Page 59 of The Holiday Gift

Their premature Christmas Eve went off without a hitch. When they returned home, she changed into her pajamas and they played games and watched a favorite holiday movie, then she opened the one early present he allowed her—a carved ornament he had made from a pretty aspen burl on a downed tree he found in the mountains. In the morning she opened the rest of her presents from him and he fixed her breakfast, then she helped him take care of a few chores.

Too soon, her mother showed up after visiting her parents at the care center where Cindy’s mother was still recovering from her stroke.

Chase tried to put on a smile for Cindy, sorry all over again for the mess he had made of his marriage.

He had tried so hard to love her. Those early days had been happy, getting ready for the baby and then their early days with Addie, but their shared love of their daughter hadn’t provided strong enough glue to keep them together.

It hadn’t been Cindy’s fault that his heart hadn’t been completely free. Despite his best efforts, she somehow had sensed it all along and he regretted that now.

He understood why disappointment and hurt turned her bitter and cold toward him and he resolved to do his best to be kinder.

Addie had decided to leave some of the gifts he had given her at the ranch so she could enjoy them during her time with him there, but she still had several she wanted to take home. After he loaded them into her mom’s SUV, he hugged his daughter and kissed the top of her head. “Have a fun cruise, Addie-bug, and at Disney World. I want to hear every detail when you get back.”

“Okay,” she said, her arms tight around his neck. “You won’t be by yourself on Christmas, will you, Dad? You’ll go open presents at the Star N with Louisa and Barrett, right?”

His heart seemed to give a sharp little spasm. That’s what he had done for several years, even before Travis died, but that was looking unlikely this year.

“I’m not sure,” he lied. “I’ll be fine, whatever I do. Merry Christmas, kiddo.”

As they drove away, he caught sight of the lights of the Star N and The Christmas Ranch below the Brannon Ridge.

How was he going to make it through the remainder of his life without her—and without Lou and Barrett and the rest of her family he loved so much?

He didn’t have the first idea.

* * *

“Why isn’t Chase coming for dinner tonight?” Louisa asked as she and Barrett decorated Christmas cookie angels on the kitchen island.

“Yeah. He always comes over on Christmas Eve,” Barrett said.

“And on Christmas morning when we open presents,” Louisa added.

Faith had no idea how to answer her children. It made her chest ache all over again, just thinking about it.

That morning she had gathered her nerve and called to invite him for dinner and to make arrangements for transferring Louisa’s Christmas present from Brannon Ridge to the Star N. She had been so anxious about talking to him again after four days of deafening silence, but the call went straight to voice mail.

He was avoiding her.

That was fairly obvious, especially when he texted just moments later declining her invitation but telling her that he already had a plan to take care of the other matter and she didn’t need to worry about it.

The terse note after days of no contact hurt more than she could have imagined, even though she knew it was her own fault. She wanted so much to jump in her truck and drive to his ranch, to tell him she was sorry for all the pain she had put them both through.

“I guess he must have made other plans this year,” she said now in answer to her daughter.

Mary made a harrumphing sort of noise from her side of the island but said nothing else in front of the children, much to Faith’s relief.

Though her aunt didn’t know what had transpired between Faith and Chase, Mary knewsomethinghad. She blamed Faith for it and had made no secret that she wasn’t happy about it.

“Addie texted me a while ago. She’s worried he’ll be all by himself for the holidays,” Louisa said. Her daughter made it sound like that was the worst possible fate anyone could endure and the guilty knot under Faith’s rib cage seemed to expand.

Her children loved Chase—and vice versa. She hated being the cause of a rift between them.

“We should take him some of our cookies,” Barrett suggested.

“That’s a great idea,” Mary said, with a pointed look at her. “Faith, why don’t you take him some cookies? You could be there and back before everybody shows up for dinner.”

He didn’t want cookies from her. He didn’t wantanything—except the one thing she wasn’t sure she had the strength to give.

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