“My head is telling me it’s a completely ridiculous idea to kiss you again.”

Caidy gazed at him for a long, silent moment, her eyes huge and her lips slightly parted. “And does your heart have other ideas? I hope so.”

“The kids—” Ben said, rather ridiculously.

“—are busy watching a show and paying absolutely no mind to us in here,” she finished.

He took a step forward, almost against his will. “This thing between us is crazy.”

“Completely insane,” she agreed.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Probably the same thing that’s wrong with me,” she murmured, her voice husky and low. She took a step forward, as well, until she was only a breath away, until he was intoxicated by the scent of her, fresh and clean and lovely.

He had to kiss her. It seemed as inevitable as the sunrise over the mountains.

A Cold

Creek Noel

RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RAEANNE THAYNE finds inspiration in the beautiful northern Utah mountains, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her books have won numerous honors, including RITA® Award nominations from Romance Writers of America and a Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers and can be contacted through her website, www.raeannethayne.com.

To Tennis and Kjersten Watkins, with love.

We can’t wait to see what life has in store for the two of you!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Excerpt

Chapter One

“Come on, Luke. Come on, buddy. Hang in there.”

Her wipers beat back the sleet and snow as Caidy Bowman drove through the streets of Pine Gulch, Idaho, on a stormy December afternoon. Only a few inches had fallen but the roads were still dangerous, slick as spit. For only a moment, she risked lifting one hand off the steering wheel of her truck and patting the furry shape whimpering on the seat beside her.

“We’re almost there. We’ll get you fixed up, I swear it. Just hang on, bud. A few more minutes. That’s all.”

The young border collie looked at her with a trust she didn’t deserve in his black eyes and she frowned, her guilt as bitter and salty as the solution the snowplows had put down on the roads.

Luke’s injuries were her fault. She should have been watching him. She knew the half-grown pup had a curious streak a mile wide—and a tendency not to listen to her when he had an itch to investigate something.

She was working on that obedience issue and they had made good strides the past few weeks, but one moment of inattention could be disastrous, as the past hour had amply demonstrated. She didn’t know if it was arrogance on her part, thinking her training of him was enough, or just irresponsibility. Either way, she should have kept him far away from Festus’s pen. The bull was ornery as a rattlesnake on a hot skillet and didn’t take kindly to curious young border collies nosing around his turf.

Alerted by Luke’s barking and then the bull’s angry snort, she had raced to old Festus’s pen just in time to watch Luke jig the wrong way and the bull stomp down hard on his haunches with a sickening crunch of bone.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and she cursed under her breath as the last light before the vet’s office turned yellow when she was still too far away to gun through it. She was almost tempted to keep going. Even if she were nabbed for running a red light by Pine Gulch’s finest, she could probably talk her way out of a ticket, considering her brother was the police chief and would certainly understand this was an emergency. If she were pulled over, though, it would mean an inevitable delay and she just didn’t have time for that.

The light finally changed and she took off fast, the back tires fishtailing on the icy road. She would just have to trust the salt bags she carried for traction in the bed of the pickup would do the job. Even the four-wheel drive of the truck was useless against black ice.

Finally, she reached the small square building that held the Pine Gulch Veterinary Clinic and pulled the pickup to the side doors where she knew it was only a short transfer inside to the treatment area.

She briefly considered carrying him in by herself, but it had taken the careful efforts of both her and her brother Ridge to slide a blanket under Luke and lift him into the seat of her pickup. They could bring out the stretcher and cart, she decided.

She rubbed Luke’s white neck. “I’m going to go get some help, okay? You just hold tight.”

He made a small whimper of pain and she bit down hard on her lip as her insides clenched with fear. She loved the little guy, even if he was nosy as a crow and even smarter, which was probably why his stubbornness was such a frustration.

He trusted her to take care of him and she refused to let him die.

She hurried to the front door, barely noticing the wind-driven sleet that gouged at her even under her Stetson.

Warm air washed over her when she opened the door, familiar with the scent of animals and antiseptic mixed in a stomach-churning sort of way with new paint.

“Hey, Caidy.” A woman in green scrubs rushed to the door. “You made good time from the River Bow.”

“Hi, Joni. I may have broken a few traffic laws, but this is an emergency.”

“After you called, I warned Ben you were on your way and what the situation was. He’s been getting ready for you. I’ll let him know you’ve arrived.”

Caidy waited, feeling the weight of each second ticking away. The new vet had only been in town a few weeks and already he had made changes to the clinic. Maybe she was just being contrary, but she had liked things better when Doc Harris ran the place. The whole reception area looked different. The cheerful yellow walls had been painted over with a boring white and the weathered, comfortable, old eighties-era couch and chairs were gone, replaced by modern benches covered in a slate vinyl that probably deflected anything a veterinarian’s patients could leak on it. A display of Christmas gifts appropriate for pets, including a massive stocking filled to the top with toys and a giant rawhide bone that looked as if it came from a dinosaur, hung in one corner.

Most significant, the reception area used to sit out in the open but it was now stuck behind a solid half wall topped with a glass partition.

It made sense to modernize from an efficiency point of view, but she had found the comfortably worn look of the office before more appealing.

Not that she cared about any of that right now, with Luke lying out in her truck, cold and hurt and probably afraid.

She shifted impatiently. Where was the man? Trimming his blasted nails? Only a few moments had passed but every second delay was too much. Just when she was about call out to Joni to see what was taking so long, the door into the treatment area opened and the new vet appeared.

“Where’s the dog?” he asked abruptly, and she had only a vague impression of a frowning dark-haired man in blue scrubs.

“Still out in my truck.”

He narrowed his gaze. “Why? I can’t treat him out there.”

She wanted to take that giant rawhide bone out of that stocking and bean him with it. “Yes, I’m aware of that,” she said, fighting down her frustration. “I didn’t want to move him. I’m afraid something might be broken.”

“I thought he was gored.”

She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she had said in that frantic call to let Joni know she was on her way.

“He did end up on the business end of a bull at some point. I’m not sure if that was before or after that bull stepped on him.”

His mouth tightened. “A young dog has no business running wild in the same vicinity as a dangerous bull.”

His criticism stung far too close to her own guilt for comfort. “We’re a working ranch at the River Bow, Dr. Caldwell. Accidents like this can happen.”

“They shouldn’t,” he snapped before turning around and heading back through the treatment area. She followed him, heartily wishing for Doc Harris right now. The grizzled old vet had taken care of every dog she had ever owned, from her very first border collie and best friend, Sadie, whom she still had.

Doc Harris was her friend and mentor. If he had been here, he would have wrapped her in a warm hug that smelled of liniment and cherry Life Savers and promised her everything would be all right.

Dr. Ben Caldwell was nothing like Dr. Harris. He was abrasive and arrogant and she already heartily disliked him.

His eyes narrowed with surprise and displeasure when he saw she had followed him from the waiting room to the clinic area.

“This way is quicker,” she explained. “I’m parked by the side door. I thought it would be easier to transport him on the stretcher from there.”

He didn’t say anything, only charged through the side door she indicated. She trotted after him, wondering how the Pine Gulch animal kingdom would get along without the kindness and compassion Dr. Harris had been renowned for.

Without waiting for her, he opened the door of the truck. As she watched, it was as if a different man had suddenly taken over. His harsh, set features seemed to ease and even the stiff set of his shoulders relaxed.

“Hello there,” he crooned from the open vehicle door to the dog. “You’ve got yourself into a mess, haven’t you?”

