Texas Christmas Bride: The Gallaghers of Sweetgrass Springs Book 6 (2 page)

“W
hy did I think it was a good idea to cater Jackson’s company Christmas party with Nana off on her honeymoon?” Scarlett McLaren moaned as she juggled pans in the kitchen of her grandmother’s diner.

“Because pregnancy hormones have fried your brain?” answered veteran waitress Jeanette Carson.

Sweetgrass Springs was so small that they were all doing double-duty until Scarlett could properly staff Ruby’s Dream. The high-end restaurant and events center was her brainchild, created from the old decommissioned courthouse her grandmother Ruby had held onto for years, hoping to someday make Sweetgrass thrive once more. Juggling the need to keep her grandmother’s diner open while searching fruitlessly for restaurant talent who’d relocate to this tiny burg, Scarlett was a good month behind her planned schedule for opening the new place.

She’d sure forgotten to plug getting pregnant into her schedule.

But she’d promised Nana, and she was determined she’d make Sweetgrass vibrant again.

“A misguided sense of love, City Girl,” opined Scarlett’s cousin, Rissa Gallagher Mackey. “My brother knows talent. He also knows a sucker when he sees one. It’s how he became a bazillionaire. Go sit down for a minute.”

Rissa reached for a pan, and Scarlett slapped her hand. “Don’t even think about it,” she growled.

“Hey, I can cook. Penny’s not the only one in the family.”

Behind them, Rissa’s hot husband snickered. “Babe, step away from the stove.” Randall Mackey smiled and drew her into his arms. “No offense, darlin’. Everyone knows you’re a genius with horses. We all have our strengths. Plus some of us multi-task.” Mackey nodded toward Rissa’s sister Penny, cooking with a bluetooth in her ear, talking a mile a minute. “Anybody know who she’s talking to?”

“China, probably. Or Katmandu—who knows? Poor Bridger. Ever since she took the job helping Jackson run his video game empire, I don’t think her phone has left her side. It’s probably surgically attached,” Rissa mused.

“You didn’t catch the two of them making out at the spring last night, obviously.” Mackey grinned. “My man has his talents, and one of them is seducing Shark Girl right out of her socks.” He peered around Rissa. “Is she cooking in…stilettos? Doesn’t that hurt?”

Just then, a young voice piped up from the doorway to the dining room. “Cousin Scarlett, could we do it again, the Gallagher Thanksgiving meal? Where everybody is there?” Rissa and Mackey’s adopted son Eric asked.

“Absolutely. Every Thanksgiving. Consider it a standing date.”

The seven-year-old didn’t look reassured. He opened his mouth, then shut it.

“What is it?”

His eyes slid to the side. “For Christmas, I meant,” he said softly. “Only maybe…better.” The child had come a long way from the abuse of his past, but he was still hesitant to ask for much. “Never mind.”

“What do you mean by better? What would you like us to do differently?”

Eric pointed around the room. “Them.”

“Them? Oh, you mean invite more people?”

Blonde hair bounced as he nodded eagerly. “Some people don’t have anybody. They shouldn’t be sad on Christmas Day.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

Rissa’s gaze met hers, dark with anguish over what this child had suffered in his short life. “We’re going to have a great Christmas, Eric. I promise you that.”

Perfect trust showed in the boy’s face as he looked up at his new mother. “I know that. But I want everyone to have one.”

“Let me think on it, Eric,” Scarlett responded. And tried not to feel exhausted. Christmas. Lordy, she’d barely survived Thanksgiving. She’d loved having everyone together, but brutal morning sickness seemed as though it would never end. She’d shoved Nana off on her extended honeymoon right after, lying through her teeth that she felt fine. Her husband Ian was still being a bear because he knew the truth, hovering over her every move like an avenging angel.

She noticed their second waitress, Brenda Jones, avidly listening. The girl was a mystery to them all, a stray, probably a runaway, sweet and shy and nervous. Nana had taken her in, no questions asked.

“What did you all do for Christmas back home, Brenda?”

The timid girl halted mid-step. “Me?”

Scarlett nodded for her to continue.

Hazel eyes darted like a frantic rabbit. “Nothing special.” Brenda’s slight shoulders curled inward.

Shy former busboy turned cook’s helper Henry Jansen, of all people, piped up to cover the awkwardness. “My granny worked for other folks a lot, so we saved our celebrating until Christmas night, after she was done serving the rich folks.” His chin remained high, his expression forbidding pity. “Soon as I was old enough, I helped her whenever I was allowed. We got to take the leftovers home, and I knew Granny liked that because she could get off her feet and skip cooking a meal. I learned to cook soon as I got big enough. Not like you, of course.”

“You’re turning into a fine cook now, Henry.” Scarlett glanced between the two, then wondered who else here had experienced a less than storybook Christmas. Here she’d thought she was the only one who’d passed that holiday and so many more longing for what she was sure everyone else had. Mama had tried hard to make the day special, but with no family around…

Her heart clenched as she thought about how much family she’d had here, all along. She and her mother hadn’t needed to be alone.

She’d never understand how a mother could rob her own child of that. She stroked her belly and made a promise.
You will never be so terribly alone
.

Meanwhile, there were people here whose pasts she couldn’t change.

But their present day could be very different. “Eric,” she called out.

“Yes, ma’am?”

Scarlett caught Rissa’s beaming pride at her adopted son’s manners.

“Tell me more about what better looks like to you.”

“Really?” Hope bloomed on the child’s face.

“Really.”

The boy thought for a minute. “It was pretty great when everyone was here for the surprise weddings. Could we invite Dalton and Sam’s family and Emilio and Antonio’s family and all of the others who were here?” In other words, not only the whole town, but also the Morning Star Gallaghers and the Marshall clan.

