The Maverick's Snowbound Christmas

by Karen Rose Smith

  For a moment he thought he saw a panicked look in Hadley’s eyes, as if that wasn’t what she’d expected at all. But then she seemed to bolster herself and put on her most professional voice. “That will be fine.” Going to the stall with Amber and the colt, she let herself inside.

  Eli admired her confidence and her caring. In fact he admired so many things about her.

  “Does he nurse vigorously?” Hadley asked.

  “Like there’s no tomorrow,” Eli responded with a grin.

  “I should draw blood,” Hadley said. “How do you feel about that?”

  Eli knew if she did, lab results would tell him whether there was any infection or anemia. “That’s fine,” Eli agreed, knowing it had to be done.

  “Temperature, heart and breathing rates are good,” Hadley told him as she assessed Coco.

  “They’ve bonded well.”

  “I can see that,” Hadley said.

  “He follows her no matter where she moves.”

  “What are you feeding her?” Hadley asked.

  “Alfalfa hay. I’ve been keeping the stall cleaned out and dry. She lets me handle him,” Eli said. “I’ve been rubbing him all over, touching his mouth and nose.”

  Hadley glanced at Eli. He held her gaze. He could feel that vibration between them, that attraction that had led to their kiss and the awkwardness afterward. No matter what she said, he had a feeling her visit today had more to do with that attraction between them than a thank-you for the pie or checking on Amber and the foal.

  “Did you tell Brooks you were coming out here?” he asked.

  “I did,” she said. “I called him before I came. I didn’t want him running out here unnecessarily. I like to finish what I start.”

  That was interesting. Did that mean she wouldn’t start something unless she could finish it? Another reason for her backing away from him. She’d be driving back to Bozeman soon.

  Hadley didn’t seem to mind his watching her. She worked quickly and competently, careful she didn’t scare Amber or pose any threat. New moms could be protective even if they’d been calm during the whole pregnancy and before. Eli watched carefully, too, because he knew Hadley wasn’t used to working with horses.

  “You’re becoming an expert with larger animals.”

  “I’m always looking to expand my résumé,” she joked. Then she said, “Imagine flying into herds of wild animals, helping the horses that roam the ranges without proper care.”

  “You’d figure out how to give them care?”

  “Sure would. Everything from vaccinations to helping them heal from injuries.”

  “Have you ever seen them in the wild?”

  “I have...in the Big Horns. I went with some friends when I was in college. They were so majestic standing on the ridge above us as if they were greeting us. That was my first glimpse of them. How about you?”

  “I spotted a herd in Colorado.” He wasn’t going to go into it. That was during his Elaine days. “I’m going to check and make sure everything’s secure here, then we can go over to my cabin.”

  It took some effort for him to walk away from Hadley rather than going into that stall with her. But he didn’t want to crowd Amber, and he didn’t want to crowd Hadley. He imagined she could be even more skittish.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later Eli opened the door to his cabin, saying, “Home sweet home.”

  Hadley wasn’t sure why she’d driven out here today. Sure, she’d told herself she wanted to thank Eli’s mom and check on the horses. But deep in her heart, she knew her purpose had more to do with seeing Eli again. She was testing her reaction to him. Maybe she wouldn’t feel that “zing” when he looked at her. Maybe she wouldn’t remember their kiss in vivid detail. Maybe the attraction would have disappeared. Part of her hoped it had. The other part...

  Eli had driven them from the barn in his truck, and Hadley had struggled to find conversation. Not because they didn’t have things to talk about, but because Eli seemed to take up all her breathing space. Whenever she was around him, she felt breathless. She could try fooling herself, but there was no denying it. Their attraction was still there.

  Now as he welcomed her into his home, she realized this was much more than just a cabin. Eli had said he’d decorated it himself with his sister’s help, and it was well-done. Huge beams crisscrossed the ceiling with a loft at the far end and stairs leading to it. A stone fireplace was the center point of the room, and the rustic furniture with red Native American upholstery was mostly grouped about that. Bay windows surrounded the dining area, where there was a table large enough for four. Shiplap lined all the walls along with a wall hanging in cream, red and black. The same colors were featured in the rug on the wood floor.

