By the time she helped the last little boy finish his snowman, ushered them all out of the meeting room and then cleaned up the mess of leftover pillow stuffing and fleece remnants, it was forty minutes past the time she had told her sisters to expect her.

They would understand, she was sure. Hope might tease her a little, but Faith probably wouldn’t say anything. Their eldest sister saved her energy for the important things like running the cattle ranch and taking care of her children.

She stopped first at the foreman’s little cottage, just down the driveway from the main house. It felt strange to be living on her own again after the past year of being back in her own bedroom there. She had moved back after her brother-in-law Travis died the previous summer so she could help Faith—and Aunt Mary, of course—with the children and the housekeeping.

Hope had lived briefly in the foreman’s house until she and Rafe married this fall. After she’d moved into the house they purchased together, Faith and Mary had taken Celeste aside and informed her firmly that she needed her own space to create. She was a bestselling author now. While Faith loved and appreciated her dearly, she didn’t want Celeste to think she had to live at the ranch house for the rest of her life.

Rather reluctantly, she had moved to the foreman’s cottage, a nice compromise. She did like her own space and the quiet she found necessary to write, but she was close enough to pop into the ranch house several times a day.

As she walked inside, her little Yorkie, Linus, rolled over with glee at the sight of her.

She had to smile, despite her exhaustion from a long day, the lingering stress from the phone call with Joan and the complete shock of seeing Flynn Delaney once more.

“How was your day?” she asked the little dog, taking just a moment to sink onto the sofa and give him a little love. “Mine was crazy. Thanks for asking. The weirdest I’ve had in a long time—and that’s saying something, since the entire past year has been surreal.”

She hugged him for a moment. As she might have predicted, a sleek black cat peeked her head around the corner to see what all the fuss was about.

Lucy, who had been with her since college, strutted in with a haughty air that only lasted long enough for her to leap onto the sofa and bat her head against Celeste’s arm for a little of the same attention.

The two pets were the best of friends, which helped her feel less guilty about leaving them alone during the day. They seemed to have no problem keeping each other company most of the time, but that didn’t stop them from exhibiting classic signs of sibling rivalry at random moments.

She felt her tension trickle away as she sat in her quiet living room with her creatures while the Christmas tree lights that came on automatically gleamed in the gathering darkness. Why couldn’t she stay here all evening? There were worse ways to spend a December night.

Linus yipped a little, something he didn’t do often, but it reminded her of why she had stopped at the house.

“I know. I’m late. I just have to grab Aunt Mary’s present. Give me a second.”

She found the gift in her bedroom closet, the door firmly shut to keep Lucy from pulling apart the tissue paper inside the gift bag.

“Okay. I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Linus’s tail wagged with excitement, but Lucy curled up on the sofa, making abundantly clear her intent to stay put and not venture out into the cold night.

“Fine. Be that way,” she said, opening the door for the dog. The two of them made their way through lightly falling snow to the ranch house, a sprawling log structure with a steep roof and three gables along the front. Linus scampered ahead of her to the front door. When she opened it, the delicious scents of home greeted her—roast beef, potatoes and what smelled very much like cinnamon apple pie.

As she expected, her entire family was there, all the people she loved best in the world. Aunt Mary, the guest of honor, was busy at the stove stirring something that smelled like her heavenly brown gravy. She stepped aside to let Faith pull a pan of rolls out of the oven as Hope helped the children set the table, where her husband, Rafe, sat talking with their neighbor Chase Brannon.

The children spotted Linus first. They all adored each other—in fact, the children helped her out by letting him out when they got home from school and playing with him for a little bit.

“There you are,” Faith exclaimed. “I was beginning to worry.”

“Sorry. I sent you a text.”

Faith made a face. “My phone ran out of juice sometime this afternoon, but I didn’t realize it until just now. Is everything okay?”

Not really, though she wasn’t sure what bothered her more—the movie decision she would have to make in the next few days or the reappearance of Flynn Delaney in her world. She couldn’t seem to shake the weird feeling that her safe, comfortable world was about to change.

“Fine,” she said evasively. “I hope you didn’t hold dinner for me.”

“Not really. I was tied up going over some ranch accounts with Chase this afternoon, and we lost track of time.”

