An Act of Love (New Beginnings Book 6) Read online

  As she set five mugs on a tray, she slid a look sideways. She could reach out and graze her fingertips over those lips so easily. Instead, she balled her hands and kept them down. “After I deliver these to the kids. My newest one is in the den. This one is for Jordan and her family.”

  “Sounds like a labor of love.”

  “All of mine are, but this one is special. It will be their first Christmas together as a family. In fact, this Thanksgiving will be a first, too. We’re having a huge gathering at the ranch this year.” She finished preparing the hot chocolate and lifted the tray. “If you don’t have plans for Thanksgiving, why don’t you come with us to Jordan’s?”

  “Other than cooking my turkey for one, no, I don’t have plans.”

  “No one should be by themselves at the holidays. I hope you’ll come.”

  “Are you sure? Don’t you need to ask your sister?”

  “Ha! She’d be mad if I didn’t ask you. Kevin is coming. Since his wife died, he’s come every year.”

  When she mentioned Kevin’s wife, Max’s forehead crinkled, his eyes darkening. What happened with Max and his wife? She sensed whatever it was left a mark on him—one that went deep into his soul.

  “If you’re sure, I’d love to. I don’t relish spending Thanksgiving by myself.” A hint of vulnerability threaded his words.

  She made her way toward the den, wanting to help him. He’d been hurt, and it sounded as if he hadn’t healed yet. “You can count yourself part of the family this holiday.”

  Inside the room, Rachel set the tray on the gaming table. Immediately her children flocked to her and grabbed the nearest mug. She gave one to Max and took the last cup while her sons went back to their tower they had started this morning.

  “Taylor, do you want me to help you with your presentation?” Max took a sip of his drink.

  “Yeah, I’ll get the laptop and show you what I’ve got so far. Pasteur came up with the germ theory.” Taylor put her mug on the tray and hurried toward the hall.

  A faraway look came into his eyes as he observed Taylor leaving. “Where’s that quilt?” he finally asked, returning his attention to Rachel.

  Had he wanted children with his wife? A wistful expression often captured his face when he was with her kids. “You know I never asked if you have children?”

  “A girl.”

  “Where is she?”

  “With a good family.” He spotted the quilt lying over a lounge chair by the window and stepped toward it. “Is this what you’re working on?”

  A shutter descended over his features, but not before she glimpsed the pain in his eyes he couldn’t mask fast enough. The subject was taboo. Whatever happened with his wife most likely involved his daughter and a great deal of hurt. Her heart went out to him. She knew how important her children were to her. Maybe one day he would share it with her and possibly then his burden that was eating at him.

  She held up the cream, green and red quilt with panels of Christmas objects—a star, tree, stocking, wreath.

  “This is beautiful. Does your sister know?” Although his expression was neutral, his voice quavered.

  “No, and my kids know they can’t say a word. I want to surprise her.”

  “She will be. You’ve put a lot of work into this.”

  “Ready, Max?” Taylor appeared at the doorway, hugging her laptop against her chest. “Mom, can we work in the kitchen?”

  “Sure, hon.”

  Taylor spun on her heel and made her way down the hall.

  Max started toward the entrance into the den.

  Rachel grasped his arm. “Thank you for helping her. She’s already getting tired of me always helping. We’re still working out a routine that works for both of us. Not easy when she doesn’t want to stay still.”

  “It’s the least I could do,” he murmured and left.

  Rachel wondered about his last sentence until the sound of a collision of blocks with the hardwood floor crashed through the air. They flew everywhere. The next thing she knew her sons were wrestling. She rushed over to them and hauled Sam off Will.

  Tears of anger streaked down Sam’s cheeks. “He knocked it over on purpose.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did, too.”

  “I don’t care at the moment. What I do care about is that this mess is cleaned up, and you two take a time-out from each other for the rest of the day.” Rachel released Sam, staring from him to Will. “Now.”

  While she watched her twins gather all the blocks, she thought about Max and his daughter. What happened to her? Why didn’t he have her since his wife died? She hoped one day he would confide in her because she had the feeling it weighed on him.

