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As soon as the children left the room, Hope suddenly realized her sister wasn’t just frustrated. She was angry.
Hope again felt small and selfish. If she were in Faith’s shoes, she would be furious, too. Her sister was doing her best to keep the family together. She was managing the ranch, taking care of her children, trying to keep everything running while still reeling from her husband’s death.
Now Hope came in and expected to shake everything up and do things her way.
“There is no money, Hope. Do you not get that? You’ll have virtually no operating budget. You’ll barely make enough to pay the salaries for Santa Claus and anybody you hire to work in the gift shop.”
Oh. Right. How was she going to find people to help her in only nine days?
Mary could help line her up with the seasonal employees who had worked at the Ranch in previous years. Surely a few of them might still be looking for work.
“You said it’s been hemorrhaging money. Is it really that bad?”
“People just aren’t coming to holiday attractions like this one much anymore. The only reason we kept it going was because Uncle Claude loved it so and Travis wanted to honor his memory.”
Her sister’s words were sobering.
“You’ve always been enthusiastic about things, Hope. It’s one of the best things about you. You jump right in and try to fix things. But you can’t fix this. The Christmas Ranch is a losing proposition. We just can’t afford it anymore. There’s no money. We’re holding on by our fingernails as it is. If things don’t pick up, we’re going to have to sell off part of the cattle herd and possibly some of the pasture land along the creek. Wade Dalton made us a more than fair offer and Mary and I are seriously considering it.”
“Oh, Faith. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know the whole picture either, until after Travis died. He was very good at putting on a cheerful face.”
Faith was quiet for a moment, then walked around the island. “I should probably tell you, I had a very respectable offer for the reindeer. A guy with a petting zoo in Pocatello. We’ve talked about it and were planning to take that, too. He was interested in taking them before the holidays.”
The small herd of reindeer had been part of the ranch as long as she had lived here. They were part of the family, as far as Hope was concerned.
“Sell the reindeer?”
“I know,” Mary piped in. “It breaks my heart too.”
“Did you sign any papers?”
“No, but...”
“Don’t. Please, Faith. Wait until after Christmas. Give me this season to prove I can turn things around. I know I can do it. I am going to make money with The Christmas Ranch this year, enough to tide the Star N over the rest of the year. You’ll see.”
Her sister sighed. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”
“Maybe not, but that could be a good thing, right? Ignorance is bliss, and all that.”
“Oh, Hope. You always could talk me into anything.”
Mary gave a short laugh. “That’s my girls!”
Relief and excitement and no small amount of nerves washed over Hope like an avalanche. “You won’t be sorry. This is going to be our best year ever, I promise.”
She had no idea how she would keep that promise but she intended to try.
Chapter Three (#ulink_bf9c85eb-98a0-5c2b-8dde-a776aa7f8937)
He was so not cut out for this.
Rafe tried to scrape up the burned bits of the red sauce from the bottom of the saucepan with a wooden spoon but that only mixed the blackened remains into the rest of the mix.
Apparently he would now have to open a bottle of store-bought spaghetti sauce, which is what he should have done in the first place instead of hunting down ingredients then measuring, pouring and mixing for the past fifteen minutes.
Joey wouldn’t care if his spaghetti sauce came from a jar. He probably wouldn’t even be able to taste the difference.
Rafe headed to the sink and poured the concoction down the sink. There went twenty minutes of his life he wouldn’t get back.
Rafe didn’t mind cooking. He really didn’t. Okay, he didn’t mind grilling. Apparently there was a difference between throwing a couple of steaks on the old Char-Broil and concocting something nutritious that a seven-year-old kid would actually eat.
He had decided they couldn’t live on brats, burgers and take-out alone so had decided to try his hand at a few other things—including spaghetti, which Joey had admitted was one of his favorites.
Now his nephew was due home from his playdate in a half hour and Rafe would have to start over.
