A Cold Creek Christmas Surprise Read online

  “Sure. I’ve got Tri to keep me company.”

  The dog yipped at his name, and Destry and Ridge both smiled.

  “Don’t worry about breakfast cleanup. Tri and I will take care of it, won’t we, boy?”

  The dog gave her a speak-for-yourself kind of look, as if to indicate he wasn’t budging from the warm patch of sunlight on the floor.

  “Just leave it,” Ridge said. “We’ll clean it up when we get back.”

  She didn’t answer, just pointedly picked up her plate and started to scrape it into the kitchen garbage can.

  “I mean it, Sarah. Go put your feet up or something.”

  “You’d better hurry. Those driveways aren’t going to shovel themselves.”

  He gave her a long look, shook his head and then threw on his coat. She heard their murmured voices in the mudroom for a minute then watched out the window as he helped Destry hop up into the cab of the big tractor before following her and closing the door.

  * * *

  It charmed her more than it should, father and daughter heading out into the cold to help their neighbors together. She loved seeing it.

  She thought of the little she knew of her own father from those carefully orchestrated visits. She couldn’t imagine two men more different than Ridge and Vasily.

  First of all, her father wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help a neighbor. Not unless he were trying to steal the tractor right out from under them. Second, even if, by some wild stretch of imagination, he did have a tiny helpful bone in his body, he wouldn’t have bothered to include his daughter in his efforts.

  He had always treated her and Josef differently. As a young girl, she had grieved that she couldn’t be what her father wanted. As the years passed and she realized Vasily was training Joey to follow in his footsteps, she could only be grateful her father had always seen her as lacking.

  She pushed away the grim memories as she wiped down the countertops with a rag and dish soap that smelled like warm, juicy pomegranates.

  It was Christmas Eve. She still could grab her keys and return to the inn. It was the safest choice, to escape while she still had half a chance to keep her heart intact.

  Now that she was alone here in this quiet kitchen with only the sound of the refrigerator humming and the logs creaking and settling around her, she could admit the truth.

  She wanted to be here.

  She had spent so may cheerless Christmases when her mother was alive, feeling obligated to be with Barbara instead of accepting one of the many invitations that had been extended to her by friends.

  This would be her first real family Christmas. She didn’t care if she was merely borrowing someone else’s holiday traditions. Now that she had made the decision to stay—or rather, now that Ridge had applied a little emotional blackmail to convince her of it—she intended to put aside her misgivings and throw herself into enjoying herself.

  She would worry about the cost later.

  * * *

  “Oooh. Something smells good,” Destry exclaimed, drawing out the last word to two syllables, as soon as they walked inside the warm house.

  He had to agree with her. Cinnamon and vanilla, two of his favorite scents, drifted through the house with sweet, enticing promise.

  “Sarah must be baking,” he said, unbuttoning his coat.

  “Cookies. I bet it’s cookies,” Des said eagerly.

  “You could be right,” he said. He took off his hat and shrugged out of his big ranch coat. How had Sarah managed to bake cookies when she only had one working arm? Everything must have been doubly hard, from measuring ingredients to rolling out dough.

  Some kind of jazzy Christmas music played from the stereo in the kitchen. Even a grouchy old Scrooge like him could appreciate the perfection of the moment—fresh powder outside and a warm, cozy house that smelled like heaven.

  As he slid off his boots, he tried not to think about how eager he was to see her again. She hadn’t left his thoughts for more than a minute or two all day.

  That heated, intense, surprising kiss the night before had left him restless and achy for things he knew he couldn’t have.

  She was a transitory part of their lives, he reminded himself. He had managed to convince her to stay another night or two but he had a feeling that wouldn’t last long. No matter how he protested that she was very welcome to stay at the house, she seemed stuck on the idea that she was intruding on their family Christmas.

  In a few days she would return to San Diego to her life and her students, leaving him to the hard reality of a lonely Idaho winter.

  He told himself the sudden ache in his gut was only a pang of hunger that would be quickly dealt with by a cookie or two.

  Destry beat him out of her winter gear and hurried into the kitchen. When he followed, he found the two of them with their heads together at the kitchen island, his daughter and the woman who was becoming entirely too important to him.

  She flashed a tentative smile at him, looking sweetly uncertain. The ache in his gut intensified.

  Okay, maybe he would need three cookies to ease it.

  “Hi. How did the plowing go?”

  Destry answered for both of them. “We kicked some blizzard butt, didn’t we, Dad?”

  He forced a chuckle. “Winter cleanup feels like a never-ending job sometimes around here, but I think the work is done for now. What are we baking?”

  “Snickerdoodles. I make them with my students every year and I had a sudden craving. I hope you don’t mind.”

  He had plenty of cravings of his own, suddenly. To whirl her into his arms. To kiss the smudge of flour off her cheek. To press his lips to that soft, warm mouth....

  “No,” he murmured, his voice a little ragged. “I don’t mind at all.”

  “Can I have one?” Destry asked.

  “Of course,” Sarah answered with a smile. She handed one to his daughter and then picked one up for him, too.

