A Rancher for Christmas. Brenda Minton

In the center of the living room, she looked around, unsure. And then she cried.

      “Momma!” Violet wailed, walking through the room. “Momma!”

      Jake went after her, scooping her up with his free arm. “It’s okay, baby girl.”

      By then both twins were crying and clinging to Jake.

      “I’m sorry.” Breezy stood helpless and unsure of how to help. Should she reach for the twins? Maybe she didn’t have the mom gene. How could she, really? She’d never truly had a mother of her own.

      Jake noticed and his expression softened although the concern remained in his eyes.

      “It isn’t your fault. It’s just too soon to bring them here.”

      Breezy looked around, trying to come up with something. “They have toys here. Let’s pull out the toys and let them settle down. I’m not sure that avoiding this house is what they need. They lived here. It’s familiar to them.”

      “I think I know where they lived.”

      “I think you should give me a chance.” She reached over and this time Rosie held her arms out and fell into Breezy’s embrace. The toddler’s arms around her neck took her by surprise.

      “I’m working on it,” he said in a raspy voice.

      Of course he was. She sat down on the edge of the sofa and Rose slid off her lap and headed for the guitar Breezy had left leaning against the wall. The little girl moved quickly. Breezy moved faster, getting the instrument before the child could grab it. But she held it, letting Rose pluck the strings. With a few strands of hair on top of her head in a pink bow, Rose smiled and jabbered.

      “Do you want a song?” Breezy asked, settling on the sofa again. Rose rested against her knees.

      Jake had moved to the nearby chair, still holding Violet. As Breezy started to play, the child slid down from his lap and joined Rose. Breezy swallowed past the lump of emotion that lodged in her throat. She managed not to cry. Instead she sang a Christmas song because it sounded like one a child would be soothed by.

      As she sang, Rose clapped a few times and sounded as if she might be singing along. But it was hard to tell in the language of a two-year-old. She finished and set the guitar back on the floor. Violet had wandered back to Jake and was leaning against him, her thumb in her mouth, twirling dark curls around her finger.

      He cleared his throat, and the little girl looked up at him. He scooped her into his arms. “We should feed them.”

      “Yes, of course.”

      If the music had soothed the girls, it seemed to have had the opposite effect on Jake. He headed off to the kitchen like a lion with a thorn in his paw. She remembered the folk tale, and knew, with certainty, that she wasn’t the mouse who would offer to remove the thorn. She wouldn’t want to get that close to the lion.

      “I made soup and grilled cheese.” She walked to the stove, ignoring the man who had taken the girls to the dining room. “I have the sandwiches ready to grill and the soup is warm.”

      She wasn’t about to admit that she’d pondered for a very long time over what to feed the girls. She had no idea if they could eat a sandwich or if they were still eating baby food.

      “They’ll eat that.” He settled Violet in her high chair and then reached for Rosie.

      Breezy watched from the doorway but then turned to the kitchen and the job of finishing lunch. She turned the griddle on and pulled the already buttered bread out of the fridge, along with the cheese slices she would put in the middle. When she had them on the electric griddle, she found Jake Martin in the doorway watching her.

      “You play well,” he said in an easy tone.

      “Thank you,” she said, turning back to the griddle. “What would you like to drink?”

      “I can get our drinks. The girls are buckled in and I can see them from here,” he offered as he took glasses from the cabinet.

      She nodded, as if she wasn’t making a mental list of parenting dos and don’ts. One: always make sure they are buckled and within line of sight. Yes, those things seemed like common sense, but what if she forgot something? What if there was a rule that most people knew but she didn’t? She’d learned a lot of those rules when she’d moved in with Mia, but Mia’s stepson, Caleb, was almost seven now. He didn’t require safety seats or high chairs anymore.

      “Are you talking to yourself?” He opened the fridge and pulled out the pitcher of tea she’d made that morning. Tea should never be instant. Mia had taught her that rule. There were other rules, too. Going to church on Sunday was another one.

      Had she been talking to herself? She bit down on her bottom lip and shook her head, hoping that was the right answer. “No, of course not. I was telling you there are sippy cups here and milk in the fridge.”

      “Of course. Because the word milk sounds like rules.”

      “It could,” she hedged. She flipped the sandwiches off the griddle onto a plate.

      He laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

      She started to feel a little bubble of laughter coming to the surface. She didn’t want to laugh, not with him. Laughing with Jake would make them feel like friends and he clearly was not a friend.

      “There aren’t rules, Breezy.”

      “Aren’t there?”

      She ladled the soup into bowls, adding just a tiny amount for the twins. How much soup would they eat?

      “A little more than that,” Jake responded to her unasked question. “And I guess there are some rules.”

      Great, she loved rules. She might as well ask now and get it over with before she broke them all and found herself dismissed from the lives of her nieces. He’d made it clear he had the power to do that.

      “Okay, tell me the rules.”

      Jake cut up the sandwiches and placed them in front of the girls. She’d forgotten to do that. Next time, sandwiches in four triangles. That was simple enough. She set the soup on the table. Jake moved it back.

      “What?”

      “Soup out of reach or it’ll be on the floor before we can turn around.”

      “Rule one, no soup.”

      He laughed, the sound a little rusty but nice. He should laugh more often.

      “I didn’t say no soup,” he clarified. “I said out of reach.”

      She handed him a glass of tea and he took the seat next to Violet. Breezy took that as her cue and moved to the seat next to Rose. The little girl had already reached for a triangle of sandwich and was nibbling crust.

      “Next rule?” Breezy asked as she reached for her sandwich.

      Jake held out his hand. “We pray before we eat.”

      Of course. She let out a sigh and took the hand he offered. She ignored the fact that with one hand in his and one hand holding Rose’s, she felt connected.

      And a little bit trapped. No, she couldn’t ignore that.

      * * *

      Jake took a bite of sandwich and nearly choked. “What in the world is that?”

      Next to him Violet gagged. Rose continued to nibble as if it was the best thing she’d ever eaten.

      “It’s grilled cheese.”

      “That is not cheese,” he pointed out.

      “No, it’s not,” she admitted. “It’s cheese substitute.”

      Jake put the sandwich down on his plate and took a long drink of tea, hoping it was real tea. It was. After he washed the taste of fake cheese