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BELLE THOUGHT BACK to the wonderful time she’d had that weekend in October. Gavin’s mom came with them and got to see Gabby up on a horse for the first time, and how happy her granddaughter was there. Maybe it was her appreciation that made Gavin’s mother and Belle click right off, but more likely because they shared a common fondness for a little girl and her father. Belle practiced some of the equine therapy techniques she’d already learned, with Barb leading Smokey and Gavin walking at his side. They all shared dinner at the lodge that night, made especially for them by Barb’s mother, Bobbie Jo, and afterwards—she smiled at the thought and felt warm all over even in the cold December air—she and Gavin took a stroll around the ranch as she showed him where the arena would soon be built. Of course, it was cold even then and they’d had to huddle for warmth, which led to kisses.
“Belle! I thought you said you were going to help,” Barb’s loud voice broke through Belle’s reminisces.
“Oh, sorry. Just thinking,” she replied, embarrassed.
“The next group is ready to go.”
Belle fingered the reins through her gloved hands, pulled her hat farther down over her ears and her scarf tighter around her neck. “Everybody ready?” she asked after she’d turned to the passengers behind her and almost laughed. Barb gave her the school board members to take on this run. She checked to make sure they were all in the sleigh and under their blankets, then turned back and called to the horses with a flap of the long reins, “Let’s go, boys. Giddy-up.”
As the team trotted through the pristine snow, Belle barely heard the laughter and voices of the people in the sleigh behind her, the jangle of bells on the horses’ collars, or the swish of the sleigh’s runners over the snow. She found it hard to believe how fast the rest of the year and seasons flew by, October and Halloween, November and Thanksgiving—she had so much to be thankful for this year—and now December and nearly Christmas. She looked over to where construction had begun on the riding arena, then stopped by too much snow until spring. She thought about the many, many hours she’d spent studying the certification manuals, training with an instructor in Spokane and the workshop she’d attended there. She thought about the two sweet horses she’d tried to purchase from the Danforths that their daughters no longer rode, but instead they’d given to her for her worthy cause. And then she thought about the test she’d taken and how anxious she’d felt waiting for the results...and that she’d passed!
It was a good thing the horses knew the routine—they’d done it so many times that day—because without her realizing it, they’d completed their circuit and arrived back at the beginning.
“Thanks for the ride, Belle,” her passengers said as she helped them step out of the sleigh and handed each of them a candy cane. She’d already known most of the board members—it was a small town after all—and the rest she’d met through her new friend, Anne.
The next group was much livelier than the board members, people more her own age: Claire Wilson from the Mercy Ridge Crier and her new friend Lee Craig, the town’s all-around handyperson Tatem and her fiancé Heath Brighton from London.
She waited for Barb’s sleigh full of Pancake Club members Chad, Kristin, Dolan, Tessa, Jennifer, and Mike, to take off and get a ways down the trail before she followed. Barb told her they had a record turnout—fifty people signed up for the Saddle Up’s Christmas sleigh rides this year, and several volunteered to help out as well. Memories Diner owners Sami and Harold brought hot beverages and snacks. Sami’s friend—and, the town gossips said, her beau since he’d split with his wife—Wayne Sauer, got the groups of six lined up for each ride. Of course Dirk, and Bob were there too, and she guessed Bobbie Jo must be in the lodge doing something or other, she didn’t see her out there.
There, Barb’s sleigh with her rowdy group had taken off. Belle turned around to make sure her sleigh was full and her group ready to go. Good, another couple just filled the last bench. “Everybody ready?” she called out.
“We’re ready, Belle,” she heard a male voice answer.
“Okay, here we g—” Wait! She knew that voice. She whipped her head back around so hard, she might’ve gotten whiplash, a small voice in her head told her, while a bigger voice said, That man, will he ever cease to surprise me?
Bobbie Jo went all out this Christmas, Belle thought as she sat on the huge sectional in front of a crackling fire in the towering stone fireplace of the lodge’s great room and listened to the quiet hum of voices and Christmas music playing softly in the background. The lavish decorations were fantastic, inside and out. She gazed at the evergreen garlands and wreaths with pine cones, red berries, huge red bows with gold trim, and tiny twinkling white lights that graced the mantel. She sipped her cup of mulled cider and turned her head to see Gabby in her Christmas sweater, sound asleep on the other side of Gavin, clutching her favorite stuffed animal, Smokey the horse. Belle still couldn’t believe they were there along with her family and half the town it seemed, to celebrate that she’d passed the test.
When Bobbie Jo walked by and asked how they were doing, Gavin cleared his throat and said, “Actually, I need to step outside for a moment with Belle. Do you think you could sit here with Gabby? I know you’re busy, and I’d ask someone else, but she knows you, and won’t be upset if she wakes up—which I’m sure she won’t—with a stranger.”
“Sure, Gavin, I’d be happy to.”
Gavin held out a hand and helped Belle up, then led her to the door. She gave him a quizzical look, but thought maybe he just needed some fresh air.
Once they were outside on the porch and closed the huge oak door, she stopped, but Gavin tugged on her hand and led them farther down the giant candy canes-lined path. When he stopped, he put his arms around her, and looking into her eyes, said, “I’ve decided Gabby and I need to move out of our house with all its bad memories. How’d you like to go house-hunting with us?”
“In Seattle? I can’t, Gavin. There’s so much to do to get ready now that I have my certificate and—”
“No, not in Seattle...I’ll need a place with a few acres and a barn.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were a city guy.”
“I grew up in the city but I can see the benefits of the country and horses in our future.”
“So, somewhere over on the east side then.”
“Yeah, the east side...of the state.”
Belle just stared at him.
“I hear they have special education classes at the elementary school right here in Mercy Ridge, and a therapeutic riding program that probably won’t have a two-year waiting list.”
“Hmm...I think you’re right.”
“So, do you suppose, if I begged, I could convince a certain ‘certified’ therapeutic riding instructor to take on my daughter in her program’s very first session?”
Belle laughed and nodded.
“Gavin Levine, you are full of surprises. I wonder what you’ll do next?” she teased.
“You’ll just have to find out,” he answered, then cradled her head between his hands and gave her a kiss this time that nearly took her breath away. “Merry Christmas, Belle,” he told her.
“Merry Christmas, Gavin.”
As the huge fat flakes of snow floated lazily down from the sky, Belle thought, This is the best Christmas of my life...so far.