Holiday in Stone Creek: A Stone Creek Christmas

Two classic Stone Creek tales from New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Linda Lael Miller

A STONE CREEK CHRISTMAS

Stone Creek veterinarian Olivia O’Ballivan communicates easily with animals, but men are another story. Especially rugged architect-turned-rancher Tanner Quinn. Olivia’s uncanny bond with his daughter Sophie’s pony has him questioning her sanity, while she wonders if he’s not just a drugstore cowboy. Then twelve-year-old Sophie conspires with Olivia to get Tanner into the spirit of Christmas. But will a holiday miracle transform the globe-trotting Tanner into a rancher—and family man—for all seasons?

AT HOME IN STONE CREEK

Everyone in Ashley O’Ballivan’s life is marrying and starting families—except her. But why bother dating when no one can compare to Jack McCall, the man who left her heartbroken years ago? Now he’s back in town—and maybe he isn’t who she thinks he is.

While recovering from a dangerous mission for the DEA, security expert Jack rents a room in Ashley’s bed-and-breakfast. For both their sakes, he tries to keep his distance, though neither can deny the growing spark between them. But when his past catches up with him, he’ll have to leave again…just as he realizes where he’s always belonged—in Stone Creek.

Praise for the novels of #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Linda Lael Miller

“Miller tugs at the heartstrings as few authors can.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Linda Lael Miller creates vibrant characters and stories I defy you to forget.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Miller’s attention to small details makes her stories a delight to read. With engaging characters and loveable animals, this second story in the Creed Cowboys trilogy is a sure hit for the legions of cowboy fans out there.”

—RT Book Reviews on Creed’s Honor

“Miller once again tells a memorable tale.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Creed in Stone Creek

“Completely wonderful. Austin’s interactions with Paige are fun and lively and the mystery…

adds quite a suspenseful punch.”

—RT Book Reviews on McKettricks of Texas: Austin

“Miller is the queen when it comes to creating sympathetic, endearing and lifelike characters. She paints each scene so perfectly readers hover on the edge of delicious voyeurism.”

—RT Book Reviews on McKettricks of Texas: Garrett

“A passionate love too long denied drives the action in this multifaceted, emotionally rich reunion story that overflows with breathtaking sexual chemistry.”

—Library Journal on McKettricks of Texas: Tate

“Strong characterization and a vivid western setting make for a fine historical romance.”

—Publishers Weekly on McKettrick’s Choice

Linda Lael Miller

Holiday in Stone Creek

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A Stone Creek Christmas

For Sandi Howlett, dog foster mom, with love. Thank 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 One

SOMETIMES, ESPECIALLY in the dark of night, when pure exhaustion sank Olivia O’Ballivan, DVM, into deep and stuporous sleep, she heard them calling—the finned, the feathered, the four-legged.

Horses, wild or tame, dogs beloved and dogs lost, far from home, cats abandoned alongside country roads because they’d become a problem for someone, or left behind when an elderly owner died.

The neglected, the abused, the unwanted, the lonely.

Invariably, the message was the same: Help me.

Even when Olivia tried to ignore the pleas, telling herself she was only dreaming, she invariably sprang to full wakefulness as though she’d been catapulted from the bottom of a canyon. It didn’t matter how many eighteen-hour days she’d worked, between making stops at farms and ranches all over the county, putting in her time at the veterinary clinic in Stone Creek, overseeing the plans for the new, state-of-the-art shelter her famous big brother, Brad, a country musician, was building with the proceeds from a movie he’d starred in.

Tonight it was a reindeer.

Olivia sat blinking in her tousled bed, trying to catch her breath. Shoved both hands through her short dark hair. Her current foster dog, Ginger, woke up, too, stretching, yawning.

A reindeer?

“O’Ballivan,” she told herself, flinging off the covers to sit up on the edge of the mattress, “you’ve really gone around the bend this time.”

But the silent cry persisted, plaintive and confused.

Olivia only sometimes heard actual words when the animals spoke, though Ginger was articulate—generally, it was more of an unformed concept made up of strong emotion and often images, somehow coalescing into an intuitive imperative. But she could see the reindeer clearly in her mind’s eye, standing on a frozen roadway, bewildered.

