Read the book: «Hometown Christmas Gift»

Chapter One

Lainie Michaels lifted the snow-dusted doormat again, thinking she might have missed the house key her brother was supposed to have left there for her. Nothing. She tried the door again, but it was locked up good and tight. Straightening, she blew on her chilled fingers to warm them and then slipped her gloves back on. At least she’d had the forethought to purchase winter coats for her and her son before moving back to Wyoming.

“I don’t want to be here!” Lainie’s seven-year-old son, Lucas, bellowed behind her, stomping his tiny foot in defiance.

Lainie turned from the locked front door and forced a smile as she prepared to face yet another one of her son’s emotional thunderstorms. “Honey, you’ll like living here in Bent Creek.” At least, she prayed he would. More than anything, she wanted her son to be the sweet, loving little boy he used to be before she’d taken his joy away.

“It’s cold here. I wanna go home,” he replied, his tiny brows furrowed into a deep-set scowl.

Early December in Bent Creek could be cold. Especially when her son was accustomed to California winters, but it was a little soon for any real snow accumulation. Lainie’s gaze moved past Lucas to the large, white flakes coming down from the wintry sky above. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. Cold or not, while living in California, she’d missed the beauty Wyoming winters could bring, the sight of the distant mountains and vast land surrounding her brother’s place, the home she had grown up in, glistening with newly fallen snow. Especially during the holidays.

Looking down at her son, Lainie suddenly felt overwhelmed by emotion and exhausted from having gotten up before dawn that morning to catch their flight. And then, after a three-hour layover in Denver before finally landing in Rock Springs, Wyoming, the nearest airport to Bent Creek, they’d had to take a taxi to her brother’s place a good fifty-minutes away.

“We are home,” she told Lucas. Or, at least what would be their home until they found a place of their own in Bent Creek. Even if she changed her mind about staying there permanently, which she hadn’t, they would have no way to leave. The taxi that brought them there had already driven off. They’d sold their two-bedroom condo in downtown Sacramento, sent a few boxes of their personal items ahead to her brother, Justin, a week prior to flying home and then placed the remainder of their things in storage until they found a home of their own and could have them brought out.

“This isn’t my home,” her son said, his voice cracking with anger.

“It is now, sweetie,” Lainie said softly, praying that she’d made the right decision in coming there.

“You take everything away!” her son sobbed, tears of frustration and anger now filling his hazel eyes. “Even my dad. I hate you!” Turning, he sprinted off the porch and disappeared around the side of the house.

Lainie ran over to the railing and leaned out, watching as Lucas ran away from the house, no doubt to the fort his uncle had built for him two summers before. “Lucas!” she called after him, hot tears blurring her vision. It wasn’t the first time he had run off, and it wasn’t the first time her baby boy’s words had left her feeling broken. Her son hated her, and she couldn’t even blame him for it. He’d lost his father, and it was all her fault. A lump formed in Lainie’s throat as the memory of that night surfaced, making it hard to swallow. No amount of “I’m sorrys” could ever make up for the pain she had caused her little boy. She’d never forget the look of confusion on his face when she’d told him his father was gone, and then fear and bone-deep sorrow that slowly settled in as her son processed her words. It had nearly broken her. A mother’s words were supposed to wrap their child in love and make them feel safe, not shatter their entire world.

The sudden sound of hoofbeats had Lainie turning, a small gasp leaving her lips as she took in the sight of a man seated astride a beautiful buckskin gelding. He came to a stop just on the other side of the porch at the far end of Justin’s house. Although he wore his cowboy hat low and the collar of his leather duster lifted to block the icy, whirling flakes, she’d recognize those dark green eyes of his anywhere.

“Lainie,” Jackson Wade greeted her, his voice so much deeper than it had been when he’d spent time at her house when they were growing up. Jackson had always been her brother’s best friend and also her heart’s greatest weakness.

Her stomach felt as though she’d just taken a steep drop on a roller-coaster ride. The last time she’d seen Jackson had been in the hospital in Las Vegas after he’d been injured while bull riding at Nationals. Only Jackson hadn’t known she’d been there, because she’d not been able to step beyond the open door. Just seeing him lying there, eyes closed, machines surrounding him, had been more than she could take. Especially since she blamed herself for his being there. Had lived with the self-imposed guilt of it for years. Oh, why did their paths have to cross at that very moment?

Lainie turned away, looking off into the direction her son had run, trying desperately to collect herself. “Justin’s not home,” she said as she hurried to swipe a poorly timed tear from her cheek with her gloved hand. Jackson Wade was the last person she wanted to see her in such an emotionally vulnerable state. In fact, she’d prefer not to cross paths with him altogether, now or ever. Unfortunately, “ever” wasn’t in the realm of possibility, considering they were both going to be living in the same small town.

