One.

"NO. NO, NO, NO...NOT THIS!" RACHEL STARED IN DISMAY at the small television set perched under the cupboard containing her willowware plates. "Not this, on top of everything else..."

The weather report shifted from the weekend to the ten-day forecast, ignoring her pleas. They had eight guests planned to arrive for the Christmas holidays, but with the sudden shift in the jet stream overnight, a huge blizzard was now headed directly their way, rather than bathing the states to the north. Without those eight guests, she and her fiance wouldn't be able to pay the mortgage at the end of the month, and the country inn that had been in Steven's family for four generations would fail. She stared at the longer forecast, noting with dismay that snow was predicted all the way up through Christmas Night.

The weatherman was cheerfully relating to his viewers that they were definitely going to have a "white Christmas." Rachel didn't find his prognostication the least bit cheering. She flinched when the phone rang, and shifted to pick up the receiver. Sure enough, it was Mrs. Terwilliger, calling to cancel her and her husband's arrival. Opening the day planner, Rachel scratched out the couple's names, feeling depression closing in around her.

Within five minutes, the phone rang again. Billy Platz was calling to let her know that he and his two brothers weren't going to make it; they were stuck at an airport farther north, snowed in and unlikely to go anywhere for a long while. Her hands shook a little as she marked out those names. Three names were left. Mary, Joseph, and Maggie Stoutson; Mary was old Bill Pargeter's granddaughter. Rachel didn't think Joseph would want to travel quite this far in the coming weather with a three-year-old. She flinched when the phone rang again, but it wasn't the Stoutsons, thankfully. Just her future mother-and father-in-law, calling to wish her and their son a quick Merry Christmas before boarding their ship for a holiday cruise in the Caribbean.

Rachel managed to get through the phone call without betraying her inner fears. As soon as she gave an upbeat farewell and hung up the phone, however, she shuddered with the weight of responsibility. It wasn't her fault that the old farmhouse had been partially damaged by a pa.s.sing tornado. Nor that the insurance company had tried to declare bankruptcy, leaving not only the Bethel Inn but many other homes and businesses in the lurch in the legal tangle that had caused. Nor was it their fault that the estimated costs had grown when the contractors discovered dry rot in some of the main support beams last autumn, requiring extensive repairs.

It was her and Steve's fault for deciding to take out a mortgage on the house, in order to finance those repairs, yes...but it wasn't her fault that Mr. Thomas Harrod was such a tight-fisted Scrooge when it came to making payments on time, to the last penny. The Inn was profitable; the old house had just run into a bad patch of luck. That was all. It was also more than enough to put the two of them teetering on the brink of ruin. Stress and worry had become a daily part of their lives, and Rachel just wished it would all go away.

The door to the mudroom opened. Her fiance stepped inside, balancing two pails of milk in his hands. Snow still dusted his light brown hair, though he had removed his boots and overcoat in the mudroom. Setting the covered pails on the counter, he started to grin at her. His smile faltered, seeing her expression. "What's wrong?"

Rachel gestured at the day planner. "Five guests canceled."

Running his hand through his short, crisp locks, Steve winced at the chilly damp his fingers encountered. It was a reminder of the blizzard under way. "Which ones?"

"The Terwilligers and the Platz brothers. I haven't heard from the Stoutsons yet, but it's probably only a matter of time." She sighed and ran her hands over her own hair, dark brown and pulled into a single, sleek braid. "This isn't good, Steve. This isn't good. We're not going to make the mortgage payment, are we?"

"I don't want to ask Mom and Dad for help, but if we can't-" he started to say. Rachel shook her head, cutting him off.

"They just called a few minutes ago. They've probably boarded their ship already. I'm sorry," she added softly. "We won't be able to reach them until they get back."

He spun away from her, hands fisting on the edge of the counter. Frustration alternately boiled and froze in his veins. Steve hated this situation, but he didn't want to loose that anger in front of Rachel. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't his fault...well, maybe the mortgage they had cosigned, but considering how many years the Bethel family had partnered with the Harrod Bank, he heartily wished its current owner wasn't such a tightwad.

