A Love Inspired Christmas Bundle

When Lindsey and Jade returned sometime later, Jesse had shed his jacket and rolled back his shirtsleeves. The work felt good, cleansing somehow, and he wanted to stay right here until nightfall.

“That was fun, Daddy.” Jade pranced toward him with a strand of shiny silver garland thrown around her neck like a boa. “Lindsey let me bring this to decorate a tree.”

“Little early for that isn’t it?” He tried not to react, tried to pretend the sight of anything Christmassy didn’t send a spear right through his heart. But visions of gaily-wrapped gifts spilled out around a crushed blue car still haunted him.

Lindsey shrugged. “It’s never too early for Christmas. Looks like you’ve been busy.”

He’d filled and emptied the wheelbarrow several times, clearing all the rows she’d trimmed today.

“Impressed?”

She rested her hands on her hipbones and smiled. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

“Good.” Yanking off his gloves, he resisted returning the smile. “What’s next?”

“Nothing for now. It will be dark soon.”

She was right. Already the sun bled onto the trees atop the mountain. Darkness would fall like a rock, hard and fast. He’d run away once into the woods behind the farm and darkness had caught him unaware. He’d spent that night curled beneath a tree, praying for help that never came.

“Guess Jade and I should be heading home then.”

Knocking the dust off his gloves, he stuffed them into a back pocket, letting the cloth fingers dangle against his jeans.

“Did you find a house to rent today?”

“Your friend Debbie hooked me up. Sent me to the mobile-home park on the edge of town.”

She picked up his jacket, swatted the pine needles away and handed him the faded denim. “Is it a nice place?”

He repressed a bitter laugh and tossed the jacket over one shoulder. Anything was nice after living in your truck. When Jade had seen the tiny space, she’d been ecstatic.

“The trailer will do until something better comes along.” He couldn’t tell her that the something better was the farm she called home.

By mutual consent they fell in step and left the tree lot, Jade scampering along between them, deliberately crunching as many leaves as possible.

Before they reached his truck, Lindsey said, “I have extra linens, dishes and such if you could use them.”

Don’t be so nice. Don’t make me like you.

He opened the door and boosted Jade into the cab. “We’re all right for now.”

“But you will let me know if you discover something you need, won’t you?”

Grabbing the door frame, he swung himself into the driver’s seat.

“Sure.” Not in a hundred years. What he needed was somewhere in the courthouse in Winding Stair and she didn’t need to know a thing about it—yet. He’d planned to start his investigation today, but finding a place to live had eaten up all his time. Soon though. Very soon he would have the farm he’d coveted for the past eighteen years.

Lindsey wiped the sticky smear of Jade’s maple syrup off the table, trying her best not to laugh at the father-and-daughter exchange going on in her kitchen. In the week since she’d hired Jesse Slater, he and Jade had become a comfortable part of her morning routine. As many times as she’d offered, Jesse refused to take his meals with her, but he hadn’t objected when she’d taken to preparing breakfast for his little girl.

Now, as she cleaned away the last of Jade’s pancakes, Jesse sat on the edge of a chair with his daughter perched between his knees. Every morning he made an endearingly clumsy attempt to fix the child’s beautiful raven hair. And every day Lindsey itched to do it for him. But she said nothing. Jade was, after all, Jesse’s child. Just like all the other children she loved and nurtured, Jade was not hers. Never hers.

Normally, he smoothed her hair with the brush, shoved a headband in place, and that was that. This morning, however, Jesse had reached his limit when Jade announced she wanted to wear a ponytail like her new best friend, Lacy. Lindsey suppressed a smile. From the expression on his face, Jesse considered the task right next to having his fingernails ripped out with fencing pliers.

A pink scrunchie gritted between his teeth, he battled the long hair into one hand, holding it in a stranglehold. He’d once let slip that he’d ridden saddle broncs on the rodeo circuit and, Lindsey thought with a hidden smile, that he must have done so with this same intense determination.

Finally, with an audible exhale, he dropped back against the chair. “There. All done.”

