“Well, hello, little miss,” Juniper said with a laugh, squatting down to meet the girl at eye level. “It’s Lizzie, right? I love your tutu.”

  Lizzie did a twirl that turned into a wild spin, which was still going strong when Alex came to the door. He looked a little harried, but he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen in real life. When he saw Juniper standing there, he smiled, his blue eyes twinkling, and she felt like she might faint.

  “I see the welcoming committee is going strong,” he said with a grin, scooping Lizzie up into a big hug that made her shriek with laughter. “I’m glad to see someone is here to offer hospitality, because as you can see, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

  “Not to worry,” Juniper promised, stepping inside. “I’ve never seen a decorating project I couldn’t handle.”

  It was amazing, how quickly she felt at ease again in this familiar house. Plenty about it had changed, but to her, the heart of it felt the same. She cajoled Alex into digging out his mom’s old Christmas albums, and before long, they had all of the best classics crooning from the record player. Lizzie and Thora followed her around like little apprentices, mimicking her every move. Sophia was more cautious, but after half an hour of going through the boxes from the attic, even she couldn’t hide her enthusiasm.

  “Look at this one,” she said softly as she held up an older ornament for Juniper to see. “That’s my mom, and that’s me when I was younger than Lizzie.”

  Juniper held out a hand and Sophia gently placed the glass ornament on her outstretched palm. On one side was the date—eight years back. On the other side was a picture of a lovely, laughing Fiona with Sophia sitting on the kitchen counter beside her. They were in the middle of baking cookies, and they looked like the happiest pair in the world.

  “They were making one of my mom’s recipes,” Alex said from behind Juniper. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a mixture of love and sadness on his face that made her ache all over. “She always made the best cookies.”

  Juniper smiled and nodded. “Oh, I remember. Will and I spent hours scheming to steal more than our fair share when nobody was looking.”

  Thora popped up from behind the couch, while Lizzie snatched the picture ornament out of Juniper’s hand. “We want to make cookies! Don’t we, Lizzie?”

  “I want cookies!” Lizzie cried ecstatically, hopping from one foot to the other. “I want them now!”

  Juniper looked at Alex, who held up both hands in a warding off gesture. “Now girls, you know full well I don’t know the first thing about baking.”

  “Well, that’s something I might be able to help with,” Juniper said shyly. She glanced at Sophia, worried the girl would think she was overstepping, but Sophia nodded encouragingly. “I love to bake, and I used to help your mom make those recipes. I think it would be fun.”

  Before Alex could answer, the room erupted into pandemonium. Thora practically flew across the room and took Lizzie by the hands, the two of them spinning in a wild, celebratory circle. Juniper could see what was going to happen next, but she couldn’t move fast enough to stop it. Before she could do more than open her mouth in warning, the ornament flew out of Lizzie’s hands and cracked in two on the wooden floor.

  4

  The moment of silence that followed the cracking sound was like something out of a movie. They all seemed to hold their breaths, so that the sound of the Christmas carols was suddenly too loud. Lizzie pulled her little fists up to her mouth, her eyes immediately welling with tears. She turned her face up to look at her father, and what she saw there made her wail.

  Juniper turned to look at Alex, to see what could have set Lizzie off that way. What she found made her stomach drop, and for a second, she felt physically ill.

  The expression on his face was heartbreaking. It was like seeing the ornament broken was the same as losing Fiona all over again. She would have sworn she could feel pain radiating off of him in waves. It made her feel, for the first time that afternoon, like she shouldn’t be there. She was an intruder in a place still too tender to bear an outsider’s touch.

  “I’m sorry!” Lizzie wailed, her little frame shivering with the force of her distress. “I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m so sorry I dropped it!”

  Alex grimaced, and Lizzie started crying harder. Juniper was pretty sure he was more concerned over Lizzie’s state than the state of the ornament, but the tiny girl was too worked up to know the difference. “Hey, it’s okay, kiddo,” he said gently. “Accidents happen, don’t they? It’s not like I’ve never broken anything important before.”

  Juniper winced when she heard that, and she wasn’t surprised when Lizzie continued crying, undeterred. Juniper didn’t know much about handling children, but she knew a thing or two about people in pain. Her guess was that what Lizzie needed right now was reassurance. She needed to know that she, a living, breathing girl, was more important than the memory on a dusty ornament that hadn’t been handled in years.

  “Hey, Alex, do you have a broom? It’s broken into two big pieces, but there are some little shards broken off, and those can do some damage to bare feet.” She stood briskly, forcing a light, easy tone to ease some of the tension in the room.

  He nodded and ran a distracted hand through his hair. “Yeah, of course.”

  He walked stiffly out of the room, moving like a man who had just suffered a physical blow. Juniper saw Thora and Sophia exchange uncertain glances before looking at Juniper. They seemed very young and small and uncertain now, waiting for a grownup to make things right. Wordlessly, Juniper held out her arms to Lizzie, working on instinct now. Apparently, it was the right move, because Lizzie flung herself into them without any hesitation at all.

  “Hey, sweet girl,” Juniper crooned, running her fingers through Lizzie’s hair lightly. “Are you okay?”

