Free A Christmas Blessing by Sherryl Woods

just wanted to please your father.”
    “He should have known that nothing would impress Daddy except success,” Luke said bitterly. “If Erik had stuck to his guns and gone on to be a teacher, if he’d won recognition for that, it would have pleased Daddy more than seeing him trying to be a rancher and failing.”
    Jessie felt a surge of anger on Erik’s behalf. “Don’t belittle your brother for trying. At least he admitted that he was staying at the ranch in an attempt to gain your father’s approval. You won’t even admit that’s what you’re doing.” She waved her hand to encompass the kitchen, the whole house. “Isn’t that what all of this is for, to impress your father, to prove you could start from scratch, without a dime of his money and have a bigger, more impressive ranch?”
    As if she sensed the sudden tension, Angela whimpered. Luke soothed her with a stroke of his finger across her cheek and a murmured, “Shh, angel. Everything’s okay. Your mama and I are just having a slight difference of opinion.”
    His angry gaze settled on Jessie. “I bought this ranch because ranching is what I do. I built this house because I needed a home.”
    “How many bedrooms, Luke? Five? Seven? More than there are over at White Pines, I’ll bet. And how many rooms do you really live in? Two, maybe three, if you don’t count the kitchen as Consuela’s domain?”
    “What’s your point?”
    “That you’re every bit as desperate for approval from Harlan as Erik ever was. You’re just determined to do it by besting him at his own game.”
    “Or maybe I was just planning ahead for the time when I have a family to share this ranch with me,” he said quietly, his gaze pinned on her. “Maybe I was thinking about coming in from the cold and finding the woman I loved in front of the fire, holding my baby.”
    The softly spoken remark, the seductive, dangerous look in his eyes held Jessie mesmerized. His voice caressed her.
    “Maybe I was imagining what it would be like when this was no longer just a house, but a home, filled with warmth and laughter and happiness. Or didn’t you ever stop to think that I might have dreams?”
    “So why don’t you do something to turn it into a home?” she taunted before she could stop herself.
    The look he shot her was unreadable, but there was something in the coiled intensity of his body language that sent a thrill shimmering straight through her.
    “Perhaps I have,” he said, his challenging gaze never leaving hers.
    Then, while Jessie’s breath was still lodged in her throat, he pressed a kiss to the baby’s cheek, handed her back to her mother and sauntered from the room with the confidence of a man who’d just emerged triumphant from a showdown at the OK Corral.
    That was the last she saw of him until after the supper she’d been forced to eat alone. She’d spent most of the evening the same way, alone in the kitchen, pondering what Luke had said—and what he hadn’t. With the radio tuned to Christmas carols, her mood was a mix of nostalgia and wistfulness and confusion.
    She hadn’t especially wanted to spend the holidays with Erik’s family, hadn’t been much in the mood for celebrating at all in fact, but now that Christmas was only two days away, she couldn’t help thinking of the way it had been the year before. She wondered if she would ever recapture those feelings.
    The whole family and dozens of friends had been crowded around a gigantic tree, its branches loaded with perfectly matched gold ornaments and tiny white lights, chosen by a decorator. Mary had played carols on the baby grand piano, while the rest of them sang along, their voices more exuberant than on key.
    Jessie remembered thinking of all the quiet Christmases as she’d been growing up, all the times she’d longed for a boisterous houseful of people. With her hand tucked in Erik’s, she’d been so certain that for the first time she finally understood the joy of the season. Her