Page 10 of Must Love Mistletoe

“Cal’s gonna show me how to make one.”

She slid the big man a glance. “Is he now?”

“He says they make great Christmas presents.”

“That’s months away.” Or was it? October, already. How had that happened?

“Are you going to sell the breeding herd to Cal?”

Too bright, this son of hers. She caught Cal’s swift glance and grimaced, but there was no point denying it. “It’s something we might talk about at breakfast, yes.” One of the Casey stud bulls had already been across her cows months ago on account of yet another broken boundary fence, so they were practically part of the Casey breeding program, anyway. “I’m sorry, Sam, but winter’s coming and we don’t have enough feed to get them through to spring. If I sell the herd to Cal, or his family in general, we won’t have to pay transport and auction costs. I’d ask a fair price and Cal would pay it.”

Sam nodded but wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“It’s not the only way out of money troubles,” Cal offered, after a pause. “You could ask for a loan.”

“With a bank? In addition to the two loans and the mortgage I inherited? Cal, I earn a good wage, Iknowthat. And when I say it’s like a drop in the ocean of what is owed, I mean that I’m drowning in an ocean of debt. The ranch takes it all, and it was like that even before Red died, and I’m so damntired—”Of trying to pretend that everything was wonderful before Red went missing… “Can we talk about thisafterwe take Sam to school?”

“Okay.”

He and Sam exchanged a glance. Mutiny in Sam’s eyes, a warning in Cal’s. A warning her son heeded, and somehow that was the final straw.

She could feel the tears begin to gather, and whynow? Why did it have to bethisman who always seemed to witness her undoing?

“Hey now, Beth Ann. Hey,” muttered Cal softly.

A small hand crept into hers and squeezed. “It’s okay,” her man-child murmured soothingly. “We’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

And that was her line, not his. “I’m so sorry. I tried so hard to keep it going.”

“It’s okay. Didn’t want to be a rancher anyway.”

This was news to her. She swiped her wet cheeks with her fingers and tried to get rid of the evidence of her fragility. “What do you want to be?”

“Happier.”

Dry as dust this child of hers. But her sob turned into a watery laugh. “What else?”

“Smoke jumper, emergency services pilot, paramedic, or a doctor. Gotta keep my options open.”

“That’s… really?” He’d never struck her as the studious type, and those careers required serious educational endeavor.

“I mean, I could be a rancheras well, but it’d be easier not to be, y’know?”

Another laughing sob left her. She knew.

Cal nodded to her boy. “Good job, kid.”

That was the crazy thing about some men, and this one in particular. He wasn’t the showiest pony in the paddock. More like a Clydesdale in a family full of thoroughbreds. But when things went sideways, people looked to Cal for direction and unwavering strength, and he delivered. He was a leader for the hard times, and Beth had a sneaking suspicion he had no idea how many people relied on his practical, steadying presence. “You’re a good man, Cal Casey.”

The creases around his eyes deepened as he smiled, bringing a boyish cast to all that work-etched masculinity. “How was your shift at the hospital?”

She didn’t bring the stresses of her job home. Or maybe she did and didn’t know it. She never talked about what happened at work, at any rate, but if Sam wanted to be on the medical frontline someday, maybe it was wrong to hide the realities from him. “I was part of an emergency team trying to save a man’s leg. They even got a specialist in halfway through, and it was amazing and exhausting, because I was trying to give thesurgeons what they needed when they needed it, and half the time I’d be thinking which one… which one will you ask for next? I usually know.”

“Cal says you’re a hero every time you work a shift.”

“Hah, no.” Fresh tears threatened to fall, and she bowed her head to hide her face behind a fall of stringy fine hair. “But I like surgical nursing. I like being part of that team.”If she didn’t have the ranch…If she had a little house in Marietta and only had regular bills to pay…

Ranching had always been Red’s dream, never hers. For her, it had become nothing more than futile, never ending, overwhelmingly hard work.

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