Playdates were yet another activity that seemed completely out of his understanding. Give him a terrorist cell and a clear-cut objective to take them out and he could kick some serious ass but apparently he wasn’t capable of navigating the complicated politics of playdates—who was allowed to play where, whose turn it was to host, which friends weren’t allowed to come over on certain days of the week and which couldn’t play at all until their homework was finished.
Truth to tell, the whole parenting thing from soup to nuts scared the he—er, heck out of him. What did he know about seven-year-old boys? He could barely remember even being one.
He would just have to figure things out. His nephew needed him and he couldn’t let him down like he had Cami.
He couldn’t let the kid go into foster care. He and his sister had gone the rounds with that, being bounced around between their grandmother, their aunt and finally foster care after their mother’s death.
Sure, there were really good foster families out there. They had been lucky enough to have placement with a few, but he wasn’t willing to roll the dice with his nephew’s well-being.
Right now, though, he couldn’t help but wonder if the boy might be better off taking his chances in the system. Joey might think so. They weren’t exactly hitting it off. Rafe never expected to come in like some kind of white knight and save the day but he thought Joey at least might be a little grateful to be living with family instead of strangers.
In truth, Rafe was connected by blood to the boy but that was about it. They had lived separately. He had usually been stationed far away from where Cami lived in her wandering life and his relationship with the boy had been mostly through phone calls and emails and the occasional visit.
He supposed he shouldn’t be that surprised that trying to establish a normal parental-type relationship with him would be a struggle.
He wasn’t sure why the past few weeks had seemed so tough—maybe because he felt out of his element here in this community where he didn’t know anybody and didn’t have anything else to focus on. Perhaps things would go more smoothly after they returned to California and he figured out what he was going to do now that his whole life wasn’t defined by being a navy SEAL.
On the surface, he and Joey should be tight. He had been in the kid’s situation when he was young, lost and afraid with no safe harbor. The only difference was that Rafe had had a little sister to worry about, too.
He could completely relate to his nephew’s stress and uncertainty that resulted in behavior issues.
His mother had been wild and troubled—giving birth to two children from two different men, neither of whom had stayed in the picture long.
She would clean up her act and regain custody of them for a few months and then something would happen—an unexpected bill, a bad date, even somebody making an offhand comment in the grocery store—and she would fall off the wagon again. All her hard work toward sobriety would disintegrate and they would end up with their elderly grandmother or their aunt, who had been busy with her own family and a husband who hadn’t wanted the burden of two more mouths to feed.
A boy should never have to deal with the burden of his mother letting him down, time after time.
More than anything, he wished he could spare Joey that. Since it wasn’t possible, he would do his best to provide the kid a stable home environment while his sister was in prison—and if that meant trying to figure out how to provide nutritious meals without burning them, he would do it.
He opened the cupboard and was looking for the bottle of spaghetti sauce he knew he had purchased earlier in the week when the doorbell suddenly rang.
Oh, yay. Maybe when he wasn’t paying attention, his subconscious had called for pizza delivery.
He headed to the kitchen and opened the door, only to find someone else unexpected.
It was her. The blond and lovely Hope Nichols, who dredged up all kinds of disastrous memories he had buried a long time ago—and who made him feel even more lousy at this whole parenting thing than he already did.
She beamed at him, disconcertingly chipper. “Hi. It’s Rafe, right?”
He felt big and stupid and awkward next to all her soft and delicate prettiness. “That’s right. Rafe Santiago.”
She was probably here to give him the bill for the broken window. What other reason would she have for showing up at his doorstep on a Tuesday evening?
“May I come in? It’s freezing out here. My body still hasn’t acclimated from the desert.”
“Oh. Yeah. Of course. Come in.”
He held the door open, kicking aside the backpack Joey had dropped after school that afternoon.
She sniffed and blinked a few times. “Wow. That’s...strong.”
The house—which was clean and warm but not very homey otherwise—smelled like charred red sauce, he suddenly realized with chagrin.
“Kitchen mishap,” he said, embarrassed. “I was making spaghetti sauce and forgot to stir. I just tossed it out but I’m afraid the smell tends to linger.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “Been there, more times than I can count. I’m a lousy cook.”
