Jody's Story: A Christmas Legend

By Michaele Lockhart

Christmas miracles keep on happening... sometimes in the strangest places.

Five days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Jody must leave the southeast New Mexico ranch he’s called home for the past ten years. With Christmas less than two weeks away, Jody is scarcely evading the call to serve his country. Another duty beckons first. Follow his journey of minor miracles that lead up to the gift of new life and a life saved on Christmas Day.

Warm your heart with this modern tale of a Christmas legend reborn and retold and of gratitude repaid.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michaele Lockhart
• Release date: Oct 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465999368

Michaele Lockhart

Michaele Lockhart brings a diverse background to her writing: a passion for history, a fascination with human drama, and a love of literature. Her education combines early and secondary schools in Europe, in addition to college at the University of Arizona and the University of Maryland. Embracing a variety of genres, her versatility extends from her favorite periods of history to contemporary social issues. A retired teacher and a talented nature and landscape photographer, she often inserts elements of visual lyricism into her writing. Her short stories and novels encompass historical fiction adventure to romantic magic realism to suspense. As an editor, she works with writers, helping them produce their best by publishing the most professional books possible. As an author advocate, she encourages clients to spend resources wisely, where their dollars will most benefit their books and careers. Michaele lives in Tucson, Arizona. Current projects include a collection of short fiction based on family memoirs of World War II in France and a mystery-suspense series set in the scenic beauty of the Southwest. Focused on Murder is Book One in the series. Connect with her online at MichaeleLockhart.com.

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Jody's Story: A Christmas Legend

the Smashwords Edition

of a Michaele Lockhart publication

Copyright © 2011 by Michaele Lockhart

Discover other titles by Michaele Lockhart at Smashwords.com

Smashwords License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. It may not be resold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, please return to the same bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction, a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance or similarity to any actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Credits

Cover photo © 2007 by Dbvirago, courtesy Dreamstime.com

Cover design by Michaele Lockhart

Formatting by Harvey Stanbrough

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Jody's Story: A Christmas Legend

December 12 was one hell of a time to leave old man Contreras stranded. He’d be by himself, totally alone on those isolated, half-frozen acres of a ranch that clung to the high country of southeast New Mexico. However, the letter J.D. had received two days ago had left him no choice. Still, taking off and deserting the nice old guy right now, with more stock to bring in, seemed especially callous and unfair.

Raoul Contreras had been kind to him. For ten years his old ranch was the closest J.D. had known to home since…. No, he thought. It’s probably the only time I’ve felt at home. He’d left Ma and Pop so many years back that sometimes he had trouble remembering them at all. Those times that he’d tried to conjure up their faces, he could see only a blur.

Times had been tough for his family in those years, with no money and very little to eat. Pop could never find work, and they'd wandered like gypsies, struggling from one unemployment queue to some other type of handout. J.D. remembered that much about his first twelve years. They probably didn’t miss me. I was just one more mouth to feed. Since they’d been on the road so much he wasn’t even sure where he’d been born. Oklahoma? Maybe Arkansas? If he opened that letter he’d know for sure. They would have the correct information, of course.

Now, because of that one piece of paper, J.D. would try to go back—if he could figure out how to find his folks. He still couldn’t decide what to do about the letter. He had no options but to run. How had the U.S. Army located him anyway? He hadn’t registered for the draft; he hadn’t even known the draft existed until a couple of months ago. Maybe it wasn’t meant for him. He could hope. One thing he was sure of: old Contreras couldn’t have turned him in. How long had this notice been waiting for him in that distant post office, nearly eighty miles away? The envelope showed signs of wear, the way old paper does, all creased and smudged and soft around the edges.

J.D. shrugged his jacket closer against the cold and pulled at the front where it gaped from a missing button. The envelope—that one envelope—rustled ominously in his shirt pocket. He squinted back over his shoulder at the northwestern horizon; he’d need to drive out soon, before that blizzard hit for sure. Right now it was just a thin,