“I noticed,” Margot said merrily. “But we’re not too busy to have a little chat while we work, are we?”

  Juniper shrugged, knowing there was nothing she could say to dissuade her gossip-hungry friend. Margot laughed and poked at Juniper again.

  “You didn’t seriously think we were going to make it through the day without talking about the hot dad, did you?” Margot gave up all pretense of work when a handful of people finished their shopping and gave them a moment to breathe.

  Juniper sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know what to tell you, Margot. We’re just old friends, that’s all. I grew up next door to his family.”

  “Right,” Margot said with a smirk. “I’m sure you never noticed how hot he is.”

  “Even if I did, that was a lifetime ago,” Juniper laughed, hoping it sounded dismissive. “I’m a grown woman now.”

  “That’s right, you are. A grown woman who hasn’t gone on a date in way, way too long.” Margot raised an eyebrow, knowing Juniper couldn’t disagree.

  She honestly didn’t remember the last time she had been on a date. And the dates she had gone on over the past few years hadn’t really been memorable. None had ever really led anywhere. She had been on her own for a long time. Most of the time, she didn’t mind it a bit. But seeing Alex had stirred something in her, whether she wanted to admit it to herself or not.

  She was dangerously close to opening her big fat mouth and spilling all of this to Margot when the phone rang. Margot sighed with frustration and waved an annoyed hand in the phone’s direction.

  “What?” Juniper asked with mock innocence as she went for the receiver. “Duty calls, right? What’s a girl supposed to do?”

  Margot was still muttering under her breath as Juniper answered the phone, and she had to stifle a laugh as she spoke. “Hello, this is The Crafting Cottage. What can I do for you this fine afternoon?”

  “Juniper?” a man asked. “It’s John Wilkens.”

  “Hello, John, happy holidays!” she said to the provider of the majority of the wood she used for her woodworking projects. “What can I do for you?”

  He cleared his throat, and Juniper frowned. There was something in the sound that sounded like bad news. “Well, I hate to do this to you, truly, but I’m running short on your order.”

  Juniper’s heart sank. “How short are we talking, John? Because I’ve got a really big craft show coming up in January, and your shipment was going to cover all the materials I need.”

  “I know it,” John said sorrowfully. “And I hate to make this call, but my hands are tied. I can have it to you in several weeks’ time, but it’s unlikely I’ll have anything sooner.”

  She bit back a protest, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “Alright, I understand,” she said with a sigh. “Just keep me posted. Who knows, maybe it will be sooner than you think?”

  John gave her a quick goodbye that made her think her optimism wasn’t shared. She rested her hands on the countertop, bracing her weight against it. The smile she’d been wearing a moment ago was a thing of the past now.

  January’s craft show was the biggest one of the year. Her commissions from that one show alone made up a substantial part of her revenue for the year. Missing that show, or attending without a full slate of projects, could easily put The Crafting Cottage in danger.

  “What is it?” Margot asked, once again appearing at Juniper’s side as if by magic. “Please, please tell me that was the sexy dad on the phone.”

  Right now, Alex was just about the last thing on her mind. Juniper chewed on a loose nail, a nasty habit she could never quite seem to break. “No, it was John Wilkens. He says he might not be able to get me all of the wood I need in time for January’s show.”

  “Yikes,” Margot said with a grimace. “What are you going to do?”

  “That’s an excellent question,” Juniper said thoughtfully. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

  “That hurts, Daddy! I don’t like it!”

  Alex took a deep breath and willed himself not to snap back in reply. He loved his girls dearly, and Lizzie, his five-year-old, clingy little sweetheart, certainly wasn’t trying to do anything wrong. But attending to the grooming needs of three squirmy daughters was way outside his skillset. He was going to do the best he could, just as he had for the past three years, but no matter how hard he tried, he kept finding himself saying or doing the wrong thing—including getting a hairbrush tangled in a daughter’s fine, blonde hair.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I’m trying to keep it from hurting.”

