Page 1 of His Christmas Star
Chapter One
I checked the clock while I nervously chewed on my lip. It was dark already, and Cody wasn't home from hunting. We had to head back to campus tomorrow, but he wanted to get one more day in the woods.
“Grams, did Cody say what time he'd be back.”
“He can't hunt after dark, child,” she called from the living room. “Maybe he's dragging a deer out. Can you call him?”
I dug my phone out of my pocket and checked it for messages, but there were none. I hit Cody’s number and listened to the phone ring in my ear. There was no answer. My hand fell to my side on a sigh. He's fine, Tobi, I told myself. Just relax.
I couldn't relax, though. Cody was my twin, and I always knew when something wasn't right with him. Like the time in fifth grade when he was sick, and Grams wouldn't take him to the doctor. I knew something was wrong, and by the middle of the night, his appendix had ruptured, and he needed emergency surgery. This felt like that, and it was freaking me out. I tried to concentrate on my studies, but the impending doom filled me as the clock ticked toward six o'clock.
A rap on the door shot me out of my seat, and I pulled the door open. “Where have you been?” I demanded, but the man on the stoop wasn't my brother.
“Jo-Jo?” I asked. “I thought you were Cody. Is he hauling out a deer? I tried to call, but he didn't answer.”
Jo-Jo took his hat off and motioned into the house with it. I let him past and closed the door against the cold November air. Jo-Jo Nash was five years older than Cody and me, but we'd been pals for years.
“I thought you were hunting with Cody today.” I was perplexed why he was here rather than with my brother.
“I got called into work, so I was late getting out there. Cody had texted me where he was and told me to come out when I was free.”
“Is he on his way home then?”
Jo-Jo shook his head once. “No. The sheriff asked me to come over, Tobi. I have bad news. I got to Cody's tree stand, but ...” He paused and swallowed hard, and that's when I noticed the tears in his eyes.
“Jo-Jo, what is it?”
“It's Cody,” he said, his voice warbling as his lip shook. “There was an accident. He's gone, Tobi. Your brother is gone.”
I stood in horror as the boy I knew, now a man, sobbed into his hands, the sound tearing through my soul and ripping back out from my own throat.
I sat straight up in bed and gasped for air, the bed sheets sweaty and my skin clammy. It was just a dream. I was safe in the cabin.
A glance at the clock told me it was three fifteen a.m. A glance at the calendar told me I was never getting back to sleep. I tossed the sheets back, untangled my legs from the mess, and stumbled to the bathroom to wash up. The woman who stared back at me in the mirror was tired. She was tired of carrying the burden of grief alone after so many years. Her long, blonde hair curled at the tips in a sign of youthfulness she didn’t feel. Her blue eyes were tired, dull, and lifeless. Not even her long lashes could hide the truth that lurked in them. Her pixie nose still had a dusting of freckles left from the summer sun that gave her pale cheeks a little color long into December. Her lips were puckered, pink, and plump, which was a rarity for her. Everyone called her tiny at the ranch, so she took great pride in her lips. The face in the mirror told her a hot shower and cup of coffee was going to be the only way to start her workday.
I turned and started the water running, waiting for it to get hot before I stepped in and reveled in the heat. It was early, and I didn’t want to be up, but there were chores to do. I wasn’t going back to sleep, so I might as well get ahead on them. The sooner I was done and out of the barn, the less chance there would be that I would have to deal with people. Today of all days, I didn’t want to deal with too many people. Well, one person mostly.
After a cup of coffee and throwing on my old barn coat and boots, I stepped out into the cold morning air. I paused for a moment on the porch of my cabin to watch the faint glow of the aurora borealis skim across the sky while the stars twinkled for all they were worth. My gaze found the brightest one, and I wondered if Cody rode on that one now. Maybe the brightest star held my entire family. My parents, brother, and grandparents were all gone before me. I was the only Star still tethered to this earth, and I wondered what the universe had in store for me. Sometimes, I worried I’d suffer the same fate as they did, but then I reminded myself I could make my own destiny. That’s precisely what I intended to do. It started with getting my dream job off the ground, and the idea of devoting myself to that offered me new hope that I’d find my way past this pain.
