The Cowboy's Holiday Proposal (Christmas Returns to Shooting Star Canyon #3)

Chapter 1

Christmas was coming to Shooting Star Canyon again.

The whole town changed after Thanksgiving, as if Christmas moved into Shooting Star Canyon one decoration at a time.

First, lights appeared across porches, storefronts, ranch gates, and church windows.

Garland appeared along railings. Wreaths multiplied on doors.

The town square filled with wooden crates, ladders, tangled lights, and people who all had very firm opinions about where the nativity display should go this year.

By midafternoon, the square had become a cheerful mess.

Maggie Clemons stood off to the side with a thermos of coffee tucked between her gloved hands, watching half the town prepare for the annual Christmas kickoff.

The air was cool enough for jackets but not bitter.

This Texas December day wanted to participate in Christmas without committing too hard to winter.

Across the square, her oldest son, Mark, stood on a ladder beside one of the old iron lampposts, looping greenery with patient concentration.

He didn’t seem entirely at home out here.

Knowing Mark, he would rather be repairing fence or moving cattle than decorating anything with ribbon. Still, he did the job right.

He reached for the next length of garland, accepted it from his brother Thomas without looking down, and fastened it into place. When James, another brother, called something from below, Mark glanced down and shook his head, the smallest grin curling his lips.

“Mark, you’re putting that too low,” Julia Elizabeth, Maggie’s oldest and only daughter, called from near the town tree, where she was untangling a string of lights with the grim focus of a woman at war.

Mark looked down from the ladder. “Julia, if I put it any higher, the town will need binoculars.”

“It’s drooping on the left.”

“Everything droops eventually.”

“That is a terrible decorating philosophy.”

Thomas laughed and handed Mark another strand. “She has a point.”

“She usually does,” Mark said, securing the garland anyway. “That doesn’t make it convenient.”

Julia pointed at him with a half-untangled strand of lights. “I heard that.”

“I said it loud enough for you to.”

Maggie smiled and sipped her coffee.

Her children had never been quiet together.

Julia, Mark, Thomas, James, and Samuel could fill a room with noise faster than most families could set a table.

Even grown, they still slipped into the old rhythm whenever they were together.

Teasing. Helping. Arguing over things that didn’t matter because the important things never had to be questioned.

They were family.

Mark had shown up today, just like he always did, but still, Maggie was positive something was off. He wasn’t angry or lonely in some obvious way. If he had been, Maggie might have known better how to pray. She might have known when to press and when to leave him be.

Maybe it was because Mark had become comfortable alone.

Johnnie, her loving husband, came up beside her carrying a box of red bows under one arm. “You’re staring at him again.”

Maggie didn’t look away from Mark. “I’m his mother. I’m allowed.”

“You’re allowed, yes,” Johnnie said, setting the box at her feet, “but that doesn’t mean he won’t notice.”

“He’s busy.”

“He’s Mark. He tends to notice just about everything.”

That was true enough. Of all their boys, Mark had always been the one who saw more than he said.

Julia announced her opinions before anyone asked.

Thomas smiled his way into and out of trouble.

James found something funny in almost everything.

Samuel carried his thoughts more quietly but not the same way Mark did.

Mark observed first, acted second, and spoke only when needed. Lately, Maggie wondered if he had started observing his own life from a distance too.

Johnnie followed her gaze to where Mark had climbed down from the ladder and was now helping Samuel move a wooden stable backdrop toward the church’s outdoor display. “He’s doing all right.”

“I suppose.”

Johnnie glanced at her. “That didn’t sound like agreement.”

“It was agreement.” Maggie wrapped both hands around her thermos. “Mostly.”

He grunted.

She finally looked at her husband. Johnnie Clemons still had the same strong face she had fallen in love with years ago.

A few more lines now. More gray near his temples.

A steadiness that had deepened with every season they had walked through together.

He wore concern differently than she did.

Less visibly, perhaps, but not less deeply.

“He works,” Maggie said softly. “He comes to church. He helps when anyone asks. He’s good with his brothers and with Julia. He doesn’t sit around moping. He doesn’t act bitter.” She looked back toward Mark. “But there’s a difference between being content and having hope.”

Johnnie’s expression shifted, and he slowly nodded.

Mark had dated Jenna Bogle for three years.

Three years of dinners, family gatherings, church services, ranch events.

