Second chances at love

A duet of Christmas cowboy romances

Rancher Caleb Girard never thought he deserved Kristen Andrews. But when his ailing foster father brings her home as his nurse, Christmas blessings could surprise them all in Snowbound Christmas.

After a tragic loss, Ty Carrington tries to hide from the world on his Idaho ranch…until Jessica Lambert and her adorable daughter sneak into his life and his heart in Falling for the Christmas Cowboy.

LINDA GOODNIGHT, a New York Times bestselling author and winner of a RITA® Award in inspirational fiction, has appeared on the Christian bestseller lists. Her novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Active in orphan ministry, Linda enjoys writing fiction that carries a message of hope in a sometimes dark world. She and her husband live in Oklahoma. Visit her website, lindagoodnight.com, for more information.

Multipublished bestselling author RUTH LOGAN HERNE loves God, her country, her family, dogs, chocolate and coffee! Married to a very patient man, she lives in an old farmhouse in upstate New York and thinks possums should leave the cat food alone and snakes should always live outside. There are no exceptions to either rule! Visit Ruth at ruthloganherne.com.

A Cowboy Christmas

Linda Goodnight

and

Ruth Logan Herne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08644-8

A COWBOY CHRISTMAS

© 2018 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Praise for Linda Goodnight

“The second in the Buchanons series is a beautiful story that will surely leave readers feeling the holiday spirit.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Christmas Family

“This is a heartfelt story with a sweet romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Lawman’s Honor

“A touching story that will renew the reader’s holiday spirit.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Christmas Child

Praise for Ruth Logan Herne

“Second chances and small-town charm combine in this final book in the Men of Allegany County series.”

—RT Book Reviews on Yuletide Hearts

“A complicated and utterly compelling romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on Mended Hearts

“Small-town charm abounds in Herne’s characters and descriptions in this touching tale about finding strength in faith.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Mistletoe Family

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Snowbound Christmas

Dedication

Bible Verse

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Epilogue

Falling for the Christmas Cowboy

Dedication

Dear Reader

Bible Verse

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

Extract

About the Publisher

Snowbound Christmas

Linda Goodnight

For the glory of Jesus, my Savior and King, that all might come to know You, and the forgiveness, peace and hope You freely give.

These things I have spoken unto you,

that in me ye might have peace. In the world

ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer;

I have overcome the world.

—John 16:33

Chapter One

Caleb Girard didn’t believe in miracles. But he needed one.

With a frigid north wind ripping at him, Caleb kicked the wooden barn door closed and started toward his ranch house fifty yards away. The new calf shivered in his arms, a runt of a thing that wouldn’t survive till morning in this weather. But Caleb was a man who believed in giving things a chance. Long ago, a man had given him the only chance he’d ever had, and now that man was dying.

Yeah. They needed a miracle. If Caleb was a praying man, he’d ask for one. But he’d never found praying to do one bit of good.

Sometimes God or life or whatever was unfair. But Pops, a devout Christian, would be brokenhearted to hear Caleb say such a thing. So he wouldn’t. But he thought it. Every day since the terrifying diagnosis.

Chilled to the soul for more reasons than the arctic front, he stomped through the back door of the one-story house and placed the calf on a rug near the glowing fireplace. Ripley, his border collie, trotted in behind him and curled up beside the calf as if he knew the baby needed body heat.

Caleb gave the dog a gentle pat. “Take care of him, buddy.”

He tossed another log on the fire and hung his coat on a peg by the door, anticipating an afternoon in the cold. If his rancher’s intuition was right, snow would fall before Christmas. Or, worst-case scenario, ice. They got more of that in eastern Oklahoma than the fluffy stuff. Kids always hoped for snow. Realists and ranchers, of which he was both, appreciated the rain, but God could keep the rest.

He stopped at the kitchen sink to wash up. Maybe he’d put something in the Crock-Pot for supper. The old man’s stomach had been iffy since this madness began. Some days he barely ate enough to nourish a guppy.

