Santa's Sweetheart (The Christmas Tree Ranch #4)
Janet Dailey
Chapter One
Branding Iron, Texas
Thanksgiving Day, 1996
The microwaved turkey TV dinners were the best that Sheriff Sam Delaney could manage this year. His six-year-old daughter, Maggie, hid her disappointment with a brave smile.
“It’s all right, Daddy,” she said, clearing the foil trays off the table. “Next year I’ll be big enough to cook dinner myself, with a real turkey and everything, just like Mommy used to make.”
“I’m sure you will, honey.” Sam hugged her close, fighting the rush of emotion that threatened to bring tears to his eyes. Bethany, his wife and Maggie’s mother, had died in a car accident a year ago, just a week before Thanksgiving. After it happened, Sam had sent Maggie to stay with her grandparents until after the holidays, while he struggled to cope with loss and grief. This year would be their first holiday season together since Bethany’s passing. So far, Sam wasn’t handling it well.
“Hey, at least we’ve got pumpkin pie,” he said, picking up the frozen treat he’d grabbed at the market. “Let’s see if it’s thawed.” He tested it with a knife. The point went in partway, then met icy resistance. “Sorry,” Sam said. “I guess I should’ve given it more time out of the freezer.”
“Let’s have some anyway,” Maggie said. “It’ll be like eating pumpkin ice cream!”
Using the force of his big hand, Sam managed to hack out two slices of pie, slide them onto saucers, and squirt canned Reddi-wip over the top. Exchanging a thumbs-up and a smile, they each broke off a piece and took a taste.
“Yuck,” Maggie said, putting down her fork. Sam did the same. Even with topping, the half-frozen pie was nothing like ice cream. It was more like mushy ice. Maybe he should have cooked it in the oven instead of just trying to thaw it.
“Sorry, honey,” Sam said. “If I hadn’t needed to work this morning . . .”
“I know, Daddy,” Maggie said. “Your job is to keep people safe, even on Thanksgiving. That’s why I’m going to make dinner next year. We’ve got Mom’s big red and white cookbook, the one that was Grandma’s. I can read and learn how. Hey, the Christmas specials are starting on TV. Want to watch them with me? We can make popcorn.”
“Sure.” Sam’s heart had been set on football, but if his little girl, who had just eaten the worst Thanksgiving dinner ever, wanted to watch Frosty and Rudolph and Charlie Brown, who was he to spoil her day?
Maggie put the popcorn bag in the microwave and punched the buttons. As the sound of popping and the buttery smell filled the kitchen, Sam found a bowl on a high shelf and had it ready to hold the popcorn when it was done.
With the bowl between them, they settled on the couch to watch the kiddie shows. Sam sighed as the folksy voice of Burl Ives rolled out “Frosty the Snowman.” Things could be worse, he told himself. At least Maggie appeared to be holding up all right. She’d always been an upbeat kid, choosing to see the sunny side of things. Or, more likely, she was just being brave. But he knew she missed her mother every day, just as he did.
As she munched her popcorn and watched her show, Sam studied her stubborn young profile. Maggie had her mother’s curly auburn hair, green eyes, and the same sprinkle of freckles across her nose. But the rest of her was all Delaney. She was going to be a pretty woman one day. And tall. How tall remained to be seen.
There was a reason people referred to their sheriff as “Big Sam.” At six-foot-four and a husky 250 pounds, there was no more descriptive word for him than big. He’d played defensive line in college and had been a likely candidate for the NFL until he’d blown out his knee—blown it out spectacularly in a nationally televised game. Damned knee. It still gave him a slight limp and pained him in cold weather.
With his pro football hopes gone and his athletic scholarship ended, Sam had come home to Branding Iron, married Bethany, won the election for county sheriff, and gotten on with what he’d thought of as his real life—real, until last year when a drunk driver on an ice-slicked road had changed it forever.
The program had gone to a commercial. Maggie stirred beside him. “Daddy?” she said.
“Mm-hmm?” he muttered, giving her his attention.
“I’ve been thinking about something. Do you know what you need?”
“What, honey?” Maybe she was going to suggest that they replace their geriatric TV or the rusting Ford pickup he drove when he wasn’t on duty.
“I can tell you’re lonely, Daddy,” she said. “You need a wife—or maybe, for now, just a girlfriend. What do you think about finding one?”
Sam’s throat jerked tight. His daughter was full of surprises. But where the hell had that come from?
*
Maggie was only in first grade. But there were two things she knew for sure. Number one: As much as she missed her mother, and as hard as she’d cried and prayed, Bethany Delaney was never coming back. And number two: The happy smile her father wore when she was around was as fake as a Halloween mask. Behind it, Big Sam was lonely and sad—and he wasn’t getting better.
Nobody could ever take the place of Maggie’s mother. But she couldn’t let her father be unhappy forever. Now that his wife Bethany had been gone for more than a year, it was time he found a good woman to make him smile again for real. But so far, he wasn’t dating—or even looking, as far as she could tell.