”

Her voice trailed off. He didn’t care about that. She cleared her throat. “Right. My window. It was a very dangerous thing you did, young man. Tell your friend Samantha it’s a bad idea to throw snowballs at cars, whether the snowballs have rocks in them or not. You could distract the driver and someone could easily get hurt—maybe even you.”

The boy gave her a pugnacious sort of look but said nothing until his uncle nudged him.

“Tell the nice lady you’re sorry.”

“I don’t think she’s very nice,” he grumbled.

Again, Hope almost smiled, until she met the man’s gaze and found him looking extremely unamused by the entire situation.

Humorless jerk.

“Too bad.” The boy’s uncle—Rafe, was it?—frowned at him. “Tell her you’re sorry anyway.”

Joey looked down at the snow-covered ground again and then finally met her gaze. “I’m sorry I hit your window and not your hubcap. We don’t get any points for hitting windows.”

As apologies went, it was a little weak but she would still take it. She was suddenly weary of the whole situation and wanted to continue on toward the Star N and her family.

“In your defense, that window had a crack in it anyway. It probably wouldn’t have shattered if it hadn’t been for that.”

“You’re not going to be throwing any snowballs at cars again,” the boy’s uncle said sternly. “And you’re going to tell Samantha not to do it either, right?”

“But I was winning the contest! She was gonna give me her new Darth Vader LEGO minifig if I won and I was gonna give her my Green Ninja minifig if she won.”

“Too bad. The lady is right. It’s dangerous. Look at the trouble you’ve already caused!”

The boy didn’t look happy about it but he finally shrugged. “Fine.”

“We’ll pay for the window replacement, of course. If you get an estimate, you can have them send the bill to me here. Rafe Santiago. I’ll warn you that I’m only going to be in town for another few weeks, though.”

The name seemed to strike a chord deep in her subconscious. Had they met before? Something about his hazel eyes—striking against his burnished skin—reminded her of someone but she couldn’t seem to pin down who or where.

She didn’t remember any Santiagos living in this little house before. From what she remembered of Hope’s Crossing, this had always been a rental house, often used short-term for seasonal workers and such.

“I will do that.” She held out her hand, deciding there was no reason they couldn’t leave on good terms. “I’m Hope Nichols. You can find me at The Christmas Ranch, in Cold Creek Canyon.”

At her words, something sparked in those hazel eyes but she couldn’t identify it.

“Nichols?” he said sharply.

“Yes.”

Perhaps he knew her sisters, though Faith went by her married name now, Dustin, and she couldn’t imagine quiet, introverted Celeste having much to do with a rough and tumble man like him. Maybe Joey had caused trouble at the library where Celeste worked. She could believe that—though, okay, that might be a snap judgment.

“Can I go inside?” Joey asked. “Snow got in my boots and now my feet are freezing. I need to dump it out.”

“Yeah. Go ahead. Dump the snow off on the porch, not inside.”

Joey raced off and after a moment, Rafe Santiago—why was that name so familiar?—turned back to her.

“I’m sorry about my nephew,” he said, rather stiffly. “He’s had a...rough time of it the past few weeks.”

She wondered what had happened, but when he didn’t volunteer any further details, she accepted it was none of her business. “I’m sorry if I came down too hard.”

“I didn’t say you did. Whatever he’s been through isn’t an excuse anyway. I’ll talk to him about this stupid contest and make sure he and his friend both realize it’s not a good idea.”

He gave her another searching look and she had the strangest feeling he wanted to say something else. When the silence stretched between them, a little too long to be comfortable, she decided she couldn’t wait around for him to speak.

“I should go. My family is waiting for me. I’ll be in touch, Mr. Santiago.”

“Rafe,” he said gruffly. Was that his normal speaking voice or did she just bring out the rough edges? she wondered.

“Rafe. Nice to meet you, even under the circumstances.”

She hurried back to her pickup truck and continued on toward home, though she couldn’t shake the odd feeling that something momentous had just happened.

* * *

Rafe watched the taillights recede into the early evening gloom until she turned a corner and disappeared. Even then, he couldn’t seem to make himself move, still reeling from the random encounter.

Hope Nichols.

Son of a bi...gun.

He checked the epithet. He was trying not to swear, even in his head. Joey didn’t need any more bad habits. If Rafe didn’t think the words, he wouldn’t speak them. It was a logical theory but after twenty years in the navy, seventeen of those as a SEAL, cleaning up his language for the sake of a seven-year-old boy with an enormous chip on his shoulder was harder than he ever would have imagined.

He didn’t have a choice. Like it or not—and he sure as he—er, heck, didn’t—Joey was his responsibility now.

Hope Nichols. What were the odds?

He knew she and her sisters had come to live in Pine Gulch, Idaho, after. He might have been a green-as-alfalfa rookie who had never been on an actual mission before that tense December day seventeen years ago, but keeping track of the Nichols girls had been a point of honor.

They had an aunt and uncle here who had taken them in. He remembered being grateful for that, at least that they had someone. He had received a letter from the oldest, he remembered, a few months afterward...

The girl couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen but she had written to him like a polite old lady.

He had memorized the damn—er, darn—thing.

Dear Special Warfare Operator Santiago,

Thank you for participating in rescuing us from Juan Pablo and his rebel group. You and the other men in your navy SEAL platoon risked your lives to save us. If not for you, we might still be in that awful camp. You are true American heroes. My sisters and I will never forget what you have done for us.

Sincerely, Faith Marie Nichols

PS: It is nobody’s fault that our father died. We don’t blame anyone and know you tried your best to save us all.

The carefully written letter had been sweetly horrible and he had carried it around in his wallet for years to remind him that navy SEALs couldn’t afford even the smallest error in judgment.

