Home to Crossroads Ranch

Linda Goodnight

Finally, Rainy Jernagen has the child-filled home she's always wanted!Okay, so she still hasn't found Mr. Right, but the foster kids she's taken in fill her heart almost completely. Then handyman/rancher Nate Del Rio comes knocking, and Rainy starts to wonder if she really can have it all. There's only one problem: Nate doesn't want kids. At all. And nothing Rainy says will change his mind.Of course, she's not going to let that stop her. Not when she has a houseful of adorable allies to raid Nate's ranch and win his heart–whether he likes it or not.

“I was just sure a man thoughtful enough to join the Handyman Ministry would understand how much a ranch trip could mean to at-risk town kids,” Rainy said.

So it was a cheap shot. Rainy had no remorse. She was accustomed to pushing when it came to getting things for foster children.

Nate leaned back in his chair, staring at her with exasperation. “You don’t give up, do you?”

A tiny smile tickled Rainy’s lips. “Never. Not when it comes to my kids.”

The cowboy across from her raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, they can come to my ranch.”

He was ready to cut and run like a wild horse. Better grab the opportunity while it was knocking.

LINDA GOODNIGHT

Winner of the 2007 RITA

Award for excellence in inspirational fiction, Linda Goodnight has also won the Booksellers’ Best, ACFW Book of the Year, and a Reviewers’ Choice Award from Romantic Times BOOKreviews. Linda has appeared on the Christian bestseller list and her romance novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Active in orphan ministry, this former nurse and teacher enjoys writing fiction that carries a message of hope and light in a sometimes dark world. She and husband Gene live in Oklahoma. Readers can write to her at linda@lindagoodnight.com, or c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Home to Crossroads Ranch

Linda Goodnight

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.

—Ephesians 2:8–9

In memory of my brother-in-law, Bill,

who loved kids better than anyone and who always

carried a pocketful of quarters or Tootsie Rolls to

“magically” pull from behind their ears. The world

is a sadder place without your booming laugh, your

boundless love and generosity, and your pure joy

in living for Christ. As you would always say in

parting, until we meet again, “Be cheerful.”

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

Nate Del Rio heard screams the minute he stepped out of his Super Crew Cab and started up the flower-lined sidewalk leading to Rainy Jernagen’s house. He double-checked the address scribbled on the back of a bill for horse feed. Sure enough, this was the place.

Adjusting his Stetson against a gust of March wind, he rang the doorbell expecting the noise to subside. It didn’t.

Somewhere inside the modest, tidy-looking brick house at least two kids were screaming their heads off in what sounded to his experienced ears like fits of temper. A television blasted out Saturday-morning cartoons.

He punched the doorbell again. Instead of the expected ding-dong, a raucous alternative Christian rock band added a few more decibels to the noise level.

Nate shifted the toolbox to his opposite hand and considered running for his life while he had the chance.

Too late. The bright red door whipped open. Nate’s mouth fell open with it.

When the men’s ministry coordinator from Bible Fellowship had called him, he’d somehow gotten the impression that he was coming to help a little old schoolteacher. In his mind, that meant the kind who only drove to school and church and had a big, fat cat.

Not so. The woman standing before him with taffy-blond hair sprouting out from a disheveled ponytail co