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  “What a Christmas,” Jess said in wonder. He turned to her and cradled her face in his hands. “I got everything I could ever hope for. And far, far more. At least, I hope so.”

  Her heart stumbled, and the world around them seemed to still, coalescing into one breathless, expectant moment.

  Their eyes met, locked, and then his mouth kicked up into the half smile she loved so much. “I know you have big plans for your life. I won’t interfere with that. But we nearly made the right decision years ago, and then we got it all wrong,” he said softly. “This time, I want to get this right.”

  She couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe.

  “I’ll wait forever if there’s a chance that you’ll say yes to me someday. I don’t know how it can ever work, or when, but...”

  “But it can. And my answer is yes. A thousand times, yes.” She pulled him into a long, sweet kiss. “I stayed up late last night looking at other options. I didn’t even know such a thing existed, but one of the most prestigious universities in my field offers an online PhD program—one that only requires a number of weeklong, on-campus seminars during the year. It would work, Jess. I know it would.”

  There were no words that could convey what she felt about him, the girls, or the future they could share. He was everything she’d ever hoped for. Everything she’d thought she would never find.

  And when he kissed her, she kissed him right back with all of the love in her heart.

  Epilogue

  Christmas morning dawned with an intensely blue sky and brilliant sunshine that turned the ranch into a sparkling wonderland of glittering snow and diamond-like icicles hanging from the eaves and every tree branch.

  Last year, Christmas had been quiet, with just Jess and Betty sharing gifts and having Christmas dinner together.

  This year was so much more—the house filled with so much laughter and joy that Jess felt as if his heart could burst. He’d finished his morning chores early, and after the Christmas Day church service, everyone returned to the ranch, where Betty, Darla and Abby all pitched in to prepare dinner while Jess and Don played board games with the girls on the floor in front of the crackling fire in the fireplace.

  The puppy, with a big red bow around his neck, romped across the board scattering the pieces, and so they started once again, but this time on the coffee table. With soft instrumental Christmas music playing and the towering Christmas tree sparkling with its thousand little lights, Jess sat back and just drew it all in. Was it even possible to feel this much love?

  How things had changed...with the arrival of the twins, with Don and Darla now a part of the family. And Abby.

  Especially Abby.

  “Play, Uncle Jess,” Bella chirped. “It’s your turn.”

  He eyed the board, deciding on a play that wouldn’t jeopardize either of the girl’s tokens, then made his move.

  Poofy raced up to the coffee table, jumped on top and skidded across the playing board, landing in Jess’s lap, his wagging tail a blur of motion. “You rascal,” Jess said sternly, trying not to laugh as he hugged the pup and set him down again.

  “He wants to play, too.” Sophie giggled. “But he’s a wigglepuss.”

  “That he is,” Don said with a grin. “Which means he’s perfect for two little girls.”

  Abby, Betty and Darla joined them in the living room, each wearing a bright red apron with twinkling Christmas trees over their church clothes.

  “Dinner is ready,” Abby announced, as she untied her apron. “But first I’d like to take pictures of everyone in front of the fireplace. This is a very, very special day.”

  She lifted an eyebrow and looked at Jess, and he nodded.

  “I need to ask the girls a question,” he said. “But first I have one more present for Abby. If she’ll back up just a couple feet.”

  He waited until she stood beneath the archway leading into the kitchen, grinned and pointed up at the mistletoe. “I want to see if that will work a second time. What do you think, Bella and Sophie—will it?”

  They giggled and clapped their hands. “Try, Uncle Jess!” they shouted in unison.

  He went to stand in front of her and withdrew a small white box from his pocket. He opened it in front of her, revealing a three-quarter-carat solitaire glittering on a slender gold band.

  Abby gasped. “It’s...it’s beautiful!”

  “It was my mother’s engagement ring,” he said quietly. “My dad always said that his oldest son should use it.”

  She gingerly lifted the ring from the velvet lining. With a bit of pressure, it slid onto her finger. “Oh, Jess,” she breathed. “I never expected this today. Or ever.”

  “I just wish I could have given it to you twelve years ago.” He cleared his throat. “You can have it resized and reset in another style, if you want.”

  She shook her head and looked up at him with shining eyes. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  Amid clapping and shouts of congratulations, he pulled her into a long, sweet kiss, then glanced over at the twins. “How about that—the mistletoe still works!”

  Laughing, the girls ran to him and hugged them both, their eyes shining.

  He exchanged glances with Abby, knelt down and pulled the girls into his arms, and chose his words carefully. “You’ve been with us at the ranch for a long time, and we all love you very, very much. Well, we got a call last night, and now I need to ask you something.”