Hope—the annoying grammarian with the ancient pickup truck—had been the middle daughter, he remembered, all tangled blond hair and big, frightened blue eyes. She had screamed when her father had been shot, and the echo of that terrified, despairing scream had haunted him for a long, long time.

He let out a breath. And now she was here, just a few miles away from him, and he would have to interact with her at least one more time.

Had she recognized him today? He couldn’t be sure. She had given him a strange look a few times, as if she thought she knew him, but she hadn’t said anything.

Why hadn’t he identified himself and explained their old history?

He wasn’t sure—maybe because the opportunity hadn’t really come up. How does a guy say, Hey, I know this is a strange coincidence but I was there the day your family was rescued from terrorists nearly two decades ago. Oh, and by the way, my inexperience contributed to your father’s death. Sorry about that and your broken window, too.

He let out a breath, marveling again at the strange, twisting corkscrews of fate that had brought him to Pine Gulch, in such proximity to the Nichols sisters. When Cami called him in tears and explained that she had been arrested and that Joey had gone into emergency foster care, he had known immediately he had to help his nephew, whatever it took.

The fact that his path would bring him to Pine Gulch, where the Nichols sisters had landed after the tragedy of that Christmas day so long ago, hadn’t really hit home until he drove into the city limits two weeks ago.

In the midst of trying to settle into a routine with his nephew, he had wondered during those two weeks whether they were still in town and if he should try to contact any of them—and now that decision had been taken out of his hands by Hope.

That seemed to be a common theme to his life the past month—being in a position that left him few choices.

His life had changed dramatically in the past month. He had left the only career he had ever known in order to take on the responsibility for a troubled seven-year-old who wanted nothing to do with him.

He was determined to do his best for Joey. The poor kid hadn’t been given very many breaks in life.

Rafe still couldn’t quite believe how far his sister had fallen, from an honor student in high school to being tangled up with a man who had seduced her into coming to Idaho and had then dragged her into a life of drugs and crime.

He had done his best for his sister, had joined the navy the day he turned eighteen so he could support her and had sent money for her care to their aunt, who had taken her in—but apparently that effort hadn’t been enough to provide the future he always wanted for her.

He had failed with Cami. Now he had to see if he could do a better job with her son.

He opened the door to the short-term rental he had found in Pine Gulch after Cami begged him to let Joey stay here until she was sentenced, which at this point was only a few weeks away.

Joey was sitting on the bench in the foyer with his boots and coat still on, as if he were bracing himself for the punishment he fully expected.

Rafe’s heart, grizzled and tough from years of combat, couldn’t help but soften just a little at his forlorn posture and expression.

“I didn’t mean to break the mean lady’s window,” his nephew said again, his voice small.

The kid needed consequences in order to learn how his choices could have impact in others’ lives. Rafe knew that, but sometimes this parenting thing sucked big-time when what he really wanted was to gather him close and tell him everything would be okay.

“You might not have meant to cause harm, but you saw what happened. You messed up, kid.”

The irony of those words seemed to reach out and grab him by the throat. Joey’s actions might have cost Hope Nichols a car window, something that easily could be replaced.

His actions toward her and her sisters had far more long-reaching consequences.

If his reflexes had been half a second faster, he could have taken out that jacked-up, trigger-happy rebel before the bastard squeezed off the shot that took her father forever.

“Will I have to pay for the window?” Joey asked. “I have eight dollars in my piggy bank. Will it be more than that?”

“We’ll figure it out. Maybe I’ll pay her and then you can work to pay me back.”

The boy looked out the window. “I can shovel the snow.”

“Hate to break it to you, but I was going to make you do that anyway. That’s going to be one of your regular chores, helping me with that. We’ll have to figure out how to pay back Ms. Nichols some other way.”

As for the debt he owed her, Rafe knew there was no way he could repay her or her sisters.

Chapter Two

Something was very, very wrong.

Hope wanted to think she was only upset from the encounter with Rafe Santiago and his very cute but troublesome nephew. Perhaps she was overwrought as a natural by-product from first having her window shattered in such a shocking manner and then coming face-to-face with a big, dangerous-looking man.

But as she approached the Star N and especially The Christmas Ranch—her family’s holiday-themed attraction that covered fifteen acres of the cattle ranch—she couldn’t seem to shake the edgy, unsettled feeling.

Where was everyone? As she approached, she could see the parking lot in front of the charming and rustic St. Nicholas Lodge and it was completely empty, which made absolutely no sense.

There should at least be a maintenance crew getting ready for the season. It usually took several weeks before opening day—which traditionally happened with a grand lighting ceremony at dusk on the Friday after Thanksgiving—to spruce things up, touch up the paint, repair any damage done throughout the summer.

Instead, the place looked like a ghost town. All it needed were a few tumbleweeds blowing through to complete the picture.

Maybe everybody had simply gone home for the day, but she suddenly realized the reindeer enclosure was missing slats and reindeer, nor did it look like any of the colored lights had been hung on the fence or in the shrubs lining the road.

She drove farther down the road with cold air whistling in from the shattered window. As she approached the parking lot entrance, her stomach suddenly dropped and she hit the brakes.

A banner obscured the sign that usually read Welcome to The Christmas Ranch, where your holiday dreams come true.

In huge red letters on a white background, it read simply, Closed Indefinitely.

Closed. Indefinitely.

Shock rocketed through her faster than a speeding sleigh. Impossible! She couldn’t believe it. Surely her sisters wouldn’t have closed down The Christmas Ranch without telling her! This was a tradition, a gift from the Nichols family to the rest of Pine Gulch and this entire area of southeastern Idaho.

Families came from miles around to partake of the holiday spirit. All of it. The horse-drawn sleigh rides. The sledding hill. Visits with Santa Claus. The reindeer herd in the petting zoo and the gift shop filled with local handicrafts and the huge collection of Nativities, many which had been sent from around the world by her parents as they traveled around as missionaries.