“Jess…” Lindsey started, then hushed. As much as she longed to see the little girl gussied up like the princess she could be, she wouldn’t interfere.

Jade touched a hand tentatively to her head. The lopsided ponytail resided just behind her left ear. A long strand of unbound hair tumbled over the opposite shoulder and the top of her head had enough bumps and waves to qualify as an amusement-park ride.

“Daddy, I don’t think Lacy wears her ponytail like this.”

Lindsey couldn’t hold back the laughter bubbling up inside her. Dropping the dishtowel over the back of a chair, she covered her face and giggled.

Jesse heaved an exasperated moan and rolled his silver eyes. “What? You don’t appreciate my talent?”

Lindsey could barely get her breath. “It isn’t that—It’s just, just—” She took one look at the child’s hair and started up again.

Jesse had never joked with her before, didn’t smile much either, but this time a reluctant half smile tugged at one corner of his mouth and kicked up, setting off laugh crinkles around his eyes. “If I were a hairdresser in LA, this would be all the rage.”

“If you were a hairdresser in LA, I’d stay in Oklahoma.”

“All right, boss lady, if you think you can do better—” He bowed toward Jade, extending his arm with a flourish. “She’s all yours.”

“I thought you’d never ask. I have been itching to get my hands on that gorgeous hair.” She grabbed the hair-brush and guided the grinning child back into the chair, then stood behind her. As she’d suspected, the dark hair drifted through her fingers like thick silk. In minutes she had the ponytail slicked neatly into place.

“Impressive,” Jesse admitted, standing with his head tilted and both hands fisted on his hips.

“I love playing hairdresser.”

“No kidding?” His gaze filtered over her usual flannel and denim. “You don’t seem the type.”

“I think I should be insulted.” She smoothed her hand down Jade’s silky ponytail. “Just because I dress simply and get my hands dirty for a living doesn’t mean I’m not a girl, Jesse.”

He held up both hands in surrender. “Hey, no offense meant. You are definitely a girl. Just not frilly like some.”

Like your wife? she wondered. Was she frilly? Is that the type you prefer?

As soon as the thoughts bounded through her head, Lindsey caught them, shocked to even think such things. Once she’d dreamed of marrying a wonderful man and having a houseful of children, but after her fiancé’s betrayal, trusting a man with her heart wasn’t easy. Add to that the remote, sparsely populated area where she’d chosen to live, and she’d practically given up hope of ever marrying. Besides, she had a farm to run. She didn’t want to be interested in Jesse romantically. He was her hired hand and nothing more.

She turned her attention to Jade, handing the child a mirror. “There, sweetie. See what you think.”

Jade touched her hair again. Then a smile bright enough to light a room stretched across her pretty face. “I’m perfect!”

Both adults laughed.

Jade flopped her head from side to side, sending the ponytail into a dance. “How did you make me so pretty?”

“My Sunday-school girls come out for dress-up parties sometimes. We do hair and makeup and wear fancy play clothes. It’s fun.”

“Can I come sometime?”

“Sure. If it’s okay with your dad. In fact, tonight is kid’s night at church if you’d like to come and meet some of my Sunday-school students.”

“Daddy?” Jade asked hopefully, her eyebrows knitted together in an expression of worry that made no sense given the harmless request.

Some odd emotion flickered over Jesse, but his response was light and easy. He pecked the end of her nose with one finger. “Not this time, Butterbean. You and I have to work on those addition facts.”

The child’s happiness faded, but she didn’t argue. Head down, ponytail forgotten, she trudged to the couch and slid a pink backpack onto her shoulders. Her posture was so resigned, so forlorn that Lindsey could hardly bear it.

“Hey, sweetie, don’t worry. My Sunday-school class comes out here pretty often. Maybe you can come another time.”

The child gave a ragged sigh. “Okay.” She hugged her father’s knees. “Bye, Daddy.”

He went down in front of her, drawing her against his chest.