  * * *

  “You didn’t have to bring anything to eat. You’re my guest.” Rachel slipped from her SUV and rounded the back to pop the trunk. The scent of Max’s sweet potato casserole drifted to her. “But I’m glad you ignored what I said about a dish. This smells delicious.”

  “It’s my own creation, a couple of recipes altered and combined.” Max grasped the pan and lifted it out. “What did you bring?”

  “Fudge and a broccoli-cauliflower salad.” She slammed the trunk down and started for Zachary’s sister’s house.

  “A woman after my own heart.”

  Her stomach flip-flopped at the casual remark he made. Worse, it didn’t send her into a panic, which left her baffled. What was happening to her? Common sense told her not to complicate her life. But her heart wasn’t listening. She never rushed into anything and these sudden feelings concerning Max unnerved her.

  “There are a lot of cars. Who’s going to be here?” Max climbed the porch steps.

  “Besides Jordan, Zachary and Nicholas there are Zachary’s sister Becca and her husband, Paul. They have three children, Mike, Cal and Ashley. Ashley and Taylor are friends. Zachary’s parents are here visiting and then my mom, Granny, Doug and Kevin.”

  “A crowd.”

  “Yep.”

  “My family is small. We never had more than eight people and that was in a good year.”

  Rachel put her hand on the doorknob. “Are you ready for the onslaught?”

  “Most Thanksgivings lately I’ve been working, so this will be a change.”

  “I’m hoping a good one. But I’ll warn you it’ll probably be loud. With seven kids running around, it would be nearly impossible for it not to be.”

  “Does Zachary’s sister hand out earplugs at the door?” Max asked over the noise coming from the living room as Rachel stepped through the threshold.

  “You know that’s not a bad idea. We periodically escape outside for a reprieve. Maybe I should have warned you.”

  He smiled, lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes. “I’ll be all right. I wonder how Taylor handles all these stimuli.”

  “She gets a bit hyper, but she isn’t the only one. The kids feed off each other. We’ll take it for a while then banish them to play outside.”

  “Are you two gonna just stand in the door and chat or come inside?” Jordan approached them, reaching out for Max’s pan. “I can take that and put it in the kitchen for you. Go into the den. That’s where the men fled to.”

  “Which way?” Max sidestepped while Nicholas and Mike raced past them out onto the porch, Jordan’s son bumping into Max’s arm.

  “Slow down,” Jordan said as Becca’s son Cal and both twins quickly followed the other two guys. “It’s gonna be a long day. Thankfully, it’s nice outside.”

  “The den’s in back, down the hall and to the left.” Rachel nodded her head in the direction of the den.

  Max made his way toward the hallway. Ashley and Taylor hurried from the room, almost bowling him over. He threw a wide-eyed look back at her before he disappeared into the den while the girls hurried toward the porch.

  Rachel stopped in the foyer and shouted after the teens. “Taylor and Ashley, will you two keep an eye on Will and Sam?”

  “Yeah, Mom. We’re going to the ba
rn to look at the animals.”

  “Does Zachary know?”

  “Yep. It’s okay. He suggested it.” Taylor vanished outside.

  Quiet engulfed Rachel for a moment until loud voices, each child trying to outdo the others, resounded in the air.

  “At least they aren’t arguing.” Jordan headed for the kitchen.

  Rachel remembered the overwhelmed expression momentarily on Max’s face. She chuckled to herself, wondering if today would be a shock to his system.

  * * *

  Max strolled down to the barn with Rachel to round up the children for the Thanksgiving dinner. “Zachary has a nice setup here.”

  “Yeah, we come out here riding sometimes. Taylor especially likes to. That’s how she got to know Ashley better. They both belong to the youth group at church but didn’t have much to do with each other until my sister reconnected with Zachary.”

  “Reconnected?”

  “They were high school sweethearts. Both left Tallgrass and went their separate ways. They married last month.”

