But to you who are listening I say:
Love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you . . .
Luke 6:27
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Two oak trees, full and green and immense in their girth, loomed over the entrance to Twin Oaks. They towered above the driveway and guarded the gate like fierce defenders. Blake Fisher squinted at one trunk and then at the other. Just as she’d suspected, angry faces appeared in the thick, rough bark. They’d stood watch over the Sharps’ ranch for a hundred and forty years; they knew as well as Blake did exactly who belonged there — and who did not.
A work truck exited the property, providing Blake the opportunity she needed. She scooted her old but dependable FJ Cruiser through the entrance — without permission. Her impeccable timing was not a coincidence. She’d cased the ranch, tracked the comings and goings of the cowboys, staff, and family members who lived there. Her reconnaissance had paid off. Hypothetically, Blake had scaled the walls of Camelot.
She pushed aside a twinge of guilt, pretending a sense of accomplishment caused the flutter in her stomach. And really, the trespassing couldn’t be helped. After months of returned letters, ignored emails, and rejected calls, the Sharps had forced Blake to take matters into her own hands.
So this is Twin Oaks.
Begrudgingly, Blake admitted — if only to herself — that descriptions and photos didn’t do it justice.
She drove under a dense canopy of spindly bare branches attached to more ancient oaks that lined the brick drive. Beyond the perfectly placed trees, pipe fencing created a perimeter around rolling pastures thick with winter rye, frolicking horses, and more massive trees. The metal of the posts, painted a pristine white and radiant with the sun’s bright light, projected an air of cool, clean, crisp, and stately magnificence.
The Big House, as they called it, hadn’t come into view yet, but if the landscape looked snobby and off-putting, the house would be even worse. Heaven knew the family inside made stuck-up look downright gracious.
Two curves and a bridge later, Blake topped a hill and came face-to-face with all Twin Oaks’s fabled and illustrious glory. Her foot lifted from the gas pedal of its own volition as her mind processed the incredible view ahead. A strong and exquisite ranch house, constructed with a perfect blend of logs, planks, rocks, and bricks, sat prominently in the middle of a brilliant clearing. That many shades of brown and such a mixture of materials should have looked disjointed. Instead, the sprawling structure looked as though it had been born of the earth on which it stood. Mimicking the impressive fence line, white shutters reflected the sun and brought the landscaping and the lodging together. An array of colorful cold-weather flowers, bright red winterberry shrubs, and ornamental foliage decorated pots and planters on the front porch. More of the same filled beds edged in low strips of aged and weathered metal, and even more foliage trailed onto the grounds, seamlessly separating the house from the fields.
Neither cold nor foreboding, Twin Oaks appeared cheerful and welcoming.
Blake knew better.
“Why is that rust bucket out front?”
Hudson Sharp ignored his brother’s question.
“Who’s the babe stepping out of it?”
Hudson Sharp ignored his other brother’s question.
“And where has she been all my life?”
Hudson Sharp ignored his third brother’s question.
He’d learned long ago that his best chance of finding peace and quiet came with simply not answering. Speaking to the boys invited more conversation, which created more noise, which Hudson abhorred. Taken one at a time, the triplets wore Hudson out; together, they functioned like a tsunami-tornado in the middle of a tropical storm . . . best to hunker down and hide until they passed through.
As hoped and expected, they meandered off when he declined to engage.
Less humored by their antics than their doting parents, Hudson wanted the nineteen-year-olds to develop a desire for something beyond girls, friends, and good times. After their freshman year of rodeoing for Tarleton State University, their grades were fine, but not great. They had done well enough to earn newcomer-of-the-year honors that season, but they had to improve if they wanted to make it to the College National Finals Rodeo.
As their older brother, Hudson had somehow assumed responsibility for their futures when he’d accepted responsibility for running the ranch. In one fell swoop, their mom and dad had announced that with the triplets gone to college, it was past time for them to start “experiencing life.” They’d named Hudson president and managing member of their family corporation, bought a seventy-five-foot superyacht, and set out to spend their retirement on the water until someone provided them with a need to come home, namely grandbabies to spoil. They had made no mention of leaving their three young hellions in Hudson’s charge. But someone had to keep an eye on them, and with no other volunteers vying for the role, it had fallen to Hudson to be their guardian.
In the eleven months since that big revelation last Christmas, a global pandemic had sent the boys home full-time, forcing them to take their college classes over the internet. With an endless supply of energy, a low tolerance for boredom, and one another to encourage poor decisions, the triplets were quite a handful. By Hudson’s accounting, the boys were more difficult to manage than a sixty-seven-thousand-acre cattle ranch. And a horse farm. And a hobby-level goat dairy that produced milk, cheese, and soaps. And a patch of Christmas trees.
Hudson couldn’t forget the Christmas trees . . . the current bane of his existence — outside his siblings, of course.
Years ago, before his Loony Aunt Juni — her chosen moniker, not of Hudson’s doing — traded in her layered skirts and bohemian scarves for haute couture and thousand-dollar stilettos, Juniper Roxanne Sharp had scattered thirty handfuls of fir, pine, spruce, and cypress seedlings across thirty acres on the southeast boundary of the ranch to commemorate her thirtieth birthday. She’d put no thought into the planting, hadn’t spaced the seeds, and had paid zero attention to irrigation. As a result of her haphazard behavior and indicative of Juniper’s Midas touch, Twin Oaks housed one of the most bountiful Christmas tree farms in Oklahoma.
