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“My family died shortly after Christmas. I haven’t celebrated Christmas in the years since.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his cheek to the top of her head. “Ah, Loree, I’m so sorry. I haven’t given any thought to what this time of year must mean to you.”

She tilted her head back and met his gaze. “It’s wonderful to have children around, snitching the candies and shaking presents.” Taking his hand, she placed it on her swollen stomach. “I’m glad to be here.”

“Ah, Sugar, I’m—” The movement beneath his hand halted his words. He gave his wife a warm slow smile. “Lord, I love it when he does that.”

His knees creaked as he hunkered down and placed his cheek against Loree’s stomach.

She intertwined her fingers through his hair, and he realized that contentment existed in the smallest of moments.

Suddenly it didn’t matter that he had never before celebrated Christmas with over half the people in his brother’s house.

What mattered was that he would be sharing the day with Loree and with a child that was not yet born.

“Uncle Austin!” Maggie staggered to a stop right after she rounded the corner of the stall.

Her eyes turned into two big circles of green.

“Can I listen?” She didn’t wait for an answer but hurried over, two burlap sacks clutched in one hand, and pressed her ear against Loree’s stomach.

Austin glanced up to see Loree’s startled expression.

Maggie drew her brows together. “It don’t sound like a girl,” she announced.

“I reckon you’d be the one to know,” Austin said.

Maggie nodded her head enthusiastically, her blond curls bouncing. “Ma always lets me and Pa listen. Pa even talks to the baby before it’s born!”

“I don’t believe that,” Austin told her.

She jerked her head up and down. “He does so. I ‘member when he talked to me before I was born. He told me he loved me better than anything.” She thrust a burlap sack into his hand. “We need to get the reindeer hay put out. Come on!”

She raced out of the barn. Austin slowly unfolded his body and took his wife’s hand, escorting her outside.

“I cannot picture Houston making a fool of himself and talking to his wife’s belly,” Austin said.

“He was talking to the baby.”

Austin snapped his head around. “You say that like you think the baby could hear him.”

Loree shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

He glanced down at his wife’s rounded stomach. He’d feel silly talking to it. He met her gaze. “I’ll just wait until he’s born.”

He closed his fingers more firmly around hers as they approached the house. Giggling children were digging into burlap sacks and tossing hay over the yard, the veranda, and each other.

“Is there a trick to this?” he asked as he neared Dallas.

“Don’t put it in the hands of a three-year-old,” Dallas warned as he waited patiently while Faith carefully picked a single piece of straw from the pile he held in his hand.

She bent down and placed it on the ground.

Then she meticulously sifted through the straw in his hand, searching for another piece to her liking.

Austin cleared his throat. “You’ll be here all night.”

“Yep, and this ain’t the worst part. We gotta remember where they put all the damn hay so we can pick it up in the morning before they wake up.” He lifted a brow. “So they’ll think the dadgum reindeer ate it.”

Austin knelt beside his niece. She stilled, the straw pressed between her tiny forefinger and thumb, her brown eyes huge. He smiled broadly. “You want to put out my hay for the reindeer, too?”

She bobbed her head, took his sack, and held it up to her father. Dallas scowled and ground out his warning through his clenched teeth, “You just wait until next year.”

Austin threw back his head and laughed. God, it was good to be home … to know there would be a Christmas next year … and he would be here.

Breathless, Maggie rushed over, Rawley in her wake. “Uncle Dallas, can me and Rawley go put some on the balcony outside his room?”

“Sure.”

“Me, too,” Faith said as she held her arms out to Rawley.

He lifted her into his arms. “Get her bags, Brat.”

Maggie relieved Dallas of his burden and rushed after Rawley, her short legs unable to keep up with his long strides.

“She never seems to mind that he calls her a brat,” Loree said quietly. “Why does he call her that?”

“I think because she’s like her mother and speaks what’s on her mind—even when he wishes she wouldn’t.

When Rawley first started going to school, he somehow got on the teacher’s bad side.

Teacher was punishing him for not learning quickly enough.

Rawley was too ashamed to tell me about it.

Reckon he thought he deserved it. Maggie thought differently and told me about it. ”

“So you talked with the teacher and worked things out?” Loree asked.

“Hell, no. Gave him his wages and sent him on his way. Hired another teacher. Nobody, but nobody punishes my children but me. And you were right. I would have snatched that piano teacher baldheaded if I’d seen her lifting a hand to my boy.