Even through his pain, Luke responded to the gentle-sounding stranger by trying hard to wag his tail. There was no room for both of them on the passenger side, so she went around to the driver’s side and opened that door, intent on helping to lift the dog from there. By the time she made it that short distance, Dr. Caldwell had already slipped a transfer sheet under the dog and was gripping the edges.

His hands were big, she noticed, with a little light area of skin where a wedding ring once had been.

She knew a little about him from the gossip around town. It was hard to miss it when he was currently staying at the Cold Creek Inn—owned and operated by her sister-in-law Laura, married to Caidy’s brother Taft.

Though Laura usually didn’t gossip about her guests, over dinner last week her other brother, Trace—who made it his business as police chief to find out about everyone moving into Pine Gulch—had interrogated her so skillfully, Laura probably didn’t realize what she had revealed.

From that conversation, Caidy had learned Ben Caldwell had two children, a girl and a boy, ages nine and five, respectively, and he had been a widower for two years.

Why on earth he had suddenly pulled up stakes to settle in a quiet town like Pine Gulch was a mystery to everyone. In her experience, people who came to this little corner of Idaho in the shadow of the Tetons were either looking for something or running away.

None of that was her business, she reminded herself. The only thing she cared about was the way he treated her dogs. Judging by how carefully he moved his hands over Luke’s injuries, he appeared competent and even kind, at least to animals—something she generally considered a far more important character indicator than how a man treated other people.

“Okay, Luke. Just lie still, there’s a good boy.” He spoke in a low, calm voice. “We’re going to move you now. Easy. Easy.”

He handed the stretcher across the cab to her and then reached for the transfer sheet. “I’m going to lift him slightly and then you can slide the board under him. Slowly. Yes. That’s it.”

She had plenty of experience transferring injured animals. Years of experience. It bothered her to be treated as if she didn’t know the first thing about this kind of emergency care, but now didn’t seem the time to correct him.

Together they carried the stretcher into the emergency treatment room and set the dog gingerly down on the exam table.

She didn’t like the pain in Luke’s eyes. It reminded her a lot of how Lucky, her brother Taft’s little beagle cross, had looked right after the car accident that had nearly killed him.

Now Lucky was happy as a pig in clover, she reminded herself. He lived with Taft and Laura and their two children at Taft’s house near the mouth of Cold Creek Canyon and thought he ruled the universe. If Lucky could survive his brush with death, she couldn’t see any reason for Luke to do otherwise.

“That’s a nasty puncture wound. At least an inch or two deep. I’m surprised it’s not deeper.”

That could be because she had managed to pull Luke to safety before Festus could finish taking his bad mood out on a helpless dog.

“What about the leg? Can you save it?”

“I’m going to have to x-ray before I can answer that. How far are you prepared to go for his care?”

It took her a moment to realize what he was asking in his blunt way. A difficult part of life as a vet was the knowledge that, although a vet might have the power to treat an animal successfully, sometimes the owner’s ability—or willingness, for that matter—to pay was the ultimate decision maker.

“Whatever is necessary,” she answered stiffly. “I don’t care about the cost. Just do what you have to do.”

He nodded, his attention still on her dog, and she wanted to think his hard expression thawed slightly, like a tiny crackle of ice on the edge of a much deeper lake.

“Regardless of what the X-ray shows, his treatment is going to take a few hours. You can go. Leave your number with Joni and I’ll have her call you when I know more.”

“No. I’ll wait.”

That surprise in his blue eyes annoyed the heck out of her. Did he think she would just abandon her dog here with a stranger for a couple of hours while she went off to have her hair done?

“Your choice.”

“I can help you back here. I’ve...had some training and I often helped Doc Harris. I actually worked here when I was a teenager.”

If her life had gone a little more according to plan, she might have been the one taking over Doc Harris’s clinic, though she hoped she wouldn’t be as surly and unlikable as this new veterinarian.

“That won’t be necessary.” Dr. Caldwell dismissed all her hopes and dreams and volunteer work at the clinic as if they meant nothing. “Joni and I can handle it. If you insist on waiting, you can go ahead and have a seat in the waiting room.”

What a jerk. She could push the matter. She was paying for the treatment here, after all. If she wanted to stay with her dog, there was nothing Dr. Ben No-Bedside-Manner Caldwell could do about it. But she didn’t want to waste time and possibly jeopardize Luke’s treatment.

“Fine,” she muttered. She turned and pushed through the doors into the waiting room, seething with frustration.

After quickly sending a message to Ridge updating him on the situation and reminding her brother he would have to pick his daughter, Destry, up from the bus stop, she plopped onto one of the uncomfortable gray benches and grabbed a magazine off the side table.

She was leafing through it, barely even registering the headlines in her worry over her dog, when the bells on the door chimed and a little boy of about five burst through, followed a little more slowly by an older girl.

“Daaad! We’re here!”

“Hush.” A round, cheerful-looking woman who looked to be in her early sixties followed more slowly. “You know better than that, young man. Your father might be in the middle of a procedure.”

“Can I go back and find him?” the girl asked.

“Because Joni isn’t out here either, they must both be busy. He won’t want to be bothered. You two sit down here and I’ll go back to let him know we’re here.”

“I could go,” the girl said a little sulkily, but she plopped onto the bench across from Caidy. Like father, like daughter, she thought. This was obviously the new vet’s family, and his daughter, at least, seemed to share more than blue eyes with her father.

“Sit down,” the girl ordered her brother. The boy didn’t quite stick his tongue out at his sister, but it was a close one. Instead, he ignored her—probably a much worse insult, if Caidy remembered her own childhood with three pesky brothers—and wandered over to stand directly in front of Caidy.

The little boy had a widow’s peak in his brown hair and huge dark-lashed blue eyes. A Caldwell trait, apparently.

“Hi.” He beamed at her. “I’m Jack Caldwell. My sister’s name is Ava. Who are you?”

“My name is Caidy,” she answered.

“My dad’s a dog doctor.”

“Not just dogs,” the girl corrected. “He’s also a cat doctor. And sometimes even horses and cows.”

“I know,” Caidy answered. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Is your dog sick?” Jack asked her.

“In a way. He was hurt on our ranch. Your dad is working on him now.”

“He’s really good,” the girl said with obvious pride. “I bet your dog will be just fine.”

“I hope so.”

“Our dog was hit by a car once and my dad fixed him and now he’s all better,” Jack said. “Well, except he only has three legs. His name is Tri. My dad says it’s ’cause he always tries hard, even though he only has three legs.”

Despite her worry, she managed a smile, more than a little charmed by the boy—and by the idea of the taciturn veterinarian showing any hint of sweetness.

“Tri means three,” Ava informed her in a haughty sort of tone. “You know, like a tricycle has three wheels.”

“Good to know.”

Before the children could say anything else, the older woman came back through the door leading out of the treatment room, her features set in a rueful smile.

“Looks like we’re on our own for dinner, kids. Your dad is busy fixing an injured dog and he’s going to be a while. We’ll just go catch some dinner and then head back to the hotel for homework and bed.”

“You’re staying at the Cold Creek Inn, aren’t you?” Caidy asked.

The other woman looked a bit wary as she nodded. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

“I’m Caidy Bowman. My sister-in-law Laura runs the inn.”

“You’re Chief Bowman’s sister?” There was a definite warmth in the woman’s voice now, Caidy noticed wryly. Her charmer of a brother often had that effect on those of the female persuasion, no matter their age.

