Carson knew damn well he shouldn’t be enjoying this so much.
This wasn’t at all how he intended to spend the holidays. He had come to his ranch for two reasons—to host the Hertzogs and to enjoy a little solitude before he returned to the hectic pace of San Francisco.
He certainly never planned to find himself in Jenna Wheeler’s comfortable TV room watching It’s a Wonderful Life on a twenty-inch screen he could barely see and wrapping up action figures.
There were certainly worse ways to pass the time, he had to admit.
“I hope I’m doing this right. I’m not a great gift wrapper.”
“They look great.” She smiled at him from the couch. “Anyway, the kids don’t really care how fancy they look. I doubt they’ll even notice. They’ll rip all your hard work to pieces in about ten seconds flat.”
A weird pang of longing pinched at him. He would like to see Christmas morning at the Wheeler house. The joy and excitement on their faces, the noise and confusion. It would be a completely foreign experience for him but one he suddenly wanted to endure, as crazy as that seemed.
“You know, I can change this,” Jenna said, interrupting his thoughts. “You’ve probably seen this movie a million times.”
“Actually, no. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of it and that was several years ago.”
She exaggerated an expression of horror that made him smile. “How can that be? It’s completely unnatural.”
His smile faded. He thought about making a joke but decided to tell her the truth. “I didn’t exactly have the Bedford Falls kind of upbringing.”
She gave him a careful look, as if she knew exactly how tough that was for him to admit. “No?”
She was clearly waiting for more. Now that he had opened the door, he wasn’t sure he wanted all that information about himself to come slithering out. But the soft compassion in her eyes tugged the words from him.
“My dad ran off before I was born and my mother struggled with depression and drug addiction most of my life. I guess you could say my childhood was on the chaotic side. Foster homes. Shelters. Back and forth with my mom when she would clean up for a while. I spent some time on my grandparents’ ranch not far from here, near Ashton. Bill and Nedda Jameson.”
Her brow wrinkled with concentration. “Those names seem so familiar. Wait, I think I knew your grandparents. They used to come into my dad’s feed store when I was a kid. I remember your grandfather always had Brach’s toffee in his pocket.”
He smiled a little at the memory. He had adored his grandparents and would have been happy living at their little ranch forever. But his mother hadn’t been on good terms with her parents for years and she became furious when she found out they had applied for permanent custody of him. She came to his school one blustery March afternoon and took him away from Idaho and he had never seen Bill or Nedda again.
He had sneaked a few phone calls to them that first year but Lori always found out and made him sorry enough that he had given up and lost touch with them over the years. The first time he had tried to run away at thirteen, he had called and received a recorded message that the number had been disconnected. He later learned they had died the year before within six months of each other—and that they had never stopped trying to find him.
He pushed the grim memories away. “What about you? I bet you watch this every year, right?”
She shook her head. “Joe never liked it. He said it was so sappy it made his teeth stick together.” She smiled a little. “He wasn’t as crazy about Christmas as I’ve always been, though he was a good sport when I went wild decorating the house and baking up a storm for weeks beforehand.”
He was astonished suddenly at the jealousy that suddenly pierced him at the thought of the happy years she shared with her husband.
“You must miss him a lot.”
She flashed him a quick look and then focused her gaze on the screen. He thought she wasn’t going to answer but after a moment she muted the television. “He was a good man and a wonderful father. For the first year, I didn’t know how I would go on by myself. But I’ve learned that everything gets a little easier the more time goes on.”
He remembered those first few months after Suzanna and Henry James died, when he was certain every particle of light had been sucked out of his world. Gradually the light found holes to peek through, first tiny pinpricks, then bigger and bigger and he learned that life moved on.
She smiled. “It’s Christmas. I certainly don’t want to forget Joe—I could never do that—but mostly I want to focus this year on all my many blessings. I have four beautiful children, a roof over our heads that’s paid for, good neighbors and friends and a supportive family. I’ve got a business that’s taking off the ground. I’m so richly blessed.”
She embraced life, Carson realized. Many women would have used what she had endured as an excuse to be embittered, hardened. But Jenna was like a bright beacon of light to those around her. He had seen it at his house party. The Hertzogs had all responded to her because she glowed with life.