“We could start a club.”
She grinned. “Except we’ll be very clear that our members are not to bring refreshments to meetings.”
He couldn’t help smiling back. “Definitely. We’ll put it in the bylaws.”
She paused, then tilted her head. “Do you need a little help? Maybe it’s like grammar, you know? Two negatives making a positive. Maybe with two lousy cooks working together, we can come up with something a little more than halfway decent.”
“English and math in one paragraph. You must be a teacher.”
“Well, I have dual degrees in art history and education. I should also add that while I couldn’t bake a decent chocolate cake if cannibals were waiting to nibble off my arms if I didn’t deliver the goods, I do make a kick-ass red sauce.”
Was she really offering to help him fix dinner? Okay, that was unexpected...and a little surreal.
He ought to politely thank her for the offer and send her on her way. He really wasn’t in the mood for the messy conversation about her parents he knew they needed to have—but he had also spent the past few weeks with very little adult interaction and he was a little desperate to talk about something besides Star Wars and Ninjago.
“Couldn’t hurt. Between the two of us, maybe we could come up with something Joey might actually eat. So far, my efforts in that direction have fallen pretty flat.”
“Excellent. Let’s do it.” She reached to untwist her multicolored scarf then unbuttoned her red wool peacoat. Beneath, she wore a bright blue sweater that matched her eyes. She looked bright and fresh and just about the prettiest thing he had ever seen.
After an awkward moment, he reached to help her out of it, with manners he had forced himself to learn after he joined the military.
Up close, she smelled delicious, some kind of exotic scent of cinnamon and almonds, and she was warm and enticing.
He told himself that little kick in his gut was only hunger.
He took the coat and hung it on the rack then led the way into the kitchen. “Where do we start?” he asked.
She paused in the middle of the kitchen. “First things first. If you don’t mind, I’ll just rinse out the rest of this saucepan before the fumes singe away more of my nasal lining.”
“Go ahead.”
She headed to the sink and ran water in the sink to flush it down then started opening cupboards and pulling things out. “So where is the little snowball-throwing champion?”
“Next door. Playdate with his partner in crime.”
“Is this the infamous Samantha?”
“The very same. Last night we had a talk with her and her parents about the dangers of throwing snowballs at cars. It should now be safe to drive through the neighborhood.”
“Whew. That’s a relief.” She started mixing things in the now-clean saucepan. “So what’s the story here, if you don’t mind me asking? Where are Joey’s parents? I would love to hear they’re on an extended cruise to the Bahamas and you’re just substituting in the parental department for a few days.”
His mouth tightened. “I wish it were that straightforward.”
It really wasn’t her business but the truth was, he didn’t have anybody else to talk to about the situation and found he wanted to explain to her.
“Joe’s dad took off before he was born, from what I understand. I don’t know the details. I was overseas.”
“Military?”
“How did you know?”
“The haircut sort of gives it away. Let me guess. Marines.”
“Close. Navy.”
For reasons he didn’t want to look at too closely, he didn’t mention he had been a SEAL. It was a snap decision—similar to allowing her into his house and his kitchen. If he mentioned it, she might more easily make the connection between him and that rebel camp in Colombia and he couldn’t see any good reason to dredge up the painful past they shared while they seemed to be getting along so well.
“Ah. A sailor.” She seemed to accept that with equanimity. “So Joey’s dad isn’t in the picture. What about his mom?”
He pulled a large pot out to boil water for the pasta. Again, he debated what to tell her and then decided to be straightforward about this, at least. “It’s a rough situation. My sister is in trouble with the law. She’s in jail.”
“Oh, no!”
He could have left it at that but he was compelled to explain further. “Last week she pleaded guilty to a multitude of drug charges, including distribution to a minor. Multiple minors, actually. Right now she is in the county jail in Pine Gulch while she awaits sentencing.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s a mess,” he agreed.
“So you stepped up to help with Joey.”
“Somebody had to. We don’t have any other family.”
