“Have you asked the boss? He’s not real big on holidays.”

“The kids told me he used to have more holiday spirit.”

“It’s been a few years.”

“What happened?”

“He’s just been a bachelor a long time. Hard to do everything and be happy about it.”

Harley glanced down at the green fragrant branches in her arms. “You really think Mr. Sheenan will be upset that I’ve spruced things up for Christmas? I’m just making some garland, adding some candles on the mantels.”

He thought for a moment. “If that’s all, Mr. Sheenan might be okay. But I wouldn’t push him. He’s not a man that likes to be bossed around.”

 

 

 

Brock entered the house through the kitchen door, which was how he always entered in his work clothes, but he was stopped short this afternoon by the sight of the twins hunched over the island counter carefully frosting sugar cookies that had been cut into stars and stockings, ornaments, candy canes and Christmas trees.

The kids looked up at him and smiled. Mack had flour on his cheek and Molly was licking icing from her thumb.

“Hey Dad, look what we made,” Molly said. “Roll-out sugar cookies.”

Brock approached the island to examine the platter filled with fanciful colors and shapes. “Nice,” he said.

“Want one?” Mack asked, offering him a candy cane.

Brock shook his head. “Maybe after dinner,” he answered, before looking at Harley who was drying the last of the cookie sheets. “Where did you get the cookie cutters from?” he asked her.

“Just made a paper pattern,” she said.

Mack nodded. “Miss Harley made the patterns out of cardboard and we cut them all out. It took a while but it was really cool.”

“You have to be careful not to roll the dough too thin,” Molly explained, “and you also have to watch how much flour you use. You can’t use too much or too little.”

Brock’s eyebrows lifted. “You got them baking today.”

She blushed, her cheeks turning pink. She looked nervous as she reached for the next cookie tray. “I thought it’d be a good activity for a cold afternoon.”

“Must have been a lot of work.”

“It was fun.”

Brock glanced back to the counter with the platter of cookies. The shapes weren’t perfect and there was more frosting than cookie in some cases, but Mack and Molly looked happy. Happier than he’d seen them since returning from New York. “Maxine wouldn’t let you two mess up her kitchen like this, would she?”

“But it shouldn’t be Maxine’s kitchen,” Harley said. “It’s yours, and the kids’. This is your house.”

Brock frowned. “Well, let’s not get too comfortable in here. She’ll be back in a month and she’ll want her kitchen back.” He tapped each of the kids on the head. “Mack, Molly, make sure you help Miss Diekerhoff clean up. You’re not to leave her with all the work.”

He started for the hall, but stopped at the fireplace. A generous swag of pine covered the mantel, the green branches held in place by fat white candles.

They hadn’t just been baking. They’d been decorating, too.

He slowly turned and looked back to the island counter. Mack and Molly were staring at him, waiting for his reaction.

“It smells good, doesn’t it, Dad?” Mack said hopefully.

Mack glanced past the kids to Harley who appeared utterly engrossed in the glass mixing bowl she was drying so very vigorously.

He knew right away who’d been behind the green garland and candles.

“It’s fine,” Brock said flatly. “But let’s not get carried away.”

 

 

 

After lunch Thursday, Harley prepped for dinner, creating a mustard beer bath for the two big roasts that would be tonight’s dinner, and then peeled the mound of apples for tonight’s apple pie.

The kids had been dashing in and out most of the day, doing chores for their dad and then entertaining themselves with various outdoor adventures.

She liked how well Mack and Molly played together. They were extremely close. Not just brother and sister, but best friends.

As Harley rolled out the pie crust and then filled each of the pie shells with the spicy apple cinnamon and sugar mixture, she thought about her daughters. They’d loved baking with her, and despite the two-and-a-half-year age difference between them, Emma and Ana had always been each other’s best friend.

After carefully sliding both pies into the oven, Harley moved laundry forward, carrying folded towels upstairs and stacking the clean clothes for the ranch hands in the plastic basket that they’d come and retrieve after work tonight.

Thirty minutes later, she opened the oven door and checked on the apple pies, making sure the crusts on the pies weren’t burning. The pies were browning beautifully, the flaky edges turning light gold with juice bubbling through the slits in the sugar-dusted crust.

The kitchen door flung open. “I need a Band-Aid,” Mack said breathlessly. “Maybe a bunch.”

Harley straightened and turned. “Everything okay?” she asked, seeing how the shoulder of his coat was powdered with snow, and something... else.... something... red

“I think so,” he said, not sounding convincing at all.

“Is that something… red on your coat?” she asked.

He looked down at his sleeve and tried to rub the red splatter off, streaking it instead.

“Where are you hurt?” she asked.

“Not me. Molly.”

“Badly?”

“I don’t know. She won’t let me see.”

Harley quickly went into the little bathroom off the kitchen, grabbed a washcloth, and then rifled through the medicine cabinet for rubbing alcohol, gauze pads, and Band-Aids. “Where is she?”

“Behind the house.”

“Show me,” Harley said, ignoring her coat to rush out the door.

Mack ran through the snow, with Harley close on his heels, snow crunching beneath their shoes, leading her around the side of the corral, to the back gate, where Molly was leaning against a post, her hand shielding her face as blood stained the snow around her feet.

“Dad’s going to ground me for life,” Mack whispered.

Harley ignored this, and bent over the girl.