  “No flat-screen TV?” she asked, surprised.

  He laughed. “I mostly stream on my laptop. I have a bigger monitor set up in the bedroom that I can always swivel toward the bed.”

  The mention of his bed had her seeing visions in her mind that had nothing to do with the holidays or sugarplums.

  All of a sudden the kitten barreled down the steps, half jumping and half falling as it went. It came straight to Eli and rubbed on his jean-clad leg.

  Hadley laughed out loud.

  “I’ve named her,” he said. “She’s Winks, and her mom’s name is Whisper because she travels more quietly and not as rambunctiously.”

  Eli was holding Winks now, and the kitten was rubbing her head against his coat.

  The momma cat, Whisper, started down the stairs now, too, obviously checking on her offspring and following the voices. Hadley held her arms out for the kitten. “Can I have a look at her?”

  “Sure,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket. “The eyedrops are working.”

  Hadley unzipped her jacket and sat on the sofa with the kitten before her on the narrow, bench-like table where a coffee table book on the Southwest lay. Her focus was on the kitten as she examined her, but she couldn’t help glancing around, too. Eli’s floor-to-ceiling bookshelves near the dining area were filled. Just from looking at the spines, Hadley could tell he owned books on every subject imaginable.

  “I would love to have a place like this someday,” she said, meaning it.

  “Where do you live now?” he asked, sitting on the sofa beside her. He wasn’t too close, but close enough that she was aware of every inch of him from the thick hair on his head—he’d taken off his Stetson after they’d come in—to his jean-clad thighs and worn boots.

  Her thoughts scrambled, and she had to reassemble them to answer his question. “I rent the first floor of a house in town. I wanted somewhere convenient to the clinic.”

  “So if you take off someplace, you can leave it easily behind.”

  There was no censure in Eli’s voice, yet she felt it was a little crisp, or maybe just the truth. “I suppose that’s true. I never meant it to be permanent. I’m not there very much. What about you? Did you have a place before you built this?”

  “I lived with my parents to save money and because we really are all a team. Then it was time I had a place of my own.”

  “How do you feel living apart from them? That had to be a change.”

  “It’s a good change for all of us...and for Derek, too. I think when I was in the house he always felt I was looking over his shoulder. I never meant to give him that impression, but being an older brother and all that...”

  “And your parents? How did they feel about your moving out?”

  He gave her a questioning look as if he figured there was more behind her question than a simple answer. And maybe there was. When she’d been away at college, she’d known her parents had missed her, and they still hoped she wouldn’t go that far away. But she wasn’t sure where she wanted to settle. At least not anymore. She’d been willing to fol
low Justin Corrigan anywhere. Now she didn’t think she’d give any woman the advice to do that.

  Eli’s voice brought her back from thoughts she’d rather forget. He said, “It’s not like I’m in the next state. I’m still on the ranch, and I’m sure they’re happy about that. Dad’s getting older and he can’t do what he once did, although he won’t admit it. I can shoulder some of that for him. You know it’s not something you put into words, but he knows I’m here when he needs me.”

  Yes, Eli was the dependable one. She shouldn’t even put him in the same category with Justin. But after the fiasco with the veterinary pharmaceutical rep, she put all men in that category.

  Whisper had insinuated herself between Eli’s legs. Now she wound around Hadley’s and then jumped up on the coffee table with her kitten. Hadley automatically checked her over, liking the care they both had been given.

  Eli’s voice was husky as he said, “I found an old wicker wash basket and filled it with a fleece blanket. That’s up in my bedroom, and they seem to like that the best, at least for sleeping when I’m not here. When I’m home, they’re down here with me.”

  “Have you ever had pets?”

