Holiday in Stone Creek: A Stone Creek Christmas

Maybe it was the release of tension. Maybe it was because Olivia looked and smelled so damn good—almost as good as she had that morning, out by the fence and then later on, in her kitchen. Either way, the place he wanted to take her wasn’t his barn.

“Okay,” he said. “But if you’re caught pie-napping, I’ll deny being in cahoots with you.”

Again that laugh, soft and musical and utterly feminine. It rang in Tanner’s brain, then lodged itself square in the center of his heart. “Fair enough,” she said.

She took their plates and left again, making for the kitchen.

Tanner found Brad standing by the sideboard in the big dining room, affably directing traffic between the food and the long table, where there was a lot of happy talk and dish clattering going on.

“Everything okay, buddy?” Brad asked, watching Tanner’s face.

“I got a little scare,” Tanner answered, shoving a hand through his hair. He knew a number of famous people, and not one of them was as down-home and levelheaded as Brad O’Ballivan. He was a man who had more than enough of everything, and knew it, and lived a comparatively simple life. “Just the same, I need a little alone time.”

Brad nodded. Caught sight of Olivia coming out of the kitchen with the purloined pie and small plastic container, stopping to speak to Meg as she passed the crowded table. His gaze swung right back to Tanner. “Alone time, huh?” he asked.

“It’s not what you think,” Tanner felt compelled to say, feeling some heat rise in his neck.

Brad arched an eyebrow. Regarded him thoughtfully. “You’re a good friend,” he said. “But I love my sister. Keep that in mind, all right?”

Tanner nodded, liking Brad even more than before. Look out for the womenfolk—it was the cowboy way. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he replied.

He and Olivia left Stone Creek Ranch at the same time, he in his too-clean red truck, she in that scruffy old Suburban. The drive to Starcross took about fifteen minutes, and Olivia was out of her rig and headed into the barn before he’d parked his pickup.

Butterpie was on her feet, Ginger rising from a stretch when Tanner caught up to Olivia in front of the stall door. Olivia opened the plastic container, revealing leftover turkey.

“Tell Butterpie Sophie’s coming home,” he said, without intending to say any such thing.

Olivia smiled, inside the stall now, letting Ginger scarf up cold turkey from the container. “I already did,” she replied. “That’s why Butterpie is up. She could use a little exercise, so let’s turn her out in the corral for a while.”

Tanner nodded, found a halter and slipped it over Butterpie’s head. Led her outside and over to the corral gate, and turned her loose.

Olivia and Ginger stood beside him, watching as the pony looked around, as if baffled to find herself outside in the last blaze of afternoon sunlight and the heretofore pristine snow. The dog barked a couple of times, as if to encourage Butterpie.

Tanner shook his head. Ridiculous, he thought. Dogs didn’t encourage horses.

He recalled finding Ginger huddled close to Butterpie in the stall earlier in the day. Or did they?

Butterpie just stood there for a while, then nuzzled through the snow for some grass.

Whether the little horse had cheered up or not, he certainly had. Butterpie hadn’t eaten anything since she’d arrived at Starcross Ranch, and now she was ready to graze. He went back into the barn and came out with a flake of hay, tossed it into the corral.

Butterpie nosed it around a bit and began to nibble.

Olivia watched for a few moments, then turned to Tanner and took smug note of the hay stuck to the front of his best suit. “You might be a real cowboy after all,” she mused, and that simple statement, much to Tanner’s amazement, pleased him almost as much as knowing Sophie was safe with his best friend, Jack McCall.

“Thanks,” he said, resting his arms on the top rail of the corral fence and watching Butterpie eat.

When the pony came to the gate, clearly ready to return to the barn, Tanner led her back to her stall and got her settled in. Olivia and Ginger followed, waiting nearby.

“So what happened with Sophie?” Olivia asked when Tanner came out of the stall.

“I’ll explain it over coffee and pie,” he said, holding his figurative breath for her answer. If Olivia decided to go home, or make rounds or something, he was going to be seriously disappointed.

“This place used to be wonderful,” Olivia said, minutes later, when they were in his kitchen, with the coffee brewing and the pie sitting on the table between them.

