Page 7 of Cowboy’s Christmas Baker

“Hey, Anya,” Mallory said. “This is Harrison and his daughter Katie. I’m showing them around today.”

“Oh,” Anya said, turning back to him with interest. “Did you need help finding an apartment?”

“We already bought a house,” Harrison barked out too loudly, then snapped his mouth shut, forcing his face into a neutral expression. “We were just looking at the dollhouse.”

Stop being a stereotypical grumpy widower, he admonished himself, not for the first time. She’s only trying to help.

“It’s magical, isn’t it?” Anya said with a gentle smile. “Congrats on your new place. And if you need anything, feel free to call anytime. We keep lists of local contractors for anyone who needs them, not just our clients.”

“Thank you,” he said, feeling chagrined. “That’s really nice.”

Anya nodded to them and slipped back into the shop.

He wondered if Mallory would look at him differently after he’d been sharp with her friend.

“Have you two been over to the old Jones place yet?” she asked without a hint of resentment as they walked on.

“Not yet,” he told her, feeling the same little tingle of excitement he always did when he thought about it.

“I guess it’s your place now,” Mallory said with a smile. “Around here, we don’t seem to refer to a place as yours until you’ve sold it.”

“I remember,” he said with a smile, thinking back to the conversation when he’d told her he was buying the place. “Though Mr. and Mrs. Jones sold to a man called Radcliffe, and he sold it to me. So I guess it’s the Radcliffe place.”

“He doesn’t count,” Mallory said with a smile. “He didn’t own it long enough. So what are your plans?”

“Short-term, I’ll get to know the lay of the land and operations,” he told her. “Then I’m going to bring in more cows.”

“Very nice,” she said, nodding.

He’d told her some of this online, but it was nice to talk to her in person, to see her nod and send that bright ponytail dancing.

“Will you miss working with your dad?” she asked after a moment.

Back home, Harrison had worked a big corporate dairy farm with his father, who was the farm manager. They’d spent their days working together Harrison’s whole adult life. But when he had the opportunity to start his own place here, he’d figured he should go for it. And his dad had been super supportive.

He glanced over at Mallory again, impressed that as usual, she had zeroed right in on what made today the most bittersweet.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “But he wanted me to make this move. I think he gets a kick out of the idea that I’ll be working for myself, since he never had the opportunity.”

“That’s great,” Mallory said. “I know it will be a lot of work, but you already know what you’re doing.”

“Farming isn’t easy,” he allowed. “And I won’t have the resources of a bigger operation anymore. But what I’m building will be mine, and maybe Katie’s one day, if she’s interested.”

Katie didn’t react at all to his words.

He felt another twinge at the idea that there would only be Katie. He had always dreamed of a big family.

Maybe if she had a brother or sister, she wouldn’t disappear into herself like this…

But of course he’d promised himself that after Penny he would never marry again, so any chance of that was off the table.

“That’s our veterans center,” Mallory explained, pointing to a storefront with a sign that said Homecoming Heroes, and pulling Harrison out of his worries. “They’ve got a bigger office by the open-air market now, so I’m not sure how long this one will stay open. But in any case, it’s pretty new.”

“This is a good spot,” Harrison said. “They’ve got a view of the whole village.”

“Such as it is,” Mallory joked weakly. “It’s not much of a downtown, but it’s ours.”

“It has everything a kid could want,” Harrison said. “At least it did back when we used to visit.”