Drying his hands on a worn dish towel, Caleb walked down the short hall to Pops’s bedroom.

Next to the bed, Pops lay kicked back in his recliner, the farm-ranch report blaring from the flat-screen TV Caleb had hung on the wall a month ago. The older rancher raised a hand, his glassy eyes smiling at the man he’d called “son” for nearly seventeen years.

Greg Girard, the closest thing to a father Caleb had ever known, wasn’t an old man. He was a sick one, a surprise that had knocked them both on their heels. How did a man go from seeming as fit as an Olympian to dying in two short months?

Caleb went to Pops’s chair, feeling helpless and oversize in the presence of the once-robust man. “Think you can tolerate chili for supper tonight?” Maybe a stew would be better, though he’d fixed stew two nights ago. He was a serviceable cook but not a creative one.

“Sure. Whatever we got is fine with me.”

“You say that every day.” Then he’d barely pick at his meal.

“How’s that cow? Calf here yet?”

“Had to pull the calf. Cow didn’t make it.”

Pops hissed through his teeth. “I knew we shouldn’t have bought a bred heifer. Never can tell what kind of mama she’ll make or what bull she’s bred to.”

But Pops was a soft touch and Billy Cloud had needed quick cash. Now the Girard ranch, which was only the two of them, was out the expense, the cow and maybe the calf.

“You’re getting the short end of the stick lately, son, me lollygagging around so much.”

“I got this, Pops. You take it easy.”

“If I liked easy, I wouldn’t have been a rancher.” Pops gestured toward the machine a medical supply van had delivered earlier that day. “When’re they coming to hook me up?”

“Didn’t say.”

Caleb went to the kitchen to mix up a bottle of colostrum replacer for the calf. Pops couldn’t work more than an hour before fatigue overwhelmed him. He was gray as a winter day, nauseated more often than not, his legs swollen and weak. And he still thought he should get up every morning and head to the cow pastures.

As Caleb filled the calf’s bottle, a knock at the door made him jump. He splashed liquid on his shirt.

With a growl of frustration, he went to the door, opened it.

And his belly dropped to the toes of his boots.

With frigid wind whipping her auburn ponytail like a wind sock, a woman stood on his porch. Kristen Andrews. Even bundled to her ears, he’d recognize her, though he hadn’t seen her in years. What was she doing here?

Breathe, man. Breathe.

“You lost?” His voice sounded amazingly normal.

“Hi, Caleb. I’m freezing. May I come in?”

Before he’d barely stepped aside, she limped past him in a boot cast and entered his living room. He caught her fragrance, a mix of cold wind and coconut. She’d always smelled good, even when he’d worked so hard pretending not to notice.

Slim and pretty as ever, she shrugged out of a puffy white coat, draped it over the back of his favorite recliner and leveled a soft-eyed gaze in his direction. “How are you, Caleb?”

“Fine.” Except that my heart is trying to escape my rib cage. “Yourself?”

“Great. Other than this broken leg.” She motioned to the black boot.

He wanted to ask what had happened. Was that too nosy? Too intrusive? But she already knew he was an uncouth country bumpkin, so he asked anyway. “What happened?”

“Skiing accident a few weeks ago.” She made a cute face that got his pulse pinging like a pinball. “I’m on the mend now that I’m home again.”

She was back in Refuge? For good? He didn’t know whether to shout hallelujah or break down and cry. It was so much easier to ignore her when he didn’t run into her on the streets of small-town Oklahoma.

“Thought you were in Colorado.”

“I was.” Something shadowed her green eyes. She turned her head, swallowed, as if Colorado was a bad subject. He shouldn’t have asked. “Where’s our patient?”

It hit him then, right in the thick head. Blue scrubs. Medical bag. The nurse they were expecting was Kristen Andrews. He was going to be seeing her often. As in almost every day.

