Christmas At Cade Ranch. Karen Rock
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Название: Christmas At Cade Ranch

Автор: Karen Rock

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Современные любовные романы

Серия:

isbn: 9781474076067

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ that she would be sticking around.

      * * *

      SOFIA AND JAVI...staying another month...

      James let out a held breath, rinsed off the last plate and stowed it in the dishwasher, his thoughts in an unpleasant tangle.

      Were his suspicions that she’d lost a drug stash and wouldn’t leave Carbondale without it correct? She’d refused to report her missing wallet to the police. Why? And if she deceived him regarding that, what else might she be lying about? Jesse being Javi’s father? He looked nothing like Jesse, save for the left-sided dimple, which, admittedly, was a Cade trademark.

      He wiped his hands on a dish towel, then carefully hung it on the oven door handle beside its matching counterpart. He straightened it, squared the edges and eyed the conformation until satisfied that all was back in its rightful place.

      Confusion.

      The enemy of an orderly, safe life.

      Everything Sofia represented. His brother had taught him not to trust addicts. The temptation to use was too strong, and someone with years of sobriety could still relapse. Even if Sofia was clean, she might resume old habits, do anything for a fix, including breaking his mother’s heart.

      Across the room, he spied Sofia coaxing an uninterested Javi to finish a bowl of grapes. All evening, she’d waged an unflagging war to get him to eat fruit and vegetables. Despite his misgivings about her, he admired her determination. Her devotion, too. Yet her opaqueness discomfited him.

      Making matters worse, she’d pledged to help on the ranch as his mother recuperated from the surgery. He couldn’t refuse the offer, especially since his ma had begun smiling again and seemed, for the first time in a long time, to be a tiny bit happy.

      Yet the unsettled feeling of being outmaneuvered churned in his gut. This time of year turned his mother inside out. They got through the holiday season by ignoring Christmas while the rest of the world erupted in celebration of hearth, home and family, something they’d never fully get back.

      “How about you eat a grape for each one that I catch in my mouth, little man?” he heard Jared say as he joined the group in their two-story living room.

      A floor-to-ceiling stone hearth dominated one end and he pictured it bedecked in Christmas stockings and lit boughs the way it had once been. They used to hang red and green ornaments from the massive set of mounted elk antlers above it. A warm, crackling fire spewed hickory-scented puffs of heat. How long since they’d burned a yule log? He dropped into a high-backed blue armchair and eyed his family. Too long.

      “Okay, deal!” Javi laughed. He leaped up on one of the tan couches grouped around a crosscut tree-trunk coffee table. When Sofia didn’t correct him, James shook his head at the child. Javi’s knees buckled, and he perched on his heels instead.

      “You don’t know what you’re in for,” Joy warned, seating herself on Javi’s other side. She plumped a blue-and-tan-checkered pillow and placed it behind her back. “Jared doesn’t miss often.”

      “I bet I can catch more.” Jewel leaned over the living room’s loft railing, ready as ever to compete with one of her brothers.

      “Ladies first, then,” Jared said easily, looking characteristically unperturbed when it came to competition. He won so many, he had every reason to back up that confidence.

      “Watch and learn.” Jewel jogged down the open spiral staircase and grabbed the bowl. “Whoever gets the most out of ten wins.”

      Javi bounced on the couch, then stilled at James’s small, corrective frown. Admiration sparked inside for the child. He was boisterous, like all kids, but he wanted to do right. If only James could be equally sure about Sofia.

      Jewel caught the first four, missed the next three, caught another two, and the last bounced off her nose. “I meant to do that.” She chuckled and passed the bowl to Jared. “Good luck.”

      “It’s all skill, sis,” he said with a wink, then caught ten in rapid succession. No surprise there.

      “You su—” Jewel cut off at Joy’s swat. “I mean, you duck,” she amended, glaring at Jared. “You really, really duck.”

      “Quack you very much,” Jared rejoined and the brothers guffawed, the family rhythms returning, temporarily loosening the pressure valve that’d been present since Jesse’s death.

      James had given up hoping things would ever return to the way they’d been. A time when his mother hadn’t cried at odd times of the day, Jewel hadn’t retreated into her saddle, Jared hadn’t spent all his free time away from the ranch, Justin hadn’t risked his life with his reckless antics and Jackson had been home...

      No. This was their new normal. Though it didn’t stop James from missing the old days—especially during the holidays. He wished December would disappear right off his calendar to end another painful year.

      Javi climbed on Jared’s lap and patted his cheeks. “Can you teach me?”

      “Sure.”

      “After you eat your ten grapes,” James said, feeling a growing sense of duty to this child who might be a Cade.

      “Ugh. Always the lecturer,” Jewel groaned.

      “A man honors his word,” James insisted.

      “As does a woman,” Sofia added. They exchanged a quick searching glance and the morning’s easy rapport returned to him, followed by her inconsistencies about her wallet.

      A car revved outside and backfired. The sound cracked through the air like a gunshot. Javi jumped, spilling the bowl of grapes. He bolted around the back of the couch and started crying.

      The family swapped concerned glances as Sofia crouched by the small space. “It’s just a car, honey.”

      “Justin’s hunk-a-junk,” Jewel said over Sofia’s shoulder. “He’ll show it to you before he goes to the demolition derby.”

      “No,” Javi sobbed. “Shooting.”

      “Honey. You’re safe,” soothed Sofia.

      “No,” he choked out, hyperventilating, by the sound of it.

      It amazed James how quickly Javi had gone from rambunctious to fearful. Spirited to terrified. What had happened in his life to make him react this way? No one should ever feel afraid on Cade Ranch, especially not a child.

      He leaned over and spoke firmly, steadily. “Javi. I want you to take a deep breath in through your nose, then push it out through your mouth. Can you do that ten times, bud?”

      “Yes.”

      Sofia gripped the back of the sofa and the sides of their hands touched. The urge to thread his fingers in hers, to reassure her, seized him.

      Javi’s breathing slowed.

      “Okay. Now. When I say a body part, I want you to squeeze it hard, then relax it.”

      “With my hands?”

      “No. СКАЧАТЬ