Even the cheesy little animatronic Christmas village was a family favorite.

It was a place of magic and wonder, a little piece of holiday spirit for the entire community to enjoy.

How could her sisters and Auntie Mary close it, indefinitely or otherwise?

And how many shocks in the space of an hour could one woman endure? Her hands shook on the steering wheel as she drove the remaining three hundred feet to the driveway leading to the ranch house.

She drove up the winding road with her heart pounding. At the house—a rambling white two-story farmhouse with a wide front porch—she parked and stomped up the steps.

Though she was tempted to dramatically storm inside—she had spent all her teen years in this house, after all, and still considered it her own—she forced herself to stop at the front door and knock.

Though Aunt Mary still lived here with Faith, it was really her sister’s house now and Hope didn’t feel she had the right to just barge in. Living in other cultures most of her life, barring the years she spent here, had given her a healthy respect for others’ personal space.

Nobody answered for a few moments. She was about to pound harder when the door suddenly opened. Instead of Faith or Auntie Mary, her nephew, Barrett, stood on the other side of the door.

At the sight of her, his darling face lit up with a joy that seemed to soothe all the ragged, battered edges of her spirit and made the whole long journey worthwhile.

“Aunt Hope! What are you doing here? I didn’t even know you were coming!”

“I’m sure it will be a big surprise to everybody,” she answered, a little grimly.

“The best, best, best kind,” her sweetly loyal nephew claimed as he wrapped his arms around her waist. She hugged him, feeling better already—even as she thought of the last little boy she had encountered, who hadn’t been nearly so enthusiastic about her presence.

“Oh, I missed you,” he exclaimed.

“I missed you, too, potato bug.”

Barrett was seven and most of their relationship had developed via email and the occasional video chat when the vast time zone conflicts could be worked out.

She hadn’t received nearly enough of these hugs in her lifetime, she suddenly decided, with an almost painful aching for family and home.

“Who’s at the door, Barrett?” she heard her sister call from the kitchen.

“Don’t tell her,” Hope said, managing a grin even though some part of her was still annoyed with her sister.

“Um, nobody,” he answered back, obviously not good at coming up with fibs on the fly.

“How can it be nobody?” her older sister said, and Hope could almost hear the frown in her voice.

Holding a finger to her mouth for Barrett, she headed down the hall toward the kitchen where her sister’s voice originated.

In the doorway, she caught a glimpse of Faith at the work island in the center of what was really command central of the house. Her sister’s dark hair was held back in a messy ponytail and she looked tired, with deep circles under her eyes and lines of strain bracketing her mouth.

More of Hope’s half-formed displeasure at her sister slipped away. Her sister had lost so much—everything!—and Hope hadn’t been here for her.

“Seriously, Barrett. Who was at the door? Was it UPS again, delivering something for Auntie Mary?”

The boy giggled, a sweet, pure sound that drew Faith’s attention from the vegetables she was cutting at the island. She looked up and her jaw sagged.

“Hope! What in the world?”

Hope mustered a smile. “Surprise.”

Her sister wiped her hands on a dish towel and came toward her. Faith had lost weight. Hope was struck again by how fragile and slight she seemed, as if a sharp gust of wind from a December storm would blow her clear out to the barn.

Those lines around her mouth had been etched by pain, she suddenly realized. Her sister had lost the love her life, her childhood sweetheart, a mere four months earlier in a tragic accident and had barely had time to grieve. She would be reeling from the loss of her husband for a long time.

Travis Dustin had been killed after he had rolled an all-terrain vehicle while rounding up cattle in the mountains. He hadn’t been wearing a helmet and had been killed instantly, leaving behind Faith and their two children.

Hope still couldn’t believe he was gone. If she closed her eyes, she could almost picture him the last time she saw him alive, nearly two years earlier when she had been able to come home briefly between assignments in time for New Year’s Eve. He had been a dear friend as well as a beloved brother-in-law and his loss had hit her hard.

She had been here four months earlier for his funeral but had only been able to stay a few days. It hadn’t been long enough.

Hope crossed to her sister and hugged her hard, wishing she could absorb some of her pain.

They were extremely close to each other and to Celeste, their sibling relationship forged through their unorthodox upbringing and the tragedy that had changed all of them so long ago.

Faith rested her cheek against Hope’s. “Oh, what a wonderful surprise. I thought you were going on to Nepal after you finished your teaching stint in Morocco.”

“That was the plan, but I decided to take a break for a few months to figure things out. I thought maybe, I don’t know, I could take a rest from traveling. Maybe stay and help you out around here for a while.”

“Oh. It will be so wonderful to have you here longer than a few days!”

“I thought I could stay through the holidays, if you’ll have me.”

While Faith smiled at her with apparent delight, Hope didn’t miss the sudden wariness in her gaze. “This is your home, too. You’re always welcome here, you know that.”

She paused and gave Hope a searching look. “I guess you must have seen the sign at the Ranch on the way in.”

Hope tried to summon a little of the anger that had accompanied her on the short drive to the ranchhouse but it was impossible to dredge up more than a little kernel at this sister she had always loved and admired for her courage, her sweetness, her practicality—all the things Hope didn’t have.

Her sister had suffered great pain and somehow continued to trudge on, though Hope had no idea how she was managing it.

“I saw the sign. I don’t understand what it means.”

“It means we’re not opening The Christmas Ranch this year,” Barrett announced, sounding just as disgruntled as Hope had been when she first spotted the empty parking lot.

She placed a hand on his shoulder. “That’s what I suspected when I saw the sign. I still can’t quite believe it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Faith’s mouth compressed into a tight line. “I would have told you eventually, if you had asked how things were going with The Christmas Ranch, but I didn’t see any point in stirring the pot when you weren’t here anyway.”

