Page 81 of A Rancher's Heart
Huh. He hadn’t been sure until that moment, but it was obvious somethinghadhappened.
“What’s wrong?” Caleb asked softer. “You’ve always got a home here. And if there’s anything I can do to help, it’s yours.”
Walker dipped his head. “I know. And hey, I came back, didn’t I? I know how much you care, in spite of you not talking up a storm.”
“But you’re not going to tell me anything more…”
“You ready to admit your secrets, bro?”
They stared sheepishly at each other. Stalemate. Nothing to admit until he’d figured out the next step, preferably with Tamara.
Silence surrounded Caleb on the walk to the house, the icy winter air slicing into his lungs, sharp and painful. At the same time, the world sparkled. Crisp and shiny, the fresh-fallen snow painted the landscape clean.
Stepping into the kitchen was like walking into a hug, the house filled with all sorts of delicious scents and the low murmur of voices.
An excited squeal accompanied Emma’s rush in his direction. She stopped a foot away to take a cautious sniff before throwing her arms around him. “It’s Christmas.”
He caught her in his arms and threw her skyward, joy kicking hard through him as laughter spilled from her lips. “How did that happen? I could have sworn it was summer. What’s Santa doing coming in the middle of summer?”
Sasha was there, catching hold of his other side and squeezing tightly. “Merry Christmas, Daddy.”
He reached down and lifted her as well, their squeals of delight making the warmth of the room all but disappear because this warmed him even more, inside and out. “Merry Christmas, pumpkin. Are there really presents under the tree?”
Two heads nodded. They squirmed to be set free, and he put them down, pausing to remove his boots as he gazed into the living room. “That’s a fine-looking tree,” he said to Tamara who sat all bundled up under a blanket on the couch. A cup in her hand and laughter in her eyes.
“It’s amazing,” she replied. “One minute it wasn’t there, thenpoof. The next it was.”
Emma paused at Tamara’s knee for two seconds before climbing into her lap as if she belonged there. But it wasn’t until she cupped a hand to Tamara’s ear that Caleb’s throat threatened to close off for good.
Tamara’s gaze met his as Emma whispered something, a sweet smile directed at him before she turned her attention to his daughter and nodded vigorously. “I’m sure Santa found the things you made. You should check the packages and see if any of them have your daddy’s name on them.”
Caleb stood there for one more moment before his feet carried him down the hall, vanishing into his room without a word.
He leaned his hands on the door and fought for control. This was what it was supposed to be when you had a family. This was what Christmas morningshouldbe like—and the sheer wrongness of the past threatened to choke him.
He took a few deep breaths, attempting to push away the old. Wendy wasn’t part of the girls’ lives anymore. She hadn’t been for a couple of years, and she couldn’t come in and hurt them.
Tamara had shown him he had that right.
He changed from his work clothes, a real mixture of pleasure and pain swirling in his gut. This was going to be the best Christmas ever for the girls, but he still…
Why did he feel as if there were an aching, empty hole inside?
The modestly noisy house grew louder as the morning progressed and as the rest of the family arrived, the back door opening again and again as his brothers joined them.
Dustin wore a Santa hat, the paper bag in his hand that held presents taken eagerly by Emma to be placed under the tree. Sasha hauled him off to help set the table for the upcoming meal, and secrets in the form of low whispers bounced back and forth between the two of them as they worked, the lanky young man and his energetic niece.
Walker hung his cowboy hat on one of the hooks by the door before coming forward with small, twisted bits of tin foil he placed at each person’s spot at the table.
Luke marched in right when they were getting ready to sit down to dinner, his arms full of packages. Penny wasn’t with him.
Tamara eyed him. “Where’s your fiancée?”
Luke blinked, looking up from where he’d been hugging the girls. “Penny? Oh, she said to pass on her apologies, but she couldn’t make it. She’ll try to come tonight, but there was something her dad needed her to do, so she couldn’t leave until later.”
He shrugged.
Caleb wondered if Luke really didn’t mind, or if his brother was putting on a show and hiding his disappointment.
