His Christmas Redemption Read online

  He looked up from the boys and over at Erin as she watched. She set the camera down and waved at him. Lance waved back, feeling like a schoolboy as he noticed her shining eyes. She might not have been able to join in on the fun, but she was clearly enjoying herself.

  “Come on, Uncle Lance.” Dylan tugged on his pants, so he grabbed the sled and they made the trek back up the hill. He used to laugh at all the people who talked about living for the moment; he’d never understood why they weren’t planning for their futures. But now he almost understood. He should have kept his distance, knowing that the inevitable goodbye was coming. As he got the boys situated on the sled for another trip down the hill, he pushed aside his worries for the future and sent the boys sailing again.

  Maybe he’d lost his chance to be a dad, and he wouldn’t remain an uncle much longer, but for now it was enough. He’d find a way to deal with the inevitable pain later.

  * * *

  Even though Erin hadn’t been able to do any sledding, she’d had enough fun just watching everyone. It had been a long time since she’d seen Lance let loose like that. Everything since Lily had been born was about being responsible and doing the right thing. It was funny how he liked to mock her lists, but he had a similar need for organization and control.

  When they’d met, Lance had been one of the most fun people she’d ever been around besides her sisters. They used to have wild adventures together—not the crazy college-party thing, but things like hiking and camping or sledding. She didn’t think Lance had been sledding since before Lily was born. He hadn’t wanted to go without her and he’d always been so busy at work. He used to tell her that he was working hard for Lily’s future. But what good was the future if you didn’t take the time to enjoy the present? Did he regret all the time he’d spent at work instead of with their family?

  The sun was getting low in the sky, which meant they only had a little bit of daylight left to feed the horses and take care of the other chores. Shane had brought his horses over while they were on their honeymoon so Erin wouldn’t have to go back and forth. At the time she’d thought it was a needless effort. But now she was glad.

  “Time to come in,” she called when Lance and the boys got to the bottom of the hill for what had to be the thousandth time.

  They came to her, disappointment overshadowing their laughter.

  “Do you think we can do it again tomorrow?” Dylan asked.

  “We’ll see,” she said. “Right now, we need to feed the animals.”

  The trouble with having broken limbs was that the animals didn’t know any differently. They still had to be cared for. One more thing Erin had to give credit to Lance for. Despite his lack of experience, he’d still jumped in to do everything that was needed. The boys ran past her to the barn, already knowing their jobs. They would get out the hose and refill the water while Lance took care of the hay.

  Lance stayed behind, walking alongside her. “You’re not too tired, are you? I didn’t mean for us to stay out so long. I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun.”

  She turned and smiled at him. “I’m glad. I was just thinking that it must’ve been a long time since you’ve been sledding.”

  He nodded slowly. “Not since that last time before Lily was born.”

  He stopped, holding her back slightly. “What went wrong with us? I keep thinking about that day and how much in love we were, and I don’t understand how we lost it so easily. What happened to all those plans of forever?”

  A lot of things. But when she’d pointed them out to him in counseling, he’d bristled, telling her it wasn’t fair to blame him for her decision to leave. When she’d pushed too hard, he’d ended the conversation. So what could she say now? He’d come here, looking for peace after their divorce. Even though she had her own part in their relationship breakdown, she knew that until he accepted what he’d done wrong in the marriage, he wouldn’t be able to find that peace.

  “Sometimes having fun and being in love isn’t enough to make a marriage work,” she said finally.

  He gave her the same confused look he’d given her when she’d asked for the divorce. “Then what? What else does a marriage need?”

  The boys couldn’t be left unattended in the barn for too long. Nicole’s horse, Snookie, while much better trained than she’d been when they’d first gotten her, was still uncomfortable around children. The boys knew not to go near her, but that didn’t mean they always listened.

  Erin took another step toward the barn. “Every marriage is different. And I know, after everything you’ve done to help me the past few days, I owe you a better explanation. But I need to make sure the boys are safe. So I’ll tell you what. One of these nights, when the boys are in bed, you and I can have some hot chocolate and we’ll talk. I may not totally have the answers you’re looking for, but I can at least tell you what else I needed, if that’s something you’re open to hearing.”

  He started for the barn. “You’re right. I wasn’t even thinking about the boys.”

  He shook his head slowly then stopped again. “This is why I don’t do emotions. You used to always get on me about that, wanting to know how I felt. But here I am, feeling things I don’t understand, and I’ve already lost sight of what’s important.” Not waiting for an answer, he continued toward the barn.

  If she could sum up precisely why she’d finally decided that their marriage couldn’t be saved, his previous words would do that nicely. He thought emotions got in the way of more important business. But, for her, emotions were important business. And when you didn’t deal with them, they clogged up everything else. Though he was quick to dismiss those feelings, she didn’t think they were gone at all. They might not be front and center, but they were there, lurking. Even though Lance hadn’t yet told her exactly what he’d meant by making peace with her, she suspected that his lack of peace stemmed from having dismissed all his emotions.