As a cowgirl at Heavenly Lane Dude Ranch, I’m the odd man out—or should I say odd woman out. I’m the only female working on a ranch filled with, yep, dudes. You’d think it would be easy pickings finding a Christmas cowboy, but unlike Blaze, Beau, and Caleb, the cowboys who own and run these ranches, I refuse to date a co-worker. So, when chores are done, I retire to my cabin while the rest of the hands drink whiskey and play cards in their bunkhouse. Could I join them? Absolutely. Do I want to? Not even a little bit.
I preferred being alone in my cabin, which used to be the ranch manager’s cabin until Caleb moved in with his fiancée and their little girl earlier this fall. Before Cece’s house was finished, I lived in the main house with Beau and Dawn. While I love them dearly, their new baby girl, Samantha Amity, arrived in August, and they deserved family time without interlopers. Besides, I had to get up at five a.m. every day, and little Sammy was up half the night.
I was used to rolling with the inevitable changes of working on a ranch. Growing up on my daddy’s ranch, I learned everything there was to know about horses and ranch life. When my grandmother passed away my senior year of college, I sold the ranch and found myself at a crossroads. One road led away from Wellspring and the chance at a new life, and the other led back to Wellspring. I tried to take the new road, but Heavenly Lane came calling and what Heaven’s ranch offered was something I’d only dreamed about having. A family.
When Caleb hired me, it was for my expertise with horses. He was the horse whisperer, but I came in a close second, and he trusted me explicitly with the animals. What’s happened since I signed on at Heavenly Lane has changed the course of my life. We’re about to open a horse therapy school for people with disabilities, and I had never been more excited about anything. The opportunity to help kids who need a unique way to strengthen their body and mind, or adults who need a safe place to process the trauma they’ve experienced, is what drives me to get up every morning. Caleb knows my past, and why I’m so passionate about the school, so he trusts me with the responsibility of managing it. The new school offered me hope in an otherwise bleak life, and for that, I would always be grateful to Heavenly Lane.
The townspeople call this stretch of land I work on—Bison Ridge. The original owners of Bison Ridge Ranch, Blaze, and Beau, adoptive brothers, both married women from Heavenly Lane. First, Blaze married Heaven Lane, and together they have baby Eden. Then Beau finally admitted his feelings for Dawn Lee, who is now a partner in Heavenly Lane Dude Ranch—who am I kidding? Dawn runs this place, and without her, we’d have failed ten times over. She’s been teaching me the finer points of management this winter since I’ll be in charge of scheduling the therapy sessions for the school. Beau and Dawn were married here on the ranch, and they now have baby Sammy.
“There ya go, Sundance, enjoy your breakfast,” I cooed to the horse, who immediately stuck his head into his breakfast bowl. Sundance was Caleb’s horse and one of those intuitive animals that knew when his rider wasn’t at his best.
That brings me to Caleb, the person I work closest with here at Heavenly Lane. He has myasthenia gravis, and when his legs are weak, he struggles to ride. He’d had it since he was a teenager, which was one reason he wanted to open the school. His other reason was Poppy Rose. When she came to the ranch to live with her Aunt Cece after her mother died, she and Caleb bonded immediately. It was an elemental bond that you saw when they were together, but also when Caleb was working alone with the horses. He says a string tethers them together, and as weird as it sounds, you can almost see it. Poppy is deaf, and while she finds ways to communicate her needs, her time with the horses is what she lives for every day. Caleb had fallen for Cece long before Poppy Rose joined the family, so it wasn’t unexpected when he’d finally asked her to marry him.
“Well, Sundance, looks like my thoughts went off topic again,” I said as I patted his neck before I locked his stall door. “As for me, I’ve got another date with destiny.”
“You’re going on a date?”
I jumped but managed to hold in the groan. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Stop sneaking up on people,” I grumped, turning to see Sheriff Joseph Nash lounging in the doorway of the barn. He was the bane of my existence in childhood, and now, well, now I don’t know what he is. I know that he keeps coming around asking questions I don’t want to answer. “You missed the entire conversation, so just forget it. What are you doing here?”
