The Cowboy's Family Christmas Read online

  Holiday Ranch Reunion

  Leanne Walsh is stunned when Reuben Walsh returns to his family’s ranch for the holidays. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself that marrying the more stable Walsh brother was the right decision, it was unpredictable Reuben who held her heart—until he broke it. Leanne’s frosty reception cuts deeper than Reuben expected, yet he can’t leave the widowed single mom shorthanded with Christmas drawing near. He built his dreams around Leanne once before, and now is trying to resist her and her sweet young son. But in a season full of surprises, the promise of family is a gift too tempting to ignore.

  “I need to get to work.”

  “Not on your own,” Reuben stated.

  “What do you propose I do? Run to the hired-hand store?” Leanne asked.

  For the past three years, she had heard nothing from Reuben. A man she had given her heart to and so much more.

  And now he’d swooped back into her life and told her what she should and shouldn’t do on a ranch he’d walked away from? A ranch he’d never showed any interest in?

  “I could help out until you’re done,” he said.

  Her head spun and all she could do was stare at him. Reuben? Working alongside her on the ranch?

  She shook her head. “No. That’s not happening. We’ll manage on our own.”

  “You won’t and you know it,” he returned.

  She fought a confusing mix of anger and loss as she held his dark brown eyes. Eyes she was once lost in.

  Focus. He’s not the man you thought he was.

  Carolyne Aarsen and her husband, Richard, live on a small ranch in northern Alberta, where they have raised four children and numerous foster children and are still raising cattle. Carolyne crafts her stories in an office with a large west-facing window, through which she can watch the changing seasons while struggling to make her words obey. Visit her website at carolyneaarsen.com.

  Books by Carolyne Aarsen

  Love Inspired

  Cowboys of Cedar Ridge

  Courting the Cowboy

  Second-Chance Cowboy

  The Cowboy’s Family Christmas

  Big Sky Cowboys

  Wrangling the Cowboy’s Heart

  Trusting the Cowboy

  The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby

  Lone Star Cowboy League

  A Family for the Soldier

  Refuge Ranch

  Her Cowboy Hero

  Reunited with the Cowboy

  The Cowboy’s Homecoming

  Hearts of Hartley Creek

  A Father’s Promise

  Unexpected Father

  A Father in the Making

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  THE COWBOY’S

  FAMILY CHRISTMAS

  Carolyne Aarsen

  You intended to harm me,

  but God intended it for good.

  —Genesis 50:20

  For my grandkids. You’ve taught me

  a whole new huge kind of love.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from The Lawman's Yuletide Baby by Ruth Logan Herne

  Chapter One

  It was a surprisingly balmy Tuesday for November. Fall seemed reluctant to leave and Leanne Walsh was fine with that. She had too much to do on the ranch.

  Late afternoon sunshine softened the day, creating gentle shadows on the Porcupine Hills of Alberta. A chill cooled the air, a threat of winter coming. Leanne hoped it hung off for at least a week. They still had cows to move down from the upper pastures and then had to process them.

  Her son, Austin, sat astride the palomino mare his grandfather purchased a half a year ago when Austin was only two. Leanne had protested the expense but George Walsh insisted that Walshes learned to ride a proper horse as young as possible.

  Now Austin was laughing down at her, his shock of brown hair falling over his forehead, his chubby hands clutching the saddle horn, the cowboy hat he’d gotten a couple of weeks ago clamped firmly on his head. Since George had given it to Austin, he’d worn it nonstop.

  “He looks comfortable up there.” George stood by the fence, his arms hooked over the top rail, his battered cowboy hat pushed back on his head. Though he was only fifty-eight, Leanne’s father-in-law looked twenty years older.

  Life had knocked a lot out of the man, Leanne thought, acknowledging his gruff comment with a tight nod. He’d lost his first wife to cancer and was left with a young son, then he was abandoned by the second wife, leaving him with another young son. Dirk, his eldest son and Leanne’s late husband, now lay buried in the graveyard abutting the church in Cedar Ridge, and the son of his second marriage, Reuben was so far out of George’s life, he may as well be dead.

  “Is that mare favoring her one leg?” George asked, concern edging his voice.

  Leanne watched more carefully as the horse walked, each footfall of Heart’s Delight’s hooves raising small puffs of dust in the round pen. “I can’t see it,” she said glancing up at her son again, the sight of him pulling her mouth into a full smile. “But I’ll keep an eye out.”

  “Not always easy for someone like you to catch that kind of thing.”

  Someone like you.

  Though Leanne knew he spoke of her ability to read horses, those three simple words had the power to make her shoulders hunch and her hands clench the halter rope.

  Those three words held a weight of history behind them. George had tossed them at her when he discovered that she, a Rennie, daughter of one of the most hated and useless men in Cedar Ridge, dared to think she could date his favored son, Dirk Walsh, let alone marry him.

