Deck the Halls with Cowboys (The Hallow Ranch)

Prologue

The Christmas Spirit

Hallow Ranch, nestled in a valley just outside of Hayden, Colorado. Home to the Langston Brothers, their rowdy ranch hands, and a spirit that watches over them. After nearly a decade of pain, the owner of the ranch, Denver Langston, has finally found peace, his happy ending.

However, during a certain time of year, that peace is routinely interrupted, replaced by a vile feeling in his gut: hatred.

Denver Langston hated Christmas. Ever since the tragic loss of his mother, he hadn’t felt the Christmas spirit return to him.

For the last few years, Denver had been putting on a brave face, pretending to like the holiday season for the sake of his son, Caleb.

Now, he was tired of the show and wanted a quiet Christmas with his wife and children.

Valerie, his enchantress, had other plans.

For the first time since she came to Hallow Ranch, everyone would be present for the holidays, and she wanted to make the most of it.

Since Diana and Mags’s engagement, she’d been planning, and nothing was going to get in her way of having a perfect Hallow Ranch Christmas.

Surprisingly, Denver’s younger brother, Mason, who’d taken the brunt of their father’s wrath, adored the holiday season.

Every year, even when he was away from Hallow Ranch, he would welcome the warmth it provided him.

He’d even gone as far as decorating his friend Eddie’s house for Christmas one year because Mason, at the time, had no home to return to.

That all changed the year he’d saved Harmony.

She had become his home and had eventually convinced him to return to Hallow Ranch, a place where they could both be at peace. Together.

Harmony was now known as the resident chef of the ranch, her culinary skills almost impressive as her songwriting.

Everyone in the bunkhouse adored her meals…

but no one knew that she had stolen some recipes from the old cowboy’s trunk two springs ago.

She’d told her sister-in-law that she happened to come across them in passing.

This had been determined as a lie. Harmony, a beautiful siren and true to the siren’s nature, was also a thief.

And yet? She still managed to keep her place on the Nice List, and the recipe theft wasn’t the only secret she’d been hiding.

Beau Marks, one of Hallow Ranch’s veteran ranch hands, didn’t mind the holidays.

His father, Jigs, always did his best to bring about some form of holiday cheer in the bunkhouse, even during the ranch’s darkest of times.

Beau was just happy to have Abbie back in his life and intended on making this holiday the most memorable.

After moving back to Hallow Ranch, Abbie worked remotely for the Denver Tribune, hunting down and writing thrilling news stories for the state.

For months, she’d been avoiding the paint studio Beau had set up for her, unsure of how to pick up the brush again as she and Beau healed from the years of pain lingering between them.

Mags, a cowboy whose pain seeped into the very soil of the ranch the second his boots touched the ground, didn’t dislike or like the holidays, because he had no memories of them as a child.

Still, he hated the fact that Denver made him come up to the main house for a drink every Christmas Eve.

This was the time of year when he liked to be alone, but now, he wanted to be alone with his fiancée.

Diana, newly engaged and three months pregnant, was beyond ready to celebrate her first holiday season with Mags.

After a decade of longing, they were finally together, and she was ready to start new traditions with him.

So, of course, she jumped at the chance to help Valerie plan Christmas dinner.

However, her biggest mistake of the week, as it turned out, was assigning Mason to cook the ham.

All the cowboys had their happy endings—aside from the twins, Lawson and Lance.

According to Harmony, she overheard them making a pact of celibacy around Halloween.

She didn’t think they would last long. Those brothers were wilder than her husband and brother-in-law.

The rest of the girls had a bet going on how long those cowboys would last. Valerie thought a month, Diana a week, and Abbie said six months for Lance and two for Lawson.

Everything was going to be perfect.

It had to be.

It was the first Hallow Ranch Christmas with a full house.

It was the perfect time to honor old traditions, establish new ones, and celebrate how far they had come as a giant, blended, messed-up, morally gray family.

Then again, none of them accounted for the blizzard that would delay Santa’s arrival. And little did they know that nothing about this festive night would be silent…