A Cold Creek Holiday

by RaeAnne Thayne

  She was evading the question and he still wondered why. "No significant other in the picture?"

  "I haven't really dated anyone since the divorce. My mother's cancer diagnosis a year ago sort of took center stage in my life."

  Maybe that was the reason she wanted to be alone. Maybe she still hadn't gotten over her cheating ex. He didn't like to think about her marriage. And because it bugged him, he decided to probe further. Sort of like the time he'd been hit by a sniper in Kirkuk during an engagement and for weeks after had hung that dented Kevlar above his bunk so he could look at it every night before he crashed.

  "Even if you wanted the divorce, I imagine it's still tough to close the book on a marriage you probably thought would last forever."

  She gazed at him, shock widening the blue of her eyes, then released a soft sigh. "Yes. It has been difficult. But not for the reasons you might think. It wasn't the divorce itself so much as…everything else."

  She was quiet for a long moment, then she let out a breath, fidgeting with her napkin.

  "I told you my husband cheated," she spoke in a rush. "I didn't tell you he had his little affair with a coworker while I was pregnant with our first child."

  What kind of bastard would even consider looking at another woman while his own extraordinarily lovely wife grew big with his child? Nate uttered a couple of pungent military words out of pure disgust at the man.

  Her short laugh sounded surprised, but not offended, much to his relief since he hadn't realized he'd cursed aloud.

  "Excellent analysis, considering you've never met him," she said.

  "What can I say? I'm a keen judge of character."

  She smiled in return, but it quickly faded. "I was not quite six months pregnant when Jason told me he was leaving me for her on Christmas Eve two years ago, on the way home from dinner with my mother," she said after a long moment. She spoke the words dispassionately, but he sensed far more emotion stored behind her words than she allowed to seep through.

  "Merry Christmas."

  "Right. We were on a snowy road and I was driving. In my shock and confusion and, well, fury, I guess, I became distracted and I wasn't paying proper attention to the road. We slid on a patch of ice and hit a tree."

  He swore again, more gently this time, somehow sensing what came next.

  "I broke my arm and a few ribs, that was all. Nothing really serious. Jason only had a concussion, I'm sorry to say."

  He would have smiled at that, if not for the anguish in her eyes. "But…the airbag deployed and I went into premature labor. My daughter only survived a few hours and died just before midnight Christmas Eve. She was three and a half months early and just too fragile to survive such a trauma."

  He stared at her, stunned at the sorrow she had endured. How could he have thought her cold when she first arrived at the ranch? It was all a smokescreen, just the fancy veneer she wrapped around all this pain.

  A lump rose in his throat and he wanted to pull her into his arms and hold on tight. Since this didn't seem quite the place for that, amid the bustle of waiters and the cooks in the open kitchen talking loudly to each other in Spanish, he settled for picking up her hand and lifting it to his mouth.

  It was an uncharacteristic gesture for him, but it somehow seemed just right. "I am truly sorry, Em."

  She looked flustered, but didn't pull her hand away. "I guess you can see why Christmas isn't my favorite holiday. The past few haven't been the greatest. Three years ago, my…father died just a week before Christmas, my mother was diagnosed with cancer last year just a few days before Christmas. And between those particular events, I spent the Christmas two years ago in a medicated haze amid the ruins of my life."

  She finally withdrew her hand and folded it with the other one in front of her. "This year I just wanted to escape it all. The memories and the heartache and the craziness."

  "And then I put you in a position where you couldn't avoid it. First by decorating the house then Christmas shopping with me today." He remembered their conversation earlier and suddenly frowned. "And the quilts. The last thing you need to be doing is taking on such a huge Christmas project like making quilts for Tallie and Claire. It's a great idea, but maybe I can find someone in town to do it after the holidays."

  "Not on your life!" she exclaimed. "I want to do this for them, Nate."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Positive. Working at my sewing machine is cathartic for me, I promise."

