The Christmas Ranch

As soon as the children left the room, Hope suddenly realized her sister wasn’t just frustrated. She was angry.

Hope again felt small and selfish. If she were in Faith’s shoes, she would be furious, too. Her sister was doing her best to keep the family together. She was managing the ranch, taking care of her children, trying to keep everything running while still reeling from her husband’s death.

Now Hope came in and expected to shake everything up and do things her way.

“There is no money, Hope. Do you not get that? You’ll have virtually no operating budget. You’ll barely make enough to pay the salaries for Santa Claus and anybody you hire to work in the gift shop.”

Oh. Right. How was she going to find people to help her in only nine days?

Mary could help line her up with the seasonal employees who had worked at the Ranch in previous years. Surely a few of them might still be looking for work.

“You said it’s been hemorrhaging money. Is it really that bad?”

“People just aren’t coming to holiday attractions like this one much anymore. The only reason we kept it going was because Uncle Claude loved it so and Travis wanted to honor his memory.”

Her sister’s words were sobering.

“You’ve always been enthusiastic about things, Hope. It’s one of the best things about you. You jump right in and try to fix things. But you can’t fix this. The Christmas Ranch is a losing proposition. We just can’t afford it anymore. There’s no money. We’re holding on by our fingernails as it is. If things don’t pick up, we’re going to have to sell off part of the cattle herd and possibly some of the pasture land along the creek. Wade Dalton made us a more than fair offer and Mary and I are seriously considering it.”

“Oh, Faith. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know the whole picture either, until after Travis died. He was very good at putting on a cheerful face.”

Faith was quiet for a moment, then walked around the island. “I should probably tell you, I had a very respectable offer for the reindeer. A guy with a petting zoo in Pocatello. We’ve talked about it and were planning to take that, too. He was interested in taking them before the holidays.”

The small herd of reindeer had been part of the ranch as long as she had lived here. They were part of the family, as far as Hope was concerned.

“Sell the reindeer?”

“I know,” Mary piped in. “It breaks my heart too.”

“Did you sign any papers?”

“No, but...”

“Don’t. Please, Faith. Wait until after Christmas. Give me this season to prove I can turn things around. I know I can do it. I am going to make money with The Christmas Ranch this year, enough to tide the Star N over the rest of the year. You’ll see.”

Her sister sighed. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”

“Maybe not, but that could be a good thing, right? Ignorance is bliss, and all that.”

“Oh, Hope. You always could talk me into anything.”

Mary gave a short laugh. “That’s my girls!”

Relief and excitement and no small amount of nerves washed over Hope like an avalanche. “You won’t be sorry. This is going to be our best year ever, I promise.”

She had no idea how she would keep that promise but she intended to try.

Chapter Three (#ulink_bf9c85eb-98a0-5c2b-8dde-a776aa7f8937)

He was so not cut out for this.

Rafe tried to scrape up the burned bits of the red sauce from the bottom of the saucepan with a wooden spoon but that only mixed the blackened remains into the rest of the mix.

Apparently he would now have to open a bottle of store-bought spaghetti sauce, which is what he should have done in the first place instead of hunting down ingredients then measuring, pouring and mixing for the past fifteen minutes.

Joey wouldn’t care if his spaghetti sauce came from a jar. He probably wouldn’t even be able to taste the difference.

Rafe headed to the sink and poured the concoction down the sink. There went twenty minutes of his life he wouldn’t get back.

Rafe didn’t mind cooking. He really didn’t. Okay, he didn’t mind grilling. Apparently there was a difference between throwing a couple of steaks on the old Char-Broil and concocting something nutritious that a seven-year-old kid would actually eat.

He had decided they couldn’t live on brats, burgers and take-out alone so had decided to try his hand at a few other things—including spaghetti, which Joey had admitted was one of his favorites.

Now his nephew was due home from his playdate in a half hour and Rafe would have to start over.

Playdates were yet another activity that seemed completely out of his understanding. Give him a terrorist cell and a clear-cut objective to take them out and he could kick some serious ass but apparently he wasn’t capable of navigating the complicated politics of playdates—who was allowed to play where, whose turn it was to host, which friends weren’t allowed to come over on certain days of the week and which couldn’t play at all until their homework was finished.

Truth to tell, the whole parenting thing from soup to nuts scared the he—er, heck out of him. What did he know about seven-year-old boys? He could barely remember even being one.

He would just have to figure things out. His nephew needed him and he couldn’t let him down like he had Cami.

He couldn’t let the kid go into foster care. He and his sister had gone the rounds with that, being bounced around between their grandmother, their aunt and finally foster care after their mother’s death.

Sure, there were really good foster families out there. They had been lucky enough to have placement with a few, but he wasn’t willing to roll the dice with his nephew’s well-being.

Right now, though, he couldn’t help but wonder if the boy might be better off taking his chances in the system. Joey might think so. They weren’t exactly hitting it off. Rafe never expected to come in like some kind of white knight and save the day but he thought Joey at least might be a little grateful to be living with family instead of strangers.

In truth, Rafe was connected by blood to the boy but that was about it. They had lived separately. He had usually been stationed far away from where Cami lived in her wandering life and his relationship with the boy had been mostly through phone calls and emails and the occasional visit.

He supposed he shouldn’t be that surprised that trying to establish a normal parental-type relationship with him would be a struggle.

He wasn’t sure why the past few weeks had seemed so tough—maybe because he felt out of his element here in this community where he didn’t know anybody and didn’t have anything else to focus on. Perhaps things would go more smoothly after they returned to California and he figured out what he was going to do now that his whole life wasn’t defined by being a navy SEAL.

On the surface, he and Joey should be tight. He had been in the kid’s situation when he was young, lost and afraid with no safe harbor. The only difference was that Rafe had had a little sister to worry about, too.

He could completely relate to his nephew’s stress and uncertainty that resulted in behavior issues.

His mother had been wild and troubled—giving birth to two children from two different men, neither of whom had stayed in the picture long.

She would clean up her act and regain custody of them for a few months and then something would happen—an unexpected bill, a bad date, even somebody making an offhand comment in the grocery store—and she would fall off the wagon again. All her hard work toward sobriety would disintegrate and they would end up with their elderly grandmother or their aunt, who had been busy with her own family and a husband who hadn’t wanted the burden of two more mouths to feed.

A boy should never have to deal with the burden of his mother letting him down, time after time.

More than anything, he wished he could spare Joey that. Since it wasn’t possible, he would do his best to provide the kid a stable home environment while his sister was in prison—and if that meant trying to figure out how to provide nutritious meals without burning them, he would do it.

He opened the cupboard and was looking for the bottle of spaghetti sauce he knew he had purchased earlier in the week when the doorbell suddenly rang.