The Best Christmas Present

Since the first grade, Holly Johnson has known that Ramon Rodriguez is the only man for her. But the carefree, determinedly single Texas cowboy with the killer smile doesn’t have a clue. Until they share a dance and a kiss…and Ray finally sees his best friend for the woman in love she is.

With his brothers racing each other down the aisle, Ray figured he’d be the last bachelor in Forever. That was before the night that changed his life. He can’t believe the sexy, beautiful lady who arouses heart-stopping desire is his pal and confidante, and loving aunt to the most adorable little girl. Now that he realizes what he’s been missing, Ray plans to make up for lost time…starting with the three little words Holly’s waited thirteen years to hear.

Damn, what was going on here? Ray’s brain demanded silently.

This was Holly, right?

He wasn’t sure anymore but even so, he was fairly certain that it really couldn’t be. This woman didn’t dress like Holly, didn’t act like Holly, and most of all, she didn’t taste the way he’d always assumed that Holly would taste if he ever thought to fleetingly sample her lips.

The Holly Johnson he knew would have smelled of soap and tasted like some kind of minty toothpaste. Holly was practical. Holly was grounded. By no stretch of the imagination was she some femme fatale who got his pulse running like the lead car in the Indianapolis 500 and his imagination all fired up—like this woman did.

Dear Reader,

We’ve come to the last of the Rodriguez brothers. With all five of his siblings either married or, in Mike’s case, about to be married, Ray Rodriguez considers himself to be the last man standing—and this enthusiastic playboy with a golden tongue fully intends to remain that way. He’s having, he tells his best friend, too much fun to ever consider getting married. And that’s unfortunate for his best friend, because his best friend is Holly Johnson, who has been in love with Ray since the first grade. As his best friend, she knows him better than anyone, is privy to all his secrets and, sadly for her, gets to listen to Ray talk about each of his many girlfriends.

When a series of events—not the least of which is having his sister Alma give birth in the diner’s restroom, with Holly in attendance—cause him to look at Holly in a different light, he begins to wonder what took him so long to realize how terrific, not to mention beautiful, she really is. Now how to convince Holly that he’s really serious and not just pulling her leg?

Got your attention? Good. Start reading.

As ever, thank you for that—and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

All the best,

Marie Ferrarella

The Cowboy’s Christmas Surprise

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marie Ferrarella, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author, has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

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To

Charlie,

Who can still make

My heart

Skip a beat

Just by looking at me.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Excerpt

Prologue

The bouquet of flowers she’d given her mother for her birthday had done more than serve its purpose. The arrangement of yellow mums, pink carnations and white daisies had remained fresh looking and had lasted more than the customary few days, managing to dazzle for a little more than a week and a half.

However, now, as to be expected, the flowers were finally dying, no longer brightening the family room where her mother usually spent a good deal of her day. Their present drooping, dried-up state accomplished just the opposite, so it was now time to retire the cluster of shriveling flowers to the trash can on the side of the house.

But as she began to throw the wilted bouquet away, one white daisy caught Holly’s eye. Unlike the others, it had retained some of its former vibrancy.

On an impulse, she plucked the daisy out of the cluster, pulling the stem all the way out and freeing it from its desiccated brethren. After dumping the rest of the bouquet into the garbage, she closed the lid of the trash can, then stared at the single daisy in her hand.

Holly shut her eyes, made a wish—the same one she’d made over and over again for more than a decade and a half—and opened them again.

Then, very slowly, she tugged on one petal at a time, denuding the daisy gradually and allowing each plucked petal to glide away on the light late-fall breeze that had begun to stir.

“He loves me,” Holly Johnson whispered, a wistful, hopeful smile curving her lips as she watched the first white petal float away. “He loves me not.”

Just to say those words made her chest ache. She knew she was being silly, but it hurt nonetheless. Because in all the world, there was nothing she wanted more than to have the first sentence be true.

The petal floated away like its predecessor.

“He loves me,” she recited again, pulling a third petal from the daisy.

Her smile faded with the fourth petal, then bloomed again with the fifth. With two petals left, the game ended on a positive note.

She looked at the last petal a long moment before she plucked it. “He loves me.”

This petal, unlike the others, had no breeze to ride, no puff of air to take it away. So instead, when she released it, it floated down right at her feet.

Unable to live?

Or unable to leave?

She sighed and shook her head. What did flowers know anyway? It was just a silly game.

The next moment, she heard her mother calling her name. “Coming!” she responded, raising her voice.

Then, pausing just for a second, she quickly bent down to pick up the petal, curling her fingers around it. She pressed her hand close to her heart.

Turning on her heel, she hurried back into the house, a small, soft smile curving the corners of her mouth. The corners of her soul.

The last sing-song refrain she’d uttered echoed in her head.

He loves me.

Chapter One

“Hi, Doll, how’s it going?”

Holly Johnson’s heart instantly skipped a beat and then quickened, the way it always did when she heard his voice or first saw him coming her way.

It had been like that since the very first time she had set eyes on the tall, broad-shouldered and raven-haired Ramon Rodriguez, with his soul-melting brown eyes, all the way back in the first grade.

The beginning of the second day of the first week of first grade, to be exact. That was the day she’d started first grade. Looking to change his luck, her father had moved his family—her mother, older brother Will and her—from a dirt farm in Oklahoma to Forever, Texas.

Back then she’d been a skinny little tomboy and the only reason Ray had noticed her at all was because she was not only determined to play all the games that boys played, she was actually good at them. She could outrun the fastest boy in class, climb trees faster than he could and wasn’t afraid of bugs or snakes, no matter which one was dangled in front of her face.

And she didn’t care about getting dirty.

All those talents and qualities had been previously acquired in Holly’s quest to gain her older brother’s favor. She never quite succeeded, because during their childhood Will had never thought of her as anything other than a pest he was glad to ditch. During those years, Will was only interested in girls, and he’d thought of her as just holding him back from his chosen goal.

Ray and Will, although several years apart in age, shared the same interest; but while Will had thought of her as a pest, Ray came to think of her as a pal, a confidante. In short, he saw her as—and treated her like—another guy.