She recognized the adjoining driveway as her own. A long way down, next to the tilted mailbox on the main road. The poor creature wasn’t hurt—just lost. Hungry and thirsty, too—and terribly afraid. Easy prey for hungry wolves and coyotes.

“There are no reindeer in Arizona,” Olivia told Ginger, who looked skeptical as she hauled her arthritic yellow Lab/golden retriever self up off her comfy bed in the corner of Olivia’s cluttered bedroom. “Absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, there are no reindeer in Arizona.”

“Whatever,” Ginger replied with another yawn, already heading for the door as Olivia pulled sweatpants on over her boxer pajama bottoms. She tugged a hoodie, left over from one of her brother’s preretirement concert tours, over her head and jammed her feet into the totally unglamorous work boots she wore to wade through pastures and barns.

Olivia lived in a small rental house in the country, though once the shelter was finished, she’d be moving into a spacious apartment upstairs, living in town. She drove an old gray Suburban that had belonged to her late grandfather, called Big John by everyone who knew him, and did not aspire to anything fancier. She had not exactly been feathering her nest since she’d graduated from veterinary school.

Her twin sisters, Ashley and Melissa, were constantly after her to ‘get her act together,’ find herself a man, have a family. Both of them were single, with no glimmer of honeymoon cottages and white picket fences on the horizon, so in Olivia’s opinion, they didn’t have a lot of room to talk. It was just that she was a few years older than they were, that was all.

Anyway, it wasn’t as if she didn’t want those things—she did—but between her practice and the “Dr. Dolittle routine,” as Brad referred to her admittedly weird animal-communication skills, there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to do it all.

Since the rental house was old, the garage was detached. Olivia and Ginger made their way through a deep, powdery field of snow. The Suburban was no spiffy rig—most of the time it was splattered with muddy slush and worse—but it always ran, in any kind of weather. And it would go practically anywhere.

“Try getting to a stranded reindeer in that sporty little red number Melissa drives,” Olivia told Ginger as she shoved up the garage door. “Or that silly hybrid of Ashley’s.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking a spin in the sports car,” Ginger replied, plodding gamely up the special wooden steps Olivia dragged over to the passenger side of the Suburban. Ginger was getting older, after all, and her joints gave her problems, especially since her “accident.” Certain concessions had to be made.

“Fat chance,” Olivia said, pushing back the steps once Ginger was settled in the shotgun seat, then closing the car door. Moments later she was sliding in on the driver’s side, shoving the key into the ignition, cranking up the geriatric engine. “You know how Melissa is about dog hair. You might tear a hole in her fancy leather upholstery with one of those Fu-Manchu toenails of yours.”

“She likes dogs,” Ginger insisted with a magnanimous lift of her head. “It’s just that she thinks she’s allergic.” Ginger always believed the best of everyone in particular and humanity in general, even though she’d been ditched alongside a highway, with two of her legs fractured, after her first owner’s vengeful boyfriend had tossed her out of a moving car. Olivia had come along a few minutes later, homing in on the mystical distress call bouncing between her head and her heart, and rushed Ginger to the clinic, where she’d had multiple surgeries and a long, difficult recovery.

Olivia flipped on the windshield wipers, but she still squinted to see through the huge, swirling flakes. “My sister,” she said, “is a hypochondriac.”

“It’s just that Melissa hasn’t met the right dog yet,” Ginger maintained. “Or the right man.”

“Don’t start about men,” Olivia retorted, peering out, looking for the reindeer.

“He’s out there, you know,” Ginger remarked, panting as she gazed out at the snowy night.

“The reindeer or the man?”

“Both,” Ginger said with a dog smile.

“What am I going to do with a reindeer?”

“You’ll think of something,” Ginger replied. “It’s almost Christmas. Maybe there’s an APB from the North Pole. I’d check Santa’s website if I had opposable thumbs.”

