Holding Out for Christmas (The Christmas Tree Ranch 3)

The repairs on the damaged church were finished by early June, just in time for Katy and Daniel’s wedding. Sitting with Conner at the end of the second row, Megan waited for the ceremony to begin. It was early yet, and the guests were still arriving, filling the pews all the way to the back door.

Glancing over her shoulder, she could see Ronda May and Sam, her boss and fiancé, taking a seat. They planned to be married here next month. And Travis was just coming in, with a glowingly pregnant Maggie on his arm. “Blame it on Hawaii,” Maggie joked to explain her condition.

Rush and Tracy had saved seats for their friends. They were celebrating good news, too. Tracy was unable to have children, but they’d been approved for adoption and were waiting for their baby boy to be born. Clara, sitting between them, was over the moon at the prospect of being a big sister.

The church organist had begun the prelude. Megan closed her eyes a moment and inhaled the scent of roses. Cut and donated from Branding Iron gardens, they filled the air with their delicate fragrance—a tribute to the sweet young couple the townspeople had embraced as their own.

Megan reached forward and squeezed her mother’s shoulder. Dorcas, wearing a new rose-colored dress, had been lifted out of her chair and placed on the front pew. Connie Parker, Katie’s mother, sat next to her, holding her hand. The two women had become fast friends. Dorcas had made other friends as well in the book club she’d joined.

The minister had taken his place. Now Daniel walked in from the side door with his father, who was acting as his best man. Megan’s brother looked self-assured and handsome in his tuxedo. Three months ago, he’d met the requirements for his driver’s license. There were restrictions—he wouldn’t be allowed to drive on the freeway. But when he’d sat behind the wheel of his ten-year-old Honda Civic, he’d looked like a man who could conquer the world. That look had been worth any sacrifice of time and money on Megan’s part.

As the organ played the opening notes of the “Wedding March,” the minister gave the signal to rise. Coming down the aisle now, on her father’s arm, was Katy. In her lovely white lace gown and veil, she looked like a little doll—but, no, not a doll, Megan corrected herself. She was a radiant young woman, moving with grace and confidence toward the next part of her life.

As they resumed their seats for the ceremony, Megan slipped her hand into Conner’s. His fingers tightened around hers. He gave her a smile and mouthed the words “I love you.”

Their turn to be married would come soon, Megan knew. First they had taken time to get to know one another, time for Megan to help Daniel and her family, time for Conner to update the house at Christmas Tree Ranch.

Megan had decided not to take the teaching job or pursue a professional singing career. Lacy’s suitcase was in storage, where it would stay for now. But another opportunity had come up. The Christmas song she’d written had been accepted by a Nashville agency. They were asking for more songs. She was working on them—something she hoped to do while she raised the family she and Conner wanted to have.

Conner slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Soon,” he whispered in her ear. Soon the ranch house would be ready. Then they would marry and fill it with love and laughter and children. Their home. Forever.

Please read on for an excerpt from the first in

Janet Dailey’s brand new series,

The Champions!

/> WHIRLWIND

Kingman, Arizona

Summer

Lexie Champion pulled off her sunglasses, wiped the lenses on the hem of her rumpled denim shirt, and slipped them into her pocket. Her eyes were gritty from the dusty desert wind that swept across the rodeo grounds, picking up the odors of manure, barbecue, popcorn, tobacco smoke, and diesel fumes—a mélange that, to Lexie, was as familiar as any air she’d ever breathed.

From the midway beyond the bleachers, her ears caught the music of a carousel. It blended with the bawl of cattle and the blare of the rodeo announcer’s voice as the rodeo’s opening ceremony began.

They’d driven most of the night to get here—she and the foreman, Ruben Diego, with four bucking bulls in the long gooseneck trailer. They’d arrived at the Mojave County Fairgrounds late last night and loosed the bulls down the chute into one of the holding pens. After giving their charges water and grain in rubber feed tubs, the two of them had crashed across the front and back seats of the heavy duty pickup for a few hours of sleep.

Now it was late in the day. The strains of the National Anthem from the arena told her that the rodeo, the centerpiece of Kingman’s Andy Devine Days celebration, was about to get underway. The bull riding event would be last on the two-hour program. Before then, there should be time to relax, get some barbecue, maybe even change the clothes she’d driven and slept in. But Lexie was too wired to rest. All she wanted was to be right here, with her bulls. After the threatening message she’d received last week, she needed to know that the precious animals were safe.

Ruben had gone off to the midway for food and sodas. She’d told him there was no need to bring her anything, but he probably would. Ruben, a full-blooded member of the Tohono O’ odham tribe, might be an employee of the Alamo Canyon Cattle Ranch, but he treated Lexie and her sister Tess as if they were his own daughters.

Alone for the moment, she leaned against the six-foot portable steel fence, resting a boot on one of the lower rungs as she gazed across the complex of pens and chutes. Here the rodeo bulls, trucked in by stock contractors like the Champion family, waited to be herded through the maze of chutes, rigged with a flank strap and bull rope, mounted, and set loose to buck.

Until the instant a rider’s weight settled onto their backs, most of the animals were calm. They were bred and raised to do one job—buck that annoying cowboy off into the dust. They knew what to expect and what to do. But at up to a ton in weight, with the agility of star athletes, they were amazingly powerful, incredibly dangerous. And in the arena, at any adrenalin-charged moment, the most amiable bull could turn murderous.

Nobody knew that better than Lexie.

Her thoughts flew back to the cryptic note she’d found tucked beneath the truck’s windshield when she’d driven into Ajo for groceries last week. Written in crude block letters on a page torn from a yellow pad, it had been there when she’d come out of the store. Its simple message had sent a chill up her spine.

YOUR FAMILY OWES ME. ITS PAYBACK TIME.

Even the memory made her shiver. Had the message been a prank? Her first impulse had been to scan the parking lot for someone who might have left it. But she’d seen no one, not even a familiar vehicle. Impulsively, she’d crumpled the page and tossed it into a trash receptacle. If anybody was watching, she wanted them to know she wasn’t scared.

Later, after realizing she’d destroyed evidence, Lexie had regretted the act. But nothing could erase the image of that message from her mind—the letters pressed hard into the yellow paper, as if in pure hatred. Why did this person think her family owed him—or her? And what did they mean by payback?

She’d told no one yet. Not her sister Tess or their stepmother, Callie; not even Ruben. Why cause worry over what was bound to be an empty threat? But she wasn’t about to leave her bulls if there was any chance someone might harm them.