  “Not in the way you mean,” he said with amusement in his voice. “There were always the horses and foals, and learning to get to know each one of them as they were born. Cats ran around the barn, and for a while Derek and I took care of a couple of goats. We were about ten. How about you?” he asked. “There had to be a reason why you became a vet.”

  “There was. I had a dog, the most adorable mutt that Dad had found along the road. He was my best friend for about five years. But then cancer took him. After it did, I decided the best thing I could learn to do was take care of animals. I find them homes when I can, so I haven’t taken any home with me yet. My hours aren’t conducive to having a pet, but I’d like to someday.”

  “The same way you’d like to have your own house?”

  “You make it sound like a far-off dream.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Possibly. My sisters and my mom, and even my grandmother, seem to want me to make all my life decisions right now, and then be done with it. I don’t feel that way. I’m still exploring each one as it comes along.”

  Eli thought about that. “Until you find exactly what you want.”

  As she gazed into his eyes, the sparkle there teased her into believing she wanted something entirely different from what they were talking about.

  His voice was low when he said, “Hadley.”

  She knew what he wanted, and she knew what she wanted. Yet her past experience told her being attracted like this wasn’t a good thing. She couldn’t be impulsive. She couldn’t be reckless. When she’d been both three years ago, her heart had been broken.

  “Don’t you feel it?” Eli asked, bringing her back to the moment.

  “What?” Her voice was a mere whisper.

  “The electricity.”

  “I’m leaving after Thanksgiving weekend,” she reminded him.

  “I know,” he said solemnly. “But a kiss isn’t a commitment.”

  She knew full well a kiss wasn’t a commitment. She also knew that vows might not even be a commitment. So she did the only thing she could do. She stood and then she said in her most professional voice, “Whisper and Winks look good. You’re doing a good job with them, Eli. I never expected you to—”

  “Take cats into my house?” He was joking with her, but the joking didn’t reach his eyes. She could tell he was thinking about what had almost happened on the sofa. So was she, but she couldn’t dwell on it. She couldn’t even entertain the thought of anything starting with Eli.

  With her emotions in turmoil, she headed for his door.

  He followed her, and they were outside on the way to the car when a snowball slammed Eli in the chest. He turned and spotted Derek grinning from ear to ear. Not only Derek, but four other good-looking men with him.

  Shaking his head, Eli brushed the snow off his coat. “Hadley,” he said, “these are some of my cousins—Garrett, Shawn, Booker and Cole. Along with another brother, Zach, they’ve been living here with my uncle Phil.”

  Hadley had heard the story about these Dalton brothers and their dad. A raging brush fire had burned down the family ranch, taking most of the animals and tragically, their mother. These Daltons, instead of splitting apart, had managed to stick together. They’d decided to come to Rush Creek Falls to start over.

  Derek piped up, “Zach was staying here until he placed an ad in the Rust Creek Falls Gazette to seek a wife.”

  Garrett added, “He ended up falling in love with Lydia Grant, who’d worked at the Rust Creek Falls Gazette. They’re living in a cottage on a ranch on the outskirts of town.”

  “I think my grandmother told me that they’ll marry in the spring,” Hadley said. News and gossip traveled quickly in Rust Creek Falls.

  Eli’s cousin Booker stooped down, scooped up snow and made another snowball. “So how about a real snowball fight, cuz?”

  “Don’t you boys have chores to do?” Eli asked with a mock scowl.

  “All done,” Shawn answered, making another snowball. “And I would imagine since Hadley here is a born-and-bred Montana girl, she’d go for a little snowball fight, too.” He wiggled his brows at Hadley.

  When had she last had some fun, real fun? And these young men seemed like they knew how to have it. She quickly put on the gloves that had been stuffed in her pocket, scooped up snow, made a missile out of it and tossed it at Booker. He tossed a snowball back, and it whacked her in the shoulder.