Rachel crossed to him, lifting her hands to his shoulders. They were knotted with tension. She did her best to ma.s.sage them, but he was almost a foot taller than her. "Come on; let's get the rest of the milk in the house. And the eggs."

"Oh, that's what I meant to tell you," Steve said, turning around and slipping his arms under hers. He cradled her against him, taking comfort in the feel of her soft curves against his harder muscles, in the trust of her cheek resting on his chest. The hug wasn't as satisfying as it could have been, given how both of them were still stiff with tension. "I had to hang a rope from here to the barn, the snow's threatening to fall that thickly, but I've already got all the eggs gathered. The chickens were cooperating today, not being nearly as nasty as usual. But the really good news is that I managed to draw off some colostrum from Ellen. If her first-milk is finally showing up, that means she's getting ready to drop!"

Rachel winced at that, pulling back. "That's not good news. We're going to be snowed in, Steve, straight through Christmas! What if she has another breech birth, like the last time?"

"We'll handle it, somehow," Steve rea.s.sured her, cupping her shoulders in his palms. He looked down into her brown eyes and managed a smile. "One task at a time. No courting trouble, when we're supposed to be courting each other, got it?"

She managed a smile of her own. Neither of them had been in the mood for "courting" since that tornado had struck last summer. Not for more than halfhearted attempts. "Alright, no courting trouble." She found enough energy to smile and attempt to flirt with her love. "You're certainly cuter."

"Than what, a breech-birthed calf?" he joked.

She chuckled and mock-swiped at him. "Go on, get out there and get the rest of the milk. I'll follow as soon as I can pull on my boots. And don't break any of those eggs. If we don't have any guests, we can at least have a nice quiche for supper."

THE SLEIGH BELLS ON THE FRONT DOOR, HUNG IN HONOR OF the impending holidays, jangled loudly. Rachel, joyful that the Stoutsons had made it safely through the storm, quickly wiped off her hands on her ap.r.o.n, hurrying out of the kitchen and around the bulk of the front stairs. She drifted to a stop, her smile faltering and fading in dismay. The three snow-dusted figures who had walked into her fiance's home in a swirl of cold air weren't Mr., Mrs., and little Miss Stoutson.

They were Pete, Dave, and Joey. College-aged boys, but none of them college-educated. Their families were close friends of the Harrods, the family that owned the town bank, and with it, the mortgage on the Bethel Inn. Heart pounding in her chest, she dredged something resembling a smile back onto her lips. "h.e.l.lo, boys. What brings you all the way out here, with a storm on the way?"

Pete-never Petey, that was his dad-closed half the distance between them with an ambling walk that spoke of time spent in a saddle. His father raised pigs, of course, but she had heard he'd spent his summers between school years on his uncle's cattle ranch, farther south. He flashed her a grin. "Now, Miz Rutherford, you ain't that much older'n us. You ain't, what, twenty-five?"

"Twenty-six." a.s.serting her age allowed her to a.s.sert her authority. She spoke the words crisply, too, without any of the local drawl. "And I do not recall inviting you over for a visit."

"Ooh, college-educated," Dave teased; his hair was dark brown, his face less lean and saturnine. He made a pretense of rubbing his jaw, using fingers perpetually stained with the grease from the engines he liked working on in his cousin's garage in town. "Seems a shame ol' Steve had to go all the way to Des Moines to find himself a pretty thing for a future wife. You know what they say: Big city wimmin get ideas that are too big for their little-bitty brains."

"At least I have a brain that I can use," Rachel retorted. She did her best to keep her smile as Dave stiffened. "But in the spirit of Christmas, I'll be generous, and believe that you have one, too. Now, what are you boys doing in my house? Somehow, I don't think it's to rent any of our rooms."

