The Cowboy's Christmas Miracle

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“Our mom sent us.” Apparently, Kip’s trauma of a few days earlier had been forgotten. He seemed to consider Carson his best friend, judging by the wattage of the gap-toothed grin he offered that should have looked ridiculous but seemed rather appealing instead.

“This is for you.” Hayden barely looked at him as he thrust out the parcels and Carson now saw they were clear holiday patterned plastic containers filled with some kind of food items.

“We’re supposed to tell you to put the spinach rolls in the refrigerator. The cookies you can leave out.”

“I hope she gave you snickerdoodles,” Kip said with that grin again. “They’re my favorite.”

“Okay.” He had no idea how to respond to this unexpected visit or to their offerings.

“Tell him what we’re supposed to say,” Drew hissed to his older brother.

Hayden scowled, then spoke in a monotone. “We’re supposed to tell you we’re sorry for trespassing the other day and thank you for bringing Kip home when he fell off the fence and for pulling out our van yesterday when Mom got stuck in the snow.”

“Uh, you’re welcome.” He had absolutely no experience with neighbors who thought they had to bring him cookies. It was a Mayberry moment he found unexpected and a bit surreal. Still, just the thought of having the chance to enjoy more of Jenna Wheeler’s cooking made his mouth water.

“Your house is big,” Kip said, looking around the two-story entry that led to the great room. “It’s like a castle.”

“Grandma Pat says it’s a monster city up here.” The oldest one stated the insult matter-of-factly. “She says you’re only stroking your ego.”

It took him a few moments to figure out “monster city” probably meant monstrosity. Either way, it annoyed him.

“Does she?” he asked evenly, wondering who the hell Grandma Pat might be.

Drew studied him, those green eyes behind the glasses wary. “Is that something mean? What Grandma Pat said?”

Again, Carson felt out of his depth and wondered the best way to usher his bothersome little visitors out the door. “I guess that depends.”

“Grandma Pat says mean stuff like that all the time,” he said, apology in his voice.

“She does not, moron. Shut up.” Hayden punched his shoulder hard enough to make Drew wobble a little and Carson fought the urge to sit the boy down for a long lecture about not mistreating anybody, particularly smaller brothers.

Drew righted himself and stepped out of reach of his brother. “Mom says not to listen to her when she says something mean because she can’t help it. She doesn’t always think about what she’s saying.”

Hayden opened his mouth to defend Grandma Pat but before he could, Kip called out to them from inside the great room. “Hey, where’s your Christmas tree?”

How had the kid wandered away so quickly? One minute he’d been there grinning at him, the next he was halfway across the house. Like wayward puppies, his brothers followed him and Carson had no choice but to head after them.

“Don’t you have a tree?” Drew asked, his voice shocked.

“I have a little one in the family room off the kitchen.” A fourfoot grapevine tree his interior designer had left at Thanksgiving, when he visited last.

“Can we see it?” Drew asked.

“Why don’t you have a big one in here?” Hayden asked, with that inexplicable truculence in his voice.

“I guess I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

“Don’t you like Christmas?” Kip asked, looking astonished at the very idea.

How did he explain to these innocent-looking boys that the magic of the holidays disappeared mighty damn fast when you lived in the backseat of your druggie mother’s Chevy Vega?

“Sure, I like Christmas. I have a tree at my other house in California.” One that his housekeeper there insisted on decorating, but he decided he didn’t need to give the Wheeler boys that information. “I just haven’t had time to put one up here. I’ve only been here a few days and I’ve had other things to do.”

“We could help you cut one down.” Drew’s features sparkled with excitement. “We know where the good ones are. We always cut one down right by where the creek comes down and makes the big turn.”

“Only this year we couldn’t,” Hayden muttered. “Mom said it would be stealing since it’s on your land now. We had to go with our Uncle Paul to get one from the people selling them at his feed store. We couldn’t find a good one, though. They were all scrawny.”

The kid’s beef was with his mother for selling the land, not with him, Carson reminded himself, even as he bristled.

“You want us to show you where the good trees are?” his brother asked eagerly.

“Drew,” Hayden hissed.

“What? Maybe he doesn’t know. It would be fun. Just like when we used to go with…with Dad.”

The boy’s voice wobbled a little on the last word and Carson’s insides clenched. He didn’t need a bunch of fatherless boys coming into his life, making him feel sorry for them and guilty that he’d had the effrontery to pay their mother a substantial sum to buy their family’s ranch.