“Fine. Blame me. I can take it,” Chase said, overhearing.

“We always do,” Hope said with a teasing grin.

Chase had been invaluable to their family since Faith’s husband died, and Celeste was deeply grateful to him for all his help during the subsequent dark and difficult months.

“I’m happy to blame you, as long as that means I wasn’t the cause of any delay in Aunt Mary’s birthday celebration,” Celeste said with a smile as she headed for her great-aunt.

She kissed the woman’s lined cheek as the familiar scent of Mary’s favorite White Shoulders perfume washed over her. “Happy birthday, my dear. You are still just as stunning as ever.”

Mary’s grin lit up her nut-brown eyes. “Ha. Double sevens. That’s got to be lucky, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“I don’t need luck. I’ve got my family around me, don’t I?”

She smiled at them all and Celeste hugged her again, deeply grateful for her great-aunt and her great-uncle Claude, who had opened their hearts to three grieving, traumatized girls and gave them a warm haven and all the love they could need.

“We’re the lucky ones,” she murmured with another hug before she stepped away.

For all intents and purposes, Mary had been her mother since Celeste turned eleven. She had been a wonderful one. Celeste was all too aware that things could have been much different after their parents died if not for Mary and Claude. She and her sisters probably would have been thrown into the foster care system, likely separated, certainly not nurtured and cared for with such love.

She had a sudden, unexpected wish that their mother could be here, just for a moment, to see how her daughters had turned out—to meet her grandchildren, to see Hope so happily settled with Rafe, to see the completely unexpected success of their Sparkle book.

December always left her a little maudlin. She supposed that wasn’t unexpected, considering it had been the month that had changed everything, when she, her sisters and their parents had been hostages of a rebel group in Colombia. Her father had been killed in the rescue effort by a team of US Navy SEALs that had included Rafe Santiago, who was now her brother-in-law.

She wouldn’t think about that now. This was a time of celebration, a time to focus on the joy of being with her family, not the past.

She grabbed a black olive out of a bowl on the counter and popped it in her mouth as she carried the bowl to the table.

“I talked to Joan this afternoon,” she told Hope.

“I know. She called me, too. I reminded her that any decision about making a movie had to be made jointly between us, and each of us had veto power. Don’t worry, CeCe. I told her firmly that I wouldn’t pressure you. You created the Sparkle character. He belongs to you.”

That wasn’t completely true and both of them knew it. She might have written the words, but it was Hope’s illustrations that had brought him to life.

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted as Faith and Mary joined them at the table carrying bowls and trays of food.

“Your problem has always been that you analyze everything to death,” Mary pointed out. “You know someone is going to make a Sparkle movie at some point. It’s as inevitable as Christmas coming every year. People love the story and the characters too much. If you like this production company and think they’ll do a good job with it based on their reputation, I don’t know why you’re dragging your feet.”

Mary was right, she realized. She was overthinking, probably because she was so concerned with making the right decision.

She hated being afraid all the time. She knew it was a by-product of the trauma she and her sisters had endured at a young age, but neither Hope nor Faith seemed as impacted as she had been.

Hope seemed absolutely fearless, spending years wandering around underdeveloped countries with the Peace Corps, and then on her own teaching English. Faith had plowed all her energy and attention into her family—her marriage, her children, the ranch.

Celeste’s life had become her job at the library and the stories she created.

In some ways, she supposed she was still a hostage of Juan Pablo and his crazy group of militants, afraid to take a move and embrace her life.

“Everything’s ready and I’m starving,” Mary said cheerfully. “What are we waiting for? Let’s eat.”

Dinner was noisy and chaotic, with several different conversations going at once.

“How did story time go?” Faith asked when there was a lull in the conversation.

She instantly remembered the shock of looking up from Dr. Seuss to see Flynn and his daughter.

“Good.” She paused. “Charlotte Delaney’s grandson, Flynn, and his daughter were there. I guess he’s in town to clean out Charlotte’s house.”

“Flynn Delaney.” Hope made a sound low in her throat. “I used to love it whenever he came to stay with Charlotte. Remember how he used to mow the lawn with his shirt off?”

Celeste dropped her fork with a loud clatter, earning her a curious look from Hope.

