Chapter 33

Misty scooped up a spoonful of ice cream and ate it slowly. As she licked mint chocolate chip off the back of her spoon, she looked over to Janie. "I'm not going back to Dallas."

Janie's eyes were the only thing that moved. "I'm shocked," she said in a totally not-shocked tone.

"You're the first person I've said it out loud to."

"You haven't even told Link?"

Misty shook her head and stirred together the melted part of her ice cream with the still-frozen parts. "I'm going to go back to Dallas over Thanksgiving and move out of my apartment there. Put it up for sale. Then…I'll keep letting the state pay for my housing here, and once our project is done…." She shrugged, the rest of the story already there in black and white.

"Maybe you'll be married by the time our project is done," Janie said.

Misty grinned, but she didn't confirm or deny anything. She wasn't sure about that, because while she and Link said "I love you" pretty freely these days, they hadn't talked about marriage or children at all. Misty's chest tightened mightily at the thought of being a mother, but at least it didn't send her running the way it had previously.

"I won't get married before our project finishes," she promised.

"It won't matter even if you do," Janie said. She sniffled and wiped her eyes. "Because even if you did, you'd move up to Shiloh Ridge. It's not like Link would come live here and cramp my single lifestyle."

Misty half-laughed as tears streamed down her face. "I'm just so—ugh. Who thought any of this would happen to me?" She covered her face with her hands and wiped at her eyes. "You're the one who's dated all these years. I haven't had a second date in a decade."

Every hole in her face had decided to leak then, and she didn't know how to get it to stop. "Maybe we can just prolong the project forever," she whispered. "Then I won't ever have to tell you good-bye."

"It'll take a lot more than you marrying some rich cowboy for us to stop being friends." Janie let herself cry too. "And I get to be your Maid of Honor. None of his siblings or cousins or any of his millions of aunts."

Misty tipped her head back and laughed. "He does have a lot of aunts, doesn't he?"

The moment sobered, and they went back to eating their ice cream at their little table-for-two in the house on a quiet street in quaint, perfect, small-town Three Rivers.

"I'm so nervous." Misty smoothed both hands over her stomach, unconcerned about her dress and how it lay but super concerned she might actually throw up.

Link had just come down the hallway from his bedroom, and he currently brushed his teeth. "Ain't no thing," he said around the brush and toothpaste.

"How can you say that?" Misty wasn't going to be able to enjoy a bite of food tonight. Which made no sense, because she'd spent plenty of time with Link's family.

Tonight felt different, though.

Because tonight was different.

The last Sunday of October had come, and that meant it was the annual Glover family dinner, meeting, party, and Angel Tree decorating event.

Link turned and went back down the hall to his bathroom, leaving Misty alone in her panic. She took a breath and moved over to the window. "Lord," she prayed. "I don't know if I can do this."

The feeling in her stomach to run, to hide, faded to nothing as she looked at the trees beyond Link's porch. She went outside, clear to the corner of the porch and gazed into the landscape. It smelled like earth and pine and sky, and Misty drew in another long breath of it.

"I am strong," she whispered to herself. "I am invincible." Her thought patterns started to change with those few simple words. "I am unstoppable. My future is wide open. I'm a nice person, and Link's family loves me. He loves me."

It still baffled her that someone as amazing as him could love her, but Misty didn't doubt it. Not for a second.

"I am not going to stand in my own way." She shook her head. "Not tonight."

The door opened, and Link joined her outside. He didn't say anything as he crossed over to her. When he arrived, he simply put his arm around her and took a deep breath of her hair. "I like this dress," he murmured.

She wore a red, green, black, and white plaid dress that hugged her straight up and down. It fell to her knee with little ripples or fabric. She'd paired it with a pair of black ballet flats, and she wore a white cardigan over her shoulders. She felt like the heroine in a romcom movie, the kind that goes to London to marry a man they've never met. She had the cutest clothes and the funniest things would happen, and in the end, she'd have the man of her dreams.

Or in her case, the cowboy of her dreams.

