The Rancher's Christmas Song

Ella had managed to smile all evening long. She considered that quite an accomplishment, considering once upon a time, she had completely made a fool of herself over the groom. When she first moved to Pine Gulch, she’d had a gigantic crush on Chase and had all but thrown herself at him, with no clue that he had adored Faith forever and had just been biding his time until she came to terms with her husband’s premature death.

Ella had almost gotten over her embarrassment about events of the previous Christmas. It might have been easier to avoid the happy couple altogether except the Nichols sisters—all married now and with different surnames but still “the Nichols sisters” to just about everyone in town—had become some of her dearest friends.

They were warm and kind and always went out of their way to include her in activities.

“You did a great job of organizing,” Hope said now. “I couldn’t believe all the people who showed up. I met a couple earlier who drove all the way up from Utah because they love J.D. and his Wranglers. I hope you raked in the dough.”

“Everyone has been generous,” she said. “We should have enough to purchase the new piano we need in the elementary school with plenty left over for sheet music at the middle school.”

She still didn’t think it was right that the art and music programs had to struggle so much to make ends meet in this rural school system. Judging by tonight, though, many members of the community seemed to agree with her that it should be a priority and had donated accordingly.

“It was a great community event. What a great turnout!”

“Just think.” Hope grinned. “We get to turn around and do this again in a few weeks at The Christmas Ranch.”

Faith made a face. “You wouldn’t believe how many people have brought up that Christmas program to me tonight, and I’m not even involved in the show!”

“You’re a Nichols, though, which makes you one of the co-queens of Christmas, like it or not,” Ella said.

The Nichols family had been running The Christmas Ranch—a holiday-themed attraction filled with sleigh rides, a life-size Christmas village and even their own herd of reindeer—for many years. It was enormously successful and attracted visitors from around the region.

The popularity of the venue had grown exponentially in the last few years because of the hard work of the sisters.

A few years earlier, they had come up with the idea of providing a free catered dinner and holiday-themed show presented by area children as a gift to the local senior citizens and the event had become legendary in the community.

“We are so lucky that you’ve agreed to help us again this year,” Celeste said now to Ella.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been looking forward to it all year.”

The event—more like an old-fashioned variety show—wasn’t professionally staged, by any means. Rehearsals didn’t even start until a few weeks before the performance and there were no auditions and few soloists, but the children had fun doing it and the attendees enjoyed every moment.

The previous year’s performance had been a wonderful growing experience for Ella, serving as an icebreaker of sorts to help her get to know the local children better.

She hoped this year would only build on that success.

“Wait until you see some of the songs we have planned. It’s going to knock your socks off,” she said.

“How can you be so excited about wrestling seventy schoolchildren already on a Christmas sugar high?” Faith shook her head. “You must be crazy.”

“The very best kind of crazy,” Celeste said with a smile.

“You fit right in with the rest of us,” Hope assured her, then changed the subject. “Hey, did you see that good-looking guy who came in with Nate and Emery Cavazos? His name is Jess Saddler and he’s temporarily staying at their cabins. Em said he’s single and looking to move in and open a sporting goods store in town. He’s cute, isn’t he?”

She followed the direction of Hope’s gaze and discovered a man she didn’t know speaking with Nate and Emery, as well as Caroline and Wade Dalton. Hope was right, he was great-looking, with an outdoorsy tan and well-styled, sun-streaked hair that looked as if it had never seen a Stetson.

He also had that overchiseled look of people who earned their strength at the gym instead of through hard, productive manual labor.

“I suppose.”

“You should go introduce yourself,” Hope suggested, ignoring the sudden frown from both of her sisters.

“Why?” Ella asked, suspicious.

Hope’s innocent shrug didn’t fool her. “He’s single. You’re single. Em said he seems like a great guy and, I don’t know, I thought maybe the two of you would hit it off.”

“Are you matchmaking for me?”

“Do you want me to?” Hope asked eagerly.