  “I know,” she said matter of factly, smiling at him over her delicate little shoulder. “Just not so hard, kay?”

  “Not so hard,” he agreed solemnly. “I will keep that in mind.”

  The two of them sat in mostly quiet for several minutes, Alex doing the best he could with Lizzie’s mop of unruly tangles and her doing nothing more than muttering a little when he failed. His youngest girl was a trooper despite her clinginess, but times like these hurt his heart. She had been hardly more than a baby when Fiona’s illness took her from them, and she had zero memory of life with a mother. At least Sophia had those precious moments to cherish as she got older, and despite its high unlikelihood, Thora insisted that she did, too. But Lizzie? She would never know what it was to feel the gentle pull of her mother’s hands expertly moving a brush over her hair.

  “What’s wrong, Daddy?” Lizzie’s small, musical voice brought him back from the brink of melancholy and to the present.

  He frowned, surprised as always by how in tune she was with other people’s feelings. “What makes you think anything is the matter? I’m just as right as rain.”

  “Dunno,” she answered with a shrug. “Just feels sad in here.”

  “Well, I’m not sad, baby,” he said, setting the brush aside and pulling her into a bear hug from behind. “And even if I were, that’s not the kind of thing I want you worrying about. You should be thinking about making snowballs and tea parties. You know, the important things.”

  That brightened her up right away. “Tea parties! That remembers me.”

  He knew he should correct her grammar, but it was too cute to change just yet. “Does it now? What did I bring to mind that has you looking so chipper?”

  “Tea parties!” she replied decisively, wriggling around to face him. “Sophia said she saw a flyer thingy at the ornament place.”

  “Did she now?” Alex was careful to keep his voice neutral even as his mind filled with images of Juniper Marsh.

  Lizzie nodded vigorously. “Uh huh. She said there’s going to be another painting thing, but not for ornaments. For tea parties!”

  Alex nodded slowly. He was a little surprised to hear Sophia had brought this up. His almost-thirteen-year-old always wanted to be seen as a grownup. For her to be interested in something probably aimed at younger kids like her sisters, she must have really had fun with the ornaments. “Is that so?”

  “Yup,” Lizzie answered, practically vibrating with anticipation now. “It’s soon, and I really, really want to go. Can we do it, Daddy? Can we go paint tea sets? We can, right?”

  She was turning the full weight of her puppy dog eyes. It was hard for him to say no to her at any time, and he was finding it even more difficult after finding Thora’s sad letter to Santa. He was tempted to say yes right there on the spot, but something stopped him from giving the green light.

  He tried to tell himself that it had nothing to do with Juniper, but he had never been very good at lying to himself. She had been on his mind since leaving her shop last night. The years had been kind to her. Very, very kind. He only hazily remembered the shy girl she’d been as a child and a teen. But she had grown into a beautiful woman. She had the long, lithe body of a dancer, but somehow still managed to have curves in all of the right places. Her eyes were bright, sparkling green, and her smile made his heart beat in a funny way. It had been a long time since he had felt that way about anyone. The last time had been Fiona, and he hadn’t expected it to come again. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t tempted to get to know her a little better, but he also wasn’t sure he had it in him to go down that kind of road again. Besides, he was more than busy already, between his girls and the ranch. Where would he even find time for romance?

  “Daddy!” Lizzie said, a slight whine in her voice now. “What about the tea set painting? Can we go?”

  He shook his head to clear it, then smiled. “I’ll think about it, Sugar. But right now, I’ve got work to do, and I bet your sisters are ready to play.”

  He finished with her hair, then stepped out in the hall, ears perking up when he heard a snippet of conversation coming from the living room. He stopped a couple of feet shy of rounding the corner, listening with a deepening frown as the nature of the talk between his father and Scarlett became clear.