Many in the world would consider him the more richly blessed of the two of them, at least materially. He had enjoyed enormous business success, owned houses in three states, had loyal employees. That was only the start. When was the last time he had taken the time to catalogue all he had or even to spend a moment appreciating it?
He felt small and petty and ungrateful.
He turned back to the gifts, wrapping a pile of books he assumed were for Drew. They lapsed into a not uncomfortable silence, their attention on the movie.
“All done,” Carson said sometime later when he finished wrapping the last present in the box, a pretty pink-and-white doll for Jolie. Jenna didn’t respond and he looked over and saw her eyes were closed and her breathing even.
She had been through a hell of a day. No wonder she fell asleep just minutes before Clarence the angel earned his wings.
He watched her sleep for a long moment, struck by her fragile loveliness and astounded all over again that it covered such indomitable strength.
She needed to eat more of her own cooking. A few of those divine desserts she made would certainly put a little more meat on those thin bones.
A strange feeling stirred up inside him as he watched her sleep. Something tender and gentle and terrifying. He drew in a sharp breath and did his best to shove it back down in the deep, dark recesses of his heart.
“Jenna? Let’s get you up to your bed.”
She blinked awake slowly and when her gaze met his, she gifted him with a soft smile so free and unfeigned it took his breath away. To his vast regret, it faded as she returned to full consciousness.
“Sorry to wake you but I figured you would be more comfortable where you can stretch out in your own bed,” he said.
“I would. Thanks.” She sat and moved as if to stand up but he held out a hand to stop her.
“Don’t even think about it. You’re going to be in serious trouble if you put your weight on that foot.”
She gave him a challenging look. “Will I?”
“Yes. The doc told you stay off it, remember? I’ll carry you up again,” he said, though he almost didn’t trust himself to touch her with these emotions churning through him.
“I can scoot up the stairs.”
“I’ll carry you,” he repeated. He forced himself to move toward her and scoop her up in his arms. She felt entirely too perfect there, a sweet, warm weight that fit just right, and he wanted to hold her close and not let go.
She didn’t meet his gaze while he carried her up the stairs. Both of them were silent and he wondered what she was thinking about that put that color on her cheeks, like the blush of a newly ripe apple.
“I’m the last door on the left,” she whispered at the top of the stairs. The narrowness of the hallway forced him to hold her closer and he could feel each breath she took against his chest.
He opened the door she indicated and flipped on the light switch before he gingerly set her down on a wide bed covered in a rich damask.
For some reason, he would have expected her bedroom to be light and feminine. Lavender, maybe, with lace and lots of froufrou pillows. Instead, it was dramatic and bright, with strong solid colors and polished Mission furniture. She had her own small tree here in the window, as all the children did, he had noticed earlier. Her tree was decorated in framed pictures, he guessed of her children.
“Is there anything I can get you before you go to sleep? A nightgown or something?”
Her blush seemed to intensify, though he thought that might just be a reflection of the bold colors.
“I don’t think so. I can hop to the bathroom and my dresser is on the way.” She paused. “Um, thank you for carrying me and…everything.”
“You’re welcome.” He gazed at her for a long moment, fighting an almost desperate hunger to touch her again. She looked so lovely, her hair tousled from sleep and that skin so rosy and soft that he ached to kiss her.
His gaze met hers and he saw a reflection of his hunger in her green eyes.
Fast on its heels was a growing unease. He could deal with all this much better if he only felt a physical attraction to her. But he was very much afraid it was becoming much, much more.
He shoved his hands in his back pockets to keep from reaching for her. “Good night, then. I’ll probably sleep on the couch so I can hear if you need anything.”
She opened her mouth as if to argue but shut it again, much to his relief. If he had to stay here another minute, he was going to be on that bed with her, to hell with both her broken wrist and the consequences.
“Good night, Carson. I don’t know how I’ll ever thank you. You’ve done nothing but rescue the Wheelers since you’ve been here.”
“That’s what neighbors do, right?”
With that lame comment, he backed out of the door while he still could and headed back down the stairs.