“Really?” Rafe said, eyebrow raised. “So all this time I should have been taking my shirt off to mow the lawn?”

Hope grinned at him. “You don’t need to take your shirt off. You’re gorgeous enough even when you’re wearing a parka. Anyway, I was a teenage girl. Now that I’m older and wiser I prefer to use my imagination.”

He shook his head with an amused look, but Celeste was certain his ears turned a little red.

“You said Flynn came into the library with his daughter,” Faith said, her voice filled with compassion. “That poor girl. How is she?”

Considering Flynn’s connection to Charlotte, whom they all had loved, everyone in Pine Gulch had followed the news reports. Celeste thought of Olivia’s big, haunted eyes, the sad, nervous air about her.

“Hard to say. She limped a little and didn’t use her left arm while we were doing the craft project, but other than that she seemed okay.”

“Who is Flynn Delaney and what happened to his daughter?” Rafe asked.

“It was all over the news three or four months ago,” Chase said. “Around the time Charlotte died, actually.”

“You remember,” Hope insisted. “We talked about it. He was married to Elise Chandler.”

Understanding spread over Rafe’s handsome features. “Elise Chandler. The actress.” He paused. “Oh. That poor kid.”

“Right?” Hope frowned. “What a tragedy. I saw on some tabloid in the supermarket that Flynn never left her side through the whole recovery.”

Somehow that didn’t seem so surprising, especially considering his devotion to his daughter during story time.

“What happened to her?” Louisa asked. At eleven, she was intensely interested in the world around her.

Her mother was the one who answered. “Elise Chandler was a famous actress,” Faith said. “She was in that superhero movie you loved so much and a bunch of other films. Anyway, she was involved with someone who turned out to be a pretty messed-up guy. A few months ago after a big fight, he shot Elise and her daughter before shooting and killing himself. Even though she was injured, Olivia managed to crawl to her mother’s phone and call 911.”

Celeste had heard that 911 call, which had been made public shortly after the shooting, and the sound of that weak, panic-stricken voice calling for help had broken her heart.

“She seems to be doing well now. She didn’t smile much, but she did tell me she loves the Sparkle book and that her dad used to read it to her over and over again in the hospital.”

“Oh, how lovely!” Hope exclaimed. “You should take her one of the original Sparkle toys I sewed. I’ve still got a few left.”

“That’s a lovely idea,” Mary exclaimed. “We definitely should do something for that poor, poor girl. It would have broken Charlotte’s heart if she’d still been alive to see Flynn’s little girl have to go through such a thing.”

“You have to take it over there,” Hope insisted. “And how about a signed copy of the book and the new one that hasn’t come out yet?”

Her heart pounded at just the idea of seeing the man again. She couldn’t imagine knocking on his door out of the blue. “Why don’t you take it over? You’re the illustrator! And you made the stuffed Sparkle, too.”

“I don’t even know him or his daughter.”

“As if that’s ever stopped you before,” she muttered.

“It would be a really nice thing to do,” Faith said.

“I baked an extra pie,” Aunt Mary said. “Why don’t you take that, too?”

All day long people had been pushing her to do things she didn’t want to. She thought longingly of jumping in her SUV again and taking off somewhere, maybe Southern California where she could find a little sunshine. As tempting as the idea might be sometimes, she knew she couldn’t just leave her family. She loved them to bits, even when they did pressure her.

She wanted to tell them all no, but then she thought of Olivia and her sad eyes. This was a small expenditure of effort on her part and would probably thrill the girl. “That’s a very good idea,” she finally said. “I’ll go after dinner. Linus can probably use the walk.”

“Perfect.” Hope beamed at her as if she had just won the Newbery Medal for children’s literature. “I’ll look for the stuffed Sparkle. I think there’s a handful of them left in a box in my old room.”

What would Flynn think when she showed up at his house with a stuffed animal and an armful of books? she wondered as she chewed potatoes that suddenly tasted like chalk.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. She was doing this for his daughter, a girl who had been through a terrible ordeal—and who reminded her entirely too much of herself.

Chapter Three

“Are you sure you don’t want to help? This tinsel isn’t going to jump on the tree by itself.”

