A Cold Creek Noel (The Cowboys of Cold Creek)

by Thayne, RaeAnne

  “She’s really old. Thirteen. I got her when I was just a teenager. We’ve been through a lot, Sadie and me.”

  “Sadie and Caidy. That rhymes,” Ava said unexpectedly, earning a giggle from Jack.

  “I know, right? My brothers used to call the dog and I would think they wanted me. Or they would call me and Sadie would come running. It was all very confusing but we’re used to it now after all these years. I didn’t name her, though—the rancher my parents got her from had already given her a name. By then she was already used to it so we decided not to change it.”

  He saw a hint of sadness in her eyes and wondered at the source of it as she hugged the dog. “Do you know, she was a Christmas present the year I turned fourteen? That’s not much older than you, Ava.”

  His daughter looked thrilled that someone would think she was anywhere close to the advanced age of fourteen instead of nine and he suddenly knew Caidy had said it on purpose.

  “For months I’d been begging and begging for a dog of my own,” she went on. “We always had ranch dogs but my brothers took over working with them. I wanted one I could train myself. I was so excited that morning when I found her under the tree. She was so adorable with a big red bow around her neck.”

  He pictured it clearly, a teenage Caidy and a cute little border collie puppy with curious ears and a wagging tail. He could certainly relate to the story. When he had been a boy, he had begged for a dog every year from about the time he turned eight. Every year, he had hoped and prayed he would find a puppy under the tree and every year had been another disappointment.

  He held the door open. “Ava, you can sit in the middle next to Jack so we can make room for Sadie.”

  “Oh, no. That’s not necessary. She’s probably wet and stinky. We can walk. It’s not that far.”

  “If there’s one thing we don’t mind in this family, it’s wet stinky dogs, isn’t that right? Just wait until we bring Tri out here to romp in the snowdrifts.”

  Both children giggled, even Ava, which filled him with a great sense of accomplishment.

  He turned his attention away from his children to find Caidy watching him, her hand still on her dog’s scruff and an arrested expression in her eyes. He felt a return of that tensile connection of earlier, when he had walked out of the shower room to find her standing in the hallway.

  The moment stretched between them and he couldn’t seem to look away, vaguely aware of Jack and Ava climbing into the SUV with their usual bickering.

  Finally she cleared her throat. “Thanks anyway, but I’m not quite ready to go. I just need to dust out the two spare bedrooms.”

  This wasn’t going to work. He didn’t want this sudden attraction. He didn’t want to feel this heat in his gut again, the sizzle of his blood.

  He thought about telling her he had changed his mind, but how ridiculous would that sound? I can’t stay here because I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid if I’m in the same general vicinity of you.

  Anyway, now that he had seen the charming little house, he really didn’t want to go back to the cramped quarters of the inn. He would just have to work hard to stay out of her way. How tough could that be?

  “The place looked fine. We can dust,” he said. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “We Bowmans are a proud lot. Though we might not be in the landlord business as a regular thing, I’m not about to let you stay in a dirty place.”

  He decided not to argue. “I’ll check on Luke while we’re in town. If I feel like he is stable enough to be here, I’ll pick him up and bring him out with us when we come back.”

  She smiled her gratitude and he felt that inexorable tug toward her again. “Thank you! We would love that, wouldn’t we, Sadie?”

  The dog nudged her hand and seemed to smile in agreement.

  “Luke is her great-grandson,” she explained to the children. “So I guess I’ll see you all later. I’m glad the house will work for you.”

  Space-wise, the house was perfect. Neighbor-wise, he wasn’t so sure.

  After he loaded up the kids and started down the gravel drive, he glanced in the rearview mirror. Caidy Bowman was lifting her face to the pale winter sun peeking between clouds, one hand on the dog’s grizzled head.

  For some ridiculous reason, a lump rose in his throat at the sight and he had a hard time looking away.

  Chapter Five

  For the next few hours, Caidy couldn’t shake a tangled mix of dread and anticipation. Offering Ben and his family a place to stay over the holidays had been a friendly, neighborly gesture. She was grateful those cute kids would be able to have the fun of sneaking downstairs Christmas morning to see their presents under their very own tree and that Mrs. Michaels could cook a proper dinner for them instead of something out of the microwave.

  Even so, she had the strangest feeling that life on the ranch was about to change, maybe irrevocably.

  It was only for a few weeks, she told herself as she finished mucking out the stalls with Destry while Sadie plopped on her belly in the warm straw and watched them. She could handle anything for a few weeks. Still, the strange, restless mood dogged her heels like the collies in a thunderstorm as she went through her Saturday chores.

  “You ladies need a hand in here?”

  Destry beamed at her father, thrilled when he called her a lady. She was, Caidy thought. Her little girl was growing up—nearly eleven now and going to middle school the next year. She didn’t know what she would do then.

