SUMMARY: A motherless little girl's wish for a Christmas angel comes true with the arrival of a beautiful stranger at her father's Idaho farm.

Aoi Hyuuga - daughter of Luna and known daughter of Natsume

Natsume Hyuuga - clerk at the store owned by the Sakura's 11 years back then

Dorothea Sakura - mother of Luna and stepmother of Mikan

David Sakura- father of Mikan


Mikan Sakura sighed as she stared out the sooty window. The country side, vast and snow-covered, rolled steadily past, the train carrying her farther and farther away from Chicago and all she'd ever known.

She tried her best not to think about what she was doing – leaving behind her comfortably familiar position at the Angel of Mercy Hospital, her comfortably familiar rooms at Mrs. Tsubame's Boarding house, her familiar courtship with Ruka Nogi.

"You can't be serious!" Ruka had cried when she'd told him what she was going to do. "This is insane! What about me? Don't you care what I think of this? What if I tell you I don't want you to go?"

Perhaps Ruka was right. Perhaps it is insane.

"What about you, Ruka?" she'd asked. "Is there some reason for me to stay?"

His eyes had bulged slightly, as if someone had choked off his air supply. In the end, he'd stormed out of the house without saying another word.

What had she expected him to say? I love you, Mikan? Stay and marry me, Mikan?

No, she hadn't really expected him to say those things. Not then and not ever. Ruka had always been content to see her on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, precisely at six o'clock. On Sundays, he'd never failed to walk her to and from the Methodist Church three blocks from the boarding house. He'd never shown any inclination to deviate from his accustomed routine, certainly not with such a drastic step of marriage.

In truth, she wasn't sure what she would have done if Ruka had ever proposed. She supposed she was actually relieved that he hadn't. Whenever she'd tried to imagine herself as his wife, she'd failed. She'd known she wasn't in love with him. He wasn't the sort of man to send a woman's heart into flight of ecstasy. Solid and dependable. Safe and reliable. Comfortably familiar. Those were the words one would use to describe Ruka Nogi.

Just the right sort of man for a drab old maid – but even a drab old maid had a few dreams left.

Mikan closed her eyes. When she did, it wasn't Ruka's face that came to mind. It was a face from out of the past. A face she often remembered. A face she would be seeing again by this time tomorrow.

How much would Natsume Hyuuga have changed since she'd last seen him? She wondered. Would his hair be the same black? Would it still be thick and unruly, the way she remembered it? Would his eyes be the same intense shade of red.? Would he still stand head – above –the –crowd tall? Would he still have a crooked smile, one that reached his eyes while the right side of his mouth turned up higher than the left?

She opened her eyes and straightened, shaking her head to rid herself of Natsume's image. It wasn't seemly of her to be thinking about him this way. After all, she wasn't love – struck thirteen – year – old any longer. She was twenty-four and a nurse. And Natsume Hyuuga wasn't an eight-year-old clerk in her father's mercantile store. He was her step sister's widower. His daughter was her niece – Aoi Hyuuga was the sole reason Mikan was headed for Idaho.

"We never should have let Mikan stay out of west after Luna died," Dorothea Sakura had stated when her husband, David, had finished reading the letter from Natsume.

The three of them had been sitting around the table when the letter from Idaho arrived. Mikan had always come for dinner with her father and stepmother on Saturdays, and that day hadn't appeared to be any different from all the Saturdays that had gone before. Not until Natsume's letter had been delivered.

"We should have demanded that that man bring our grandchild to us where she belonged. We should have known he couldn't take proper care of her. Now it's too late. She's crippled. What kind of father is he? And he has the nerve to ask us for help! We shall certainly not send him any money. Dear heavens, Luna's daughter a cripple. How will she ever find a husband now?"

Aoi is hardly old enough to have to worry about finding a husband," David had said without looking up from the slip of paper in his hand. "Besides, the letter doesn't say she won't get well. The doctor seems to have hope for her recovery if she has the proper care."

Dorothea had dabbed at her misty eyes with her handkerchief, acting as if she hadn't heard him. "Oh, my poor Luna. When I think of what she had to suffer with that man. Oh, my poor, dear, dead Luna."

"Father?" Mikan had interrupted softly. "May I see the letter, please?" she'd held out her hand, and he'd given it to her.

Aoi is in need of a nurse…no promise that she'll ever walk again, although the doctor has hope…all savings depleted…grateful for whatever you can do…

She'd read the few lines several times before she'd looked up again and stated simply, "I'll go to Idaho to care for Aoi."

"Mikan, are you sure?" her father had asked.

"Yes."

Why did I do it? She wondered now as she turned her gaze back on the wintry plains passing her window.

The steady rhythm of the train chugging along on its tracks lulled into a dream – world, taking her thoughts further back in time. Back eleven years…

Natsume carried a heavy box from the flatbed wagon into the stockroom at the back of the mercantile. When he set it down, he glanced toward Mikan who was sitting on a pickle barrel.