  Sophie’s eyes filled with fear and sudden tears, and he wondered just how much she remembered of her life before coming to Montana. “We hafta leave? I don’t want to,” she whispered.

  “You’re sending us away?” Bella’s lower lip trembled. “What about Poofy and Lollipops and Gramma? And you, Uncle Jess? And Abby?”

  “What would you think about staying here forever and ever?”

  Sophie launched into his embrace and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, sobbing.

  Bella hung back, her eyes wide. “Did our momma die?”

  “No, sweetheart. But she brought you here because she knew she couldn’t take care of you, and she wants you to have a forever home here, where you can have ponies and puppies and even more people to love you.”

  “W-will we ever see her again?”

  “She will always be welcome here. Always. Maybe next summer she’ll come for a visit, and next Christmas, too.”

  Bella nodded, a smile lighting up her face, and she threw her arms around him. When he rose, Betty kissed him, too, with tears streaming down her face.

  And then Abby stepped into his arms once again for another sweet kiss.

  “A Christmas to remember,” she whispered as they walked to the dining room for dinner. “And the start of many, many more.”

  * * * * *

  If you loved this story,

  be sure to check out the miniseries

  Aspen Creek Crossroads:

  Winter Reunion

  Second Chance Dad

  The Single Dad’s Redemption

  An Aspen Creek Christmas

  Falling for the Rancher

  from bestselling author Roxanne Rustand.

  Available now from Love Inspired!

  Find more great reads at www.LoveInspired.com

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Lone Star Christmas by Jolene Navarro.

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  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for joining me as I begin my Rocky Mountain Ranch series for Love Inspired. I hope you enjoyed Montana Mistletoe.

  For those of you who followed my previous Aspen Creek Crossroads series, thank you! If you read the final book, Falling for the Ra
ncher, you may have noticed the mention of that hero in this book. It was such fun adding just a bit of a connection while beginning a new, unrelated series!

  My husband and I live on an acreage with horses, some rescued cats and two big rescue dogs who consider themselves lap puppies. I love writing stories set in small towns and ranch country, and also love writing about the complexities and connections of multi-generational families...and how my characters must overcome conflicts, old wounds and challenges to reach a place where they can finally enjoy an abundant, faith-filled life.

  I love to hear from readers, and promise to answer.

  Snail mail: Roxanne Rustand, Box 2550, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52406

  Email: via www.roxannerustand.com.

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  Wishing you every blessing now and in the coming year,

  Roxanne Rustand

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  Lone Star Christmas

  by Jolene Navarro

  Chapter One

  Bitter winds whipped through the valley and down the back of Max Delgado’s neck. Twenty years had passed since his last visit to the ranch. The Delgado Ranch, his family’s homestead since the early 1800s. He carried the name of the first Delgado in Texas: Maximiliano Francisco Puentes Delgado. Always sounded a bit pretentious to him.

  Looking over the fence to the vast landscape, he tried to pull up memories of his childhood, but being here didn’t help. He had been told he’d spent most of his early years here with his mother. There was probably a reason they were so elusive, or maybe he just didn’t have a good memory. He tended to live in the moment. It was easy, and he liked easy.

  His focus went back to the broken gate. November was never this cold in the Texas Hill Country. The way his life had been going the last few months, though, he probably shouldn’t be surprised.

  Right on cue, the rotten wood crumbled in his gloved hand, the old hardware now useless. The corral was in worse shape than Max had first thought. He’d need a truckload of panels before he put any bulls in this pen. He had hauled a couple practice bulls along with his favorite horses.

  They were getting restless and needed to be unloaded. He glanced back at the neglected pens and arena. Either his uncle had lied about the condition of the ranch, or the man he’d hired had been cashing the checks without doing the work.

  His father’s voice jumped through his head, calling him useless and lazy. Dropping to his haunches, he planted his elbows above his knees and lowered his head. The memories he tried ignoring bombarded his brain. All those years spent trying to prove himself to a father who didn’t care, trying to gain approval from a man who had written him off when he was ten. A man who was now dead. Any chance of mending that relationship was gone.

  In the past when these thoughts started crowding in, he’d have leaped on a bull or driven until he found a crowd that would help him drown the feelings he didn’t want to deal with.

  But that was getting old. A few months ago, he’d tried something new. He’d sought out Pastor Wayne, the cowboy preacher who followed the rodeo circuit. So now he prayed. He prayed for wisdom and patience.

  “I’m hungry.” One of his new responsibilities interrupted the prayer.

  “Me, too, and I’m cold. Can we go inside?”

