Christmas in Cold Creek Read online

  Gabi’s shove rippled the comforter tucked under her chin. “I’m not hungry. Just fix whatever sounds good to you. If I’m feeling okay, I’ll try to eat something later.”

  “Okay. Get some rest.” She smoothed her sister’s hair away from her face, wondering how it was possible for this curious little creature to become so dear to her in a few short, extremely stressful months. Oh, she might occasionally long for the life she’d had before Monica and Gabi had burst back into it, probably in the way any new parent might pine for their single, carefree life at random moments.

  Protecting and caring for Gabi had become the most important thing in her world. She loved Gabi and would do anything necessary, even wait tables for ten hours a day, to make sure her sister never had to squirrel food away again.

  She tucked the comforter a little more snugly around her sister, then turned toward the door. Gabi’s voice stopped her before she reached it and she turned.

  “I really am sorry I left school like that. I just … didn’t want to be at school anymore. I mean, not if I was going to be sick or something. I didn’t want to puke in front of the other kids. Will we be in trouble now?”

  “I called and spoke with the school secretary. I promised her it wouldn’t happen again. It won’t, right?”

  “No. It was a stupid mistake. I should have followed the rules better.”

  Gabi sounded so disgusted with herself, Becca was compelled to return to the bed and pull her sister into a hug.

  Though Gabi tended to shy away from physical encounters like a kitten who’d had one to many encounters with a stern broom, this time she yielded in Becca’s arms and she could swear she even felt her sister return the hug for a moment before she dropped her arms and eased away.

  Progress. One little step was still forward momentum.

  “Get some rest now. I’m sure Donna won’t mind if I take tomorrow off and I’m not working Sunday so that will give you the weekend to recover.”

  “You don’t have to take time off. I’m fine staying here by myself.”

  She wasn’t going to let that happen anytime soon. “We’ll see. Maybe I can see if Morgan Boyer can babysit you again.”

  “I don’t know why you won’t let me stay alone. Mom did it all the time.”

  She was not their mother. She had spent her entire adult life making sure of that. “We’ll figure something out.” She headed for the hallway. “I’ll leave your door open. Call down the stairs if you need anything.”

  “I won’t.”

  Of course not. Gabi thought she was this self-contained little adult who didn’t need help from anyone. She left the door ajar but by the time she made it to the bottom of the stairs, she heard the click of Gabi closing it firmly behind her.

  Becca sighed, fighting the urge to march back up the stairs and open the door again. Gabi was doing her best to keep her out. The only thing she could do was keep pouring love on her sister and she had to hope she would eventually reach through that prickly skin to the sweet girl she knew lived inside Gabi.

  Chapter Seven

  Sunday evening, Trace sat in the two-storied great room at River Bow enjoying the warmth of the fireplace and the flickering Christmas tree lights and the sight through the huge picture window of the last rays of the dying sun reflecting a pale orange on the snow.

  He’d had a hell of a few days and was in dire need of a little quiet. The storm Friday and Saturday had snarled up the roads, resulting in numerous traffic accidents. And then that stupid jackass Carl Crenshaw had spent all day Saturday watching college football games and steadily drinking, trying to drown his sorrows at being laid off from the county road crew. When his wife tried to get him to turn the television off for dinner, he’d ripped down the mounted trophy six-point deer rack he’d shot the previous fall and gone after his wife with it, while their three kids watched.

  Now Connie was in the hospital in Idaho Falls with a broken arm and multiple stab wounds and Carl was in the county jail and their three little kids had probably been traumatized for life.

  Trace needed a little peace and lighthearted chatter. Unfortunately, he wasn’t finding much of it here. His twin brother could usually be counted on for a laugh but he was on duty. Ridge was busy with ranch paperwork, Caidy had kicked him out of the kitchen and Destry seemed subdued and distracted.