“I know,” he replied as the sound of booted footsteps treading up the porch steps came from a few feet behind her.

She cast a fretful glance back over her shoulder as he strode toward her, her attention drawn to his slightly off-kilter gait. A limp she had caused, she thought to herself, guilt making her turn away once more. She couldn’t bear to see the man who had broken her heart. The man she had in turn broken physically.

A gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Lainie,” he said, his voice filled with concern.

Jackson, she thought in silent response. Her first love. An unrequited love. But one her heart had never quite gotten over. Even after she had married Will Michaels, a kind, supportive man, the handsome cowboy standing behind her had still maintained a special place in her heart. One of the reasons she had done her best to come home to visit only when she knew Jackson would be away, running stock to the various rodeos. And then after her husband’s death not quite two years before, she had avoided Bent Creek altogether. For her son, who was not dealing well with his grief. She thought that she needed to keep his routine as unchanged and normal as possible. And, if she were being completely honest with herself, it was also because of the feelings she still harbored for Jackson. Feelings she should have been able to put to rest after she’d gotten together with Will, but her stubborn heart had refused to cooperate. Staying away from Bent Creek, away from Jackson, had been the only way she could think of to assuage the guilt she felt.

“Are you okay?”

No, she wasn’t. But it was no less than she deserved. She nodded. “I’m fine.” How much of her conversation, of her son’s resentful words, had Jackson overheard? She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone thinking badly of Lucas. “Just a little family disagreement.”

His large hand fell away, and she found herself wishing it back, needing the comfort that small gesture had provided her. “I’d be happy to have a talk with him if you think that would help matters,” he offered.

Lainie forced herself to turn and face him, but kept her gaze fixed on the front of Jackson’s shirt instead of on the pity she knew she would see in those eyes. When had his shoulders grown so incredibly wide? “Thank you,” she managed, “but no. I need to see to this on my own.” Just as she had been since her husband’s passing.

“Then can I at least help you go look for your son?”

“No,” she said a little more adamantly, shaking her head. She didn’t want Jackson’s help. It had been hard enough turning to her brother as it was. She was Lucas’s mother. She should have been the one to make things right again for her son. “I know where he’ll be.”

“In the fort?” he replied.

Of course Jackson would know about the small, wooden fort her brother had built for Lucas in the woods behind his house, just beyond the edge of the yard. He and Justin knew pretty much everything about each other. But then they were close. Had been since Justin’s first day of school in Bent Creek, after their parents had adopted him and Lainie and brought them to the small, welcoming town to live.

“Yes,” she said with a sigh. The counselor she had taken her son to not quite six months before had told Lainie that there would be times when Lucas would need time and space to grieve and sort through his feelings. She’d given him that, but it hadn’t seemed to make a difference. Her son’s resentment toward her was always simmering close to the surface.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Only if you’re a locksmith,” Lainie muttered.

He chuckled, his chin lifting just enough to free his face from the cocoon his collar had formed around it. The warm sound of it drew her gaze upward until it came to rest on his face, one that had grown even more handsome with age. His chestnut hair was close-cropped under his well-worn cowboy hat, and he wore just a hint of sideburns alongside his clean-shaven face. “It just so happens I can help you out,” he replied with that lone-dimpled grin she had never forgotten as he held up a small brass house key. “Justin called to tell me that he’d forgotten to leave a key under the doormat for guests he had coming to stay with him and asked if I could run the spare he’d given me over to the house.”

Guests? Had her brother avoided telling Jackson that she was the guest he was referring to? Was he unsure his friend would be comfortable with the given task if he knew the whole truth?

“Long-term guests,” Lainie supplied with a troubled frown. “Lucas and I are going to be living with my brother until we can find a place of our own.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “You’re moving home?”

“Moved,” she corrected. “As of today.”

He nodded as if struggling to find a response to the clearly unexpected news. Lainie found herself wondering if the kiss they’d shared all those years ago still lingered in the back of his thoughts as it did in hers. And not in the way a first kiss shared between two people should.

“It’s been hard on Lucas dealing with life in Sacramento since his father’s passing,” she tried to explain without going into detail.

“I can imagine it would be,” Jackson said. Then his expression grew serious. “I never got to tell you how sorry I was to hear about your loss.”

“You sent us a card and those beautiful wind chimes,” she said with a grateful smile.

A frown pulled at his mouth now. “I really am sorry. I should have done more.”

She shook her head. “You thought about us and that meant a lot.” She reached for the key he was still holding in his hand, feeling the chill of the metal through the fingertips of her glove. “Thank you for going to the trouble of running this over to us in this weather.” She glanced past him. “And by horse, at that.”

