“It’s not as if I asked you to hide in the shrubbery and watch them through binoculars.” Adele tried to joke about the situation, but her light tone didn’t last long. “What if my reaching out only upsets them? I don’t want to intrude where I’m not welcome. Can you...can you ask Lizzie about me, about whether she’d want to hear from her estranged mother after all this time? I know she doesn’t necessarily speak for all of them, but she’s the oldest. When they were little, her sisters looked up to her. Lizzie might be a good barometer of how they feel.”
Now that Lizzie’s baby was born, conversation about motherhood would be natural. Nicole could ask gentle questions about whether Lizzie missed her own mom. She hoped she’d handle the situation delicately enough; Chris and Lizzie probably weren’t getting a lot of sleep these days. Their emotions could be on edge—to say nothing of Nicole’s own pregnancy mood swings. She’d been a bit of a tomboy growing up and had almost never cried when she fell off a bike or when her foster brothers teased her about being “too short” to play basketball. Yet for the past week, she’d constantly felt on the edge of tears. Was now really the best time to play mediator?
It’s Christmas—the season of miracles. And a miracle may be exactly what Adele and her children needed.
* * *
EVERY TELEVISION CHANNEL seemed intent on reminding the viewer that Christmas was around the corner—classic animated movies, Christmas episodes of popular sitcoms, commercials promising “perfect gifts” for loved ones. Daniel Burke Baron punched the power button on the remote with an internal bah, humbug. Pain made him cranky. While Texas wasn’t known for cold weather, the low temperature tonight was frosty enough to aggravate the lingering ache in his bruised ribs and make his recovering shoulder feel stiffer than normal.
Last month, he’d had surgery after being thrown from a bull in the rodeo ring, and he was damned impatient to get started with physical therapy. He wanted to feel like himself again.
With the television turned off, silence pressed in around him. But it lasted only a moment before a knock resounded through the one-room, remodeled bunkhouse. This building had once been part of a ranch that sold off its acreage to neighboring spreads decades ago. Daniel had wanted something simple, just a comfortable, low-maintenance place to crash when he wasn’t out on the rodeo circuit. It was a few miles from the practice ring and livestock on the Roughneck, his stepfather’s ranch, but lately Daniel had been wondering if he should have struck farther out on his own.
Annoyed with the fresh throbbing in his side when he stood, he answered the door, unsurprised to find his older brother, Jacob.
In lieu of a greeting, Jacob stated the obvious. “You missed Sunday dinner.”
It was traditional for the Baron siblings and step siblings to gather at the ranch on Sunday evenings for a family meal. Those meals had become increasingly crowded lately. Two of his stepsisters had married within the past year. Jet, Carly and Jacob were all engaged. And it wasn’t just spouses or fiancés who’d been added to the mix. Until a few months ago, the only kid under the roof had been Alex, the son of Brock Baron’s third wife. Now the five-year-old was surrounded by new cousins. Daniel had been as stunned as his brother when Jacob discovered in October that he had a toddler son, but in a very short time, Cody had become the center of Jacob’s world.
“Sorry,” Daniel said. “Didn’t quite feel up to it tonight.” If he were being honest with himself, it wasn’t just the shoulder pain that had made him reluctant to go. This was the time of year he always missed his mother the most, and his seasonal melancholy seemed like an ill fit for all the nuptial bliss around the dining room table. Why dampen everyone else’s festive mood?
“Well, Anna sent leftovers.” Jacob held out two Tupperware containers.
Daniel’s mouth lifted in a half grin. He’d always been fond of the housekeeper. She was like him, a member of the household, but not exactly a Baron. Although Brock had adopted Daniel and Jacob after marrying Peggy Burke, he’d never treated them as entirely equal to his real children.
“Thanks. I haven’t actually eaten yet.”
Jacob followed Daniel to the kitchen. “The other reason I stopped by was to let you know I found you a replacement chauffeur for tomorrow.” Ever since Daniel’s accident, Jacob had been driving him to his medical appointments.
“I could drive myself.”
“In downtown traffic? That sling on your arm limits your reflexes and range of motion.”
They might be adults now, but Jacob was still the same protective big brother who’d tried to look after Daniel when their biological father was arrested for embezzlement and sent to prison.
“I feel bad that I can’t reschedule my meeting,” Jacob said.
“Don’t even consider that, not when you worked so hard to get where you are.” After years of Jacob busting his ass to earn their stepfather’s respect, Brock had finally deigned to give Jacob a position at Baron Energies. “Seriously, I’ll survive without the moral support.”
Jacob knew better than anyone how much Daniel disliked doctors’ offices and hospitals, nearly to the point of phobia, but Daniel was almost looking forward to this visit. If all went well, he’d leave the appointment sling-free and cleared to begin therapy.
After sticking one of the containers in the microwave, Daniel went to the refrigerator for a beer. He offered one to his brother. “You have a few minutes to stick around, or does Mariana need your help wrangling Cody into bed?”
Grinning, Jacob reached for the bottle. “The nice thing about time at the ranch is that Cody wears himself out. Lots of space to run around, lots of kids to play with. He was asleep when I dropped off him and Mariana at the house. And speaking of being dropped off...Carly’s going to drive you to your orthopedic appointment. She has a dress fitting four blocks away, so it just makes sense. She’ll come back and get you afterward.”
Carly was the youngest of the Baron sisters and a real spitfire. Barrel racing hadn’t been enough for her; she’d also insisted on trying her hand at bull riding. But lately, her conversations were less about rodeo standings and more about flower arrangements and seating charts. She was getting married at the end of December, just after Christmas.
“So was dinner conversation all about weddings?” Daniel asked. Next spring, he’d be standing as Jacob’s best man. He should probably come up with some helpful input between now and then.
Jacob frowned. “Actually, when Brock was out of the room, talk was mostly about Delia. I mean, Adele.”
For months now, Daniel’s stepsiblings had been working to find out what happened to their mother, Delia Baron. They’d learned that she’d changed her name to Adele Black and was in fact the CEO of AB Windpower. Now that they knew who she was, they’d been trying to agree on how to proceed. They were troubled by the discovery that she’d been buying chunks of Baron Energies stock. Daniel had the impression that Savannah and Carly in particular wanted to reunite with their estranged mom, but it would be difficult to find a happy ending if she was trying to orchestrate some kind of takeover.
Frankly, Daniel’s adolescence—his father’s arrest and, later, his mom’s death—had left him skeptical about happy endings in general.
Stifling his cynicism, he carried his food to the table and changed the subject to an upcoming rodeo exhibition, a charity event to raise funds for youth programs. If Daniel hadn’t been injured, he would have participated. As it was, he planned to attend to cheer on some buddies and talk others into buying tickets for a good cause.
As they chatted about mutual rodeo acquaintances, Jacob suddenly snapped his fingers. “I’ve been meaning to tell you—Bodie Williams is in town.” Another veteran of the rodeo circuit, Bodie had been a friend to both brothers. He’d never made it as high in the standings as Jacob or Daniel, though, and had quit for full-time ranch work.