  Lizzie’s entire body shuddered before she answered. “I broke it,” she sobbed, shaking her head helplessly. “I broke the picture of Mama.”

  “You know, there’s a funny thing about ornaments. Even when you think they’re broken, most of the time they can still be saved. And I’m not sure if you knew this, but I know a thing or two about mending ornaments.” When Lizzie pulled back a little, her splotchy face cautiously optimistic, Juniper smiled.

  “Are you going to put it in your oven thing?” Lizzie asked in a tremulous voice.

  Juniper nodded. “I am. And when I bring you the ornaments you made in my shop, I’m going to bring this one, too. You won’t be able to tell that it was ever broken at all.”

  Lizzie gave Juniper a tearful smile that melted her heart and clapped her tiny hands. She was still clapping when Alex returned, broom in hand. He stopped behind the couch hesitantly, and Lizzie turned to look at him.

  “Are you mad, Daddy?” she asked, a quaver in her voice. “I didn’t mean it.”

  He shook his head emphatically. “No, Sugar, I’m not mad at all. I was just a little sad, that’s all. But it’s only an ornament. I know that.”

  “Juniper said she can fix it,” Lizzie said, some of her previous enthusiasm returning. “In her oven.”

  Alex raised his eyebrows, and Juniper nodded, getting to her feet. “I can, if you don’t mind me taking it with me. I promise I’ll take good care of it, and when you get it back, it will be as good as new.”

  She patted Lizzie on the head, then grabbed her coat. Alex just stood there watching for a second, looking very much like he didn’t know what to do with himself. It was only when she started for the door that he got moving, and even then, he seemed shaken up.

  “Thank you for that,” he said when they were a little way away from the others. “For the way you handled Lizzie. And I’m sorry about leaving it to you to resolve. It just took me by surprise, seeing the ornament broken that way.”

  She shook her head, shrugging on her coat and reaching for the door. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. And now, I’m sorry to say, it’s probably time for me to get back to the store.”

  That part was a lie, of course. The store was Margot’s domain for the rest of the night with the class she was holding. But still, it was time for Juniper to go. Seeing Alex’s reaction to the potential loss of just a picture of his late wife had been like a shock of cold water reminding her of the woman who had actually belonged with this family.

  Not her. Never her. Some people just weren’t cut out to be part of a family. She’d figured that out years before. She’d forgotten for a little bit tonight…but she remembered now.

  There was a second when it looked like Alex would ask her not to go, but it passed too quickly, and Juniper let herself out the front door. She headed to her car and didn’t allow herself to look back. There was nothing for her there.

  Alex threw himself into overdrive for the rest of the evening, doing everything he could to undo the damage from his reaction to the broken ornament. Every time he thought about how he had behaved, he wanted to kick himself. He still heard Lizzie’s anguished cries, still saw the stricken expression on Thora and Sophia’s faces.

  He had failed his girls more times than he liked to count since Fiona’s death, and he felt in his bones that he would do so again. This afternoon, though, he had done it in spectacular fashion, and he had done it with an audience. With his children in bed, it was the look on Juniper’s face that kept coming back to him.

  For a moment, before the ornament had slipped and all hell broke loose, he had felt something between them. He could almost call it happiness, except that it had been so long since he’d felt that that he couldn’t be sure. When the picture of his wife had broken on the floor, he had actually been imagining what it would be like if Juniper was around all the time, bringing music and warmth into his home. There was something about her that captured him and wouldn’t let go. She felt comfortable and new at the same time. She reminded him of a time when life hadn’t felt quite so hard, and yet being around her didn’t feel like he was living in the past. He had been doing an awful lot of that since Fiona passed. What he couldn’t get a handle on was whether letting himself live in the present again was an insult to his late wife’s memory.

  It felt like a hopeless puzzle, and he was nursing a beer, trying to figure it out, when his cell phone rang. His heart jumped and he grabbed for it, stupidly thinking it might be Juniper. When he saw that it was Travis, finally calling him back, he laughed at himself. He wasn’t likely to receive a call from Juniper, seeing as the two of them hadn’t exchanged numbers.

  “Hey, brother,” Travis said before Alex could say hello. “Long time no talk.”

  It had been a while since they had spoken, but it had been longer since they had seen each other. The last time that happened was three years ago, at their mother’s funeral. Out of the three boys, Travis had always been closest to their mother, and it was probably fair to say that her death had hit him the hardest. The way he had pulled out of everyone’s life, though, was still a hard pill for Alex to swallow. His brother had been on the rodeo circuit since he was eighteen, but it was only these past three years when it truly felt like Travis was gone.

  “Hey, Travis,” he said slowly, measuring his words carefully. “I wasn’t sure if I would hear from you.”

  He could practically hear Travis shrug across the miles. “You know how it is, man. Things have been really busy. I’m always on the move, right? Sometimes I wake up and don’t even know where I am.”

  “Sure, makes sense,” Alex said, even as he wondered how Travis could stand that kind of life. He knew that not everyone would be happy with the life he’d made for himself—firmly settled in the house where he’d grown up, with no plans to leave—but Travis seemed to go too far in the other extreme. He had trouble understanding how his brother could be so untethered.