Three years of Maggie watching her second child begin to build toward a future with someone.

He had never been dramatic about it. Mark wasn’t the kind of man to write songs or make grand declarations in the middle of town, but he had looked at Jenna like a man preparing a place for her in his life.

Then it ended. Not loudly. Not scandalously. That almost made it worse. No grand betrayal the town could point to and condemn. No dramatic scene that gave everyone permission to be angry on Mark’s behalf. Jenna had wanted something else. Somewhere else. Someone else, eventually.

Mark had said very little. He had come to Sunday dinner the next week, helped his father repair a gate after church, and answered Maggie’s careful questions with calm, reasonable words.

“I’m fine, Mama.”

She had wanted to cry. Fine was not healed. Fine was something people said when they did not want to bleed in public.

Johnnie set a hand lightly at the small of her back. “He’s had time.”

“Time doesn’t always heal a wound if a person decides not to let it.”

“He’s not shut down.”

“No.” Maggie watched as Mark crouched to adjust the base of the stable backdrop, listening while Samuel said something with wide gestures. “But he’s not open either.”

Johnnie sighed quietly. He couldn’t refute that.

Across the square, Mark stood, dusted his hands on his jeans, and accepted a bundle of lights from Rachel Morgan.

Rachel turned and said something to Jacob Whitley who smiled even as he shook his head with the long-suffering expression of a man who had already accepted being teased for the rest of his life.

Maggie smiled. Jacob and Rachel looked happy. Truly happy.

Sadie, Rachel’s daughter, darted between them with a red bow in her hands, her cheeks bright, her voice carrying across the square as she demanded to know if the stable needed “more sparkle.”

“It always needs more sparkle,” Rachel called after her.

Jacob winced. “Does it?”

“Yes,” Rachel said.

From nearby, Violet Hoffman laughed as Caleb Pierce handed her another string of lights. Caleb said something close to her ear, and Violet swatted his arm lightly with the glove she had been holding. Her smile was soft when she looked up at him.

Maggie suspected that love had been there for a very long time, waiting. The ease between them had bloomed over this past year since the Epiphany program.

Sometimes Maggie saw him and Violet together and remembered being young, scared, foolish, and in love with Johnnie so fiercely that she managed to walk down the aisle after first leaving him there.

A woman could thank God for mercy every day of her life and still not thank Him enough.

“Maggie?” Johnnie called.

She blinked and realized she had been watching Mark again.

He stood a little apart from the others now, one hand braced on his hip while James and Thomas argued over which strand of lights had gone out.

He looked amused, patient, and useful but still seemed to somehow alone in the middle of everyone. That was the part that hurt.

“Maybe I’m worrying over nothing,” she said.

Johnnie’s mouth curved faintly. “You don’t believe that.”

“No.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I’ve tried.”

“And?”

“He says he’s fine.”

Johnnie made a sound low in his throat. “That boy has been saying that since he was twelve and fell off the hayloft.”

“He broke his wrist.” Maggie’s lips twitched, and she sighed.

“He’s stubborn.”

“He gets that from you.” She nudged her husband.

Johnnie looked down at her. “I was going to say from you.”

“You’d be wrong.”

His smile warmed, and for a moment, all the noise around them softened. Maggie leaned into him just slightly, enough for his hand at her back to settle more firmly. After all these years, she still loved that he reached for her without thinking.

Maybe that was why she wanted so badly for Mark to have the same.

Mark deserved that even if he had stopped looking for it.

A burst of laughter rose across the square. Maggie glanced over to see one of the bows had somehow ended up tied around Thomas’s hat. Samuel looked entirely too innocent. Julia had her hands on her hips, pretending not to laugh.

Mark was laughing now too, his head tipped slightly back, his shoulders loose.

Maggie smiled broadly.

Then the laugh faded. Mark turned back to work, and the moment passed.

That was what she meant. He could laugh. He could enjoy a moment, but nothing seemed to take root in him anymore. Joy visited and left but never stayed.

“Mama!” Samuel’s voice carried across the square. “Where do these extra bows go?”

Maggie lifted the box at her feet. “Apparently nowhere near Thomas’s hat.”

Thomas pointed at Samuel. “He started it.”

“You let him,” Julia said.

“I was ambushed.”

Mark grabbed two bows from Samuel and started toward Maggie and Johnnie. “We have too many.”