  Even though Tomas and Isaac were a year apart at six and five, he wasn’t sure who was who. What he did know was that his half brothers had started grumbling about an hour ago. All three of them. He shot a glance at the teen. Ethan had asked to come along on the road trip. Ethan’s mother, the second wife, had headed back to Chicago and didn’t seem to care that her son wanted to spend the holidays with three brothers he had just met at his father’s funeral. Right now, the only thing that made them family was a last name. On impulse Max had thought this trip would give them a chance to connect before the little ones went to live with their aunt and Ethan returned to school.

  “Max!” they cried out at the same time.

  With a heavy sigh, he made sure to smile at them. It wasn’t their fault, and it wouldn’t be right to get mad at them. He’d seen the boys once, when they were too small to remember him. Now they had lost both parents and were stuck with brothers they didn’t know, other than what they had been told.

  He rubbed one of them on the head. “There are some protein bars in the truck.”

  “We ate them.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “The whole box?”

  His littlest brothers nodded in unison. That couldn’t be good for their stomachs.

  “Um...then get the chips. There’s beef jerky, too.”

  “Ethan ate all those.” They stood, arms crossed, mirror images of each other. The sixteen-year-old was leaning against the barn, still staring at his phone. The kid hadn’t looked up once all day. Actually, Max couldn’t remember seeing his eyes. Even during the funeral, he’d had his gaze glued to the small screen in his hand.

  Max pinched the bridge of his nose. So far, nothing had gone right on this trip. The temperature had to have dropped twenty degrees since they left Dallas this morning.

  Standing, he arched his back until he heard the popping. He winced at the pain in his shoulder. Who was he kidding? Nothing had been right for the last two months since he was stomped on by Texas Fire. He’d wanted to be the cowboy who finally stayed on that bull for a full eight seconds. He’d done it, too, but at the cost of a healthy body. One broken collarbone and one fractured eye socket were added to his already long list of wrecked body parts.

  “My phone’s about to die.” Ethan looked up for the first time. “I need to charge it. It’s like we dropped off the earth.”

  Max wasn’t sure why the teen had even asked to join them, or why he’d agreed to it. He sighed. The kid’s mother was back in Chicago. Unfortunately, Max had plenty of memories of her. She had been his first stepmother, not that she had been any kind of mother. She had sent him away to live with his mother’s father. Apparently, she had no problem sending her own son away, either.

  They might all have the same father, but in no way had they been part of the same household.

  He hoped to not only be a better big brother but to give them a sense of family. He wanted to be a brother they could count on, even when they didn’t live in the same house.

  Injecting positive energy into his voice, Max smiled. “We have a couple of weeks to spend together and get some brotherly bonding. But if you want to go home, Ethan, I’m sure we can find a way to get you to the airport.”

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  Max stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down at the two little ones. He could do this until their aunt was able to get them. He had only met Vanessa once, at the rehearsal party for his father’s third marriage. She had been yelling at h
er sister, his father’s latest bride-to-be. Wanting to stop the fiasco, she had refused to go to the wedding. Yeah, that had been a lovely moment.

  She would be taking the boys as soon as she wrapped up her end-of-year work schedule. The will had listed them both as guardians. The boys were stuck with two people who were strangers to them.

  He looked at Ethan again. In the new semester, the coltish kid would return to his boarding school.

  In less than a month he’d be on his own again, healed up and ready to ride in the finals. He could do this. “What about the cooler? Anything left in there?”

  They shook their heads again. The matching pairs of big brown eyes just about did him in. He wanted to get these pens fixed, but he didn’t have the supplies he needed anyway.

  “Come on, boys. We’ll turn the stock out in the larger pasture, then explore the living quarters. The main brick house was built by my...our grandfather in the ’70s, you know.” After unloading the bulls from the trailer, they climbed back into his truck. “Our great-great-grandfather built the old ranch house over a hundred years ago. We’ve owned the land for almost two hundred years. When Texas was still part of Mexico.”

  Ethan didn’t look impressed. Time and years didn’t have much meaning to Isaac and Tomas. But for him? He hadn’t expected this stirring of coming home.

  The old path to the main house was hard to find. There wasn’t any evidence that the place had had a caretaker. The weeds on the road looked as if they had grown unchecked for well over a year.

  He pulled up to the house and started unloading.

  “Max! Look! Someone’s coming,” one of the boys hollered.

  Sure enough, a cloud of dust was heading their way. Maybe if they pretended they weren’t here, whoever it was would leave. There wasn’t a single person in Clear Water Max wanted to see.

  “Who do you think it is? Uncle Rigo said this is where our family comes from.”

  The other boy nodded. “He said there were lots of stupid people, too.”