Forget asking for a pony. Sophia Tucker and her sisters have inherited an entire horse farm for Christmas. The money from selling the place should be enough for Soph to open her own veterinary clinic. Finally.
All that’s left to do is return home for one last Christmas. But there’s a catch.
His name is Matt Weatherly, a former Marine medic and childhood friend. Nurse to her late father, Matt sets to work helping the Tucker sisters bring the family homestead back to its former glory. However, it’s anything but peace on earth when Matt considers reenlisting. Is it possible for Soph to have herself a merry little Christmas?
Forget asking for a pony. Sophia Tucker and her sisters have inherited an entire horse farm for Christmas. The money from selling the place should be enough for Soph to open her own veterinary clinic. Finally.
All that’s left to do is return home for one last Christmas. But there’s a catch.
His name is Matt Weatherly, a former Marine medic and childhood friend. Nurse to her late father, Matt sets to work helping the Tucker sisters bring the family homestead back to its former glory. However, it’s anything but peace on earth when Matt considers reenlisting. Is it possible for Soph to have herself a merry little Christmas?
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Overview
Forget asking for a pony. Sophia Tucker and her sisters have inherited an entire horse farm for Christmas. The money from selling the place should be enough for Soph to open her own veterinary clinic. Finally.
All that’s left to do is return home for one last Christmas. But there’s a catch.
His name is Matt Weatherly, a former Marine medic and childhood friend. Nurse to her late father, Matt sets to work helping the Tucker sisters bring the family homestead back to its former glory. However, it’s anything but peace on earth when Matt considers reenlisting. Is it possible for Soph to have herself a merry little Christmas?
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781683701330 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Gilead Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/24/2017 |
| Series: | Sleigh Bells Ring |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 63 |
| File size: | 712 KB |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Sophie Tucker loosened her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel of her 1999 white Ranger pickup as she gradually slowed to pull into the ice- and snow-covered driveway. Home ... finally. She heaved a sigh of relief.
What should have been a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Nashville to Bluegrass Crossing outside of Lexington, Kentucky, had turned into six hours, and she'd spent another half hour creeping along the rural road to the horse farm where she'd grown up. As she gently turned the steering wheel to the right, the truck's rear-end fishtailed. Panicked, she turned into the skid to stop her slide into a deep ditch. Instead of gaining control, her truck spun around, one wheel hitting the gravel shoulder. She gunned the engine, but that only made things worse.
Her anxiety level hit the stratosphere when she realized what she feared most was happening, almost as if in slow motion. Her Ranger slid sideways down the six-foot embankment, and she thought it might roll over. She screamed, "Jesus!" over and over again until she came to rest at a 45-degree angle, the downhill side of her truck buried in snow.
Breathing hard, her heart throbbing in her throat, Sophie shut off the engine and dropped her head on the steering wheel. When someone rapped hard on her side window, she whipped her head around, trying to see through the frost. Someone yanked on her door handle. She turned the key back on and rolled down her window, looking up into the bluest eyes she'd seen in a long time. Not since high school anyway.
Ice crystals pelted her face. "Matthew Weatherly, you scared the life out of me."
"Right back at ya, Soph. I had just walked out of the stable when I saw you skidding into the ditch."
"What are you doing here?"
Smiling in relief, he poked his head inside, his warm breath caressing her cheek. "Looks like I'm rescuing you, Peanut. We need to get you out of there before your pickup decides to roll. Unlock your door."
Sophie's heart slowed now that she was safe, and she felt the return of those melted-chocolate feelings she once had for her first real crush. Not that he'd ever known how she felt about him back when they goofed around in their church's youth group and rode horses together. He was a senior when she was a lowly sophomore. He had all the girlfriends he wanted, and she didn't qualify. Then he'd graduated and joined the military — traitor — just like his hero Tuck. Her father's nickname stuck in her throat.
She broke his friendly stare and reached for her truck keys. "I don't need rescuing. I push around thousand-pound thoroughbreds for a living, remember?"
"How could I forget, Dr. Sophia Tucker, equine veterinarian extraordinaire?" he drawled. "Your daddy was really proud of you."
Sophie bit her tongue, aware of the cold steel door that slammed closed in her heart. What she wanted to say was, Oh, you mean the father who abandoned my mother and his four daughters and ran off to play war games? Like I care what he thought.