  She sat silently beside him reading a book while he flipped through channels, not in the mood to watch football after the Crenshaw domestic dispute. Wally Taylor’s ugly little dog sat at her feet, chewing on a rawhide bone Caidy had produced for him when they arrived.

  Finally her silence became too much and he turned off the television. “Okay, spill. What’s going on? Doesn’t Christmas vacation start later this week? You should be hyped up on sugar and bouncing off the walls right about now.”

  She gave him an exasperated look. “I’m nine years old, Uncle Trace. I don’t bounce off walls.”

  A few months ago on her birthday, she’d basically done exactly that, but he decided not to embarrass her by reminding her of it. “Okay, maybe you’re too old for bouncing off walls but you should at least be in a good mood,” he said. “It’s Christmas! What are you asking Santa to bring you?”

  “Nine years old, remember?” she pointed out. “I don’t believe in fairy tales like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny anymore.”

  “Now, that’s just sad,” he said. She was growing up, no longer the cute little bug who used to jump into his arms when he walked through the door. In a few short years she would be a teenager—ack!—and not have time for him anymore. Before that happened, he would have to make sure all the young men in town remembered her uncle was the chief of police.

  “Okay, scratch Santa, then. What are you asking your dad to get you for Christmas?”

  Caidy walked in at that moment carrying a bowl of her creamy, delicious mashed potatoes, which she set on the dining table. “Wrong question.”

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  “We’re having issues in that arena,” Ridge answered, coming down the hall from the ranch office with a stack of paperwork in his hand.

  “What’s the matter?” Trace winked at Destry. “Are you asking for a new Ferrari again?”

  She frowned. “No. It’s not a big deal. I don’t know why everybody’s so mad.”

  “Nobody’s mad, honey,” Caidy said. “Just concerned about what’s going on. You have to admit, it’s unusual.”

  He thought things had been better with his niece. After he and Taft had talked about the problem a few weeks ago, she had seemed to cheer up and had become excited about Christmas again. Apparently he was out of the loop around the ranch. He’d missed dinner the week before thanks to his crazy December schedule and hadn’t given Destry much thought.

  “What’s so unusual? What’s going on?” he asked as they all converged on the table and took their usual places.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Destry repeated. “I only asked for money this year instead of presents. You’d think I robbed a bank or something.”

  “Money for what?”

  “There’s the rub,” Ridge muttered. “She doesn’t want to tell us. She insists it’s her business. I don’t know how any kid can expect her parents to just hand over cash for Christmas or anything else without having the first idea what it’s going to be used for.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to buy drugs or something! I wouldn’t do anything bad with it, I swear, Dad.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have a problem telling me what you want to do with the money,” Ridge countered as he grabbed a fresh roll out of the basket and set it on the edge of his plate. “How do I know you’re not going to run off and buy a train ticket to Hollywood?”

  “You know I wouldn’t do that. Jeez, Dad.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. Stuff. Books and clothes. Songs on iTunes. I’m nine years old. Maybe I would just like some money to spend the way I want it.”

  She looked down
at her plate when she spoke but Trace didn’t miss the slight flush on her high cheekbones. She was a lousy liar and they all knew it. She could never look any of them in the eye when she told a whopper. Ridge glanced at Trace, a help-me-out-here sort of look in his eyes, as if his position as chief of police gave him automatic lie-detector status.

  “You get an allowance, right?” he asked. “Maybe you can talk to your dad about a raise. Why do you need more than that?”

  “I just do.” She spoke with the stubbornness she had inherited from her father. And her uncles and aunt, for that matter. None of the Bowmans had a reputation for backing down from an argument.

  “Well, if money is what you want, I think that’s what you should get.”

  His pronouncement was met with a grateful look from Destry, but Caidy and Ridge just glared at him.

  “No, it’s not,” Ridge said.

  “Why not? Makes it easier on the rest of us. Then we don’t have to waste our time shopping for things she doesn’t want. Like, I don’t know, those new pink-and-black Tony Lamas with the flowers on them that somebody mentioned a few months ago.”

