“Anyway, it’s not much, but I thought you might want to know what happened to her.”
Jace automatically took the papers she handed him. They felt heavier in his hand than they should. He told himself Tara wouldn’t have given them to him if they were bad news. With a bracing breath, he unfolded them. The first page was an engagement announcement. Jordan Marie Butler was scheduled to wed Ezekiel James Wiley, of Bozeman, Montana the coming May.
“She’s getting married. Good for her.”
“Got married. This was from last year. Look at the second page,” Tara prompted.
And there Jordan was, beaming from the saddle. A tall, rangy guy stood beside her, hand draped along the back of the saddle, grin stretched wide as the Rio Grand. The caption of the photo read Snake River Stampede barrel racing champion, Jordan Butler Wiley and her trainer/husband, Zeke Wiley.
“This was six months ago,” Tara said.
“She’s riding again.” Jace ran a finger down the leg that’d been so mangled in the accident. “She did it. She really did it.”
“More to the point, she’s happy. Look at her.”
There was no denying that. She fairly glowed with it.
Something in Jace loosened, the long-held guilt and worry leeching away. “Good for you, Speedy,” he murmured to the picture.
“I bookmarked the link to her Facebook page if you want to try to reconnect.”
“I’ll do that.” Jace set the papers aside and slid his hands into Tara’s hair, tugging her in for a kiss. She melted into him and he had to remind himself they were in his parents’ living room and had half a toy store to wrap. He eased back before he forgot himself. “Thank you.”
“I figured it was the least I could do.”
“That’s quite a bit more than the least. The least you can do is go on bow duty for all these packages.”
“That I can do. Movie accompaniment?”
“How do you feel about Holiday Inn?”
“Amenable,” she said.
“Then pop it in. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Chapter 9
Christmas morning began with a snowball fight. Sometime between when she’d stumbled to bed at one and when Ginny woke her at 6:30, three fluffy inches had fallen. Given the rarity of such an event in Mississippi, everybody opted to play first and do presents later. For all they knew, it could disappear by mid-morning. It was all Tara could manage to get the kids into actual clothes under their winter coats instead of their pajamas.
Austin woke Jace with a well-placed snowball to his bedroom window. He rousted everyone else, and the entire Applewhite clan joined in the fun, hair still messy from sleep. While the boys duked it out with freezing ammo, Tara and Ginny made snow angels and started a snowman—though there was only enough snow to manage a small one. Ginny fitted her mittens on the ends of its branch arms and Linda retrieved a carrot for its nose.
“There now, that’s a fine snowman,” she declared.
“Seems like it should be taller,” Ginny said.
Evan looked up at the sky. “Snow’s still coming down. There might be enough for a bigger one later.”
“Meanwhile, I’m freezing and starving,” Livia announced. “Let’s get breakfast.”
They all tromped, half-soaked, into the big house.
The kids were so excited about the snow, it took them halfway through breakfast to even notice the spread under the big blue spruce in the living room.
“Holy cow!” Her sister gaped. “Tara, do you see all that stuff?”
“I do. Looks like someone was especially good this year.”
Ginny bounced in her chair. “Everybody eat fast!”