Tanner wished he’d taken down the old calendar, spackled the holes in the wall from the tacks that had held up its predecessors. Replaced the flooring and all the appliances, and maybe the cupboards, too. The house still looked abandoned, he realized, even with him living in it.

What did that mean?

“I’ll fix it up,” he said. “Sell it before I move on.” It was what he always did. Buy a house, keep a careful emotional distance from it, refurbish it and put it on the market, always at a profit.

Something flickered in Olivia’s eyes. Seeing that he’d seen, she looked away, though not quickly enough.

“Did you know the previous owner well?” he asked, to get her talking again. The sound of her voice soothed him, and right then he needed soothing.

“Of course,” she said, turning the little tub of whipped cream, stolen along with the pie and the leftovers for Ginger, in an idle circle on the tabletop. “Clarence was one of Big John’s best friends. He was widowed sometime in the mid-nineties—Clarence, I mean—and after that he just lost interest in Starcross.” She paused, sighed, a small frown creasing the skin between her eyebrows. “He got rid of the livestock, cow by cow, horse by horse. He stopped doing just about everything.” Another break came then. “It’s the name, I think.”

“The name?”

“Of the ranch,” Olivia clarified. “Starcross. It’s—sad.”

Tanner found himself grinning a little. “What would you call it, Doc?” he asked. The coffee was finished, and he got up to find some cups and pour a dose for both of them.

She considered his question as if there were really a name change in the offing. “Something, well, happier,” she said as he set the coffee down in front of her, realized they’d need plates and forks for the pie and went back to the cupboards to rustle some up. “More positive and cheerful, I guess, like The Lucky Horseshoe, or The Diamond Spur. Something like that.”

Tanner had no intention of giving the ranch a new name—why go to all the trouble when he’d be leaving in a year at the longest?—but he enjoyed listening to Olivia, watching each new expression cross her face. The effect was fascinating.

And oh, that face.

The body under it was pretty spectacular, too.

Tanner shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“Don’t you think those names are a little pretentious?” he asked, cutting into the pie.

“Corny, maybe,” Olivia admitted, smiling softly. “But not pretentious.”

He served her a piece of pie, then cut one for himself. Watched with amusement and a strange new tenderness as she spooned on the prepackaged whipped cream. She looked pink around the neck, perhaps a little discomforted because he was staring.

He averted his eyes, but a moment later he was looking again. He couldn’t seem to help it.

“You took the first chance you could get to bolt out of that Thanksgiving shindig at your brother’s place,” he said carefully. “Why is that, Doc?”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘Doc’?” She was nervous, then. Maybe she sensed that Tanner wanted to kiss her senseless and then take her upstairs to his bed.

“Because you’re a doctor?”

“I have a name.”

“A very beautiful name.”

She grinned, and some of the tension eased, which might or might not have been a good thing. “Get a shovel,” she said. “It’s getting deep in here.”

He laughed, pushed away his pie.

“I should go now,” she said, but she looked and sounded uncertain.

Hallelujah, Tanner thought. She was tempted, at least.

“Or you could stay,” he suggested casually.

She gnawed at her lower lip. “Is it just me?” she asked bluntly. “Or are there sexual vibes bouncing off the walls?”

“There are definitely vibes,” he confirmed.

“We haven’t even kissed.”

“That would be easy to remedy.”

“And we’ve only known each other a few days.”

“We’re both adults, Olivia.”

“I can’t just—just go to bed with you, just because I—”

“Just because you want to?”

Challenge flared in her eyes, and she straightened her shoulders. “Who says I want to?”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” she said, after a very long time. Then, quickly, “But that doesn’t mean I will.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”

“People ought to say no to themselves once in a while,” she went on, apparently grasping at moral straws. “This society is way too into instant gratification.”

“I promise you,” Tanner said drily, “it won’t be instant.”

Color flooded her face, and he could see her pulse beating hard at the base of her throat.

“When was the last time you made love?” he asked when she didn’t say anything. Nor, to his satisfaction, did she jump to her feet and bolt for the door.

Tanner’s hopes were rising, and so was something else.

“That’s a pretty personal question,” she said, sounding miffed. She even went so far as to glance over at the dog, sleeping the sleep of the innocent on the rug in front of the stove.