She couldn’t blame her sister for that, she supposed. Her family had no reason to believe this year would be any different from the last handful, when she hadn’t been able to manage coming home for longer than a day or two for a quick visit, if that.

“What gives, though? Why are we Closed Indefinitely?”

Her sister pounded a little harder on the dough she was working on the table. “Auntie Mary and I decided to take a break this year while we figure things out.”

She gave a meaningful look to her son. “And speaking of Mary—Barrett, go find her. I think she went into her room earlier to do some knitting.”

“You mean to take a nap,” he said with a grin as he headed out of the room.

“A nap?” she asked as soon as her nephew was out of earshot. The idea of her vibrant aunt taking a nap was as foreign to her as she imagined Couscous Friday—a Moroccan cultural tradition—would be to her family.

“She takes a nap just about every afternoon. She starts in with watching a television show and usually dozes off in the middle of it for a few minutes. Don’t forget, she’s in her seventies and not as energetic as she used to be, especially since Uncle Claude died.”

Hope hated thinking of her aunt slowing down. Mary was her aunt by marriage, wed to the girls’ father’s oldest brother. She and her husband had become the only thing they had to parents after their parents’ tragic deaths only a few months apart.

“You’re telling me she wants to close the ranch, too?”

“Celeste voted, too. It was a mutual decision. We didn’t have much of a choice.”

“But people around here love it. It’s as much a tradition as the giant Christmas tree in the town square and the ice rink on the tennis courts behind city hall.”

“You think I don’t know how much people love the place? I completely get it. This is my home, remember? You haven’t been around since you graduated from high school and left for your study abroad in Europe.”

Though she didn’t think her sister meant the words as a barb, they stuck sharply anyway.

“But the Ranch is hemorrhaging money, sis. Money we just don’t have. Last year it was the stupid motor on the rope tow that had to be replaced, the year before that the roof on St. Nicholas lodge. The liability insurance alone is killing us.”

Hope frowned. “But Travis loved it. You know he did. Uncle Claude loved it! It was his life’s work. He loved everything about Christmas and found the greatest delight in his life by helping everyone else celebrate the holidays. How can you just close the door on all that tradition?”

“Uncle Claude is gone now. So is Tr-Travis.” Her voice wobbled a little on her husband’s name and Hope felt small and selfish for pushing her about The Christmas Ranch.

“It’s just me, Mary and Celeste—and Mary isn’t as young as she used to be and Celeste works fifty-hours a week at the library in town. That leaves mostly me and it’s all I can do to keep the cattle part of the Star N functioning without Travis. We wouldn’t have survived harvest and round-up if Chase Brannon hadn’t stepped in to help us and sent a couple of his guys on semipermanent loan, but he’s got his own ranch to run.”

“I’m here now. I can help. I want to help.”

“For how long this time?”

The question was a legitimate one. Hope didn’t know how to answer. She had finished her teaching obligation in Morocco and had been actively looking around for another one, but at this point her plans were nebulous at best.

“I don’t have anything scheduled. I can stay through the holidays. Let me run The Christmas Ranch. You can focus on the cattle side of things at the Star N and I’ll take care of everything on the holiday side.”

If she thought her sister would jump at the chance for the help, she would have been disappointed. Faith only shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying. It’s more than just wearing an elf costume and taking tickets. You haven’t been here during the season in years, not since Claude expanded the operations. You’ve got no experience.”

“Except for the five years I spent helping out when I was a kid, when we all pitched in. Those were magical times, Faith.”

Her sister’s expression indicated she didn’t particularly agree. Faith had never much liked the Christmas village, Hope suddenly remembered.

When they had come to Cold Creek Canyon and the Star N to live with Mary and Claude so long ago, they had all been traumatized and heartbroken. Three lost young girls.

Their father had died on Christmas day. The next year, Claude had put them all to work in the concessions stand at what was then only the reindeer petting zoo and the Christmas village with the moving figures. Her older sister had been reluctant to help, and never really wanted much of anything to do with it. She had only agreed after Claude had continued to hint how much he needed her help, in that gentle way of his.

No wonder she had been so quick to close the attraction at the first opportunity.

“Well, I thought they were magical times. I love The Christmas Ranch. I can make a success of it, I swear.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about. Thanksgiving is next week. There’s simply no time to get everything ready in a week and a half!”

She didn’t know why this was so important to her but she couldn’t bear the idea of no Christmas Ranch. Only at this very moment did she realize how much she had been looking forward to it this year.

She opened her mouth to say so but a flurry of movement in the doorway distracted her. Her aunt appeared, with Barrett close behind.

Her heart squeezed when she saw that it did, indeed, look as if Mary had been napping. The graying, old-fashioned bun she always wore was lopsided and her eyes were still a little bleary. Still, they lit up when they saw her.

“Oh, Hope, my darling! What a wonderful surprise!”

Mary opened her plump arms and Hope sagged into them. This. She hadn’t realized how very much she needed the steady love of her family until right this moment.

She could smell the flowery, powdery scent of her aunt’s White Shoulders perfume and it brought back a flood of memories.

“Why didn’t you call us, my dear?” Mary asked. “Someone could have driven to the airport to pick you up. Even one of Chase’s ranch hands. Did you fly into Jackson Hole or Idaho Falls?”

“I actually flew into Salt Lake City last night and bought a pickup truck near a hotel by the airport. I figured I would need some kind of four-wheel-drive transportation while I was here anyway and I didn’t know if you had any extra vehicles around the ranch.”

“We could have found something for you, I’m sure. But what’s done is done.”

Hope didn’t mention the noisy engine or the fact that it now was missing most of the passenger-side window.

She made a mental note to find some plastic she could tape up to keep the elements out until she could take it somewhere in town to have the window replaced.

“How long are you staying?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Fae and I were just talking about that. What would you say if I told you I would like to run The Christmas Ranch this year.”