Holly was so crazy about him she took what she could get. So over the years she got close to Ray as only a friend could, and while she would rather have had him think of her as a girlfriend, she consoled herself with the fact that in Ray’s life girlfriends came and went very quickly, but she remained the one constant in his life outside of his family.

It was a consolation prize she could put up with until Ray finally came to his senses and realized just what had been waiting for him all along.

It was a decision Holly had come to at the ripe old age of eleven.

That was thirteen years ago.

She was still waiting.

There were times, Holly had to admit, when she felt as if Ray didn’t see her at all, that to him she was just part of the scenery, part of the background of what made up the town. These days, because money was short and she had to provide not just for herself but for her mother and for Molly, the four-year-old Will had left in her care when he abruptly took off for places West, she worked as a waitress at Miss Joan’s diner.

The highlight of her day was seeing Ray.

He stopped by the diner whenever he came to town—which was frequently, because he was in charge of picking up supplies for Rancho Grande, the ranch that he, his father, his brothers and his sister all owned equally. And every time Ray walked into the diner, she’d see him before he ever said a word.

It was tantamount to an inner radar that she’d developed. It always went off and alerted her whenever Ray was anywhere within the immediate vicinity. She’d always turn to look his way, and her heart would inevitably do its little dance before he called out his customary greeting to her.

Ray had taken to calling her Doll, because it rhymed with her name and she was a foot shorter than he was. She loved it, though she was careful not to show it.

“I’ll take the usual, Doll.”

The “usual” was comprised of coffee, heavily laced with creamer, and a jelly donut—raspberry. In the rare instance that the latter was unavailable, Ray was willing to settle for an apple-filled donut, but raspberry was his favorite, and ever since Miss Joan had placed her in charge of doing the inventory and placing the weekly orders, she made sure that there were always plenty of raspberry-jelly donuts on hand. It wouldn’t do to run out.

She would have made them herself if she’d had to, but, luckily, the supplier she used for their weekly orders never seemed to run out.

Technically, Holly thought as she concentrated on regulating her breathing and appearing calm, Ray wasn’t actually coming her way. He was coming to sit down at the counter, get his morning coffee and donut and shoot the breeze for a few minutes. With any pretty face that might have shown up at the counter that morning.

Or, if he was particularly excited about something, or had something exceptional to share, then he’d deliberately seek out her company the way he always did if he needed advice, sympathy or a sounding board. Over the years, she had become his go-to person whenever something of a more serious nature came up.

This morning, Ray had some news to share with her. Big news, from his point of view.

“You’ll never guess what,” he said to her as she filled his coffee cup and placed the sweetened creamer next to it. Unlike his brothers whenever they stopped by, Ray hated black coffee. For him to be able to drink it, his coffee had to be a pale shade of chocolate.

Holly raised her eyes to meet his soft brown ones as she set down the half-filled coffeepot, waiting for him to continue talking.

He, apparently, was waiting for something, too. “You’re not guessing,” he prompted.

“You really want me to guess?” she asked, surprised. But she could see that he was serious. “Okay. But to do a decent job at guessing, I’m going to need a hint.” With Ray, there was never any telling what he thought was share worthy at any particular given time.

He nodded, obviously enjoying stretching this out. “Okay, if you want a hint, how’s this?” he said just before he declared, “The Last of the Mohicans.”

Holly stared at the face that popped up in her dreams at least three nights a week, usually more. What he’d just said didn’t make any sense to her, but she took a stab at it. It really didn’t matter all that much to her what Ray said to her as long as he went on talking. She loved the sound of his voice, loved everything about him, even his devil-may-care attitude, despite the fact that it was responsible for his going from female to female.

“You’re reading James Fenimore Cooper?” she asked uncertainly. Why did he think the book title would mean anything to her?

“No, me,” he told her, hitting his chest with his fisted right hand. When she continued to stare at him, a puzzled expression on her face, he elaborated a little further for her. “I’m the last of the Mohicans.”

Holly knew that he had a little bit of Native American blood in him on his father’s side, but he’d told her that he had traced it back to an Apache tribe, not some fictional tribe the long-dead author had written about.

“It’s too early for brainteasers, boy.”

Holly glanced up to see that Miss Joan had joined them, having made her way to this side of the counter. The red-haired older woman who owned and ran the diner narrowed her hazel eyes as she fixed the youngest of the Rodriguez clan with a reproving look.

“Why don’t you just come out and tell Holly what you’re trying to say while she’s still young enough to be able to hear you?” Miss Joan suggested.

But Ray apparently enjoyed being enigmatic and he gave hinting one final try. “Last Man Standing.”

“Ray,” Miss Joan said in a warning tone, “you’re going to be the last man sitting on his butt outside my diner if you don’t stop playing games and just say what you’re trying to say.”

Ray sighed, shaking his head. He’d thought that Holly, whom he’d always regarded as being sharp, would have already figured out what he was trying to tell her.

“All right, all right,” he said, surrendering. “You know, you take all the fun out of things, Miss Joan.” He couldn’t resist complaining.

In response, Miss Joan gave him a wicked little smile. “That’s not what my Harry says,” she informed him, referring to the husband she’d acquired not long ago after years of being Forever’s so-called carefree bachelorette.

Meanwhile, Holly stood waiting to find out what it was that had her best friend so mysteriously excited.

“All right, why are you the last man standing?” she asked, prodding him along.

“Because everyone else in my family is dropping like flies,” he told her vaguely, playing it out as long as he could. “Except for my dad,” he threw in. “But he doesn’t really count.” Eyes all but sparkling, he looked from Miss Joan to Holly, then said, “We just had another casualty last night.”

“Don’t see why a casualty would have you grinning from ear to ear like that,” Miss Joan observed, then ordered, “C’mon, spit it out, boy. What the devil are you talking about?”

The twinkle in the woman’s hazel eyes, Holly noted, seemed to be at odds with the question she’d just asked and the way she’d asked it. Everyone understood that Miss Joan knew it all: was privy to every secret, knew what people were doing even before they did it at times and in general was viewed as a source of information for everything that was taking place in Forever.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know,” Ray suddenly said, looking at the older woman. He was savoring every second of this—especially if it turned out that he knew something before Miss Joan actually did.

