Page 61 of The Holiday Gift

At almost that exact moment, she heard a noise coming from above her. She whirled toward the hayloft that took up one half of the barn and spotted him there, his back to her, along with the missing pitchfork.

“Chase!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

He swiveled around, and for an arrested moment, he looked at her with so much love and longing, she almost wept again.

Too quickly, he veiled his features. “Feeding Lou’s new horse. While I was at it, I figured I could take care of the rest of your stock in the barn so you wouldn’t have to worry about it tonight. I was hoping to get out of here before you came down from the house but obviously I’m not fast enough.”

He had done that for her, even though he was furious with her. She wanted to cry all over again.

Happiness seemed to bloom through her like springtime and the old barn had never looked so beautiful.

She swallowed, focusing on the least important thought running through her head. “How did you get the new horse down here? I never saw your trailer.”

“I didn’t want Lou to see it and wonder what was going on so I came in the back way, down the hill. I rode Tor and tied the mare’s lead line to his saddle.”

“You came down through all that snow?” she exclaimed. “How on earth did you manage that?” There were drifts at least four feet deep in places on that ridgeline.

“It was slow going but Tor is tough and so’s the new little mare. She’s going to be a great horse for Lou.”

She felt completely overwhelmed suddenly, humbled and astonished that he would go to such lengths for her daughter.

And for her, she realized.

This was only one of a million other acts over the last few years that provided all the evidence anyone could need that he loved her.

“I can’t believe you would do that.”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he said, his tone distant.

“It is a big deal to me. It’s huge. Oh, Chase.”

The tears from earlier broke free again and a small sob escaped before she could cover her mouth with her fingers.

“Cut it out. Right now.”

She almost laughed at the alarm in his voice, despite the tears that continued to trickle down her cheeks.

“I can’t. I’m sorry. When the man I love shows me all over again how wonderful he is, I tend to get emotional. You’re just going to have to deal with that.”

Her words seemed to hang in the air of the barn like dust motes floating in the last pale shafts of Christmas Eve sunlight. He stared at her for a second, then lurched toward the ladder. Before he reached it, his boot heel caught on something. He staggered for just a moment and tried to regain his balance but he didn’t have anything to hold on to.

He fell in what felt like slow motion, landing with a hard thud that sounded almost as loud as her instinctive scream.

* * *

He couldn’t breathe—and not because her words had stunned him. No. He literally couldn’t breathe.

For a good five seconds, his lungs were frozen, the wind knocked hard out of him. He was aware on some level of her running toward him to kneel next to him, of her panicked, tearstained features and her hands on his face and her cries of “breathe, breathe,breathe.”

He wasn’t sure if the advice was for him or herself but then, just as abruptly, the spasm in his diaphragm eased and he could inhale again, a small breath and then increasingly deeper until he dared talk again.

“I’m...okay.”

She was reaching for her phone when he spoke. At his voice, she gasped, dropping it to the concrete floor of the barn and throwing herself across him with an impact that made him grunt.

She immediately eased away. “Where does it hurt? I need to call an ambulance. It will probably take them a while to get here so it might be faster for me to just drive you.”

The panic in her voice seeped through his discomfort and he reached out a hand to cover hers.

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