A Cowboy Christmas: Snowbound Christmas / Falling for the Christmas Cowboy. Linda Goodnight

       Chapter One

      Caleb Girard didn’t believe in miracles. But he needed one.

      With a frigid north wind ripping at him, Caleb kicked the wooden barn door closed and started toward his ranch house fifty yards away. The new calf shivered in his arms, a runt of a thing that wouldn’t survive till morning in this weather. But Caleb was a man who believed in giving things a chance. Long ago, a man had given him the only chance he’d ever had, and now that man was dying.

      Yeah. They needed a miracle. If Caleb was a praying man, he’d ask for one. But he’d never found praying to do one bit of good.

      Sometimes God or life or whatever was unfair. But Pops, a devout Christian, would be brokenhearted to hear Caleb say such a thing. So he wouldn’t. But he thought it. Every day since the terrifying diagnosis.

      Chilled to the soul for more reasons than the arctic front, he stomped through the back door of the one-story house and placed the calf on a rug near the glowing fireplace. Ripley, his border collie, trotted in behind him and curled up beside the calf as if he knew the baby needed body heat.

      Caleb gave the dog a gentle pat. “Take care of him, buddy.”

      He tossed another log on the fire and hung his coat on a peg by the door, anticipating an afternoon in the cold. If his rancher’s intuition was right, snow would fall before Christmas. Or, worst-case scenario, ice. They got more of that in eastern Oklahoma than the fluffy stuff. Kids always hoped for snow. Realists and ranchers, of which he was both, appreciated the rain, but God could keep the rest.

      He stopped at the kitchen sink to wash up. Maybe he’d put something in the Crock-Pot for supper. The old man’s stomach had been iffy since this madness began. Some days he barely ate enough to nourish a guppy.

      Drying his hands on a worn dish towel, Caleb walked down the short hall to Pops’s bedroom.

      Next to the bed, Pops lay kicked back in his recliner, the farm-ranch report blaring from the flat-screen TV Caleb had hung on the wall a month ago. The older rancher raised a hand, his glassy eyes smiling at the man he’d called “son” for nearly seventeen years.

      Greg Girard, the closest thing to a father Caleb had ever known, wasn’t an old man. He was a sick one, a surprise that had knocked them both on their heels. How did a man go from seeming as fit as an Olympian to dying in two short months?

      Caleb went to Pops’s chair, feeling helpless and oversize in the presence of the once-robust man. “Think you can tolerate chili for supper tonight?” Maybe a stew would be better, though he’d fixed stew two nights ago. He was a serviceable cook but not a creative one.

      “Sure. Whatever we got is fine with me.”

      “You say that every day.” Then he’d barely pick at his meal.

      “How’s that cow? Calf here yet?”

      “Had to pull the calf. Cow didn’t make it.”

      Pops hissed through his teeth. “I knew we shouldn’t have bought a bred heifer. Never can tell what kind of mama she’ll make or what bull she’s bred to.”

      But Pops was a soft touch and Billy Cloud had needed quick cash. Now the Girard ranch, which was only the two of them, was out the expense, the cow and maybe the calf.

      “You’re getting the short end of the stick lately, son, me lollygagging around so much.”

      “I got this, Pops. You take it easy.”

      “If I liked easy, I wouldn’t have been a rancher.” Pops gestured toward the machine a medical supply van had delivered earlier that day. “When’re they coming to hook me up?”

      “Didn’t say.”

      Caleb went to the kitchen to mix up a bottle of colostrum replacer for the calf. Pops couldn’t work more than an hour before fatigue overwhelmed him. He was gray as a winter day, nauseated more often than not, his legs swollen and weak. And he still thought he should get up every morning and head to the cow pastures.

      As Caleb filled the calf’s bottle, a knock at the door made him jump. He splashed liquid on his shirt.

      With a growl of frustration, he went to the door, opened it.

      And his belly dropped to the toes of his boots.

      With frigid wind whipping her auburn ponytail like a wind sock, a woman stood on his porch. Kristen Andrews. Even bundled to her ears, he’d recognize her, though he hadn’t seen her in years. What was she doing here?

       Breathe, man. Breathe.

      “You lost?” His voice sounded amazingly normal.

      “Hi, Caleb. I’m freezing. May I come in?”

      Before he’d barely stepped aside, she limped past him in a boot cast and entered his living room. He caught her fragrance, a mix of cold wind and coconut. She’d always smelled good, even when he’d worked so hard pretending not to notice.

      Slim