  “I know enough about horses to see if one is lame or not,” she finally returned. “And if you have any further concerns, we can bring it to see Tabitha or Morgan.” Her sister held an equine specialist degree and her fiancé, Morgan Walsh, was a vet. Together they were starting a new vet clinic on some acreage Tabitha owned close to town.

  “Morgan doesn’t even have his clinic done yet,” George groused.

  “It will be. But for now they can still diagnose any problems Heart’s Delight might have.”

  George’s only reply was a slight curl of his lip and she fought the urge to defend her sister. Leanne knew it was only because of her marriage to Dirk and because of his grandson, Austin, that George tolerated her presence.

  Which had made her even more determined to prove herself to him. Prove she was worthy. As a result she spent every available minute working on the ranch. Showing that she could ride and rope better than any hired hand they had, including their latest, Chad. She did the bookkeeping and dealt with the accountant.

  “Is Chad coming again tomorrow?” Leanne asked.

  Their new hired hand had started a couple of days ago but hadn’t come to work y
esterday and called in sick today. Which made her wonder if she would have to start looking for another hired hand all over again.

  “He said he would. Though I don’t know why you hired him. He doesn’t know much about cows or horses,” George grumbled.

  “He’s willing and I think he can be trained.” She wanted to say more but the sound of a truck engine caught both their attentions.

  The ranch was nestled in a valley, well off the main road snaking through the hills. People arriving at the ranch had to drive along a switchback road that traversed the hill leading down to the ranch. If they didn’t know the road, it could be trouble. And this person was driving far too fast.

  “Idiot is going to overshoot the second turn,” George muttered, pushing away from the fence, irritation edging his voice. “Probably some salesman who doesn’t know how to drive his fancy truck in the back of the beyond.”

  But whoever it was seemed to know the road because, in spite of the speed of the vehicle, the truck easily made it around the corner and then down the tree-lined road toward the ranch. It suddenly slowed at the cattle guard, and as it rattled across, unease niggled through Leanne.

  Though the driver seemed familiar with the approach to the Bar W Ranch, Leanne didn’t recognize the black truck with the gleaming grill getting coated with dust.

  It made the tight bend past the house, then came toward the corrals. As the driver killed the engine, silence fell again.

  The door opened and a tall, broad-shouldered man stepped out wearing a cowboy hat over his collar-length hair. Sunglasses shaded his face and he dropped a cell phone into the pocket of a worn twill shirt, the sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms. Faded blue jeans hugged his hips and his boots were scuffed and worn at the heel.

  He started walking toward them with the easy rolling gait of a man who had spent time on a horse. Definitely not a salesman.

  “Can I help you?” George asked, the irritation in his voice shifting to aggression.

  Leanne groaned. Please, Lord, she prayed as she led Austin and his horse to the rail fence, don’t let this be one of the officials from the association who promised to come and visit someday.

  Seeing George in full-on Walsh mode wouldn’t help their cause. She was the temporary secretary for the Cedar Ridge Rodeo Group. For the past couple years the group had tried to get their town’s rodeo to be a part of the larger Milk River Rodeo Association. They needed all the goodwill they could muster.

  “This is private land,” George continued as the man drew closer.

  “Here, punkin, why don’t you come down?” Leanne asked, tying up the horse and reaching for Austin. She had to intervene before George took a notion to grab the shotgun stashed in the barn behind them.

  Leanne lifted her son over the fence, clambered over herself, picked Austin up, then hurried over to where her father-in-law stood, hands planted on his hips, head thrust forward in an aggressive gesture. “What’s your business here?” George growled.

  But the stranger was unfazed by George’s belligerence. A slow smile crawled across his well-shaped mouth, shaded by a scruff of whiskers, and the unease in Leanne grew.

  “Hey, George,” the man said, sweeping his sunglasses off, tucking them in the pocket of his shirt and flicking his cowboy hat back. “Been a few years.”

  Leanne’s legs suddenly went numb. Her heart turned to ice at the sound of that voice. At the sight of those brown eyes, crinkled at the corners.

  Reuben Walsh.

  Prodigal son come home.

  And right behind all her initial reactions came a wave of anger so fierce it threatened to swamp her.

  * * *

  Reuben Walsh had known his father wouldn’t throw out the welcome mat when he saw him nor kill the fatted calf when he arrived. And he had guessed Leanne wouldn’t be thrilled either.

  But the blatant rage in her narrowed eyes was unexpected.

  The last time he’d seen her, she’d been lying in a hospital bed, her auburn hair tied up in a tangled ponytail he knew would have driven her crazy. Leanne always wore her thick hair loose, hanging halfway down her back. Always had her nails perfectly done. Always looked amazing even in the simple clothes she tended to wear.

  But at that time she lay unconscious, her pale features slack as if she were as dead as her husband, Dirk, was. His brother, Dirk.

  She and Dirk had been on their way back from their honeymoon after a quick and unexpected wedding that happened before Reuben had flown back to Cedar Ridge.