“I’ll tell if you will.”

“It’s been a while,” she admitted loftily. “And maybe I don’t want to know who you’ve had sex with and how recently. Did that ever occur to you?”

“A while as in six months to a year, or never?”

“I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re trying to find out.”

“Good,” he said.

“I’m leaving,” she said. But she didn’t get up from her chair. She didn’t call the dog, or even put down her fork, though she wasn’t taking in much pie.

“You’re free to do that.”

“Of course I am.”

“Or we could go upstairs, right now.”

She swallowed visibly, and her wonderful eyes widened.

Hot damn, she was actually considering it.

Letting herself go. Doing something totally irresponsible, just for the hell of it. Tanner went hard, and he was glad she couldn’t see through the tabletop.

“No strings attached?” she asked.

“No strings,” Tanner promised, though he felt a little catch inside, saying the words. He wondered at his reaction, but not for long.

He was a man, after all, sitting across a table from one of the loveliest, most confusing women he’d ever met.

“I suppose we’re just going to obsess until we do it,” Olivia said. Damn, but she was full of surprises. He’d expected her to be talking herself out of going to bed with him, not into it.

“Probably,” Tanner said, very seriously.

“Get it out of the way.”

“Out of our systems,” Tanner agreed, wanting to keep the ball rolling. Watching for the right time to make his move and all the time asking himself what the hell he was doing.

He stood up.

She stood up. And probably noticed his erection.

Would she run for it after all?

Tanner waited.

She waited.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked finally. “We could decide after that.”

“Good idea,” Olivia said, but her pulse was still fluttering visibly, at her temple now as well as her throat, and her breathing was quick and shallow, raising and lowering her breasts under that soft blue sweater.

She didn’t move, so it fell to Tanner to step in close, take her face in his hands and kiss her, very gently at first, then with tongue.

WHATWASSHEDOING? Olivia fretted, even as she stood on tiptoe so Tanner could kiss her more deeply. Sure, it had been a while since she’d had sex—ten months, to be exact, with the last man she’d dated—but it wasn’t as if she were hot to trot or anything like that.

This…this was like storm chasing—venturing too close to a tornado and getting sucked in by the whirlwind. She felt both helpless and all-powerful, standing there in Tanner Quinn’s dreary kitchen—helpless because she’d known even before they left Stone Creek Ranch that this would happen, and all-powerful because damn it, she wanted it, too.

She wanted hot, sticky, wet sex. And she knew Tanner could give it to her.

They kissed until her knees felt weak, and she sagged against Tanner.

Then he lifted her into his arms. “You’re sure about this, Doc?”

She swallowed, nodded. “I’m sure.”

Ginger raised her head, lowered it again and went back to sleep.

His room was spacious and relatively clean, though he probably hadn’t made the bed since he’d moved in. Olivia noted these things with a detached part of her brain, but her elemental, primitive side wanted to rip off her clothes as if they were on fire.

Tanner undressed her slowly, kissing her bare shoulder when he unveiled it, then her upper breast. When he tongued her right nipple, then her left, she gasped and arched her back, wanting more.

He stopped long enough to shed his suit coat and toss aside his tie.

Olivia handled the buttons and buckle and finally the zipper.

And they were both naked.

He kissed her again, eased her down on the side of the bed, knelt on the floor to kiss her belly and her thighs. “Where’s the whipped cream when you need it?” he teased, his voice a low rumble against her flesh.

“Oh, God,” Olivia said, because she knew what he was going to do, and because she wanted so much for him to do it.

He burrowed through the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs, found her with his mouth, suckled, gently at first, then greedily.

He made a low sound to let her know he was enjoying her, but she barely heard it over the pounding of her heart and the creaking of the bed springs as her hips rose and fell in the ancient dance.

He slid his hands under her, raised her high off the bed and feasted on her in earnest. The first orgasm broke soon after that, shattering and sudden, and so long that Olivia felt as though she were being tossed about on the head of a fiery geyser.

Just when she thought she couldn’t bear the pleasure for another moment—or live without it—he allowed her to descend. She marveled at his skill even as she bounced between one smaller, softer climax after another.

