Love Inspired November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: His Montana Homecoming\An Amish Family Christmas\Cowboy Under the Mistletoe\High Country Holiday by Jenna Mindel

Author:Jenna Mindel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

He’d rather tangle with the meanest bull in the pasture than try to drive a wheelchair.

Jake yanked the folded bunch of canvas and metal from the bed of the pickup and shook it.

“How is this thing supposed to work anyway?” he said to exactly nobody.

Metal rattled against metal but the chair didn’t open. He wished he’d paid more attention when the nurse—a puny little ninety-pound woman no bigger than Allison—folded the chair and tossed it into the back of his truck with ease. Getting the thing open and functioning couldn’t be that difficult.

A hot summer sun roasted the back of his neck while Granny Pat waited patiently inside the cab with the AC running. She wasn’t happy because he’d driven the truck right up next to the porch. She had fussed and complained that he’d leave ruts with those massive tires and ruin her yard. As if that wasn’t enough, she’d been telling all this to Grandpa, a man who’d been dead for twenty years.

Jake’s day had been lousy, and his head hurt. Last night, he’d barely slept after the meeting with Allison. He kept seeing her smile, her bounce, her determined kindness.

He didn’t want to remember how much he’d missed her.

Then today, he’d made the trip to the convalescent center, a place that would depress Mary Poppins. If that and Granny’s running conversations with Grandpa weren’t enough to make his head pound, he’d stopped at Gabriel’s Crossing Pharmacy to fill an endless number of prescriptions, and who should he see crossing the street? Brady Buchanon. Big, hot-tempered Brady.

Seeing a Buchanon brother was inevitable, but he planned to put off the moment as long as possible. So like a shamefaced secret agent, he’d pulled his hat low and hustled inside the drugstore before Brady caught a glimpse of him.

He hated feeling like an outcast, like the nasty fly in the pleasant soup of Gabriel’s Crossing, but he was here, at least through the holidays, and the Buchanons would have to deal with it. So would everyone else who remembered the golden opportunity Jake had stolen from Quinn Buchanon and this small town with big dreams.

Then why did he feel like a criminal in his own hometown?

Granny Pat popped open the truck door and leaned out, her white hair as poufy as cotton candy. “Grandpa wants to know if you need help?”

Jake rolled his eyes heavenward. The sun nearly blinded him. “Be right there, Granny. Don’t fall out.”

At under five feet and shrinking, Granny Pat didn’t have the strength to pull the heavy truck door closed and it edged further and further open. She was slowly being stretched from the cab.

Jake dropped the wheelchair and sprinted to her side, catching her a second before she tumbled out onto the grass. “Easy there. That door is heavy.”

“I know it!” Fragile or not, she was still spit-and-vinegar Pat and clearly aggravated at her weakness. “I’m useless. Makes me so mad.”

“Let’s get you in the house. You’ll feel better there.”

“Get my wheelchair.

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