  He thought he had her there. For a few seconds, her eyes softened with wistful yearning but then she blinked and her expression grew resolute once more.

  “Thanks, Uncle Trace.” She rose from the table and came around to his side and wrapped her arms around his neck for a quick hug before returning to her seat. “Will you tell Uncle Taft?”

  He nodded. “I’ll tell him. But you know Taft and how much he likes to shop for pink flowered boots.”

  She giggled. “Dad, do you want me to say grace?”

  Though Ridge was still glowering at Trace, he nodded to his daughter. “Make sure you ask a special blessing for your uncles to be safe while they work.”

  “I always do,” Destry said, which sent a lump rising in Trace’s throat.

  After the dinner of pot roast and potatoes and Caidy’s moist, delicious rolls, he and Ridge were relegated to kitchen duty while Caidy and Destry worked on homework on the recently cleared dining room table.

  “So what’s really going on with the whole Christmas present thing?” he asked his older brother as he washed dishes.

  “Damned if I know. She came home from school with this harebrained request earlier this week and refuses to talk about it. She just says she wants money instead of presents.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I bought her a new saddle clear back last summer and I’ve been hiding it in the barn. Caidy’s done most of the rest of her Christmas shopping already on the internet. We’re not sending everything back.”

  Ridge dried and put the gravy bowl that had been their mother’s on the top shelf of the cupboard. “Maybe you can talk to her. See if she’ll tell you what’s going on and why she needs money more than pink cowboy boots.”

  Trace frowned. “Why me?”

  “You’re the trained investigator. If you can’t get anything out of her, I don’t know who can.”

  “This is a little different than weaseling a confession out of a hardened criminal.”

  “With all your experience, getting a nine-year-old girl to tell you her secrets should be a breeze, right?”

  He wasn’t having much luck convincing Becca Parsons to confide her worries in him. But unlike the beautiful but secretive waitress, Destry already loved and trusted him. She might be a little more willing to confide in him.

  After they finished washing the dishes and returning them to the cupboards, Ridge returned to the ranch computer in his office and Trace sauntered out to the dining table, where Destry and Caidy were working on a math assignment while Grunt plopped at their feet.

  “How’s the homework coming?”

  She scribbled one more equation, then set down her pencil and closed her math book with satisfaction. “Done. Finally.”

  “Good. I was thinking, I bet my favorite girl has been lonely. You want to come out with me to give Genie an apple?”

  He counted on Destry’s love for all the horses on the ranch to help persuade her to walk with him out to the barn for a little heart-to-heart.

  “Sure,” she exclaimed, looking much happier than she’d been all evening. “Just let me grab my coat.”

  A few moments later, they walked outside and headed for the barn. Grunt waddled along behind them, accompanied by a couple of the border collies Caidy rescued and trained. The December night was still, the kind of winter night when the world seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for something magical.

  He walked the familiar path between the house and the barn, remembering all those years of having to wake before the sunrise to take care of chores before school. Though he had decided when he was a kid that ranching wasn’t for him, he was still grateful for the lessons he’d learned here and the memories.

  This had been the perfect place to grow up. Hidden trails to explore, a creek to play in on hot summer afternoons, a barn made for jumping into the hay from the loft. Wintertime had been sledding down the hill behind the barn, racing Taft on snowmobiles across the pasture, midnight rides into the mountains under a cold, starry night.

  They had all been extraordinarily happy here, until that fateful night a decade ago. He pushed away the grim note, instead forcing himself to breathe in the scent of pine and cattle and that distinctive scent of impending snow.

  At the barn, he headed immediately for his favorite horse, the buckskin mare he had trained seven or eight years earlier. She whinnied with delight when she saw him, more so when he produced her favorite treat, an apple, from his pocket.

  While she lipped the treat, he rubbed her neck and withers while Destry refilled water troughs from the hose in the barn then came to stand beside him.