“We could take you on Peppy,” the youngest beamed. “Peppy’s the pony me and Drew share.”

“Like three people can fit on Pep,” Hayden scoffed. “He’s so old, he can barely carry the two of you.”

“Maybe he could ride his own horse,” Drew suggested. “It’s not far. So do you want us to help you? We already have our warm clothes on and everything.”

“Don’t be such a dork. Why would he want our help?”

Hayden’s surliness and his brother’s contrasting eagerness both tugged at something deep inside him, a tiny flicker of memory of the one Christmas he had been blessed to stay with his grandparents. He had been nine years old, trying to act as tough as Hayden. His grandfather had driven him on a snowmobile to the Forest Service land above their small ranch and the two of them had gone off in search of a Christmas tree.

He had forgotten that moment, had buried the memory deep. But now it all came flooding back—the citrusy tang of the pine trees, the cold wind rushing past, the crunch of the snow underfoot. The sheer thrill of walking past tree after tree until he and his grandfather picked out the perfect one.

He could still remember the joy of hauling it back to his grandparents’ home and the thrill as his grandmother had exclaimed over it, proclaiming it to be the most beautiful tree they had ever had.

He and his grandfather had hung the lights later that night and he had helped put the decorations up. He had a sudden distinct memory of sneaking out of bed later that night and going out to the living room, plugging in the lights and lying under the tree, watching the flickering lights change from red to green to purple to gold and wondering if he had ever seen anything so magical.

The next Christmas, he had been back with his mother and had spent the holiday in a dingy apartment in Barstow. The only lights had been headlights on the interstate.

He pushed the memory aside and focused on the three boys watching him with varying expressions on their similar features.

He really did need a Christmas tree. It was a glaring omission, one he couldn’t believe he hadn’t caught before now when he had been trying to make sure every detail at Raven’s Nest was perfect. He had guests coming in the next day who would be sure to wonder why he didn’t have one.

He had no good explanation he could offer the Hertzogs, other than his own negligence. He just hadn’t thought of it, since Christmas wasn’t really even on his radar.

He didn’t dislike the holidays, they were mostly just an inconvenience—a time when the whole world seemed to stop working, whether they celebrated Christmas or not.

On the other hand, where the hell was he going to get lights and decorations for a Christmas tree just five days before the holiday?

Carrianne could take care of that, he was quite certain. She would have the whole thing arranged in a few hours, even from California.

“You probably don’t even know how to ride a horse, do you?” Hayden scoffed. “That’s what Grandma Pat said. She says you probably don’t know the back end of a horse from a hole in the ground.”

Grandma Pat sounded like a real charmer.

“I do know how to ride a horse, thanks. I’ve been doing it for a long time now.”

“You’re just sayin’ that.”

He sighed at the boy’s attitude. He never had been good at ignoring a dare. “Give me ten minutes to wrap some things up in my office, then you’re welcome to judge for yourself whether I can ride or not. In the meantime, there’s a telephone over there by the fireplace. Why don’t you call your mother to ask her permission to go with me?”

The two younger boys couldn’t have looked more excited than if he had just offered to let them fly his jet. Hayden, though, looked as if he were sucking on sour apples.

Yeah, kid, I know how you feel, Carson thought as he headed back to his study. He wasn’t that thrilled about the whole situation, either. He should never have opened his mouth. He just had to hope Carrianne could arrange things so he wasn’t stuck with a perfectly good evergreen he had cut down for nothing.

“You’re doing what?”

Certain she couldn’t possibly have heard Drew right, Jenna held the cordless phone closer to her ear and slid away from her sewing machine at the kitchen table and moved into the hall, where she could hear better without the whoosh of the dishwasher and the Christmas carols playing on the radio.

“Mr. McRaven doesn’t have a Christmas tree,” Drew said, in the same aghast tone of voice he might use to say the man kicked baby ducks for fun. “We told him where the good ones are, up above the far pasture, but that we couldn’t go there this year to cut one down ‘cause you said it was stealin’. But since it’s his place now, it’s not stealin’ so he can get one there if he wants. And we’re gonna help him.”

Carson was taking her boys out to cut down a Christmas tree for his gigantic new house? Okay, what alternate universe had she tumbled into while she was sewing new pajamas for the boys?

Or maybe she fell asleep over the sewing machine and this was just some weird, twisted dream. He didn’t like children and didn’t know what to do with them. She didn’t need him to voice the sentiment for her to figure it out. She had seen the vague uneasiness in his eyes every time he had been forced to extricate her boys from one scrape or another.

