A Christmas Blessing

with the grown-up ladies.”
“Well, Angela’s certainly fascinated,” Jessie agreed as she observed her daughter’s fist tangled in Cody’s moustache. The baby tugged enthusiastically and Cody winced, but he didn’t give her up. He simply disengaged her fingers as he chattered utter nonsense to her. Like Luke, he seemed totally natural and unselfconscious with the infant in his arms.
“You might have to work on your conversational skills,” Jessie teased, after listening to him.
“You’re not the first woman to tell me that,” he admitted with a wicked grin that probably silenced most women on the spot, anyway. Jessie was immune to it, but she found herself amused by his inability to curb the tendency to flirt with any female in sight.
“I guess it’s what comes from spending most of my days with a herd of cows,” he added. “They’re not too demanding.”
“And what about Melissa?” she inquired, referring to the young woman who’d been head over heels in love with Cody practically since the cradle. “Is she too demanding?”
Cody’s eyes lit up at the mention of the woman everyone assumed he would one day marry, if he ever managed to settle down at all. “Melissa hangs on my every word,” he said confidently.
The touch of arrogance might have annoyed some people, but Jessie knew that Cody’s ego wasn’t his problem. The young man was simply a textbook case of a man who was commitment phobic. Melissa had contributed to the problem by wearing her heart on her sleeve for so long. Cody tended to take her for granted, certain she would be waiting whenever he got around to asking her to marry him.
One day, though, either Melissa or some other woman was going to turn Cody inside out. Jessie smiled as she envisioned the havoc that would stir.
“What are you grinning about?” Cody asked.
“Just imagining how hard your fall is going to be when it comes. Yours and Jordan’s.”
“Won’t be any worse than Erik’s,” he teased. “Or Luke’s,” he added, shooting her a sly look.
Jessie swallowed hard. “Luke’s?” she said, feigning confusion.
“I’m not blind, Jessie. Neither is anyone else around here, for that matter. Why do you think they were so appalled when they realized where you were when you had the baby? Luke never did have much of a poker face.”
She was stunned. “What are you saying?”
“That my big brother is crazy in love with you. Always has been. Luke may be the strong, silent type, but he’s transparent as can be where you’re concerned.”
Even as her heart leapt with joy at his confirmation of her own gut-deep assessment of Luke’s feelings, Jessie denied Cody’s claim. “You’re wrong,” she insisted.
Cody shook his head, clearly amused by her protest. “I’m not wrong. Why do you think he’s not here?”
“I explained that earlier. It’s because he’s feeling guilty about Erik’s death.”
“He’s feeling guilty, all right, but it’s not because of Erik’s death. At least, that’s only part of it,” he told her emphatically. “Luke’s all twisted up inside because he’s in love with Erik’s widow.”
Jessie practically snatched Angela out of Cody’s arms. When she would have run from the room, when she would have hidden from Cody’s words, he stopped her with a touch.
“Please, Jessie, I didn’t mean to upset you. I, for one, think it would be terrific if you and Luke got together. Erik’s gone. We can’t wish him back. And if you and Luke can find some kind of happiness together, then I say go for it. Jordan agrees with me. He seems to be looking for happy endings these days. Don’t say I told you but I think the confirmed bachelor is getting restless,” he confided. “He needs you and Luke to set an example for him.”
Once more, Cody had startled her, not just with his assessment of the undercurrents that she thought had been so well hidden in the past, but with his blessing.
“I don’t know what the future holds,” she said quietly, the words as close to an admission about her own feelings as she could make. “But I will always be grateful to you for speaking to me so honestly.”
Cody draped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Hey, Luke might be stubborn as a mule, but he is my big brother. I want him to be happy. As for you, the whole family lucked out when Erik found you. We want to keep you. And there’s Angela to think of,” he said, touching a finger gently to the baby’s cheek. “She deserves a daddy and I think Luke would make a damned fine one.”
Only after he had walked away did Jessie whisper, “So do I, Cody. So do I.”

Chapter Eleven
Luke could see only one way to push Jessie outof his life once and for all. If she had chosen Erik because she wanted a family to callher own, if she clung to him now for the same reason, then he would give her one. Nothis, but her own. Her biological family.
He’d been awake half the night formulating his plan. First thing inthe morning on the day after Christmas, he was on the phone to a private investigatorhe’d used once when he’d suspected a neighbor of doing a little cattlerustling from his herd. He supposed finding a long-lost family couldn’t be muchtrickier than tracing missing cattle.
“Her adoptive family’s name was Garnett,” Luke toldJames Hill, dredging up the surname from his memory of the first time Jessie had beenintroduced to the family, practically on the eve of the wedding. Erik hadn’trisked exposing her to too many of his father’s tantrums or too many of hismother’s interrogations. It was probably one of his brother’s wisestdecisions. Jessie might have fled, if she’d realized exactly what she was gettinginto. The surface charm of the family disintegrated under closer inspection.
“What else can you tell me about her?” Hill asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Where was she born? Where did she grow up? Her birth date? Anythinglike that?”
Luke listened to the list and saw his scheme going up in flames. For thefirst time he