“I’m not saying one way or the other, I’m just saying that since you’re so all fired up about spilling these particular beans, you should spill them already—before someone decides to string you up.”

It wasn’t a suggestion, it was a direct order, and if she actually did somehow know what he was about to tell Holly, he appreciated Miss Joan allowing him to be the one to make the announcement. After all, it did concern his family.

Forever was a town where very little happened. They had the customary sheriff and he had appointed three deputies—including his sister, Alma—but they spent most of their time taking care of mundane things like getting cats out of trees and occasionally locking up one of several men in Forever who had trouble holding their liquor. Occasionally the men in question had imbibed too much in their singular attempts to drown out the sound of displeased wives.

Moreover, it was a town where everyone knew everyone else’s business, so to be the first one to know something or the first one to make an announcement regarding that news was a big deal.

“Well?” Holly coaxed, waiting. “Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to shake it out of you?” It was a threat that dated back to their childhood when they were rather equally matched on the playing field because they were both incredibly skinny.

He grinned at her. “You and what army?” he teased. When she pretended to take a step forward, he held up his hands as if to stop her. Having played out the moment, he was finally ready to tell her what he’d come to say.

“You know the woman who came to our ranch to work on that box of diaries and journals my dad found in our attic?”

Holly nodded. She’d caught a glimpse or three of Samantha Monroe, the person Ray was referring to, when she’d stopped by the diner. The woman had the kind of face that looked beautiful without makeup and Holly truly envied her that. She wore very little makeup herself, but felt that if she went without any at all, she had no visible features.

“Yes,” she answered Ray patiently. “I remember. What about her?”

Ray grinned broadly. “Well, guess which brother just popped the question?” Ray’s soft brown eyes all but danced as he waited for her to make the logical assumption.

For one horrifying split second, Holly’s heart sank to the bottom of her toes as she thought Ray was referring to himself. She’d seen the way he’d initially looked at this Samantha person, and even someone paying marginal attention would have seen that he’d been clearly smitten with the attractive redhead.

And while she knew that Ray’s attraction to a woman had the sticking power of adhesive tape that had been left out in the sun for a week, there was always the silent threat hanging over her head—and her heart—that someday, some woman would come along who would knock his socks off, get her hooks into him and Ray would wind up following this woman to the ends of the earth, hopelessly in love and forever at her beck and call.

But then she realized that the smile curving his sensual mouth was more of a smirk than an actual smile. She wasn’t exactly a leading authority on the behavior of men, but she was fairly certain that a man didn’t smirk when he was talking about finding the love of his life and preparing to marry her.

So he wasn’t referring to himself.

That left only—

“Mike?” she asked, stunned as she stared at Ray. “Seriously?”

Miguel Rodriguez Jr., known to everyone but his father as Mike, was the eldest of the brothers. Unlike Ray, Mike smiled approximately as often as a blue moon appeared. If Ray dated way too much, Mike hardly dated at all. From everything she’d seen, the eldest of the Rodriguez siblings had devoted himself to working the ranch and being not just his father’s right hand, but his left one, as well.

She’d just assumed that the man would never marry. He was already married to the ranch.

“Mike asked this woman to marry him?” she asked incredulously.

She’d known all the brothers for as long as she’d known Ray, but for the most part, she knew them through Ray’s eyes and Ray’s interpretation of their actions. According to Ray, while Mike wasn’t a woman hater, he wasn’t exactly a lover of women, either. And he had no time to cultivate a relationship.

Yet, as she recalled, whenever she did see this Samantha they were talking about, she’d been in Mike’s company.

Well, what do you know. Miracles do happen.

Ray’s news gave her hope.

“Yeah.” Ray laughed at the surprised look on Holly’s face. “Knocked my boots off, too,” he admitted. “So right after Christmas—they want to get married Christmas Eve,” he added, realizing he had left that part out, “I’ll be the only single Rodriguez male walking around.” There was laughter in his eyes as he relished the image that projected.

“Maybe that’s because the girls in Forever have the good sense to know that as a husband, you’d wind up being a lot more work for them than most men,” Miss Joan quipped.

“No, it’s because I’ve got the good sense never to get married,” Ray told Miss Joan, contradicting the diner owner. He leaned his head on his upturned palm as he glanced toward one of the tables where four female customers around his age were seated, eating their breakfasts in between snippets of the conversation they were engaged in. He sighed in deep appreciation as he looked at the women. “There’re just too many beautiful flowers out there for me to pick to be confined to just a garden on my own property.”

“So now you’re a gardener?” Miss Joan asked, rolling her eyes. “Lord help us all.”

She glanced over toward Holly for a moment, her look speaking volumes. But she said nothing further out loud before leaving to wait on the sheriff, who had just walked in.

“Morning, Sheriff,” Miss Joan said, greeting him as she automatically applied a towel to the counter and wiped down an already clean area. “Have you heard the news?” She didn’t bother waiting for him to respond or even make a guess. “The last of the eligible Rodriguez boys is getting hitched.”

Sheriff Rick Santiago’s expressive eyebrows drew together in a look of confusion. Alma, in between stifled groans as she lowered her very pregnant body onto her chair, had told him the news about her brother this morning. But this little detail that Miss Joan had just sprung on him hadn’t been mentioned.

“The last?” Rick echoed. “I thought Ray was still unattached.”

Miss Joan smiled complacently. “I said eligible, Sheriff,” the woman pointed out. “That implies a good catch. Ray there—” she nodded in Ray’s direction “—is the kind you catch and then release after you realize that there’s no way he’s going to be a good fit for that kind of a position.”

Ray turned around on his stool to face the older woman. He looked more amused than annoyed as he asked, “Are you saying I’m not the marrying kind? Or the kind no one wants to marry?”

Miss Joan looked at him for a long moment, her expression completely unreadable, before she finally said, “Well, boy, I guess you’re the only one who really knows the answer to that one, aren’t you?”

Taking out a number of singles, Ray left them on the counter as he slid off his stool. The wrapped-up, partially consumed jelly donut was in his hand. “Good thing I love you, Miss Joan,” he said to the woman as he walked passed her. “Because you sure have a way of knocking down a man’s ego.”