  He was about to argue when he suddenly heard someone calling their names.

  "Nate Cavazos! And Emery! Hello."

  He turned and found Wade and Caroline Dalton approaching their table with bright smiles, carrying a couple of doggie bags. They must have been seated in the other dining room of the restaurant or he would have seen them when Nate and Emery came in.

  He couldn't quite figure out their warmth toward him. He'd done nothing to encourage it, but since he'd been back in Pine Gulch, they had never treated him with anything but open friendliness.

  He ought to be able to see beyond the surface resemblance, but every time he saw Wade Dalton, he saw Hank, big and handsome and commanding.

  Caroline Dalton reached her hands out to squeeze Emery's. "How are you? It's so lovely to see you again!"

  "Emery was kind enough to help me finish some last-minute shopping for the girls," he said. He wasn't sure he liked the speculative gleam in her eyes.

  Wade gave him a commiserating sort of look. "Shopping, huh? Misery loves company, I guess. I was dragged along today, too, mostly to be the sherpa, I think. Though I can't imagine someone climbing Mt. Everest needed to carry more stuff than this."

  Caroline rolled her eyes. "We have four children, Wade, and multiple nieces and nephews. The packages tend to pile up." She turned back to Nate. "I'm sure you're finding that, aren't you, even though you've only got two?"

  "Right," Nate replied.

  Emery said nothing and he suddenly realized with consternation that in the past few moments, all the bright animation on her features had drained away and her mouth was drawn into a tight line.

  Why? He thought of her intention to retreat from the craziness of the holidays. Maybe she didn't like Caroline Dalton's reference to their close-knit family and the craziness of it, since she had none of that.

  "Are you both coming?"

  He jerked his attention back to the conversation. "Coming?"

  "To the party tomorrow night at the McRavens."

  Oh, right. The party he was supposed to RSVP to, the one he'd completely forgotten.

  "I know the children are so excited about it. The girls love swimming at the McRavens. You'll be there, right? And Emery, you, too."

  "I don't…"

  "You might as well say yes," Wade said with a broad smile to Emery that somehow only seemed to deepen those shadows in her blue eyes. "She's just going to keep badgering you until you agree."

  "I am not," Caroline protested. "I asked nicely. Of course, I'm not taking no for an answer. Tomorrow night, seven o'clock. We'll see you both there, and the girls, as well."

  With one last bright smile and wave, Caroline towed her husband toward the door, leaving an awkward silence in their wake.

  "Why don't you like the Daltons?" Nate finally asked when the silence had drawn on for several beats too long.

  Her gaze flashed to his and he saw a furtive flicker there for just a moment before she became serene and composed once more. "Why would you think I don't like them?"

  "I don't know. Just a vibe. You don't seem any more thrilled at the party invitation than I am. Am I wrong?"

  She pursed her lips. "I like them well enough," she said slowly. "We've only met once and Caroline was nothing but kind to me."

  "But you still don't want to go."

  Again that mysterious something glimmered in the depths of lovely blue eyes that reminded him of someone.

  Tell me, he wanted to say. He almost thought she was going to. She opened her mouth and drew in a litt
le breath then closed it again.

  "I wasn't expecting to socialize when I came to Pine Gulch," she answered, twirling her fork through the food she had barely touched. "I'm not part of your community. Why on earth would they even want me at their neighborhood Christmas party when I'm definitely not part of the neighborhood, especially when I'm only here until the end of the week?"

  He knew damn well he shouldn't have this little clutch in his gut at the thought of her leaving, at how empty he knew Hope Springs would feel when she was gone. Before he could come up with an answer, she turned the tables back on him.

  "What about you? What's your objection to the Daltons as neighbors?"

  He didn't want to bring up the whole sordid past, but he couldn't completely lie to her, either. Not when she had shared such painful pieces of her life with him.

  "Our families have a somewhat…tangled history."