  First came Scarlett’s patient, soothing voice. “I think he’s doing a fine job, Mr. Harvey. And I know he’s working very hard. He’s got a lot on his plate, you know.”

  “I don’t care,” came his father’s gruff voice. “He’s changing everything. Why’s he got to change things? There was a way of running this ranch, and it’s not like this. He’s not focused, and that’s how mistakes get made.”

  Alex’s jaw tightened, his hands balling up in fists by his side. He was tempted to march into the middle of the conversation and set his father straight, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. What he was hearing now was just another rendition of the speech he’d been hearing all of his life. The ranch had to come first, and it had to be handled just so. As the oldest son, it was his legacy, his responsibility.

  He didn’t disagree, necessarily. He loved the ranch, honored his commitment to it. If he sometimes wondered what it would be like to have something more in his life…well…maybe that was ungrateful. He had his home, his family. What else did he really need?

  One thing was clear. Whatever attraction he had to Juniper didn’t matter. He had the ranch, and he had the girls, and they were all he could rightly handle.

  3

  Alex wasn’t the kind of dad who promised to think about something just to get his kids off of his back. When he made a promise, he kept it—which meant he kept Lizzie’s request in mind. By default, that kept Juniper in there, too. It was making things feel awfully crowded.

  There was plenty to do around the ranch, but that was nothing new. What was different was his girls’ set of demands, which were both specific and overwhelming. Taking them to the ornament decorating workshop had succeeded in infecting all three of them with the holiday bug. Now, they pestered him constantly about getting the house properly decorated for Christmas. Even Sophia was in on the action. Talking over Christmas schemes with Thora and Lizzie was the most animated he had seen his eldest in a long time.

  There were plenty of decorations up in the attic somewhere, but Alex hadn’t tried to make sense of them since Fiona’s death. For all he knew, they were in tangles, with mice having gotten into the boxes for bits of nesting. And even if they were intact, his role in decorating had always been to follow either his mom’s orders or Fiona’s on what to nail, what to hang, what to lift into place. He could handle heavy lifting. But actually organizing and decorating? He wouldn’t even know where to start. Will would be willing to help if he was there, but he wouldn’t be home in time to get the place ready for Christmas morning. As for Travis, he still hadn’t returned Alex’s call.

  In the end, it was desperation to give his daughters the kind of warm holiday cheer they craved that sent Alex back into town. He wasn’t yet up to tackling the mysterious cache of Christmas things in the attic, but he knew of a place where he could get some beautiful, new, unchewed-by-mice decorations to get things started. And if it gave him another chance to see Juniper? Well, then he would consider that a bonus.

  “Just a bonus,” he muttered to himself as he guided his beat-up old truck into a spot in front of The Crafting Cottage. “Just another chance to say hello and nothing more.”

  When he stepped inside, he wasn’t sure that he would be getting that bonus, after all. The place was slammed with Christmas shoppers. For a minute, he considered slipping back outside and driving home again, but that would make him a fool, coming all the way out here for nothing. He was a grown man, after all. He should be able to pick out some decorations on his own.

  He was attempting to do that, with no real success, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. There was a particular sensation of warmth that accompanied it, and he was pretty sure he knew who it was before he turned to look.

  “Oh, my goodness!” Juniper exclaimed, her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright with a smile. “I’d have come over to say hello sooner, but I didn’t see you in this crowd.”

  “Is it always like this?” Alex asked.

  Juniper laughed. “I wish! No, it’s just the pre-holiday rush, everyone stocking up on decorations and gifts. It’s been so busy the past few days, I haven’t even been able to take a lunch break. But I shouldn’t complain! The crowd now will pay for the lean months later on. What brings you in today? I didn’t expect to see you in my shop twice in one week.”

  Alex shrugged sheepishly. Something about Juniper made him hesitant, like he couldn’t think of just the right words to say. “Honestly? I didn’t, either. But my girls are kind of desperate for a Christmas extravaganza this year, and I noticed some really nice decorations when I was here before. I was thinking of picking some up, for a start.”