  She let him go on ahead, giving him space to sort out whatever was in his head as she came up slowly behind him. Lance had fed the horses enough times that he knew what to do and how much.

  Maybe someday they’d come to a place of enough understanding that they could have this conversation and it would not be so difficult for Lance. But that was on him to figure out. Her divorce had taught her that it wasn’t her job to fix Lance. He had to choose for himself what was important to him and why.

  When she got to the barn, she didn’t see Lance or the boys near the horses, but she could hear them in the tack room. Hopefully, Dylan wasn’t trying to talk him into some of his shenanigans. Though Shane had firmly told the boys they couldn’t go riding until he was home, Dylan had mentioned almost every day that he wanted to go riding.

  “What’s going on?” she asked when she entered the room.

  The boys looked like they were about to cry. Lance didn’t look like he was faring much better.

  “Fluffy the Second didn’t eat her breakfast,” Dylan said.

  Fluffy the Second was the barn cat they’d gotten a few weeks ago from Ricky. Their last barn cat had disappeared a couple of months ago and the boys had been devastated. Unfortunately a ranch was a dangerous place for barn cats, with all the predators wandering around. Hence, Fluffy’s status of being the second and the boys’ concern over the untouched bowl of cat food.

  “Maybe she went to visit a friend,” Erin suggested.

  Dylan looked at her like she was an idiot. “Cats don’t have friends. My friend Jake said that Fluffy the First probably got eaten by a coyote.”

  Ryan started to cry. And poor Lance looked like he wanted to do about the same. Lance’s discomfort with emotion also meant that he couldn’t stand watching anyone cry. Erin knew from experience that he would do just about anything to keep a child from crying.

  “I’m sure Jake doesn’t know everything about cats,” Lance said. “Weren’t you just telling me that Snookie i
s Elmer’s girlfriend? If a horse can have a girlfriend, why can’t a cat have a regular friend?”

  Dylan looked thoughtful for a moment. “Because when Fluffy the First went missing, Mom said the same thing. But I overheard Dad telling Uncle Fernando that one of the critters probably got him. That means a coyote.”

  As he spoke, Erin was frantically gesturing to get him to stop. His words only made Ryan cry harder. Ryan’s poor little heart was breaking at the thought of losing another cat. She went over to the bench and held her arms out to Ryan, who climbed onto her lap, sobbing against her chest. Erin rubbed his back as she glared at Dylan.

  “What?” Dylan asked. “I’m only telling the truth. When you’re a cowboy, living on a ranch, you have to know the facts of life.”

  The little boy’s seriousness made Erin want to laugh. But Ryan was still so upset, she didn’t dare. Besides, Dylan needed to learn a little sensitivity when it came to sharing those facts.

  “One bowl of uneaten food does not mean we lost Fluffy the Second to a coyote,” Erin said firmly. She cuddled Ryan closer to her and gave him a kiss on top of his head. “I’m sure she’s fine. But we can say a prayer for her, just in case.”

  She glanced up at Lance, who had turned white. She’d already overloaded him emotionally and this had probably taken him over the top. Helping Erin had probably turned into way more than Lance had bargained for, poor guy.

  Her suggestion caused Ryan to stop sniffling and look up.

  “But what if it doesn’t work, like when we prayed for Fluffy the First?”

  One more parent thing she hadn’t been prepared to deal with. But she could feel Lance’s expectant gaze upon her. A man who’d lost his faith and two little boys who were just developing theirs needed to hear some kind of wisdom about what it meant to pray for their lost cat.

  Lance had ridiculed her for her faith when they’d lost Lily. She never could explain to him why, just that she still trusted in God’s goodness. That was how she felt about the missing cat.

  Would God bring Fluffy the Second back to them safely?

  She had no idea. But she had to trust in God’s answer.

  “Prayer doesn’t change God’s mind,” she said finally. “But sharing our thoughts with Him brings Him closer to us. He can give us love and comfort in this time, and remembering how He’s comforted us now, we can look back on it in the future, knowing that whatever comes our way, God will be there for us.”

  Three blank stares weighed heavily on her. “When you tell your friends about your problems, do your friends ever fix them?” she asked.

  She looked over at Dylan. “When you told Jake about Fluffy the First, did it change the result of what happened to him?”

  Dylan shook his head.

  “But did you feel better?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Dylan said, nodding slowly. “I knew he understood how I felt because a coyote ate one of his cats.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for patience. They needed to get off the cat-eating coyote subject. But at least he’d proved her point.

  “And that’s what prayer is. We’re sharing the deepest parts of our hearts with God because we know He understands. He might not change the circumstances, but at least we know He’s there for us and wants to show His love for us.”

  Ryan wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked up at her. “But I want Fluffy the Second back.”

  She didn’t know how else to help a four-year-old understand.

  “We all do. But you know how sometimes you ask your mom for a cookie and she says yes, but sometimes she says no? You know your mom still loves you even if you can’t have another cookie. That’s how God is,” she said, hoping she’d gotten a little closer with her description.

  Ryan rested his head on her chest. “Mom only lets me have cookies sometimes and she says too many cookies are bad for me.”