“I am. Both Chief Bowmans.” With one brother who was the police chief and the other who headed up the fire department, not much exciting happened in town without someone in her family being in the thick of it.

“How nice to meet you. I’m Anne Michaels. I’m Dr. Caldwell’s housekeeper. Or I will be when he finally gets into his house. With the maids at the inn cleaning our rooms for us, there’s not much for me to do in that department. Right now I’m just the nanny, I suppose.”

“Oh?”

The woman apparently didn’t need any more encouragement than that simple syllable. “Dr. Caldwell is building a house on Cold Creek Road. He was supposed to close on it last week, but the contractor ran into some problems and here we are, still staying at the inn. Which is lovely, don’t get me wrong, but it’s still a hotel. After three weeks, all of us are a little tired of it. And now it looks like we’ll be there until after the New Year. Christmas in a hotel. Can you imagine such a thing?”

Maybe that explained the man’s grouchiness. She felt a little pang of sympathy, then she remembered how he had basically shoved her out of the treatment area. No, he was probably born with that temperament. He and Festus would get along just fine.

“It must be very frustrating for all of you.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Two children in a hotel, even a couple of rooms, for all those weeks is just too much. They need space to run. All children do. Why, in San Jose, the children had a huge backyard, complete with a pool and a swing set that rivaled the equipment at the nearest park.”

“Is that where you’re from, then? California?”

Anne Michaels nodded and Caidy thought she saw a note of wistfulness in the woman’s eyes that didn’t bode well for the chances of Dr. Caldwell’s housekeeper-slash-nanny sticking around in Pine Gulch.

Anne watched the children, who were paying them no heed as they played a game on an electronic device Ava had pulled out of her backpack.

“Yes. I’m from California, born and bred. Not Dr. Caldwell. He’s from back East. Chicago way. But he left everything without a backward look to head west for veterinary school at UC-Davis and that’s where he met the late Mrs. Caldwell. They hired me to help out around the house when she was pregnant with little Jack there and I’ve been with them ever since. Those poor children needed me more than ever after their mother died. Dr. Caldwell too. That was a terrible time, I tell you.”

“I’m sure.”

“When he decided to move here to Idaho, he gave me the option of leaving his employment with a glowing recommendation, but I just couldn’t do it. I love those children, you know?”

Caidy could relate. She loved her niece Destry as fiercely as if the girl were her own. Stepping in to help raise her after her mother walked out on Ridge and their daughter had created a powerful bond between them as unshakable as the Tetons.

“I’m sure you do.”

Anne Michaels gave a rueful shake of her head. “Look at me, going on to a perfect stranger. Staying at that hotel all these weeks is making me batty!”

“Perhaps you could find a temporary rental situation until the house is finished,” she suggested.

“That’s what I wanted to do but Ben doesn’t think we can find anyone willing to rent us a place for only a few weeks, especially over the holidays.”

Caidy thought of the foreman’s cottage, empty for the past six months since the young married couple Ridge had hired to help around the ranch had moved on to take a job at a Texas ranch.

It was furnished with three bedrooms and would probably fit the Caldwells’ needs perfectly, but she was hesitant to mention it. She didn’t like the man. Why on earth would she want him living only a quarter mile away?

“I could ask around for you if you’d like. We have a few vacation rentals in town that might be available. At least it might give you a little breathing space over the holidays until the house is finished.”

“How kind you are!” Mrs. Michaels exclaimed.

A fine guilt pinched at her. If she were truly kind, she would immediately offer the foreman’s cottage.

“Everyone here in Pine Gulch has been so nice and welcoming to us,” the woman went on.

“I hope you feel at home here.”

Again that wistfulness drifted across the woman’s features like an autumn leaf tossed by the breeze, but she blinked it away. “I’m guessing the dog Dr. Caldwell is working on back there is yours, then.”

Caidy nodded. “He had a run-in with a bull. When you pit a forty-pound dog against a ton of beef, the bull usually wins.”

She should be back there with him. Darn it. If she were better at handling confrontations, she would have told Dr. Arrogant that she wasn’t going anywhere. Instead, she was sitting out here fretting.

“He’s a wonderful veterinarian, my dear. I’m sure your pet will be better before you know it.”

The border collies at the River Bow Ranch weren’t exactly pets—they were a vital part of the workload. Except for Sadie, anyway, who was too old to work the cattle anymore. She didn’t bother to correct the woman, nor did she express any of her own doubts about the new veterinarian’s competence.

“I’m hungry, Mrs. Michaels. When are we going to eat?” Bored with the game apparently, Jack had wandered back to them.

“I think your father is going to be busy for a while yet. Why don’t you and Ava and I go find something? Perhaps dinner at the café tonight would be fun and we can pick something up for your father for later.”

“Can I have one of the sweet rolls?” he asked, his eyes lighting up as if it were already Christmas morning.

The housekeeper laughed. “We’ll have to see about that. I’d say the café’s business in sweet rolls has tripled since we came to town, thanks to you alone.”

“They are delish,” Caidy agreed, smiling at the very cute boy.

Mrs. Michaels rose to her feet with a creak and a pop of some joint. “It was lovely to meet you, Caidy Bowman.”

“I’m happy to meet you too. And I’ll keep my eye out for a suitable vacation rental.”

“You’ll need to take that up with Dr. Caldwell, but thank you.”

The woman seemed to be efficient, Caidy thought as she watched her herd the children out the door.

The reception room seemed even more bleak and colorless after the trio left. Though it was just past six, the night was already dark on this, one of the shortest days of the year. Caidy fidgeted, leafing aimlessly through her magazine for a few moments longer, then finally closed it with a rustle of pages and tossed it back onto the pile.

Darn it. That was her dog back there. She couldn’t sit out here doing nothing. At the very least she deserved to know what was going on. She gathered her courage, took a deep breath and pushed through the door.

Chapter Two

Ben made the last stitch to close the incision on the puncture wound, his head throbbing and his shoulders tight from the long day that had started with an emergency call to treat an ailing horse at four in the morning.

He would have loved a nice evening with his kids and then a few hours of zone-out time watching basketball on the hotel television set. Even if he had to turn the sound low so he didn’t wake up Jack, the idea sounded heavenly.

The past week had been a rough one, busy and demanding. This was what he wanted, he reminded himself. Even though the workload was heavy, he finally had the chance to build his own practice, to forge new relationships and become part of a community.

“There. That should do it for now.”

“What a mess. After seeing how close that puncture wound was to the liver, I can’t believe he survived,” Joni said.

He didn’t want to admit to his assistant—who, after three weeks, still seemed to approve of the job he was doing—that the dog’s condition was still touch and go.

“I think he’s going to make it,” she went on, ever the optimist. “Unlike that poor Newfoundland earlier.”

All his frustration of earlier in the afternoon came surging back as he began dressing the wound. A tragedy, that was. The beautiful dog had jumped out of the back of a moving pickup truck and been hit by the car driving behind it.

That dog hadn’t been as lucky as Luke here. Her injuries were just too severe and she had died on this very treatment table.

What had really pissed him off had been the attitude of the owner, more concerned at the loss of all the money he had invested in the animal than in the loss of life.

“Neither accident would have happened if not for irresponsible owners.”

Joni, busy cleaning up the inevitable mess he always left behind during a surgery, looked a little surprised at his vehemence.