Did she? She wasn’t sure how to answer. Yes, she was lonely. It was tough to be a single woman in this family-oriented community, where everyone seemed paired up. There weren’t very many eligible men to even date and she often felt isolated and alone.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about being the latest pity project of her friends. Did she seem desperate to them?

That was an uncomfortable thought.

“I don’t need a matchmaker. I’m fine,” she told Hope. “Even if I met the right guy today, I’m not sure I would have time for him, between working at two schools, doing music therapy at the senior citizen center and taking my dad to doctor appointments.”

“When you care about a man, you make time,” Celeste said.

“I don’t think the guy is going anywhere. After Christmas, you should think about it,” Hope added.

“Maybe.” She could only hope a bland nonanswer would be enough for them.

Hope looked disappointed but was distracted when another neighbor came up and asked her a question about a private company party scheduled the following week at The Christmas Ranch.

While she was occupied, Faith turned to Ella with a frown on her soft, pretty features.

“It sounds like you have too much on your plate,” Faith said. “Now I feel guilty we roped you into doing the Christmas show again.”

“You didn’t rope me into anything,” she assured her. “I meant what I said. I’ve been looking forward to it.”

“When will you have time to breathe?”

She didn’t mind being busy and loved teaching music. It had been her passion through her teen years and pursuing a career in music therapy was a natural fit. She had loved her job before she came here, working at a school for students with developmental disabilities, but there was nothing like that here in this small corner of southeastern Idaho. Teaching music in the schools was the next best thing. She had to do something with her time, especially considering her father continued being completely stubborn and unreasonable about letting her take over the ranch.

She was busy. She just wasn’t that busy.

“If you want the truth,” she admitted, “I may have slightly exaggerated my overloaded schedule to keep Hope from making me her next project.”

Faith looked amused. “Very wise move on your part.”

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s sweet of her and everything. It’s just...”

“You don’t have to explain to me. I totally get it.”

“I’m just not looking for a male right now.”

“Too bad. Looks like a couple of cute ones are headed this way.”

She followed Faith’s gaze to find the twin terrors barreling straight toward her at full speed. To her relief, they managed to stop inches from knocking her and Faith over like bowling pins.

“Hey, Miss Baker. Miss Baker! Guess what?”

The boys’ faces were both covered in chocolate, a fairly solid clue that they’d been raiding the refreshments table. How many cookies had they consumed between the pair of them? Not her problem, she supposed. Their father could deal with their upset stomachs and sugar overload.

“What’s that, Trevor?” She directed her question to the one who had spoken.

He hid a grin behind his hand. “I’m not Trevor. I’m Colter.”

“Are you sure?” She raised an eyebrow.

He giggled. “How come we can never fool you? You’re right. I’m Trevor.”

The boys were the most identical twins Ella had ever seen and they delighted in playing those kind of switch-up games with the faculty and staff at the elementary school. From the first time they met, though, Ella had never struggled to tell them apart. Colter had a slightly deeper cleft in his chin and Trevor had a few more freckles.

“Guess what?” Colter finished his brother’s sentence. “We’re gonna be in your Christmas show.”

Beside her, Faith gave a small but audible groan that completely mirrored Ella’s sudden panic.

On the heels of that initial reaction, she felt suddenly protective of the boys, defensive on their behalf. It really wasn’t their fault they misbehaved. None of it was malicious. They were high-spirited in the first place and had a father who seemed more interested in taking over her father’s ranch than teaching his two boys to behave like little gentlemen.

But then, she might be a tad biased against the man. Every time she offered to do something to help Curtis, her father was quick to tell her Beck would take care of it.

“Is that right?” she asked. The show was open to any children who wanted to participate, with no auditions and guaranteed parts for all. They wouldn’t win any talent competitions, but she considered the flaws and scenery mishaps all part of the charm.

“Our dad said we’ll see,” Colter informed her. “Sometimes that means no, but then I heard him asking your dad if he thought you might be able to give us a ride to and from practice on the days no one from the ranch could do it.”