  “I need to get out here one evening and take her for a ride,” he said.

  “Can I come with you?”

  He had the strangest idea of taking Becca and her daughter along with them. They would enjoy it, he thought. Would she agree to come? Maybe he would broach the idea after the holidays, when things settled down a little for him. She wanted only friendship between them but maybe if she spent a little more time with him, she might be persuaded to consider something more.

  “Sure thing, munchkin. It’s a date.”

  They moved next to her horse, the sturdy little paint pony she had named the rather unoriginal Patches when she was about five years old. She chattered to Trace about school, about her friends, about her homework, about a slumber party she would be attending over Christmas vacation. Finally he swung the conversation toward his reason for inviting her out to the barn.

  “So just between the two of us, what’s the real story about your Christmas presents? Why do you want money instead of girl stuff this year?”

  She was quiet for a moment but he could see in her eyes that she was bursting to talk about it. “You promise you won’t tell my dad or Aunt Caidy?”

  “Why would I want to tell them?” he said, careful not to make any vows he wasn’t prepared to keep. People seemed to think they could lie to children with impunity but he’d never subscribed to that belief.

  She seemed to take his evasion as proof he would stay mum. She looked around the barn one more time, as if fearing invisible eavesdroppers. Or maybe she was worried Grunt would tell tales. Then she turned back to him.

  “I want to give it to my friend.”

  “Your friend?”

  Destry nodded. “She’s really sick. Maybe dying. Her mom … they can’t afford the surgery she needs to get better. I don’t want her to die. She’s only nine. My age. Me and my friends decided to help her. Maybe we can even raise enough money so she can have the surgery.”

  Okay, he hadn’t been expecting that. He tried to keep his finger pretty firmly on the pulse of Pine Gulch and he hadn’t heard anything about a sick child who needed surgery. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “I don’t know for sure what it’s called but she has some kind of problem with her heart. It makes her tired and sometimes she can’
t even play at recess. She just has to sit on the swings. Don’t you think that’s sad?”

  “Very sad,” he agreed. “What friend is this?”

  She looked away from him, her eyes on her horse. “I promised I wouldn’t tell. She doesn’t like people to know she’s sick, so she only told about five of us in the class. Nobody else knows.”

  He frowned. “Really? Not even Ms. Hartford?”

  “I don’t think so. She said people treat her differently when they find out and she just wants to be normal.”

  That sounded feasible, if a little odd. “You can tell me, Des. I can keep a secret. It’s part of my job sometimes. Maybe I can help you persuade your dad to forget about the Christmas presents this year if you let me in on it.”

  She chewed her lip, mulling it over. Patches nickered and Destry finally shook her head. “I can’t, Uncle Trace. I promised.”

  “Does she act sick?”

  “Just tired a lot. Friday she was so tired she couldn’t stay awake in class. She ended up going home at afternoon recess.”

  He stared at her, picturing Gabi Parsons coming into the kitchen of Becca’s house with her parka covered in snow. Had she looked like someone with a heart condition? She had seemed subdued and a little pale except for the spots of cold-weather color on her cheeks.

  Gabi had a heart condition? She was sick, possibly dying? Oh, damn.

  He thought of how solemn she seemed all the time and the significant looks that sometimes passed between Becca and her daughter. It was definitely possible. That could explain everything—the worry in Becca’s eyes when she looked at the girl, her desperate efforts to provide for her child, that sense of fear, almost despair, he picked up sometimes.

  He had picked up plenty of clues over the weeks that she had tumbled into tough times. Medical costs could certainly explain that. Maybe she had come to Pine Gulch to live in her grandfather’s house so she could save money on rent in order to afford an expensive operation her child needed.

  A tiny jagged pain lodged in his chest at the thought of Becca coping with this kind of fear on her own, of poor Gabi facing tests and hospitalizations and the thought that she might not survive.