  “Zachary and Nicholas sure have hit it off. I know step situations can be hard sometimes.”

  “Zachary is Nicholas’s father, but he didn’t know until Jordan came back to Tallgrass in August.”

  “Nicholas is, what, eight or nine?”

  “Ten and yes, my sister kept it a secret for almost eleven years. Something I didn’t condone.”

  Max paused at the corral. “And Zachary forgave her?”

  Nodding, Rachel observed the horses in the field next to the barn, settling her arms on top of a slat of wood on the fence. “There was a time she, and frankly I, didn’t feel that Zachary would. To say the least, he wasn’t thrilled with her for keeping it from him.”

  An omen of things to come? Max now knew he couldn’t keep who he was from Rachel much longer. He might have to keep quiet a while longer with Taylor, but not Rachel. Ideally, he would like to get to know them, especially Taylor, better before he dropped the bombshell on them. The thought of what he needed to do settled like a molten rock in the pit of his stomach.

  “But the Lord wants us to forgive, and Zachary saw the wisdom in that.”

  “Sometimes that’s easier said than done.” A picture of Alicia materialized in his mind. He shook the image away.

  “True. I had to struggle to forgive my father for abandoning us when I was a teenager.”

  Max slanted a look at her, his arm next to hers on the fence. “And there are no regrets about forgiving him?”

  “No, it’s freeing to let go of that anger. I won’t tell you his leaving us didn’t color my view of life. When I met Lawrence, I had a hard time trusting him or any man. I was so afraid he’d walk out just like my dad did. It was Lawrence who showed me the importance of letting it go.”

  Rachel made it sound easy. He didn’t think he could let go of his anger toward Alicia. She robbed him of so much out of spite because she didn’t get what she’d wanted—the kind of life she’d dreamed of as a doctor’s wife. Was his inability to forgive the reason he avoided church? Everything had changed when Alicia had divorced him. Slowly, he’d let go of his faith, especially when he’d seen so much death around him while serving in the army in war-torn areas.

  Rachel pushed off the fence and walked toward the barn. “We’d better go get the kids. It’ll take time to get them back to the house and washed up.” Coming to a stop in the entrance, she surveyed the children all going in different directions. “Tell me why we volunteered to do this.”

  “Beats me.”

  Sam chased Will while Taylor patted a horse that was hanging its head over the bottom half of a stall door. Nicholas was practicing roping a post, followed by Cal and Mike. Ashley emerged from the tack room, her jeans dusty, hay stuck in her long hair.

  “Kids, it’s time for dinner,” Rachel said in a level above normal.

  Nothing.

  “Here, let me.” Max put two fingers in his mouth and blew a loud shrill whistle.

  The children halted and turned toward him.

  “Dinner is on.”

  All at once they dropped what they were doing and charged toward the entrance—the one he and Rachel stood in the middle of. He grabbed Rachel’s arm and yanked her toward the side with him.

  As they raced out of the barn, Rachel yelled, “Wash up before you sit down to eat.”

  “Do you think they heard?”

  Grinning, she said, “Beats me,” then peered down at his hand still on her arm.

  She was so near it seemed so natural to lift his hand and cup her face, pull her even closer. The fragrance of lavender shrouded him in sensations he wanted to deny. He was attracted to Rachel. Her lips, full with a sheen of lip gloss on them, beckoned him to sample them. He shouldn’t. Too dangerous.

  The temptation overwhelmed him, and he dragged her against him, settling his mouth over hers. Tasting her spearmint-flavored toothpaste. Relishing the feel of her in his arms, the soft strands of her hair as his fingers delved into it. She shivered and cuddled closer within the circle of his embrace. The gentle whoosh of air from her parted lips and the glazed look in her eyes when he leaned back attested to her reaction to his kiss.

  As much as he knew it wasn’t a smart move, he wouldn’t have taken it back. He’d wanted to kiss her for days. Now the mystery was over. He could move on. And yet, when his gaze zeroed in on her mouth where his had been seconds before, he realized he was dreaming if he thought he could forget and proceed as though nothing had happened between them.