"Remember the first time you came to my family's Angel Tree celebration?" Link asked softly. "And Uncle Bishop had made those banana cream tarts, and we snuck a couple out the door and took a walk. Remember that?"

"Mm," she said, picturing the scene as he started to paint it with his luxurious voice.

"And the sky was so amazing that night, because it had those wispy clouds, and they hold so much color from the sunset."

"Really beautiful." She relaxed back into his chest.

"And I asked you about having kids, and you said…." He paused there, but every muscle in Misty's body had just jumped to attention. He had to feel that, and Misty moved away from him and leaned into the railing while her heartbeat flailed in her chest.

I am strong, she thought, and as she did, she remembered that strength did not come from forgetting the past, but from the courage to remember it—and still move forward.

"I don't know how good I'll be with kids," she admitted. Her voice felt stuffed way down in her pancreas. "I'm a little scared of being a mom."

"I think you'd be a great mom," Link whispered.

I am invincible.

She was strong enough to heal, to forgive, and to begin fresh. With every step she took with Link, she was coming home—not just to a place, but to herself.

"I'd try," she said. "I think I'll do better than my mom. But…I'll need a lot of help."

"I think we'd have to tie my momma in the stable to keep her away from any of our babies." He chuckled, and she finally turned to look at him.

"How many babies are we talking?" she asked.

"I don't know, love." He drew her back into his chest. "There's no set number. Sometimes the Lord blesses you with a lot of things, and one of them isn't children. Sometimes it is. I guess we'll have to see."

"Do you want kids right away? Or like…is there an acceptable waiting period in your family?"

"Rory and Ollie were married for six or seven years before they had their first baby," Link said. "I'm not in a hurry, Misty. We're young. Daddy started having baby after baby the moment he and Momma got married, because he was already forty-six years old."

She nodded and relaxed into the warmth of his arms. "Okay." A beat went by, and she added, "Remember when we were first married, and it was just us for a few years? And we needed that time to discover more about each other, and learn how to live together, and I needed to be shown how to be a Glover, and you were so patient with me." She swallowed, her future blooming in front of her. "Remember that?"

"Yeah, my love," he whispered. "I remember that."

Misty's nerves did not get in her way during dinner. She and Link did steal some banana cream tarts before dinner started, but they ate them on the front porch of the homestead, no hard conversations between them.

Dinner was lively, of course, with tables spilling out onto the deck and into the wing under the stairs to accommodate everyone. Then, the Glovers had their meeting, and Misty marveled at how they talked openly about money, about where to invest it, about how they'd done at market, all of it.

That broke up, and the crowd surged toward the foyer of the house, with children of various ages clamoring over one another about this ornament or that one. Misty had not seen a tree when she and Link had arrived, but as they joined the throng of Glovers in the foyer, she found Arizona and June removing a pure white tree from a box.

"Settle down," Ranger called, and when that did nothing, he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. "Enough. Quiet."

That got everyone to do what he asked, and he nodded over to Bear. "I've asked Mother to talk about our Angel Tree this year," Bear said, his eyes roaming the crowd. Misty had eaten with Mitch, who'd come home specifically for this, and Link's cousin Hailey, so she hadn't seen too much of Bear and Sammy yet tonight.

They'd hugged her hello, of course, but with the sheer number of Glovers, it was hard to stick by too many people. Link's hand in hers reminded her of how they'd stayed so close all evening.

"Sometimes we talk about it, and sometimes we don't," Bear said. "But we have some new people with us tonight, and some of our littles are more grown, so they can understand it's more than just getting the toy soldier ornament." He looked pointedly at some of the smaller children in the front of the crowd, those gathered closest to the tree. "Mother?"

Misty had met Lois Glover—oops, she was remarried to Don Parker now—tonight for the first time. She'd held Misty close without saying a word, and that had somehow stitched their hearts together already.

Now, she emerged from the crowd and indicated the twelve-foot-tall tree as Zona and June continued to put it together, pulling out the branches and arranging them just so.

"This is our Angel Tree," she said. "My mother-in-law handmade all of the ornaments with white thread and red accents. She starched them into specific shapes, and I swear, I never saw her make anything else with a crochet needle."

