Home for Christmas: Return to Promise / Can This Be Christmas?

“I know I’d want to be with my husband,” Nicole said, thinking if she was married to Cal, she wouldn’t be foolish enough to leave him for weeks at a time. If Jane Patterson was going to abandon her husband, then she deserved what she got.

“The problem is, her father’s not doing well,” Annie said, then sipped her coffee. She, too, reached for a cookie.

“That’s too bad.”

Annie sighed. “I’m not sure how soon Jane will to be able to come home.” She shook her head. “Cal seems at loose ends without his family.”

“Poor guy probably doesn’t know what to do with himself.” Nicole would love to show him, but she’d wait for the right moment.

“Do you like children?” Annie asked her.

“Very much. I hope to have a family one day.” Nicole knew her employer was pregnant, so she said what she figured Annie would want to hear. In reality, she herself didn’t plan to have children. Nicole was well aware that, unlike Annie, she wouldn’t make a good mother. If she was lucky enough to find a man who suited her, she’d make damn sure he didn’t have any time on his hands to think about kids—or to be lured away by another woman. Really, it was usually the wife’s own fault for not giving her husband the attention he craved.

“I understand you’re seeing Brian Longstreet,” Annie murmured.

Nicole had to pause to remember when and where she’d last seen Brian. “We had dinner the other night.” The evening hadn’t been especially memorable. It was Brian’s misfortune to meet her after she’d run into Cal at the Mexican Lindo. Afterward, Cal was all Nicole could think about.

“Do you like him?”

Nicole shrugged. “Brian’s okay.”

“A little on the dull side?”

“A little.” She’d already decided not to date the manager of the grocery store again. He was engaging enough and not unattractive, but he lacked the presence she was looking for. The strength of character. His biggest fault, Nicole readily admitted, was that he wasn’t Cal Patterson.

“What about Lane Moser?”

Nicole had dated him the first week she’d returned. She’d known him from her days at the bank. “Too old,” she muttered. She didn’t mind a few years’ difference, but Lane was eighteen years her senior and divorced. Besides, if he did any checking on her, he might learn a few things best left undiscovered. And he was just the type to check. “I’m picky,” she joked.

“You have a right to be.”

“I never seem to go for the guys who happen to be available. I don’t know what my problem is,” Nicole said, and even as she spoke she recognized this for a bald-faced lie. Her problem was easily defined. Repeatedly she fell for married men; actually she preferred them. It was the challenge, the chase, the contest. Single guys stumbled all over themselves to make an impression, whereas with married men, she was the one who had to lure them, had to work to attract their attention.

Over the years she’d gotten smart, and this time it wouldn’t be the wife who won. It would be her.

“Don’t give up,” Annie said, breaking into her thoughts.

“Give up?”

“On finding the right man. He’s out there. I was divorced when I met Lucas and I had no intention of ever marrying again. It’s all too easy to let negative experiences sour your perspective. Don’t let that happen to you.”

“I won’t,” Nicole promised, and struggled to hide a smile. “I’m sure there’s someone out there for me—only he doesn’t know it yet.” But Cal would find out soon enough.

“We’d better get back,” Annie said, glancing at her watch.

Nicole set aside her mug and stood. Cal had been on his own for nearly two weeks now, if her calculations were correct. A man could get lonely after that much time without a woman.

He hadn’t let her pay for his meal the other night. Maybe she could come up with another way to demonstrate just how grateful she was for the job recommendation.

“How long did Jane say she was going to be away?” Glen asked Cal as they drove along the fence line. The bed of the pickup was filled with posts and wire and tools; they’d been examining their fencing, doing necessary repairs, all afternoon.

Cal didn’t want to think about his wife or about their strained telephone conversations of the last few nights. Yesterday he’d hung up depressed and anxious when Jane told him she wouldn’t be home as soon as she’d hoped. Apparently Harry Dickinson’s broken hip had triggered a number of other medical concerns. Just when it seemed his hip was healing nicely, the doctors discovered a spot on his lung. It’d shown up earlier, but in the weeks since he’d been admitted, the spot had grown. All at once the big C loomed over Jane’s father. Cancer.

“I don’t know when she’ll be back,” Cal muttered, preferring not to discuss the subject with his brother. Cal blamed himself for their uncomfortable conversation. He’d tried to be helpful, reassuring, but hadn’t been able to prevent his disappointment from surfacing. He’d expected her home any day, and now it seemed she was going to be delayed yet again.

“Are you thinking of flying to California yourself?” his brother asked.

“No.” Cal’s response was flat.

“Why not?”

“I don’t see that it’d do any good.” He believed that her parents had become emotionally dependent on her, as though it was within Jane’s power to take their problems away. She loved her parents and he knew she felt torn between their needs and his. And here he was, putting pressure on her, as well.

He didn’t mean to add to her troubles, but he had.

“Do you think I’m an irrational jerk?”

“Yes,” Glen said, “so what’s your point?”

That made Cal smile. Leave it to his younger brother to say exactly what he needed to hear. “You’d be a lot more sympathetic if it was your wife.”

“Probably,” Glen agreed.

Normally Cal kept his affairs to himself, but he wasn’t sure about the current situation. After Jane had hung up, Cal had battled the urge to call her back, settle matters. They hadn’t fought, not exactly, but they were dissatisfied with each other. Cal understood how Jane felt, understood her intense desire to support her parents, guide them through this difficult time. But she wasn’t an only child—she had a brother living nearby—and even if she had been, her uncle was a doctor, too. The Dickinsons didn’t need to rely so heavily on Jane, in Cal’s opinion—and he’d made that opinion all too clear.

“What would you do?” Cal asked his brother.

Glen met his look and shrugged. “Getting tired of your own cooking, are you?”

“It’s more than that.” Cal had hoped Jane would force her brother to take on some of the responsibility.

She hadn’t.

Cal and Glen reached the top of the ridge that overlooked the ranch house. “Whose car is that?” Glen asked.

“Where?”

“Parked by the barn.”

Cal squinted, and shook his head. “Don’t have a clue.”

“We’d better find out, don’t you think?”

Cal steered the pickup toward the house. As they neared the property, Cal recognized Nicole Nelson lounging on his porch. Her again? He groaned inwardly. Their meeting at the Mexican Lindo had been innocent enough, but he didn’t want her mentioning it to his brother. Glen was sure to say something to Ellie, and his sister-in-law would inevitably have a few questions and would probably discuss it with Dovie, and…God only knew where all this would end.

“It’s Nicole Nelson,” Cal muttered.

“The girl from the rodeo?”