Joey, the redhead of the trio, finished unb.u.t.toning the puffy front of his blue, down-stuffed parka and hooked his thumbs into his work belt. Of the three of them, he was the most polite and reasonably respectable; he was a journeyman plumber, having apprenticed with his aunt's husband for the last two years. "Now, Miz Rutherford, you know why we're here. You got until the twenty-fourth of each month to come up with the mortgage money. Mr. Thomas wanted us to remind you that, come snow or sleet, hail or dark of night, that money's gotta be delivered this next Monday, or he'll foreclose on this place. You don't wanna be tossed out into the snow on Christmas Day, now do you?"

"We are not going to be tossed out," Steve a.s.serted from the top of the stairs. He thumped his way down the stairs, glowering at the trio. "And I thought I told the three of you to stay off my property!"

"Ain't gonna be your property much longer, Stevie," Dave drawled, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. He rocked on his heels, coolly ignoring the glare the older man aimed at him. "Pretty soon, you won't have a place to lay your head at night...and that pretty girl there is gonna come lookin' for a real bed to lay in-something satisfying."

He leered at Rachel as he said it. She gasped and stepped back, disgusted by the implication, while her fiance jumped down the last two steps, anger furrowing his brow.

"Get the h.e.l.l outta this house!"

"Why doncha try throwing me out?" Dave shot back. "There's three of us, an' only one of you!"

The door banged open with a vigorous clashing of the sleigh bells, startling everyone. They turned to look at the figure in the opening. The pink, fur-clad figure. At least, the coat was pink, and it had a thick span of high-quality, white faux-fur trim all around the hems, cuffs, and neckline. A fluffy faux-fur hat was perched on the woman's head, and a matching, fuzzy m.u.f.f dangled from a white cord around her neck. She flung up one hand as they gaped at her, beaming an angelic smile from her pink-painted lips. "We have arrived! Oh, goodness, you wouldn't believe how thick the snow is falling out there!"

Her hand slashed down again in a limp-wristed dismissal, showing off her sparkly pink fingernails. Narrow pink heels clicked on the hardwood floor as she crossed from the entry rug to the hallway, brushing between Joey and Pete. Both young men stared at her with wide eyes. She held out her hand to Steve, forcing him to uncurl the fists he had formed in order to shake it. Blue eyes pinned him in place as she did so, and an exotic scent filled his lungs. The combination was too friendly for the anger in his mind to be sustained. He found himself tentatively smiling as she introduced herself.

"You must be Mr. Bethel, owner of this fine establishment. Call me Ca.s.sie! We were looking at stopping in the town, but the snow was falling so heavily, it seemed we wouldn't make it-and then we saw your sign, like a miracle from the Buddha himself!" Releasing his fingers, she reached out and clasped Rachel's palm as well, beaming warmly at the two of them.

"'We'?" Dave managed to ask, not quite as stunned by her appearance as the other two. Until she turned around and smiled at him. He froze in place under the impact of that warm, cheery grin.

"Oh, yes, my traveling companions. Bella," Ca.s.sie introduced, gesturing past the three youths, "and Mike."

They turned and saw a dark-eyed, dark-haired woman clad in a black wool coat with flared sleeves and an equally flared hemline that fell almost to her boots. A black fur hat was perched on her head and a m.u.f.f strung from her neck as well, faux-mink to the faux-fox her companion was wearing. Beside her, closing the front door, stood a dark-skinned gentleman in a marten-fur hat, matching faux-fur m.u.f.f, and a brown leather trench coat, which he was unb.u.t.toning now that the door was closed, preventing more of the heat in the house from escaping. Doing so revealed the fake sheepskin lining the calf-length jacket.

"h.e.l.lo," Mike stated, reaching between Pete and Joey to shake Steve's hand. "As she said, my name is Mike, and I'm just as grateful as she is that we have arrived in time. I do hope you have room for us. I would hate to toss anyone out into the blizzard that has formed outside."

"Speaking of which," the woman in black stated, her words accented with a hint of something exotic, maybe Eastern European, "shouldn't you gentlemen go turn off your headlights? Since no one is going to be going anywhere in this weather, there's no point in you killing your batteries."