Miss Joan shook her head, a knowing smile on her lips. “You’re not a man yet, Ray. Come back and talk to me when you are,” she concluded with a smart, sassy nod of her head.

“And you,” she said in a low, throaty whisper as she walked by Holly. “Stop looking at him as if he was the cutest little kitten in the whole world and you were going to just die if you couldn’t hold him in your arms and call him your own. You want him, missy? Go out and get him!” Miss Joan ordered the girl who’d been in her employ for the past five years.

Holly’s eyes darted around to see if anyone within the immediate area had overheard Miss Joan’s succinct, albeit embarrassing romance advice.

To her undying relief, apparently no one had. And the person who actually counted in all this was on his way to the front door—to run whatever errands he had for his father and to shoot the breeze with every pretty girl and woman who crossed his path.

Holly had no idea she was sighing until Miss Joan looked at her from across the diner. While she didn’t think she was possibly loud enough to be heard the length of the diner, she did know that Miss Joan had the ability to intuit things and read between the lines, no matter how tightly drawn those lines might be.

She also knew that she owed a huge debt of gratitude to the woman. Miss Joan had offered her a job out of the blue just when she’d needed it the most and would have given her a roof over her head if she’d needed that, as well.

It was Miss Joan who had taken an interest in her and encouraged her to take some courses online, following up on her dream to become a nurse, specifically, an E.R. nurse, when her dreams of going to college to pursue that career had crumbled. It was Miss Joan who’d had faith in her when she had lost all of it herself. And Miss Joan had come through without a word of criticism or complaint when Holly suddenly found herself a mother—without the excitement of having gone the usual route to get to that state.

She flashed a smile at the woman now, tucked away her starry-eyed look and got back to work. Miss Joan wasn’t paying her to daydream.

Chapter Two

“C’mon, Holly, say yes,” Laurie Hodges, one of Miss Joan’s part-time waitresses, coaxed as she followed Holly around the diner.

The latter was clearing away glasses and dishes bearing the remnants of customers’ lunches.

Every so often Laurie would pick up a dish, too, and pile it onto her tray. But the twenty-four-year-old’s mind wasn’t on her work, it was on convincing her friend to do something else besides work.

“You never have any fun,” Laurie complained, lowering her voice so that those who were still in the diner wouldn’t overhear. Bending slightly so as to get a better look at Holly’s face, she continued trying to chip away at Holly’s resolve. “You want to look back twenty years from now, sitting alone in your house, watching shadows swallow each other up on the wall and lamenting that you never devoted any time to creating memories to look back on? For pity’s sake, Holly, all you ever do is work.” Laurie said it in an accusing voice, emphasizing the last part as if it was a curse word.

Well, she certainly couldn’t argue with that, Holly thought. But there was a very good reason for that. “That’s because that’s all there is.”

At least, that was all there was in her world.

There was her job as a full-time waitress, and when her shift was over and Miss Joan didn’t need her for any extra work, she went home, where an entirely different kind of work was waiting for her. The work that every woman did when she had a family and a home to look after.

In her case, she looked after her mother, whose range of activities was limited by her condition and the wheelchair that had all but kept her prisoner these past few years. She also took care of her niece, Molly, who at four, going all too quickly on five, was a handful and a half to keep up with.

Then, of course, there was the house, which didn’t clean itself. And when all that was taken care of, she had the courses she was taking online. Granted, they were strategically arranged around her limited time, but they were still there, waiting for her to dive into and work through them.

All in all, that usually comprised a twenty-three-and-a-half-hour day.

That left a minimum of time to be used for such frivolous things like eating and sleeping, both of which she did on a very limited basis.

And that, in turn, left absolutely no time for things such as going out with friends and just doing nothing—or, as Laurie was proposing, going dancing at Murphy’s.

“That is not all there is,” Laurie argued with her. “My God, Holly, make some time for yourself before you’re a shriveled up old prune living with nothing but a bunch of regrets.”

Laurie caught Holly’s arm to corner her attention when it seemed as if her words were just bouncing off Holly’s head, unheard, unheeded. Holly was easygoing, but she didn’t like being backed into a corner physically or verbally.

She raised her eyes. The deadly serious look in them caused Laurie to drop her hand. But she didn’t stop talking.

“They’re going to have an actual band that’s going to be playing Friday night. One of the Murphy brothers and a couple of his friends,” she elaborated. “Liam, I think.” Laurie took a guess at which brother was playing. “Or maybe it’s Finn. I just know it’s not Brett.” Brett was the eldest and ran the place. All three lived above the family-owned saloon. “But anyway, it doesn’t matter which of the Murphy brothers it is, the point is that there’s going to be live people playing music for the rest of us to dance to.”

“Might be interesting if they were having dead people playing music,” Miss Joan commented, coming up behind the two young women.

Rather than looking flustered and rushing away, pretending to look busy, Laurie brazenly appealed to the diner owner to back her up.

“Tell her, Miss Joan,” Laurie entreated. “Tell this pig-headed woman that she only gets one chance at being young.”

“Unlike the many chances I give you to actually act like a waitress,” Miss Joan said, her eyes narrowing as she gave the fast-talking Laurie a scrutinizing look. “Don’t you have sugar dispensers to fill?” It was a rhetorical question. One that had Laurie instantly backing away and running off to comply.

Once the other waitress had hurried away, Miss Joan turned her attention back to Holly. “She’s right, you know,” Miss Joan said, lowering her voice. “I hate to admit it, all things considered, but Laurie is right. You do only have one chance to be young. You can act like a fool kid in your sixties, like some of those pea-brained wranglers who come here to eat, but you and I know that the only right time to behave that way is when you are young. Like now,” she told Holly pointedly. “Did Laurie have anything specific in mind? Or was she just rambling on the way she usually does? If that girl had a real thought in her head, it would die of loneliness,” she declared, shaking her head.

“She had something specific in mind,” Holly reluctantly told her.