Never did thank you for interfering there.

” He walked off, with Loree staring after him.

“I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side,” she said quietly.

“I don’t think you have to worry. That’s the closest thing to an ‘I owe you’ that I’ve ever heard from Dallas,” Austin said.

Austin studied the abundance of food that stretched the length of the heavy oak table.

Every time he turned around, Dee or Amelia came through the door that led to the kitchen, carrying more food.

He picked up something that looked like a tiny pie, held it beneath his nose, and sniffed. It smelled like raisins. “What’s this?”

Amelia stopped slicing off pieces of pound cake and looked up. “Mincemeat pie.”

Austin gave her a slow nod and popped it into his mouth. A combination of tangy and sweet hit his tongue. “Pretty good,” he said as he swallowed and reached for another one.

“Would you do me a favor and tell Maggie she can come decorate the cookies now?”

“Sure,” he said as he snitched another pie and headed toward the parlor. He never would have believed that Dallas’s big old adobe house would seem so warm and cozy. Dee had added so many small touches. Wreathes on the doors, greenery here and there, red ribbons, and satiny bows.

He rounded the corner to go into the parlor and staggered to a stop in the doorway, his path blocked by Becky, who had obviously been planning to leave the parlor.

Her face burned crimson, reminding him of the stockings Dee had hung over the fireplace.

Then her pale blue gaze shot upward. He slowly shifted his gaze to the arch above his head and his stomach tightened like a ribbon wound too tight around a package.

Damn mistletoe!

If it had been anyone else standing there—Dee or Amelia—he would have laughed heartily and given her a sound kiss on the lips. But not Becky. Five long years had passed since he’d held her, kissed her, been close enough to smell her vanilla scent, and count the freckles on her nose.

He didn’t have to look into the parlor to know that they’d managed to gain everyone’s attention. His mouth went as dry as a dust storm. Becky gave him a shaky smile, and he recognized the silent plea in her pretty blue eyes, but damn if he could figure out what she was asking for.

He swallowed hard, lowered his head, bussed a quick kiss across her cheek, and turned to the side, giving her the freedom to slip past him. He’d never been so glad to hear anything as he was to hear the rapid click of her shoes as she left the room.

Reaching up, he snatched the mistletoe from its mooring and glared briefly at his oldest brother, daring him to say anything about what he’d just done.

“Maggie—” his voice sounded like that of a drowning man coming up for the last time. He cleared his throat. “Maggie, your ma says the cookies are ready for decorating.”

Maggie shoved the present she’d been shaking back under the tree and raced out of the parlor.

Austin crossed the room and hunkered down beside the rocking chair. Loree stilled her gentle swaying and met his gaze. He brushed a stray curl away from her cheek. “Think you can give Houston back his daughter and come with me for a minute?”

She nodded slightly and eased up on the seat. Austin slipped his hand beneath her elbow and helped her stand. Houston stopped helping his other three daughters paste bits of colored paper into a chain and stood.

“ ‘Preciate your getting her to sleep. Sometimes there’s nothing like a woman’s touch.”

“Kin Aunt Loree rock me?” Amanda asked.

“Maybe after a while,” Houston said patiently. “I think your uncle Austin needs her right now.”

His brother couldn’t have spoken truer words. Austin wrapped his hand around Loree’s and guided her from the room. The women’s laughter spilled out of the dining room. He cast a hesitant glance at Loree. “Did you want to join them?”

“Maybe later. I thought you needed something.”

“I do,” he admitted as he opened the door to Dallas’s study.

A low fire burning within the hearth served as the only light in the room.

The drapes were drawn back to reveal the cloudless night sky, a thousand stars, and a bright golden moon.

“I just needed a little solitude. I’d take you outside if it weren’t so cold,” he said as he led her to the window that covered most of the wall.

“I like being in here where it’s warm, knowing that it’s cold out there,” she said quietly.

He trailed his fingers along her cheek and cupped her chin. “I wanted to apologize for earlier, kissing Becky in the doorway … I didn’t know what to do … if I hurt you—”

“You didn’t. She and Cameron were friends, now they’re family. Our paths are going to cross constantly, and not always in ways we’d prefer, but I can accept that.” She lowered her lashes. “Besides, she looked as uncomfortable as you did.”

“Guess you could kiss Cameron to get even with me.”