For just an instant, shock and delight flashed in her aunt’s warm brown eyes, then Mary glanced at Faith. Her expression quickly shifted. “Oh. Oh, my. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I don’t think you have any idea how much work it is, honey.”

She had lived on her own all over the world. She could do hard things—and maybe it was time her family accepted that.

“I know it will be, but I can handle it, I promise. You won’t even have to lift a finger. I’ll do all of it.”

“But, my dear. The reindeer. The sleigh rides. It’s too much work for you.”

The reality was daunting. A tiny little voice of doubt whispered that she didn’t have the first idea what she was getting into but Hope pressed it down. This was suddenly of vital importance to her. She had to open the ranch. It was a matter of family pride—and belief in herself, too.

“I’ll figure something out. I might not be able to do everything, but even a limited opening is better than nothing. Please. Just let me do this. It’s important to me. I have such wonderful memories of The Christmas Ranch, just like everyone in town who has been coming here for years.”

Aunt Mary was plainly wavering—and in the long run, the Star N was still her ranch and she ought to have final say. Her aunt glanced at Faith, who was pounding the pizza dough so hard it would be a miracle if she didn’t pummel all the gluten right out of it.

“The decision to cancel the whole season was a huge disappointment, and not just to me,” Mary admitted. “You wouldn’t believe the comments I’ve been getting in town.”

Hope decided to press her advantage. “It’s our civic duty to keep it open this year, don’t you agree? Why, it wouldn’t be the holidays in Pine Gulch without The Christmas Ranch.”

“Don’t go overboard,” Faith muttered.

“Please. Just give me the chance. I won’t let you down.”

She could see her sister was wavering. Faith let out a deep sigh just as her niece Louisa skipped into the kitchen.

“Mom, there’s a strange pickup in the driveway. It’s kind of junky,” she said, then stopped when she spotted Hope.

“Aunt Hope! Hi!”

“That’s my junky pickup in the driveway. I’ll move it.”

“What are you doing here?” her niece asked as she gave her a big hug.

“Guess what? She’s going to run The Christmas Ranch!” Barrett exclaimed. “We’re going to open after all!”

“Really?” Louisa exclaimed. “Oh, that would be wonderful!”

“We haven’t decided that yet,” Faith said firmly. “Children, go wash up for dinner and then you can set the table. I’m about to throw the pizza in. Aunt Celeste will be home any minute and we can eat.”

“I’m so glad you’re home,” Louisa said with another hug.

At least a few members of her family were happy to see her. Celeste wasn’t here yet but she and her younger sister had always been close—of course, she thought she and Faith were close, yet her older sister fairly radiated disapproval and frustration.

As soon as the children left the room, Hope suddenly realized her sister wasn’t just frustrated. She was angry.

Hope again felt small and selfish. If she were in Faith’s shoes, she would be furious, too. Her sister was doing her best to keep the family together. She was managing the ranch, taking care of her children, trying to keep everything running while still reeling from her husband’s death.

Now Hope came in and expected to shake everything up and do things her way.

“There is no money, Hope. Do you not get that? You’ll have virtually no operating budget. You’ll barely make enough to pay the salaries for Santa Claus and anybody you hire to work in the gift shop.”

Oh. Right. How was she going to find people to help her in only nine days?

Mary could help line her up with the seasonal employees who had worked at the Ranch in previous years. Surely a few of them might still be looking for work.

“You said it’s been hemorrhaging money. Is it really that bad?”

“People just aren’t coming to holiday attractions like this one much anymore. The only reason we kept it going was because Uncle Claude loved it so and Travis wanted to honor his memory.”

Her sister’s words were sobering.

“You’ve always been enthusiastic about things, Hope. It’s one of the best things about you. You jump right in and try to fix things. But you can’t fix this. The Christmas Ranch is a losing proposition. We just can’t afford it anymore. There’s no money. We’re holding on by our fingernails as it is. If things don’t pick up, we’re going to have to sell off part of the cattle herd and possibly some of the pasture land along the creek. Wade Dalton made us a more than fair offer and Mary and I are seriously considering it.”

“Oh, Faith. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know the whole picture either, until after Travis died. He was very good at putting on a cheerful face.”

Faith was quiet for a moment, then walked around the island. “I should probably tell you, I had a very respectable offer for the reindeer. A guy with a petting zoo in Pocatello. We’ve talked about it and were planning to take that, too. He was interested in taking them before the holidays.”

The small herd of reindeer had been part of the ranch as long as she had lived here. They were part of the family, as far as Hope was concerned.

“Sell the reindeer?”

“I know,” Mary piped in. “It breaks my heart too.”

“Did you sign any papers?”

“No, but...”

“Don’t. Please, Faith. Wait until after Christmas. Give me this season to prove I can turn things around. I know I can do it. I am going to make money with The Christmas Ranch this year, enough to tide the Star N over the rest of the year. You’ll see.”

Her sister sighed. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”

“Maybe not, but that could be a good thing, right? Ignorance is bliss, and all that.”

“Oh, Hope. You always could talk me into anything.”

Mary gave a short laugh. “That’s my girls!”

Relief and excitement and no small amount of nerves washed over Hope like an avalanche. “You won’t be sorry. This is going to be our best year ever, I promise.”

She had no idea how she would keep that promise but she intended to try.

Chapter Three

He was so not cut out for this.

Rafe tried to scrape up the burned bits of the red sauce from the bottom of the saucepan with a wooden spoon but that only mixed the blackened remains into the rest of the mix.

Apparently he would now have to open a bottle of store-bought spaghetti sauce, which is what he should have done in the first place instead of hunting down ingredients then measuring, pouring and mixing for the past fifteen minutes.

Joey wouldn’t care if his spaghetti sauce came from a jar. He probably wouldn’t even be able to taste the difference.