Both times he had gone up the stairs, first with Jolie then just now with Jenna, he had been too preoccupied with the Wheeler female in his arms to notice the photo gallery that lined the stairway.
But he couldn’t help paying it more attention now as he moved slowly down the stairs. The pictures showed the evolution of a family. There were photographs of all of the children in various stages of development, from infants to toddlers to preschoolers on up. They were beautiful, every one of them.
He was particularly struck by the largest picture on the wall, a posed family portrait taken somewhere outdoors in the midst of what looked like golden-hued fall aspens. He stopped and gazed at it, at the trio of blond, grinning boys who looked a few years younger than they were now, and at the smiling parents behind them. Jenna looked lovely and bright and happy. Beside her stood a man who looked just like he imagined Hayden would look in twenty years or so. His face was tanned and rugged, his blond hair a shade or two darker than Jenna’s. He smiled at his family like someone who knew he had everything a man could ever want.
Carson’s insides wrenched with sadness for Joe Wheeler, who had been taken from his family and would never see the boys in that picture grow to manhood and who had never even met his beautiful baby girl.
He continued down the stairs, thinking of the love on those shining faces.
He was in a house full of people, but he had never been as keenly aware that he was alone.
The siren smell of coffee and something else delicious dragged her out of sleep the next morning.
Her nose twitched and as she slowly waded back to consciousness, Jenna couldn’t figure out why her room was so blissfully quiet. Usually, she was either awakened by her actual alarm clock or by one of her four living, breathing, bed-bouncing alarm wannabes.
What were they up to? Maybe they had decided to let her sleep in a little. Heavenly thought, that. She opened one eye and peeked at her alarm clock, then sat upright, pushing aside the last cobwebs in a burst of panic. Eight-thirty! She never slept until eight-thirty!
She slid off the bed to her feet and then gasped when pain shot through her left leg, at the same time she became aware of a steady, insistent throbbing in her arm.
Oh. Right. Memories flowed back of tumbling down the back stairs at Raven’s Nest the previous morning, of looking at those queasiness-inducing X-rays in Jake Dalton’s office, of Carson driving her home and fixing mac and cheese for her kids and wrapping her last-minute presents.
He must have put the coffee on. But what about the rest of those smells that had her stomach grumbling? And the kids must be up by now, especially on Christmas Eve morning. How long had he been coping with them on his own?
She wouldn’t know until she went downstairs, she thought. She hopped to her bathroom to wash up and change, fiercely wishing she could stand under a hot pulsing shower right now. She spent a frustrating ten minutes trying to pull her hair into a ponytail with only one hand before she gave up and just ended up brushing it out and holding it away from her face with a red bandeau that matched her shirt.
She headed back through her bedroom and opened the door, only to be confronted with a sign on the wall opposite her room in big, bold, black lettering.
“Do not tackle the stairs,” it read, with the second word underlined three times. “I will take you down.”
Jenna gazed at the note as she balanced on one foot in her doorway. She supposed she could call down to him, but then she remembered those moments in his strong arms, how she had fought the urge the entire way up the stairs to nestle into that hard chest, to throw her arms around his neck and hold tight.
She felt entirely too delicate, too cherished, in his arms and she didn’t want to become accustomed to the sensation, not when he would be returning to California and real life anytime now.
She carefully scooted down the stairs then hopped into the kitchen. The closer she went to the home’s center, the more her mouth watered from the smells emanating from it.
She paused in the doorway, astonished at the sight of all her children sitting at the table while Carson stood at the microwave, removing a dish from it.
“Wow. What’s all this?”
Carson looked up and his handsome features twisted into a glare. “What are you doing down the stairs? Didn’t you read the sign?”
“I did. It just smelled too delicious down here, I had to follow my nose.”
“Mom, Santa Claus is coming tonight!” Kip gushed, his features glowing like a hundred Christmas trees.
“Santa!” Jolie exclaimed, and banged her spoon on the tray of her high chair.
Her little girl was even dressed, in a holiday sweater and jeans. Warmth soaked her when she realized Carson must have found her clothes, changed her out of her pajamas and her wet diaper, then brought her down here for breakfast.