“Funny,” Olivia said, not the least bit amused. “If you had opposable thumbs, you’d order things off infomercials just because you like the UPS man so much. We’d be inundated with get-rich-quick real estate courses, herbal weight loss programs and stuff to whiten our teeth.” The ever-present ache between her shoulder blades knotted itself up tighter as she scanned the darkness on either side of the narrow driveway. Christmas. One more thing she didn’t have the time for, let alone the requisite enthusiasm, but Brad and his new wife, Meg, would put up a big tree right after Thanksgiving, hunt her down and shanghai her if she didn’t show up for the family festival at Stone Creek Ranch, especially since Mac had come along six months before, and this was Baby’s First Christmas. And because Carly, Meg’s teenage sister, was spending the semester in Italy, as part of a special program for gifted students, and both Brad and Meg missed her to distraction. Ashley would throw her annual open house at the bed-and-breakfast, and Melissa would probably decide she was allergic to mistletoe and holly and develop convincing symptoms.

Olivia would go, of course. To Brad and Meg’s because she loved them, and adored Mac. To Ashley’s open house because she loved her kid sister, too, and could mostly forgive her for being Martha Stewart incarnate. Damn, she’d even pick up nasal spray and chicken soup for Melissa, though she drew the line at actually cooking.

“There’s Blitzen,” Ginger said, adding a cheerful yip.

Sure enough, the reindeer loomed in the snow-speckled cones of gold from the headlights.

Olivia put on the brakes, shifted the engine into neutral. “You stay here,” she said, pushing open the door.

“Like I’m going outside in this weather,” Ginger said with a sniff.

Slowly Olivia approached the reindeer. The creature was small, definitely a miniature breed, with eyes big and dark and luminous in the light from the truck, and it stood motionless.

“Lost,” it told her, not having Ginger’s extensive vocabulary. If she ever found a loving home for that dog, she’d miss the long conversations, even though they had very different political views.

The deer had antlers, which meant it was male.

“Hey, buddy,” she said. “Where did you come from?”

“Lost,” the reindeer repeated. Either he was dazed or not particularly bright. Like humans, animals were unique beings, some of them Einsteins, most of them ordinary joes.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, to be certain. Her intuition was rarely wrong where such things were concerned, but there was always the off chance.

Nothing.

She approached, slowly and carefully. Ran skillful hands over pertinent parts of the animal. No blood, no obvious breaks, though sprains and hairline fractures were a possibility. No identifying tags or notched ears.

The reindeer stood still for the examination, which might have meant he was tame, though Olivia couldn’t be certain of that. Nearly every animal she encountered, wild or otherwise, allowed her within touching distance. Once, with help from Brad and Jesse McKettrick, she’d treated a wounded stallion who’d never been shod, fitted with a halter, or ridden.

“You’re gonna be okay now,” she told the little deer. It did look as though it ought to be hitched to Santa’s sleigh. There was a silvery cast to its coat, its antlers were delicately etched and it was petite—barely bigger than Ginger.

She cocked a thumb toward the truck. “Can you follow me to my place, or shall I put you in the back?” she asked.

The reindeer ducked its head. Shy, then. And weary.

“But you’ve already traveled a long way, haven’t you?” Olivia went on.

She opened the back of the Suburban, pulled out the sturdy ramp she always carried for Ginger and other four-legged passengers no longer nimble enough to make the jump.

The deer hesitated, probably catching Ginger’s scent.

“Not to worry,” Olivia said. “Ginger’s a lamb. Hop aboard there, Blitzen.”

“His name is Rodney,” Ginger announced. She’d turned, forefeet on the console, to watch them over the backseat.

“On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer or—Rodney,” Olivia said, gesturing, but giving the animal plenty of room.

Rodney raised his head at the sound of his name, seemed to perk up a little. Then he pranced right up the ramp, into the back of the Suburban, and lay down on a bed of old feed sacks with a heavy reindeer snort.

Olivia closed the back doors of the rig as quietly as she could, so Rodney wouldn’t be startled.

“How did you know his name?” Olivia asked once she was back in the driver’s seat. “All I’m getting from him is ‘Lost.’”