Holly braced herself. She could already see whose side Miss Joan was on. She loved and respected the redheaded woman and she didn’t want to be at odds with her, but she really had no time to waste on something as trivial as dancing, which she didn’t do very well anyway. She just wished the whole subject would just fade away.

Miss Joan waited a second but Holly didn’t say anything more. “Are you going to give me details, or am I supposed to guess what that ‘specific’ thing is?” Miss Joan asked.

Unable to pile any more dishes onto the tray, Holly hefted it and started across the diner. With Miss Joan eyeing every step she took, Holly had no choice but to tell her what she wanted to know.

Reluctantly, she recited the details Miss Joan asked for.

“There’s a band playing at Murphy’s this Friday. Laurie and some of her friends are planning to go there around nine to check it out. And to dance,” she added.

Miss Joan nodded, taking it all in. “So why aren’t you going?” she asked.

Holly shrugged carelessly. “I’ve got too much to do.”

“Why aren’t you going?” Miss Joan repeated, as if the excuse she’d just given the diner owner wasn’t nearly good enough to be taken seriously. Before Holly could answer, the woman went on to recite all the reasons why she should go. “It’s after your shift. I’m sure that your mother is capable enough to babysit Molly, especially since it’ll be past your niece’s bedtime—and if for some reason your mother can’t, then honey, I certainly can.”

That surprised Holly. She knew that Miss Joan tended to be less blustery with children, but that still didn’t mean that she was a substitute Mary Poppins.

“You’d watch her?” Holly asked incredulously.

“Sure. I’ve got to get in more practice babysitting, seeing as how my first grandbaby is almost here,” Miss Joan answered, referring to the baby that Alma, Ray’s sister, and Cash, her stepson, were having. The baby was due at the beginning of January, and as time grew shorter, the woman was becoming increasingly excited.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Holly protested. “Even on standby.”

Miss Joan frowned at her. “Unless my hearing’s going, girl—and I’m pretty damn sure that it isn’t, you didn’t ask me to babysit this Friday night. I just offered.” With her hands on her small hips Miss Joan fixed her with a penetrating look. “Okay, you got any other excuses you want shot down?”

Apparently Miss Joan was not about to take no for an answer. But Holly wasn’t ready to capitulate just yet, either. “I’ve got classes.”

Miss Joan made a dismissive noise. “Online classes,” she emphasized with a small snort. “That means you can take them the next day. Or on Sunday, if you’re busy making memories Saturday night.” The final comment was punctuated with a lusty chuckle.

Holly blushed to the roots of her long, straight blond hair. “Miss Joan.” The name was more of a plea than anything else. Though she knew Miss Joan didn’t mean to, the woman was embarrassing her.

“Lots of ways to make memories,” Miss Joan informed her, brushing aside the obvious meaning behind the previous phrase she’d used. She looked at Holly intently. “Okay, like I said, any other excuses?”

“Yes, a big one,” Holly answered, unloading the last of the dishes onto the conveyor belt that would snake the dishes through the dishwashing machine against the far wall. “I really don’t know how to dance.” Because she felt it was a shortcoming, she said the words to the wall next to the conveyor belt, rather than to Miss Joan’s face.

“Well, that’s an easy one to fix,” Miss Joan informed her, brushing the excuse aside as if it was an annoying gnat. “Dancing’s fun. I can teach you. Or my husband, Harry, can. You want someone younger, I’ll ask Cash to show you the finer points,” she said, waiting to hear who Holly wanted to go with.

Had Miss Joan forgotten that her stepson was in a very unique situation? “Just what he wants to be doing when his wife’s on the verge of having their first baby. Teaching me how to dance,” Holly quipped.

“Sure, why not?” Miss Joan asked. “I think it’s perfect. It’ll take his mind off worrying about everything for a little while—and it’ll perform a useful service for you.”

Holly sighed. The woman was like a Hydra monster. No matter how many heads she lopped off, Miss Joan just grew some more and kept coming right back at her.

“Miss Joan, I appreciate everything you’re trying to do here, I really do,” Holly said emphatically. “But I don’t have time for any dancing lessons, just like I don’t have time to go to Murphy’s and—”

Out of the blue, Miss Joan gave her a look. The kind of look that made strong men doubt the validity of their cause and rendered frightened young waitresses like Laurie speechless. Holly, however, was made of far sterner stuff than the average person, due to all the responsibility she had shouldered from a very young age.

So she braced herself and listened, hoping she could offer a successful rebuttal.

“You like working here at the diner, girl?” Miss Joan finally asked after a sufficient amount of time had gone by.

Here it comes, Holly thought. “Yes, ma’am, you know that I do.”

Miss Joan’s expressive eyes narrowed, bringing in her penciled-in eyebrows. “Then if you want to have a job on Monday, you’ll go to Murphy’s with your friends on Friday and you will have fun,” she ordered forcefully.

“Hey, old woman.” Eduardo, the longtime cook, called to her as he stopped puttering around in his kitchen and came forward. “You cannot just order someone to have fun. It does not work that way, but then, perhaps you have never had any fun yourself so you would not know that.”

“Maybe you can’t order someone to have fun, but I can,” Miss Joan assured the short-order cook in a voice that said she wasn’t going to brook any sort of rebellion or challenge, especially from him.

That resolved, Miss Joan turned her attention back to Holly. “So, girl, what’ll it be? You going to Murphy’s on Friday night and coming to work on Monday, or are you staying home, studying and looking for a new job come Monday morning?” Miss Joan asked.

“You wouldn’t fire me over something like that,” Holly pointed out with some certainty.

“No,” Miss Joan agreed and let her savor that for approximately two seconds before adding, “I’d fire you over your insubordination.” When Holly looked at her, confusion in her eyes, Miss Joan elaborated. “I told you to do something and you out-and-out refused. That’s pretty sassy if you ask me.” Miss Joan smiled at her, and it was one of the few genuine smiles that seemed to register on the woman’s lips and in her hazel eyes, as well. “In other words, insubordination. So what’ll it be?” she prodded, waiting to hear the answer she wanted to hear.

Holly sighed. She’d known in her heart it was going to end this way.

“I’ll go,” she said.

