A Love Inspired Christmas Bundle: In the Spirit of...Christmas / The Christmas Groom / One Golden Christmas

“Here you go, Butterbean.” Taking the hotdog from the flames, he went to the table for buns and mustard. Lindsey and Jade followed.

One of the biggest men he’d ever seen handed him a paper plate. “You must be Jesse.”

Lindsey made the introductions. “This is my pastor, Cliff Wilson.”

Jesse’s surprise must have shown because the clergyman bellowed a cheerful laugh. “If you were out killing preachers, you’d pass me right up, wouldn’t you?”

Cliff looked more like a pro wrestler than a preacher. A blond lumberjack of a man in casual work clothes and tennis shoes with blue eyes as gentle and guileless as a child’s and a face filled with laughter.

“Good to meet you, sir,” Jesse said stiffly, not sure how to react to the unorthodox minister.

“Everyone calls me Pastor Cliff or just plain Cliff.” The preacher offered a beefy hand which Jesse shook. “You from around this area?”

“Enid.” Giving his stock answer, Jesse concentrated on squirting mustard onto Jade’s hotdog. No way he’d tell any of them the truth—that he’d roamed this very land as a youth.

“Lindsey says you’re heaven-sent, a real help to her.”

“I’m glad for the work.” He handed the hotdog to Jade, along with a napkin. “Lindsey’s a fair boss.”

By now at least a half dozen other men had sidled up to the table for introductions and food refills. Jesse felt like a bug under a magnifying glass, but if he allowed his prickly feelings to show, people might get suspicious. He needed their trust, though he didn’t want to consider how he’d eventually use that trust against one of their own.

“A fair boss? Now that’s a good ’un.” A short, round older man in a camouflage jacket offered the joking comment. “That girl works herself into the ground just like her grandpa did. I figure she expects the same from her hired help.”

Jesse stilled, attention riveted. This fellow knew Lindsey’s grandparents and was old enough to have been around Winding Stair for some time. He just might know the details Jesse needed to begin searching the courthouse records.

“Now Clarence.” Eyes twinkling a becoming gold in the flickering light, Lindsey pointed a potato chip at the speaker. “You stop that before you scare off the only steady worker I’ve ever had.”

“Ah, he knows I’m only kidding.” Clarence aimed a grin toward Jesse. “Don’t you, son?” Before Jesse could respond, the man stuck out his hand. “Name’s Clarence Stone. I live back up the mountain a ways. If you ever need anything, give me a holler.”

A chuckle came from the man in a cowboy hat standing next to Clarence. His black mustache quivered on the corners. “That’s right, Jesse. Give Clarence a holler. He’ll come down and talk your ears off while you do all the work.”

Clarence didn’t seem the least bit offended. He grinned widely.

“This here wise guy is Mick Thompson,” he said with affection. “Mick has a ranch east of town, though if it wasn’t for that sweet little wife of his, he’d have gone under a long time ago.”

Mick laughed, teeth white in his dark face. “I have to agree with you there, Clarence, even if Clare is your daughter. I wouldn’t be much without her.”

Jesse’s mind registered the relationship along with the fact that Mick owned a ranch. Now that was something Jesse understood.

“You raise horses on that ranch of yours?” he asked, making casual conversation while hoping to turn the conversation back to Lindsey’s grandparents.

“Sure do. You know horses?” Mick sipped at his plastic cup.

“I’ve done a little rodeo. Bronc-riding mostly.”

“No kidding?” Mick’s eyebrows lifted in interest. “Ever break any colts?”

“Used to do a lot of that sort of work.” Before Erin died. But he wouldn’t share that with Mick.

“Would you like to do it again?”

“I wouldn’t mind it.” He missed working with rough stock, and breaking horses on the side would put some much-needed extra money in his pocket.

“Don’t be trying to hire him away from Lindsey, Mick,” the jovial Clarence put in. “She’ll shoot you. And I’ll be left to support your wife and kids.”

“You’d shoot me yourself if you thought Clare and the kids would move back up in those woods with you and Loraine.”

Both men chuckled, and despite himself, Jesse enjoyed their good-natured ribbing.

Lindsey, having drifted off in conversation with a red-haired woman, missed the teasing remark. Without her present, Jesse wanted to turn the conversation back to her grandfather, but wasn’t sure how to go about it without causing suspicion.

“Tell you what, Jesse,” Mick said, stroking his mustache with thumb and forefinger. “When you have some time, give me a call. I have a couple of young geldings that need breaking, and I can’t do it anymore. Bad back.”

Were all the people of Winding Stair this trusting that they’d offer a man a job without ever seeing him work?

“How do you know I can handle the job?”

Mick’s mustache quirked. “Figure you’d say so if you didn’t think you could.”

“I can.”

“See?” Mick clapped him on the back and clasped his hand in a brief squeeze. “My number’s in the book. And I pay the going rate.”

“Appreciate the offer, but I doubt I can get loose from here until after the holidays.”

The familiar sense of dread crawled through his belly. He’d much rather be tossed in the dirt by a bucking horse than spend one minute in Lindsey’s tree lot. He’d counted on the old adage that familiarity breeds indifference. So far, that hadn’t proven true. If anything, he dreaded the coming weeks more than ever.

Mick sipped at his soda before saying, “After Christmas is fine with me. Those colts aren’t going anywhere. Meantime, if you need help hauling these trees, let me know. I got a flatbed settin’ over there in my barn rustin’.”

“He sure does,” Clarence teased. “And it would do him good to put in a full day’s work for a change.”

An unbidden warmth crept through Jesse. Offers of help from friends didn’t come too often, but this offhand generosity of strangers was downright unsettling.

“Jade, Jade.” Two little girls about Jade’s age came running up and interrupted the conversation. One on each side, they grabbed her hands and pulled. “Come play tag.”

She looked to Jesse for approval. “Can I, Daddy?”

“Don’t you want to finish your hotdog?”

“I’m full.” She handed him the last bite of the squeezed and flattened sandwich.

He downed the remains and wiped the mustard off her face. “Go on and play.”

She grabbed his hand and tugged. “Come with me.”

Jesse shook his head, standing his ground for once. “I haven’t finished my own hotdog. I’ll be here when you get back. Promise.”

After a moment of uncertainty, the desire to play with her friends won out.