“He told me,” Ginger said. “He’s not ready to go into a lot of detail about his past. There’s a touch of amnesia, too. Brought on by the emotional trauma of losing his way.”

“Have you been watching soap operas again, while I’m away working? Dr. Phil? Oprah?”

“Only when you forget and leave the TV on when you go out. I don’t have opposable thumbs, remember?”

Olivia shoved the recalcitrant transmission into reverse, backed into a natural turnaround and headed back up the driveway toward the house. She supposed she should have taken Rodney to the clinic for X-rays, or over to the homeplace, where there was a barn, but it was the middle of the night, after all.

If she went to the clinic, all the boarders would wake up, barking and meowing fit to wake the whole town. If she went to Stone Creek Ranch, she’d probably wake the baby, and both Brad and Meg were sleep deprived as it was.

So Rodney would have to spend what remained of the night on the enclosed porch. She’d make him a bed with some of the old blankets she kept on hand, give him water, see if he wouldn’t nosh on a few of Ginger’s kibbles. In the morning she’d attend to him properly. Take him to town for those X-rays and a few blood tests, haul him to Brad’s if he was well enough to travel, fix him up with a stall of his own. Get him some deer chow from the feed and grain.

Rodney drank a whole bowl of water once Olivia had coaxed him up the steps and through the outer door onto the enclosed porch. He kept a watchful eye on Ginger, though she didn’t growl or make any sudden moves, the way some dogs would have done.

Instead, Ginger gazed up at Olivia, her soulful eyes glowing with practical compassion. “I’d better sleep out here with Rodney,” she said. “He’s still pretty scared. The washing machine has him a little spooked.”

This was a great concession on Ginger’s part, for she loved her wide, fluffy bed. Ashley had made it for her, out of the softest fleece she could find, and even monogrammed the thing. Olivia smiled at the image of her blond, curvaceous sister seated at her beloved sewing machine, whirring away.

“You’re a good dog,” she said, her eyes burning a little as she bent to pat Ginger’s head.

Ginger sighed. Another day, another noble sacrifice, the sound seemed to say.

Olivia went into her bedroom and got Ginger’s bed. Put it on the floor for her. Carried the water bowl back to the kitchen for a refill.

When she returned to the porch the second time, Rodney was lying on the cherished dog bed, and Ginger was on the pile of old blankets.

“Ginger, your bed—?”

Ginger yawned yet again, rested her muzzle on her forelegs and rolled her eyes upward. “Everybody needs a soft place to land,” she said sleepily. “Even reindeer.”

THEPONYWASNOT a happy camper.

Tanner Quinn leaned against the stall door. He’d just bought Starcross Ranch, and Butterpie, his daughter’s pet, had arrived that day, trucked in by a horse-delivery outfit hired by his sister, Tessa, along with his own palomino gelding, Shiloh.

Shiloh was settling in just fine. Butterpie was having a harder time of it.

Tanner sighed, shifted his hat to the back of his head. He probably should have left Shiloh and Butterpie at his sister’s place in Kentucky, where they’d had all that fabled bluegrass to run in and munch on, since the ranch wasn’t going to be his permanent home, or theirs. He’d picked it up as an investment, at a fire-sale price, and would live there while he oversaw the new construction project in Stone Creek—a year at the outside.

It was the latest in a long line of houses that never had time to become homes. He came to each new place, bought a house or a condo, built something big and sleek and expensive, then moved on, leaving the property he’d temporarily occupied in the hands of some eager real-estate agent.

The new project, an animal shelter, was not his usual thing—he normally designed and erected office buildings, multimillion-dollar housing compounds for movie stars and moguls, and the occasional government-sponsored school, bridge or hospital, somewhere on foreign soil—usually hostile. Before his wife, Katherine, died five years ago, she’d traveled with him, bringing Sophie along.

But then—

Tanner shook off the memory. Thinking about the way Katherine had been killed required serious bourbon, and he’d been off the sauce for a long time. He’d never developed a drinking problem, but the warning signs had been there, and he’d decided to save Sophie—and himself—the extra grief. He’d put the cork back in the bottle and left it there for good.

