“It’ll work out with Roan the way it’s supposed to,” her dad reassured her. “Whatever happens, we’re behind you one hundred percent.”
She had the best family in the world.
When she got home, Sabrina sniffed the tin. It was almost midnight. Soon it would be Christmas Day. But Jazzy felt amped up, unable to sleep. She brewed herself a cup of chamomile tea. She wouldn’t sleep with the cookie underneath her pillow, but she’d certainly have one with her tea.
Mulling over her evening and the conversations she’d had with Charlie and her folks about Roan, Jazzy took her tea to the bedroom. She and Sabrina curled up in bed as she thumbed through social media, responding to, and sending out holiday good wishes.
She sipped tea and nibbled the cookie. The kismet cookie was a delicious recipe if you ignored the silly legend. Her vision blurred and she yawned big.
Dozed.
Dreamed.
In the dream she was at Slope Ridge Ranch looking for Trinity, but she couldn’t find her. Smoke rolled in like during the fire, but this smoke smelled like lemon drops and didn’t make her cough. In fact, it wasn’t smoke, but rather a heavy mist hovering over the land. She wore a gauzy, white ankle-length dress and she was barefoot, which was totally illogical on a ranch, but hey, it was a dream. “Trinity,” she called, running, and searching for the child. “Trinity where are you?”
The girl giggled.
“Oh,” Jazzy said. “Are we playing hide and seek?”
A flash of a child’s leg in the mist. Another giggle.
Jazzy followed, going deeper and deeper into the fog, except it wasn’t fog anymore but white tulle stretched out like wedding veil trains. The material parted and Jazzy found herself in a spring meadow. Weird because it was Christmas. She could hear the music drawing her further into the dream. And then there was Trinity standing right in front of her, looking like a flower girl with a basket of roses. She threw fistfuls of petals before Jazzy, guiding her way.
“Where are we going?” she asked Trinity.
But the girl just laughed and scampered off.
The rose petals led to a wedding arch and there, with his back to her, stood a tall man in a Texas tuxedo.
Suddenly, it was snowing in the meadow and she heard the sound of sleigh bells jingling. Heart inher throat as she walked closer. Was this her true love? The man she was to marry? All she had to do was call out to him. He’d turn to her and she’d see his face and she’d know he was her soul mate.
In waking life, she eschewed fated love, but in the dream, it felt so real.
It felt like destiny.
He turned.
She could see his profile. Her pulse quickened and the air stalled in her body.
He was facing her now, palm held out to her.
Roan!
She ran to him. Laughing, he caught her in his arms and spun her around and kissed her and...
Jazzy woke up in a bed filled with kismet cookie crumbs.
Chapter 29
Christmas morning at Roan’s house was bedlam as Trinity woke at the crack of dawn, eager to tear into her presents. He told her she had to wait until her grandparents showed up. While he was in the kitchen making breakfast, the little scamp got his phone and called his folks.
They showed up a short time later, along with Rio. The ranch hands joined them for breakfast before going on to visit their families and the Christmas festivities began in earnest. Throughout it all, Roan longed for Jazzy.
Feeling at loose ends, he picked up his phone and almost texted Jazzy a cheery Merry Christmas greeting, but stopped himself in the nick of time. If he was breaking things off, he couldn’t communicate with her.
But he had so much to tell her. It seemed months since he’d seen her, and it had only been two days. How long before he stopped feeling this bone deep ache? Committed to getting over her, he blocked her number, not trusting himself.
How could someone he’d only known for three weeks have made such a big impact on his life?