Lindsey’s throat clogged with emotion. The man was a wonderful dad, the kind of father she’d always dreamed of having for her own children someday. But someday had never come.

“I’ll get the dog,” she said, going to the door in front of Jade as she had every morning this week. She brought Sushi inside, watching through the glass storm door as the little girl headed to the bus stop, a small splash of pink and white against the flaming autumn morning. In the distance, Lindsey heard the grinding gears of the school bus.

As a teenager she’d ridden that bus to high school and home again, and in the years since she’d watched it come and go year after year carrying other people’s children. But this morning she watched a child make the journey down her driveway to the bus stop, and, for the first time, felt a bittersweet ache in her throat because that child was not her own.

By noon the damp October morning had given way to blue skies and the kind of clouds Jade called marshmallows. A bit of breeze swirled down from the north, promising a frost soon, but Jesse wasn’t the least bit cool. As he sat on the top step, leaning backward onto the front porch, he enjoyed what had become his usual lunch, a Coke and a ham sandwich, and pondered how one little woman had ever done all this work by herself.

Besides the routine weeding and spraying, he’d helped her clear several acres of land in preparation for planting another thousand or so trees next week. And from her description of November’s chores, October was a vacation.

He had to admit, however reluctantly, that he admired Lindsey Mitchell. She never complained, never expected him to do anything she wasn’t willing to do herself. As a result he worked twice as hard trying to lift some of the load off her slim shoulders, and her gratitude for every little thing he did only made him want to do more.

She was a disconcerting woman.

Twisting to the left so he could see her, he said, “Mind if I ask you a question?”

Wearing the red flannel and denim that seemed so much a part of her, Lindsey sat in an old-fashioned wooden porch swing sipping her cola. A partially eaten ham sandwich rested at her side. Sushi lay in front of her, exercising mammoth restraint as she eyed the sandwich longingly.

“Ask away.” With dainty movements, Lindsey tore off a piece of ham and tossed it to the dog.

“What would entice a pretty young woman to live out here all alone and become a Christmas-tree farmer?”

The corners of her eyes crinkled in amusement as she wiped her fingers on her jeans. Jesse’s stomach did that clenching thing again.

“I didn’t exactly plan to be a Christmas-tree farmer. It just happened. Or maybe the Lord led me in this direction.” One hand gripping the chain support, she tapped a foot against the porch and set the swing in motion. “My parents are in the military so we moved around a lot. When I was fourteen—” she paused to allow a wry grin. “Let’s just say I was not an easy teenager.”

Surprised, Jesse swiveled all the way around, bringing one boot up to the top step. Lindsey was always so serene, so at peace. “I can’t see you causing anyone any trouble.”

“Believe me, I did. Dad and Mom finally sent me here to live with my grandparents. They thought stability, the same school, the country atmosphere and my grandparents’ influence would be good for me. They were right.”

“So you didn’t grow up here?” Now he was very interested.

Lindsey shook her head, honey-colored hair bouncing against her shoulders, catching bits of light that spun it into gold. Odd that he would notice such a thing.

“Actually none of my family is originally from around here. My grandparents bought this farm after they retired. Gramps began the Christmas Tree Farm as a hobby because he loved Christmas and enjoyed sharing it with others.”

Jesse decided to steer the conversation toward her grandparents and their purchase of the farm, feeling somewhat better to know Lindsey had not been involved in what had happened eighteen years ago.

“How long did your grandparents own this place?”

“Hmm.” Her forehead wrinkled in thought. “I’m not sure. They’d probably been here three or four years when I came. I’ve lived here nearly fifteen years.”

Jesse did the math in his head. The time frame fit perfectly. He rotated the Coke can between his palms then tapped it against his upraised knee. So her grandfather had been the one.

“Did you have any idea who your grandfather bought this place from?” As soon as he asked, Jesse wanted his words back. The question was too suspicious, too far off the conversation, but if Lindsey noticed she said nothing.

“I haven’t a clue. All I know is after Granny passed away, Gramps put the farm and everything on it into my name. By then, I wanted to live here forever, so other than bringing me to a faith in Jesus, this was the greatest gift they could have given me.”