It should have been him, not Kat. That was as far as he could go, sober.

He shifted his attention back to the little cream-colored pony standing forlornly in its fancy new stall. He was no vet, but he didn’t have to be to diagnose the problem. The horse missed Sophie, now ensconced in a special high-security boarding school in Connecticut.

He missed her, too. More than the horse did, for sure. But she was safe in that high-walled and distant place—safe from the factions who’d issued periodic death threats over things he’d built. The school was like a fortress—he’d designed it himself, and his best friend, Jack McCall, a Special Forces veteran and big-time security consultant, had installed the systems. They were top-of-the-line, best available. The children and grandchildren of presidents, congressmen, Oscar winners and software inventors attended that school—it had to be kidnap-proof, and it was.

Sophie had begged him not to leave her there.

Even as Tanner reflected on that, his cell phone rang. Sophie had chosen the ring tone before their most recent parting—the theme song from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

He, of course, was the Grinch.

“Tanner Quinn,” he said, even though he knew this wasn’t a business call. The habit was ingrained.

“I hate this place!” Sophie blurted without preamble. “It’s like a prison!”

“Soph,” Tanner began, on another sigh. “Your roommate sings lead for your favorite rock band of all time. How bad can it be?”

“I want to come home!”

If only we had one, Tanner thought. The barely palatable reality was that he and Sophie had lived like Gypsies—if not actual fugitives—since Kat’s death.

“Honey, you know I won’t be here long. You’d make friends, get settled in and then it would be time to move on again.”

“I want you,” Sophie all but wailed. Tanner’s heart caught on a beat. “I want Butterpie. I want to be a regular kid!”

Sophie would never be a “regular kid.” She was only twelve and already taking college-level courses—another advantage of attending an elite school. The classes were small, the computers were powerful enough to guide satellites and the visiting lecturers were world-renowned scientists, historians, linguistics experts and mathematical superstars.

“Honey—”

“Why can’t I live in Stoner Creek, with you and Butterpie?”

A smile tugged at one corner of Tanner’s mouth. “Stone Creek,” he said. “If there are any stoners around here, I haven’t made their acquaintance yet.”

Not that he’d really made anybody’s acquaintance. He hadn’t been in town more than a few days. He knew the real estate agent who’d sold him Starcross, and Brad O’Ballivan, because he’d built a palace for him once, outside Nashville, which was how he’d gotten talked into the animal-shelter contract.

Brad O’Ballivan. He’d thought the hotshot country-and-western music star would never settle down. Now he was over-the-top in love with his bride, Meg, and wanted all his friends married off, too. He probably figured if he could fall that hard for a woman out here in Noplace, U.S.A., Tanner might, too.

“Dad, please,” Sophie said, sniffling now. Somehow his daughter’s brave attempt to suck it up got to Tanner even more than the crying had. “Get me out of here. If I can’t come to Stone Creek, maybe I could stay with Aunt Tessa again, like I did last summer….”

Tanner took off his hat, moved along the breezeway to the barn doorway, shut off the lights. “You know your aunt is going through a rough time right now,” he said quietly. A rough time? Tessa and her no-account husband, Paul Barker, were getting a divorce. Among other things, Barker had gotten another woman pregnant—a real blow to Tess, who’d wanted a child ever since she’d hit puberty—and now she was fighting to hold on to her home. She’d bought that horse farm with her own money, having been a successful TV actress in her teens, and poured everything she had into it—including the contents of her investment portfolio. Against Tanner’s advice, she hadn’t insisted on a prenup.

We’rein love, she’d told him, starry-eyed with happiness.

Paul Barker hadn’t had the proverbial pot to piss in, of course. And within a month of the wedding he’d been a signer on every account Tess had. As the marriage deteriorated, so did Tess’s wealth.

Cold rage jangled along Tanner’s nerves, followed the fault line in his soul. At Kat’s suggestion, he’d set up a special trust fund for Tess, way back, and it was a damn good thing he had. To this day, she didn’t know the money existed—he and Kat hadn’t wanted Barker to tap into it—and when she did find out, her fierce Quinn pride would probably force her to refuse it.