“I agree when it comes to Artie Palmer. He’s an idiot who should have his privileges to own any animals revoked. But not Caidy Bowman. She’s the last one I would call an irresponsible owner. She trains dogs and horses at the River Bow. Nobody around here does a better job.”

“She didn’t train this one very well, did she, if he was running wild and tangled with a bull?”

“Apparently not.”

He turned at the new voice and found the dog’s owner standing in the doorway from the reception area, her lovely features taut. He swore under his breath. He meant what he said, but he supposed it didn’t need to be said to her.

“I thought I suggested you wait in the other room.”

“A suggestion? Is that what you city vets call that?” She shrugged. “I’m not particularly good at doing as I’m told, Dr. Caldwell.”

Sometime during the process of caring for her dog, Ben had come to the uncomfortable realization that he had acted like a jerk to her. He never insisted owners wait outside the treatment room unless he thought they might have weak stomachs. So why had he changed policy for Caidy Bowman?

Something about her made him a little nervous. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but it might have something to do with those impossibly green eyes and the sweet little tilt to her mouth.

“We just finished. I was about to call you back.”

“I’m glad I finally disregarded your strongly worded suggestion, then. May I?”

He gestured agreement and she approached the table, where the dog was still working off the effects of the anesthesia.

“There’s my brave boy. Oh, Luke.” She smoothed a hand over the dog’s head. The dog’s eyes opened slightly then closed again and his breathing slowed, as if he could rest comfortably now, knowing she was near.

“It will probably take another half hour or so for the rest of the anesthesia to wear off and then we’ll have to keep him here, at least overnight.”

“Will someone stay with him?”

At his practice in San Jose, he and a technician would alternate stopping in every few hours through the night when they had very ill dogs staying at the clinic, but he hadn’t had time yet to get fully staffed.

He nodded, watching his plans for a nice steak dinner and a basketball game in the hotel room go up in smoke. He had become pretty used to the cot in his office lately. Whatever would he do without Mrs. Michaels?

“Someone will be here with him. Don’t worry about that.”

A look of surprise flickered in her eyes. He couldn’t figure out why for a moment, until he realized she was reacting to his soft tone. He really must have been a jackass to her.

“I’m sorry about...earlier.” Apologies didn’t come easily. He could probably thank his stiff, humorless grandfather for that, but this one seemed necessary. “About not letting you come in during the treatment, I mean. I should have. And about what I said just now. I’m usually not so...harsh. It’s been a particularly hard day and I’m afraid I may have been taking it out on you.”

She blinked a little but concealed her emotions behind an impassive look. For some reason, that made him feel even more like an idiot, a sensation he didn’t like at all.

“You were able to save his leg. I thought for sure you would have to amputate.”

“He wouldn’t be much use as a ranch dog, then, would he?”

Her look was as cool as the December night. “Probably not. Isn’t it a good thing that’s not the only thing that matters to me?”

So she wasn’t like his previous client, who hadn’t cared about his injured dog—only dollars and cents.

“I was able to pin the leg for now, but there’s no guarantee it will heal properly. We still might have to take it. He was lucky, if you want the truth. Insanely lucky. I don’t know how he made it through a run-in with a bull in one piece. His injuries could have been much worse.”

“What about where he was gored?”

“The bull missed all vital organs. The puncture wound is only a couple inches deep. I guess the bull wasn’t that serious.”

“You would think otherwise if you had been there. He definitely was seeing red. After I pulled the dog out, he rammed the fence so hard he knocked one of the poles out of its foundation.”

She pulled the dog out? Crazy woman, to mess with a bull on a rampage. What was she thinking?

“Looks like he’s coming around,” he said, not about to enter that particular fray.

The dog whimpered and Caidy Bowman leaned down, her dark hair almost a match to the dog’s coat. “Hey there. You’re in a fix now, aren’t you, Luke-my-boy. You’ll be all right. I know it hurts now and you’re confused and scared but Dr. Caldwell fixed you up and before you know it you’ll be running around the ranch with King and Sadie and all the others.”

Though he had paperwork to complete, he couldn’t seem to wrench himself away. He stood watching her interact with the dog and winced to himself at how quickly he had misjudged her. By the gentleness of her tone and the comforting way she smoothed a hand over his fur, it was obvious the woman cared about her animal and was not inexperienced with injuries.

Next time maybe he wouldn’t be quick to make surly comments when he was having a miserable day.

She smelled delicious, like vanilla splashed on wildflowers. The scent of her drifted to him, a bright counterpoint to the sometimes unpleasant smells of a busy veterinary clinic.

It was an unsettling discovery. He didn’t want to notice anything about her. Not the sweet way she smelled or the elegant curve of her neck or how, when she tucked her hair behind her ear, she unveiled a tiny beauty mark just below the lobe...

He caught the direction of his thoughts and shut them down, appalled at himself. He forced himself to move away and block the sound of her low voice crooning to the dog.

He had almost forgotten about his technician until she came out of the employee changing room, shoving her arms through the sleeves of her parka. “Do you mind if I go? I’m sorry. It’s just past six-thirty and I’m supposed to be at my Bible study Christmas party in half an hour and I still have to run home and pick up my cookies for the swap.”

“No. Get out of here. I’m sorry I kept you late.”

“Wasn’t your fault.”

“Blame my curious dog,” Caidy said with an apologetic smile that didn’t mask the concern in her eyes.

Joni shrugged. “Accidents happen, especially on a ranch.”

Ben felt another twist of guilt. She was right. Even the most careful pet owner couldn’t prevent everything.

“Thanks, Ben. You both have a good night,” Joni said.

“I’ll walk you out,” he said.

She rolled her eyes—this was an argument they had been having since he arrived. His clinic in San Jose hadn’t been in the best part of the city and he would always make sure the women who worked for him made it safely to their cars in the parking lot.

It was probably an old-fashioned habit, but when he had been in vet school, a fellow student and friend had been assaulted on the way to her car after a late-night class and had ended up dropping out of school.

The cold air outside the clinic blew a little bit of energy into him. The snow of earlier had slowed to just a few flurries. The few houses around his clinic blinked their cheerful holiday lights and he regretted again that he hadn’t strung a few strands in the window of the clinic.

Joni’s SUV was covered in snow and he helped her brush it off.

“Thank you, Dr. Caldwell,” Joni said with a smile. “You’re the only employer I’ve ever had who scrapes my windows.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you right now,” he said truthfully. “I just don’t want you getting into an accident on the way home.”

“Thanks. Have a good night. Call me if you need me to spell you during the night.”

He nodded and waved her off, then returned to the office invigorated from the cold air. He pulled open the door and caught the incongruous notes of a soft melody.

Caidy was humming, he realized. He paused to listen and it took just a moment for him to recognize the tune as “Greensleeves.” He was afraid to move, not wanting to intrude on the moment. The notes seemed to seep through him, sweet and pure and somehow peaceful amid the harsh lights and complicated equipment of the clinic.

Judging by her humming, he would guess Caidy Bowman had a lovely voice.

He didn’t think he had made a sound, but she somehow sensed him anyway. She looked up and a delicate pink flush washed over her cheeks. “Sorry. You must think I’m ridiculous, humming to a dog. He started to get agitated and...it seemed to calm him.”

No surprise there. The melody had done the same to him. “Looks like he’s sleeping again. I can take things from here if you need to go.”

She looked uncertain. “I could stay. My brother and niece can handle chores tonight for the rest of my animals.”

“We’ve got this covered. Don’t worry. He’ll be well taken care of, Ms. Bowman.”