Before taking out her keys, she raised the window and unlocked the doors.
"I'm not sure we can get your door open," Matt yelled from outside. "Maybe it would be safer if you crawled out the window."
"Let's try the door first."
With Matt's help, she managed to crack it open, and with him pulling on the handle, they finally opened it far enough for her to squeeze out.
She pulled her duffle bag with her, but before she could swing it out, Matt took it out of her hands. The pickup door slammed shut. Then he helped steady her as she stepped into the deep snow to climb up the embankment. The full force of the wind hit her, making it hard to stand upright.
"Let's get inside before we freeze to death," he said. "A blizzard's moving in. We're supposed to get sustained winds of thirty-five to forty miles an hour and a foot or more of snow."
Her brows furrowed in worry as she shouted over the whistling wind. "Did all my sisters make it home okay? I didn't let anyone know I was coming."
"No one's heard whether Amy is coming, but Jo-Jo and Bella are stuck in Lexington."
When Sophie's leather-soled cowboy boot made contact with the road, she slipped and fell against Matt, all six foot three of him. She felt small, even at five foot ten. With his free hand, he quickly grabbed her arm and kept her from face-planting in the snow.
"Watch your step. There's a solid sheet of ice under this white stuff."
"Thanks for the warning." She glanced toward the house, but could barely see it through the driving snow. "Why on earth would they drive over there with weather coming in?"
"This storm was supposed to head north of us. Now they're saying it could be a record-breaker. Besides, you know Jo-Jo. She got it into her head to go Christmas shopping at the mall. Bella and her boyfriend, David, piled in with her."
Sophie gripped Matt's muscled arm, and together they plowed up the driveway, holding on to each other. They tucked their heads close to block the blinding snow mixed with ice crystals.
"Now they're stuck," she said.
"Yeah," Matt bellowed. "Dave checked into a hotel, and your sisters are staying with an old friend of Aunt Sarah's — Mrs. Shaffer."
"Nice lady. Are Jed and the hands here?"
"No. They delivered some of the horses to auction near Louisville and got caught in this. They're bunking down over there."
"At least they're all safe." Burying her face against his sleeve, Sophie put all her effort into making it to the porch. As they drew closer, she noticed the old farmhouse fully outlined in large, colorful bulbs of red, green, and white — just like when she was a kid. Had Jo-Jo done that? Her sister had definitely inherited the Christmas gene passed down from their mother, Marlena.
Taking care not to slip on the icy stone steps, Sophie opened the door, scraping her boots on the poinsettia welcome mat before crossing the threshold onto the gleaming, gray French oak floors.
"Sophie, there's a blizzard out here." He gently pushed her inside, out of the wind, snow still caking his boots, and quickly shut the door behind them as he dropped her duffle bag on the floor.
"Now look what you've done to your Aunt Sarah's clean floors," she scolded him.
"Don't get all bent out of shape, Peanut. If you'd stomped your boots much longer, we woulda had a snowdrift a foot high in here."
Sophie swung a punch at his arm. Grinning, he playfully blocked her, both of them falling back into their childhood roles. Matt had practically grown up on the farm with his younger cousin, Jed, taking care of the horses while his uncle managed the property. His Aunt Sarah helped with the house, enabling Sophie's mama to focus her attention on the business side of things. Sophie and Matt were always roughhousing, competing to see who could climb the highest tree or race the fastest horse across the pasture.
Sarah strolled out of the kitchen, a big grin on her face. "All right, you two. No fighting in the house. You're both adults now."
Sophie looked at one of her favorite people in the whole world and giggled. "Tell him that."
"Look at the stranded kitten I rescued, Aunt Sarah," Matt said. "She drove her truck into the ditch."
"I did not! It slid into the ditch."
"It's a wonder you made it drivin' all the way up from Nashville in this storm." Sarah's smile lit up her seventy-something face. "Come here and give me a hug. I've missed you."
"I've missed you, too." Sophie stepped into her warm embrace and gazed at the vision of lights over the older woman's shoulder. "You put up a Christmas tree."
Every handmade ornament dangling from the fragrant branches took her back to her childhood days when, each year, she and her three sisters helped decorate the biggest Virginia pine Tuck could find on the property.