Joey twisted to peer out the window next to the door and groaned. "Aw, man! We haven't even been here five minutes, and it's already dumped two inches!"

"What?" Dave hurried to the window set to the left of the door. He squinted through the rectangular panes. The only reason why their trucks were still visible was thanks to the headlights shining through the driving ma.s.s of snowflakes outside. "G.o.ddammit!"

"Language, young man," the woman named Bella snapped, her dark eyes gleaming with outrage. "This is the holy season, and you will not take the Lord's name in vain!"

"I'd follow along with what she says," Ca.s.sie interjected helpfully, touching Dave's shoulder. "She has quite a temper when it comes to blasphemy."

Dave whirled to tell her something, but her pink-nailed fingers b.u.mped into his cheek, knuckles gently caressing his skin.

"Just mind your manners, be on your best behavior, and enjoy the peace that can be found at this time of year," the blond woman suggested, still smiling kindly.

The fight that had been forming drained out of him. There was no point in arguing; the snow was driving too hard and piling too deep to go anywhere safely. "Fine. Then I guess we'll just have to stay here until it stops."

Steve started to open his mouth and argue the point, but Rachel stepped forward, cutting him off. "That'll be a hundred dollars a night, gentlemen. A hundred a night, apiece. Plus the cost of dinner and supper; breakfast does come with the cost of the bed, naturally."

All three youths gaped at her. Pete was the first to regain his voice. "A hundred-a night? You can't be serious!"

"Oh, she's quite serious," Mike interjected. "This is a business, and the business is selling rooms and meals. If you wish to stay and eat, you must pay."

"You think I'm gonna pay to help support this place, when my cousin Richie is gonna be running it as soon as they can't pay the mortgage?" Joey demanded.

"Of course; your only other option is to risk driving in this weather, and freezing to death."

"When we want your opinion, we'll beat it out of you!" Pete snapped.

Ca.s.sie slipped between the two once again and cupped their jaws gently in her fingers. "Now, boys, this is the season for peace. For brotherhood, compa.s.sion, and caring. But electricity doesn't come cheaply, and neither do clean linens, or a hot meal. You will be gentlemen, and pay for your stay." Releasing their cheeks, she turned and smiled at Rachel and Steve. "Just as we will pay for our own stay. Mike?"

"Why am I the one who always pays for these things?" the dark-skinned man muttered. He touched his chest, then gestured at the dark-haired woman. "Do I look like I'm made out of gold?"

"Of course." Bella smirked. She pa.s.sed between the three boys, bringing with her a sharper, spicier tang to her perfume than the sweeter one her pink-clad companion wore. Glancing over her shoulder, her heart-shaped face thrown into elegant profile, she murmured, "Your headlights? Or do you want to still be stuck here, forced to pay a hundred dollars a night when the roads are cleared in a few more days?"

"To he...heck with this," Dave muttered, heading out the door. "I'm not stayin' here!"

Pete, glancing between him and Joey, joined him in slogging through the rapidly forming drifts. Joey exited the house as well, but not to climb into his truck, slam the doors shut, and start up the engine. As the five in the house watched from the front window, he sat there for a moment, the door still opened, barely more than a silhouette glimpsed through the falling flakes. Then the headlights cut off. The other set of headlights swiveled, then vanished into a reflected, swirling glow of lit flakes. The glow dimmed quickly, fading from view.

A figure swirled out of the white, climbing the deep-set porch. Joey opened the door, looking sheepish as he entered far less vigorously than he had originally arrived, keeping one hand on the doork.n.o.b so it wouldn't hit the wall. He rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand, opened his mouth...and a crash in the distance, faint but unmistakable, cut him off. Jerking around, he stared out the window next to the doorway. "They must've slid into the ditch! We gotta get to 'em!"

"Joey, stop!" Steve ordered. As the redhead glanced back at him, he explained, "The snow's driving too hard; you get more than twenty yards from this house, you'll never find it again. You know what an Iowan blizzard can do."