“Just Caidy. Please. No one calls me Ms. anything.”

“Caidy, then.”

“Is someone coming to relieve you?”

“I’m not fully staffed yet and Joni has her party tonight and then her husband and kids to get back to. No big deal. I have a cot in my office. I should be fine. When we have overnight emergency cases, I make do there.”

He had again succeeded in surprising her, he saw.

“What about your children?” she asked.

“They’ll be fine with Mrs. Michaels. It’s only for a night.”

“I... Thank you.”

“You’ll have a hefty bill for overnight care,” he warned.

“I expected it. I worked here a decade ago and know how much things used to cost—and I’ve seen those charges go up in the years since.” She paused. “I hate to leave him.”

“He’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Come on. I’ll walk you out.”

“Is that a service you provide for every female who comes through your office?”

Close enough. “I need to lock up anyway.”

She gathered her coat and shrugged into it, and then he led her back the way he had just come. The moon was filtering through the clouds, painting lovely patterns of pale light on the new snow.

Caidy Bowman drove a well-used late-model pickup truck with a king cab that was covered in mud. Bales of hay were stacked two high in the back.

“Be careful. The roads are likely to be slick after the snows of earlier.”

“I’ve been driving these roads since before I turned sixteen. I can handle a little snow.”

“I’m sure you can. I just don’t want you to be the next one in need of stitching.”

“Not much chance of that, but thank you for your concern. And for all you’ve done today. I’m sorry you won’t see much of your children.”

“The clinic is closed tomorrow. I can spend the whole day with them. I suppose we’ll have to go look for a temporary furnished house somewhere or I’m going to have a mutiny on my hands from Mrs. Michaels, which would be a nightmare.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, and he had the distinct impression she was waging some internal debate. Her gaze shifted to the door they had just exited through and back to him, then she drew in a breath.

“We have an empty foreman’s cottage on the River Bow where you could stay.”

The words spilled out of her, almost as if she had been trying to hold them back. He barely noticed, stunned by the offer.

“It’s nothing fancy but it’s fully furnished,” she went on quickly. “It does only have three bedrooms, but if you took one and Mrs. Michaels took the other, the children could share.”

“Whoa. Hold on. How do you know Mrs. Michaels? And who told you we might be looking for a place?”

“We met in the waiting room earlier. I knew you were staying at the inn because my sister-in-law Laura runs it.”

If not for that moment of sweetness when he had found her humming a soothing song to her dog, he would have had a tough time believing the warm and welcoming innkeeper could be any relation to this prickly woman.

“Anyway, your housekeeper mentioned you might be looking for a place. I, uh, immediately thought of the foreman’s cottage on our ranch. Nobody’s using it right now, though I do try to stop in once a week or so to keep the dust down. Like I said, it’s not much.”

“We could manage. Are you certain?”

“I’ll have to ask my brother first. Though all four of us share ownership of the ranch, Ridge is really the one in charge. I don’t think he’ll say no, though. Why would he?”

He didn’t understand this woman. He had been extraordinarily rude to her, yet she was offering to help solve all his domestic problems in one fell swoop.

“I’m astonished, Ms. Bowman. Er, Caidy. Why would you make such an offer to a complete stranger?”

“You saved my dog,” she said simply. “Besides that, I liked Mrs. Michaels and I gather she’s had enough of hotel living. And how will St. Nick find your children in a hotel, as lovely as the Cold Creek Inn might be these days? They should have a proper house for the holidays, where they can play.”

“I agree. That was the plan all along, but circumstances haven’t exactly cooperated.”

He had planned to spend the entire next day looking around for somewhere that better met their needs. He never expected the answer would fall right in his lap. A less cynical man might even call it a Christmas miracle.

“I still have to talk to Ridge. I can let you know his answer in the morning when I come to check on Luke.”

“Thank you.”

She gave him a hesitant smile just as the moonlight shifted. The light combined with her smile managed to transform her features from pretty to extraordinarily beautiful.

“Good night. Thank you again for your hard work.”

“You’re welcome.”

He watched her drive away, her headlights cutting through the darkness. When he had agreed to buy James Harris’s practice, he had been seeking a quiet, easy community to raise his family, a place where they could settle in and become part of things.

Pine Gulch had already provided a few more surprises than he expected—and he suddenly suspected Caidy Bowman might be one more.

Chapter Three

“You say the new vet only needs a place to stay for a few weeks?”

Caidy nodded at her oldest brother, who stood at the sink loading his and Destry’s supper dishes into the dishwasher. “That’s my understanding. He’s building a new house on Cold Creek Road. I’m guessing it’s in that new development near Taft’s place. Apparently, it was supposed to be finished before he took the job, but it’s behind schedule. Now it won’t be ready until after Christmas.”

“That’s a nice area. Heck of a view. I imagine his house is probably a good sight better than our foreman’s cottage.”

“They’re at the inn now. I got the impression the children and the housekeeper might be going a little stir-crazy there.”

Ridge straightened and gave her a look she recognized well. It was his patented What were you thinking? look. He was ten years older than she was and she loved him dearly. He had stepped in after their parents died and had raised her for the last few years of high school and she would never be able to repay him for being her rock, even when his own marriage was faltering. He was tough and hard on the outside and sweet as could be underneath all the layers.

He still drove her crazy sometimes.

“You ever stop to think that Laura might not be too thrilled if you go around finding other lodging arrangements for her paying guests?”

“I called her already and she was cool with it. I know it’s lost business, but all I had to do was paint the mental picture of Alex and Maya cooped up in a couple of hotel rooms for weeks on end—including through Christmas—and she had complete sympathy for Dr. Caldwell and his housekeeper. She thought it was a great idea.”

She didn’t bother telling her brother that Taft’s wife had also dropped a couple of matchmaking hints a mile wide about how gorgeous the new vet was. He was kind to animals and he loved his kids. What more did she need? Laura had implied.

Ridge didn’t need to know that. Much as she loved both of her sisters-in-law and considered Laura and Becca perfect for each respective twin, she didn’t need her brothers joining in and trying to look around for prospective partners for her. The very idea of what they might come up with gave her chills.

After one of his long, thoughtful pauses, Ridge finally nodded. “Can’t see any harm in Dr. Caldwell and his family moving in for a few weeks. The house is only sitting there empty. I can run the tractor down the lane to make sure it’s cleared up for them. It might need the cobwebs swept and a little airing out.”

“I’ll take care of everything tomorrow after I check on Luke.”

So it was settled, then. She had to fight the urge to give a giant, cartoon-style gulp. What had she just gotten herself into? She didn’t want the man here.

Okay, he had been a little less like a jackass toward the end of her visit to the clinic with Luke, but that didn’t mean she was obligated to invite him to move in down the road, for Pete’s sake.

She still wasn’t quite sure what had motivated her offer. Maybe that little spark of compassion in his blue eyes when he had tended to Luke with that surprising gentleness. Or maybe it was simply that she couldn’t resist his cute son’s charm.

Whatever the reason, they would only be there a few weeks. She likely wouldn’t even see the man, especially as it appeared he spent most of his time at the veterinary clinic. And she could be comfortable knowing she had done her good deed for the day. Wasn’t Christmas the perfect time for a little welcoming generosity?

“What did you think of his doctoring?” Ridge asked.

She thought of Luke and his carefully bandaged injuries. “He’s not Doc Harris but I suppose he’ll do.”

Ridge chuckled. “You’ll never think anybody is as good as Doc Harris. The two of you have taken care of a lot of animals together.”