“I can still ride,” he muttered. “Just not competitively.”

The guilt that filled her at his reminder was almost painful. He’d loved the rodeo and she had taken that from him. “I just meant that you could have driven the key over,” she hurried to explain. “It’s cold out.”

He shrugged, his broad shoulders lifting and dropping beneath his leather coat. “Cold’s never bothered me. And it’s wasn’t any trouble running this over to you. And, Lainie...” he said, their gazes meeting.

“Yes,” she replied, unable to look away, and her heart skittered, just as it used to do when she was a lovesick teenager. That thought brought Lainie immediately back to reality. She was not that same girl. She was a widowed mother of a very lost child, and Jackson was no longer that same boy she had once known. He was a grown man with responsibilities, part of which revolved around the very thing that had kept them apart—the rodeo.

He smiled down at her. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you.” She glanced in the direction Lucas had run off in. “I should go see to my son.” She just prayed he’d had time to calm down enough for them to be able to talk. She hated watching her precious little boy slip so far away from her emotionally. Hopefully, her brother would be able to help bring him back.

“If I can ever do anything...” He let the offer trail off.

“We’ll be fine,” she replied. “But thank you for offering.”

Jackson tipped his hat and then turned to leave.

Lainie watched him go, tears filling her eyes as she took in the change in the confident gait she remembered. That slight hitch to his step made her heart ache. Jackson could have died that day, and she would have had to live with that guilt for the rest of her life, just as she did with her husband’s death.

You take away everything! Even my dad. I hate you! Jackson flinched at the memory of those harshly spoken words. Words that had to have broken Lainie’s heart. Will had died in a car accident. Why would her son blame Lainie for that?

Lainie, he thought to himself as he parked his truck in front of the sheriff’s office, regret filling him. The girl he had cared so much about. The girl whose heart he’d broken. If he had the chance to do it all over again, would he have gone about things differently? He’d asked himself that question more times than he could count over the years, but he remained torn over the answer. Lainie had been his best friend’s little sister, which had made him keep his growing feelings for her to himself. It had seemed like a line he shouldn’t cross. But he had and kissing her at the town’s annual Old West Festival Dance that night had been both eye-opening and life changing.

Jackson stepped down from his truck, closed the door and headed for the nearby building. He let himself inside and made his way to Justin’s office. Shoving open the door, he stepped inside. “You might have told me,” he said, his words tight.

His friend, the town’s sheriff, glanced up from paperwork and then sat back in his chair. “Would you have gone over to my place if I had?” he asked matter-of-factly.

It bothered him that his friend had a point. If he had known that Lainie and her son were the “guests” Justin had been referring to when he’d called to ask his favor, he might very well have sent someone in his place to deliver the key. He hadn’t been prepared to see Lainie again. Had even prepared himself emotionally to never see her again. Truth was, he’d made his choice a long time ago and understood her reasons for making certain their paths never crossed. All he could do was respect her wishes. A part of him was grateful for her determined avoidance of him. It meant she hadn’t had to see him as he was now, after the accident, hobbling about instead of moving with the sure-footed grace he’d once had.

“Your silence speaks volumes,” Justin said, pushing away from his desk to stand. “But you need to get past whatever it was that happened between the two of you before Lainie went off to college, because Lainie’s going to be living here. You will be seeing her, like it or not.”

If only it were that simple. “Nothing happened,” Jackson replied with a frown. Only because he’d stopped it from going anywhere. When Lainie had kissed him that night after they’d stepped outside for some fresh air following a round of heel-kicking dances and then a long, slow dance, he’d been taken by surprise. He should have put an end to things right then and there, but he hadn’t. He’d kissed her back. And when the kiss ended, all the emotions she’d held back for so long spilled out of her. She loved him. Wanted to give up the full-ride academic scholarship she gotten to go to San Diego State University and stay in Bent Creek instead, so she could be with him. Lainie would have traded an opportunity very few were ever blessed with to be his girl. And someday, he knew, she would have resented him for it.

“All I know is that Lainie thought the world revolved around you. To the point I thought that maybe someday...” Justin shook his head. “And then she began dating Will, marrying him right out of college.”

It was when she’d called him with news of her engagement that he’d been taken down emotionally, causing him to lose focus that night during his last ride in the rodeo finals in Vegas, giving Lucky Shamrock the upper hand. The sixteen-hundred-pound bull had put an end to Jackson’s career with one good stomp on Jackson’s leg. In that one day, he lost the girl he’d loved enough to let go, and then his career as a professional bull rider.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Jackson told him. “The past is in the past.”

“That means you and Lainie should be able to mend whatever fences the two of you have that need mending.”