Miss Joan’s eyes met hers and it almost felt as if the woman was delving into her very soul as she asked in a clear voice, “You’re sure?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure. I’ll go,” Holly repeated, still not certain how this had all come about now that she looked back at it. “But I won’t dance.” That, to her, was as far as she was willing to concede. She absolutely refused to make a complete fool of herself.

At least she would be among friends, she consoled herself.

For the time being, what Miss Joan had heard seemed to be enough, though she shook her head as if despairing over the young woman. “I guess you can lead the filly to the dance floor, but you can’t make her dance. Still, something is better than nothing, I always say.” She patted Holly’s shoulder. “Good girl. Remember to have fun. That’s an order,” she added with a near growl.

“What did she say?” Laurie asked, venturing forward rather quickly once Miss Joan had made her way to the opposite end of the diner. Laurie looked as if she was dying of curiosity.

Holly began putting down fresh place settings at each table that was no longer occupied. Rather than helping, Laurie just started to follow her around again, oblivious to her obligations as a waitress who was not on a break.

“She told me to go out with you, Cyndy and Reta on Friday,” Holly told her.

Laurie’s eyes all but lit up. They were definitely wider. “Really? How about that? There’s hope for the old girl yet.” Laurie laughed, glancing over her shoulder to where Miss Joan was behind the counter. And then she turned her attention back to Holly. “So you gonna listen?”

Holly was fairly certain that Miss Joan wouldn’t fire her over something as trivial as this, but if she were honest with herself, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure. Miss Joan had been known to do some very strange things in her time, all because she felt she was right. The very last thing Holly wanted was to challenge the woman.

Besides, on the outside chance that Miss Joan had meant what she said, she definitely couldn’t afford to lose her job. Granted, there were other jobs in Forever, but she had gotten comfortable in this one. There was the added fact that Miss Joan allowed her to take leftovers home to her mother and Molly.

It might not seem like a lot to someone else, but she was of a mind that every tiny bit helped. Someday, when she finally got her nursing degree and her courage up to ask Dr. Davenport if he’d hire her as his nurse, she intended to pay Miss Joan back for all the times the older woman had looked the other way and allowed her to bend the rules.

Like the time that her mother and Molly were both sick and she had to stay home to take care of them. Miss Joan not only allowed her to take the two days off, but she paid her for them as if she was at work. And, on top of that, she’d sent over one of the waitresses with soup for her mother and niece, and food for her because, “If I know her, that fool girl will be so busy taking care of her family, she’ll forget to eat herself.”

Miss Joan had been right, Holly recalled. She had been so busy caring for the two patients she’d entirely forgotten to eat.

Miss Joan always covered all the bases, Holly thought with no small amount of affection.

Her eyes dancing, it was obvious to Holly that Laurie was making even more plans for Friday night. The young waitress looked as if she was ready to go now rather than have to wait until the end of the week.

“If you don’t have anything to wear,” Laurie suddenly said, turning toward her, “you can borrow something from my closet. We’re about the same size,” she guesstimated, looking Holly up and down. “I’ll be happy to share anything I’ve got.”

Did Laurie think that she was that poor? “I’ve got a dress,” Holly protested with a touch of indignation she didn’t bother hiding.

“Oh.” Holly’s response had clearly surprised her. “Okay, then you’re all set,” she said happily. “I’ll come by to pick you up at 7:30 p.m. Friday night.”

She didn’t want Laurie going out of her way. “Why don’t I just meet you there?” Holly suggested.

“Because you won’t,” Laurie responded. She looked at her friend. “I know you, Holly, so don’t even go there. I’ll pick you up,” she repeated. “And we’ll have fun,” she promised with feeling. “You’ll see.”

With all the things she had on her mind, Holly thought, she highly doubted it. But she knew better than to say so.

So instead, she forced a quick flash of a smile to her lips, then murmured something about having “inventory to do” as she walked away from Laurie and headed toward the tiny back office.

Chapter Three

Her time factor down to the wire, Holly stared into the small, narrow closet in her bedroom. She’d been staring into it for a couple of minutes now.

It wasn’t as if she was trying to decide what to wear, because there was so much to choose from. There wasn’t. She knew every article of clothing that hung there by heart.

She had exactly one all-purpose dress that she’d worn to her high school graduation, to the funeral of a friend of her mother’s and to a small number of other, lesser occasions. Money was tight. She saw no reason to spend it on something frivolous when there were so many more worthy items that needed to be bought first—like toys that lit up Molly’s eyes and clothes for the girl’s ever-growing little body.

The all-purpose, A-line, navy blue dress was certainly still in decent condition, but she had to secretly admit that part of her wished she’d taken Laurie up on her offer when the waitress had suggested lending her a dress for this evening.

The next moment, Holly shrugged the thought away. Murphy’s wasn’t all that well lit anyway, and besides, she was not looking to impress anyone. She was just giving in and going out tonight so that Laurie and Miss Joan would stop saying she needed to get out more and socialize.

After all, it wasn’t as if she was bored. God knew she had more than enough to keep her busy, and she didn’t feel a lack of anything in her life. She wasn’t looking for a boyfriend or a husband. Her heart definitely wasn’t up for grabs.

It was already spoken for.

She’d been in love with Ray for as long as she could remember. That wasn’t going to change, and as long as she felt that way, she wasn’t about to go looking for a boyfriend. She wouldn’t feel right about it. Her heart definitely wouldn’t be in it.

She’d never been one of those girls who felt she needed a man at her side to complete her. She knew better than that. She had always been her own person, and that person was as busy as any two or three people had a right to be.

“You know, it doesn’t matter how long you stare into it, nothing new is going to pop up in that closet,” Martha Johnson said as she wheeled herself into her daughter’s small, tidy bedroom.

“I know, Mom,” Holly acknowledged wearily, still staring into her closet. “I was just wondering if it wouldn’t be better all around if I just stayed home tonight.” She certainly didn’t need to dig for excuses. She had plenty of those. “I’ve got that test to study for and Molly’s just getting over a cold—”

“At this age, Molly’s always going to be getting over a cold,” Martha pointed out patiently. “And from what I understand, the beauty of taking those courses in the isolating privacy of your own room is that you can take those tests whenever you want—on your own schedule, not the teacher’s or whoever it is that’s hiding on the other side of that monitor. Anyway, you’re going and that’s that.”

