Her Best Christmas Ever. Judy Duarte

From what he said, it sure sounds like it.” Doc slid the chair back in place, then ambled across the kitchen and headed toward the front door. “Well, I’d better take off.”

      “Before the ambulance gets here?” Greg asked.

      “Yeah. It’ll be here any minute, I suspect. And for what it’s worth, it’s merely a formality. I doubt the hospital will keep Connie or the baby more than a few hours. They’re both doing very well.”

      Greg hoped so.

      He escorted Doc to the door, thanked him, then stood on the porch and watched the white-haired doctor climb into his pickup. When he drove off, Greg returned to Connie’s bedroom, where he found her propped up on an elbow and studying Amanda’s tiny fingers and toes. She looked up at him, her face glowing almost Madonna-like, and tossed him a smile that darn near squeezed the heart right out of him. “She’s absolutely perfect.”

      Greg grinned. “Yeah. I think so, too.”

      He leaned against the doorjamb, watching Connie and the baby intently. He’d never known his own mother, but his aunt had told him how much she’d looked forward to his birth and how she’d dreamed that he would make something of his life someday.

      Would his mother have held him like Connie was holding Amanda? Would she have marveled at the sight of him, too?

      Yeah. She would have.

      He couldn’t help wishing that she would have lived to see him grow up. To know that he’d become someone people looked up to.

      Not that Tia Guadalupe hadn’t been a good substitute. But she’d died when he was only six, a loss that had struck him hard and cruel. And with no other family to take him in, he’d been sent to live at the orphanage.

      Greg shook off the images and thanked his lucky stars that he’d crossed paths with Granny eventually, that she’d adopted him and made him a part of the ever-growing Clayton family.

      Still, while the Rocking C had been the only home he’d known in nearly twenty years, he would never want to live and work here. Not that he minded doing chores and helping out while he was visiting. But he loved the bright lights of the stage and thrived on the fame and the glamour. Whenever he strode out to face the cheering crowds, he knew that he’d finally made it. That he’d finally become the success that his Mama Maria had wanted him to be, that he was living the dream she’d had for him.

      “I’d planned to make pies this morning,” Connie said, drawing him from his musing. “But that’ll have to wait. I might feel more up to baking in the afternoon.”

      “There’s no way you’ll be doing anything in the kitchen for a while,” he said.

      “But Thanksgiving is tomorrow.” Connie rose up on the bed. “And everyone is coming here to eat. So I planned—”

      “Those plans were changed last night. So don’t give Thanksgiving another thought.”

      “But it’s my job—”

      “Not today. And not tomorrow, either.”

      She opened her mouth as if to object one more time, and Greg pushed off from the wall, standing straight, his arms still crossed. “Don’t make me pull rank on you, ma’am.”

      “All right.” Connie sank back on the bed. “But you might call Sabrina and ask her to help.”

      “I’m not going to worry about that now.”

      “Why not?”

      “For one thing, it’s supposed to rain again, which means Jared and Sabrina might not be able to get through and we might have to postpone the holiday for a day or two. But either way, I can handle it.” Of course, only as a last resort. He’d never been too handy in a kitchen. But when he’d been digging through the pantry, he found a bunch of stuff that was pretty easy to make, even for a novice like him.

      Connie, who was undoubtedly a great cook, probably wouldn’t approve of the simple fare he’d be fixing. He figured that pulling off a major holiday meal probably meant a lot to her.

      About the time he was resigning himself to a simple meal, he realized he’d better call the diner in Brighton Valley as soon as it opened and make Caroline, the proprietor, an offer she wouldn’t refuse. He’d pay her triple the cost to cook a take-out feast for the Claytons’Thanksgiving, even if he wasn’t sure how many of them would show up.

      By hook or by crook, they’d have their holiday dinner.

      If there was one thing he’d learned since running away from the orphanage and hitching a ride back to Texas when he was thirteen years old, it was that money could buy anything.

      Doc had been right. The specialists at the hospital in Wexler had determined that both Connie and the baby were doing great. The resident obstetrician had said they could stay overnight, if she wanted to. But Connie had been eager to get home. With a new storm headed their way, they could get stranded in town, and she wanted to spend Thanksgiving at the ranch.

      Greg had seemed a little uneasy about her checking out, but the doctor had assured him that an overnight stay was merely an option. So Greg had relented and brought them both home, using the car seat Connie had been storing in her closet, along with the other new baby things she’d purchased earlier.

      Now, as she stood at the bedroom window on Thursday morning and surveyed the clearing skies, she realized that Doc and the weatherman had been wrong. The rain that followed the first storm hadn’t struck nearly as hard as predicted. At least, not in Brighton Valley.

      Houston, on the other hand, had taken the brunt of the storm. According to Greg, who’d been watching the news as well as the Weather Channel, there were flight delays and travel warnings, so it seemed even more likely that the Clayton family Thanksgiving would be held on Friday or Saturday instead of today.

      Connie had planned to go all out with the decorations this year, especially with the candles and the centerpiece, since it would have been her very first attempt to fuss over a holiday the way her mother always did.

      But with Amanda’s birth and Greg’s insistence that she take it easy, she decided to go light this year and do things up big next time around. That is, if she was still living on the Rocking C.

      And, of course, there was always Christmas.

      Her mother made an even bigger production out of that particular holiday, even though she’d spent more time on the set of In the Kitchen with Dinah than she had at home. A habit that Connie had grown to resent.

      To be honest, it was nice to use the baby as an excuse not to go home this year. Connie had grown tired of painting on a happy face and pretending that there was nothing she liked better than being in front of a camera for the holidays and pretending to be a member of one of the happiest families in America.

      Once upon a time, before Connie’s father had died, she had been. Back then, her mother had baked a ton of cookies and goodies, trimmed the hearth and decorated the tree. Even on a shoestring, she’d been able to make their small, two-bedroom house in Houston the best place in the world to be.

      But once her mother had taken that job at the television station, everything had changed.

      Connie reminded herself that she had a daughter of her own now, a child for whom Connie would create their own family traditions. And if Amanda ever brought home little handmade ornaments and wall hangings and trimmings made out red-andgreen construction paper, they would be valued and given their rightful place of honor throughout the house—not set aside for the more lavish, store-bought trinkets.

      Family ought to come first.

      And now that Amanda was here, Connie vowed to make that a hard-and-fast rule.

      When the baby made a gruntlike noise, Connie turned from her vantage point by the window and strode toward the small bassinette. Amanda had begun to squirm and root, a sign that undoubtedly meant she was hungry.

      “Hey