“There is no such thing at Christmas,” Maggie said.

“There is when every surface in town is already wearing one.”

She took the bows from him and studied his face while pretending to inspect the ribbon. “Are you hungry?”

Mark gave her a look. “That’s your answer to everything.”

“Not everything. Sometimes I ask if you need coffee.”

“I ate before I came.”

“That wasn’t my question. You could still be hungry now.”

Johnnie chuckled.

Mark shook his head, but affection softened his expression. “I’m fine, Mama.”

There it was again.

Maggie’s heart squeezed. She reached up and brushed a bit of greenery from his jacket sleeve. “I know you are.”

He grimaced slightly before his expression became more composed.

Then James called for him, and Mark stepped back. “Duty calls.”

“Does it ever stop?” Johnnie asked.

“No,” Mark said dryly, “but apparently it comes with bows.”

He walked back toward his brothers, and Maggie watched him go.

Johnnie shifted beside her. “You could push, but you won’t.”

“No.” Maggie held the ribbons lightly in her hands. “Not yet.”

“Good.”

She looked up at him. “How is that good?”

“He already knows you love him. If you push before he’s ready, he’ll dig in.”

“He gets that from you too.”

Johnnie kissed her temple. “Probably.”

Maggie smiled, but her gaze returned to Mark. He was helping again, steady and capable. He was a man people relied on without thinking too much about who he relied on in return.

That was what she would pray about.

Not that God would send him a wife, although Maggie would not pretend the thought had never crossed her mind.

She would pray that Mark’s heart would soften.

That hope would find its way back in. That if love came near him again, he would not mistake it for danger and step away before it had a chance.

Across the square, the bell above Winter Wishes jingled as the shop door opened.

Natalie Winters stepped out carrying an armful of ribbon spools in red, green, and gold.

Her bright scarf was half-unraveled, her hair had slipped loose from whatever style she had attempted that morning, and she paused on the sidewalk as if calculating whether she could carry everything without dropping half of it.

A spool of gold ribbon slipped from the pile and rolled straight off the curb.

Mark crossed the square, bent to catch it before it reached the street, and held it out to Natalie.

Maggie could not hear what Natalie said, but she saw the young woman laugh. Mark answered with something that made Natalie laugh harder. Then he took half the ribbon spools from her arms despite whatever protest she clearly made.

Maggie tilted her head to the side.

Johnnie followed her gaze. “Don’t start.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You started in your head.”

She glanced up at him. “You don’t know that.”

“I absolutely know that.”

Maggie tried to hide her smile and failed.

Mark walked beside Natalie toward the square, carrying ribbon like he had been assigned the task by a commanding officer. Natalie talked with her hands even while burdened with the remaining spools, and Mark glanced down at her.

Johnnie leaned closer. “Maggie.”

“What?”

“Let the boy breathe.”

“I am.”

“You are plotting.”

“I am observing.”

“Same thing when you do it.”

She elbowed him lightly, and he laughed.

Mark and Natalie reached the decorating table. Natalie set her spools down, said something to Mark, and pointed toward the lampposts. Mark shook his head. She pointed again, more firmly this time. After a moment, he sighed and picked up a bundle of ribbon.

Maggie pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.

Natalie Winters did not seem the least bit afraid of bossing Mark Clemons around.

The afternoon carried on around them. People called instructions. Children ran where they had been told not to run. Someone tested the first strand of lights around the town tree, and a cheer went up when they glowed.

Maggie stayed where she was, watching her son help a woman with Christmas ribbon. Maybe nothing would come of it. Maybe this was only a moment in a busy town square before Christmas. But maybe it was the first hint of something God had already been arranging long ago.

She bowed her head slightly, right there amid the garland and laughter and half-finished decorations.

Lord, she prayed silently, You know my son better than I do. You know what he carries and what he’s afraid to hope for. If there’s still room in his heart for love, help him see it. And if Natalie Winters is part of that plan, give me the patience not to meddle too much.

She opened one eye and glanced at Johnnie, who was watching her with clear suspicion.

Maggie amended the prayer. Or at least give me the wisdom to meddle gently.

Johnnie shook his head as if he had heard every word.

Maggie smiled and lifted her coffee again, her gaze drifting back to Mark. Natalie handed him a hopelessly tangled ribbon, and he took it with a reluctant smile. Maggie saw the faintest spark of hope in his eyes.