Flynn held a sparkly handful out to his daughter, who sat in the window seat, alternating between watching him and looking out into the darkness at the falling snowflakes.

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “My arm hurts too much.”

He tried to conceal his frustrated sigh behind a cough. The physical therapist he had been taking her to since her injury had given him homework during this break while they were in Idaho. His assignment was to find creative activities that would force her to use her arm more.

He had tried a wide variety of things, like having Olivia push the grocery cart and help him pick out items in the store, and asking her help in the kitchen with slicing vegetables. The inconsistency of it made him crazy. Sometimes she was fine; other times she refused to use her arm at all.

After their trip to the library, he’d realized his grandmother’s house was severely lacking in holiday cheer. She had made a snowman ornament and they had nowhere to hang it.

Any hope he might have harbored that she would show a little enthusiasm for the idea of decking their temporary halls was quickly dashed. She showed the same listless apathy toward Christmas decorations as she had for just about everything else except Celeste Nichols and her little reindeer story.

Other than hanging her own snowman ornament, she wasn’t interested in helping him hang anything else on the small artificial tree he had unearthed in the basement. As a result, he had done most of the work while she sat and watched, not budging from her claim of being in too much pain.

He knew using her arm caused discomfort. He hadn’t yet figured out how to convince an almost-seven-year-old she needed to work through the pain if she ever wanted to regain full mobility in her arm.

“Come on. Just take a handful and help me. It will be fun.”

She shook her head and continued staring out at the falling snow.

Since the shooting, these moods had come over her out of nowhere. She would seem to be handling things fine and then a few moments later would become fearful, withdrawn and just want him to leave her alone.

The counselor she had seen regularly assured him it was a natural result of the trauma Olivia had endured. He hated that each step in her recovery—physical and emotional—had become such a struggle for her.

After hanging a few more strands, he finally gave up. What was the point when she didn’t seem inclined to help him, especially since he’d never much liked tinsel on trees anyway?

His father hadn’t, either, he remembered. He had a stray memory of one of his parents’ epic fights over it one year. Diane had loved tinsel, naturally. Anything with glitz had been right down her alley. Her favorite nights of the year had been red carpet events, either for her own movie premieres or those of her friends.

His father, on the other hand, had thought tinsel was stupid and only made a mess.

One night when he was about seven or eight, a few years before they’d finally divorced, his mother had spent hours hanging pink tinsel on their tree over his father’s objections, carefully arranging each piece over a bough.

When they’d woken up, the tinsel had been mysteriously gone. As it turned out, Tom had arisen hours before anyone else and had pulled off every last shiny strand.

After a dramatic screaming fight—all on his mother’s side—she had stormed out of their Bel Air house and hadn’t been back for several days, as he recalled.

Ah, memories.

He pushed away the bitterness of his past and turned back to his daughter. “If you don’t want to hang any more tinsel, I guess we’re done. Do you want to do the honors and turn out the lights so we can take a look at it?”

She didn’t answer him, her gaze suddenly focused on something through the window.

“Someone’s coming,” Olivia announced, her voice tight. She jumped up from the window seat. “I’m going to my room.”

He was never sure which she disliked more: large, unruly crowds or unexpected visitors showing up at the door. Nor was he certain she would ever be able to move past either fear.

With effort he forced his voice to be calm and comforting. “There’s no reason to go to your room. Everything is fine. I’m right here. You’re okay.”

She darted longing little glances down the hall to the relative safety of her bedroom, but to her credit she sat down again in the window seat. When the doorbell rang through the house, Flynn didn’t miss her instinctive flinch or the tense set of her shoulders.

He hoped whoever it was had a darn good excuse for showing up out of the blue like this and frightening his little girl half to death.

To his shock, the pretty librarian and author stood on the porch with a bag in her hand and a black-and-brown dog at the end of a leash. In the glow from the porch light he could see her nose and cheeks were pink from the cold, and those long, luscious dark curls were tucked under a beanie. She also wasn’t wearing her glasses. Without the thick dark frames, her eyes were a lovely green.

“Hello.” She gave him a fleeting, tentative smile that appeared and disappeared as quickly as a little bird hunting for berries on a winter-bare shrub.