This time Jackson didn’t try to deny what his friend had called him out on. He was just grateful he hadn’t pressed for details. That kiss he’d shared with Lainie all those years ago had meant something to Jackson. More than it should have. “You still should have told me she was coming,” he said with a troubled frown.

Justin settled a hip atop the corner of his desk and folded his arms. “So you could leave town?”

“Why would I do that?” he asked.

“You and I both know that you would have done everything in your power to avoid her, all because of that barely noticeable limp you have, and right now Lainie needs you.”

Barely noticeable? Did his friend truly not realize how his injury had affected him, not only physically but mentally? And Lainie had been the one doing the avoiding. He was so busy mentally defending himself that it took a moment for Justin’s last statement to sink in. Lainie needs you.

Jackson met his friend’s sober gaze. “What are you talking about?”

Justin stood and crossed the room to close his office door. Then he turned to face him. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room. My sister will have my head if Mom and Dad get wind of this. Lainie’s hoping things will change and they’ll never need to know what’s been going on.”

He’d never seen his friend so serious. “It stays here,” Jackson promised with a nod.

Justin returned to his desk, sinking into the chair with a heavy sigh. “Lainie is moving home because she’s emotionally wrung out and needed to get away from Sacramento.”

“Understandable,” he replied, his heart going out to Lainie. “She was widowed at twenty-eight, left to raise a young son all on her own.”

“She wouldn’t have had to handle anything on her own if only she had come home after Will died,” Justin said, a hint of frustration lacing his words.

“Maybe Lainie needed to at least try to handle things on her own,” Jackson pointed out. “Know that she could stand on her own two feet. Whatever her reason may be, it’s safe to say the past couple of years, twenty months to be exact, couldn’t have been easy for her. Or for Lucas, for that matter,” he added, recalling the boy’s angry outburst.

“You know the exact number of months?”

“It happened to Lainie,” Jackson replied.

Justin nodded. “Sort of burns itself into one’s memory, doesn’t it? And you’re right. It hasn’t been easy for her. Granted, Lainie always tried to sound strong whenever we talked on the phone, but I could hear the strain of what she’s been through in her voice, having to cope with such a tragedy on her own. I know when we went out there for Will’s funeral Lucas was angry with God for taking his father. We all talked to him, trying to get him to see that his anger shouldn’t be directed at the Lord, but at the bad choices people sometimes make. Like the teenager who ran that red light that night, causing the accident. Lainie said Lucas had been coming around, but then eight months ago he suddenly began acting out again. Not only at home, but at school and church as well.”

“Sounds like his grief is finally surfacing,” Jackson said, his heart going out to the little boy, who’d lost his father so young, and to Lainie, whose husband had been taken from her so tragically.

“It needs to,” his friend said. “Grief tends to fester when it’s shoved aside. Look at how it affected Garrett.”

Not only had Jackson and his brothers lost a sister, but his older brother had also lost his high school sweetheart. It had taken Hannah, Garrett’s new wife, and her son, Austin, to bring joy fully back into his life.

“I don’t want to even think about Lucas holding in his grief for seventeen years like my brother did,” Jackson said with a frown.

“Lainie hopes their moving back to Bent Creek, where Lucas will also have his grandparents and myself to turn to when things are troubling him, might be what my nephew needs to pull him from this grief-driven anger he’s been experiencing.”

Jackson could tell there were issues going on between Lainie and her son but didn’t know to what extent. “From what I witnessed today, when I took the key over to your sister, Lainie isn’t overreacting where her son is concerned.”

Justin’s brows furrowed. “Why? What did you see?”

“It was more what I overheard. Their voices were raised, at least her son’s was, when I rode up to your porch,” Jackson explained. “Lucas was having a meltdown of sorts and then ran off. Lainie doesn’t know I overheard their exchange of words, and I’d appreciate it if things could stay that way. Sounds like she’s got enough on her plate already without adding embarrassment to all the other emotions she’s dealing with right now.”

“I appreciate that,” his friend said, concern creasing his brow. “I had intended to take the day off and be home waiting for them when they came, but they arrived a couple days ahead of schedule and I am tied up here at work for several more hours.”

An impatient tapping sounded at the office door.

“Excuse me,” Justin said apologetically as he stood and crossed the room to answer it.

“Sheriff,” Mrs. Baxter, the middle-aged receptionist who worked the front desk, said a bit breathlessly, a troubled frown marring her features. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Kathy Culler just called. Todd—that is Deputy Culler—has had an accident.”

“How bad?” Justin pressed, his words pulling Jackson back to the present.

“Bad,” she said fretfully. “Apparently, Deputy Culler fell off his ladder while putting Christmas lights up on their roof and broke his hip. Kathy told me they’d just taken him back for emergency surgery.”

Justin dragged a hand back through his dark brown hair. “The break must have been a serious one.”