  “Oh, wow. That’s really good,” Destry exclaimed.

  “Will you help me finish baking them?” she asked his daughter. “I’m afraid I mixed up far more dough than the three of us can eat. We might need to freeze some.”

  “We can take some cookies tomorrow when we head to Taft’s place for Christmas dinner,” he suggested.

  “Okay. There should be plenty. I’m used to cooking for twenty-four children and their families, I’m afraid.”

  “Hey,” Destry exclaimed. “Maybe we could go take some to the Halls’ house. I bet they’re feeling kind of sad this year without Jason, don’t you think, Dad?”

  He smiled, touched at Destry’s kindness. Caidy had done a good job of helping her think about others.

  “Our neighbors’ only son is finishing his residency in Utah,” he explained. “His wife is having a baby in a few weeks and they can’t travel, and the Halls have health issues and can’t travel easily, so they’re waiting until after the baby to go visit. They’ve been a little blue about spending the holidays alone.”

  “We should definitely take them a plate of cookies then,” she exclaimed. “It will cheer them up.”

  “Could we take some to that nice new family that moved into the Marcus house?”

  “You know, we were so busy with the wedding this year we skipped our little gifts to the neighbors. These cookies would be great. How about we combine activities? We can take a sleigh ride and distribute cookies on our way.”

  Sarah and Destry both looked at him with shining eyes that made him feel about twenty feet tall.

  “Oh, that would be perfect,” Sarah exclaimed. “I love it.”

  “Dad, you think of the best ideas.”

  He grinned down at his daughter. “I do what I can.”

  “Can we go after dark so we can see the lights?”

&n
bsp; “How about we leave just before twilight? A couple hours from now. Then we can come back and grill our steaks.”

  “Steaks?” Sarah asked.

  “Another Bowman family tradition,” he answered. “My dad always fired up the grill on Christmas Eve. Mom would cook a big turkey for Christmas dinner but we always had a steak dinner on Christmas Eve. I guess it was his way of celebrating another year of keeping his cattle operation in the black.”

  “My mouth is watering already,” she said.

  When she smiled at him like that, soft and approachable, his mouth watered, too—and not for a juicy cut of beef.

  Chapter Ten

  “Are you warm enough?”

  Sarah wrenched her gaze from the pristine winter scene ahead of them long enough to glance across the seat of the sleigh at Ridge, holding the reins.

  He gazed steadily at her and she blushed, for reasons she couldn’t have explained. “Oh, yes. We have about five blankets on, don’t we, Destry?”

  His daughter sat between them on the wide padded seat. “Maybe not quite but I’m not cold at all.”

  Though there was plenty of room, Sarah wished she was sitting behind them in the second row of seats. She had suggested it, but Destry liked to take a turn with the reins and neither of the Bowmans wanted her to sit by herself in the backseat.

  As it made more sense to share the blankets and crowd together for warmth, they all sat together. Ridge wore his big lined ranch coat and a Stetson. He looked like something out of a sexy aftershave commercial, and every time she looked at him, she could feel her skin prickle with awareness.

  “What about you?” she asked. “You’re not using the blankets. Are you warm enough over there?”

  “I’m great,” he answered with a slow grin that made her insides jump and whirl like her first-graders after a sugar rush. “If you want the truth, I can’t imagine anywhere I would rather be right now.”

  She had to agree. The night was clear and cold, with a vast expanse of starry sky overhead and a sliver of moon. The previous day’s storm would have seemed like a distant memory if not for the deep snow piled up on either side of the road.

  The sleigh bells on the big, sturdy horse’s harness jingled in the night, the only sound besides the hooves thudding on snow and the steady whir of the sleigh runners.

  They—and the prosaically named horse, Bob—seemed to be the only ones out on the cold night. Everyone else was probably hunkered in by the hearth having Christmas Eve dinner, singing carols, opening presents.

  Like Ridge, she wouldn’t have traded places with them for anything.

  “This is magical,” she said. “I keep thinking how my students would love to be in my place right now.”

  “Probably not right now,” Destry pointed out. “Right now they’re probably so eager for Santa to come, they don’t want to be anywhere but their own houses. I know I always was that way when I was a little kid.”

  “You’re still a little kid to some of us,” Ridge said, earning a hard shoulder nudge from his daughter.

  “Watch it or your driver will end up on the ground,” he said with a laugh.

  “Hey, don’t call me a little kid. I’m almost twelve!”

  “I know. Ancient. You’ll be needing denture cream before you know it.”

  Sarah smiled at their interaction, charmed all over again by how close the two were. She almost didn’t realize Ridge had directed the conversation to her.

  “You mention your students all the time,” he pointed out. “You must enjoy your work.”

  “I love being a teacher,” she admitted. “The thing is, even when I’m not in the classroom, one part of my brain is always wondering how I can incorporate this experience or that piece of knowledge into my lesson plan. I wish you were closer. I would love to have you and Bob—and you, Destry, of course—come to class so we could have a lesson about horses. Or better still, a field trip to a working cattle ranch would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? They would learn how you feed them, how much water they need, how ranching has changed over the time your family has owned the River Bow.”