He hoped his heart could bear it.

* * *

It was ridiculous, really, Kristen mused as she and her cumbersome boot stumped behind Caleb to Greg Girard’s bedroom.

She hadn’t thought about Caleb in a long time, but as soon she’d received the doctor’s orders to set up a care plan and home dialysis for Greg, Kristen had gone all fluttery. She’d told herself Caleb wouldn’t be as attractive to an adult as he had been to a starry-eyed teenager. She’d been wrong.

She was practically engaged, but her pulse thudded like it had the first time she’d performed CPR in a code blue. The same as it had that one lovely day she’d spent alone with this particular cowboy years ago when she’d been convinced he was her forever and always. But after that one evening and one sizzling teenage kiss, he’d spent the rest of his senior year ignoring her. So she’d moved on, moved away and had almost forgotten the quiet boy with the sketchy background.

Intentionally putting aside thoughts of Caleb, she entered the sickroom. With a trained nose, she caught the scents of illness and identified them. Though shocked at the change in Greg Girard, she greeted him with her usual cheerful professionalism and kept her observations to herself.

As she directed Greg through his new care plan, emphasizing diet and fluid intake, Caleb hovered nearby, asking astute questions. Worry emanated from him. And, oddly, she was overly aware of his presence, of his outdoorsy scent, his wide shoulders, his trim form in old jeans. When their eyes collided, she locked in on the color. Gray and turbulent, like a winter’s day.

“Doc says you can fix me up here at home,” Greg was saying.

She tuned back in. Weird to be so aware of Caleb. “That’s the plan. It will take several weeks, but you and Caleb can learn to use the machine yourselves.”

“I don’t know...” Caleb stepped closer to his dad’s chair. “You sure about this, Pops? What if I mess up—”

Greg waved him off. “You won’t.”

“It’s only natural to be anxious at first,” Kristen assured him. “I’ll work with you until you’re confident.”

Caleb looked as if the idea gave him indigestion. “Great.”

Was that a “good” great or a sarcastic one?

He spun on his cowboy boots. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

She turned her attention to Greg, but Caleb’s unfriendly behavior stung.

Yet the teenage Caleb had barely given her the time of day. Why would she expect the adult version to be any different? He was her brothers’ pal, and she was the annoying little sister. If she really knew him, he’d probably be as big a disappointment as Dr. Dud.

The sore spot in her heart throbbed. James Dudley, a bright, charming and successful cardiologist who loved outdoors and her—she’d thought. He was everything she was looking for in a man. Until the ski trip. She kept expecting him to call, apologize and pick up where they’d left off. He hadn’t.

Kristen turned her focus to Greg’s vital signs and physical assessment, jotting notes as she worked.

When she finished, she returned the blood pressure monitor to her nursing bag.

“How’s it sound?” Greg asked with a crooked half smile.

“A little out of whack.” She winked. “Let’s get that machine fired up and get your dialysis going. Then everything will look better.”

“That’s what they keep telling me.” He twisted in his chair. “Caleb!”

The other cowboy appeared immediately, a giant baby bottle in one hand. “What is it, Pops? Need something?”

“Kristen’s about to crank up R2-D2. You gonna watch?”

Kristen laughed. “R2-D2?”

“Sure. Look at that thing. Don’t you watch Star Wars?”

The look Caleb gave his dad was amused and tender. “Let me put this up and wash my hands.”

* * *

Caleb hated this. Hated the fear, hated the disease, hated seeing Pops’s blood flowing out of his body and into a machine.

Somehow Pops put on a happy face and chatted up Kristen as if she hadn’t been gone for six or seven years. Caleb felt like a voyeur as he listened in on the conversation, snatching up bits of personal information about the girl he’d never forgotten.

That she was a registered nurse with advanced training didn’t surprise him. He’d known she went off to some big college in Colorado on a scholarship. She was smart, classy, a sweet-natured girl who was nice to everyone. Like him. Even though he’d been a troubled foster kid nobody but Pops wanted, she’d acted as if he was every bit as good as her preppy friends.

