Book 10: Eleven Year Reunion (Three Rivers Ranch Romance™)

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The sun had never looked so bright to Grace Lewis. Of course, she rarely saw the sun rise, what with arriving at work by three a.m. for the past several years. The life of a pastry chef, she thought as she turned out of her driveway and headed north.

She drove slowly, not wanting to arrive out at Three Rivers before everyone else. But she already knew she would. She’d been up since three a.m.—old habits and all that. She’d baked a loaf of bread that now rode shotgun next to her and would become lunch once noon rolled around.

By then, Grace would be ready for her afternoon siesta, but she didn’t expect to be done in the kitchen that early. Heidi Ackerman had promised it would be a long day of baking, tasting, tweaking, and testing.

Grace couldn’t be more excited.

She eased up on the gas pedal when she realized her enthusiasm over today’s adventures had caused her to speed up. She enjoyed the leisurely drive through the crisp fall air, her thoughts wandering.

And when they did that, they almost always journeyed down south to Dallas. A frown tugged at Grace’s mouth, and she did her best to straighten her lips again. So she failed in Dallas. Big deal. Many cupcakeries failed on their first try. At least that was what her instructors had warned the group of pastry chefs that had graduated from the Pastry and Baking School at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education.

Still, Grace had thought sure she’d outbake the odds. She’d moved back to Dallas, gotten up at two a.m. for weeks perfecting her cupcake recipes. She painted the shop. Ordered the tables and display cases. Saw to every detail.

She’d made it eight months before admitting she couldn’t put another month’s rent on her credit card.

“Don’t focus on that,” she coached herself as she continued down the two-lane highway. She didn’t want her thoughts to spiral right before she had to rely on her sharp wit and impeccable palate. If she allowed herself to continue down that particular train of thought, she’d end up obsessing over how she should’ve chosen a better location or entered more contests or started out of her kitchen before trying for retail space.

As the miles and minutes passed, she refocused her thoughts on the blessings that had led her to Three Rivers. Her friendship with Chelsea Ackerman—now Chelsea Marshall with two kids and a quiet life on a ranch she’d never wanted—made Grace smile.

It also reminded her of the boy she’d left behind in Oklahoma City. She banished those thoughts before they could even take root, beyond relieved when she saw the sign indicating a left turn for Three Rivers Ranch up ahead.

She maneuvered onto the dirt road, wishing she’d considered what the drive out to the ranch would do to her little car before she’d taken the job with Heidi. But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t in Dallas anymore and she still had the opportunity to work with baked goods. She’d be Heidi’s head pastry chef any day, under any road conditions.

Grace pulled around the corner and the homestead Chelsea had described spread before her. Two homes, sprawling yards, a facility with a beautiful sign that read “Courage Reins,” and new construction going in on the west side of the road. She passed that first, noticing that the construction workers were already out and busy.

Of course they would be, she thought. They didn’t want to work in the Texas heat any longer than necessary, though it was October and starting to cool off.

She parked where Heidi had instructed, noting that she was indeed the first to arrive. Not wanting to wait in the car, she got out and took a deep breath of clean, ranch air. Chelsea had told her there was nothing like it—and Grace had to agree.

With a smile flirting with her lips, she headed for the homestead that would be Heidi’s test kitchen for the next several weeks. Her son, Squire, now lived in the homestead, but his wife, Kelly, had insisted that Heidi come out and use the large kitchen to test her recipes. After all, Heidi’s condo in town wasn’t fit for four women to be baking in at the same time.

With no one but the cowhands and the construction crew stirring, Grace skirted the perimeter of the yard, thinking she’d take a short walk out to the fields and back. Someone surely would show up by the time she returned.

She noticed the calving stalls and chicken coops to her right. Beyond them lay the silos and a couple of barns and way down on the end, a large, portable building. Behind all of that sat a row of cabins, presumably for the cowboys who worked the ranch.

To her left sat the homestead, with its sweeping lawn and full vegetable garden, along with an obviously new swing set and shed. The tamed land eventually gave way to the wild range, and Grace paused on the edge of the two pieces. She felt the same as the waving prairie grasses—without shape or form or worry or care. At the same time, she longed to be molded and cultured into something beautiful. Longed to be needed. Longed to be successful.

She turned back to the homestead, wishing she knew how to become the person she wanted to be. She’d prayed for help, for guidance, for answers.