  “Since we’ve got your muscles here, why don’t you bring us a couple new straw bales? I’d like to put some fresh down for the foaling mares.”

  “Will do. Des, come give your old man a hand.”

  The two of them took off, laughing together about something Destry said in answer, and Caidy again felt that unaccountable depression seep over her.

  Her brother didn’t really need her help anymore with Destry. She had been happy to offer it when the girl was young and Ridge had been alone and struggling. More than happy, really. Relieved, more like, to have something useful to do with her time, something she thought she could handle.

  Destry was almost a young woman now and Ridge was an excellent father who could probably handle things here just fine by himself.

  She leaned her cheek on the handle of the shovel and watched Sadie snoring away. They didn’t need her. Nobody did. She sighed heavily just as Ridge came back alone with a bale on each shoulder.

  “That sounds serious. What’s wrong? Having second thoughts about the new vet and his family moving in?”

  And third and fourth. She shrugged, picked up a pitchfork and started spreading the straw around. “What’s to have second thoughts about? He needed a place to stay for a few weeks and we have an empty, furnished house just sitting there.”

  “Destry will enjoy having other children around the ranch, especially for Christmas.”

  “Where is she?”

  He grabbed the other pitchfork to help her. “She got distracted by the new barn kittens. She’s up in the loft giving them a little attention.”

  Her niece loved animals every bit as much as Caidy had at her age. Maybe she would be a veterinarian someday. “I’m afraid we’re not very good company for her this time of year, are we? Things will be better in January.”

  Ridge gave her a long look. “You remember how much Mom loved Christmas. She would hate thinking you would let her and Dad’s deaths ruin the holidays for
ever.”

  “I know.” It wasn’t a new argument between them and right now she wasn’t in the mood, not with this melancholy sidling through her. “Don’t make it sound like I’m the only one. You hate Christmas too.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it’s time we both moved forward with our lives. Taft and Trace both have.”

  You weren’t there, she wanted to cry out. None of her brothers were. She had been the one hiding under that shelf in the pantry, listening to her mother’s dying gasps and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

  You weren’t there and you weren’t responsible.

  She couldn’t say the words to him. She never could. Instead she spread a little more straw in an area that already had plenty.

  “I think it’s time you went back to school.”

  She didn’t need this again, today, of all days, when she felt so oddly as if she were teetering on the brink of some major life shift.

  “I’m twenty-seven years old, Ridge. I think my school days are past me.”

  Her brother’s handsome features twisted into a scowl. “They don’t have to be. Plenty of people finish college when they’re a little older than the traditional student. Sometimes it takes a person a few years to figure out what they want out of life.”

  “Have I figured that out yet?” she muttered.

  “You won’t while you’re stuck here. I should never have let you come home after your first year of college. I should have made you stick it out. Believe me, I’ve regretted it bitterly, more than I can say. The truth is, after Melinda walked out, I needed you here to help me with Destry. I was lost and floundering, trying to run the ranch and take care of her too.”

  He pulled his gloves off and shoved them in his back pocket, then tugged at an earlobe. These words weren’t easy for him, she knew. Of all her brothers, Ridge was the most stoic, hiding his emotions and his thoughts behind the hard steel it took to run a ranch like the River Bow.

  “The truth is, I chose the easy path instead of the right one,” he said, regret in his eyes.

  “You didn’t choose anything. I did. I wanted to come home. I would have dropped out regardless of whether you needed me here.”

  “Not if I hadn’t made it so easy for you to find a soft place to land back home.”

  She wasn’t sure if her brothers blamed her for the murders of her parents. She had always been afraid to ask and none of them had ever talked about it.

  How could they not blame her on some level? Neither she nor her parents were even supposed to have been home that night. That was the reason an art burglary had turned into a surprise home invasion robbery and then a double murder when her father had tried to stop the thieves.

  Caidy would have died with them if her mother hadn’t shoved her into the pantry and ordered her to hide.

  Sometimes she felt as if she had been hiding ever since.

  “You should be the new veterinarian in town, not some new guy from the coast,” Ridge went on, his voice fierce. “It’s been eating at me ever since this Caldwell showed up. Becoming a vet was all you ever wanted. I know Doc Harris had once hoped you would follow in his footsteps. I can’t help thinking how, if things had gone differently, you could have taken over his practice when he retired.”

  He managed to hit exactly on the reason for her restlessness. The straw rustled under her feet as she shifted her boots, releasing its earthy scent. Ben Caldwell was living her dream now. It was hard to admit, especially when she knew she had absolutely no right to be upset.

  “I made my choices, Ridge. I don’t regret them. Not for a moment.”

  “You need a life of your own. A home, a family. You never even date.”

  “Maybe I’ll just run off with the new veterinarian. Then where would you be?”

