A Port Ranch Christmas (A Christmas Novella)

Chapter 1

GRANGER

“They’re still a ways away, Granger. Are you really going to sit out here until they come?”

My beautiful wife placed her hand gently on my shoulder, attempting to pull my attention away from my current position, but I refuse to let my guard down. Letting my guard down was how we got into this situation in the first place. “They’re currently one hour and twelve minutes away. I’m pretty sure he’s speeding though.”

“Granger Turner!” The back of Britt’s hand lands on my shoulder. She’s got a dainty touch, so it doesn’t hurt that much, but sometimes that damn diamond ring I gave her hits me right in the wrong spot. “I know you are not tracking her phone right now. We talked about this. That is practically illegal.”

“I’m not tracking her phone.”’

“Give me that!” Britt quickly reaches across my body and grabs the phone from my hand. I’m apparently getting slower in my old age. I’m probably just off my game today, yeah, that’s it. “Are you tracking his car?”

“Maybe.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Granger. This is even more illegal than tracking her phone. How did you even get access to this?” I shrug my shoulders and snatch the phone back. Britt stands with her hands on her hips and glares down at me. If she wasn’t so pissed, I would make a move right now. I’ve always loved when the fire burned a little brighter in her eyes. I might be getting older and closer to my sixties than I want to think about, but Britt Turner still gets my engine going and her body still reacts to me the way that it has since the first time we were together.

“It is probably better if you don’t know.”

“Let me guess, Sadie, hacked it?”

“I won’t confirm nor deny that.”

“That is a yes if I have ever heard one. Why are you doing this to yourself, Grang? The security system is going to notify you when they turn onto the ranch anyway. If you want to do the intimidating dad thing, you can just wait until the alarm goes off. No need to sit out here in the cold and track them on the phone.”

“I just needed some fresh air. I don’t like this Britt, not one bit.”

“Now you’re just being insane.” Britt moves my arm to the side so she can sit down in my lap. I curl my arm around her and press my nose into her hair, taking in the scent of vanilla from all the sugar cookies she’s been making today. “You’ve met Dustin before and the two of you got along well.”

“That was before he started dating my baby girl.”

“Ella is nineteen years old, Granger. She’s halfway through her sophomore year of college. She is not a baby anymore.”

“Watch your mouth, woman. That girl will always be my baby girl. What do we really know about this Lawson guy?”

“We know that he comes from a good family. He is getting his college education from a great school. He volunteers at the elementary school teaching reading. We also know that our daughter loves him and we raised our daughter to have good judgement in people, did we not?”

“Don’t bring this back around to me.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“You’re underreacting. This is way too serious for her first boyfriend.”

Britt mumbles something under her breath. I tilt her chin in my direction and raise my eyebrow, “What did you say?”

“I just said that this isn’t her first boyfriend.”

“Excuse me? This most certainly is because I would have known if she was dating anybody.”

“Granger, babe, I love you, but you can be ridiculous. Your daughter has had two other boyfriends in her life, but there was no way in heck she was going to tell you about them because she knows you too well.”

“And YOU knew?”

She kisses me and pats my cheek, “Yes, darling, because I’m not prone to tracking her phone or hacking a GPS system. Try trust, Granger. It goes a long way.”

She kisses me one more time and then leaves the porch, allowing me to stew in my anger. Britt’s probably right, I haven’t exactly been known as the most rational person when it comes to this family, but I’m also not sure that anybody on this ranch understands why that is. It was a lifetime ago when I first came to this ranch. At that time it was known as just Port Ranch. Brian Port ran it with his wife Tracy. One of the ways that Brian gave back to the community was to take in teens, boys specifically, that were in trouble with the law and needed more guidance and structure in their lives.

A lifetime ago, I was one of those teens. Without anybody to really call a family, I found myself getting into a lot of trouble. I was failing in school, I was out drinking and getting in fights. I had nobody to get my head on straight. I was raising myself and failing miserably at that. For some reason the judge took pity on me and rather than throwing me into jail, he sent me to Brian. The two of us butt heads a lot at first, but as the weeks and months went by, Port Ranch went from being my punishment to my home.

With nowhere else to go, Brian agreed to hire me onto his staff full time. It wasn’t without some rules and boundaries, one of those was finishing high school. Tracy spent her free time tutoring me in my classes and my ranch family were the only ones there when I walked across that stage to get my diploma. The two of them were the closest thing I had to real parents and this family means more to me than they could possibly know. 

It doesn’t end there, though. I met my best friend here, Max Alexander. Max and I had very similar stories and we were instantly bonded. Rather than staying a lone wolf like me, Max fell in love, got married, popped out a few kids. I had the honor of watching him grow into a loving husband and father. Little did we know that his time with us would be cut way too short. When Max passed away, this ranch felt broken. It was up to me to make sure that everybody was cared for, that included his wife and two young boys. The woman that would eventually become my wife, Britt. Her sons, Jace and Deacon, were too young to be without a dad. I could never be Max, but I sure as hell would try.

Over the last four decades, I have seen Port Ranch change a lot. New faces have joined us, the Port girls all grew up and got married and started popping out their own babies. Somewhere down the line, those babies all had babies too. The one thing that has never changed is my deep-seated need to protect everybody who has come into this family. Maybe it was never a job specifically given to me, but it is what I do and until the day I die I will continue. 

Ella has probably received the brunt of my need to protect more than anybody, but she’s the proof I have that I can do good in this world. I know she’s no longer my sweet redhead running around the fields and getting herself into trouble, but she’s still my baby girl. I’ve seen too much evil in this world, I would never forgive myself if she had to experience a quarter of what some of us have. If this Dustin guy thinks he’s going to waltz into her life and push me away as her number one protector, he’s got another thing coming.