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    Emily's Christmas Gift: A Big Sky Montana Romance Story: Henderson's Ranch Short Stories, #5
    Emily's Christmas Gift: A Big Sky Montana Romance Story: Henderson's Ranch Short Stories, #5
    Emily's Christmas Gift: A Big Sky Montana Romance Story: Henderson's Ranch Short Stories, #5
    Ebook65 pages51 minutes

    Emily's Christmas Gift: A Big Sky Montana Romance Story: Henderson's Ranch Short Stories, #5

    By M. L. Buchman

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    About this ebook

    When Christmas is not all it seems, maybe the best gift of all isn't under the tree.

     

    Major Emily Beale (retired—mostly) keeps her hand in the Black Ops world remotely from the family horse ranch on Montana's Front Range. Her husband, Major Mark Henderson (fully retired), has settled comfortably into his new role as father and ranch operator.

     

    Years ago, she helped rescue a young girl. But when Emily's childhood friend, the former President of the United States, comes to visit, he raises doubts about the girl's safety. No longer so sure of herself, Emily must reach deep into the White House's secret library to find the answers. Little does she know the true location of Emily's Christmas Gift.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBuchman Bookworks, Inc.
    Release dateDec 12, 2018
    ISBN9781386785491
    Emily's Christmas Gift: A Big Sky Montana Romance Story: Henderson's Ranch Short Stories, #5
    Author

    M. L. Buchman

    USA Today and Amazon #1 Bestseller M. L. "Matt" Buchman has 70+ action-adventure thriller and military romance novels, 100 short stories, and lotsa audiobooks. PW says: “Tom Clancy fans open to a strong female lead will clamor for more.” Booklist declared: “3X Top 10 of the Year.” A project manager with a geophysics degree, he’s designed and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, solo-sailed a 50’ sailboat, and bicycled solo around the world…and he quilts.

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    • 5/5
      Thank you from an “Emily” who didn’t know how scary she was. The nightstalkers series was a window to a past of strength and competence that terrified men and ticked off women.

    Book preview

    Emily's Christmas Gift - M. L. Buchman

    Emily’s Christmas Gift

    Emily’s Christmas Gift

    a Henderson’s Ranch Big Sky story

    M. L. Buchman

    Buchmann Bookworks, Inc.

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    Chapter 1

    Emily watched Mark being as calm as could be and tried not to resent it. When the heavy Montana snowstorms of December kept them indoors at the main ranch house, he was content to slouch low on the couch and watch a Disney movie with the girls in the cozy family area off the kitchen.

    If they wanted to build a fort—Emily always thought of it as a fort, though the girls kept insisting they were tents—Mark would reconfigure the family sitting area off the kitchen no matter what inconvenience it caused the adults.

    Between the three of them, they made sure that each construction looked unlike any prior effort. A tropical paradise one time, decorated mostly with one of the ranch hand’s awful Hawaiian shirt collection. Another time, a Cheyenne teepee built with Mark’s mother’s lovely weavings. She’d particularly liked that one. Being in Montana, and especially if Julie was around to help, Western themes were common, often with horse tack or some of her rodeo trophies for decoration.

    In the summers Mark lived to fly tourists around in his helicopter and fish, but in the winter his one joy was keeping his girls happy.

    That she herself was one of his girls always made their daughters giggle with delight. And she was happy. All she had to do was watch her daughters and she let their constantly bubbling joy wash over her. They might build their forts—tents with their father. But it was never considered complete until she had joined them for the final tour. Mark often left some final task for her to do so that she’d at least feel included. Then they would all lie in it together—Mark at the center with all three of his girls clinging happily to him.

    Those were the best moments of her life. Perhaps a close second to waking in his arms on the long quiet winter mornings before Tessa and Belle sprang to life like a pair of Jill-in-the-boxes.

    She’d known he was a good man and a great commander, but his daughters had never met The Viper who used to scare the shit out of everybody, including her. His steel gray eyes had rarely been revealed from behind his mirrored shades. He’d even proposed to her while wearing them—after dark. Which was perhaps the only thing that had kept her from turning into a complete empty-headed mush in that moment.

    But his daughters only saw the sky gray that his eyes shone when he was happiest—and the mirrored shades were now worn only in the strong Montana sun. It was impossible for her not be happy while she watched the stern, taciturn, demanding Major Mark The Viper Henderson (retired) have no compunction about acting as the total goofball with his girls. He was a better father than she was a mother, but she didn’t know what to do about that. When they were upset, it was her they came to, so she still had something. But it often meant she got the tears and Mark earned all the cheers.

    Emily didn’t resent it…much. She mostly just wished it was somehow different.

    She turned to the fire and watched what she could see of the flames. They were partially blocked by a great bulge in this week’s fort, which was huge by any previous standard.

    This room was where the family lived during the day when they weren’t out on the ranch. The high-timbered main room and the dining room with its forty-person pine table was for

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