“It’s...interesting,” he finally said, settling into his chair. “That baby is a cutie.”
“He is, in the pictures Cass’s sister showed me.” She sighed a little. “Luke looks just like Jake at that age. I can’t believe I have a grandson I’ve never even met. And now, with Cass as angry at me as she is, who knows when I will meet him?”
“You did the right thing, Elise,” Ben told his daughter. “Threatening to take the baby. Jake and Cassie both were too stubborn to see what was right in front of them until they were faced with a common enemy.”
“That’s me,” Elise Hunter said with a sigh. “The enemy.”
“It’ll work out, honey. Now, let me tell you about your grandson...”
* * *
The blizzard raged for the next three days.
Cassie had never seen anything like it. Every time the wind died down long enough for the men to get out and run the snowplows across the yard—as soon as they were finished it all began again. Trees were bent with the weight of the snow on their branches. Drifts piled high against the sides of the ranch buildings and the wind howled. It was like living in the middle of a disaster movie.
And yet, in a weird way, the storm forced a closeness that she and Jake might have spent months building between them otherwise. She worked day and night, just as he and the hands did, catching brief naps whenever she could. She brewed coffee by the gallon, made hundreds of sandwiches and oceans of soup. The men came in and out of the house at all hours, looking for food or just a chance to get out of the wind.
Whenever they showed up, she was ready. There was hot soup, cookies, slow-cooker meals. The kitchen stove never cooled off and she was busier than she’d ever been before, and yet Cassie couldn’t remember a time when she’d enjoyed herself more. She was needed here, and seeing approval and surprise in Jake’s eyes was as good as a medal to her.
She knew he’d half expected her to sit out the storm hiding in her room or concentrating solely on Luke. But as she jumped in to help, she saw that he was grateful. And that made the hard work worth every minute.
Of course, she also found time to torment him, too. She knew he didn’t like Christmas, but she didn’t know why. And since he wouldn’t talk to her, tell her what he was feeling, she went right on, building Christmas piece by piece. Every night, when he came back to the ranch house, there were more decorations spread around. She found old strings of lights in the attic, and hung them around the main room, draping them over the pine branches. With the generator’s help, they cast a multicolored glow over the big room.
In the attic she’d also found an abandoned, threadbare quilt that she’d cut up and, in snatches of time when she wasn’t cooking, sewn into Christmas stockings. Three of them. She hung them from the mantel and couldn’t help but be proud. And today, with what looked like a break in the storm, she’d liberated an old box of ornaments from the attic. They might not have a tree, but she could hang the decorations from the pine boughs, adding to the determinedly cheerful picture she was trying so hard to create.
“What’ve you got there?”
Cass jumped, startled, and looked up at Jake as he walked into the great room. She was seated in front of the hearth, where a fire snapped and hissed, sending heat out into the room. The box of ornaments was in front of her and she’d already unwrapped several layers of tissue paper to reveal toy soldiers, a miniature fire engine that Luke would love, and a Christmas star.
“I went up to the attic a little while ago and found this.”
“That attic must be about empty by now.” Shaking his head, he crouched beside her and picked up the fire engine. The ornament looked even smaller on the palm of his big hand, but he stroked the tip of one finger gently across its chipped paint. “I remember this.”
Her heart twisted a little at the tenderness in his eyes and the bemused smile on his face. He kept so much of himself locked away that seeing even a small part of him revealed was like opening a Christmas present and finding exactly what you had hoped for.
As she watched, he eased down to sit on the floor beside her, his back to the fireplace. “I was five or six, I guess, and wanted to be a fireman. Mom bought this for me at a store in Whitefish. It was the ornament I always hung on the tree. My sister’s was a stupid dancing bear and—”
“This one?” Cass held it out to him and he nodded, taking the little bear standing on her toes in ballet shoes and a ragged tutu.