At last she landed, sated and dazed, and let out a croony sigh.

She heard the drawer on the bedside stand open and close.

“Still sure?” Tanner asked, shifting his body to reach for what he needed.

She nodded. Gave another sigh. “Oh, very sure,” she said.

He turned her on the bed, slipped a pillow under her head and kissed her lightly. She clasped her hands behind his head and pulled him closer, kissed him back.

This part was for him, she thought magnanimously. She’d had her multiclimax—now it was time to be generous, let Tanner enjoy the satisfaction he’d earned.

Oh, God, had he earned it.

Except that when he eased inside her, she was instantly aroused, every cell in her body screaming with need. She couldn’t do it; she couldn’t come like that a second time without disintegrating—could she?

She was well into the climb, though, and there was no going back.

They shared the next orgasm, and the one after that.

And then they slept.

It was dark in the room when Olivia awakened, panic-stricken, to a strange whuff-whuff-whuff sound permeating the roof of that old house. Tanner was nowhere to be seen.

She flew out of bed, scrambled into her clothes, except for the panty hose, which she tossed into the trash—what was that deafening noise?—and dashed down the back stairs into the kitchen. Ginger, on her feet and barking, paused to give her a knowing glance.

“Shut up,” Olivia said, hurrying to the window.

Tanner was out there, standing in what appeared to be a floodlight, looking up. Then the helicopter landed, right there in the yard.

Olivia rubbed her eyes hard, but when she looked again, the copter was still there, black and ominous against the snow. The blades slowed and then a young girl got out of the bird, stood still. Tanner stooped as he went toward the child, put an arm around her shoulders and steered her away, toward the house.

He paused when the copter lifted off again, waved.

Sophie had arrived, Olivia realized. And in grand style, too.

“Do I look like I’ve just had sex?” she asked Ginger in a frantic whisper.

“I wouldn’t know what you look like when you’ve just had sex,” Ginger answered. “I’m a dog, remember?”

“BEFOREYOUSTART yelling at me,” Sophie said, looking up at Tanner with Kat’s eyes, “can I just say hello to Butterpie?”

Tanner, torn between wishing he believed in spanking kids and a need to hold his daughter safe and close and tight, shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “The barn’s this way,” he said, though it was plainly visible, and started walking.

Sophie shivered as she hurried along beside him. “We could,” she said breathlessly, “just dispense with the yelling entirely and go on from there.”

“Fat chance,” Tanner told her.

“I’m in trouble, huh?”

“What do you think?” Tanner retorted, trying to sound stern. In truth, he was so glad to see Sophie, he hardly trusted himself to talk.

He should have woken Olivia when he got the call from Jack’s pilot, he thought. Warned her of Sophie’s impending arrival.

As if she could have missed hearing that helicopter.

“I think,” Sophie said with the certainty of youth, “I’m really happy to be here, and if you yell at me, I can take it.”

Tanner suppressed a chuckle. This was no time to be a pal. “You could have been kidnapped,” he said. “The list of things that might have happened to you—”

“Might have,” Sophie pointed out sagely. “That’s the key phrase, Dad. Nothing did happen, except one of Uncle Jack’s guys collared me at Grand Central. That was a tense moment, not to mention embarrassing.”

Having made that statement, Sophie dashed ahead of him and into the barn, calling Butterpie’s name.

By the time he flipped on the overhead lights, she was already in the stall, hugging the pony’s neck.

Butterpie whinnied with what sounded like joy.

And Olivia appeared at Tanner’s elbow. “We’ll be going now,” she said quietly, watching the reunion with a sweet smile. “Ginger and I.”

“Wait,” Tanner said when she would have turned away. “I want you to meet Sophie.”

“This is your time, and Sophie’s,” Olivia said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

It was a simple kiss, nothing compared to the ones they’d shared upstairs in his bedroom. Just the same, Tanner felt as though he’d stepped on a live wire. His skeleton was probably showing, like in a cartoon.

“Maybe you feel like explaining what I’m doing here at this hour,” she reasoned, with a touch of humor lingering on her mouth, “but I don’t.”

Reluctantly Tanner nodded.

Ginger and Olivia left, without Sophie ever noticing them.