She had loved working at the vet clinic when she was in high school. It was just about the only thing that had kept her going after her parents died, those quiet moments when she would be holding a sick or injured animal and feeling some measure of peace.

“He’s a good man. Dr. Caldwell has some pretty big boots to fill,” she answered.

“From rumors I’ve been hearing around town, he’s doing a good job of it so far.”

She didn’t want to talk about the veterinarian anymore. It was bad enough she couldn’t seem to think about anything else since she had left the clinic.

“What were you saying to Destry after I started clearing the dishes? I heard something about the wagon,” Caidy said.

He glanced through the open doorway into the dining room, where Destry was bent over the table working on a homework assignment about holiday traditions in Europe.

“Des asked me if she could invite Gabi and a couple of their other friends over for a wagon ride Sunday night. She suggested caroling to the neighbors.”

She never should have shared with Destry her memories of doing that very thing with their parents when she and the boys were young. “What did you tell her?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. She could tell by his expression that he had given in. Ridge might be a hard man when it came to their cattle and the ranch, but when it came to his daughter he was soft as new taffy.

“You’re a good father, Ridge.”

“She loves Christmas,” he finally said. “What can I do?”

The rest of them weren’t quite as fond of the holidays as Des but they put on a good show for her sake. Since their parents’ murders just a few days before Christmas eleven years ago, the holidays seemed to dredge up difficult emotions.

Becca and Laura had worked some kind of sparkly holiday magic over Trace and Taft. This year the twins seemed to be more into the spirit of Christmas than she’d ever seen them. They had both volunteered to cut trees for everyone. They had even gone a little overboard, cutting a few extras for neighbors and friends.

She and Ridge didn’t share their enthusiasm, though they both went through the motions every year. Caidy even had all her Christmas presents wrapped and the actual holiday was still more than a week away. No more last-minute panics for her this year.

“What time are they coming?”

“I told her to make arrangements for about seven. I figured we would be done with Sunday dinner by then.”

Though Taft and Trace both lived closer to town, her brothers usually brought their families out to the ranch every week. With the hectic pace of their lives protecting and serving the good people of Pine Gulch, it was sometimes the only chance she had to see them all week.

“I’ll throw some cookies in just before they get here so they can have something warm in their little bellies before they go. And I’ll make hot chocolate for the ride, of course.”

“Thanks. Destry will appreciate that, I’m sure.” He finished wiping down the countertop and set the cloth on the sink’s edge. “You won’t consider coming with us?”

By his solemn expression, she knew he was aware just what he asked of her. “I don’t think so.”

“You would really send me off on my own with five or six giggly girls?”

“You can take one of the dogs with you,” she offered with a grin.

He made a face but quickly grew serious again. “It’s been eleven years, Caidy. Taft and Trace have moved on and both have families. Of all of us, you deserve to do the same. I wish you could find a little Christmas joy again.”

“I find plenty of joy the rest of the year. Just not so much in December.”

His mouth tightened, his eyes darkening with familiar sadness. Each of them had struggled in different ways after their parents’ deaths. Ridge had become more stoic and controlled, Taft had gone a little crazy dating all the wild women at the tavern in town and Trace had become a dedicated lawman.

And she was still hiding away here at the River Bow.

“You need to move on,” her brother said. “Maybe it’s time you think about trying school again.”

“Maybe.” She gave a noncommittal answer, too tired to fight with him right now after the ordeal of Luke’s injury and the hours spent in the waiting room of the veterinary clinic. “Hey, thanks again for letting the vet stay in the foreman’s cottage. It shouldn’t be longer than a few weeks.”

Ridge wasn’t fooled for a moment. He knew she was trying to change the subject. For once he didn’t try to call her on it.

“Just think. For a few weeks anyway we’ll have our own veterinarian-in-residence. With your menagerie, that should come in pretty handy.”

She made a face. Given her unwilling reaction to the man, she would rather not have need of his professional services again anytime soon.

* * *

A good four inches of snow fell during the night. It clung to the trees and bowed down the branches, turning the town into an enchanting winter wonderland, especially with the craggy mountains looming in the distance.

Added to the few inches that had fallen the previous evening, that should be plenty for Destry to have a great time with her friends on the sleigh ride the next night, Caidy thought as she drove through the quiet stillness of the unplowed roads on her way to the clinic the next morning.

It wasn’t yet seven. She hadn’t slept well, her dreams a troubled, tangled mess. With worry for Luke uppermost in her mind, she had risen early and finished her chores. Ridge could take care of breakfast for him and Destry when he finished his own chores. Saturday morning pancakes were his specialty.

Even with her restless sleep, she could appreciate the beauty of the morning. Colorful Christmas trees gleamed in the windows of a few houses, and she liked to imagine the children there rushing to plug in the lights the moment they woke up so they could enjoy the display before the sun was fully up.

When she reached Dr. Caldwell’s office, she wasn’t particularly surprised to see the parking lot hadn’t been plowed yet. Like many of the small businesses in Pine Gulch, he probably paid a service to take care of that for him and the plows hadn’t made it here yet.

With four-wheel drive and high clearance, her truck had no problem navigating through the snow. Mindful of helping the plow work around her vehicle, she parked at the edge of the lot, next to a snow-covered Range Rover she assumed must belong to Ben.

As she headed for the building, she worried she might be waking him after a long night of watching over Luke. The sidewalks had been cleared, though. Unless he paid someone else to take care of that chore, she guessed Ben had taken care of the shoveling himself.

She wasn’t surprised to find the front door locked. When Doc Harris was here, she never had to bother with the front door; she could use the side entrance she had used the night before.

Likely that’s where she would find Ben Caldwell. She trudged through the snow, enjoying the brisk cold and the scent of snowy pine. A couple hard raps on the door elicited no response. She checked the door and the knob turned easily in her hand.

After a quick internal debate, she turned the knob and stepped inside. She opened her mouth to call out a greeting but the words vanished somewhere in the vicinity of her tongue—along with any remaining air in her lungs—at the sight of the new veterinarian coming out of the locker room wearing only jeans and toweling off his wet hair.

That dramatic cartoon gulp sounded in her head again. Wow. Double wow. With ice cream on top.

His chest was broad and well-defined with solid muscle and a little line of hair arrowed down to disappear in the waistband of his Levi’s, where he hadn’t yet fastened the top button.

Awareness bloomed inside her, as bright and vivid as the always unexpected crocuses that popped up through the snow along the fenceline of the River Bow every spring.

Her toes tingled and her heartbeat kicked up a notch and she wanted to stand here for the next few years and just stare.

He continued toweling his hair, oblivious to her, biceps flexing with the motion, and she completely forgot about the reason she had come. Suddenly he dropped the towel and saw her standing there.

His pupils widened and for a long moment, he returned her stare. Tension seethed between them, writhing and alive. Her insides trembled and every thought in her head seemed scrambled and incoherent.

Finally he cleared his throat. “Oh. Hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Sorry.” Her voice sounded raspy and she quickly cleared it, mortified that he had caught her gaping at him like Destry and her friends at a Justin Bieber concert. “I knocked and was just checking the door and it opened and...there you were.”

Could she sound any more stupid? Good grief. She wanted to slink away through the door and bury her face in a pile of snow somewhere. Anybody might think she’d never seen a gorgeous, half-naked man before.

“I just... I can go and come back, uh, later.”