“Celeste. Ms. Nichols. Hello.”

She gave him another of those brief smiles, then tried to look behind him to where Olivia had approached. At least his daughter now looked more surprised and delighted than fearful.

“And hello, Miss Olivia,” the librarian said. “How are you tonight?”

Her voice was soft, calm, with a gentleness he couldn’t help but appreciate.

“Hi. I’m fine, thank you,” she said shyly. “Is that your dog?”

Celeste smiled as the dog sniffed at Olivia’s feet. “This is Linus. He’s a Yorkshire terrier and his best friend is a black cat named Lucy.”

“Like in Charlie Brown’s Christmas!” She looked delighted at making the connection.

“Just like that, except Linus and Lucy are brother and sister. My Linus and Lucy are just friends.”

Olivia slanted her head to look closer at the little dog. “Will he bite?”

Celeste smiled. “He’s a very sweet dog and loves everybody, but especially blonde girls with pretty red sweaters.”

Olivia giggled at this, and after another moment during which she gathered her courage, she held out her hand. The little furball licked it three times in quick succession, which earned another giggle from his daughter.

“Hi, Linus,” she said in a soft voice. “Hi. I’m Olivia.”

The dog wagged his tail but didn’t bark, which Flynn had to appreciate given how skittish Olivia had been all evening.

She knelt down and started petting the dog—using her injured left arm, he saw with great surprise.

“He likes me!” Olivia exclaimed after a moment, her features alight with a pleasure and excitement he hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Of course he does.” Celeste smiled down at her with a soft light in her eyes that touched something deep inside him.

“I’m sorry to just drop in like this, but I couldn’t help thinking tonight about what you told me earlier, how the Sparkle book helped you in the hospital.”

“It’s my favorite book. I still read it all the time.”

“I’m so happy to hear that. I told my sister, who drew all the pictures, and she was happy, too. We wanted to give you something.”

“Is it for my birthday in three days? I’m going to be seven years old.”

“I had no idea it was your birthday in three days!” Celeste exclaimed. “We can certainly consider this an early birthday present. That would be perfect!”

She reached into the bag and pulled out a small stuffed animal.

“That’s Sparkle from the book!” Olivia rose to see it more closely.

“That’s right. My sister made this while she was drawing the pictures for the first Sparkle book last Christmas. We have just a few of them left over from the original hundred or so she made, and I wondered if you might like one.”

Olivia’s eyes went huge. “Really? I can keep it?”

“If you want to.”

“Oh, I do!” Almost warily, she reached for the stuffed animal Celeste held out. When it was in her hands, she hugged it to her chest as if afraid someone would yank it away.

For just a moment she looked like any other young girl, thrilled to be receiving a present. The sheer normalcy made his throat suddenly ache with emotions.

“He’s sooo cute. I love it! Thank you!”

Olivia threw her arms around Celeste in a quick hug. Flynn wasn’t sure if he was more shocked at her use of her injured arm or at the impulsive gesture. Like a puppy that had been kicked one too many times, Olivia shied away from physical touch right now from anyone but him.

Her therapist said it was one more reaction to the trauma she had endured and that eventually she would be able to relax around others and return to the sweet, warm little girl she once had been. He wondered if Dr. Ross ever would have guessed a stuffed reindeer might help speed that process.

Celeste probably had no idea what a rare gift she had just been given as she hugged Olivia back. Still, she looked delighted. “You’re very welcome,” she said. “You will have to come up to The Christmas Ranch sometime. That’s where the real Sparkle lives.”

Olivia stepped away, eyes wide. “The real Sparkle lives near here?”

“Just up the road.” Celeste gestured vaguely in the direction of her family’s place. “We’ve got a herd of about a dozen reindeer. Sparkle happens to be a favorite of my niece and nephew—of all of us, really. That’s where I got the inspiration for the stories.”

“Can we go see them, Dad? Can we?”

He shrugged. That was the thing about kids. They dragged you to all kinds of places you didn’t necessarily want to go. “Don’t know why not. We can probably swing that before the holidays.”

Christmas was just around the corner and he was completely unprepared for it. He didn’t like celebrating the holidays in the first place. He didn’t really feel like hanging out at some cheesy Christmas moneymaking venture aimed at pouring holiday spirit down his throat like cheap bourbon.