  “We’d better get up to the house, or there won’t be anything left,” Rachel murmured, a shaky huskiness in her voice.

  “Are you kidding? I saw that feast before we left. It could feed an army.”

  “Not with seven ravenous kids.”

  “Oh, good point. Then let’s get moving.” Max grasped her hand and set a fast pace toward the front porch.

  When they entered, chaos ruled with everyone talking, finding his or her seats. Will and Sam ran through the group to get to the same chair. They began tugging it between them until Granny clamped her hand down on Will’s shoulder while Doug took Sam’s.

  “Behave, you two, or into the kitchen with both of you.”

  The boys’ eyes grew round as the dinner plates. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Rachel marched over to the twins with her hand on her hip. “I want you all at different ends of the table. One wrong move and you’ll be banished to the kitchen for the rest of the meal.”

  “Can we take our food?” Sam claimed the chair they’d been fighting over by sliding into it before Will.

  “No. If you have time to cause trouble, then you must not be too hungry.”

  Will glared at his brother and trudged to the opposite side of the children’s long table and plopped down.

  Max came up behind Rachel. “You’re a regular drill sergeant.”

  “You have to be when you have two active boys the same age who are best friends at times and enemies at other times. Thankfully, best friends win out usually. It’s just been lately I don’t know what’s gotten into them.”

  “You’ll figure it out. You’re a good mother.” It would be so much easier if she wasn’t, but Rachel loved and cared for her children.

  He helped Rachel into her chair, scooting it into the table, then he took the place next to her. Everyone finally settled down. The second after Zachary blessed the food, Ashley and Taylor reached for the dish nearest them, scooped out a good portion then passed it to the person beside them.

  “Granny, how’s married life?” Ashley asked right before shoveling in a mouthful of corn bread dressing.

  Rachel’s grandmother blushed a nice bright red shade and swiveled her attention to Doug. “The best. I recommend it for everyone.” She passed her gaze over first Rachel then Eileen before flittering to Kevin and lastly Max.

  Max felt his face get hot with embarrassment. Marriage wasn’t for him. His one experience was enough to make him shy away from the institution. �
��Marriage certainly has its appeal for some people, but not everyone.”

  “Have you tried it, young man?”

  Rachel dropped her fork on her plate, the clang ringing in the air. “Granny!”

  Max cut his roasted turkey. “Yes. I have.” Then he forked a piece of meat and brought it to his mouth, keeping his look glued on Granny.

  The room grew quiet. Max stared at Rachel’s grandmother, and she stared back. A twinkle sparked her eyes. “There’s nothing like having someone to share your happiness or your troubles with. Friends and family are certainly nice, but a partner is so much better.”

  “I’m sure that’s true for you.” But not me. Max clamped his mouth down, so he didn’t utter the last part of the sentence. He’d enjoyed the kiss with Rachel. In fact, his response to it only reconfirmed he needed to shore up his defenses. He would end up hurt if there were any emotional ties between them, especially in light of who he was.

  The reason he was here was for Taylor. And only Taylor.

  But as the rest of the meal progressed, the good-natured teasing and conversation around him tugged at him. What would have happened if he and Alicia hadn’t divorced and they’d raised Taylor? He would have had the family he’d wanted. Or would he have?

  “Who made this sweet potato casserole?” Granny asked, dishing up a second helping.

  “I did.” Max relaxed back, stuffed after eating too much turkey, dressing, homemade cranberry sauce, fresh green beans and biscuits.

  “Delicious,” Rachel’s grandmother said with a ripple of agreements going around the table. “I’d like to get the recipe from you.”

  “I wish I could, but it’s a family secret.” Max slipped a look at Rachel, who could hardly contain her laugh. He winked at her.

  Granny snorted. “And you would gladly give it to me if I traded my fudge one for it?”

  “You and I see eye to eye.” He grinned.

  “I think I’ll take some home with me. We’ll see if I can’t figure this out.” Granny dug into the helping of the sweet potato casserole on her plate.