Then she’d left Refuge for college and stayed away, a surprise, given her great family. She and her family had always been close. A normal family, like the one he’d never had. He’d envied her and her brothers for that. Probably one of the reasons he’d hung around her house so often. That and his mad crush on Kristen.

“Watch both wounds for signs of infection,” she was saying.

Caleb tuned in, loving the sound of her voice. Educated, but not haughty about it. He liked watching her mouth move, too. She had a soft, kissable mouth, as he well remembered. That kiss had haunted him. Haunted him still.

“What are the signs?” he managed to ask when his brain settled back down.

“I’ll leave you a list but, in general, call me if you notice anything unusual around either site. Or if he runs a fever.” She pointed to the place where two tubes entered Pops’s forearm. “The fistula takes a while to heal.”

He nodded, knowing he was in over his head but trying to appear halfway intelligent. “The doc told us. Pops has the chest catheter for now. Until the fistula heals.”

The wound in his dad’s forearm gave him the creeps. The idea that a thick vessel would develop under Pops’s skin like a gopher tunnel was one he didn’t like to think about. But if it kept Pops alive, Caleb didn’t care if it was as big as the Holland Tunnel.

“Healing could take several months,” she said.

Months of watching Pops suffer, watching him deteriorate daily. Yesterday he’d been too weak and short of breath to saddle a horse.

Caleb squeezed the bridge of his nose, wishing he could turn back the clock. For months, maybe longer, Pops had been sick and hadn’t known it. And even when the symptoms hit, he’d ignored them too long. The cowboy way. Suck it up, be tough, keep going.

Kristen went through a few more instructions, using big words and then dumbing them down for him and Pops. Caleb’s head hurt from information overload.

Eventually, Pops waved them away. “You two go somewhere else so I can catch a nap.”

Kristen patted his shoulder. “I can’t go far. Maybe the living room. I’ll tiptoe in occasionally to check your monitors. You get that two-hour snooze.”

Pops gave her a grin and a wink. If Caleb didn’t know better, he’d say the old man was flirting.

He turned and went back to the living room to finish feeding the calf, aware that Kristen followed. At Caleb’s entrance, Ripley whopped his tail against the rug.

Caleb dropped a hand to the black-and-white head. “Hey, Rip, looking after the baby?”

“Rip?” Kristen approached with caution, standing behind Caleb’s shoulder, close enough to brush his arm. “As in he’ll rip my throat out?”

He was so aware of her, his skin tingled. “As in Ripley, which sounds too grand for a working cow dog. Rip for short.”

“Won’t he hurt the calf?”

“Nope. He’ll protect her.”

To prove as much, Ripley began licking the calf’s still-damp forehead. Gently, Caleb eased him aside and urged the calf onto her wobbly legs to recommence the feeding regimen.

Rip curled into a circle at Caleb’s feet to watch.

“What happened to his mama?” Kristen settled on the couch almost close enough to touch, an electronic tablet on her lap.

“Calf’s a her. A heifer.” As if the calf knew they were speaking about her, she gave the bottle several hard head butts. “Feisty girl to be so little, but her size may have saved her life. She had a leg turned back and under. Couldn’t deliver. Cow died.”

“Poor little orphan.”

The term caused a burn in the pit of Caleb’s stomach. He’d been a social orphan, not a biological one, but either way, he’d been without a parent. Like this calf. “I’ll take care of her.”

Like Pops had done for him. Like Caleb tried to do with the group of boys he mentored.

“Will she survive?”

“Hopefully. This colostrum will help. Sometimes I don’t find the calves quick enough.”

“Colostrum is important in humans, too.”

“I guess you’d know about that. For cattle, we’ve got about six hours before the gut will no longer absorb these essential nutrients, so the quicker I get this in her, the better.”

