Caroline Lee's Christmas Collection: Six sweet historical western romances Read online

  Christmas Collection

  An Anthology of Historical Western Christmas stories

  Caroline Lee

  Contents

  Other Historical Westerns by Caroline Lee

  Introduction—A Letter from the Author

  A Cheyenne Christmas

  About this book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  A Cheyenne Christmas Homecoming

  About this book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Rose Red

  About this book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Snow

  About this book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Gold Ring

  About this book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Where They Belong

  About this book

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Other Historical Westerns by Caroline Lee

  About the Author

  Other Historical Westerns by Caroline Lee

  Want the scoop on new books? Join Caroline’s Cohort, an exclusive reader group! Or sign up for my mailing list by texting “Caroline” to 42828 to get started!

  The Sweet Cheyenne Quartet:

  Love for all seasons in nineteenth-century Wyoming.

  A Cheyenne Christmas

  A Cheyenne Celebration

  A Cheyenne Thanksgiving

  A Cheyenne Christmas Homecoming

  The Mothers of Sweet Cheyenne

  Where They Belong

  Sunset Valley

  (Black Aces prequel)

  Lucas’s Lady

  Verrick’s Vixen

  Abigail’s Adventure

  Black Aces

  Ante Up

  Three of a Kind

  Wild Card

  Everland Ever After:

  A fairy-tale town set in the wilds of the old west!

  Little Red (FREE!)

  Ella

  Beauty

  The Stepmother

  Rapunzelle

  Briar Rose

  Rose Red

  The Mermaid

  The Prince’s Pea

  Snow

  Click here to find a complete list of Caroline’s books.

  Sign up for Caroline’s Newsletter to receive exclusive content and freebies, as well as first dibs on her books! Or if newsletters aren’t your thing, follow her on Bookbub for a quick, concise new release alert every time she publishes a book!

  Copyright © 2020, Caroline Lee

  Individual stories copyright 2013-2019

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This collection contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this collection may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  This work is made available in e-book format by Amazon Kindle at www.amazon.com

  Cover: EDHGraphics

  Created with Vellum

  Introduction—A Letter from the Author

  Dear Reader,

  Included in this collection, you’ll find six of my bestselling historical western Christmas romances. I have more (I believe this year makes fifteen Christmas romances total), but these are the ones I thought fit best together:

  The Sweet Cheyenne Quartet

  (Love for all seasons in 19th Century Wyoming,)

  A Cheyenne Christmas, book 1

  A Cheyenne Christmas Homecoming, book 4

  Where They Belong, book 6

  Everland Ever After

  (A fun series of reimagined fairy tales set in the wilds of the Old West—plenty of Godmothers, but no magic!)

  Rose Red, book 7

  Snow, book 10

  Twelve Days of Christmas Mail-Order Brides

  (An epic multi-author series about a failing mining town’s desperate bid to secure a future.)

  The Gold Ring, book 5

  They’re listed in this collection in alphabetical order.

  I hope you enjoy! Merry Christmas, my friend!

  A Cheyenne Christmas

  The Sweet Cheyenne Quartet, book 1

  About this book

  They need each other to survive... but their families need a reason to celebrate.

  Ash Barker and his brother had just about built their ranch into a success when he busted his arm trying to tame a particularly nasty mustang. Now they’re headed into Cheyenne’s harsh winter with fewer hands and a very real danger of failure. They need someone else—anyone else—out there with them, to make it through this season.

  Molly Murray’s dream of owning her own bakery went up in flames with the Great Chicago Fire. She’s been supporting her younger sisters for the last four years, and it seems like the Cheyenne wilderness might be her last chance to give them all a real home. But no one will hire her... until she meets the intimidatingly masculine, incredibly handsome, and very desperate Ash Barker.

  Can their unique families blend in time to celebrate their first real Cheyenne Christmas?

  For all of us Mollys who were

  surprised—and delighted—to

  discover the beautiful ordinariness

  of True Love.

  Chapter 1

  December, 1875

  Ash started grumbling again when he hit the outskirts of Cheyenne. He had been cursing under his breath for hours, since he left the house. Nah, he’d been cursing since he found Nate’s note in the barn, and he hadn’t stopped since.

  He had cursed his way through hitching the horse up to the sleigh, be
cause anyone who’d ever done that with only one arm knew how tough it was. But it was loads easier than trying to saddle a horse one-handed. There hadn’t been any fresh snow in a few days; it would be an easy enough journey.

  He had followed the kid’s tracks all the way into town. Nate hadn’t bothered to backtrack or hide his trail, but Ash knew the kid wasn’t stupid; there was only one place he could have been heading, and they both knew it. It wasn’t a question of where he was, but if Ash could reach him before he did anything dumber, like leave Cheyenne altogether or get himself hurt.

  The sight of the town—growing into a city these days, really—always left Ash with a bitter taste in his mouth, although this time he couldn’t blame his bad temper on Nate. When he had moved into the area ten years before, there were barely a handful of buildings at Crow Creek Crossing, which suited him just fine. He could enjoy the privacy his hills offered, and still have some basic dry goods within a half-day’s ride. But then the Union Pacific Railroad came through in summer of ’67, and decided that this sleepy little collection of stores and churches would be a prime depot. Before the end of that year there were close to 4,000 people living all bunched up next to each other.

  Ash wasn’t against change or modernity, he just didn’t see why folks would want to live on top of their neighbors. He had lived like that once, years ago, and wanted nothing to do with it these days. There might be benefits to living so close to doctors, or saloons, or schools, but nothing that would outweigh the freedom and vitality he felt when he rode across his land.