"What're you reading now, polka?" he asked as he wiped his hands on his trouser legs. He took the pamphlet from her hands. "Suggestions for the Improvement of the Nursing Service for the Sick Poor by Florence Nightingale." He cocked an eyebrow at her.

"I'm going to be a nurse some day."

He grinned, as if responding to a great joke. "You?"

"And why not?" She grabbed the pamphlet back from him. "I've always liked taking care of things. And I'm smart enough. Mr. Narumi told me I am."

His teasing grin vanished immediately. "Never said you weren't smart enough. You'd have to be with all of your books you've read. I reckon your teacher was right. You'll be able to do whatever you set your mind to." He smiled again, this time warmly.

Her whole stomach seemed chock full of butterflies as she looked up into his brilliant bloody gaze. She didn't suppose anything could make her feel better than to have Natsume looking at her like that, like he though she was like somebody special. She wished she could tell him how she felt about him. She wished she could let him know she loved him with all the love her thirteen-year-old heart possessed.

"What about you, Natsume? You've never said what you want to do."

The teasing light was back in his eyes. "You mean when I grow up?"

"I'm serious. I know you don't want to just go on clerking in a store."

"And how do you know that, polka?"

"Because I've seen that faraway look in your eyes, and I know it means your thinking of some place you'd rather be. Where is it?"

"You see a lot for a little girl."

She scowled at him.

He shrugged. "Okay, I guess it wouldn't hurt to tell you. I've always wanted to go out west. I'd like to own some land of my own, far away from Chicago and so many people. I'd like to see the mountains and be able to listen to the silence when I sit outside my own house at night. Someday, when I've got enough money put aside, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go west and have me a farm."

Mikan closed her eyes and tried to imagine a place such as he'd described. She's wondered if he'd build enough for more than just himself. She wondered if he ever imagined her being there with him. She wondered if there were any call for nurses out west.

"Oh… there you are."

Mikan felt her stomach plummet. She opened her eyes and watched her stepsister stop in the doorway of the storeroom.

Luna, clad in a bright – yellow gingham dress, didn't bother to look at the younger girl. Her gaze was only for Natsume. She leaned against the doorjamb, her head tilted slightly to one side, a small pout forcing her bottom lip forward.

Though only three years older that Mikan, Luna was undeniably already a woman. She was turned just right to reveal the high, full curve of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist, and the soft rounding of her hips. Her curly burgundy hair tumbled freely down her back. As always she was posed to be noticed.

And Natsume certainly noticed, Mikan thought irritably.

She glanced down at her own flat chest; at her plain brown dress, now wrinkled and covered with dust from the hours she'd sat reading in the back of the storeroom; at her none descript auburn hair that hung in two braids, one over each shoulder.

"Natsume, can you spare me a moment, please? There's a box in my closet that I simply must get down, and it's far too heavy for me. Father isn't here or I would ask him." Luna smiled.

Mikan felt her stomach drop again. Nobody could light up a room with a smile like Luna. Her flawless features made her the most sought after young woman in all Chicago. At least that's how it seemed to Mikan.

She just wished Luna didn't have to go after Natsume, too. It wasn't fair. She could have anyone of six dozen young men, but she kept flirting with Natsume Hyuuga. Maybe Mikan wouldn't have felt so bad if she though Luna really and truelly cared for him, but she didn't. Luna just liked to be the center of attention. She thought every man ought to be madly in love the moment he set eyes on her.

Trouble was, Luna thought, most men did fall in love the moment they saw her.

Nobody's ever going to feel the same way about me. I might as well be part of the furniture.

"Sure. I'll be glad to help you," Natsume said. "Just as soon as I've finished unloading the supplies form the wagon."

Luna straightened. "I'll be waiting for you upstairs. Thanks ever so much, Natsume. You're so strong; I know you won't have a bit of trouble with it."

Mikan felt like gagging. Couldn't Natsume see what Luna was doing? Was he as blind as all the other village idiots who swarmed around the Sakura family's store?

"I won't be long," he said, then turned toward the back door.

Mikan glaced at her stepsister. Luna's smile disappeared the moment his back was turned. She stood there, biting her lower lip, lost in though, and Mikan had the distinct feeling that all was not right.

If only she's known…

Mikan blinked, cutting off the memories abruptly. She didn't want to think about Natsume, but she couldn't seem to help herself. Not now and not any time through the years. She supposed a woman always remembered her first love that way. But that had been a silly, schoolgirl affection. She was a grown woman now. She was going west to help her brother-in-law and her niece in their time of trouble. She was going because she was a nurse.

Still, she wondered if he'd ever thought of her…

Why should he have thought of me? She reflected, disgusted with her continued mooning over the past. She'd been just a child when Natsume and Luna had ridden away from the church, a man and his wife on their way west to fulfill a dream.