  “That would be good. You know any cattle ranchers in San Diego?” he asked.

  “No. I’m not sure there are any.”

  “There are. I can check with a couple of associations I belong to and see if I can find anybody in that area who might want to host a field trip.”

  “That would be wonderful. Thank you!”

  A car approached from the other direction, and he turned his attention back to his driving, presenting her with that strong, handsome profile.

  “You could bring them here,” Destry said, her voice excited. “Wouldn’t that be fun, Dad?”

  “Sure,” he drawled. “Might be a bit of a bus ride, though.”

  His words were a firm reminder of how much distance lay between their worlds, literally and figuratively. Some of her ebullient joy in the evening trickled out.

  She forced herself to focus instead on how beautiful the Christmas lights looked, glowing through thick blankets of snow.

  “I love how so many of your neighbors decorate their houses for the holidays.”

  “We’re a pretty festive community, that’s true,” he answered. “Des, how many more cookie plates are back there?”

  She looked behind him on the second row of seats. “One more. I was thinking we could give it to Mrs. Thatcher.”

  The girl turned to Sarah. “She’s always so nice to me. Last time I shoveled her walk, she tried to give me five dollars, even though I told her I wanted to do it for free. I wouldn’t take her money, but guess what? She mailed me an online gift card for fifteen dollars. Isn’t that funny?”

  “Wonderful,” she answered with a smile, touched at the warmth and friendliness here in Pine Gulch. She knew a few of her neighbors in the condo unit where she lived in San Diego but this sort of community spirit seemed completely alien to her.

  Ridge drove a little farther before reining Bob to a stop. Destry grabbed the last plate of snickerdoodles and hopped down effortlessly. “Be right back,” she said.

  Without the buffer provided by his daughter, Sarah and Ridge lapsed into silence broken by the jingling of the reins and the wind moaning in the trees.

  They both watched Destry ring the doorbell, and a moment later an elegant-looking older woman with carefully groomed hair opened the door.

  “She’ll probably want us to come inside, too, I’m afraid,” Ridge said. “Don’t worry. I’ll make some kind of excuse.”

  “I can’t imagine being friends with all my neighbors,” she said. “You must love living here.”

  Though he still sat a Destry-sized space away from her, she could feel the air between them move when he shrugged. “Most of the time, I guess. It’s all I’ve really known.”

  “Really? You haven’t gone anywhere else?”

  “Oh, on and off for school, though I finished a lot of my classwork through distance education. I met Destry’s mother when I was working at a ranch outside Livingston, Montana, and stayed there a year.”

  He tilted his head back and gazed up at the stars. She wondered what he was thinking about. Old loves? People he had known and lost? Other starry nights?

  “I wouldn’t have stayed that long,” he said after a moment, “but things were tense with my parents after I got married. They never liked Melinda much. She was too much of a city girl, and they figured she wouldn’t be happy on the ranch. Turns out they were exactly right.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Just a week before they died, we fought pretty bitterly on the phone and I...said things that haunt me to this day. They wanted us to spend the holidays here that year so they could have the chance to get to know Melinda better. I refused, said it was too late to make nice.
If they couldn’t embrace my marriage, they could all spend Christmas in hell, as far as I was concerned. Yeah, I was pretty much an ass.”

  He was silent, gazing up at those stars, and she fought the urge to tuck the blanket around him in an effort to warm those suddenly wintry features.

  “I can’t stand knowing they died with ugliness between us, thinking I hated them,” he said, his voice low.

  A hard, sharp ache pinched her chest—for his pain and also for her connection to it. She reached across the space between them to place a hand on his arm. She could feel those leashed muscles even through the heavy lining of his coat.

  “I didn’t know your parents, but I’ve met several of your family members. From everything I’ve learned about Margaret and Frank since I arrived in Pine Gulch, I have to believe they knew you loved them. They strike me as the sort of people who would have been quick to forgive. I’m sure things would have eased between you eventually.”

  He drew in a long breath and then exhaled it slowly. After a pause, he covered her gloved fingers with his. She couldn’t even feel his skin against hers, but the connection seemed profoundly intimate anyway.

  “You’re right. I know you are. They probably would have tried harder to accept the situation once they found out a baby was on the way.”

  “They didn’t know about Destry?”

  “No. I should have told them, but I was too angry at their reaction to Melinda. I didn’t want to hear them say that was another strike against my marriage, that we had married for the wrong reasons. I had been thinking I would come for the holidays and tell them, but, well, I was too angry after we fought, especially at my father. Destry was born six months after their deaths. I wish they could have had the chance to know her.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He gazed down at her, silhouetted against the vast starry sky, and something sweetly tender, bright and glossy as Christmas lilies, bloomed inside her.

  She was falling in love with him.

  The realization didn’t tumble over her like an avalanche, hard and wild and terrifying. Instead, it whispered down like a single, soft, plump snowflake, gentle and pure, followed by another and then another.