Her jaw tightened. The nerve of the arrogant rancher, to go to her father instead of asking her directly, as if Curt had any control over the matter.

“And what did my father say?”

“We didn’t hear,” Trevor confessed. “But can you?”

Their ranch was right next door to the Baker’s Dozen. It would be no great hardship for her to accommodate the McKinleys and transport the twins if they wanted to participate, but it would be nice if Beck could be bothered asking her himself.

“I’ll have to talk to your father first,” she hedged.

The boys seemed to take her equivocation as the next best thing to a done deal.

“This will be fun,” Colter said, showing off his gap-toothed grin. “We’re gonna be the best singers you ever saw.”

To reinforce the point, Trevor launched into a loud version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and his brother joined in. They actually had surprisingly good singing voices. She’d noticed that before during music class at school—though it was hard to confirm that now when they were singing at the tops of their lungs.

They were drawing attention, she saw. The cute guy with Em and Nate was looking this way and so was Beck McKinley.

Ella flushed, envisioning the nightmare of trying to keep the boys from trying to ride the reindeer at The Christmas Ranch, or from knocking down the gigantic sixteen-foot-tall tree inside the St. Nicholas Lodge.

“You can be in the show on one condition,” she said, using her best teacher’s voice.

“What’s that?” Colter asked warily.

“Children of all ages will be participating, even some kindergarten students and first graders. They’re going to need someone to set a good example about how to listen and pay attention. They’ll be watching you. Can you show them the correct way to behave?”

“Yeah!” Trevor exclaimed. “We can be quiet as dead mice.”

That was pretty darn quiet—and she would believe that when she saw it.

“We can be the goodest kids in the whole place,” Colter said. “You’ll see, Miss Baker. You won’t even know we’re there, except when we’re singing.”

“Yeah. You’ll see,” Trevor said. “Thanks, Miss Baker. Come on, Colt. Let’s go tell Thomas.” In a blink, the two of them raced off as quickly as they had appeared by her side.

“Those boys are quite a pair, aren’t they?” Faith said, watching after them with a rather bemused look on her features.

Ella was again aware of that protective impulse, the urge to defend them. Yes, they could be exhausting but she secretly admired their take-no-prisoners enthusiasm for life.

“They’re good boys. Just a little energetic.”

“You can say that again. They’re a handful. I suppose it’s only to be expected, though.” Faith paused, her expression pensive. “You know, I thought for sure Beck would send them off to live with family after their mother left. I mean, here was this tough, macho rancher trying to run his place while also dealing with a couple of boys still in diapers. The twins couldn’t have been more than two.”

“So young? How could a mother leave her babies?”

“Yeah. I wanted to chase after her and smack her hard for leaving a good man like Beck, but he would never let anybody say a bad word about her. The only thing he ever said to me was that Stephanie was struggling with some mental health issues and needed a little time to get her head on straight. I think she had some postpartum depression and it probably didn’t help that she didn’t have a lot of friends here. We tried, but she wasn’t really very approachable.”

Faith made a face. “That sounds harsh, doesn’t it? That’s not what I mean. She was just not from around here.”

“Neither am I,” Ella pointed out.

“Yes, but you don’t constantly remind us of how much better things were back east.”

Because they weren’t. Oh, she missed plenty of things about her life there, mostly friends and neighbors and really good clam chowder, but she had always felt as if she had a foothold in two places—her mother’s upper-crust Beacon Hill society and her father’s rough-and-rugged Idaho ranch.

“Anyway, she left to get her head on straight when the boys were about two and I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for Beck on his own. A year later, Stephanie died of a drug overdose back east.”

“Oh, how sad. Those poor boys.”

“I know. Heartbreaking. Her parents are high-powered doctors. They fought for custody of the boys and I think it got pretty ugly for a while, but Beck wouldn’t hear of it. He’s a good dad. Why would any judge take the boys away from father and the only home they’ve ever known and give them to a couple of strangers?”

“He strikes me as a man who holds on to what he considers his.”