Rafe headed to the sink and poured the concoction down the sink. There went twenty minutes of his life he wouldn’t get back.

Rafe didn’t mind cooking. He really didn’t. Okay, he didn’t mind grilling. Apparently there was a difference between throwing a couple of steaks on the old Char-Broil and concocting something nutritious that a seven-year-old kid would actually eat.

He had decided they couldn’t live on brats, burgers and take-out alone so had decided to try his hand at a few other things—including spaghetti, which Joey had admitted was one of his favorites.

Now his nephew was due home from his playdate in a half hour and Rafe would have to start over.

Playdates were yet another activity that seemed completely out of his understanding. Give him a terrorist cell and a clear-cut objective to take them out and he could kick some serious ass but apparently he wasn’t capable of navigating the complicated politics of playdates—who was allowed to play where, whose turn it was to host, which friends weren’t allowed to come over on certain days of the week and which couldn’t play at all until their homework was finished.

Truth to tell, the whole parenting thing from soup to nuts scared the he—er, heck out of him. What did he know about seven-year-old boys? He could barely remember even being one.

He would just have to figure things out. His nephew needed him and he couldn’t let him down like he had Cami.

He couldn’t let the kid go into foster care. He and his sister had gone the rounds with that, being bounced around between their grandmother, their aunt and finally foster care after their mother’s death.

Sure, there were really good foster families out there. They had been lucky enough to have placement with a few, but he wasn’t willing to roll the dice with his nephew’s well-being.

Right now, though, he couldn’t help but wonder if the boy might be better off taking his chances in the system. Joey might think so. They weren’t exactly hitting it off. Rafe never expected to come in like some kind of white knight and save the day but he thought Joey at least might be a little grateful to be living with family instead of strangers.

In truth, Rafe was connected by blood to the boy but that was about it. They had lived separately. He had usually been stationed far away from where Cami lived in her wandering life and his relationship with the boy had been mostly through phone calls and emails and the occasional visit.

He supposed he shouldn’t be that surprised that trying to establish a normal parental-type relationship with him would be a struggle.

He wasn’t sure why the past few weeks had seemed so tough—maybe because he felt out of his element here in this community where he didn’t know anybody and didn’t have anything else to focus on. Perhaps things would go more smoothly after they returned to California and he figured out what he was going to do now that his whole life wasn’t defined by being a navy SEAL.

On the surface, he and Joey should be tight. He had been in the kid’s situation when he was young, lost and afraid with no safe harbor. The only difference was that Rafe had had a little sister to worry about, too.

He could completely relate to his nephew’s stress and uncertainty that resulted in behavior issues.

His mother had been wild and troubled—giving birth to two children from two different men, neither of whom had stayed in the picture long.

She would clean up her act and regain custody of them for a few months and then something would happen—an unexpected bill, a bad date, even somebody making an offhand comment in the grocery store—and she would fall off the wagon again. All her hard work toward sobriety would disintegrate and they would end up with their elderly grandmother or their aunt, who had been busy with her own family and a husband who hadn’t wanted the burden of two more mouths to feed.

A boy should never have to deal with the burden of his mother letting him down, time after time.

More than anything, he wished he could spare Joey that. Since it wasn’t possible, he would do his best to provide the kid a stable home environment while his sister was in prison—and if that meant trying to figure out how to provide nutritious meals without burning them, he would do it.

He opened the cupboard and was looking for the bottle of spaghetti sauce he knew he had purchased earlier in the week when the doorbell suddenly rang.

Oh, yay. Maybe when he wasn’t paying attention, his subconscious had called for pizza delivery.

He headed to the kitchen and opened the door, only to find someone else unexpected.

It was her. The blond and lovely Hope Nichols, who dredged up all kinds of disastrous memories he had buried a long time ago—and who made him feel even more lousy at this whole parenting thing than he already did.

She beamed at him, disconcertingly chipper. “Hi. It’s Rafe, right?”

He felt big and stupid and awkward next to all her soft and delicate prettiness. “That’s right. Rafe Santiago.”

She was probably here to give him the bill for the broken window. What other reason would she have for showing up at his doorstep on a Tuesday evening?

“May I come in? It’s freezing out here. My body still hasn’t acclimated from the desert.”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course. Come in.”

He held the door open, kicking aside the backpack Joey had dropped after school that afternoon.

She sniffed and blinked a few times. “Wow. That’s...strong.”

The house—which was clean and warm but not very homey otherwise—smelled like charred red sauce, he suddenly realized with chagrin.

“Kitchen mishap,” he said, embarrassed. “I was making spaghetti sauce and forgot to stir. I just tossed it out but I’m afraid the smell tends to linger.”

She gave him a sympathetic look. “Been there, more times than I can count. I’m a lousy cook.”

“We could start a club.”

She grinned. “Except we’ll be very clear that our members are not to bring refreshments to meetings.”

He couldn’t help smiling back. “Definitely. We’ll put it in the bylaws.”

She paused, then tilted her head. “Do you need a little help? Maybe it’s like grammar, you know? Two negatives making a positive. Maybe with two lousy cooks working together, we can come up with something a little more than halfway decent.”

“English and math in one paragraph. You must be a teacher.”

“Well, I have dual degrees in art history and education. I should also add that while I couldn’t bake a decent chocolate cake if cannibals were waiting to nibble off my arms if I didn’t deliver the goods, I do make a kick-ass red sauce.”

Was she really offering to help him fix dinner? Okay, that was unexpected...and a little surreal.

He ought to politely thank her for the offer and send her on her way. He really wasn’t in the mood for the messy conversation about her parents he knew they needed to have—but he had also spent the past few weeks with very little adult interaction and he was a little desperate to talk about something besides Star Wars and Ninjago.

“Couldn’t hurt. Between the two of us, maybe we could come up with something Joey might actually eat. So far, my efforts in that direction have fallen pretty flat.”

