Christmas On The Ranch. Arlene James

stared at her as if she’d spoken in a foreign language. “You’re saying my mother was pregnant when Harry died?”

      “Obviously.”

      “How is that obvious?” he demanded, spreading his hands.

      Shrugging, Fawn braced her hands on her knees. “I’d think that Bella makes it obvious.”

      “Bella! Bella?”

      It hit her then with the force of a slap that he really didn’t know, hadn’t put it together at all. Her head jerked to the side as the implications registered. “Oh, how stupid I am.” No wonder he’d asked about her husband! What he must think! Shaking her head, she tried to set it all straight. “The baby is your sister.”

      If his eyebrows had risen any higher, they’d have disappeared into his hairline. “What?”

      “Bella Jo is your sister.”

      “But...” He couldn’t seem to form words for several seconds. “Her hair...”

      “Is dark like Harry’s,” Fawn supplied. “Or like Harry’s was before he started going bald and shaving his head.”

      Still, Dixon stared blankly at her. “I don’t understand.”

      Fawn went to her knees, reaching for his right hand. She gripped it tightly with hers. It was a strong hand, long-fingered and square-palmed, calloused with much use.

      “Dixon,” she said carefully, “Bella is your mother and Harry’s daughter.”

      His gray eyes plumbed hers. “Not yours?”

      “No.”

      He gripped her so hard that Fawn feared bruises, but she showed no response.

      “My sister.” Suddenly, he dropped Fawn’s hand and bowed his head, pressing his temples with his fingertips. “My sister.”

      “Yes. Born the last day of July.”

      He looked up again, obviously doing the mental math. “She’s barely four months old.”

      “That’s right.”

      “My mother’s forty-four! How did this happen?”

      Fawn sat back on her heels, trying to find a suitable reply to that. “The usual way, I imagine. I know it took them both by surprise, but they were happy about it, ecstatic. Especially Harry. He was only forty, you know.”

      Dixon looked at her then as if she’d suddenly grown an extra nose. Lifting his hands to his head again, he fell back against the couch. “Oh. My. Word.”

      Fawn thought about trying to point out the ramifications in light of his mother’s health issues, but he was obviously struggling with these fresh realizations, so she kept quiet. After a moment, confident that he finally understood what had brought them here and why they could not simply leave again, she quietly rose to her feet, picked up his plate and left him alone with his thoughts.

       Chapter Three

      His sister!

      A four-month-old sister. Bella. Bella Jo.

      Dixon could barely believe it, but evidently it was true. At forty-four, Jackie had given birth to her second child. His sister. In addition, Jackie was in ill health, but dying? He had much more difficulty believing that than everything else. He set it aside for the moment.

      He hadn’t known Harry Griffin at all, but apparently Jackie had been happily married to the man, who turned out to have been a few years her junior. Dixon recalled the times his mother had urged him to get to know his stepfather, and now he regretted that he hadn’t found a way to do that, but he simply hadn’t seen any reason to do it. Until now. Now that it was too late.

      Unsure what to say, think or do, Dixon found himself in prayer for the third time since he’d arrived home that evening. The only words his whirling mind could come up with were, Lord, help. I could really use some help.

      One thing about being Jackie Jo Crane Lyons Griffin’s son, though, was that a fellow learned to stand up and take life like a man early on. It was either that or cower in shame. Dixon didn’t cower any better than his mother did, so after a few minutes he got up, squared his shoulders and walked back into the kitchen.

      His mother still sat at the table, cradling Bella Jo in her arms. Jackie pulled the nipple of a bottle from the baby’s cupid’s-bow mouth and tilted Bella up onto her shoulder. She’d barely landed the first pat before the baby belched like a twelve-year-old boy trying to impress his buddies.

      “Always the lady,” Jackie quipped, lowering Bella to her lap. “Just like your mother. Poor thing.”

      Dixon couldn’t help a sudden fascination with the infant and went to look over his mother’s shoulder. “Can’t believe I have a sister.”

      “I don’t know why not,” Jackie said brightly, holding up the baby for him to view. “She looks just like you.”

      Dixon narrowed his eyes at the plump-faced infant. “No, she doesn’t.”

      “She does,” Jackie insisted. “Except for the dark hair, she looks just like your baby pictures.”

      “And your baby pictures look just like your mother’s baby pictures,” Fawn put in from the sink, which was full of suds.

      “I have a dishwasher, you know,” he pointed out, aware that he sounded surly but unable to help himself.

      She shot back with, “It’s full.”

      Surprised, he lifted an eyebrow. It took him days to fill up the dishwasher. Looking back to his mother, he asked, “Is that true? Are my baby pictures that much like yours?”

      “Why do you think your father tried to name you after me?”

      Now that was a surprise. “Dad wanted to name me Jack?”

      She nodded. “We settled on my mother’s maiden name and his middle name. I think he did it partly to curry favor with her. If I’d been a boy, she’d have named me Dixon. So, Greg decided you would be my mom’s Dixon. Didn’t matter. She still hated him.”

      “Hate is a strong word,” Dixon muttered, but it wasn’t far off the mark. His grandmother had been the driving force keeping him from his father. She’d always said it was to protect him, but Dixon could never figure out what she’d been trying to protect him from. Greg was a solid citizen, never missed a child support payment, attended church regularly, kept his nose clean and ran a successful business. Yes, he’d gotten her daughter pregnant too young, but he’d married her and tried to be a good parent, which was more than could be said for his mother.

      Jackie lifted Bella onto the edge of the table, holding her there in a sitting position. “Would you put her into her carrier, son? She’ll need a dry diaper soon. Then she’ll go down for several hours.”

      “I haven’t handled many babies,” Dixon hedged, wiping his palms on his jeans.

      “Just pick her up under her arms and lay her in the carrier,” Jackie said with a chuckle. “She holds her head up well now.”

      Dixon wiped his hands once more then placed them just above his mother’s. He lifted gently and was shocked by how little the baby weighed. “She’s light as a feather!”

      “Duh. She’s a baby.”

      “What does she weigh?” he asked, gingerly laying the infant in her padded carrier seat.

      “A little over fourteen pounds.”

      “That’s all?”

      “Well, she only weighed five pounds when she was born.”

      “Was she early?”

      “About