But he loved his daughter, and if she wanted to go to the moon right now, he would figure out a way to take her.

“I like your tree,” Celeste said, gazing around his grandmother’s cluttered living room. “I especially like the tinsel. Did you help your dad put it up?”

A small spasm of guilt crossed her features. “Not really,” she admitted. “My dad did most of it. I have a bad arm.”

She lifted her shoulder and the arm in question dangled a little as if it were an overcooked lasagna noodle.

To her credit, Celeste didn’t question how she could use that same arm to pet the dog or hold a stuffed reindeer.

“Too bad,” she only said. “You’re probably really good at hanging tinsel.”

“Pretty good. I can’t reach the high parts of the tree, though.”

“Your dad helps you get those, right?”

“I guess.”

Celeste picked up the bag of tinsel where Flynn had left it on the console table. “Can I help you put the rest of it up on the side you didn’t get to yet? I’m kind of a tinsel expert. Growing up on The Christmas Ranch, I had to be.”

Olivia looked at the tree, then her father, then back at Celeste holding the tinsel. “Okay,” she said with that same wariness.

“It will be fun. You’ll see. Sparkle can help. He’s good at tinsel, too.”

How she possibly could have guessed from a half-tinseled tree that he had been trying to enlist his daughter’s help with decorating, he had no idea. But he wasn’t about to argue with her insight, especially when Olivia obediently followed her new heroine to the tree and reached for a handful of tinsel.

“Can I take your coat?” he asked.

“Oh. Yes. Thanks.” She gave a nervous little laugh as she handed him her coat. At the library, she had been wearing a big, loose sweater that had made him wonder what was beneath it. She had taken that layer off apparently, and now she wore a cheerful red turtleneck that accentuated her luscious curves and made his mouth water.

He had an inkling that she was the sort of woman who had no idea the kind of impact she had on a man. As he went to hang her coat by the front door, he forced himself to set aside the reaction as completely inappropriate under the circumstances, especially when she was only trying to help his kid.

When he returned to the living room, he found her and Olivia standing side by side hanging tinsel around the patches of the tree he had left bare.

Her cute little dog had finished sniffing the corners of the room and planted himself on his haunches in the middle of the floor, where he could watch the proceedings.

Flynn leaned against the doorjamb to do the same thing.

How odd, that Olivia would respond to a quiet children’s librarian and author more than she had her counselor, her physical therapist, the caregivers at the hospital. She seemed to bloom in this woman’s company, copying her actions on the lower branches she could reach. While she still seemed to be favoring her injured arm, occasionally she seemed to forget it hurt and used it without thinking.

All in all, it wasn’t a terrible way to spend a December evening while a gas fire flickered in Grandma Charlotte’s fireplace and snowflakes fluttered down outside the window.

After several moments, the two of them used the last of the tinsel and Celeste stepped away to take in the bigger picture.

“That looks perfect!” she exclaimed. “Excellent job.”

Olivia’s smile was almost back to her normal one. She held up the stuffed animal. “Sparkle helped.”

“I told you he would be very good at hanging tinsel.”

Whatever worked, he figured. “Let me hit the lights for you,” he said. “We can’t appreciate the full effects with the lights on.”

He turned them off, pitching the room into darkness except for the gleaming tree. The tinsel really did reflect the lights. His mom had been right about that, even if she had gotten so many other things wrong.

“Oh. I love it. It’s the prettiest tree ever,” Olivia declared.

“I have to agree,” Flynn said. “Good job, both of you.”

“And you,” Olivia pointed out. “You did most of it earlier. We only filled in the gaps.”

“So I did. We’re all apparently excellent at decorating Christmas trees.”

Celeste met his gaze and smiled. He gazed back, struck again by how lovely she was with those big green eyes that contrasted so strikingly with her dark hair.

He was staring, he realized, and jerked his gaze away, but not before he thought he saw color climb her high cheekbones. He told himself it must have been a trick of the Christmas lights.

“Oh, I nearly forget,” she exclaimed suddenly. “I have another birthday present for you. Two, actually.”

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A Cold Creek Christmas Story

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