  To propose to Leanne himself.

  He stopped in at the hospital to see her after his brother’s funeral, stood by her bed, the angry questions swirling around his mind unable to be asked, and then he left. Taking his ring and his broken heart with him. He hadn’t been back since. Nor had he and Leanne been in contact.

  What could they possibly have to say to each other?

  “Hey, Leanne,” he said, surprised at the hitch in his voice when their eyes met.

  To his surprise and disappointment, old feelings gripped his heart.

  For years she had occupied his waking thoughts and drifted through his dreams. Now here she stood, Dirk’s widow, with his nephew resting on her hip. Two reminders of the distance between them.

  “Hey, Reuben.”

  Her voice was cool and clipped. He felt his own ire rise up, wondering what right she had to be bent out of shape.

  “What are you doing here?” His father’s gruff voice grated and once again Reuben fought the old inferiority his father always created in him.

  When Reuben received the email from Owen Herne, chairman of the Cedar Ridge Rodeo Group, asking him to assess the unfinished arena for them, he’d been tempted to delete it. He had no desire to return to Cedar Ridge and face the woman he had loved, now the widow of his forever-favored older brother. And why would he deliberately put himself in the line of his father’s constant disapproval? He had lived with that long enough when he was a teenager.

  The last time he was in Cedar Ridge was three years ago to attend his brother’s funeral. George had been so bitter, he hadn’t acknowledged Reuben’s presence. No personal greeting. No question about how he was doing. No recognition of Reuben’s own pain at the loss of a brother.

  As for Leanne, she’d still been unconscious and in the hospital. While seeing her so incapacitated had gutted him, in some twisted way it was probably for the best. Reuben wouldn’t have known what to say to her after she’d left him for his brother.

  But the tiny part of him that still clung to hope pushed him to come home.

  “Owen asked me to come talk to the Rodeo Group. About the arena,” Reuben said, determined not to let these two show how much influence they had over his life and emotions.

  “He never said anything to me,” George complained.

  “You’ll have to take that up with him,” Reuben said, trying to keep his tone light and conversational. “But the ranch was on my way to town. I thought I would stop by and say hello.”

  “It’s been a long time since you were here,” George said.

  On this point Reuben couldn’t fault him, though he stifled a beat of resentment at his father’s frowning disapproval. Didn’t matter what he did when he was growing up, George criticized him.

  Come home with good marks?

  Well, he could have done better.

  Ride the rankest bronc in the rodeo?

  Could have scored higher.

  Never as good as his brother. Never as good as Dirk.

  “It has been a while,” Reuben agreed. He wasn’t apologizing for his lack. As the son of the wife who had taken off, Reuben often felt his father held him to account for his mother’s behavior. And Reuben had taken that on, as well, always trying to find ways to earn his gruff father’s approval.

  But it nev
er happened. In fact George had made it clear Dirk would take over the ranch when he was old enough and that there was no place for Reuben in spite of all the work he had done here year after year. Reuben left home as soon as he graduated high school. He rode rodeo in the summer and took on any odd job to help pay for his structural engineering classes. He was determined to show his father he could go it alone. Now he had a degree and had already racked up some impressive jobs. Though his heart had always been here in Cedar Ridge, once he discovered that Dirk and Leanne had had a baby, he shelved any hope of coming back.

  His eyes drifted again to Leanne, the woman who, at one time, he had dared to weave dreams and plans around.

  “So, here we are,” he said.

  Instead of responding, she set his nephew, Austin, on his feet and clung to his chubby little hand. She adjusted the little cowboy hat he wore, then glanced over at George.

  Looking everywhere but at him as a tense silence fell between them.

  Since she’d moved here with her sister, Tabitha, and her father when she was in high school, Leanne Rennie had only had eyes for his older brother, Dirk. And he knew why. Dirk was the good brother. Steady. Solid. Dependable. A Christian.

  Reuben knew exactly who he was. The irresponsible younger brother who could only worship Leanne from afar.

  Though Leanne had dated his brother for years and been engaged to Dirk for four of them, Reuben had never been able to completely let go of his feelings for her.

  But Dirk held off on setting a wedding date for four years. Then, as if she couldn’t wait any longer, Leanne broke up with Dirk. His brother left for Europe, and he and Leanne met up at his cousin’s destination wedding in Costa Rica. They’d spent two glorious weeks together. She’d confessed that, while she had always wanted the security Dirk could offer, she had a hard time denying her changing feelings for Reuben.

  They decided they wanted to be together but she had said that she needed to tell Dirk first. Reuben couldn’t figure out why, but he gave Leanne the space she asked for.

  Then when Dirk came back from his trip, the next thing he heard, via his cousin Cord, was that Dirk and Leanne had eloped. Reuben was devastated, hurt, then the anger kicked in and he threw himself into his work. He was determined to prove he didn’t need anyone. That he could be successful.