Revisiting Christmas: Christmas Magic

By Angelica Kate

When her ex lands her in the hospital after a brutal attack, Shane is forced to return to the ranch where she was raised. Unable to care for her toddler son, none of her family knew existed until now, she must take a trip down memory lane back home. Unfortunately, this means facing the one man she has loved from the time she was a girl. Trace is the epitome of cowboy, quiet, selfless, devoted to his family, and the much older head of the Suffort family that owns the ranch. Shane and her mother have been the help taking care of the family forever.

 

This Christmas, though, trips down memory lane won't be the only memories coming to the surface. A drunken episode of two Christmas pasts will start to rear the truth in ways that Trace and her family could never have imagined. Will her healing wounds give them enough time to work out other misdeeds of the past and reveal the best Christmas to date? Or will old misunderstandings continue to stand in the way of Trace and Shane having a shot at a happily ever after of their own?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angelica Kate
• Release date: Dec 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393306412

Angelica Kate

Angelica Kate writes contemporary romances with strong characters and inspiration to keep the readers coming back for more. She is a lifetime scribbler who has been journaling since an early age and finally parlayed that into more structured storytelling. Angelica loves strong female leads and the men that adore them, despite their scars and baggage. When not writing, she spends time on Florida's sunny shores near her home in Sarasota, FL, with her puppies Tesla and Harley Quinn, her daughters, and a host of kooky amazing friends. TWITTER: @AngelicaKate5 FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/authorangelicakate INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/aknaff12/ Email Angelica directly: [e-mail] HAPPY READING AND CHASING HAPPINESS WHEREVER YOU CHOOSE TO FIND IT!!

Book preview

Chapter 1

Shane woke up slowly, cataloging every sore joint, aching bone, and other ailments as her body came to high alert. Glancing around the sterile environment, she found herself mentally replaying the events that had landed her in the hospital. The pain reassured her that she was alive. She tried to sit upright.

Oh God, she said out loud. She had to find a nurse. A tear traversed her cheek as the pain in her side traveled through her leg. Tristan, she thrashed to the side, trying to find a phone or some method of calling someone into her hospital room.

Sweetie, her mother’s reassuring voice cut through her panic. The tears pouring down in earnest both from the pain radiating from every nerve ending and the combined torment in her mother’s eyes as the truth she had tried to hide from her had been unveiled.

Where’s Tristan? she asked hoarsely, silently praying that the answer would not be her worst nightmare.

Honey, the Department of Family and Child Services came and took him from the cri—, er...the scene last night, her mother said gently.

Shane felt the seizing of her stomach muscles, He wasn’t hurt?

Her mom reached out. No, honey, you protected him until help arrived. A good Samaritan that tackled that crazed man to the ground, she sniffled, patting Shane’s arm gently.

Shane didn’t want to cause her mother any worry or concern. It was that driving force that had kept her from the ranch and the protection she knew would be found there. She didn’t want to see the haughtiness in Trace’s eyes when she asked to return full-time to the only place she considered home. This time of year, the pain of staying away was almost unbearable. Christmas at the ranch was something she missed more than anything.

As she tried to find a comfortable position, she knew that she had no choice but to swallow her pride. Her pride was all that had stood between her and returning all these years.

Tristan was her life, and she would give hers to ensure his happiness and well-being. The city was nowhere to raise a child, and after the incident with Stephen last night that had hospitalized her, it was time to take her son someplace safer, somewhere she could breathe freely again. To return to the place she had left years ago, at least for a time, to regroup and decide what came next. The ranch was the place where she had left her heart behind and tried to chase another reality far from those people who made her world a happier, more joyful existence.

Shane turned slightly as the tears threatened her eyes once again. Tristian growing up at the Suffort Hill Ranch was a dream she had never allowed herself to formulate fully. Despite losing her father early on, life with the Suffort family had provided her a childhood of love, companionship, and freedom she missed every day since last crossing the threshold of the ranch into the cold, unforgiving world.

The fact that sometimes the heart and mind don’t always agree on love matters had been her private hell to bear. She had fallen in love with Trace Suffort at ten when he had stuck up for her. A couple of older boys bullied her at the bus stop. Unfortunately, time had turned that initial hero-worship into a soul-consuming love that no amount of space and time had lessened. The fact that he had never felt anything for her, but feelings of an older brother had been a blow her eighteen-year-old ego couldn’t handle when she had finally gotten up the courage to make her move days following her high school graduation. His abrupt set down had told her everything she ever needed to know about how he felt, and in that moment of youthful angst, she had changed her college choice to one much further than originally had been her intent. In the convening years, she had kept her distance, hoping that it would somehow release her heart of the ridiculous embarrassment and litany of ‘what might have been.’ Time was not a friend, though, and no relationship, great job offers, or even the birth of her son had erased the man from her mind or heart.

Two years after she started college, she met Stephen, a thirty-year-old investment banker. Despite their age difference, they were inseparable. They found travel, hobbies, and so many other common interests they were soon living together and living out a host of great adventures. As she finished school, Stephen won one promotion after the next, and their relationship deepened.

There had been warning signs of the darker side of his personality. A side he hid from the world but occasionally took out on her in private. It had taken four years of small verbal abuses for him to throw his first punch in a moment of rage. She had walked away determined to make it permanent and a day later returned to the ranch for James Suffort’s funeral. The combination of losing a man she had thought of as a father and the breakdown of her relationship had driven her to get blinding drunk for the first time in her life and wake to an even larger regret than her broken relationship. The strength of those missteps had made her pull herself up by the bootstraps and work harder than ever to put her life to rights.

She hadn’t visited the ranch since or even disclosed the true folly of that night to anyone. Instead, she focused on building a life for herself and her son in the city. Keeping her mother’s only grandchild from her was a regret Shane lived with every day. But disclosing his existence and the disappointment she was certain would follow was enough to keep her lips sealed.

You are awake, Treena’s voice suddenly pierced the quiet of the room.

Shane and Treena had been born weeks apart, twenty-five years ago on Treena’s family ranch. The fact that Treena’s family had owned that land for generations, and Shane’s family worked for them never had been a factor in their relationship. They had done everything together. Treena’s father filling the vacant shoes of Shane’s deceased parent, and Mrs. H. doing the same for Treena. Never having spent a moment apart in their youth, it was hard to be separated from