Page 16 of The Holiday Gift

Faith made a face, wishing she didn’t feel like a frazzled, overburdened rancher and single mother.

She held a hand out to the woman she didn’t know. “Hi. I’m Faith Dustin.”

The woman had pretty features and a sweet smile. “Hello. I’m Ella Baker. You may know my father, Curt.”

“Yes, of course. Hello. Lovely to meet you.”

Curt Baker had a ranch on the other side of town. She didn’t know him well but she had heard he had a daughter he didn’t know well who had spent most of her life living with her mother back East somewhere. From what she understood, his daughter had returned to help him through a health scare.

“Your dad is looking well.”

Ella glanced at her father with a troubled look, then forced a smile. “He’s doing better, I suppose.”

“Ella is a music therapist and she just agreed to take the job of music teacher at the school for the rest of the school year,” Jennie said, looking thrilled at the prospect.

“That’s a long time coming.”

“Right. We’ve had the funding for it but haven’t been able to find someone suitable since Linda Keller retired two years ago. We’ve been relying on parent volunteers, who have been wonderful, but can only take the program so far. I’m a firm believer that children learn better when we can incorporate the arts in the classroom.”

“I completely agree,” Faith said, then was suddenly struck by a small moment of brilliance. “Hey, I’ve got a terrific way for you to get to know some of the young people in the community.”

“Oh?”

“My family runs The Christmas Ranch. You may have seen signs for it around town.”

“Absolutely. I haven’t had time to stop yet but it looks utterly delightful.”

“It is.” She didn’t bother telling the woman she had very little to do with the actual operations of The Christmas Ranch. It was always too complicated explaining that she ran the cattle side of things—hence her presence at this particular holiday party.

“Last year we started a new tradition of offering a children’s Christmas variety show and dinner for the senior citizens in town. It’s nothing grand, more for fun than anything else. The children only practice for the week leading up to the show, since everyone is so busy this time of year. Linda Keller, the woman who retired a few years ago from the school district, had offered to help us this year but apparently she just broke her arm.”

“That’s as good an excuse as any,” Ashley said.

“I suppose. The point is my sisters are desperate for someone to help them organize the show. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you might be interested.”

It seemed a nervy thing to ask a woman she had only met five minutes earlier. To Faith’s relief, Ella Baker didn’t seem offended.

“That sounds like a blast,” Ella exclaimed. “I’ve been looking for something to keep me busy until the New Year when I start at the school part-time.”

Hope was going to owe herbig-time—so much that Faith might even claim naming rights over the new baby.

“Great! You’ll have fun, I promise. The kids are so cute and we’ve got some real talent.”

“This is true,” Ashley said. “Especially Faith’s niece, Olivia. She sings like an angel. Last year the show was so wonderful.”

“The senior citizens in the area really ate it up,” Jennie affirmed. “My dad couldn’t stop talking about it. The Nichols family has started a wonderful thing for the community.”

“This sounds like a great thing. I’m excited you asked me.”

“If you give me your contact info, I can forward it to my sister Hope. She’s really the one in charge.”

“Your name is Faith and you have a sister named Hope. Let me guess, do you have another one named Charity?”

“That would be logical, wouldn’t it? But my parents never did what was expected. They named our youngest sister Celeste.”

“Celeste is the children’s librarian in town and she’s also an author,” Ashley said. “And Hope is an illustrator.”

“Oh! Of course! Celeste and Hope Nichols. They wrote ‘Sparkle and the Magic Snowball’! The kids at the developmental skills center where I used to work loved that story. They even wrote a song about Sparkle.”

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