And God had sent her to Three Rivers to test recipes with a retired woman who wanted to open a bakery in town. A woman who had explained to Grace that she’d given up her dream of owning a bakery almost thirty-five years ago.

Grace took another deep breath as she heard Heidi tell her that she hadn’t really given up the bakery. God had promised her she’d have it one day. She’d decided to trust in Him, and Grace admired the older woman’s patience and faith.

She stuffed her hands in her pockets as she headed for the house. Heidi had told her to take the steps up to the deck and enter through the French doors. As she aimed herself in that direction, something glinted out of the corner of her eye.

Around the steps, under the deck, waited a patio. And on that patio, a guitar rested in a rocking chair.

Her fingers suddenly itched to play. She hadn’t taken her guitar to New York with her, and she’d abandoned the instrument completely as she struggled to launch her cupcakery. But now….

Her feet seemed to change direction without instruction from her brain. She picked up the guitar, a small thread of guilt pulling through her, and sat on the edge of the rocker. Her fingers found the strings easily, pressed chords from muscle memory, and she began to play.

She’d hummed her way through her favorite tune, and was gearing up to sing the lyrics when someone said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Grace almost dropped the guitar. She fumbled it, her hands finally finding purchase on the neck and saving it from clattering to the cement.

Good thing, too, because she didn’t think the glowering cowboy standing on the steps she’d come down would’ve appreciated her dropping his guitar. He definitely didn’t need to vocalize that he owned it. His offensive stance and folded arms said that.

“I’m—I’m sorry.” Grace stood and replaced the guitar in the rocking chair. The man continued to glower, his square jaw boxy and tight. “I was waiting for Heidi to show up, and I just saw your guitar, and—it’s a real fine instrument. You must take good care of it.”

Of course, leaving it outside in a chair didn’t testify of such things, but Grace swallowed those words. She wished she had her own cowboy hat to cover her hair and eyes, or that he would move so she could scamper past him and get upstairs and into her safe place: the kitchen.

“What song was that?” He didn’t sound like he was about to snap, and the muscles in Grace’s neck relaxed.

“Just something my daddy used to sing.”

“I’ve heard it before.”

Grace really didn’t think so, but she didn’t want to argue with the cowboy. He seemed so tall and imposing, standing on the third step as he did. And she was a tall woman at nearly five-feet-ten-inches.

His arms relaxed; his hands fell to his sides.

“You work here?” she asked.

“Workin’ on the new horse training facilities.”

Ah, so he was a carpenter. Grace had a soft spot for woodworkers—the boy she’d known in Oklahoma City had been a builder. Or at least his daddy had been, and Jon was set to take over the business once his dad was ready to retire.

Grace once again wiped the memories from her mind. It wasn’t uncommon for her to think of what might’ve been with Jonathan Carver. She’d been infatuated with him, overjoyed to go to the homecoming dance with him, and then devastated when her family moved to Dallas before she could really find out if she and Jon were a match.

She had only been seventeen at the time, but still. Something about him had stuck with Grace through all these years.

Moving forward to go past him, she said, “Well, I should—”

He stepped in front of her. “Grace Lewis?”

She peered up into his face, searching for his identity. His dark blue eyes and strong features could’ve belonged to anyone. He swept his hat off his head to reveal dark brown hair—with a sliver of white in the front.

Her heart tripped over itself, then catapulted into her throat. “Jon?”

* * *

Jonathan Carver stared at Grace Lewis, the girl he’d just started to fall for as a senior in high school when her family had moved. A slow grin stretched across his face. “It is you! I knew I’d heard that song before.”

Without thinking, without considering, he stepped down to the patio and engulfed her in a Texas-sized embrace. Though she was tall, he still had a few inches on her, and her head fit nicely against his chest, right below his neck.

Suddenly everything about Three Rivers didn’t seem so distasteful. He’d come here against his will, because he worked well with Brett Murphy and he needed the money. But he didn’t like Texas and wasn’t planning on staying once the job was done. Problem was, nothing in Oklahoma City called to him either.

He’d been drifting for a few years, and he knew it. Didn’t know how to anchor himself though. Didn’t know if he cared to.

Heat bolted through him as Grace laughed and brought her hands sliding up his back. “It’s so good to see you.”

He stepped away, very aware of how hard his nerve endings had started firing. It felt as though the temperature had shot through the roof in only a few seconds.

