Linda Lael - Holiday In Stone Creek

“Where was she?” Tanner had to feel around inside his muddled brain for the question, thrust it out with force.

“Grand Central,” Jack answered. “She sneaked away from the school group while they were making their way through the crowds after the parade. Fortunately, one of my guys spotted her right away, and tailed her to the station. She was buying a train ticket west.”

Coming home. Sophie had been trying to come home.

Brad pulled out the piano bench, and Tanner sat down heavily, tossing his friend a grateful glance.

“Question of the hour,” Jack went on. “What do we do now? She swears she’ll run away again if we take her back to school, and I believe her. The kid is serious, Tanner.”

Tanner let out a long sigh. He felt sick, light-headed, imagining all the things that could have happened to Sophie. And very, very glad when Olivia sat down on the bench beside him, her shoulder touching his. “Can you bring her here?” he asked. “To Stone Creek?”

“I’ll come with her as far as Phoenix,” Jack said. “I’ll have my people there bring her the rest of the way by helicopter. The jet’s due in L.A. by six o’clock Pacific time, and it’s a government job, high-security south-of-the-border stuff, so I can’t get out of the gig.”

Tanner glanced sidelong at Olivia. She took his hand and clasped it. “I appreciate this, Jack,” he said into the phone, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Send Sophie home.”

Olivia smiled at that. Brad let out a sigh, grinned and went back to playing host at a family Thanksgiving dinner, taking his son with him. Folks started milling toward the food, laid out buffet-style in the dining room.

“Ten-four, old buddy,” Jack said. “Maybe I’ll stop in out there and say hello on my way back from Señoritaville. Book me a room somewhere, will you? I could do with a few months of R & R.”

A few minutes before, Tanner couldn’t have imagined laughing, ever again. But he did then. “That would be good,” he said, choking up again. “Your being here, I mean. I’ll ask around, find you a place to stay.”

“Adios, amigo,” Jack told him, and rang off.

“Sophie’s okay?” Olivia asked softly.

“Until I get my hands on her, she is,” Tanner answered.

“Stay right here,” Olivia said, rising and taking off for the dining room beyond.

A short time later she was back, carrying two plates. “You need to eat,” she informed Tanner.

And that was how they shared Thanksgiving dinner, sitting on Brad O’Ballivan’s piano bench, with the living room all to themselves and blessedly quiet. Tanner was surprised to discover that he wasn’t just hungry, he was ravenous.

“Feeling better?” Olivia asked when he was finished.

“Yeah,” he answered. “But I don’t think I’m up to socializing all afternoon.”

“Me, either,” Olivia confessed. She’d only picked at her food.

“Is there a sick cow somewhere?” Tanner asked, indulging in a slight grin. After the shock Sophie had given him, he was still pretty shaken up. “That would probably serve as an excuse for getting the heck out of here.”

“They’re all ridiculously healthy today,” Olivia said.

Tanner chuckled. “Sorry to hear that,” he teased.

She laughed, but the amusement didn’t quite get as far as her eyes. Tanner wondered why the holiday made her so uncomfortable, but he didn’t figure he knew her well enough to ask. He knew why he didn’t like them—because the loss of his wife and grandmother stood out in sharp relief against all that merriment. And maybe that was Olivia’s reason, too.

“I am pretty concerned about Butterpie,” she said, as if inspired. “What do you say we steal one of the fifty-eight pumpkin pies lining Meg’s kitchen counter and head back to your barn?”

Maybe it was the release of tension. Maybe it was because Olivia looked and smelled so damn good—almost as good as she had that morning, out by the fence and then later on, in her kitchen. Either way, the place he wanted to take her wasn’t his barn.

“Okay,” he said. “But if you’re caught pie-napping, I’ll deny being in cahoots with you.”

Again that laugh, soft and musical and utterly feminine. It rang in Tanner’s brain, then lodged itself square in the center of his heart. “Fair enough,” she said.

She took their plates and left again, making for the kitchen.

Tanner found Brad standing by the sideboard in the big dining room, affably directing traffic between the food and the long table, where there was a lot of happy talk and dish clattering going on.

“Everything okay, buddy?” Brad asked, watching Tanner’s face.

“I got a little scare,” Tanner answered, shoving a hand through his hair. He knew a number of famous people, and not one of them was as down-home and levelheaded as Brad O’Ballivan. He was a man who had more than enough of everything, and knew it, and lived a comparatively simple life. “Just the same, I need a little alone time.”

Brad nodded. Caught sight of Olivia coming out of the kitchen with the purloined pie and small plastic container, stopping to speak to Meg as she passed the crowded table. His gaze swung right back to Tanner. “Alone time, huh?” he asked.

“It’s not what you think,” Tanner felt compelled to say, feeling some heat rise in his neck.

Brad arched an eyebrow. Regarded him thoughtfully. “You’re a good friend,” he said. “But I love my sister. Keep that in mind, all right?”

Tanner nodded, liking Brad even more than before. Look out for the womenfolk—it was the cowboy way. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he replied.

He and Olivia left Stone Creek Ranch at the same time, he in his too-clean red truck, she in that scruffy old Suburban. The drive to Starcross took about fifteen minutes, and Olivia was out of her rig and headed into the barn before he’d parked his pickup.

Butterpie was on her feet, Ginger rising from a stretch when Tanner caught up to Olivia in front of the stall door. Olivia opened the plastic container, revealing leftover turkey.

“Tell Butterpie Sophie’s coming home,” he said, without intending to say any such thing.

Olivia smiled, inside the stall now, letting Ginger scarf up cold turkey from the container. “I already did,” she replied. “That’s why Butterpie is up. She could use a little exercise, so let’s turn her out in the corral for a while.”

Tanner nodded, found a halter and slipped it over Butterpie’s head. Led her outside and over to the corral gate, and turned her loose.

Olivia and Ginger stood beside him, watching as the pony looked around, as if baffled to find herself outside in the last blaze of afternoon sunlight and the heretofore pristine snow. The dog barked a couple of times, as if to encourage Butterpie.

Tanner shook his head. Ridiculous, he thought. Dogs didn’t encourage horses.

He recalled finding Ginger huddled close to Butterpie in the stall earlier in the day. Or did they?

Butterpie just stood there for a while, then nuzzled through the snow for some grass.

Whether the little horse had cheered up or not, he certainly had. Butterpie hadn’t eaten anything since she’d arrived at Starcross Ranch, and now she was ready to graze. He went back into the barn and came out with a flake of hay, tossed it into the corral.

Butterpie nosed it around a bit and began to nibble.

Olivia watched for a few moments, then turned to Tanner and took smug note of the hay stuck to the front of his best suit. “You might be a real cowboy after all,” she mused, and that simple statement, much to Tanner’s amazement, pleased him almost as much as knowing Sophie was safe with his best friend, Jack McCall.

“Thanks,” he said, resting his arms on the top rail of the corral fence and watching Butterpie eat.