“Mom, what if Molly wakes up—” She got no further. Her mother had raised her hand, calling for silence.

“So she wakes up. I’ll handle it. Don’t make me feel any more of an invalid than this chair already makes me feel, Holly,” she pleaded. “Besides, you wouldn’t want this dress to go to waste, would you?”

“What dress?” Holly asked, finally turning around to look at her mother.

That was when she saw it. What her mother was talking about. There on her lap, encased in a plastic, see-through garment bag, was a dress that gave new meaning to the word beautiful.

Holly’s mouth dropped open in complete awe—and concern. The dress had to be expensive. She wasn’t about to allow her mother to throw away money on her like that, especially since there wasn’t all that much to toss around. They were still paying off the medical bills associated with the car accident that had put her mother into that wheelchair.

“Mom, you didn’t—”

“No, Holly, I didn’t,” Martha quickly assured her daughter.

Her mother didn’t usually lie to her, yet there was the dress, on her lap. “Then where did that come from?” Holly asked.

Martha Johnson smiled. “Miss Joan’s husband, Harry, brought it over. He said she told him that this was for you and that you weren’t allowed to give it back or refuse it, otherwise you’re out of a job,” her mother said matter-of-factly. She looked down at the dress that was still on her lap. “If you ask me, this’ll look extremely pretty on you.” And then she looked up to see Holly’s reaction.

That was not the expression of a woman who was thrilled about getting a new dress.

Holly was frowning.

“Oh, Holly, smile. You look as if you are about to be sent to prison, not to enjoy a rare night out. A well-deserved night out, I might add,” Martha insisted. She shook her head, her salt-and-pepper hair moving back and forth from the motion. “Honey, I can’t remember the last time you went out for fun.”

Neither could she, actually, Holly thought. But that still didn’t make this any easier for her. Holly bit her lower lip. “Mom, I won’t fit in.”

“You won’t fit in if you wear that old navy blue dress of yours,” Martha pointed out, nodding at the dress that was still hanging in the closet. “In this bright, pretty little thing, you’ll still stand out,” she acknowledged, nodding at the glittery blue-gray dress, “but in a good way. Besides, you’re going out with your friends, aren’t you? That should make it easier for you.”

She really wasn’t all that close to the girls she was going out with. Not so much that she could really call them her friends.

Holly raised one shoulder in a helpless gesture. “I’m going out with girls I work with, Mom.”

“Close enough,” her mother pronounced.

There was no doubt about it, Holly thought. She was going to feel awkward. She had trouble blending in in situations outside of her comfort zone, at work or home. Anything beyond that was no longer in her zone.

Martha took her hand between both of hers, a sympathetic look in her eyes. “Honey, the more you hide, the harder it’s going to be on you to come out and mingle with people who aren’t sitting at the counter, giving you their lunch orders.” If Holly could be outgoing in that situation—which she was—then she had it in her to be outgoing in other kinds of situations. She just had to be drawn out. “My friends occasionally drop by the diner and they all tell me that you’re the nicest, most helpful girl there—”

“Yes, but that’s work,” Holly reminded her. And that was exactly her point. She was fine as long as she could hide behind her job. No one expected any real one-on-one time with her while she was at work.

Martha was not about to accept defeat. In her own way, she was as stubborn as her daughter. “Then pretend you’re at work tonight—just don’t go behind the bar and start serving drinks,” Martha warned with an understanding smile.

“Mom, I—” The doorbell rang, interrupting what she was going to say next. Her head swung in the direction of the front door. “Oh, God, that’s Laurie.” She glanced toward her mother. “She said she was going to swing by to pick me up because she didn’t trust me to come to Murphy’s on my own.”

Martha looked just the slightest bit impressed, as well as surprised. “That Laurie is smarter than she looks.” Maneuvering her wheelchair so that she was closer to her daughter’s double bed, Martha deposited the new dress on it, then announced, “You get ready. I’ll let Laurie in and tell her that you’ll need a few extra minutes. She’ll understand.”

Holly’s stomach officially tied itself up in a knot. The kind that threatened to cut off her air supply. She pressed her hand against her stomach. “Tell her I’m sick.”

“Holly Ann Johnson, you know how I feel about lying,” Martha informed her, pretending to look stern.

“But I think I am coming down with something,” Holly protested. “I feel feverish.”

Martha frowned, wheeling herself over to her daughter. “Bend down,” she ordered.

Holly had no idea what her mother was up to. “Mom, I—”

“I said bend down,” Martha repeated even as the doorbell pealed again. When Holly did as she was instructed, her mother leaned forward in her chair and employed the classic mother’s thermometer: she brushed her lips lightly across her daughter’s forehead. “Cool as a cucumber,” she pronounced, motioning for her to straighten up again. “No fever present.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re going. No argument.”

With that, Martha wheeled herself out of the room as the doorbell rang a third time.

Holly sighed. Okay, she silently argued with herself, searching for the pros in this. After all, how humiliating could this be? She was going out with a bunch of girls from the diner, and while they weren’t bosom buddies, she did know them, at least to varying degrees. They’d go to Murphy’s, have a couple of beers—or, in her case, a single sangria—eat a few oversalted peanuts and listen to this band that Laurie had gone on about for the past two days.

If guys came by and asked the other girls to dance, leaving her alone at the bar, she knew Brett Murphy—the bartender who was most likely on duty tonight—well enough to have a conversation with him while she waited for her friends to come back.

She didn’t consider what she’d do if someone asked her to dance, because she was more than fairly certain that no one would. As far as she was concerned, she didn’t think of herself as the type to attract the attention of anybody, except maybe someone who desperately didn’t want to leave alone at closing time. And when it came to fending off someone like that, well, she could handle herself in those sorts of situations. Just before he’d left home, Will had gotten interested in martial arts and he’d taught her a few self-defense moves that would come in handy in dicey situations.

Okay, enough thinking, time for dressing, she silently ordered herself.