“Excellent. Let’s do it.” She reached to untwist her multicolored scarf then unbuttoned her red wool peacoat. Beneath, she wore a bright blue sweater that matched her eyes. She looked bright and fresh and just about the prettiest thing he had ever seen.

After an awkward moment, he reached to help her out of it, with manners he had forced himself to learn after he joined the military.

Up close, she smelled delicious, some kind of exotic scent of cinnamon and almonds, and she was warm and enticing.

He told himself that little kick in his gut was only hunger.

He took the coat and hung it on the rack then led the way into the kitchen. “Where do we start?” he asked.

She paused in the middle of the kitchen. “First things first. If you don’t mind, I’ll just rinse out the rest of this saucepan before the fumes singe away more of my nasal lining.”

“Go ahead.”

She headed to the sink and ran water in the sink to flush it down then started opening cupboards and pulling things out. “So where is the little snowball-throwing champion?”

“Next door. Playdate with his partner in crime.”

“Is this the infamous Samantha?”

“The very same. Last night we had a talk with her and her parents about the dangers of throwing snowballs at cars. It should now be safe to drive through the neighborhood.”

“Whew. That’s a relief.” She started mixing things in the now-clean saucepan. “So what’s the story here, if you don’t mind me asking? Where are Joey’s parents? I would love to hear they’re on an extended cruise to the Bahamas and you’re just substituting in the parental department for a few days.”

His mouth tightened. “I wish it were that straightforward.”

It really wasn’t her business but the truth was, he didn’t have anybody else to talk to about the situation and found he wanted to explain to her.

“Joe’s dad took off before he was born, from what I understand. I don’t know the details. I was overseas.”

“Military?”

“How did you know?”

“The haircut sort of gives it away. Let me guess. Marines.”

“Close. Navy.”

For reasons he didn’t want to look at too closely, he didn’t mention he had been a SEAL. It was a snap decision—similar to allowing her into his house and his kitchen. If he mentioned it, she might more easily make the connection between him and that rebel camp in Colombia and he couldn’t see any good reason to dredge up the painful past they shared while they seemed to be getting along so well.

“Ah. A sailor.” She seemed to accept that with equanimity. “So Joey’s dad isn’t in the picture. What about his mom?”

He pulled a large pot out to boil water for the pasta. Again, he debated what to tell her and then decided to be straightforward about this, at least. “It’s a rough situation. My sister is in trouble with the law. She’s in jail.”

“Oh, no!”

He could have left it at that but he was compelled to explain further. “Last week she pleaded guilty to a multitude of drug charges, including distribution to a minor. Multiple minors, actually. Right now she is in the county jail in Pine Gulch while she awaits sentencing.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s a mess,” he agreed.

“So you stepped up to help with Joey.”

“Somebody had to. We don’t have any other family.”

She mulled that as she opened a can of tomatoes and poured the contents into the saucepan. “Are you on leave, then?”

“I had my twenty years in so I retired.”

It had been the toughest decision of his life, too, but he didn’t add that.

“You gave up your career to take care of your nephew?”

He shifted, uncomfortable. “I’m not quite that noble. I’d been thinking about leaving for a while.” That was somewhat true. As he headed into the tail end of his thirties, he had started to wonder if he still had the chops for what was basically a younger man’s game. He had started to wonder what else might be out there, but he hadn’t been ready to walk away quite yet and had all but committed to re-up for another four years, at least. Everything changed after that phone call from Cami.

“So what will you do now? Are you sticking around Pine Gulch?”

“Only until my sister’s sentencing. I’d like to go back to the San Diego area where I have a condo and a couple of job offers, but she begged me to stay until she is sentenced so she can see her son once or twice. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let Joey finish school here since he has friends and seems to be doing okay.”

“San Diego is nice. Pretty beaches, great weather. An excellent place to raise children.”

He let out a breath, more uneasy at her words than he should be. He was now raising a child. How the he—er, heck was he supposed to do that? The past few weeks had been tough enough. Looking ahead at months and possibly years of being responsible for a boy who wanted little to do with him was more daunting than his first few weeks of BUD/S training.

He would get through this new challenge like he did that hellish experience, by keeping his gaze focused only on the next minute and then the one after that and the one after that.

Right now, the next minute was filled with a beautiful woman in his kitchen, moving from counter to stove to refrigerator with a graceful economy of movement he found extremely appealing. He liked having her here in the kitchen, entirely too much.

Something about her delicate features, the pretty blue eyes and those wild blond curls held back in a ponytail, made his mouth water more than the delicious aromas now wafting from the saucepan she was stirring on the stove.

He wasn’t sure he liked this edgy feeling. As a rule, he tended to favor control, order.

His turbulent childhood probably had something to do with his need for calm. He had a feeling Hope was part of it, too—after the way he had screwed up on his very first mission as a SEAL, he had channeled all his guilt and regret into becoming a highly trained, totally focused, hard-as-titanium special warfare operator.

His platoon members called him Frío, the Spanish word for cold. Not because he was unfriendly or unfeeling but because he generally turned to ice under pressure.

Come to think of it, that need for order might be one of the reasons he and Joey were struggling to find their way together. Seven-year-old boys—especially troubled, unhappy seven-year-old boys—tended to generate chaos in their wake.

He’d need to find a little of that ice water in his veins pronto and remember he had enough to deal with right now without this unexpected and unwelcome attraction to someone who would likely hate him if she knew who he truly was.

* * *

She hadn’t been lying when she said she wasn’t much of a cook, but maybe she had exaggerated a little.

She wasn’t terrible exactly, she just generally didn’t have the patience or time for it. There was something quite satisfying about having one specialty, though, and she could say without false modesty that her red sauce was something truly remarkable.