She paused to smile, and Misty fell in love with the soothing sound of her voice.

"Every year, we put up our Angel Tree on the last Sunday of October. We each have special ornaments that mean something to us. Either they were made for us…." She glanced around. "Or they chose us. No matter what, there are more than enough ornaments to go around. Hang one, or hang ten, but please make room for everyone."

"What do the ornaments mean, Grandmother?" one little girl up front asked.

Lois put both hands on her knees and bent down. "Well, my Jewel, they represent the Glovers that have gone before us. Our grandmothers and grandfathers. Our fathers and uncles. All the great Glovers who built this ranch and now entrust it to us. Every time you come to the homestead in the next couple of months, you'll feel them." She put one fist over her heart and straightened. "Right here."

As if on cue, as if they'd rehearsed it, all the adult Glovers—every last one of them right down to Link—lifted their right fist and pressed it over their heart.

Misty's tears streamed down her face, and she reached for her brother's hand. Danny lived here and worked this ranch, and while none of the other hired help had come, he had a special connection through her.

She found him gazing around at everyone with that Glover last name, pure awe on his face. He even said, "Wow."

Their eyes met, and Misty tried to smile. It didn't quite work, because she felt all the same amazing, wonderful things he did. "This is what family feels like, Danny."

She'd tried so hard to give him this, but there was no way it could be replicated. Absolutely no way. She'd known Lincoln Glover was special the moment she'd met him, years ago on a dance floor in town.

It was as if every scene with him in it zipped and played across her line of sight, and she fell in love with him again and again and again

"Yeah," Danny whispered. "That's right. This is what family feels like."

The Glovers lowered their fists, and Zona cleared her throat. "Thank you, Mother. I'm going to spread the boxes out a little." She picked one up and handed it to Oakley. "Put that in the kitchen, would you, Oak?"

She faced them all again. "Then, we'll have more room to look for the ornaments we want. It's not a race." She glared at the kids and pre-teens near the front. "Do you hear me? Where are my kids?" She glanced around. "It's not a race."

"Who wants Aunt Zona mad at them?" Bishop asked, his fun-loving personality joining hers up front. "No one? All right, then. We walk with the ornaments. We share with each other. We ask for help if you need to reach a higher branch. We speak in quiet voices, like church-quiet. This is an honor for our family, our ancestors."

"An honor," Misty whispered.

Link kneaded her closer and bent down. "You don't have to do it, but you're welcome to look through the boxes and find something. Most of us say a little tribute to our person when we hang our ornament."

"You do that?" she asked. "For who?"

"My momma and daddy," he said. "For Bear. And maybe this year, for you." He gave her a smile. "All the really important people who aren't here with me, and for those who've rescued me who are."

Misty teared up again, but she brushed at her eyes. She didn't want to miss a moment of this, and Bishop had finished with the rules.

"There's no order," Zona said. "Come on, everyone. Let's get the tree decorated."

People moved then, but it was with a hushed reverence they all seemed to understand. They'd all done this before, but it wasn't hard to let the prevailing feeling of love, peace, joy, and solemnity seep into her soul as she stepped over to a box that had been placed on the stairs, only a few feet behind her.

Simply gazing into it, she could feel the work and love and spirit of every stitch she saw. She could only imagine Link's great-grandmother making these, thinking of her posterity who might use them, but might not. Had she imagined this? Had she ever witnessed it while alive?

Hands dipped into the box and took ornaments out, all while soft voices talked. Link picked up a fairly large ornament—about the size of his fist—of an old-fashioned truck.

"This one's for my daddy," he said. "He loved old trucks, and my momma drove one of his for a long time after he died." He met her eyes, plenty of shining stars in his expression. "You okay here for a second while I hang this?"

"Yes," Misty murmured. The crowd around their box thinned, and Misty found herself standing next to it with Danny. He reached inside and pulled out an ornament, with a steel gray hook coming from the top of it.

"Misty," he breathed. "Look at this."

He held what looked to be nothing more than a leafless tree, with only a few branches flowing up. It almost looked like a Halloween decoration more than anything she'd hang on a Christmas tree.