  "Oh?" She set down her fork and gave him an oddly intent look.

  "Long story," he answered. One he wasn't about to delve into right now with her. As far as he was concerned, it was all in the bitter past and he hated remembering it.

  He glanced at his watch in a lame attempt to change the subject. "Do you want a box for that? You haven't eaten much, but we should probably wrap this up if we want to make it back to the ranch in time to hide the goods before the girls' bus shows up."

  "I don't need a box. It was delicious, but I'm finished."

  So much for their pleasant lunch, he thought as he helped her into her coat. Secrets and grief and the Daltons all in one convenient package.

  It was enough to sour him on Lupe's for a long time.

  Chapter Nine

  This had all been a terrible mistake.

  Not just the day spent with Nate, though she had a sinking feeling she would have an even more difficult time extricating herself from his and the girls' world after today.

  But coming to Idaho in the first place had been a foolish, rather pathetic attempt to forge a connection that didn't exist.

  Coming here, meeting the Daltons, had seemed like such a good idea back in Virginia, wrapped in the familiar safety of home and still reeling from grief and shock after her mother's death. She had no one else, and this fragile connection had seemed the only thing she had to hang on to.

  Mostly she had been curious about them. What kind of men were the Dalton brothers? Were they happy? Healthy? Did they treat their families kindly?

  She never expected everything to become so tangled.

  The truth was, just as she had told Nate, she was an outsider here and nothing would change that. And hadn't she spent enough time feeling like an outsider, even in her own family?

  Her mother and father loved her. She had never doubted that. But they preferred to show that love from a distance, in between Junior League meetings and rounds of golf and social engagements.

  Coming here changed nothing, except maybe to reinforce how alone she was.

  "Don't worry."

  She blinked at Nate across the width of his SUV. "Sorry?"

  "That frown of concentration. You look like you're scared to death I'm going to spin out and drive into a ditch. Relax. We're okay. The roads aren't slick. Besides, I've been driving in snow since I was fourteen."

  "Except the years when you were driving in sand."

  He smiled. "True enough."

  She looked out the window and now that she wasn't lost in thought, she realized snow whirled around the vehicle and a few inches had piled onto the road while they had been shopping and having lunch.

  "I'm not worried," she said, forcing a smile.

  "Lie."

  Not about the snow. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you have a built-in polygraph unit in here."

  "Don't need one. I can tell these things."

  As she couldn't tell him the real reason for her frown, that she was regretting ever stepping foot in Pine Gulch, she decided to let him believe what he wanted. "All right. Distract me from the snow. Tell me what it was like to grow up in Idaho and why you're not thrilled to be back."

  That last had been a shot in the dark, but the sudden tightness around his mouth confirmed her hunch.

  He shrugged. "I couldn't wait to leave. I enlisted in the army the moment I was old enough for them to take me and I haven't looked back."

  "Why?"

  "Lots of reasons," he said, then added somewhat reluctantly, "most of them ugly."

  She said nothing, waiting for him to tell her if he wanted. If he didn't, she respected his privacy enough not to pry. Heaven knows, she had enough secrets of her own.

  For a long moment, the only sound in the vehicle was the swish of the wipers beating back the flakes and the tires whirring on the road.

  Finally he sighed. "My dad died when I was ten. He had an aneurysm and drove his pickup off a steep embankment."

  He said the words without emotion, but she heard the quiet sorrow behind them anyway and her heart squeezed. "Oh, Nate. I'm sorry."

  He shot her a quick glance, but quickly turned his attention back to the road in order to slow down as they approached the turn into Cold Creek Canyon.

  "Ten is a tough age for a kid to lose his dad, especially when, well, my mother wasn't exactly stable."

  Again, she remained silent, allowing him to decide how much he would tell her.

  "My mother didn't do well on her own."

  "Some women don't."