  Travis cleared his throat, which was just enough to keep Alex from full-blown brooding. “So, anyway, I’m sorry to miss your calls, but you’ve got my attention now. What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on is that the girls have gotten it into their head to have an old-fashioned family Christmas.”

  Travis snorted. “What does that even mean?”

  “It means they want the family here,” Alex said, then explained about Thora’s letter.

  “Alright,” Travis said slowly, mulling it over. “So, what’s my role in all of that?”

  “You’re part of this family, Travis,” Alex answered with a sigh. “And we would really like it if you were home for Christmas this year.”

  He wasn’t used to making this kind of request, and he didn’t like how vulnerable it made him feel. Thora’s Christmas wish was more important than his comfort, though, and so he waited the silence out, willing his brother not to keep him hanging for too long.

  “Home for Christmas, eh?” he finally said, his tone light—so light that Alex was pretty sure he was faking. No one was better than Travis at acting like he didn’t care. “Yeah, okay. I think I could swing that.”

  Alex shut his eyes and said a silent thank you, swallowing back his irritation over his brother’s cavalier attitude. “Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. I know the girls will be excited to see you. Lizzie is always asking questions about you.”

  “I look forward to seeing them,” Travis said, the genuine warmth in his voice making Alex smile despite the events of the day. “And to hearing what you’ve been getting up to.”

  Alex let this comment hang in the air. On the rare occasions when he and Travis had spoken, this had been a sore spot. Travis liked to needle Alex about not having a life of his own, instead dedicating all of his time to the ranch. He was always pushing Alex to get out, make some mistakes, maybe even sleep around a little. Alex’s counter argument was that Travis could do with a little less of all of those things in his life. They weren’t kids anymore. If you asked Alex, it was time for Travis to grow up and settle down. But he knew better than to say that. He didn’t want to start another fight.

  Travis was coming home, and for now, that was enough.

  5

  It took a full day for Alex to shake off the double whammy of the scene with the ornament and the conversation with Travis. When he started to feel more like himself, his mind turned to the wood he had promised Juniper in return for her help decorating. There was plenty he couldn’t do, but that was a promise he could follow through on. He felt better with every piece of wood he loaded into the back of his truck. There was something about using his hands to solve a problem that made him feel like a new man. Remembering what she’d said about skipping lunch, he packed a lunch for her, too.

  He was just finishing packing up his truck and feeling cautiously excited about the prospect of seeing Juniper again when the thump of a hand on his shoulder drew his attention.

  “Where are you off to in the middle of the day?” His father stood behind him, leaning on a walker for support. When he thought of his father, Alex still pictured the strong, authoritative man he’d always been. Seeing him like this—suffering nerve damage from the crash, confined mostly to a wheelchair, only able to walk at all with the help of a walker—still caught him off guard sometimes.

  He smiled, trying to hide the reaction. “I’m just heading into town for a minute, Pops. I offered to help Juniper out and bring her some wood.”

  “Into town?” his dad repeated with no attempt to hide his disapproval. “Do you really think that’s the best use of your time, with everything that needs doing around here?”

  This was what it always boiled down to with his dad. There was the ranch, and then there was everything else. In his father’s eyes, nothing mattered as much as the land. That seemed to include his children and his grandchildren as well.

  “Juniper did me a favor, Dad,” Alex said, doing his best to keep his voice even. “Seems like the least I can do is deliver her some old wood as a thank you.”

  Alex watched his father’s face with little hope of seeing it soften. He was right there. Instead of bending, his dad shook his head with clear disappointment. “If you want to take her that kindling, do it. But don’t let yourself get distracted by some girl. Keep your eye on the land. That’s the only thing that really matters.”

  “I know, Dad,” Alex said, his jaw so tight now it hurt. “I won’t forget. How could I?”

  Alex was still fuming as he drove into town. He tried to calm himself with the idea of seeing Juniper again, however briefly. She had only been back in his life for a short time, but he already liked the idea of doing something for her that might make her smile. It was enough to make him smile as well when he opened the door to her shop.

  Juniper was on the floor and when she caught sight of him, lunch bag in hand, she broke into a wide grin. A wave of relief spread over him to see that she didn’t harbor hard feelings over the awkwardness of their last encounter.

  “Alex!” She came toward him, stopping short of giving him a hug. “This is a nice surprise. I didn’t realize I would be seeing you today.”

  He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “I just wanted to bring you some of the wood I offered.”

  “And that?” she asked, looking at the bag in his hand. “Is that full of wood, too?”

  “No,” he answered with a nervous laugh. “This is a pretty poor attempt at lunch. You mentioned skipping lunch, so I thought I’d try to talk you into taking a break.”

  Her eyes widened, and for a second, Alex was sure he had made a colossal mistake. Then she reached for the lunch and smiled, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so good. It was amazing, really, how doing something so small for her could make him feel like such a hero.

  She opened the bag and gasped, riffling through the contents with a growing look of amazement.

  “I can’t believe you put this all together, Alex,” she exclaimed, her voice like music to his ears. “But I have to tell you, this is way more food than I can eat.”