Hudson allowed the trees to be harvested only because if he did not thin them out per a soil management schedule, the acreage would suffer. He refused to sell them; instead, Hudson had worked a deal with their preacher, Mr. Mitchell, to set up a tree lot at the church. It opened the day after Thanksgiving and closed on Christmas Eve. The youth group worked the lot every year, and in exchange, the kids kept everything they earned to fund summer camps and mission trips. Best of all, Hudson kept his name completely out of the deal.
He might also have allowed the harvesting because the trees remained important to Aunt Juni, but he’d never admit such a thing in her presence. As CEO of Juniper Goat Co., a division of Sharp Enterprises, she oversaw the goat dairy. The world believed she’d abandoned her free-spirited ways, settled down in Green Hills, and burned her bangles and coins. But underneath her Harvard business degree, her fierce boardroom negotiations, and her incredible knack for marketing campaigns, his beloved Loony Aunt Juni still shared his obsession for the land, the scent of the evergreens, the neighing of horses and mooing of cows, and the pull of the soil. She still walked barefoot through the fields, dabbled in floral oils and fragrance creations for soaps and candles, and swam in the pond. Above all else, she adored Christmas.
Hudson could no more allow harm to come to those thirty acres than he could stab himself in the heart.
Which explained why he’d avoided Blake Fisher, the real estate agent blowing up his phone, his email, and his DMs on social media, like the plague. Seriously, who stalked a man over direct message, anyway?
Blake eased her Santa-suit-red SUV the rest of the way up the brick drive, soaking up as many details as possible . . . just in case they tossed her off the premises and banned her from returning after her first visit.
The landscape and the house were just the beginning. Multiple barns, numerous outbuildings, a chicken coop far larger than her home and office, an elegant greenhouse, and the most delightful wraparound porch Blake had ever seen accented the property with color and warmth. Everywhere she looked, something looked lovely.
Blake parked her vehicle, walked to the porch of the Big House, and stepped up to the tall double doors. Taking a deep breath to settle and steel her nerves, Blake lifted her hand to knock. Before her knuckles rapped on the intricately carved wood, one of the massive doors opened to reveal three almost-identical young men.
“Well, hello,” Boy #1 greeted her with overfamiliar appreciation.
“What can we do for you?” Boy #2 asked suggestively.
“Name it, and it’s yours,” Boy #3 pledged with juvenile confidence.
Ah, the infamous Sharp triplets . . . living up to every wild-oat-sewing, youthfully ignorant, only-the-good-die-young description she’d heard of them since her move to Green Hills. They were precisely as she’d expected: rich and spoiled.
Blake fought the urge to wipe the smug grins off their tanned, chiseled faces.
Stay professional; everything rides on this sale.
“I’m looking for Mr. Sharp, please,” she requested, holding her chin high and her shoulders back. Their wealth and entitlement did not intimidate her.
“It’s your lucky day,” Boy #1 said.
“You found him,” Boy #2 leered.
“Mr. Hudson Sharp?”
“Aw, man. Why do the hot ones always want to talk to Hud?” Boy #3 grumbled.
“We’ll go get him,” the three boys offered simultaneously, their unified voices revealing their disappointment.
“Thank you,” she called to the backs of the trio as they walked away, leaving her to peruse the foyer.
Blake ran a hand over more intricate carvings on the wall paneling beside the front doors. After absorbing the sun through the oversized windows on either side of the entryway, the smooth wood warmed her chilled skin. She admired an oil painting of a cowboy and a woman beside a stream, which hung over a set of metal hooks holding raincoats and cowboy hats. Someone had placed a large crystal vase of lush and vibrant winter flowers in the center of a round mahogany table, which was impressive in both size and quality. Had her friend Jinx Malone made the gorgeous table? Or perhaps his grandad had, when Duke could still do woodwork. Blake pressed her weight onto both hands, palms flat on the entryway table, as she leaned forward to reach the bouquet and test the flowers’ perfume. Eyes closed, Blake inhaled the fresh floral fragrance. She’d just lifted onto her tiptoes to get a little closer to the heavenly scent when the authoritative clip of boot heels against the stained concrete floor alerted Blake to someone coming her way.
Those blasted boys would’ve abandoned the stranger in the foyer all night if Hudson had left it to them to get rid of her. Therefore, he had no choice but to confront the lady. Letting his steps thunder down the hall to signal he didn’t appreciate the disruption, Hudson opened his mouth to roar whatever it took to make her go away when the sprite of a woman stopped him in his tracks.
Light filtering through the front doors’ sidelight windows cast a glow around her, head to high-heeled toe. Bouncy waves of layered auburn hair draped to cover her face as she leaned over to smell the flowers Anita, the housekeeper’s daughter, liked to put all around the house when she came to cook for them a few times each week.
Balanced on her hands, she rested her hips against the edge of the wooden table like a gymnast on the uneven bars. Both her feet dangled above the floor, one leg bent, one leg straight. After inhaling a breath so deep her shoulders lifted, she slowly lowered her feet back to the earth and shifted her weight from her arms.
With one hand, the woman ran her fingers along the tendrils hanging at her temple to hold them out of her way. As she continued the gesture, tucking her hair behind her ear, a wave of awareness and a tingle of something ran down Hudson’s spine. When she closed her eyes for a brief pause, maybe to inhale the bouquet’s fragrance one last time, or possibly shoring up patience and strength, his pulse quickened. His breath caught.
Then his enchantress looked his way, and Hudson Sharp’s heart stopped completely.