But Danny gazed at her with pure wonder streaming from him. "It looks just like that tree we had in front of the house." He looked at it and then her. "Remember? And I said I was going to climb it and jump off from the highest branch and fly away from there." He could barely be heard by the end of his sentence, and Misty's memory overflowed.

"I remember," she said.

"This is mine," he said, pulling it closer to his body. "I'm going to hang this one." He left her standing at the box, and Misty bent down to get a better look at what remained.

She found snowflakes and stars, what looked like a wreath but had been smashed and disfigured on one side, and a couple of misshapen horses. She left that box and moved to the next one over, part of her wondering if she'd find anything that would speak to her soul. She couldn't even imagine what that might be.

A hole? A zero? How did one stitch loneliness and forced isolation with white thread and red accents?

She found nothing that called to her in the second or third boxes, and she looked up to realize quite a few people had finished already. They'd moved back into the kitchen for dessert, and the foyer wasn't empty, but it wasn't nearly as full either.

Link stood with his parents, the three of them talking quietly about something. He glanced her way and raised his eyebrows, but she shook her head. With a bit of desperation pounding along her temples, she moved over to another box.

"These are the oldest ones," Zona said lovingly as she dropped into a crouch beside Misty. She didn't wear a dress, and Misty realized she hadn't needed to either. Maybe next year, she wouldn't. She smiled at Misty. "I always want to go through the ornaments in order, but I've stopped trying to suggest it."

"They're so beautiful," Misty said. "Even more so with the natural light on them." She took out an ornament shaped and pressed just so—a duck. "They make me smile."

"They make me smile too," Zona said. "Have you found one for yourself?"

Misty shook her head. "I—what do you hang?"

"Grandmother made something for everyone," Zona said instead of answering Misty. "We'll find you something." She took out another ornament, this one a feather. Then a rocking chair. Misty shook her head. A fox, a badly smashed cardinal, a set of holly berries.

Etta joined them, saying, "Still looking, Misty?"

"I don't think there will be anything," she said sadly. "I…I just don't have many good memories of anyone in my life. Well, besides Danny and now Link."

"We'll find something," Etta told her. She pulled over another box and started sorting through the leftover ornaments.

Sammy got down and began to help too. "I always hang one for my sister and brother-in-law," she said. "And believe it or not, my first year here, I found a rocking horse for Patrick. He'd built one for Link when he was a baby, and oh, that boy loved riding his rocking horse." She smiled with all the tender love of a parent, and Misty sure hoped she could feel that way about her babies.

"And for my sister, I found a cardinal. Simple, and I've learned that Priscilla made many birds and cardinals over the years. But my sister loved birdwatching, and that ornament spoke to my heart. It reminded me that God knew me and loved me, and I hang one of the birds for Link's momma every year."

"So maybe God doesn't love me or know me," Misty said without thinking.

All three women stared at her, and Etta reacted first. "That's just not true, my darling girl. He knows you. He loves you. There's something here for you. I just know it."

"I found a racecar my first Christmas here," Oakley said as she joined them. "If you can believe that."

Out came crescent moons, and pine trees, and sun hats. None of them called to Misty.

She moved to the last box—her last hope. She just needed to keep looking. She'd look again and again, and she'd find something. Surely Etta wouldn't lie to her. They'd all found something just for them. Everyone had. Why shouldn't she?

So, she looked down, and there, nestled among several other ornaments, sat a little log cabin.

Her hand gravitated toward it like it had a magnet on it and she'd suddenly been fitted with an iron fist. She lifted it with a soft, "Oh, my goodness. It's the cabin I lived in here on the ranch. The one Link prepped for me the night of the fire."

The whole world slowed, for surely that cabin wasn't as old as this ornament. She took in the spaces for windows, and the darling little chimney on the roof, the near perfect corners, the round logs going up the sides. She looked at Oakley, Etta, Zona, and Sammy.

"It's my home." Tears rolled down her face, and Misty let the women sweep her into their arms and hold her tight.

"That's right, Misty," Sammy whispered. "You've come home."