Holiday Homecoming by Jillian Hart Page A

chocolate shakes anywhere.”
    â€œI was just thinking about that. Thick and sweet and so chocolaty.” Ryan’s stomach growled. “Wow, I remember you and your sisters would ride your horses into town and tie them up in the parking spots in front of the café.”
    â€œAnd you would ride your bike.”
    His bike. As Kristin navigated along the snowy street, where previous tracks of chained-up vehicles had broken a clear path, he saw snatches of the boy he’d been. Pedaling on his secondhand mountain bike down the wrong side of the road, a rebel without a cause and a chip on his shoulder. Holding down two jobs, bagging at the grocery on weekends and cleaning barns for Kristin’s uncle. Wanting his mother’s life to be easier. Hating that it wasn’t. Missing his dad so much, it hurt to breathe.
    I never should have come back, he thought, his eyes stinging. It was too much. Earlier, he’d vowed to keep his thoughts in the present. But what did a guy do when the past was tangled up with the present?
    â€œThe closer we get to home, the sadder you look.” Kristin sounded concerned. Caring, the way a friend was.
    He lived such a busy life, he didn’t have a lot of friends. And he liked it that way. He shrugged. His problems were his own. “I’m just dog tired. You doin’ okay? I could take over. In fact, why don’t you let me drive?”
    â€œBecause those are my dad’s fields. Okay, they’re my sister’s now. Michelle and her husband took over the farming. I’m almost home .”
    Kristin probably didn’t realize how much warmth she placed on that word. Her emotion came through as easily as if she’d opened wide her heart. What a blessing she had, in the family she’d grown up with. In thechildhood home that rose into sight nestled on the crest of a low rolling hill. The front windows reflected mauve in the rising sun, and the clouds overhead began spitting out tiny airy flakes of snow, as delicate as spun sugar. Like a blessing on this day of homecoming.
    â€œI get to see how my new baby nieces are growing. Now I’m getting excited! The last time I came home, it was when little Caitlin was born.”
    â€œI take it Caitlin belongs to one of your sisters?”
    â€œYep. I’m a proud aunt many times over.” Okay, there were a hundred excellent reasons for coming home. Her sisters were married, and when they all gathered together for holidays, they’d become a sizable group. It was exciting to see how happy her sisters were. Happy with the lives they’d chosen. Her sisters were mothers now, and that meant a whole troop of nieces and nephews she got to spoil.
    Both bitter and sweet, her visits home. Very hard on her poor heart.
    â€œThat’s a pleasure I haven’t enjoyed yet, being Uncle Ryan.” For the first time on the trip, he smiled, genuine and true, and it was as if his defenses lowered and she could see more deeply into him. See a glimpse of his dreams. “Mia has just finished vet school. She’s worked hard to get this far, and she hasn’t taken the time to fall in love.”
    â€œShe’s smart, finishing her school first.” It’s what she did. “A woman has to be able to make a living on her own.”
    â€œThat’s what Mia says, and I agreed. Look at mymom. She married Dad right out of high school. They had a happy marriage until the day he was struck by that truck. It was hard enough facing each day without him there, for all of us, but we struggled financially, too. In a small town with no training whatsoever, Mom cleaned houses and worked at the cannery outside Bozeman. Yet no matter how we all worked, it was never enough to make ends meet. It was hard for her. Mia and me—”
    He paused, raked his hand through his dark hair and turned to stare out the window. His throat worked. “We did everything we could to make it easier for her, but