Page 3 of The Mountain that Saved Christmas

Dee giggles and sidles up next to me, snuggling into my chest right where she belongs. “I think you've just been Sallied,” she whispers.

“Why me?” I ask.

“That's easy, Toby. You're the Christmas fairy,” Aggie states.

“Santa!”

She waves her frail fingers in the air. “Yeah, yeah. Same thing. Let's go. You've got a family meetin' to call.”

3

STAR

“Gramma, for what do we owe the pleasure?” I ask, giving her a hug after helping her down from Toby and Dee's truck.

Wrapping her arms around me, she gives me a loving squeeze before stepping back. “Family meetin', child.”

My spidey senses start tingling. “Is somethin' wrong?”

“No, no. Nothin' of the sort. Aggie, Toby, Dee, and I just have somethin' to talk to the family about.”

“OK… you're bein' very mysterious today,” I muse, knowing that anything my grandmother and her Sally friends plan is going to be–at the very least–entertaining. These are the four women who decided to start a private eye company out of my shop in town. They always mean well though, and so far they've been surprisingly good at what they do.

I watch Aggie walk ahead with my husband Landry, my heart swelling at the sight. He's so good with all of them and they love him just as much as they love me.

“Should we go inside then? Everyone's waitin' just as Toby asked,” I say.

Thirty minutes ago, Toby messaged the family chat and called a family meeting. He wouldn't say what it was about, just that he was bringing guests and they'd explain everything when they got here. Now, all of the ranchers and their Ones are gathered in the main ranch house waiting to hear what's going on.

Once we're all inside and everyone has been served their drink of choice–either Cowboy brew coffee or juice–we wait with bated breath for Gramma and Aunt Aggie to start talking.

“What can we help y'all with,” Red Grayson–head of the ranch–asks from where he stands with his wife Mags. She came home early from her diner in town just for this meeting.

Gramma turns on her biggest Majorette smile. “First, I should explain how this all came about.” She pauses as if trying to build up the anticipation. “For the past year or so, I've been writin’ to a pen pal who lives in a town you two–” she nods to Red and Mags, “might remember from your road trip.”

They look at each other, their brows pinched before turning curious eyes back to Gramma. “Which one?”

“Rainbow Springs,” she replies, earning a slow-growing smile from the couple.

A few months ago, Red and Mags drove Red's son Wyatt to Anchorage so he could start work on a crab fishing boat. They followed it up with a road trip around the Kenai Peninsula and then back up to Palmer for the last rodeo event of the season. Little did they know–although the rest of us suspected and hoped–that the mountain spirit living within Bull Mountain had plans for the last two singletons of our extended family.

The mountain's Call was heard, and Red and Mags finally realized that they were meant to be together, soulmates called together as each other's reward from the mountain. And the town where they were staying when they completed the Call–during a snowstorm no less–was Rainbow Springs.

Mags's face turns soft and gooey as she and Red look at each other again before realization seems to hit.

“You've been speakin' toGeorge? George Rainbow?” Red asks Gramma.

She nods, holding her head up high. “I like to talk to people in chat rooms on the computer. You never know what mysteries there are to solve in small-town Alaska.”

“She's right. Ruthie has found us some interestin' cases that way,” Aggie adds.

“Out of all the people in the world, you happen to start chattin' to George,” Red mutters, shaking his head with a wry smile. “How is our favorite fire chief, sheriff, town mayor, gas, hardware, gnomery,andconvenience store owner doin'?”

Gramma chuckles. “You forgot the post office. But it'sstillquite a mouthful, isn't it?”

“That's whatIsaid,” Mags pipes up. “I told George to combine it all into a name that's less taxin' to say. He said he'd take it under advisement and thanked me for my kindness. He's a sweet old man, even if all of those gnomes were–”

“Kinda creepy?” I ask.

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