"We can't leave them out there!" Joey protested. "Look, I know we came out here to give you trouble, but freezin' ain't the way to go."

"I've got some bundles of rope in the mudroom. I brought them in from the barn when I brought in the last of the milk this morning. If we tie them to one of the posts on the porch and keep a hold of the other end, we won't get lost," Steve said. "They probably misjudged the turn out of the driveway, and hit one of the ditches."

"I told you they were six feet deep," Mike whispered to Bella.

She rolled her eyes and waited for their host to come back. He had three bundles of ropes in his hands. Grabbing one of them, she met his startled gaze. "What? It snows like this all the time where I come from. I'm used to maneuvering in the snow."

"I couldn't ask a lady to go out in weather like this," Steve protested, glancing at his fiancee.

"Who said I was a lady? Look, we may need a crowbar as well, depending on how banged up they are. I have one in my car, which is on our way. If that is the case, you'll need someone to hold the rope to make sure it doesn't get blown away while the two of you gentlemen pry open the doors," she instructed Steve and Joey, giving them equal time under the weight of her dark brown gaze. "And if both boys are injured, each of you can carry a man, and I can reel in the rope and keep track of the four of you, to make sure no one gets lost."

"You'd better give in, Mr. Bethel," Mike advised wryly. "There was never a more stubborn or opinionated being in all of creation, once Bella makes up her mind to help someone." He flashed the dark-clad woman a white-toothed grin. "At least she uses her powers for good."

Ca.s.sie laughed at his quip, and Bella smirked. No one else chuckled. Considering her offer carefully, Steve finally handed the second bundle of rope to Joey. "Fine. You reasoning is sound. But you follow orders. I don't know where you're from, but I doubt you've seen a snowstorm like the ones we get around here. There's a porch on the second floor, at the back of the house. There have been times when my family has had to clear that of two feet of snow."

"Mr. Bethel, it can drop an average of half a meter overnight where I come from. And the landscape is a lot more mountainous than this."

"Where's that?" Joey muttered, eyeing her all-black outfit warily. "Transylvania?"

"Yes, actually." She parted her lips, licking her teeth, as if her canines were about to grow a lot longer and pointier than their normal appearance would seem.

"Oh, be nice!" Ca.s.sie chided, flipping her hand at her companion. As the three rescuers headed out the front door, the pink-clad woman turned to Rachel, patting her hand. "Don't you worry, Mrs. Bethel. Bella will make sure they all get back here nice and safely."

"I'm not Mrs. Bethel yet," Rachel found herself compelled to admit. "I'm going to be, soon."

"A nice, big wedding?" Mike asked her, distracting their hostess from the danger of the storm. "With a huge feast and lots of relatives?"

"Actually...a small, quiet civil ceremony, New Year's Day," Rachel found herself confessing as Ca.s.sie drew her into the sitting room next to the front hall. "Just his parents and mine as witnesses. We originally thought of having a big wedding, but had to scale back when the Inn was damaged last summer. Repairs are more important than parties, after all."

"Well, that's a shame," Ca.s.sie commiserated. "Mind you, the Buddhist way is about as simple as a civil ceremony can get, but most cultures like to indulge in lavish displays of hospitality and festivity. And as prominent business owners, it would also be a good way to spread awareness of just how fine your inn is, if you were to host a reception here."

She gestured at the warm oak wainscoting and pale, calico-sprigged walls lining the front parlor, with darker versions of calico-covered furniture amply cushioned for comfort. Efforts had been made to festoon the room with red and gold ribbons, artificial greenery, and a Christmas tree in the bay window off to one side. Even the Franklin stove boasted a set of sleigh bells, wrapped around the stovepipe on a metal chain that would tolerate the heat of a fire better than the velvet ribbon supporting the ones hung from the front door.

"Yes, it's very warm and inviting," Mike agreed, taking one of the stuffed armchairs while Ca.s.sie sank onto the sofa with their hostess. "Are all of the furnishings new?"