"Jo-Jo talked Jed into it," Matt said.
"It's beautiful." The tree almost touched the fifteen-foot, beamed ceiling of the great room.
Sarah smiled and put her arm around Sophie's waist. "It's about time, too. It's been far too long since Christmas kissed this old place. Jo-Jo dragged the boxes of ornaments and strings of lights out of the attic."
"Mama loved Christmas and went all out, but I don't remember the last time we had a tree like that one. Once Tuck left, we took to putting up those little puny ones from the Monty family's lot." Sophie's eyes continued to roam from branch to branch, from memory to memory.
"I remember," Sarah said matter-of-factly and bustled toward the kitchen. "The Christmas before your daddy left home."
The thought of her father left a hollow feeling in Sophie's stomach, one she'd rather ignore. "Is that fresh coffee I smell?" She shrugged out of her coat.
"You know it is, and I stocked all your favorite creamers, too, just in case you girls decided to come after all. They've got a new one out just for Christmastime — chocolate peppermint."
"What, no hug for me?" Matt draped his arm around his aunt's shoulders and stooped to kiss her on the cheek.
"You've only been gone an hour," Sarah said, smoothing the front of his blue-checked flannel shirt and then giving his flat tummy a pat. "Are the horses all tucked in for the night? It's gonna be a cold one."
"Yes, ma'am. Stalls mucked out, fresh straw on the floor, feed and water, and blankets. Thermostat set on forty-five."
"You're a good boy, Charlie Brown." Sarah patted his red cheeks. "I wish Jedediah and the rest of them hadn't taken off early this morning. Thanks for drivin' over and fillin' in."
"No problem. Oh, and before I hiked down to the stable, I stacked a bunch of firewood on the porch and brought in a couple of armloads to keep the fireplace goin' until this storm passes."
"No tellin' how long that'll be. In March of '15, we lost electricity for a week. I had to cook on a skillet in the fireplace. Cold as blue blazes, too."
Sophie and Matt followed Sarah into the kitchen, pulled out bar stools from the island, and plopped down side-by-side as if Sophie hadn't been gone for years. How many hundreds of times had Sarah set out a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies for all the kids and poured them glasses of milk? Almost every afternoon after school.
Guilt niggled in her gut. She should have kept in better touch with Sarah after she left home. When she was in college, she'd made it a habit to drive over from Lexington every week or two to visit Bella and Jo-Jo ... until they left; later she found out Tuck was retiring and returning to the farm. She'd found the job in Nashville and made herself scarce, and then she told herself she was way too busy to call.
When her mother died in a car accident, Sarah had been there for Sophie and her sisters. Grieving the loss of her mother had been one of the hardest things she'd ever gone through.
Shaking off the dark thoughts, Sophie sighed when the woman who had become a second mother to her set a blue mug of dark-roast coffee in front of her and fetched the bottle of chocolate peppermint creamer from the fridge. Even at seventy-something, Miss Sarah was still a beauty with snow-white hair and porcelain skin that looked like a proper southern lady's, one with the good sense to avoid the sun.
"Where's mine?" Matt asked.
Sophie took a sip of hot coffee made just the way she liked it and looked over at him. "Well, aren't we spoiled. How hard is it to drop a K-cup into the machine? I'd tell him to make his own, Sarah."
"I'm sure you would." Matt put his arm around her and pulled her to him, kissing the crown of her auburn hair. "I'm glad you're home, Peanut. We've really missed you. Haven't we, Aunt Sarah?"
"Yessiree."
"Jo-Jo will be over the moon that you decided to come home for Christmas after all," Matt continued. "Besides, it's been pretty dull around these parts since I moved home. With you gone, I didn't have anyone to save from falling out of trees or from drowning in the river when the canoe tips over."
"You left town first. And you're one to talk. If I remember right, you had your share of accidents, like that broken arm you got from trying to jump a horse over the back fence. A horse that had never been trained to jump a fence, by the way. You were trying to impress what's-her-name."
He laughed. "Missy Taylor. Happy Gal dug in her heels, and I went flying over her head."
"Ah, so you do remember."
