Snowbound Christmas
Falling for the Christmas Cowboy
Linda Goodnight
For the glory of Jesus, my Savior and King, that all might come to know You, and the forgiveness, peace and hope You freely give.
These things I have spoken unto you,
that in me ye might have peace. In the world
ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer;
I have overcome the world.
—John 16:33
Caleb Girard didn’t believe in miracles. But he needed one.
With a frigid north wind ripping at him, Caleb kicked the wooden barn door closed and started toward his ranch house fifty yards away. The new calf shivered in his arms, a runt of a thing that wouldn’t survive till morning in this weather. But Caleb was a man who believed in giving things a chance. Long ago, a man had given him the only chance he’d ever had, and now that man was dying.
Yeah. They needed a miracle. If Caleb was a praying man, he’d ask for one. But he’d never found praying to do one bit of good.
Sometimes God or life or whatever was unfair. But Pops, a devout Christian, would be brokenhearted to hear Caleb say such a thing. So he wouldn’t. But he thought it. Every day since the terrifying diagnosis.
Chilled to the soul for more reasons than the arctic front, he stomped through the back door of the one-story house and placed the calf on a rug near the glowing fireplace. Ripley, his border collie, trotted in behind him and curled up beside the calf as if he knew the baby needed body heat.
Caleb gave the dog a gentle pat. “Take care of him, buddy.”
He tossed another log on the fire and hung his coat on a peg by the door, anticipating an afternoon in the cold. If his rancher’s intuition was right, snow would fall before Christmas. Or, worst-case scenario, ice. They got more of that in eastern Oklahoma than the fluffy stuff. Kids always hoped for snow. Realists and ranchers, of which he was both, appreciated the rain, but God could keep the rest.
He stopped at the kitchen sink to wash up. Maybe he’d put something in the Crock-Pot for supper. The old man’s stomach had been iffy since this madness began. Some days he barely ate enough to nourish a