“That might have been part of it. But the truth is, Beckett adores his boys. You should have seen him, driving to cattle sales and the feed store with two toddlers strapped in their car seats in the crew cab of his pickup truck.”

Her heart seemed to sigh at the picture. She could see it entirely too clearly, the big, tough rancher and his adorable carbon-copy twins.

“He’s a good man,” Faith said. “A woman could do far worse than Beckett McKinley. If you’re ever crazy enough to let Hope fix you up, you shouldn’t discount Beck on account of those wild boys of his.”

That wouldn’t be the only reason she could never look seriously at Beck, if she was in the market for a man—which she so totally wasn’t. For one thing, she became nervous and tongue-tied around him and couldn’t seem to string together two coherent thoughts. For another, the man clearly didn’t like her. He treated her with a cool politeness made all the more striking when she saw his warm, friendly demeanor around others. And, finally, she was more than a little jealous of his close relationship with her father. Curt treated his neighboring rancher like the son he’d never had, trusting him with far more responsibility than he would ever consider giving his own daughter. How could she ever get past that?

She was saved from having to answer when Faith’s husband, Chase, came over with Faith’s daughter and son in tow.

Chase smiled at Ella and she tried to ignore the awkwardness as she greeted him. This was all she wanted. A nice man who didn’t make her nervous. Was that too much to ask?

“Mom, can we go?” Louisa said. “I still have math homework to finish.”

“We’re probably the only parents here whose kids are begging to leave so they can get back to homework,” Chase said with a grin.

“Thanks again for the great show, Ella,” Faith said. “We’ll see you tomorrow. Now that we’ve been warned the McKinley twins are coming, we’ll make sure you have reinforcements at practice tomorrow.”

She could handle the twins. Their father was another story.

* * *

As much as he enjoyed hanging out with other ranchers, shooting the, er, shinola, as his dad used to call it, Beck decided it was time to head out. It was past the boys’ bedtime and their bus would be coming early.

“Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure but I need to call it a night,” he said.

There were more than a few good-hearted groans of disappointment.

He loved the supportive ranching community here in Pine Gulch. Friends and neighbors came through for each other in times of need. He couldn’t count the number of guys who had stepped in to help him after his father died. When Stephanie left, he had needed help again until he could find a good nanny and more than one neighbor had come over without being asked to lend a hand on the ranch.

The Broken Arrow would have gone under without their aid and he knew he could never repay them. The only thing he could do now was help out himself where he could.

As Beck waved goodbye and headed away from the group, he saw Curt Baker climb to his feet with the aid of his cane and follow after him. Beck slowed his steps so the older man could catch up.

“Thanks again for stepping in today and helping Manny unload the feed shipment.”

“Glad I could help,” he answered.

It was true. He admired Curt and owed the man. After Beckett’s father died, Curt had been the first neighbor to step in and help him figure out what he was doing on the ranch. Now the tables were turned. Curt’s Parkinson’s disease limited his ability to care for his own holdings. He had reduced his herd significantly and brought in more help, but still struggled to take care of the day-to-day tasks involved in running a cattle ranch.

He had actually talked Curt into running with him to be copresidents of the local cattle growers association. It wasn’t a tough job and gave Curt something else to focus on besides his health issues.

“Have you thought more on what we talked about over lunch?”

As if he could think about anything else. As much as he enjoyed cowboy folk songs, he’d had a hard time focusing on anything but Curt’s stunning proposal that afternoon.

“You love the Baker’s Dozen,” he said. “There’s no rush to sell it now, is there?”

Curt was quiet. “I’m not getting better. We both know that. There’s only one direction this damn disease will go and that’s south.”

Parkinson’s really sucked.

“I’m not in a hurry to sell. So far Manny and the other ranch hands are keeping things going—with help from you and Jax, of course—but you and I both know it’s only a matter of time before I’ll have to sell. I want to make sure I have things lined up ahead of time. Just wanted to plant the seed.”