  As soon as the words escaped, she heartily wished she had kept her big mouth shut. Again. What could possibly have possessed her to say such a thing? Ridge lifted an eyebrow and gave her a long, searching look, and she had to hope the heat she could feel in her cheeks wasn’t as bright red as it felt.

  “I would be happy for you as long as he’s a good man who treats you well,” Ridge said quietly. For some unaccountable reason, her heart ached sharply. Before she could come up with a response, Destry clambered down the loft ladder. “They’re here! I just saw a couple of cars driving up.”

  The heat in her cheeks spread down her neck and over her shoulders. “Great,” she managed to say, trying for a cheerful voice.

  “Do you think they’ll have Luke with them?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  The three of them walked out of the barn into the cold, overcast afternoon just as one SUV pulled up, followed closely by another one. Neither vehicle took the fork in the driveway that led to the foreman’s house. They headed toward the main house, pulling into the circular driveway.

  Ben climbed out as she, Ridge and Destry approached the vehicles. Her stomach did that ridiculous little jumpy thing again. She had forgotten in the past few hours just how gorgeous the man was. The memory she had been trying without success to forget flooded back into her head in excruciating detail—of walking into the clinic that morning and finding him wet and hard-muscled as he came out of the shower.

  She thought of what she had said to her brother. Maybe I’ll just run off with the new veterinarian, and then where would you be?

  The bigger question was, where would she be? She could easily see herself making a fool over this man and she had to do her very best to make sure that didn’t happen, especially when she couldn’t logically find a way to avoid him, when she trained dogs for a living and he was the town’s only veterinarian.

  He waved at them all and held a hand out to Ridge. “Hi. You must be Caidy’s brother.”

  “Right. I’m Ridge Bowman. This is my daughter, Destry. I guess you know our Caidy. Nice to meet you. Welcome to the River Bow.”

  “Thank you.”

  The two of them shook hands and then, much to the girl’s astonished delight, Ben shook hands with Destry too. She grinned at him, braids flying under her cowboy hat as she turned the handshake into a vigorous exercise.

  Ben gave Caidy a friendly sort of smile—much warmer than any he’d given her so far. Her cheeks flamed and she didn’t miss Ridge’s careful look at the two of them. Drat her big mouth. She should never have said what she did earlier in the barn. Knowing her brother, now he was never going to let her forget it.

  “I really appreciate you opening the house for us like this.”

  Ridge shrugged. “Why not? It’s empty. With apologies to my sister-in-law, children ought to be in a house at Christmastime if they can.”

  “A little breathing room will certainly make the holidays more comfortable for all of us,” he answered. “I’ve got someone else back here who’s anxious to be on the River Bow.”

  He headed to the back of the SUV and reached to open the hatch.

  “You really think Luke is ready to be home?” she asked.

  “He should be. He was moving on his own and seemed far more comfortable this afternoon than earlier. He’s a fighter, this one. You’ll still have to keep a sharp eye on him, but there’s no reason he can’t be home for that. It’ll save you a little on the clinic bill.”

  All of them converged on the rear of the vehicle. Sure enough, Luke was resting in a travel crate. When he saw her, he whimpered and whined. Ben unlatched the door and the dog’s nails scrabbled on the plastic fl
oor of the crate as he tried to stand.

  “Easy,” Ben said, and his calm voice did the trick. Luke subsided again.

  “Hey, Lukey. Hey, buddy.” Destry rubbed her cheek against the dog’s and scratched under his ears. “You poor thing. Look at that big bandage.”

  “Hi, Destry. I’m sorry your dog got hurt.”

  Destry smiled into the backseat, where both Ava and Jack were watching the proceedings with interest.

  “Me too. But he’s not really my dog. He’s one of my aunt Caidy’s. I like cats most of all.”

  “I like cats too,” Ava said.

  “Not me,” Jack answered cheerfully. “I like dogs. This is our dog. His name is Tri.”

  The dog yipped in answer to his name and Caidy had to smile at the adorable little thing, some kind of chihuahua.

  “Can he walk?” Ridge was asking as he studied the injured dog in the crate.

  Ben nodded. “He can, but it won’t be comfortable for him for a while now. Probably better if we let him take it easy. Do you mind helping me carry him inside?”

  “No problem,” Ridge said. The two of them carried the crate with Luke inside. Caidy wondered if she should stay with the children or take them inside. Before she could make a decision, Mrs. Michaels joined them from the other vehicle. “You probably want to go help settle your dog, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “Why don’t you all come inside?”

  “I think we’ll be better off staying put. I’m sure Dr. Caldwell won’t be long and the children are anxious to start settling into the house.”

  She followed the low murmur of men’s voices and found them in the kitchen, setting the crate down in the small area she had arranged earlier, in hopes for this very moment.

  “Caidy likes to keep her patients right here in the kitchen,” Ridge was saying. “This way her bedroom, right down the hall, is close enough to keep an eye on them.”