Why would he suddenly decide to take them to find a Christmas tree? It made no sense.

She shouldn’t have sent them up to Raven’s Nest, she fretted. She had thought the task would be an easy one and would accomplish a couple of purposes—reinforcing to the boys the lesson that it was good manners to express proper gratitude to those who helped them out for one. Getting them out of the house for a while and burning off a little pre-Christmas energy on their ponies was even better.

Now here they were heading off with Carson McRaven to cut down a Christmas tree.

Maybe she should just be grateful instead of worrying about his reasons. The boys had missed not cutting down their own tree this year. The one they found was perfectly adequate but Hayden in particular had been upset at any change in the tradition they had established years ago with their father.

“So can we go with him?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Drew, always the thinker, was never content with a simple answer.

How did she explain to her son that she was fairly certain their neighbor considered them on the same level as magpies or whistle pigs—an inescapable annoyance.

“I just don’t. If he had truly wanted a Christmas tree, I’m sure he would have found one before now, don’t you think?”

“He says he has one in his California house but hasn’t had time to get one here since he’s only been here a few days. Please, Mom. He needs our help. He said he could use it.”

Really? Carson McRaven, cutthroat billionaire businessman said that? He could hire dozens of men to scour the mountainside for the perfect tree. What did he need with three mischievous little boys?

With those killer instincts all her boys had, Drew must have sensed she was wavering. “Please, Mom. Oh please. I promise, we’ll be super good.”

Jenna sighed. The truth was, she could use a little extra time. Jolie was taking a long nap and she had accomplished more in the last hour than she had done all day.

The pajamas she was working on were supposed to be a surprise on Christmas Eve—the boys’ one present she allowed them to open early—and she still needed to finish hemming all three pairs. She enjoyed sewing but didn’t have time for it very often. It seemed like every time she took out her machine, she had to relearn how to thread the bobbin and the rhythm of the thing.

What could be the harm in them going with Carson? He had made the offer, for some completely inexplicable reason.

“I suppose it’s all right,” she finally said. “Behave yourselves and come straight home when you’re done.”

“Thanks, Mom! Thanks a million! Bye.”

Drew hung up before she could give more typical maternal admonishments. She set the cordless phone on the table but she couldn’t quite bring herself to return to the sewing machine yet. Her thoughts were still puzzling over why Carson McRaven would do something so incongruous as to invite her boys along on a tree-hunting trip.

Maybe it was the cookies she’d sent along with the boys to thank him for rescuing them the other day.

No, that couldn’t be it. Sure, they were good but they weren’t quite that good.

Drat the man, anyway. He was supposed to be hard and unfeeling and humorless. It was much easier to dislike him when she considered him simply an arrogant rich man who thought his money could buy anything he wanted.

But in the last few days, she could feel something changing. He had rescued her boys, he had pulled her out of the ditch, he had followed her home to make sure she was safe.

She was beginning to think there was more to Carson McRaven than she wanted to believe.

With another heavy sigh, she turned back to her sewing. Christmas was only five days away and she couldn’t waste another moment obsessing about the man.

“That’s the one, right there.” The lenses of Drew’s glasses gleamed in the sunlight as he beamed up at Carson from his spot standing proudly by a decent-sized blue spruce.

“That is a nice one,” Carson agreed.

“This one’s better,” Hayden insisted from his spot by a gigantic lodgepole pine. “Yours has a big ugly hole on one side, see?”

“Well, yours is way too bushy,” Drew retorted. “How do you think you’re even gonna fit it into the house? It won’t even go through the door!”

An excellent point, Carson wanted to say, but he decided to let them fight it out. He had one picked out already. He had it all figured out. It was just a matter of letting the boys wear themselves out arguing about it for a few more minutes, then he would present his tree as the winner.

In the course of the last half hour with the Wheeler boys, he had begun to finally determine which boy was which and to assess the dynamics between them. In the process, he gained a little more understanding.

Hayden, the oldest, wanted to be boss and was torn between pushing his weight around and trying to pretend he wasn’t enjoying their little excursion. Carson knew it was small of him but he had savored the boy’s reaction when he had led his favorite horse out of the barn, a high-spirited black named Bodie, and effortlessly mounted him. The boy had taken one look at the sleek, elegant lines of the magnificent horse and at Carson’s easy control of him and his eyes had widened to the size of silver dollars.