Scrubbing his five o'clock shadow with the back of his hand, Matt winked at her and sipped from the matching blue mug of coffee Aunt Sarah set down in front of him. "Not one of my finer moments."
Laughing, his aunt playfully slapped his hand when he reached for the cookies and moved the plate to the black-marble counter. "Not till after supper. You'll spoil your appetite."
"This from the woman who always taught us, 'Life is hard. Eat dessert first.'"
"Don't go quotin' me to me, whippersnapper."
"And did you mention supper? Am I invited? I'd love to, but I'd better get on home before I'm stuck here."
"You are stuck here," Sophie said. "No way your Aunt Sarah's letting you drive home in a blizzard."
"That's right. If you think you're leaving in this kind of weather, you've got another think comin,'" Sarah said as if there were no room for argument. "I'm not stayin' up all night, worrying about you sliding into some ditch like Sophie did. You can sleep in Tuck's room tonight. There's fresh sheets on the bed and a couple of heavy quilts folded on top."
"You don't have to worry about me wrecking my truck," he said. "I'm a whale of a better driver than Miss Sophie Pants. She failed her first two driving tests."
Sophie frowned and folded her arms. "I did not. I only flunked once, and that's because my truck was too long for those stupid orange cones they set up for the parallel parking test."
"All right, ladies, I'll stay. Somebody needs to take care of the womenfolk and a stable full of horses."
Sophie smiled at his aunt. "We'll let him think that to massage his inflated ego."
Matt burst out laughing. "You've always gotta have the last word, don't you, Peanut?"
Sophie's heart hadn't fluttered like this since Matt gave her a peck on the cheek before he walked out of her life on his way to Naval Station Great Lakes. She had loved him with her whole heart, and still he left her — abandoned her — just like Tuck had left her mom. But unlike Tuck, Matt had come home after his tour as a medic with the Marines, hung up his uniform, and gone back to school to become an RN.
"Do you have any animals at home that need taking care of?" she asked in concern.
"Nope."
"Not even a dog?"
He shook his head. "It's hard to take care of critters on my crazy schedule."
Sarah bent down to open the oven door and check her pot roast. Sophie looked over at Matt and found him staring at her with those gorgeous blue eyes, surrounded by the kind of long, dark lashes any woman would kill for. With a soft smile, he reached over and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Sophie's heartbeat sped up, stealing away her breath.
"I'm really glad you're home, Peanut."
Matt had abandoned her once as a friend, but those deep feelings for him still lingered. Only stronger, if that was even possible. Until this moment, she had resigned herself to live life as a single woman. The men she had dated in the past never so much as caused a blip on her EKG. Yet one touch from Matt, and she felt like a love-struck teenager again.
CHAPTER 2Early the next morning while it was still dark outside, Matt tossed back the covers and hopped out of bed, fully awake. His inner alarm clock always went off at 5:00 a.m., no matter what time he went to sleep. Before throwing on the clothes he'd worn the day before, he dropped and did fifty push-ups, then fifty sit-ups.
After he made coffee by the dim light shining from the vent hood over the stove, he ventured onto an ice-covered porch. Pulling up his coat collar, his Stetson low over his eyes, he stepped out into freezing rain. Miserable weather, but the stable guests couldn't take care of themselves.
It took an hour or so to muck out the stalls, spread fresh straw, and feed and water the horses. When he returned to the house, his cheeks chapped red by the cold, he walked into a bright kitchen that smelled like fried bacon. Aunt Sarah looked up and broke an egg into her bowl.
Smiling, he tugged off his gloves, stuffed them in the pockets of his frozen jacket that he hung on a peg by the door, and then washed his hands at the farm sink.
"Sophie up?" He dried his hands with a paper towel before mounting one of the wooden stools at the kitchen island.
Aunt Sarah turned and studied him for a moment before she turned back around. "Not yet."
"Lazybones."
"I suspect she's pretty tired after that treacherous drive yesterday." She whisked a bowlful of eggs with a little cream, added salt, and poured them into a sizzling hot skillet coated with butter.
"I imagine." He sat on his hands to warm them up. "The snow has turned to freezing rain again. Everything's coated with a thick layer of ice. We've already got tree limbs down."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "I'll Be Home for Christmas"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Barbara J. Scott.
Excerpted by permission of Gilead Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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