The too-familiar tug of guilt irritated Jesse. He had no reason to feel bad for her. She’d enjoyed the benefit of living here for years while he’d wandered around like a lost sheep. Only during his too-short time with Erin had he ever found any of the peace that hovered over Lindsey like a sweet perfume. And he was counting on this farm to help him find that feeling again.

“So you became a tree farmer like your grandfather.”

Stretching backward, Lindsey ran both hands through the top of her hair, lifted the sides, and let them drift back down again. Jesse found the motion as natural and appealing as the woman herself.

“I tried other things. Went to college. Became a lab tech. Then Sean and I—” She paused, and two spots of color stained her cheekbones. “Let’s just say something happened in my personal life. So, when Gramps passed away three years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to let the tree farm go. After that first year of doing all the things he’d taught me and of watching families bond as they chose that perfect Christmas tree, I understood that this was where my heart is.”

Though curious about the man she’d mentioned, Jesse decided to leave the subject alone. Knowing about her love life would only make his task more difficult. “So you gave up your job to dedicate all your time to the farm.”

“I still take an occasional shift at the hospital and fill in for vacations in the summer to keep my skills sharp or to put a little extra money in the bank. But this is my life. This is what I love. And unless economics drive me out of business, I’ll raise Christmas trees right here on Gramps’ farm forever.”

Though she couldn’t possibly know his thoughts, to Jesse the announcement seemed like a challenge. Averting his eyes, he ripped off a piece of sandwich and tossed the bit of bread and ham to the dog.

Sushi thumped her tail in thanks.

“You spoil her more than I do.”

“Yeah.” He pointed his soda can toward the north. “We have visitors.”

A flock of geese carved a lopsided V against the sky, honking loudly enough to rival a rush-hour traffic jam.

“They’re headed to my pond.”

“And then to a vacation in Florida.”

Lindsey laughed and drew her knees up under her chin. “Watching them makes me feel lazy.”

“What’s on for this afternoon now that we’ve cleared that new plot of land?”

“Tomorrow we’ll need to go over to Mena and pick up the saplings I’ve ordered. So this afternoon I thought we’d get ready for the wienie roast.”

“Who’s having a wienie roast?”

“I am. Well, my church actually, but since I have such a great place for it, complete with a horse to give wagon rides, I host the party out here every fall. I hope you and Jade will come.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose.” In truth, the idea of hanging out with a bunch of church people made him sweat. He’d played that scene before, for all the good it had done him in the end.

“Trust me, after you drag brush for the campfire, whittle a mountain of roasting sticks and set up tables, chairs and hay bales, you will have earned a special place at this function.”

“I don’t know, Lindsey. I’m not sure I would fit in.”

Dropping her feet to the porch floor, Lindsey leaned forward, face earnest, hair swinging forward, as she reached out to touch his arm.

“Please, Jesse. Jade would have so much fun. And having a little fun now and then wouldn’t hurt you either.”

He was beginning to weaken. A wienie roast was not the same as going to church. And Jade would love roasting marshmallows over a campfire. More than that, it was high time he got moving on his mission.

Lindsey’s words echoed his thoughts. “Winding Stair is full of good people. The party would be a great opportunity for you to get acquainted with some of them.”

She was right about that. He needed to get friendly with the townsfolk. But not for the reasons she had in mind. He gulped the rest of his cola, taking the burn all the way to his stomach.

Somebody in this town had to know what had happened eighteen years ago. The more people trusted him, the sooner he could have his answers—and the sooner he and Jade could take possession of this farm.

Likely no one would remember him. Les Finch had not been a friendly man, and they’d kept to themselves up here in the mountains. As a boy, Jesse had been a quiet loner, preferring the woods to school activities. And his name was different from his mom and stepdad. His secret was, he believed, safe from the unsuspecting folk of Winding Stair.

He didn’t like playing the bad guy, but right was right. This was his home…and he intended to claim it.

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