Rafe Santiago and his nephew were in for a treat—if she could relax enough to finish the job while the man glowered at her from his position leaning against the counter next to the sink.

Why did he seem so familiar? She wished she could place him. It could just be that she had encountered more than her share of big, tough military types.

Usually they turned her off. She tended to gravitate toward scholars and artists, not big hulking dudes with biceps the size of basketballs.

The truth was, Rafe Santiago made her nervous and it was a feeling she was completely unaccustomed to.

She forced away the feeling and focused instead on the red sauce. She gave the pot a stir and then grabbed a clean spoon so she could taste it.

“Mmm. Needs more oregano.” She shook in a little more and stirred a few more times then grabbed another clean spoon to taste again. “There it is. Perfect. See for yourself.”

“I trust you.”

“Come on. Try it.” She held out yet another spoon for him. After a moment, he rolled his eyes then leaned in and wrapped that very sexy mouth around the spoon.

“Right?” she pushed.

He gave a small laugh that held no small amount of appreciation. “Wow. That is much better than anything I could have come up with.”

“Again, to be clear, a good red sauce is literally one of my very few skills in the kitchen. My aunt Mary despaired of me ever learning to even scramble an egg. I have conquered a halfway decent omelet and the red sauce, but that’s about it. Oh, and couscous. I just spent three years in Morocco and you can’t leave the country without at least trying to make tagines and couscous.”

“In the space of five minutes, you’ve gone from starting a club for people who are helpless in the kitchen to spouting culinary words I barely even know.”

“A tagine is both a cooking implement and a dish. Sort of like the word casserole. It’s a pot that comes with a domed lid. Tagines are also very delicious meat and vegetable dishes, kind of like a stew. I make a really delicious one with honeyed lemons and lamb.”

“Sounds delicious.”

“Maybe I’ll make it for you sometime.”

As soon as the words escaped her mouth, she wanted to yank them back. Why on earth would she say that? She wasn’t going to be cooking for the man again. She shouldn’t be here now. She had a million other things to do at the moment and none of them had anything to do with fixing a red sauce for Rafe Santiago, even if she was incredibly drawn to the man.

How could she help it, when he talked about giving up his military career to rescue his nephew? It was a wonder she hadn’t melted into a mushy pile of hormones on his kitchen floor.

“So what time will Joey be back?”

He glanced at the clock on the microwave.

“Hard to say. I told him five-thirty. So far obeying the rules doesn’t seem to be one of his strengths.”

She smiled a little at his disgruntled tone. “Well, you’ll want to give the red sauce about fifteen minutes more than that, stirring every few minutes. Don’t forget to stir. Seriously. Don’t forget! I always set a timer to remind me every two or three minutes. If you start your pasta water boiling now, you can add it just as Joey gets back.”

“That’s it? You come in, throw together dinner and then just take off? You could at least stay and eat it with us.”

Oh, she was tempted. If circumstances had been different, she would have jumped at the chance. But, again, she had a million things to do and she couldn’t afford any distractions. Rafe Santiago was the very definition of the word distraction.

“Sorry, but I can’t.”

He gave her a challenging sort of look. “Why not? That would at least give you a chance to finally bring up the reason you came here in the first place.”

She laughed. “Ulterior motive? Me? Why, you suspicious man. You mean I can’t convince you I stopped by just to save you from certain culinary disaster?”

“Yeah, sorry. Not buying it, though I won’t complain about the pleasant secondary outcome.”

Oh, she liked this man. Entirely too much. Again, she thought how familiar he seemed and was vexed that she couldn’t place him.

“All right. You caught me. The truth is, I found an excellent way for Joey to work off the cost of replacing my truck window.”

“I suspected as much.”

“Okay, here’s the skinny. I know you’re not from Pine Gulch but are you at all familiar with The Christmas Ranch?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Well, let me just tell you, sailor, it’s a magical place near the mouth of Cold Creek Canyon. My uncle and aunt started it years ago, shortly after they were married. Christmas is kind of a big deal in my family. My family name, Nichols, used to be Nicholas. As in St. Nicholas. You know, the big guy in the red suit with the beard. It was shortened when my ancestors migrated to America several generations ago. Despite that, my uncle Claude and aunt Mary always took the whole holiday thing very seriously.”

“Makes sense.”

“In spring, summer and fall, the Star N is like any other working cattle ranch, with a pretty small herd but enough to get by. But from Thanksgiving to just after the New Year, an entire section of the ranch is set aside to celebrate Christmas. We have a huge holiday light display, sleigh rides, a sledding hill, even a reindeer petting zoo.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “With real reindeer?”

“You guessed it. We have a herd of ten.”

He looked puzzled. “Ten? I thought there were only eight who pulled the big guy’s sleigh. Oh, right. You can’t forget Rudolph. But then who’s the other one?”

“We do have a Rudolph, only we call him Rudy and he doesn’t have a red nose except when we stick one on him, which he hates. We’ve got a bunch more. Glacier and Floe, Aurora and Borealis—we call him Boris for short—Brooks and Kenai and Moraine. Oh, and I can’t forget Twinkle and of course Sparkle. He’s kind of our favorite. He’s the smallest one in the herd and also the sweetest.”

“Okay. And you’re telling me all this why?”

“It’s kind of a long story. Stir the sauce while I tell you.”

He made a small, amused sound at her deliberately bossy tone but headed for the stove anyway and picked up the spoon. She tried not to notice how gorgeous he looked doing it.

“My oldest sister and her husband had been running the Star N for the past few years—that’s the cattle operation—along with The Christmas Ranch, but Travis was killed in a ranch accident this summer.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

She accepted his condolences with a nod, feeling a sharp ache in her chest all over again. Travis had been her friend and she had loved him from the time he came to live with Mary and Claude to help them run the ranch. She would always miss him but she grieved most that her sister had lost her husband and Barrett and Louisa their father.

“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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