She gazed at him, looking strong and masculine in this kitchen full of children, and her heart did a long, slow roll in her chest.
Oh, she was in deep, deep trouble with him.
“I know.” Jenna smiled at all her children. “Can you believe it’s really here?”
They all grinned back at her, even Hayden. For the first time, she had a look at their plates and was astonished at what she saw—muffins and ham and some egg concoction that looked vaguely familiar.
“How did you do all this?” she asked Carson. “I thought you didn’t cook.”
“I don’t. But I’m pretty mean with a microwave. When I was trying to figure out what to fix for breakfast this morning, I remembered all that delicious leftover food at Raven’s Nest from the Hertzogs visit, so the kids and I made a quick trip up the hill to raid the refrigerator and freezer.”
She had slept through it all? She couldn’t quite take it in.
“Did you know Carson has a swimming pool and a hot tub right inside his house?” Hayden said.
“I did know that. I saw it when I was cooking for him and his guests.”
“He says we can use it anytime we want,” Drew said. “Even today. Can we, Mom?”
She had a vivid memory of the day not even a week ago when he had all but ordered her to keep her children off his property. And now he was inviting them to use his pool whenever they wanted? She couldn’t quite adjust to the shift.
“That’s very kind of Mr. McRaven.”
“So can we go?” Kip added his voice to the chorus.
She thought of all the things she had planned for Christmas Eve. Swimming at Raven’s Nest wasn’t even close to showing up on the list. On the other hand, they seemed almost as excited about the idea as they did about Christmas morning.
“We’ll have to see,” she said. “We’ve got to run to Idaho Falls to pick up Grandma today, remember?”
And she had to figure out how to pare down the Christmas feast she had planned to something more manageable for someone with a bum arm and a dicey ankle.
“Have you fed the animals?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Hayden said. “We were gonna do that after breakfast.”
“And speaking of which, here’s yours,” Carson said, setting a plate down in front of her with a dramatic flourish that made Drew and Kip giggle.
The boys finished eating just a few moments later and scraped their chairs back. “If we hurry and feed the animals, we’ll have more time to swim before we pick up Grandma,” Drew said.
Jenna decided not to point out she hadn’t yet agreed to the swim idea, though she could already see she would come across as a major grump if she said no for the sole reason that it hadn’t been in her plan.
The boys hurried into the mudroom to find their coveralls and boots, leaving her alone with Carson—except for Jolie, who jabbered away in her made-up language.
“Thanks so much for breakfast,” she said to Carson.
“That’s my line, isn’t it? You’re the one who fixed it in the first place. I only nuked it.”
They lapsed into silence and she was uncomfortable at the realization that her debt to him was growing by the minute.
“Carson, you don’t have to stay here today. We can handle things. I’m not disoriented from the concussion anymore. I know this isn’t the way you planned to spend your holidays.”
“I couldn’t have dreamed this scenario up in a million years,” he acknowledged. “But it’s not bad, either.”
She could see no equivocation in his expression and realized he was sincere.
“Well, the other factor is my mother-in-law. You might change your mind about sticking around.”
“Ah. The infamous Pat.”
She gave a heavy sigh. “She stays here every year, Carson. She has since Joe and I married and moved here. Even after she moved to an apartment in town, she always came back for the holidays. This was her home for thirty years. No matter how wonderful her assisted-living center in Idaho Falls might be, I just can’t leave her there by herself during the holidays.”
He studied her, then nodded. “Of course you can’t. So we’ll go get her.”
She expected an argument from him about how she didn’t need a houseguest when she was injured. His abrupt acceptance left her a bit disoriented. “Just like that? You have no idea what she’s like.”
“You’re her family and she’s part of yours. If you want her here, we’ll go get her. Are you up for a car ride to Idaho Falls? Even if I have the kids there, I’m not sure I can convince her to come with me if you’re not with us.”
She smiled suddenly and she would have kissed him if she could have reached him across the table.
“You’re a remarkable man, Carson McRaven. You hide that soft heart very well from the rest of the world.”
He looked astonished at her words and opened his mouth to argue but the phone rang before he could.
