Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(101)

“Well, my goodness! Just like our Ginger!”

“Are you twenty-one, dear?” asked the pastor’s wife.

“I am. Yes, ma’am. Just.”

“Our Colin is studyin’ to be a doctor, so he has many more years—”

“Well!” gasped Miz Magnolia, pressing a flattened palm to the front of her Tory Burch silk wrap dress. “Our Ginger’s a nurse!”

“What a coincidence!” exclaimed Pastor Greenvale, helping himself to another scoop of green beans. “Medical children, eh, Ranger?”

“I guess that’s so,” said Ranger, flicking a glance at Ginger, who felt her cheeks flushing with heat.

“Is your son spendin’ Thanksgivin’ with his girlfriend?” asked Ginger, feeling more and more uncomfortable and trying to waylay her mother’s interest in Colin Greenvale.

“No, no,” said Miz Monica, “he’s volunteerin’ at a hospital in Guatemala for six weeks. We’ll have him back in the States after the New Year.”

“January, Ginger,” said her mother, with a knowing smile. “And since he’ll be new to Apple Valley, I expect you could spare an evenin’ to show him around?”

Ginger’s breath caught, anxiety seeping into her veins.

“Virginia,” said Ranger, suddenly commanding his daughter’s attention. “I asked Nina to set aside a pumpkin pie for Klaus and Cain. If you’re finished eatin’, perhaps you wouldn’t mind takin’ it down to the barn for them?”

“Ranger!” exclaimed Miz Magnolia. “We’re still dinin’.”

Ginger’s father ignored her mother, keeping his eyes fixed, with compassion, on his daughter. “You wouldn’t mind, now, would you, dear?”

“No, sir,” she said softly, placing her napkin beside her plate and standing up from her seat. “With your permission?” she said, smiling serenely at the Greenvales and her mother before giving her father a genuine and grateful nod.

And Ranger McHuid, whom Ginger could never remember denying anything his Magnolia, winked at her conspiratorially before she slipped away.

***

“Noch ein Bier?”

“Ja, Papa,” said Cain, standing from the warm leather chair beside his father’s. He took the two empty bottles from the table between them. “I’ll get us two more.”

The tack room apartment smelled of roasted chicken and vegetables that would be ready in about an hour, and though it wasn’t the traditional American Thanksgiving menu that his mother would be serving today, Cain had decided he’d prefer to spend the holiday with his father. The idea of Aunt Sophie’s vitriol, however contained, would have made his mother’s table uncomfortable. Plus, his mother had her husband and sister. His father had no one, and Cain was perfectly happy watching football with cold beer and pretzels. It was relaxed and companionable.

As he threw the empties in the recycling bin and grabbed two more bottles of Grolsch from the refrigerator, he was surprised to hear knocking at the tack room door. His father turned from the TV, his eyebrows furrowed in question.

“You expect someone?”

“Nein, Papa,” said Cain, handing his father one of the two beers, then heading for the door. And damn if his heart didn’t roar to life to find Ginger on the other side.

“Hi,” she said, her voice considerably warmer and softer than it had been a week and a half ago, when he’d dropped her off after the wreath laying.

“Hi,” he said, taking in the pretty wave of her shiny blonde hair, the glossy bit of pink lipstick that drew his attention to her mouth.

“My, uh . . .” She cleared her throat, her big brown eyes holding his captive. “My father asked me to bring down a pie.”

“Wunderbar, Ginger! Danke!” said Cain’s father, hopping up from his chair with his arms outstretched. “Bitte sch?n!”

“He’s so excited for the pie, he’s forgettin’ his English,” said Cain, chuckling good-naturedly at his father’s wide grin. “Wonderful, thank you, and come in.”

Ginger handed the pie to Klaus with a small smile, then looked up at Cain, her lips flattening just a little, the warmth in her eyes cooling just a bit, like she didn’t trust him, like she wasn’t sure of him.

He raised his bottle. “Can I get you a beer?”

“Umm,” she hummed, and two spots of crimson suddenly popped out on the apples of her cheeks. He watched her for a moment, the way she lowered her eyes and looked at her shiny tan high-heeled shoes. And then he remembered—the last time she had beer, she’d vomited on the firehouse floor.

His father, however, only knew Austrian hospitality, nothing of Ginger’s erstwhile overindulgence. When he returned from placing the pie safely in the fridge, he was holding another bottle of open Grolsch and offered it to her.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” said Klaus, clinking her bottle with a cheerful grin.

She laughed softly and nodded, putting the bottle to her lips and tilting it up to take a sip as she grinned at Klaus.

And Cain, who watched her, felt his own rising arm still. For just a moment—a short, perfect moment—she looked happy. She looked young and lovely and open, without any sorrow weighing down her small shoulders. His breath caught, softly, without incident—his father and Ginger both oblivious—and his heart thundered inside its cage at the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his entire life.