“What are you doing here?”

She pointed up, toward the deck. “I told you. I’m here to test recipes with Heidi.”

“Right,” he said, listening now. He hadn’t before, because his fury at seeing a woman fondling his guitar had deafened him momentarily. “She’s startin’ up a bakery, right?”

“In the new year,” Grace said, her slate blue eyes dancing with light. He wanted to reach out and tug on one of her sandy blonde curls, the way he had in history class all those years ago. He fisted his fingers instead.

“I’m her head pastry chef,” Grace continued, a note of pride in her voice.

Jon grinned at her. “You go to school the way you wanted to?”

“In New York and everything.”

“That’s real great, Gracie.”

She stiffened at the childhood endearment, and Jon’s smile faltered. His confidence plummeted, and he suddenly wanted to collect his guitar and head inside for his cup of coffee. “Well, I should go.”

“Oh.” She shuffled sideways. “Okay.”

He grabbed his guitar as he passed the rocking chair, all thoughts of bringing his coffee to the patio and playing while his morning off slid on by vanishing with the presence of Grace. He wasn’t sure why he was running away, only that he didn’t want to play catch-up right now.

He paused at the door leading to the basement, where he temporarily lived with Brett. He turned back to Grace. “It was real good to see you.”

She smiled at him, driving his pulse to near erratic proportions. “You too, Jon.”

He nodded and slipped inside, his thoughts volleying around his mind with the speed of a bullet. He couldn’t make any of them settle long enough to do more than breathe and walk. The door snicked closed behind him, and he forced himself to move into the galley kitchen to the right.

Don’t look back, don’t look back, he told himself as he reached for the coffee pot and poured himself a cup with slightly shaking hands.

By the time he added sugar and brought the mug to his lips, he allowed himself to glance out the glass door.

Grace had gone.

Relief and regret flowed through his bloodstream simultaneously. Really? He aimed the question toward the heavens. He hadn’t wanted to come to Three Rivers. Made that clear to everyone. His parents. Brett. God.

But, in the end, he’d come, because he’d felt like maybe in Three Rivers he could find the piece of his life that had been missing.

He just hadn’t expected it to be Grace Lewis.

Is that why you led me here?

God stayed strangely silent this time, which only unsettled Jon further.

* * *

A couple of hours later, the scent of chocolate filled the basement. Probably the whole ranch. Jon had steadfastly refused to leave the couch, where a sports reel had been playing for hours. His coffee had long gone cold and his stomach roared with the want of baked goods.

He’d heard footsteps in the kitchen above him for hours, but now he heard them moving down the stairs. Sure enough, a knock sounded on the door next to the kitchen.

“Come in,” he said, thinking of how he would’ve acted if the person on the other side of the door had been Kelly. In fact, she regularly brought dinner down to him and Brett and neither of them got off the couch for her.

Jon knew, though, as soon as the door opened, that the bearer of delicious food was not Kelly.

“Heidi wanted me to bring some samples around.” Grace perched on the edge of the couch, a plate overflowing with three different types of brownies. His mouth watered, and not just from the sight of the chocolatey goodness.

But from the woman holding it. Her skin held the hint of the summer sun’s kiss, and he wanted nothing more than to touch it. His gaze settled on her lips as he wondered if she’d taste as sweet as the concoctions she’d brought.

“Jon?”

He blinked and snapped himself out of his fantasies. “Which do you recommend?”

“You should try them all.” Her eyes held that mysterious sparkle, the one that had first captured his attention in high school. Memories flooded him now. Memories he’d only been containing behind a thin wisp of plastic wrap because Grace wasn’t physically in the room with him.

“Which first?” he ground out through a tight throat.

“The German chocolate is my favorite.” She extended the plate closer to him, and he selected a particularly gooey brownie.

As he bit into it, he definitely decided that life in Three Rivers had just improved drastically.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Liz Isaacson is without a doubt one of the best authors. This story takes place at Three River's Ranch which must have special powers of some kind because lost souls show up there and God works through the other people on the ranch to help set the lost person in the right direction. Everything is not smooth sailing all the time but with their faith in God, difficult situations are handled. Each story tells a different character's trials as they fall in love. Wonderful feel-good books to read. Highly recommend.” ~specialangel

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I really enjoyed reading your book it was wonderful I loved all the characters in your book I would recommend this book to all my friends and family members.” ~Ruby M