An Early Christmas Gift. Susan Crosby

I had the feeling you had big plans in mind. You and Vaughn always had your heads together, talking business.”

      “Pipe dreams. The truth is that four years of advanced education, given the job situation here, still means I’ll probably be asking if you want fries with that.”

      “I don’t think it’ll be that bad. This is farm country. You’ll find something.”

      “Profit margins are too small in the family farms to bring in an outsider.” Jenny was done talking about it. “So, did I mess things up by coming home a day early? We could put off my welcome-home party until tomorrow, you know.”

      “We’ll eat an hour later than planned, that’s all.”

      They turned onto the road leading to Ryder Ranch—home. Jenny had been back several times a year, most recently on Valentine’s Day for her brother Vaughn’s wedding, but this felt different. This time she wouldn’t be leaving. Her childhood bedroom awaited her, looking the same as the day she left for college. She would have to report where she was going and when she would be back—not because her parents were tyrants, but because it was the courteous thing to do. Still, it felt like an intrusion into her independence.

      Then a thought occurred to her. “Is it hard having me come home after all these years empty nesting, Mom?”

      “It’s different.”

      Which was a vague answer. In her selfishness, she hadn’t considered her parents, only herself. “I’ll find a job and an apartment as soon as I can.” Maybe her sister, Haley, would let her stay with her for a while. She lived in town, which would be more fun, anyway.

      “Of course you will,” Dori said, patting her daughter’s knee.

      That clinched it. She hadn’t even placated Jenny by saying there’s no hurry or some other motherly thing.

      At the ranch, Dori immediately went into party mode. Jenny was a vegetarian, so a portobello mushroom would be grilled along with the steaks. The side dishes would be diverse and plentiful.

      For at least a few hours Jenny didn’t have time to fret, especially once her two new sisters-in-law came to help and the conversation got noisy and filled with laughter that didn’t stop.

      But the moment she saw her brother Vaughn, everything changed.

      “I expected a call from you,” he said, taking her aside.

      “They denied the loan.” She held up a hand. “I know. I know. You told me they probably wouldn’t take me on.”

      “So will you ask Dad to cosign?”

      She shook her head. “Plan B.”

      “Which is?”

      “When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

      Her sister-in-law Annie came up to them. “You haven’t announced a job, so I’m wondering if you have one lined up.”

      “Not yet.”

      Annie laid a hand on her pregnant belly. “I was hoping you might help me out for a while? It’s the start of the summer season for me, and being seven months along as I am, I’m finding some limitations I can’t overcome on my own. Even with all the tall bedding boxes instead of in-the-ground planting, I’m doing too much bending and kneeling, and too much lifting and toting.”

      A glimmer of hope touched Jenny’s heart as she waited to hear the rest of what Annie had to say.

      “I know that it wouldn’t be using your degree in the way you want to,” Annie said, “but you helped out at Christmas, and we worked well together, and I thought you had fun, too. I’d pay you.”

      Hope burst into happiness inside Jenny. “I’d love to!” Annie’s organic farm was ideal in Jenny’s book. Annie had taken the deserted property and turned it into a business that was growing so fast she almost couldn’t keep up with it. “When do I start?”

      “Tomorrow?”

      Jenny crushed her. “Does this constitute a group hug, with the baby in the middle?” she asked Annie, laughing. “Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?”

      “Don’t know and don’t care,” her brother Mitch said, coming up beside Annie and sliding his arm around her waist. “Did she say yes?”

      “Enthusiastically,” Annie said. “Austin will be happy, too. My eleven-year-old son would rather be working on the ranch than the farm during his summer vacation. Imagine that. And next Monday is the first farmers’ market of the season. If you could help with that, I’d be grateful, maybe even take over for the rest of the season?”

      “That would be fun.”

      The relief in Mitch’s eyes told Jenny everything. He’d been worried Annie was doing too much. She probably had been.

      Jenny’s mood improved after that. She felt wanted and needed. She would have someplace to be every morning and work to do.

      Later, after the dishes were done and the company gone, Jenny slipped into her twin bed with the denim bedspread she’d bought while in high school. The photos and posters on the walls were the same. Her yearbooks were stacked on a bookshelf. She’d grown up a lot the summer after graduation, but even that wasn’t reflected in the room, not to mention her years of college.

      She didn’t have to give much thought to why she’d made love with Win today. It was another thing that hadn’t changed—she was still in love with him.

      And for him it was still just sex.

      The more things change, the more they stay the same. Whoever said that couldn’t have been more right.

      * * *

      Life on Annie’s farm, The Barn Yard, was like a constant family reunion. Jenny’s brothers Adam and Brody had moved into the farmhouse when Mitch and Annie got married last October. In exchange for rent, they’d remodeled the kitchen and bathroom then painted every room.

      They weren’t much on keeping house, but their only other choice would’ve been to move back into the homestead or the old bunkhouse. At ages twenty-seven and thirty, they were too old to move home, and the bunkhouse had been commandeered by their newest sister-in-law, Vaughn’s wife, Karyn, who was overseeing a remodeling of that structure for a new tourist venture for the ranch.

      The brothers left the farm early each day to work at the ranch, twenty miles away. Mitch dropped in frequently to make sure his pregnant wife was okay and to do any heavy lifting, often bringing Annie’s son with him. And the parents came by, as well.

      Win could stop by, if he chose. Something he couldn’t do at the ranch. But would he? How could he? she reminded herself. He didn’t know she was working at the farm. Just another fantasy, one she wasn’t sure she wanted to become reality, anyway.

      “Do you mind having so much unannounced company?” Jenny asked Annie as they planted fingerling potatoes and artisan lettuce, mainstays of the farm.

      “Not at all. My family wasn’t close like yours. For me it’s a dream come true. When I first took over the farm, people used to stop by unannounced and I didn’t like it, but that’s because they wanted to buy my property.”

      “I remember you telling me that. Shep Morgan, right?” Win’s father was one of the orneriest men around. Even Jenny would have found him scary to deal with on her own. “And I think you said Win stopped by sometimes, too?” she asked hopefully.

      “And your father and Vaughn,” Annie said, shaking back her blond hair. Even though it would only be about seventy degrees at the day’s peak, it was easy to work up a sweat working outdoors, especially inside the high tunnel greenhouses, which were much warmer, as sheltered as they were. “But that was before Mitch and I got married. The Morgans know there’s no way I’d sell this land now. No reason to stop by.”

      “How long