“You must have to know a lot to care for cattle.”

Nothing like what a college-educated nurse had to know to care for people. “We do what we can. If that means letting a calf sleep in my living room, I’m willing.”

“You were always a kind person.”

The comment caught him off guard. “I was?”

“Remember that kid in high school with the speech impediment?”

“Jimmy Starks.” He hadn’t thought about the poor stuttering kid in years.

“You punched Trent White for tormenting him.”

Caleb snorted. “And got suspended.”

“You shouldn’t have. Trent was a bully before bullying was a thing.”

“Bullying was always a thing, Kristen.” She’d just been too popular to be the object. Right side of the tracks, good Christian family with a respected mother and a successful father, smart and pretty Kristen had it all.

If Caleb hadn’t learned to hit first and apologize later, he’d have been more tormented than poor Jimmy. Foster boy, dummy, loser, who’s your daddy? Those were only a few of the remarks he’d endured. They’d made him feel as worthless as used tissue. As a result, he’d hated school. And his grades had shown it.

Kristen tapped the iPad a few more times and then went to check on Pops. Her boot cast thudded on the wooden floor, warning him of her going and coming. Again, he wanted to ask about the accident. This time, he didn’t. He didn’t want her scowling at him again.

When she returned, she came to the fireplace, where he was stroking the calf’s neck to encourage her to swallow. The flames flickered behind her, yellow and blue and warm.

He looked up at her. “Pops doing all right?”

She stretched her hands behind her back, toward the fire. “Sleeping.”

“He does that a lot.”

“He needs a transplant,” she said softly.

“I know that.” His tone was harsh. “He’s on the registry.”

She perched on the raised brick hearth, watching him with sympathy. “I’m sorry. This has to be incredibly difficult for you.”

“Not for me. For him.” He didn’t matter. Pops did. “I’d give him both my kidneys if they’d match.”

She smiled a sad smile. “All it takes is one.”

“Which we can’t find.” Fury at the injustice boiled in his gut. “Probably won’t find. Not with his rare antibody.”

“He’s a tough match, but not impossible.”

“How long can he live like this without a transplant?”

Her eyes shifted. She grew wary. She picked imaginary lint from her blue scrub pants. “Statistics vary, and averages don’t consider the individual. Your dad doesn’t have some of the other risk factors, so with dialysis, he could live a long time.”

Or he could die tomorrow. That was what she wasn’t saying.

The calf drained the bottle, and Caleb lowered the animal to the rug and went into the kitchen. At the sink, he washed out the container, his heart heavy as a boulder. He was a man of action, a man who took charge of his sick animals and found a way to make them well. That he couldn’t do the same for Pops made him crazy.

Chapter Two

Caleb carried her bag to the car. Kristen had been mildly amused that he’d held her elbow while she’d thumped like a flat tire in her boot cast down the incline from his porch to her car. The leg was healing. She was an independent adult who could manage alone. But there was something to be said for a thoughtful man.

He’d even opened her car door and waited in the December cold, hands shoved in his jeans pockets, for her and her bum leg to settle in.

“See you tomorrow,” she said, putting on her seat belt.

Caleb leaned in, one hand on top of the Honda. “Same time?”

Their gazes met, and Kristen experienced that disconcerting flutter again. “If not, I’ll give you a call.”

“Okay. Thanks.” He closed the door and stepped back, watching as she took off. When she glanced in her mirror, he still stood there, wind stirring his brown hair, his olive flannel shirt plastered against his body. He looked incredibly alone.

Like she’d felt the day James had left.

Eyes were the windows to the soul, and Caleb Girard’s said he was sick with fear and sadness. Anger, too. As a nurse, she recognized the normal progression of emotions in life-and-death situations. As a woman who’d once adored him, she ached for his aloneness and despair.

There had to be more they could do to procure a kidney for Greg. Thousands died every year waiting for a transplant. She hadn’t told this gruesome statistic to Caleb or Greg. Hope was essential. Greg had it. Caleb was struggling.

