A Rancher for Christmas. Brenda Minton

the weather and Christmas. As they talked, Breezy walked out of the barn, closing the door behind her. She told Jake she’d meet him at the house.

      She was still wearing his jacket. He watched her walk down the driveway, his dog next to her. He knew her scent would linger on his jacket. Every time he pulled it on, he’d smell that light spring fragrance.

      Jake had been around awhile. He knew temptation when he saw it, when it walked away with his dog and his coat. And maybe took a little of his common sense with it.

      It had been years since he’d met temptation head-on like this, but he still recognized it for what it was. And he still knew where that road led. He knew he wasn’t going there.

Chapter Five

      After Jake left, Breezy decided to unpack her few belongings. She’d been putting off the task of settling in, thinking something would happen, preparing for the reality that this, too, could be taken from her. She’d kept her clothes in her suitcase and her toiletries in the bag she’d put on the bathroom counter. Unpacking meant staying. Unpacking meant a commitment to remain here and help raise two little girls.

      It meant staying in Jake Martin’s life. For a long, long time. Always being the person he tolerated. A person he’d rather not have in his world.

      She had news for him. He was no picnic, either. But they were stuck with each other and she’d make the best of it.

      The decision to stay meant picking a room. There were two bedrooms and a craft room upstairs. She had picked a spare room on the ground floor, close to the room that had belonged to the twins. A room those twins would return to in time. They would spend nights with her. Maybe even weeks.

      Breezy’s new room was pretty with tan, textured walls and another wall of stone, with a fireplace in the center and French doors that led to a patio. She stood in the middle of that room and tried to imagine herself living there. She tried to picture herself helping Jake Martin raise two little girls, picture them growing up. She would be there as they went to school, as they started to think about boys and dating, and then someday they would leave. And where would she be then? Still in Martin’s Crossing, still single and wishing she could find a place to belong?

      What if she grew to love this town?

      How would it feel to grow old in Martin’s Crossing? For some reason, images of Jake Martin popped into her mind. Unattainable, undeniably gorgeous, a man with rules, a man of faith. She would be coparenting those little girls with a man who was everything she’d never been.

      She headed down the hall to the kitchen, where she quickly made a list of things she needed from the store. What she really needed was to get out of the house. Breezy headed for Martin’s Crossing, AKA: The One-Horse Town. As she drove she called Mia. She needed to tell her sister everything that had happened. She also needed to know she still had an ally, someone who trusted her.