Hurrying into the blue-gray dress, she had to admit she liked the feel of the material as it glided passed her hips, stopping several inches above her knee—quite a bit shorter than the navy dress.

She wasn’t accustomed to wearing anything this short—or this clingy, she thought, looking herself over in the narrow full-length mirror that hung on the back of her door.

The fabric looked almost shimmery, she thought, staring at her image as she turned first in one direction then the other.

Holly didn’t realize she was smiling until she caught her reflection.

Running a comb through her hair, she decided to leave it down. After all, she wasn’t trying to attract any undue attention, and the dress looked as if it could do more than that on its own.

For a second, she debated taking it off again and slipping on her faithful old navy dress, but she had a strong suspicion that Miss Joan had eyes everywhere, and if she wore her navy dress to Murphy’s, Miss Joan would know and get on her case about that.

Besides, this had to have cost the woman a pretty penny, she thought as she lovingly glided her hand along her hip.

Holly took a deep breath. “Okay, ready or not, here I come.”

Grabbing her hoop earrings from the top of her bureau—a gift from her mother on her graduation day—she put them on as she walked toward the front of the house. The earrings were the one good piece of jewelry she had besides the small gold cross her father had given her on the first day of school.

She heard voices coming from the living room.

As she drew closer, Holly cocked her head, listening intently.

She could make out her mother’s voice, but the voice that was answering her mother didn’t sound anything like Laurie—or any other female she knew, except possibly Miss Joan. But even Miss Joan’s voice wasn’t this deep.

If she didn’t know any better, she would have said that the voice she heard belonged to—

Holly’s heart began to pound the way it always did whenever she first heard his voice and realized he was somewhere close by.

“Ray?” she asked as she walked into the small living room.

Ray shifted his brown eyes toward her a beat after he uttered a preoccupied, “Hi.” But once he actually focused on her, the greeting was immediately followed by an awestruck, “Wow,” and then a joking request for some sort of proof of identity.

“Doll, is that really you?” Ray asked, staring at her and cocking his head as if that could somehow help him clear his vision, or at least allow him to make a better identification of the shimmering fairy princess entering the room. He took a step toward her, staring so hard his eyes all but burned into her. “Wow,” he said again. “You clean up really well,” he told her, appreciation all but vibrating in his voice.

“Doesn’t she, though?” Martha said, pride brimming over in her voice as she, too, turned around to face Holly.

A warm, pleased feeling swept through her, but she told herself that Ray was just being nice. After all, they were friends and they’d known each other since they were children.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him. Holly glanced around, expecting to see Laurie somewhere in the room, but there was no indication that he’d come with anyone.

What was going on here?

“Well, this afternoon I happened to mention to Laurie’s brother that I was going to see if Liam could play half as well as he thinks he can, and I guess Laurie overheard me because next thing I know, she’s asking me for a favor, saying that she and her friends were going to Murphy’s tonight, too. Her problem was that she didn’t have enough room in her car for everyone. She thought that since you and I are friends, maybe I wouldn’t mind picking you up and taking you with me.” He shrugged casually. “I said sure, why not. Why didn’t you tell me you were going tonight?” he asked. “You know that I would have taken you—like I am now.”

Her shrug matched his, except that hers was tinged with self-consciousness. “It kind of just came up as a spur-of-the-moment, last-minute thing,” she told him, deliberately avoiding his gaze.

His eyes swept over her as the corners of his mouth curved in a smile that could only be described as wicked.

“That dress certainly doesn’t look like a spur-of-the-moment thing,” he told her.

In all the time that he’d known Holly, he’d never seen her looking this good, this, well, sexy for lack of a better word. Did she even know that? That she looked really hot? He had a feeling that, this being Holly, she didn’t.

He had a full agenda planned for tonight, but it looked as if he might have to add chaperone to that list. As her friend, he didn’t want to see guys hit on her if that made her uncomfortable.

Seeing that Holly was momentarily stuck for a response to Ray’s assessment of the dress that adorned her body, Martha came to her daughter’s rescue.

“That was a birthday present I gave her last year. You know how Holly is, she saves things until the very last minute—even leaves the tags on until she wears the item for the first time,” she added, seeing that there was one telltale tag hanging from the back of the stunning dress. Shifting her wheelchair so that she was behind her daughter, Martha drew close enough to remove the tag with one well-executed yank.

“I knew it would look good on you,” she told her daughter, playing her part to the hilt.

“Good?” Ray echoed incredulously. “Doll, you’re downright beautiful in that.”

“She’s downright beautiful without it, too,” Martha told him. The way she saw it, Holly enhanced the clothing she wore, not the other way around.

“Mom!” Holly cried, mortified at the implication of the words.

“No, she’s right,” Ray cut in. “You’re a beautiful person, especially on the inside, Doll. I’ve always said that.” He had a feeling it was getting late. “Okay, you ready to go?” he asked, glancing at his watch. He’d expected to be there by now, looking over the crop of women the band had attracted. “The first set is at eight and I want to get there before that, look over the crowd and all that good stuff,” he told her.

She felt her heart go back to its regular measured beat. She knew what he meant by “good stuff.” How could she forget? If Ray was going to Murphy’s, it was because he wanted to see if the promise of a band had drawn any new faces from the neighboring towns and places farther south.

“Well, we wouldn’t want you to be late,” she told him glibly.

“You two have fun, now,” Martha told them as she followed in their wake to the front door. “Don’t worry about Molly—or anything else, either,” she instructed Holly. “Just for one night, please act your age and not mine.”

“Good advice, Mrs. Johnson. I’ll see that she follows it,” Ray promised the woman with a bright smile. “Okay, milady, your chariot awaits,” he told Holly grandly, bowing from the waist and gesturing toward the truck that he always drove.

“I see that your ‘chariot’s’ been freshly washed,” she teased as she opened the passenger-side door and got in.

“Can’t make a good impression in a dirty chariot, now, can I?” he asked with a laugh, getting in on his side.

Holly made no reply.

She knew that the good impression he was talking about referred to whatever woman he set his sights on tonight, but just for the moment, she pretended that he’d actually done this for her and that he was her date, not just a friend doing another friend a favor.

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