  “That’s wonderful! Can I show you some of what we’ve got?”

  It didn’t seem to matter to her that there was a shop full of people. She treated Alex like he was the only one there, something he found surprisingly touching. She showed him several shelves of intricately carved wooden ornaments and other decorations, each one with better craftsmanship than the one before. When she showed him a particularly delicate manger scene, he let out a low whistle.

  “Did you make all of these, Juniper?” He let his fingers run lightly over the smooth, lovingly handled wood.

  She blushed prettily and nodded. “The ones on these shelves, yeah. It’s kind of a passion of mine. When I realized how much I loved working with my hands, making lovely things, that’s when I kind of figured out who I was. That probably sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

  Alex shook his head no. He found her candor surprising and refreshing. At the same time, he envied her a little. He had never had the chance to figure out what he really wanted to do with his life. His occupation had been decided for him before he was born.

  “Anyway,” she continued, speaking quickly, like she was embarrassed. “I might be running dry on the woodwork in the not-so-distant future. My supplier called recently to tell me he can’t fill my latest order for weathered wood. I’m heading out to my aunt and uncle’s place to see what I can find there. I’m hoping there are some old boards I can take.”

  Alex didn’t think before he spoke next. The offer was out of his mouth before he was even aware he was going to talk at all. “You should come to my place. I’ve also got some old barnwood. I don’t know if it’s something you can use, but it’s in good condition.”

  “That is so nice of you, but I couldn’t possibly,” she said with a sweet smile as she tucked her hair behind her ears. “That would be too much.”

  “How about a trade, then?” he suggested, the idea forming in his mind. “I’m definitely planning to buy some of this—but I know I won’t do it justice if I try to arrange it myself. If you help me pick out what to get and stop by the house for a couple of hours to help me put everything in place, I’d consider the wood a more than fair trade.”

  Part of him was screaming for him to stop talking, but it was too late to take it back. And before he could tell her it was alright for her to say no, she was answering yes.

  Almost before Alex was out of the shop, Juniper was already trying to figure out how to back out of their deal. It was an insane notion, to leave the shop in the late afternoon at their busiest time of year. The offer of wood was hard to pass up, but she couldn’t pretend that was her only reason for agreeing to the scheme. It wasn’t even the main reason. The idea of being back in the Harvey house where she had experienced so much happiness was too hard to pass up.

  “But I can’t,” she insisted half-heartedly when she told Margot what she had agreed to. “I can’t just leave things unattended.”

  Margot put her hands on her hips, taking mock offense. “I beg your pardon! It won’t be unattended. I’ll be here, and that’s as good as three other employees.”

  “I know, but –” she tried again.

  “No way,” Margot said, cutting her off neatly. “Don’t even try it. We were about to shut down anyway, so I can get things set up for that wine and cheese painting thing I’m doing tonight. There is not a single viable excuse for you not to go and help the sexy single dad in his time of need.”

  Juniper didn’t have the conviction to keep arguing, and she was smart enough to know it wouldn’t do her any good. Margot could be as stubborn as a mule when she wanted something, and she was clearly determined that Juniper should go to the Harvey ranch.

  Despite her half-hearted arguments, Juniper’s excitement grew with every mile she drew closer to her destination. Almost all of her best memories growing up centered here. She had spent plenty of pre-Christmas days with Will and his family, and she remembered how epic their holidays were. When she parked in front of the house and saw how dreary it looked, she let out a low sigh.

  “Oh dear,” she said to herself as she climbed out of her little car. “He wasn’t kidding when he said he needed help.”

  She pulled her coat more tightly around her and ascended the stairs to the front door.

  Before she could pull her hand back after knocking, the door flew open and she was greeted by the smallest of Alex’s girls. “The ornament lady is here!” she called over her shoulder. “She’s right here at our house!”