“Honey, they might already have other plans,” Rissa began.

“But they might not, right?”

Scarlett laughed. “The only way to find out is to ask.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Even if she couldn’t seem to get a restaurant open, surely she could do this. Her horrific morning sickness had finally begun to ease.

“Scarlett…” Rissa warned. “You are just barely holding on. Don’t even think about it.”

Wow. If Cousin Crankypants, who’d loathed her the moment she’d set foot in town, was worrying over her…

“I’m telling Ian,” Penny spoke up, off the phone at last. “This is not a good idea.”

“I think it’s a splendid idea,” Scarlett insisted. She’d seen Brenda’s eyes light with hope and Henry smile as he chopped vegetables.
Later
, she mouthed to Rissa and to Penny, who shook her head impatiently.

“So I’m thinking that maybe we put up a big tree in the courthouse and another one out on the lawn. We can serve over there and use the upstairs if we need it. Everyone can bring card tables and chairs. With the upgraded kitchen, there’s more room to cook.”

“If you’re going to be crazy enough to volunteer for that, Scarlett, it has to be a community effort.” Melba Sykes stepped around the kitchen door, eavesdropping as usual. Melba considered gossip a noble pursuit and her God-given duty. “We’ll do it like a church social. You are not cooking for this whole town.”

“Bridger can barbecue,” Penny offered.

“Barbecue’s not Christmas dinner food,” Scarlett protested.

“It is in Texas. Any day is a good one for barbecue, am I right?” Rissa scanned the room.

Heads nodded.

“We’re not in Merry Old England. Or Bedford Falls,” Rissa pointed out. “Jimmy Stewart doesn’t live here.”

“But he’d want barbecue if he did,” Harley Sykes shouted.

There was laughter and a smattering of applause.

Melba spoke up. “Josh Marshall would bring a whole new flair to George Bailey.”

“Especially if he performed the role with his shirt off,” piped up Earlene Dorsa, another of the quilting group.

A couple of whistles amid more laughter.

“Everybody brings a dish. That’s the way it’s done. Surely you’ve been in Sweetgrass long enough to know that. Just because you’re a Paris-trained chef and the best cook in the state doesn’t mean you’re the only one,” quilter Joyce Walden insisted. “We’ll get a signup list going, so we can plan. Can we bring family if we have relatives coming in?”

Scarlett didn’t have to think twice to answer. “Of course. Goes without saying.”

“Anyone who can’t get out, we’ll either pick them up or take them a plate,” suggested Ruth Sudduth.

“And we can set up a secret Santa so all the kids get a gift,” proposed Rissa.

Because not all of them would, otherwise, Scarlett realized, glancing at Eric and wondering what his Christmases had been like with only a mother who had had a penchant for abusive men. Eric would be inundated with gifts from his new family, she knew.

But there were other Erics.

She turned to look at Brenda and wondered. Made a mental note to make sure the diner staff got presents, too.

She thought about her cousin Jackson, Rissa and Penny’s brother, who’d been away from home for so long. Had he celebrated at all? Based on what she knew, she doubted it. The fact that he was immensely wealthy couldn’t make up for being essentially alone.

His Christmas this year would be so much better, she was certain. He needed family as much as she did. As Brenda and Henry and Jeanette and Bridger did…

“You’re a genius, Eric,” she called out. The boy’s face went bright with joy and hope. “It’s gonna be a great Christmas. Thank you.”

The child’s smile could barely be contained in those round cheeks. He’d lost the gaunt look he’d had when she first met him.

“Ian is going to have a cow,” Rissa muttered.

“He already owns a whole herd of them,” Scarlett reminded her. “Now if Santa would just bring me a pastry chef, I promise to be a good girl all year.”

“That’s gonna happen.” Rissa rolled her eyes.

Headed over to one of the abandoned downtown buildings to meet his future brother-in-law Jackson, Bridger Calhoun could barely recall Christmas with his family. He wondered if his newly-found sister Molly remembered anything at all beyond screaming and tension. He’d have to ask her when she came for the holiday.

After he’d gone into the service, Christmas was mostly firefights or boredom on the base, augmented by the occasional care packages from strangers. Not that those weren’t appreciated—they were. But sometimes kindness was harder to take than closing yourself off. Pretending holidays were just another day.

This Christmas, however, would be one for the books. He’d worked a deal with Penelope’s dad and Rissa and Jackson, carving out a spot on Gallagher land that he’d wanted to buy for a home for the two of them, but her dad insisted that he intended to deed it to them as a wedding gift.

Bridger would damn well pay for the house himself, though. Legs might have buckets more money than him after selling her partnership in that pricey D.C. law firm, and she’d likely not understand why he was not going to use it, but providing for his family was important to him. He wanted to be the one to put the roof over their heads, one he and Penelope and, God willing, their children would sleep under at night.

In peace and safety.

He was determined to have the spot staked out and the foundation poured by Christmas—assuming he could ever get her to stop tweaking the plans, that is. She might not have the Suzy Homemaker gene, but you’d never know it from the intense involvement in the size and arrangement of rooms.

She wanted a big country kitchen, too. Even if she would be striding around in stilettos and on her phone every minute.

A pistol, was his Shark Girl. A force of nature.

He loved her like crazy.

Now he just had to get her to slow down long enough to get married—a problem with Gallagher women, apparently. Only his buddy Mackey had escaped, and that, Bridger admitted, was likely only because they couldn’t have adopted Eric unless he and Rissa were legally a couple. But Ruby and Scarlett had both been dragged kicking and screaming, even to marry men they loved.