  There had been once or twice over the years that he’d felt guilty about keeping Nate out there with him, when the boy deserved the chance at a real life in town. Someplace he could meet other kids his age and go to a real school, instead of learning letters hunched over a slate in front of a fire after all the day’s chores were done. But every time Ash suggested that Nate head into town for the school year, the boy’s stubborn streak had shone through. He insisted that he’d rather be on the ranch with Ash, rather be helpful, than stuck in ‘civilization’. Since Ash felt the same way, he hadn’t pushed the matter.

  But lately they’d been fighting more, over inconsequential stuff. Ash figured it was what happened to most youngsters, as they started exploring their limits. Hell, when he was the kid’s age, he was already hunting buffalo for the Army. But then, he’d never had anyone back home who cared what happened to him. So he’d made his own way in the world. He had figured he was happiest being alone, until that warm spring day nine years ago, when a scrawny, half-starved urchin had followed him home. It had taken two weeks just to plump the kid up enough that Ash had been sure he would survive, and another two before he could spare the time from the ranch to take him back into town. By then, though, Nate had made himself at home, even calling Ash “big brother” as a joke. But the name stuck, and within the year Ash was thinking of Nate as a younger brother; a pest, but someone who he could rely on. Someone he cared about.

  He truly thought of Nate, now fifteen, as his brother. They were each the only family that the other had. But they bickered and argued over stupid stuff they’d never bothered with before, and matters had come to a head yesterday.

  Ash was willing to admit that he had been short-tempered since late October, when he’d been thrown and busted his arm so badly. To go from able-bodied to half-helpless was mighty galling, but with Nate helping so much, they had managed to get all of the horses settled for the winter. And maybe that was the issue; with Nate taking over so much responsibility on the ranch, he probably figured that he was due a little more say in how it was run. Not that Ash wasn’t willing to listen to his brother’s opinions, but when the kid had started in—yet again—about how they should be breeding the mustangs they tamed, rather than just training and selling them, the two of them had it out. Again.

  Only this time, Nate hadn’t backed down. He’d stood up to Ash, and yeah, he had some good points, but nothing Ash hadn’t heard—and thought—before. But the simple fact was that the ranch was Ash’s, something he had built from nothing before Nate was even in the picture. It was his skill with the mustangs that made catching and taming them worthwhile, and his ranch was known well beyond Cheyenne as the place to come for quality horseflesh. He’d taught Nate over the years, and the kid was almost as good as he was when it came to horses. Honestly, Nate had better business sense than Ash, and could get top dollar for their mustangs. But the decision on how to expand the ranch rested ultimately with Ash.

  At least, that’s what he’d always figured. But during that knock-down argument they’d had last night, when it sunk in that Nate considered the ranch his home just as much as Ash did, and was vested in its success just as much, Ash began to wonder if maybe he’d been wrong to not allow the kid a say in its future. Of course, he didn’t admit that last night, just yelled back the hurtful, bossy things he knew would piss off Nate, as if he were no more mature than a kid himself. He was so disgusted with himself this morning that he didn’t even leave his room until he heard Nate finish eating and stomp out the door. Which is why he didn’t discover that the kid was gone until the sun was well up in the sky.

  He had left a note, which Ash supposed he should be thankful for, knowing exactly where to look. He stood there at the barn door and had to read the note three times to understand what it said; Nate was bitter that Ash didn’t appreciate his contributions, and was going to find someplace that would. Ash was angry at first, and then disbelieving. And then the worry set in. The tracks leading towards Cheyenne said that Nate was making good on his threat, and he was stubborn enough that he might just leave the ranch for good, no matter how much sweat and blood they’d both poured into it.

  And if it’d been a normal year, Ash was just stubborn enough to let him go. Nah, that wasn’t true, he’d light out after the kid soon enough, just because there was no telling what kind of troubles he would find in Cheyenne. But this year was different. Winter was heading down on them with a vengeance, and with his bum arm, Nate was doing most of the work around the ranch. It galled Ash to admit it, but he needed the kid. The ranch needed him.

  With Nate’s help, he’d been able to build up their operation to the point where two men could just about handle the land and the horses; he’d never have been able to get this far on his own. But when he busted his left arm, and Nate dragged him into town to have Doc Sanderson set it, he’d put everything they’d worked for on the line. With only three good hands, they were going to be hard pressed to survive the winter. Not just the horses either; the two of them had been eating jerky and tinned fruits, and living in filth, for a month. Sure, they wouldn’t die because of a little dirt, but things were precarious enough as it was. Not being able to cook with fresh food, or make the things they used around the house, meant that they had to buy everything in town. But they were eating through their savings much faster than normal, and later in the season they wouldn’t even be able to get into town, which meant that starving was a possibility. If he couldn’t figure out how to get some extra money, or some help out on the ranch, there was a very real chance they would have to drive their stock into town and sell it in exchange for boarding, which means they’d basically lose the ranch.

  They were balancing on a thin line as it was, and now Ash had driven his little brother away, because he was too stubborn to admit that the kid might have some valid points.

  And that’s why he’d been cursing, all the way into town. He was angry at Nate, but plain livid with himself.

  Now, having deposited the whole rig at the livery stable in town, Ash only hoped he wasn’t too late. Where would a fifteen-year-old kid hide out? Where would he be that he figured his big brother—with tracking experience—wouldn’t find him? There were people in a town like this that would happily take advantage of a kid like Nate, or worse, and Ash hoped he hadn’t gotten himself into trouble already. Most everyone in Cheyenne knew of Ash, seeing as he’d been ranching here before the town itself started, but that didn�
�t mean that Nate was safe from hateful prejudice.

  With that sobering thought, Ash turned up the collar of his sheepskin jacket, awkward with only one hand, pulled his hat down further around his ears, and set off to find his brother.