“That’s probably Dr. Dalton,” Carson said. “He called to check on you earlier. When I said you were still sleeping, he said he would call back to set up a time when he could stop by to see how you were doing.”
She had almost forgotten her injuries, the whole reason Carson was there in the first place.
“I guess that’s something else we’ll have to fit in today,” she said as she took the phone from him.
She couldn’t help thinking how quickly and naturally they had slipped into a “we.” She needed to remind herself all day that Carson’s stay was only temporary.
No matter how much she was beginning to worry she wanted it to be otherwise.
“The swim was a brilliant idea,” Jenna said four hours later as Carson drove the Raven’s Nest’s Suburban on the winding ranch road between Pine Gulch and Idaho Falls.
“I have my moments.” He smiled at her and Jenna had to fight hard not to let it slip inside her heart. She would see if he still felt like grinning an hour from now after they picked up her mother-in-law.
The calm car ride was such an anomaly that she had to look in the backseat again to make sure the boys hadn’t jumped out a few stoplights ago. They weren’t sleeping but they all seemed relaxed, content to just look out the window or, in Drew’s case, to read a book.
That they weren’t bouncing off the interior walls of the Suburban was a minor miracle. Who knew a two-hour swim in Carson’s pool would turn them so mellow?
Jolie had fallen asleep in her car seat before they even drove onto Cold Creek Canyon Road and Jenna was feeling comfort-able herself, with jazz Christmas carols playing on the stereo and the heater sending out comforting warmth while the wipers beat back a light snowfall.
She fought sleep for a few more miles and jerked herself upright when she found herself dozing off.
“Go to sleep,” Carson said. “I’ll wake you up when we hit Idaho Falls so you can direct me to your mother-in-law’s place.”
True to his word, Carson nudged her awake a short time later and she gave him the address. After they pulled up to the elegant facility, they went inside to find Pat waiting on one of the chairs in the lobby of the assisted-living center with her walker and her small suitcase beside her.
“I thought you said two-thirty,” she said without preamble. Pat’s speech was only slightly slurred, though the left side of her face had been permanently paralyzed from the stroke’s aftereffects.
Jenna glanced at the clock above the office desk that said 2:45. “Sorry we’re a little late. Merry Christmas, Mom.” She limped forward carefully and kissed Pat’s wrinkled cheek.
Pat gazed at her cast and the cane she was using to stabilize herself. “What happened to you?”
“I had a little accident yesterday and slipped on some ice.”
“Didn’t your boys shovel the walk?” she asked, her tone accusatory.
Jenna was spared from having to tell her where the accident occurred by the boys’ impatience to greet their grandmother.
They all hugged her and Pat’s stern expression softened at the unfeigned affection from her grandchildren.
Suddenly her gaze landed on Carson, who had carried Jolie inside. “Who are you?” she asked abruptly.
His gaze met Jenna’s, a clear question in them. He was asking if he should lie about his identity to make the holiday run more smoothly for her, she realized. She was touched by the thought and even briefly entertained it, then discarded it. Beyond the fact that she couldn’t let her children see her trying to carry off a lie, it wouldn’t be fair to Carson to make him a party to that kind of deception.
“Mom, this is Carson McRaven. Our neighbor.”
Even though half of her face remained stoic and expressionless, the other half clearly showed her outrage. “What is he doing here?”
Jenna braced herself, hoping Pat didn’t cause a scene in front of the children. “He has been so wonderful to help us since my accident. We would have been lost without him.”
“Carson has a pool inside his house, Grandma,” Kip said cheerfully. He slipped his hand inside his grandmother’s curled-up left one. He was always grateful to have new ears, and besides that, Pat had always adored his chatter. “We went swimming there today and played water basketball and everything. I didn’t even have to hold on to the side the whole time. You should have seen me, Grandma.”
She looked torn for a moment, as if she wanted to continue expressing her outrage, but the other boys stepped in to talk to her and she let herself be distracted.
Jenna was quite certain she had never been so grateful for the shortened attention span that was another outcome of the stroke.
She just had to hope they could keep her distracted the rest of the evening from remembering just how much she despised Carson.