RaeAnne Thayne - A Cold Creek Noel

Oh, she made him tired sometimes.

“Yes. That’s what I said.”

“I like it,” Jack offered with his unassailable kindergarten logic. “They have dogs and horses and cows.”

A couple of collies that looked very much like the one currently resting in his clinic watched them from the front porch of the main house as he pulled into the circular drive in front.

Before he could figure out what to do next, the door opened and Caidy Bowman trotted down the porch steps, pulling on a parka. She must have been watching for them, he thought. The long driveway would certainly give advance notice of anybody approaching.

She wore her dark hair in a braid down her back, topped with a tan Stetson. She looked rather sweet and uncomplicated, but somehow he knew the reality of Caidy Bowman was more tangled than her deceptively simple appearance would indicate.

He opened his door and climbed out as she approached his vehicle.

“The house is just there.” She gestured toward the small farmhouse in the trees. “Why don’t you drive closer so you don’t have to walk through the snow? Ridge plowed it out with the tractor this morning so you shouldn’t have any trouble. I’ll just meet you there.”

“Why?” He went around the vehicle and opened the passenger door. “Get in. We can ride together.”

For some reason she looked reluctant at that idea, but after a weird little pause, she finally came to where he was standing and jumped up into the vehicle. He closed the door behind her before she could change her mind.

The first thing he noticed after he was once more behind the wheel was the scent of her filling the interior. Though it was a cold and overcast December day, his car suddenly smelled of vanilla and rain-washed wildflowers on a mountain meadow somewhere.

He was aware of a completely inappropriate desire to inhale that scent deep inside him, to sit here in his car with his children in the backseat and just savor the sweetness.

Get a grip, Caldwell, he told himself. So she smelled good. He could walk into any perfume counter in town and probably get the same little kick in his gut.

Still, he was suddenly fiercely glad his house would be finished in only a few weeks. Much longer than that and he was afraid he would develop a serious thing for this prickly woman who smelled like a wild garden.

“Welcome to the River Bow Ranch.”

He almost thanked her before he realized she was looking in the backseat and talking to his children. She wore a genuine smile, probably the first one he had seen on her, and she looked like a bright, beautiful ray of sunshine on an overcast day.

“Can I ride one of your horses sometime?”

“Jack,” Ben chided, but Caidy only laughed.

“I think that can probably be arranged. We’ve got several that are very gentle for children. My favorite is Old Pete. He’s about the nicest horse you could ever meet.”

Jack beamed at her, his sunny, adorable self. “I bet I can ride a horse good. I have boots and everything.”

“You’re such a dork. Just because you have boots doesn’t make you a cowboy,” Ava said with an impatient snort.

“What about you, Ava? Do you like horses?”

In the rearview mirror, he didn’t miss his daughter’s eagerness but she quickly concealed it. He wondered sometimes if she was afraid to hope for things she wanted anymore because none of their prayers and wishes had been enough to keep Brooke alive.

“I guess,” she said, picking at the sleeve of her parka.

“You’ve come to the right place, then. I bet my niece Destry would love to take you out for a ride.”

Ava’s eyes widened. “Destry from my school? She’s your niece?”

Caidy smiled. “I guess so. There aren’t too many Destrys in this neck of the woods. You’ve met her?”

Ava nodded. “She’s a couple years older than me but on my very first day, Mrs. Dalton, the principal, had her show me around. She was supernice to me and she still says hi to me and stuff when she sees me at school.”

“I’m very glad to hear that. She better be nice. If she’s not, you let me know and I’ll give her a talking-to until her ears fall off.”

Jack laughed at the image. Ava looked as if she wanted to join him but she had become very good at hiding her amusement these days. Instead, she looked out the window again.

“Here we are,” Caidy said when he pulled up front of the house. “I turned up the heat earlier when I came down to clean a little. It should be nice and cozy for you.”

How much work had she done for them? He hoped it wasn’t much, even as he wondered why she was making this effort for them when he wasn’t at all sure she really wanted them there.

“So all the rattraps are gone?” he asked.

“Rats?” Ava asked in a horrified voice.

“There are no rats,” Caidy assured her quickly. “We have too many cats here at the River Bow. Your father was making a joke. Weren’t you?”

Was he? It had been quite a while since he had found much to joke about. Somehow Caidy Bowman brought out a long-forgotten side of him. “Yes, Ava. I was teasing.”

Judging by his daughter’s expression, she seemed to find that notion just as unsettling as the idea of giant rodents in her bed.

“Shall we go inside so you can see for yourself?” Caidy said.

“I want to see the rats!” Jack said.

“There are no rats,” Ben assured everybody again as Caidy pushed open the front door. It wasn’t locked, he noticed—something very different from his security-conscious world in California.

The scent of pine washed over them the moment they stepped inside.

“Look!” Jack exclaimed. “A Christmas tree! A real live one of our very own!”

Sure enough, in the corner was a rather scraggly pine tree as tall as he was, covered in multicolored Christmas lights.

He gazed at it, stunned at the sight and quite certain the tree hadn’t been there a few hours earlier. She had said the house was empty, so somehow in the past few hours Caidy Bowman must have dragged this tree in, set it in the stand and strung the Christmas lights.

She had done this for them. He didn’t know what to say. Somewhere inside him another little chunk of ice seemed to fall away.

“You didn’t need to do that,” he said, a little more gruffly than he intended.

“It was no big deal,” she answered. In the warmth of the room he thought he saw a tinge of color on her cheeks. “My brothers went a little crazy in the Christmas tree department. We cut our own in the mountains above the ranch after Thanksgiving, and this year they cut a few extras to give to people who might need them. This one was leftover.”

“What about the lights?”

“We had some extras lying around. I’m afraid this one is a little on the scrawny side, but paper garland and some ornaments will fix that right up. I bet your dad and Mrs. Michaels can help you make some,” she told Ava and Jack. As he might have expected, Jack looked excited about the idea but Ava merely shrugged.

He wouldn’t know the first thing about making ornaments for a Christmas tree. Brooke had always taken care of the holiday decorating and his housekeeper had stepped in after her death.

“Come on. I’ll give you the grand tour. It’s not much, as you can see. Just this room, the kitchen and dining room and the bedrooms upstairs.”

She was too modest. This room alone was already half again as big as one of the hotel rooms. The living room was comfortably furnished with a burgundy plaid sofa and a couple of leather recliners, and the television set was an older model but quite large.

One side wall was dominated by a small river rock fireplace with a mantel made of rough-hewn lumber. The fireplace was empty but someone—probably Caidy—had stacked several armloads of wood in a bin next to it. He could easily imagine how cozy the place would be with a fire in the hearth, the lights flickering on the tree and a basketball game on the television set. He wouldn’t even have to worry about turning the volume down so he didn’t wake Jack. It was an appealing thought.