After a stop at the Refuge Home Health office, Kristen visited one more patient, who needed an IV infusion, before calling it a day. That done, she stopped at her childhood home. Dad wasn’t yet home from his real estate office, but Mom was. After twenty-six years of working alongside Dad, Evie Andrews was semiretired, showing homes only when she wanted to.

A honey blonde carrying a few extra pounds, Evie greeted Kristen with a hug. “There you are. Staying for dinner, I hope. I have lemon chicken in the oven.”

“One of my favorites, as you well know.”

Mom offered a guilty shoulder shrug. “Funny how that worked out.”

Grinning, Kristen limped through the tidy living room where she’d grown up, past Mom’s perfectly decorated, lit Christmas tree, to the island separating the living area from the kitchen. She climbed onto a bar stool and propped her boot on the rung of another.

“Your leg doing okay now that you’re working again?”

“It’s tired at the end of the day, but I’m not having any pain to speak of.”

“Which you wouldn’t speak of even if you were in agony.” Mom moved around the island to the stove. “Cup of tea?”

“Sounds wonderful. But I can make it.” Kristen started to rise.

“Sit. Let me pretend you still need me.”

“Oh, Mama, I’ll always need you.”

Her mother set the kettle to heat. “Still haven’t heard from Dr. Dudley?”

An ache pulsed in Kristen’s chest. “I thought he’d call by now, wanting to make up.”

“But he hasn’t?”

“Not even a text to inquire about the fractured fibula.”

“I know he’s a busy physician, but common courtesy demands at least a phone call.” Evie opened a cabinet. “Maybe he’s not as great as we thought.”

Maybe he wasn’t.

She’d thought she was in love with him. Wanted to be in love. Biology didn’t wait forever, and she wanted children, though she hadn’t mentioned kids to James. Not yet anyway. She’d assumed he’d feel the same. After his behavior at the ski lodge, and his cold silence since, she wasn’t sure of anything.

Her mom slid a steaming cup of Earl Grey in front of her. “How’s Greg Girard doing?”

Cup at her lips, Kristen blinked at her mother. “How did you know I was at his ranch today?”

“Sugar, this is Refuge, not Denver. Remember how you and your brothers used to get so aggravated because Dad and I knew what you’d been up to before you could tell us.”

“That was annoying. Like the time I was nominated for homecoming queen. I was so excited to tell you.”

“But Shawna Rich told us first.”

“I’m still mad at her about that.”

They both laughed, knowing she joked. She and Shawna remained close friends.

“So, how is Greg?” Evie leaned both elbows on the island.

Kristen shook her head. “Patient confidentiality, Mom.”

Her mom made a face. “Which doesn’t mean beans in Refuge. Greg’s in our discipleship class at church. We know he’s in kidney failure. Everyone does. As soon as he received the diagnosis, he called your dad, asking for the class to pray.”

There were few secrets in Refuge, especially when someone was ill. “Greg is upbeat, as usual, trying to be positive, but frankly, he needs a miracle.”

“Someone somewhere has to be a donor match.”

“Finding that person is the problem.” She didn’t go into the sad statistics. She was a woman of science, but she and her family were also people of faith. “Sometimes it’s hard to trust that God will do whatever’s best, even if His idea of ‘best’ is not what we hoped.”

“I know, sweetie. I know. I feel as bad for Caleb as I do Greg. Maybe worse. Greg is the only family he has. We know where Greg is going if he loses this battle, but Caleb will be lost without his anchor.”

“He seems scared and worried, though he wouldn’t ever admit as much. Cowboy tough, all the way. But he’s trying hard to take care of his dad.”

“He was always a good boy under that nobody’s-gonna-hurt-me-again reserve. I liked him. And if my memory serves, you liked him, too. You were always tagging around after your brothers whenever they brought Caleb home.”

