Page 82 of Christmas at Hart's Ridge

I wasn’t in the habit of making promises I couldn’t keep, so I shrugged and changed the subject. “Let’s eat outside.”

We loaded up three plates with subs and a side of baby carrots—the only vegetable Ben would eat. He wouldn’t even eat regular carrots, no matter how much we promised him that they were literally the same thing, just bigger.

“We’ve got lunch, kiddo,” Dad said, leading the way onto the deck that looks out over the pastures. Horses grazed contentedly, swatting flies with their long tails. Beyond the pastures, the Rockies rose up, majestic and brutal.

I had to admit, Dad couldn’t have chosen a more idyllic spot to build a ranch.

Ben was in one of the chairs, staring out at the horizon. No screen, no book, no distraction. He did this a lot. I had no idea if this was something to worry about, but of course I worried anyway.

“I think I want to grow something,” Ben said as we gathered round the table.

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” I asked after I swallowed a bite of sandwich, which to my dad’s credit, was damn good with just the right amount of salt and crunch.

“Watermelon,” Ben said. “That would be nice. I could plant it right there, in Grandma’s garden.” He pointed to the side of the house, where weeds had overrun the flowers, peppers, and cucumbers she used to grow there.

I looked at Dad, eyebrows raised in question.

He shrugged. “I like watermelon.”

Ben beamed. “Great.” He took a huge bite of sandwich, chewed, and swallowed it down. “This is your best one yet, Gramps. What did you name it?”

“Good News. Because we got some today.” Dad’s eyes glinted with amusement. “And I can’t wait to see how it turns out.”

Clouds gathered overhead as I hustled through my list of errands, pushing out the afternoon sunlight. Bank, groceries, feed store for watermelon seeds, gas. I ended the afternoon at Jo’s, the local coffee shop. Probably a bad idea. It was late enough and I was old enough that a shot of caffeine would keep me up past midnight.

The new barista was there. Clara. She was cute, like my dad said. She was also frowning at me as I approached the counter.

“Coffee. Black,” I said, pulling out my wallet.

She nodded, grabbed a to-go cup, and stepped to the coffee pot, leaving me face-to-face with my reflection in the long mirror behind the counter. And shit, I was frowning, too. In fact, it was entirely possible I was frowning first, and her frown was only a response to my own. I wiggled my jaw, trying to relax, but my face felt stiff and frozen.

I was stressed. All I did was worry, it seemed. I worried about Ben. That whole thing with the watermelons was weird, right? Or maybe not. How the hell would I know? It wasn’t like I had a posse of ten-year-old boys running around that I could ask.

And I worried about Lodestar Ranch. This place had always been important to me, but for most of my life I was a secondary player while my dad ran things. He stepped aside when Mom got sick, and while I didn’t blame him at all, all that responsibility was a heavier weight than I was prepared for. I felt like I was constantly failing. There was too much to do and not enough hours to do it in. And, fuck, I was tired.

And now I had James Campos to worry about, too. Whether he’d get along with the other staff at Lodestar. Whether he’d be man enough to train Belle the Bitch. Whether he had what it took to turn this business around.

Clara passed me my coffee and I paid up, slipping a dollar in the tip jar, aware that I was still frowning while I did it. Fucking hell.

And then the bell jangled as the door opened, boots tapping lightly against the old wood beams, and I swear to god my back felt warm, like I had walked into a sunbeam. Clara smiled past me. An honest smile, not the fake kind.

I stepped aside, letting the woman take my place at the counter. She beamed at me like I did her a favor, when all I did was get out of the way. She smelled like horses and vanilla, and suddenly I was hit with a memory. Sitting between my mom and dad when I wasn’t more than six years old, watching the horses in the fields, the warm summer sun on my back. All of us licking vanilla ice cream cones. It was a good memory. Happy.

I frowned harder, lowering my gaze so she wouldn’t think it was directed at her. My eyes fell on her pink cowboy boots. Like something a little girl would wear. Or a rodeo queen. But she was definitely not a little girl, although there was something youthful about her face. The freckles maybe, or her big cow eyes. I wouldn’t peg her as a rodeo queen, either. If she was wearing makeup, it was minimal, and her clothes were distinctly lacking in rhinestones.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Sorry, were you done?”

It dawned on me that I’d just been standing here, staring at her like a creep. “Yeah. Go ahead.”

“Great.” She lit up like I’d just told her she won a fifty-dollar scratch off ticket. “Thank you.”

I moved to the bar cart across the room, where I could add cream or sugar to my coffee, if that appealed. It did not. There was literally no reason for me to be lingering there when I already had everything I needed.

But I lingered anyway.

I didn’t recognize her. I knew everyone in Aspen Springs, and most of their cows, too. Which was harder, actually, because there were more cows than people here. But she was definitely a stranger.

The woman said something and Clara laughed. I’d never seen Clara look anything but aggravated, and now here she was, laughing. Then the woman laughed too. Loudly. Head tossed back, her thick brown hair reaching almost down to her exceptionally nice ass. She laughed like she enjoyed it. Not just the joke, but the actualfeelof laughing. She laughed like she wasn’t holding anything back.

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