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

Jesse tensed at the mention of his name. At the closing “amen,” he cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. Jade, on the other hand, beamed like the ray of sunshine she was.

“Guess what?” she offered, with the usual scattered thought processes of a six-year-old. “I have a loose tooth.”

“Let’s see.” Lindsey leaned forward, pretending great interest as Jade wiggled a loosening incisor. “Maybe it will fall out while you’re eating today.”

Jade’s eyes widened in horror. “What if I swallow it?”

The poor little child was afraid of everything.

“Well, if you do,” Jesse said, helping himself to the sweet potato casserole, “it won’t hurt you.”

“But I can’t swallow it. I have to show it to my teacher so she can put my name on the tooth chart.”

Doing her best to suppress a laugh, Lindsey placed a hot roll on her plate and passed the basket to Jesse. His eyes twinkled with his own amused reaction. Swallowing the tooth wasn’t the problem. Jade was afraid of being left out, a perfectly healthy, normal worry for a first-grader.

“I don’t think you’ll swallow the tooth, Jade, but if you do, the teacher will still put your name on the chart.”

Green eyes blinked doubtfully. “How will she know?”

“She can look at the new empty place in your mouth.”

The little girl’s face lit up. She wiggled the tooth again. “Maybe it will come out today.”

“We have corn on the cob. That’s been known to do the trick.”

“Okay.” Jade reached eagerly for the corn Lindsey offered. “Eat one, Daddy.”

Jesse quirked an eyebrow in teasing doubt. “I don’t know, Butterbean. Your old dad can’t afford to lose any of his teeth.”

“Oh, Daddy.” She pushed the platter of steaming corn in his direction. “It’s good.”

“Okay, then. I just hope you don’t have to go home with a toothless daddy.”

Jade grinned around a huge bite of corn as her daddy filled his plate.

“This all looks terrific, Lindsey.” Jesse added a hearty helping of turkey and dressing. “You’ve worked hard.”

“Cooking was fun. I haven’t had a real Thanksgiving dinner since Gramps died.”

He spread butter on the golden corn, his surprised attention focused on Lindsey. “Why not? Don’t you usually visit your family for holidays?”

“Some holidays, but not this one. I can’t. Thanksgiving begins my peak season, and lots of families want their tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.”

“Then your family should come here.”

“Oh,” she gestured vaguely, then scooped up a bite of green bean casserole. “They’re all pretty busy with their own lives. Kim, my sister, is expecting a baby early next year. She’s in Colorado near her husband’s family so naturally, they have their holidays there.”

Chewing the creamy casserole, Lindsey had to admit the food tasted incredible. Could she credit the home cooking? Or the company?

Jesse absently handed Jade a napkin. With a sweet smile filled with yellow corn, she swiped at her buttery face.

Having a child—and a man—at her dinner table gave Lindsey an unexpected sense of fulfillment.

“What about your parents?” Jesse asked, coming right back to the conversation.

“Like Kim, they want me to come to them. Right now they’re in Korea, so that wasn’t possible this year.”

“You wouldn’t leave the trees anyway.”

“I might sometime if I could find the right person to run the place for a couple of days.”

He chewed thoughtfully, swallowed and took a drink of tea before saying, “I would have done it this year if you’d said something.”

Lindsey’s insides filled, not with the sumptuous Thanksgiving meal, but with the pleasure of knowing Jesse meant exactly what he’d said. She mulled over the statement as she watched him eat with hearty male abandon.

“I never would have considered asking you.”

Fork in hand, he stiffened. His silver eyes frosted over. “You don’t trust me to do a good job?”

“Of course, I trust you.” Almost too much, given how little she knew about him. “I only meant that leaving you to do all the work while I vacationed would be a huge imposition.”

His tense jaw relaxed. “Oh.”

He studied the rapidly disappearing food on his plate, some thought process that Lindsey couldn’t read running amok inside his head.

A vague unease put a damper on Lindsey’s celebratory mood. Why had Jesse reacted so oddly?

She bit into the tart cranberry-and-sage-flavored dressing, pondering. Had she offended him? Or was the problem deeper than that?

Jade, who’d been busily doing damage to the ear of corn, stopped long enough to take a huge helping of turkey.

“You won’t eat that,” Jesse said, reaching for the meat.

Jade slid the plate out of his reach. “It’s for Sushi. She’s hungry and lonely. She might be crying.”

Lindsey couldn’t believe her ears. Jade worried about the dog without any encouragement from the adults? Was this the break she’d been praying for?

Jesse seemed to recognize the moment, too, for he tossed down his napkin and said, “Can’t have Sushi crying.” Chunk of dark meat in hand, he pushed back from his chair. “Let’s take her this.”

Lindsey thrilled when Jade slipped down from her chair to follow her dad. She took his outstretched hand, her own tiny one swallowed up in the protective size of her father’s.

Unable to avoid the parallel, Lindsey thought of her heavenly Father, of how His huge, all-powerful hand is always outstretched in protection and care. The comparison brought a lump to her throat. She’d messed up a lot in her life, but the Father had never let her down. Even when she’d sequestered herself here on Winding Stair to hide from the hurts of this world, He’d come along with her, loving her back to joy, giving her this farm in place of the things she’d lost.

Jesse and his daughter took three steps across the sun-drenched kitchen before Jade stopped and turned. She stretched out a hand.

“Come on,” she said simply as though Lindsey was an expected presence, a part of her life.

The lump in Lindsey’s throat threatened to choke her. How long had she hungered for a child? A family? And now, on this Thanksgiving Day she felt as if she had one—if only for today.