Kristen rolled her eyes upward. “Was I really that obvious?”

“Uh-huh. Starry-eyed teenage crushes, we all go through them.”

Caleb had probably thought she was a silly goose. But they were grown-ups now and teenage crushes had given way to more meaningful relationships. She wondered why Caleb wasn’t married.

“You know what’s sad?” Lifting the boot, she swiveled the bar stool toward the lit Christmas tree. “There wasn’t one sign of Christmas in that house.”

“I guess Greg’s not up to it.”

“Maybe they don’t decorate, being single guys and all. But that’s sad to me.”

“Some don’t. It bothers you because you’re a Christmas-cookie kind of girl with all the trimmings.” Evie dipped her tea bag up and down in the cup. “Which reminds me. Want to come over next week and bake pumpkin bread for the neighbors? It’ll be like old times, when you were in high school and we baked for your teachers.”

“And the fire department and police officers.” She set her tea on the speckled gray granite. “I loved doing that. Refuge has such a great community.”

Refuge was a great community, filled with caring people.

An idea popped into Kristen’s head. One she couldn’t wait to share with Caleb.

* * *

Caleb thought she was the cutest female buzz saw he’d ever seen. Being a cautious man, he kept the thought to himself. He grinned a little, though, when Kristen plopped onto a kitchen chair, pen and paper in hand, black boot sticking straight out, and declared her plan to find a kidney for Pops.

She’d already hooked Pops to R2-D2, forcing both men to watch, listen and repeat every step. Kristen was a good teacher, but an exacting one. He appreciated that even if it surprised him. Do it. Do it right. Pops’s life depended on it.

“Help me make a list.” She tapped the pen against her chin.

“A list of what? People who might donate?” Rip ambled in from Pops’s room and stood beside Caleb’s chair, quiet and polite. He appreciated that in a dog, a horse, too.

“Civic groups, churches and, yes, specific people if you can think of any.”

He couldn’t. “None that I haven’t already asked.”

“All right, then, let’s brainstorm groups to speak to.”

“Speak to? As in talk in front of people?” He dropped a hand to Rip’s head.

She snickered. “Scared?”

Terrified, but he wouldn’t admit it. “I’m not a good speaker. I barely talk to individuals. Cows and horses, yes. Groups of people, no.”

People stared and judged, and he was certain he’d make a fool of himself and ruin Pops’s chances. He didn’t have the education or the vocabulary to be a speaker.

“I think you’d be great,” she said, “but if it makes you feel better, I’ll handle most of the speaking. You come along to put a face to the need.”

He could do that. Fact was, he’d do anything. And the little perverse imp on his shoulder loved the idea of spending extra time with Kristen. The smart part of his brain knew better. “Whatever it takes.”

She gave him the kind of smile that made a man want to do anything she asked. “That’s the spirit. The more we raise awareness, the more opportunity we have of seeing the right donor step up.”

Caleb was skeptical, but he admired Kristen’s spunk, her determination, her sheer faith that they would succeed. Even if it all turned out to be a wasted effort, they’d know they tried.

They spent the next twenty minutes brainstorming places to speak and social media, all of which Pops would have to approve. Then, after a check of Pops’s machinery, Kristen started looking up numbers on her cell phone.

“Here,” he said, holding out a hand. “Give me half the list. I can look up numbers.”

“As long as you don’t have to talk to them?”

He gave her a scowl. “I can call. But they’ll respond better to you.”

“What makes you think that? I’m the one who’s been gone for a long time. They probably won’t remember me.”

Oh, they’d remember her, all right. Kristen Andrews of the auburn hair, sea green eyes and big, big heart was unforgettable. Whether or not anyone would line up to give away a kidney at her request? That was the part that worried him.

Chapter Three

Caleb stared at the sea of faces gathered in the meeting room of the Refuge Library. They made him nervous. So much so that he’d twisted the brim of his hat into a knot. He was nervous for Kristen, nervous for Greg, nervous that no one would even care about one old rancher with dead kidneys and no family other than an adopted son whose blood type didn’t even match.