  "Right. She was definitely one of those women. She…had her first affair about two months after my dad died. With a married man. A neighbor. I'm sure he offered her sympathy and a willing ear. Maybe advice around the ranch. Whatever. But because she was romantically involved with him, the bastard was able to cheat her out of some valuable pasture land along the river and a healthy portion of my dad's estate before he dumped her. I'm sure he would have taken the whole thing if he could have figured out a way."

  "What did your mother do?"

  His laugh was short and humorless. "She didn't take their break up well. That's an understatement. She was already depressed and I think she had been teetering on the brink of instability even before my father died. But when that bastard Da…When he dumped her, it sort of threw her over the edge. She started drinking heavily, sleeping with half the men in town. And not discreetly, either."

  "Oh, Nate."

  "I didn't mind so much for me, but it was tough on my sister to watch. The more my mother would drink, the more she slept around and the more she hated herself. The more she hated herself, the more she drank and slept around. It was an endless cycle."

  "What happened to her?" she asked, though she was suddenly loath to hear the answer.

  "When I was fourteen, she ran off with a trucker who came through town. Suzi was twenty-one. My sister dropped out of college in Pocatello and came back to run the ranch and get me through high school. Linda died a few years later. She was shot in a convenience store hold-up in Texas, which might seem like one of those genuinely unfair tragedies, except it was her current twenty-three-year-old boyfriend holding up the store."

  She couldn't imagine how difficult that all must have been for him, a young man trapped in his mother's downward spiral, forced to watch her throw away her life with promiscuity and alcohol abuse.

  "I guess you see why I feel so obligated to the girls," Nate went on as he drove under the Hope Springs arch. "My sister gave up her whole life to come back to Pine Gulch and raise me, rather than let me go into foster care. Suzi wanted to be a teacher, but she left school short only a couple semesters."

  "I'm sure she had a good life here even without her degree. She and her husband were building something beautiful at Hope Springs. The guest ranch, the girls. Everything. I didn't know her, but I can only believe she was happy with her life by the love and care she poured into the house and her daughters."

  A muscle worked in his jaw. "Well, even though I might hate Pine Gulch and want nothing more than to be back with my platoon, I feel like I have no choice but to do the same for
Suzi's daughters that she did for me."

  She thought of the men she knew back in Virginia, career-oriented, focused, driven. How many of them would be willing to give up what they loved most and enter a completely foreign situation in order to pay a debt of honor?

  Few, if any. She was quite certain of it.

  "They're blessed to have you," she murmured.

  He shifted in the seat. "Don't know about that. But right now, none of us has much of a choice."

  They drove in silence the remaining few moments until they reached the ranch house and sprawl of outbuildings.

  She was in grave danger, she thought as he pulled up to her guest cabin. Her emotions were in turmoil. If she wasn't careful, she just might go careening headlong into love with this hard, dangerous, complicated man.

  And wouldn't that just be a mess? She didn't need more emotional torment in her world right now and falling for Nate Cavazos would only result in heartache for her.

  "Where are you going to put everything to hide it from the girls?"

  He shrugged. "They're sneaky and they know every inch of the house. I wouldn't be surprised if they've already searched every closet and cubby."

  "Where have you hidden everything else?"

  "Under the bed in the cabin farthest from the house. It's the one we rent out least often and nobody goes there."

  "Very sneaky."

  Despite the tension still evident in his tight shoulders after their discussion of his childhood, he managed a lopsided smile.

  "I'm an army Ranger. We're good at sneaky."

  She returned his smile, even as she felt that precarious shift and slide of her heart.

  "I'll help you hide everything," she said. "You don't have much time before the bus arrives, do you?"

  He glanced at his watch. "I should be safe for a half hour or so. But really, you've done more than enough."

  "Listen, I didn't spend three hours at the mall for you to mix everything up and forget who gets what. This shouldn't take very long. I'll sort things into separate piles. That way when you're ready to wrap, you won't have such a hard time figuring things out."