On a Snowy Night

Home for the Holidays

Glad Tidings

Christmas Wishes

Small Town Christmas

When Christmas Comes (now retitled Trading Christmas)

There’s Something About Christmas

Christmas Letters

Where Angels Go

The Perfect Christmas

Angels at Christmas (Those Christmas Angels and Where Angels Go)

Call Me Mrs. Miracle

Heart of Texas Series

VOLUME 1 (Lonesome Cowboy and Texas Two-Step)

VOLUME 2 (Caroline’s Child and Dr. Texas)

VOLUME 3 (Nell’s Cowboy and Lone Star Baby)

Promise, Texas

Return to Promise

Midnight Sons

VOLUME 1 (Brides for Brothers and The Marriage Risk)

VOLUME 2 (Daddy’s Little Helper and Because of the Baby)

VOLUME 3 (Falling for Him, Ending in Marriage and Midnight Sons and Daughters)

This Matter of Marriage

Montana

Thursdays at Eight

Between Friends

Changing Habits

Married in Seattle (First Comes Marriage and Wanted: Perfect Partner)

Right Next Door (Father’s Day and The Courtship of Carol Sommars)

The Man You’ll Marry (The First Man You Meet and The Man You’ll Marry)

Orchard Valley Grooms (Valerie and Stephanie)

Orchard Valley Brides (Norah and Lone Star Lovin’ )

The Sooner the Better

An Engagement in Seattle (Groom Wanted and Bride Wanted)

Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove Cookbook

Debbie Macomber’s Christmas Cookbook

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

One

A month ago this had been her family home.

Ellie Frasier stood on the tree-lined sidewalk in Promise, Texas, staring up at the traditional two-story house with its white picket fence. The Sold sign stared back at her, telling her that nothing would ever be the same again. Her father was dead, and her mother gone.

This was the house where she’d been born and raised. Where she’d raced across the front lawn, climbed the pecan tree and hung upside down from its branches. On that very porch she’d been kissed for the first time.

Oh, how she’d miss that porch. Countless pictures had been taken of her on these steps. Her mother holding an infant Ellie in her arms the day she brought her home from the hospital in Brewster. Every Easter in a frilly new dress and every Halloween in a costume her mother had sewn for her.

The day Ellie turned thirteen and wore panty hose for the first time, her dad had insisted she have her picture taken on the porch. Then at eighteen, when she was a rodeo princess for the Brewster Labor Day Festival, her father had posed her on the front steps again. At the time he’d told her he’d be taking her picture there in her wedding dress before she left for the church.

Only, her father would never escort her down the aisle.

The rush of pain came as no surprise. She’d been dealing with it for weeks now. And before that, too, while he was in the hospital, desperately ill. But Ellie couldn’t believe he would actually die; death was something that happened to other people’s fathers, not her own. Not yet. He was too young, too vital, too special, and because she’d refused to accept the inevitable, his passing had hit her hard, throwing her emotionally off balance.

Even then, she’d been forced to hold her grief inside. Her mother had needed her to be strong. Ellie’s personality was like her father’s—forceful, independent and stubborn. Her mother, on the other hand, was fragile and rather impractical, relying on her husband to look after things. She’d been unable to deal with the funeral arrangements or any of the other tasks that accompany death, so they’d fallen on Ellie’s shoulders.

The weeks that followed were like an earthquake, and the aftershocks continued to jolt Ellie, often when she least expected it.

Her mother had given her the worst shock. Within a week of the burial service, Pam Frasier announced she was moving to Chicago to live with her sister. Almost immediately the only home Ellie had ever known was put up for sale. By the end of the first week they’d had an offer.

Once the deal was finalized, her mother packed up all her belongings, hired a moving company, and before Ellie could fully appreciate what was happening, she was gone. Whatever she’d left behind, Pam told her daughter, was Ellie’s to keep. The family business, too. Pam wanted nothing from the feed store. John had always intended it to go to Ellie.

Squaring her shoulders, Ellie realized there was no use delaying the inevitable. The key seemed to burn her hand as she approached the house for the last time and walked slowly up the five wooden steps. She stood there for a moment, then forced herself to unlock the front door.

A large stack of boxes awaited her. Ellie had a fair idea of what was inside. Memories. Years and years of memories.

No point in worrying about it now. Once she’d loaded everything up and carted it to her rented house, she had to get to the feed store. While her customers had been understanding, she couldn’t expect unlimited patience. George Tucker, her assistant—he’d been her father’s assistant, too—was trustworthy and reliable. But responsibility for Frasier Feed was Ellie’s, and she couldn’t forget that.

Which meant she couldn’t take the time to grieve properly. Not when she was short-staffed during the busiest season of the year. June brought with it a flurry of activity on the neighboring cattle ranches, and many of those ranchers would be looking to her for their feed and supplies.

By the third trip out to her truck Ellie regretted turning down Glen’s offer of help. Glen Patterson was quite possibly the best friend she’d ever had. Although she’d always known who Glen was—in a town the size of Promise, everyone knew everyone else, at least by sight—there was just enough difference in their ages to keep them in separate social circles during their school years.

The Pattersons had been buying their feed from Frasier’s for years. Her father and Glen’s dad had played high school football together. For the past few years Glen had been the one coming to town for supplies. When Ellie began to work full-time with her dad, she’d quickly developed a chatty teasing relationship with Glen.

She was lighthearted and quick-witted, and Glen shared her sense of humor. Before long she’d found herself looking forward to their verbal exchanges. These days whenever he stopped by, Ellie joined him for a cup of coffee. They usually sat on the bench in front of her store, idling away fifteen or twenty minutes, depending on how busy she was. When the weather discouraged outdoor breaks, they sat in her office to enjoy a few minutes’ respite.

It got to be that they could talk about anything. She appreciated his wry good sense, his down-to-earth approach to life. Ellie tended to obsess about problems, but Glen took them in stride. While she ranted and raved, he’d lean his chair against the building wall and tuck his hands behind his head, quietly listening. Then he’d point out some error in her thinking, some incorrect assumption or faulty conclusion. Generally he was right. His favorite expression was, “Don’t confuse activity with progress.” She could almost hear him saying it now.