  Eli said, “Hadley, if you don’t want to do this—”

  She made a nice rounded snowball and fired it at him. That must have done it for Eli because he entered into the fray. Soon snowballs were flying, and they were plowing through the snow after each other. In no time their coats were splattered with white and their cheeks had turned red.

  Eli said to Hadley, “How long has it been since you’ve built a snowman?”

  “You mean a snowwoman, don’t you?”

  Booker said, “Uh-oh. I’m out of here. Let them argue about women’s rights.”

  The others mumbled and headed back toward the barn.

  “They deserted,” Hadley said after they’d gone.

  Eli merely shrugged. Then he looked around at the snowbanks. “We could do this one of two ways. You could build a snowwoman and I can build a snowman, or we can try to build a snow horse.”

  Hadley laughed at that compromise. “A snow horse it is.”

  For the next half hour that’s what they did. And when they were finished, Hadley was rightly proud of it, too. They’d used an evergreen branch for the horse’s tail, and Hadley had woven together some branches to wrap around its neck.

  “How about some hot chocolate?” Eli asked Hadley. “It will warm you up before you have to drive home, and you can thank my mom in person for that pie.”

  She could have passed up the hot chocolate, but she really did want to thank his mother for the pie. So she agreed. “Warming up a bit would be nice.”

  Shaking the snow from their coats and boots, they piled into the truck and drove to the ranch house.

  Hadley had a contented feeling she hadn’t experienced for a very long time. Maybe it was from expending physical energy, or maybe it was because of enjoying sitting beside Eli in companionable silence. Hard to know.

  Eli parked near the wide front porch. As soon as Hadley entered the Dalton house, she was encompassed by its feeling of warmth. It was because of the cozy furniture, the rugs on the plank flooring, the little touches that made a place a home. There was an aerial photograph of the ranch on one wall, along with knickknacks that Hadley imagined the children had given to their parents over the years.

  As Eli escorted Hadley into the kitche
n, she caught sight of Rita Dalton at the stove, stirring something in a huge soup pot.

  “Hi there,” Eli’s mother said, her eyes lighting up. It was obvious she liked to have company.

  “Hi, Mom. Remember Hadley? She was at Kayla’s wedding.”

  “Of course I do. Melba talks about you all the time.”

  “Uh-oh,” Hadley said. “My grandmother’s as honest as they come. I’m not sure I want to know what she said.”

  “Come on, let me get you some hot chocolate and we can talk about it. Derek and his cousins ran through here a little while ago, but they didn’t stay. You’ll keep me company for a while, won’t you?” she asked her son.

  Eli raised his brows at Hadley, and she gave a little nod. He answered his mother, “Sure, Mom,” and took off his coat. Hadley did the same, and Eli hung both of them on pegs near the back door.

  “You have a lovely house, Mrs. Dalton.”

  “I’ve been working at it for years. I should.”

  Hadley liked Eli’s mother already.

  Eli started for the cupboard and was about to pull down a box of hot chocolate mix, but his mother went over to him and said, “Not that stuff. I know you and Derek use it when you want something quick. I’m going to make the real thing. Get a saucepan for me.”

  “She melts chocolate into it and uses cream,” Eli said to Hadley in a conspiratorial voice.

  “I’m going to have to build another snow horse to burn off calories,” Hadley decided.

  “Nonsense,” Rita protested. “You could use a few pounds, just like most women your age. Oatmeal raisin cookies to go with that hot chocolate?”

  Hadley laughed again. “You make it hard to resist.”

  “The boys never do. Kayla and Kristen...” She wiggled her hand. “Sometimes they do. I’m making a pot of vegetable soup for supper tonight, but it will be fine on simmer. I imagine your sister Claire makes that, too.”

  Mostly everyone in town knew Claire worked at the boardinghouse and helped in the kitchen. She’d turned from a woman who hadn’t cooked into a woman who cooked really well under their grandmother’s tutelage. “This time of year is great for stews and soups and baked bread.”