Christmas On The Ranch: The Rancher's Christmas Baby / Christmas Eve Cowboy. Arlene James

      After changing, feeding, bathing and dressing the baby, then getting her down for her nap and making Jackie comfortable, Fawn found it was late morning before she was able to go out in search of the tree. Thankfully, Dixon didn’t seem to lock anything, and she found the tools she needed, along with a wheelbarrow in the little shed built into the end of the carport. The task was more laborious than she’d imagined, and to make matters worse, the tree fell on her. It wasn’t large enough to do any damage, but cedar needles proved surprisingly sticky and itchy.

      Lunch had to be handled and the baby and Jackie seen to again before Fawn could decorate. Desperate for a shower, she worked quickly, getting the tree into the stand in front of the living room window, stringing the multicolored lights, hanging the ornaments and threading wide, wired, red ribbon through the branches. Finding no angel for the top, she used a tinsel star that had seen better days. All in all, she thought it turned out well. Sitting in front of a cheery fire, Jackie seemed to agree.

      “That really takes me back. So much has changed around here, but that really takes me back.”

      Fawn snapped a picture with her phone and texted it to her sister, then rushed off to shower and change her sticky, itchy clothes just in time to start dinner.

      Dixon came in as she was getting the bread ready for the oven. “That smells good.”

      “Homemade chicken noodle soup and my grandmother’s biscuits. They’ll take about twenty minutes if you want to shower first.”

      “That’ll work. Took care of that stubborn old heifer on my way in.”

      “What’s wrong with the heifer?”

      “Nasty cut on her rear leg. It’s been stitched, but it doesn’t look good.”

      “I can ask my grandmother what she recommends.”

      “Your grandmother’s a vet?”

      “No, a nurse, but she has a healing way with all living things.”

      “Huh.”

      She’d seen that skeptical look before, but she made no comment. Neither did he, not then and not after he walked into the living room and pointedly looked at the Christmas tree. In fact, he must’ve noticed it when he’d driven in. The lights would undoubtedly show through the front window, but he simply walked past the fireplace and into the hallway without a single word.

      When tears of disappointment sprang to her eyes, Fawn felt like kicking herself. Or him.

      * * *

      Dixon told himself that it was foolish to feel disappointed that she hadn’t waited for him to cut down the tree and help decorate it. The last couple years he hadn’t even bothered with a tree because he lived alone and knew he’d be spending the holiday with his dad and the rest of the family. Still, he’d felt an unexpected warmth when he’d spied the glowing lights of the Christmas tree in the front window. It was nice not to come home to a cold, dark house, even if what awaited him inside was a lot of problems. If it had only been Fawn waiting for him... But he dared not think like that.

      Then memories had assailed him as he’d taken in the tree, years past when he and his mother and grandparents had made a whole evening out of putting up the Christmas tree. He’d suddenly longed for what had never truly been, wondering why it was so easy to forget the good times and so difficult to forget the bad.

      He had suddenly wished that they had never come; yet the idea that decorating this tree tonight with Jackie and Fawn would have banished bad memories had washed over him. He felt robbed, especially if Jackie was dying, as Fawn insisted. He turned off the thought.

      Like his dad said, worry didn’t add a single day to anyone’s life. Prayer, on the other hand...

      Lord, if it’s true that she’s as sick as Fawn says, have mercy on her.

      He left it at that and swiftly cleaned up. When he returned to the kitchen, it was to find Fawn carrying food into the formal dining area. He’d removed the wall between the old formal dining room and the living room to make it one large open space with cased openings that gave good lines of sight from the kitchen into both areas. The Christmas tree, however, stood in the central window, the one space that would be difficult to see from the breakfast nook where he normally took his meals, so Jackie requested that the meal be served in the dining room.

      Dixon had no quarrel with the arrangement. With the fire blazing and the tree twinkling, he felt the first real stirrings of Christmas spirit. He certainly had no complaints about the food. The soup was hearty and delicious. The bread, though, was the stuff of dreams—high, airy, flaky. He’d have made a real pig of himself if Fawn hadn’t said she’d make gravy with breakfast if enough biscuits were left over.

      As the meal progressed, however, he felt more and more uncomfortable, so he escaped to his room and watched a movie on the TV there. All the while, he wondered what Fawn and Jackie were doing, but when he slipped out after the movie, all was quiet and dark, so he turned in for the night.

      He tried very hard not to be too impressed when he walked into the kitchen the next morning to find a skillet of thick, fragrant sausage gravy steaming on the stove and a plate of warmed biscuits waiting for him. As it was Sunday, he came in dressed in his darkest jeans, white shirt, blue tie and his best sport coat.

      Fawn wore her usual boots, jeans and loose top, this one plaid with a collar and cuffs. She’d braided her hair and left it swinging in one long plait between her shoulder blades, slender tendrils twining with the chunky turquoise orbs dangling from her dainty earlobes. He didn’t know how she managed to look so stunning with such casual ease. She seemed as kind as she was beautiful, too. How many people would do what she was doing for Jackie and his sister? He realized suddenly that he would very much like to be her friend.

      For a moment he thought about inviting her to attend church with him, but then he’d have to ask Jackie, too, and take along Bella, all of which would require some explanation. Given that he had yet to mention any of them to his dad’s family, he couldn’t very well just appear in public with them. So he said nothing, just thanked her for the breakfast as he rose from his chair. She looked faintly startled.

      “Uh. You’re welcome. I’ll have lunch ready by noon. BLTs and potato skins. Your mom really likes both, and she doesn’t eat enough.”

      He really liked both, as well, and Fawn was an excellent cook, but his stepmom almost always invited him over for Sunday dinner, so he said only, “I’ll keep that in mind,” as he headed for the door.

      “Is it the tree?” she asked.

      He paused, trying to decide what to tell her. Finally, he shook his head. “No.”

      “I didn’t mean to upset you. Since you were so busy, I thought I’d just take care of it. I hoped it would cheer up the place, bring in a little Christmas spirit.”

      “Yes,” he said. “It does. I didn’t realize how much it would until I saw it. Then...” He shrugged. “I guess I suddenly wished I could’ve taken part.”

      “Oh.” She looked down at her toes. “Well, I wasn’t trying to keep you out. It just never occurred to me. It’s been a while since I’ve been around a man much. I don’t remember my grandpa, and my father died when I was eight.”

      “Aw, I’m sorry. What happened?”

      “He was a drunk,” she said flatly. “He set the house on fire accidentally. My mother tried to pull him out. They both died.”

      He stared at her for several seconds, at a loss for words. Finally, he said, “That’s awful.” Then he felt he had to add, “I’m sorry. For everything.”

      She smiled tentatively. “Me, too.”

      Nodding, he headed for the door, guilt dogging him every step of the way. He hated the anger and resentment that he felt for his mother and the way it had splashed over onto Fawn in the beginning. He hated that he was ashamed of his own mother and that he didn’t want to be