ATHOME, OLIVIA showered, donned a ragged chenille bathrobe and listened to her voice mail, just in case there was an emergency somewhere. She’d already checked her cell phone, but you never knew.

The only message was from Ashley. “Where were you?” her younger sister demanded. “Today was Thanksgiving!”

Olivia sighed, waited out the diatribe, then hit the bullet and pressed the eight key twice to connect with Ashley.

“Mountain View Bed-and-Breakfast,” Ashley answered tersely. She already knew who was calling, then. Hence the tone.

“Any openings?” Olivia asked, hoping to introduce a light note.

Ashley wasn’t biting. She repeated her voice mail message, almost verbatim, ending with another “Where were you?”

“There was an emergency,” Olivia said. What else could she say? I was in bed with Tanner Quinn and I had myself a hell of a fine time, thank you very much.

Suspicion, tempered by the knowledge that emergencies were a way of life with Olivia. “What kind of emergency?”

Olivia sighed. “You don’t want to know,” she said. It was true, after all. Ashley was a normal, healthy woman, but that didn’t mean she’d want a blow-by-blow description—so to speak—of what she and Tanner had done in his bed.

“Another cow appendectomy?” Ashley asked, half sarcastic, half uncertain.

“A clandestine operation,” she said, remembering the black helicopter. That would give the local conspiracy theorists something to chew on for a while, if they’d seen it.

“Really? There was an operation?”

Tanner was certainly an operator, Olivia thought, so she said yes.

“And here I thought you were probably having sex with that contractor Brad hired to build the shelter,” Ashley said with an exasperated little sigh.

Olivia swallowed a giggle. Spoke seriously. “Ashley O’Ballivan, why would you think a thing like that?”

“Because I saw you leave with him,” Ashley answered. Her tone turned huffy again. “I wanted to tell Brad and Melissa that I’ve decided to look for Mom,” she complained. “And I couldn’t do it without you there.”

Olivia sobered. “Pretty heavy stuff, when Brad and Meg had a houseful of guests, wouldn’t you say?”

Ashley went quiet again.

“Ash?” Olivia prompted. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“So why the sudden silence?”

Another pause. A long one that gave Olivia plenty of time to worry. Then, finally, the bomb dropped. “I think I’ve already found her.”

Chapter Six

“THISPLACE,” SOPHIESAID, looking around at the ranch-house kitchen the next morning, “needs a woman’s touch. Or maybe a crack decorating crew from HGTV or DIY.”

Tanner, still half-asleep, stood at the counter pouring badly needed coffee. Between Sophie’s great adventure and all that sex with Olivia, he felt disoriented, out of step with his normal world. “You watch HGTV and DIY?” he asked after taking a sip of java to steady himself.

“Doesn’t everybody?” Sophie countered. “I’ve been thinking of flipping houses when I grow up.” She looked so much like her mother, with her long, shiny hair and expressive eyes. Right now those eyes held a mixture of trepidation, exuberance and sturdy common sense.

“Trust me,” Tanner said, treading carefully, finding his way over uncertain ground, because they weren’t really talking about real estate and he knew it. “Flipping houses is harder than a thirty-minute TV show makes it seem.”

“You should know,” Sophie agreed airily, taking in the pitiful kitchen again. “You’ll manage to turn this one over for a big profit, though, just like all the others.”

Tanner dragged a chair back from the table and sort of fell into it. “Sit down, Soph,” he said. “We’ve got more important things to discuss than the lineup on your favorite TV channels.”

Sophie crossed the room dramatically and dropped into a chair of her own. She’d had the pajamas she was wearing now stashed in her backpack, which showed she’d been planning to ditch the school group in New York, probably before she left Briarwood. Now she was playing it cool.

Tanner thought of Ms. Wiggins’s plans to steer her into the thespian program at school, and stifled a grimace. His sister, Tessa, had been a show-business kid, discovered when she did some catalog modeling in Dallas at the age of eight. She’d done commercials, guest roles and finally joined a long-running hit TV series. As far as he was concerned, that had been the wrong road. It was as though Tessa—wonderful, smart, beautiful Tessa—had peaked at twenty-one, and been on a downhill slide ever since.