"This side of the house was badly hit in a tornado last summer," Rachel found herself explaining. "We took out a mortgage on the Inn to make the necessary repairs, since the insurance company tried to go bankrupt, and all the funds are still tied up in litigation. The house is on the Historic Registry waiting list, so we did our best to have the structure repaired very close to what it originally was, in case it does make it onto the list of important buildings for this region. But our guests prefer more comfortably padded furniture."

"Fascinating. Has it always been an inn?" the dark-skinned gentleman inquired.

"From within the first eight years of its construction," Rachel agreed, glad she had asked Steve about the Inn's history. "It was a part of the railroad expansion. There used to be a set of tracks that ran near the property line, and the owners realized that if they invested in lumber and some bed frames, they could house first the workers, then the people who traveled through here. They made sure to bill it as a family establishment, a place for the husbands to bring their wives and children, as opposed to the bachelor quarters offered in town-no single men allowed. When the railroad was built, and the main depot installed at the edge of town, they had a buggy specifically built to escort the women travelers out to the Bethel Inn so that they could sleep in chaperoned safety."

A beeping noise cut off any further explanation. Mike gave her a sheepish look as he extracted an electronic day planner from his pocket. "Please forgive me. It is time for my devotions."

"Oh. Are you a minister, then?" Rachel asked him, curious.

"No, just a faithful Muslim-you aren't going to be serving a lot of pork, are you?" he asked with a wry smile. "I realize that Iowa is pork central, of course, but while I'm not absolutely strict in my diet when I'm traveling, I do try to avoid alcohol and pork."

"Ah. Well, if you're snowed in with the rest of us through Christmas, I had planned to carry on the tradition of the famous Bethel Inn ham...but I suppose I could roast a chicken as well."

"That would be very kind of you," Ca.s.sie replied, smiling. "I know Bella would be grateful, too."

"Is she also a Muslim?" Rachel inquired politely.

"No, she's a Reform Jew," Mike corrected.

Blinking, Rachel looked between him and Ca.s.sie, who was finally unb.u.t.toning her fluffy-edged pink coat. "A Buddhist, a Muslim, and a Reform Jew, traveling together?...Listen to me," she scoffed in the next moment, smiling ruefully. "I made that sound like the opening to a bad joke, or something. Next thing you know, you'll be walking into a bar!"

Ca.s.sie and Mike both laughed at that. Ruefully, Mike shook his head in the next moment. "As much as I'd like to continue to chat, I really do need to attend to my midmorning devotions. If I give you my debit card, could you show me to a room, and perhaps process it while I pray?"

Having been raised a Christian herself, Rachel had heard only bits and pieces about how the faith of Islam worked, but she did know those who were devout to it prayed five times a day. Though it wasn't her own system of beliefs, she would be an innkeeper's wife, and that meant welcoming not only a diverse number of travelers, but a diverse number of faiths. Rising, she nodded cordially to him, adding a smile. "I think that can be arranged. I can scrounge up another rope to go out to your car to safely fetch your bags, if you like."

"Oh, there'll be no need," Ca.s.sie rea.s.sured her, rising from the sofa as well. "They're out in the hall."

Rachel headed through the greenery-framed door, frowning softly. Sure enough, three sets of bags rested around the foot of the coat rack, like presents around a Christmas tree. One set was vinyl pink, one set was cloth black, and one set was leather brown. She was sure they hadn't brought their luggage in with them, and reasonably sure she hadn't heard the front door open and close...somewhat sure? Maybe Bella had directed the other two to bring in their bags while Rachel was distracted with the tale of the Inn...

Shaking it off, she picked up the brown cloth bags and mounted the stairs. "This way, please; I presume you'll each want separate bedrooms?"

"Of course," Mike agreed. "When you've traveled together for as long as we have, you tend to want some privacy now and then."

"Have you been together long, then?" Rachel asked next, leading him toward the bedroom overlooking the front of the house. "Oh, the bathroom is that door there, conveniently labeled as such. There are two more further down the hall, each with its own sign, in case this one is busy at some point."