  Dylan came and put his arm around her. “I snuck some cookies one time after mom said no. I ate them all. But then I had a stomachache and I threw up.”

  One more illustration she wasn’t going for.

  Ryan gave another big sniffle, wiped his nose again and looked at his brother. “That’s why you should listen to Mom even if you don’t like it.”

  Then Dylan turned his attention to her. “So it’s kind of like that with God? You can ask Him for stuff but He might still say no.”

  “It’s exactly like that,” she said.

  The boys exchanged the kind of look Erin and her sisters used to share with one another, a secret language only they understood. Whatever the boys were communicating, it gave Erin confidence that they at least had figured it out among themselves.

  Ryan climbed off her lap and started back toward the main barn. “Maybe tomorrow we can go look for Fluffy the Second.”

  “That sounds like a great plan,” Erin said. Hopefully they’d find the cat safe and sound. “In the meantime, do you want to say a prayer for Fluffy the Second?”

  Dylan stood tall. “Can I say the prayer?”

  It was tempting to say no. Who knew what would come out of the little boy’s mouth next? But how could she deny the faith of a child?

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  Dylan clasped his hands together and above his head. “Dear God, please bring Fluffy the Second back home safely. And if a coyote has eaten her, please give him a really bad tummy ache so he never eats anyone else’s cats again. Amen.”

  Lance gave a kind of chortle snort, like he was desperately trying not to laugh and having difficulty keeping it in. And as much as Erin would have preferred a more proper prayer, she knew it came from the heart and couldn’t fault Dylan for his honesty.

  “Amen,” Erin said, smiling at the little boy. “Now let’s get the other animals fed.”

  The boys ran out of the tack room, but Lance paused beside her. “Do you really believe all that stuff?”

  She nodded. “I think that’s one of the problems between you and me. I do believe it. I can’t pretend to understand why God allows bad things to happen, but I can choose to believe in God’s goodness. And that even though I don’t always get the outcome I would like, He still hears my prayers and holds me close to Him, even when my heart is breaking.”

  “I don’t know if I believe that,” Lance said.

  Erin stood and reached out to give him a little squeeze. “I know. And I hope you know that regardless of whether or not you believe in Him, He believes in you. God loves you, and I hope that someday you’re able to recognize that.”

  Lance gave a jerky nod to indicate having heard her and then turned and left the tack room.

  Piling on the emotion and then telling him about God was probably more than he could handle. But that was the thing about life. It often gave you more than you thought you could handle. For Erin the solution was to press on and try to make the best of it. But Lance had run from it and buried himself in his work. She’d always resented his work and even though she’d known that some of it was because work provided a convenient excuse to avoid emotions, she also had to recognize that in some ways, work provided him with comfort. Maybe it was a false comfort, but it was comfort nonetheless. Maybe, as much as she’d been judging him and wanting him to understand her, she should have also spent time trying to understand him.

  As she followed him into the main barn, her heart felt heavier knowing that she held a slightly higher level of blame than she’d been giving herself for the breakdown of her marriage. Not that it was about blame but about realizing it wasn’t just Lance’s heart that needed some repair work, but her own.

  Chapter Four

  Though Lance was trying to treat Erin’s Christmas planner as a simple to-do list, he hadn’t counted on how it would tear him apart inside. He’d been hanging decorations and finishing the lights, and all of it was way too much, in his opinion. But he wasn’t about to let Erin do it he
rself, which she threatened to do every time he questioned her. Of course, there was that box of mistletoe he’d made mysteriously disappear. There were some things Lance wasn’t going to do, even if it was in the name of making peace for the sake of getting back to business.

  That was why he was grateful to arrive at Sunday. All he had to do was to drop Erin and the kids off at church and then go to the café to relax for a while, maybe explore the town, then go and pick Erin and the kids up.

  It wasn’t so much that he minded helping her. But things were starting to get intense—too intense—and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it all. Erin said to take it to God. But God hadn’t done him any favors and he couldn’t imagine Him doing so now.

  He’d talked to his counselor a couple of times on the phone. When he’d called to reschedule his sessions due to helping Erin, his counselor had told him they could do his sessions remotely if he wanted. So far, his phone calls with his counselor hadn’t gotten him any answers, because she’d just told him to think about what it all meant and that he was on the right track. Wasn’t that her job? To tell him what it meant?

  Maybe, alone in the café, he’d have enough space from Erin and the boys to find the answers for himself.

  When they got to the church, the place looked like one of those picture-book churches. All white, with a steeple, and decorated with more lights and other holiday accoutrements than Lance could remember seeing in one place. Except, of course, for Erin’s holiday horror show.

  “It’s cute, isn’t it?” Erin said as he pulled to a stop.

  “That’s a lot of lights,” he said. “You must’ve had a hand in those decorations.”

  She laughed. “I am on the decorating committee, but none of this was my idea. Every year, they have a light show timed to music that brings in people from all over the area to enjoy the holiday spirit. On some evenings, they can come in for a cookie and warm beverage.”