“Why?” He grabbed a clean scrub top and she couldn’t seem to look away as he pulled it over that delicious chest, her gaze fixed on the disappearance of that little strip of hair trailing down his abdomen.

Despite his towel job, his hair was still wet and sticking up in spikes. He made an effort to smooth it down but only ended up making it look more tousled and sexy.

She wanted to gulp again, feeling very much like some ridiculous maiden aunt.

Which she was.

“I shouldn’t have come so early. I was just...concerned about how you made it through the night.”

He shrugged, though she thought she noticed a little spark of something in the depths of his blue eyes. “Not too badly. Luke slept most of the night. I imagine he’s going to be ready for a walk around the yard soon.”

That must have been why he had cleared away the snow around the sidewalk. She had wondered why that had been a priority, especially because he had told her the clinic would be closed that day.

She fought the little burst of warmth in her chest. Get a grip, she told herself. She wasn’t interested in some prickly veterinarian who jumped to conclusions and made snap judgments about people before he knew the facts.

Even if he did have a flat stomach she wanted to trail her fingers along...

She blushed and looked away. Her dog. That’s why she was here—to check on Luke. Not to engage in completely inappropriate fantasies about a man who would be living just a stone’s throw away from her.

“I can take him out if you’re sure he’s up to it.”

“We made one trip out in the night. He seemed to handle it okay. Let’s try again.”

She headed to the crate where Luke lay. As if sensing her presence, his eyes opened and he tried to wag his tail, which just about broke her heart. “Shhh. Easy. Easy. There’s my boy. How’s my favorite guy?”

The dog’s black tail flapped again on the soft blankets inside the crate. He tried to scramble up, then subsided again with a whimper.

“He’s due for pain meds again. I was planning to try to slip a pill in some peanut butter.”

She unlatched the door of the crate and reached in to rub his chin. “I hope you didn’t keep Dr. Caldwell up all night.”

“Not too bad.” Ben hadn’t shaved yet and the dark shadow along his jawline gave him a rugged, rather disreputable air. He probably wouldn’t appreciate her pointing that out—and he definitely wouldn’t be interested in knowing about her unwilling attraction to him.

“We had a few rough moments.” He paused, giving her a careful look. “To tell the truth, I wasn’t completely convinced he would make it through the night. He’s a tough little guy.”

“It helps to have a good vet,” she said. Even Doc Harris wouldn’t have stayed all night. It was a hard admission, but honesty compelled her to face it. As much as she loved the old veterinarian, she had noticed he sometimes had a bit of a cavalier attitude about the seriousness of some cases.

Apparently that wasn’t the case with Dr. Caldwell.

“Sometimes all the veterinarian skills in the world aren’t enough. I guess you would know that, as an animal lover.”

That was her big worry right now with Sadie. Her old border collie, the very first dog who had been only hers, was thirteen. In border collie terms, that was ancient. As much as she loved her, Caidy knew she wouldn’t be around forever.

“Luke seems alert now. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

He joined her in petting the dog. Their fingers accidentally touched and she didn’t miss the way he quickly lifted his hands. “You can call him Lucky Luke.”

“My brother and his family already have a dog named Lucky Lou,” she said with a smile. “He survived being hit by a car.”

“Your brother?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, but there was a time plenty of the scorned women of Pine Gulch would have gladly tried to run him down. No, Lou. He was a stray, a little corgi-beagle mix who used to wander around our ranch. I was trying to lure him in so I could find his owner, but he was pretty skittish. Then one afternoon he didn’t move fast enough and some speeder hit him. He’s doing great now and is extremely spoiled by Taft’s kids.”

Stepchildren, actually, but Maya and Alex had quickly been absorbed into the Bowman clan.

“Well, you can add this one to your collection of lucky pups.”

“When can I take him home?”

“Maybe later today, as long as he remains stable.”

“That would be great. Thank you for everything.”

He shrugged. “It’s my job.”

She owed him now. It was an uncomfortable realization—she didn’t like being beholden to anyone, especially not very attractive veterinarians.

In this case, she could even the playing field a little bit. “I talked to Ridge last night. He says you and your family are more than welcome to move into the foreman’s cottage until your house is finished.”

“Did he?” he asked, his expression pleased and more than a little relieved. “That would make the holidays much more comfortable all the way around.”

“You may want to come out to the ranch and take a look at the place before you agree. We’ve kept it up well, but it could probably use a remodel one of these days.”

“Three bedrooms, you said?”

“Yes. And Ridge suggested we work something out with rent in trade for vet services, if you’re agreeable. I’ll still probably owe you my firstborn but maybe not my second.”

He smiled—not a huge smile but a genuine one. Her stomach flip-flopped again and she remembered that moment when she had walked into the clinic and found him half-dressed.

What in heaven’s name had come over her? She did not react to men this way. She just didn’t. Oh, she dated once in a while. She wasn’t a complete hermit, contrary to what her brothers teased her about. She enjoyed the occasional dinner or movie out, but she usually worked hard to keep things casual and fun. The few times a guy had tried to push for more, she had felt panicky and pressured and had done her best to discourage him.

She couldn’t remember having such an instant and powerful reaction to a man, this immediate curl of desire. She certainly wasn’t used to this jittery, off-balance feeling, as if she were teetering in the loft door of the barn, gearing up to jump into the big pile of hay below.

Ridiculous. She wasn’t even sure she liked Ben Caldwell yet. She certainly wasn’t ready to jump into any pile of hay with him, literally or figuratively.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” he answered. “If it has three bedrooms and a halfway decent kitchen for Mrs. Michaels, I don’t care about much else.”

She drew in a breath and subtly shifted to ease her shoulder away from his. “For all you know, it might be a hovel. You would be surprised at the living conditions some ranchers force on their workers.”

“I would like to think you wouldn’t have suggested it if you didn’t think it would work for my family.”

“That’s trusting of you. You don’t know anything about me. For all you know, maybe I make it a habit of bilking unsuspecting newcomers out of their rent money.”

“Since we’re talking about trading veterinary services for rent, that’s not an issue, is it? But if you insist, I guess I could stop by your ranch later this morning after Joni comes in to relieve me. She’s coming in around ten.”

“That should work. I should have just enough time to rush back there and hide all the mousetraps and roach motels.”

This time he laughed outright, as she had intended. It was a full, rich sound that shimmied down her spine as if he’d pressed his lips there.

This was a gigantic mistake. Why had she ever opened her big, stupid mouth about the foreman’s cottage in the first place? The last thing she needed on the ranch right now was a gorgeous man with a sexy chest and a delicious laugh.

“Should I help you take Luke outside before I go?”

He seemed to know she was doing her best to change the subject. “No. I can handle it.”

She nodded. “I’ll see you in a bit, okay?” she said, rubbing the dog’s head again. “You need to stay here just a little longer and then you can come home.”

Luke whined as if he knew she were going to leave. It was tough but she shut the crate door again.

“You know he’ll probably never be a working dog now. I set the bones as well as I could, but he’ll never be fast enough or strong enough to do what he used to.”

“We’re not so cruel that we’ll make him sing for his supper, Dr. Caldwell. We’ll still find a place for him on the River Bow, whether he can work the cattle or not. We have plenty of other animals who live on in comfortable retirement.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he answered.

She firmly ignored his disreputable smile and the jumping nerves it set off in her stomach.

“Thanks again for everything. I guess I’ll see you later.”

She headed to the door, but to her dismay, he beat her to it and held it open, leaving her no choice but to brush past him on her way out. She ignored the little shiver of awareness, just as she had ignored all the others.