That little seed had certainly taken root. Hell, it was spreading like snakeweed.

The Broken Arrow was doing better than Beck ever dreamed, especially since he and his brother, Jax, had shifted so many of their resources to breeding exceptional cattle horses. They still ran about 500 cow-calf pairs, but right now half the ranch’s revenue was coming from the equine side of the business.

He would love the chance to expand his operation into the Baker’s Dozen acreage, which had prime water rights along with it. He wasn’t trying to build an empire here, but he had two boys to consider, as well as Jax. Though his brother seemed happy to play the field, someday that might change and he might want to settle down and become a family man.

Beck needed to make sure the Broken Arrow could support him, if that time came. It made perfect sense to grow his own operation into the adjacent property. It would be a big financial reach, but after several record-breaking years, he had the reserves to handle it.

“How does Ella feel about this?” he asked.

Curt shrugged. “What’s not to like? You take over the work and we have money in the bank. She’ll be fine. She could go back to Boston and not have to worry about me.”

He wasn’t sure he agreed with Curt’s assessment of the Ella factor. Yeah, she didn’t know anything about ranching and had only lived here with her father for a little longer than a year, but Ella was stubborn. She adored her father and had moved here to help him, though Curt seemed reluctant to lean on her too much.

“Anyway, we can worry about that later,” Curt said. “My priority is to make sure I sell the land to someone who’s actually going to ranch it, not turn it into condominiums. I’ve seen what you’ve done with the Broken Arrow since your father died and I have no doubt you’d give the same care to the Baker’s Dozen.”

“I appreciate that.”

“No need to decide anything right now. We have plenty of time.”

“You’ve given me a lot to chew on.”

“That was my intent,” Curt said. “Still need me to talk to Ella about taking your boys to the music thingy tomorrow?”

He winced, embarrassed that he’d even brought it up earlier. He was a grown man. He could talk to her himself, even if the woman did make him feel like he’d just been kicked by a horse, breathless and stupid and slow.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “I actually have a few things in town so should be able to take them tomorrow. When I get the chance, I’ll try to talk to her then about future rehearsals.”

He wasn’t sure why his boys were so set on being in this Christmas program, but they were funny kids, with their own independent minds. He had always had the philosophy that he would try to support them in anything they tried. Basketball, soccer, after-school science clubs. Whatever.

Even when it meant he had to talk to Ella Baker.

Chapter Three

“Trevor. Colter. That’s the last time I’m going to ask you. Please stop making silly noises. If you keep interrupting, we won’t make it through all the songs we need to practice.”

The twins gave Ella matching guilty looks. “Sorry, Miss Baker,” Colter said.

“We’ll be good. We promise,” his brother added.

Somehow she was having a hard time believing that, especially given their track record in general and this practice in particular. After a full day of school, they were having a tough time sitting still and staying focused for the rehearsals, as she had fully expected.

She felt totally inadequate to deal with them on a December afternoon when they wanted to be running around outside, throwing snowballs and building snow forts.

Would it distract everyone too much if she had them stand up and do jumping jacks for a minute? She decided it was worth a try. Sometimes a little burst of energy could do wonders for focus.

“Okay, speed workout. Everyone. How many elf jumping jacks can you do in one minute? Count to yourself. Go.”

She timed them on her phone and by the end the children were all laughing and trying to outdo each other.

“Excellent. Okay, now close your eyes and we’ll do one more moment of deep breathing. That’s it. Perfect.”

That seemed to refocus everyone and they made it through nearly every number without further incident, until the last one, “Away in a Manger.”

The song sounded lovely, with all the children singing in tune and even enunciating the words—until the last line of the third verse, when Trevor started making noises like a certain explosive bodily function, which made the entire back row dissolve into laughter.

By the time they finished the ninety-minute rehearsal, though, she felt as wrung out as a dirty mitten left in the snow.

As soon as parents started arriving for their children, Hope popped in from the office of The Christmas Ranch with a mug of hot chocolate, which she thrust out to Ella.