She could do this, she told herself. It would only be for a few weeks and she likely would see far more of his housekeeper and children than she would Ben, especially if he consistently maintained these sorts of hours.

Chapter Four

“But I like staying at the hotel. We have Alex and Maya to play with there and someone makes breakfast for us every day. It’s kind of like Eloise at the Plaza.”

Ben swallowed a laugh, certain his bristly nine-year-old daughter wouldn’t appreciate it. If there was one thing Ava hated worse than eating her brussels sprouts, it was being the object of someone else’s amusement.

Still, as lovely as the twenty-four room Cold Creek Inn was, the place was nothing like the grand hotel in New York City portrayed in the series of books Ava adored.

“It has been fun,” he conceded, “but wouldn’t you like to have a little more room to play?”

“In the middle of nowhere with a bunch of cows and horses? No. Not really.”

He sighed, not unfamiliar with Ava’s condescending attitude. He knew just where it came from—her maternal grandparents.

Ava wasn’t thrilled to be separated from his late wife’s parents. She loved the Marshalls and tried to spend as much time as she could with them. For the past two years, since Brooke’s death, Robert and Janet had filled Ava’s head with subtle digs and sly innuendo in an ongoing campaign to undermine her relationship with her father.

The Marshalls wanted nothing more than to take over guardianship of the children any way they could.

He blamed himself for the most part. Right after Brooke’s death, he had been too lost and grief-stricken to see the fissures they were carving in his relationship with his children. The first time he figured it out had been about six months ago. After an overnight stay, Jack had refused to give him a hug.

It had taken several days and much prodding on his part, but the boy had finally tearfully confessed that Grandmother Marshall told him he killed dogs and cats nobody wanted—a completely unfair accusation because he was working at a no-kill shelter at the time.

He had done his best to keep distance between them after that, but the Marshalls were insidious in their efforts to drive a wedge between them and had even gone to court seeking regular visitation with their grandchildren.

He knew he couldn’t keep them away forever, but he had decided his first priority must be strengthening the bond between him and his children, and eventually he had decided his only option was to resettle elsewhere to make the interactions between them more difficult.

“It’s only for a few weeks, until our house is finished,” he said now to Ava. “Haven’t you missed Mrs. Michaels’s delicious dinners?”

“I have,” Jack opined from his booster seat next to his sister. “I looove the way she makes mac and cheese.”

Ben’s mouth watered as he thought of the caramelized onions she scattered across her gooey macaroni and cheese.

“If we move into this new place, that will be the first thing I ask her to make,” he promised Jack and was rewarded with a huge grin.

“It hasn’t been bad going for dinner at the diner or having stuff from the microwave in the hotel room,” Ava insisted. “I haven’t minded one single bit.”

He sighed. Her constant contrariness was beginning to grate on every nerve.

“What about Christmas? Do you really want to spend Christmas Eve in the hotel, where we don’t even have our own tree in our rooms?”

She didn’t immediately answer and he could see her trying to come up with something to combat that. Before she could, he pursued his advantage. “Let’s just check it out. If we all hate it, we can stay at the hotel through the holidays. With any luck, our new house will be done by early January.”

“Will I have to ride the bus to school for the last week of school before Christmas vacation?”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He supposed he should have considered the logistics before considering this option. “You can if you want to. Or we can try to arrange our schedules so I can take you to school on my way to the clinic.”

“I wouldn’t want to ride a bus. It’s probably totally gross.”

That was another lovely gift from his late wife’s parents, thank you very little. Janet Marshall had done her best to turn his daughter into a paranoid germaphobe.

“You can always use hand sanitizer.” This had become his common refrain, used to combat her objections for everything from eating in a public restaurant to sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall.

She sniffed but didn’t have a response for that. Much to his relief, she let the subject go and subsided into one of her aggrieved silences. He had a feeling Ava was going to drive him crazy before she made it to the other side of puberty.

A few moments later, he pulled into a side road with a log arch over it that said River Bow Ranch. Pines and aspens lined the drive. Though it was well plowed, he was still grateful for his four-wheel drive as he headed up a slight hill toward the main log ranch house he could see sprawling in the distance.

Not far from the house, the drive forked. About a city block down it, he saw a smaller clapboard home with two small eaves above a wide front porch.

He couldn’t help thinking it looked like something off of one of the Christmas cards the clinic had received, a charming little house nestled in the snow-topped pines, with split rail fencing on the pastures that lined the road leading up to it.

“Can we ride the horses while we’re here?” Jack asked, gazing with excitement at a group of about six or seven that stood in the snow eating a few bales of alfalfa that looked as though they had recently been dropped into the pasture.

“Probably not. We’re only renting a house, not the whole ranch.”

Ava looked out the window at the horses too, and he didn’t miss the sudden light in her eyes. She loved horses, just like most nine-year-old girls.

But even the presence of some beautiful horseflesh wasn’t enough. “You said we were only looking at it and if we didn’t like it, we didn’t have to stay,” she said in an accusatory tone.

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.

“Through here is the kitchen and dining area,” she said.

The appliances looked a little out-of-date but perfectly adequate. The refrigerator even had an ice maker, something he had missed in the hotel. Ice from a bucket wasn’t quite the same for some reason.

“There’s a half bath and a laundry room through those doors. It’s pretty basic. Do you want to see the upstairs?”

He nodded and followed her up, trying not to notice the way her jeans hugged her curves. “We’ve got a king bed in one room, a queen in the second bedroom and bunk beds in that one on the left. The children won’t mind sharing, will they?”

“I want to see!” Jack exclaimed and raced into the room she indicated. Ava followed more slowly, but even she looked curious about the accommodations, he saw.

The whole place smelled like vanilla and pine, fresh and clean, and he didn’t miss the vacuum tracks in the carpet. She really must have hurried over to make it ready for them.

“There’s a small bathroom off the master and another one in the hall between the other bedrooms. That’s it. Not much to it. Do you think it will work?”

“I like it!” Jack declared. “But only if I get the top bunk.”

“What do you think, Ava?”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. I still like the hotel better but it would be fun to live by Destry and ride the bus with her and stuff. And I get the top bunk. I’m older.”

“We can work that out,” Ben said. “I guess it’s more or less unanimous. It should be great. Comfortable and spacious and not that far from the clinic. I appreciate the offer.”

She smiled but he thought it looked a little strained. “Great. You can move in anytime. Today if you want. All you need are your suitcases.”

The idea of a little breathing space was vastly appealing. “In that case, we can go back to the inn and pack our things and be back later this afternoon. Mrs. Michaels will be thrilled.”

“That should work.”

“Can we decorate the tree tonight?” Jack asked eagerly.

He tousled his son’s hair, deeply grateful for this cheerful child who gave his love unconditionally. “Yeah. We can probably do that. We’ll pick up some art supplies while we’re in town too.”

Even Ava looked mildly excited about that as they headed back outside.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Caidy said suddenly. “What are you doing all the way down here, you crazy dog? Just want to make a few new friends, do you?”

She spoke to an ancient-looking collie, with a gray muzzle and tired eyes, that was sitting at the bottom of the porch steps. Caidy knelt down, heedless of the snow, and petted the dog. “This is Sadie. She’s just about my best friend in the world.”

Ava smiled at the dog. “Hi, Sadie.”

Jack, however, hovered behind Ben. His son was nervous about any dog bigger than a Pekingese.

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