Members of a local service club listened with varying amounts of interest. From his place on the dais, Caleb could see their faces and the few who played on their cell phones while Kristen explained the life-and-death scenarios people like his dad lived with every day.

He wanted to get up and punch the cell phone users, demand they listen and care. Kristen was terrific. Articulate, warm, funny. And the PowerPoint presentation was an attention grabber filled with grim facts as well as the hope and long life that could be realized through a living kidney donation. He was learning from her, too.

When she introduced Caleb, he stood, awkward as a three-legged calf. Here goes nothing, he thought for the sixth time in two weeks. He was the face of the issue, like he’d been years ago on one of those news programs that beg people to adopt older kids. He remembered the humiliation, the feeling that he was a germ under the microscope and lesser somehow because he had no parents to love him.

This was different, though. This wasn’t about him. This was about Greg, the only person to respond to that long-ago news program. As long as he could remember that, he didn’t care if his face was hotter than a brush fire or that his knees wobbled like Jell-O.

He stepped up to the microphone, cleared his throat and read from the paper he’d written and rewritten.

“Pops. That’s my dad,” he started, feeling proud as he always did to be able to claim Greg Girard as his dad. “He’s the best man I know, a hard worker, a real cowboy who loves his neighbor like the Good Book says and goes the extra mile to help others. He used to donate blood every time the mobile came to town, and after fire wiped out the Belgers’ hay barn, he fed their cows all through the winter out of our barn, free of charge. We ran a little short that spring, but he never mentioned the reason, just went to the feed store and bought expensive feed.”

Though his fingers trembled, he peeked at the crowd. Most were listening. He looked back at his notes.

“Even after his kidneys failed and he had to go on dialysis or die, he was thinking about others. At Thanksgiving, he drove around Refuge, distributing beef from our herd to families who were having a hard time. I could tell you lots of stories about him like that, but I’ll just leave you with this thought. If it was your dad, wouldn’t you want someone to step up and save his life?”

Grabbing his hat, he sat down again. Blood pulsed in his head. He had no memory of what he’d said. He hoped he’d made sense. He twisted his hat again, aware he was about to ruin a perfectly good Resistol.

Kristen turned her head, gave him one of her reassuring smiles, the kind that lit him up on the inside, fool that he was. She always said he did great. He doubted it. She was nice like that.

They were, however, making progress. Thanks to her. Every time they did this speaking gig, several attendees took the business cards he’d had printed with the donation center’s information.

Each response, small though it was, gave him hope. Not much, but enough to keep him rushing through chores to meet Kristen at the Lions Club or the arts council or any of number of churches who’d agreed to hear them speak.

When her talk ended, followed by polite applause, the group took a break, and he found himself uncomfortably surrounded with questioners. He looked for Kristen, but as happened every time, she was surrounded, too.

“Why don’t you give your dad a kidney?” The man in a yellow golf shirt seemed almost accusatory.

“I’m not a match. He’s type O. I’m AB. His donor needs to be O.”

A woman with a kind face asked from behind purple glasses, “I know your dad. How’s he doing?”

“Holding his own, thank you. But like Kristen mentioned on the PowerPoint, being on dialysis a long time shortens his life span, even after he gets a new kidney. We need a donor as soon as possible.”

Somehow he got through the rest of the questions and wove his way past clutches of conversations toward Kristen. She was the real power behind this campaign, and every time they were together, he found himself more and more captivated by her.

The wild teenage love he’d suffered in high school had grown up to be every bit as wild. His certainty that he didn’t stand a chance with her was even wilder. Love her from afar, but keep his mouth shut. That was his modus operandi.

He spotted her then, as questioners drifted away, leaving one gray-suited man and Kristen. The man was standing a little too close, Caleb thought. Kristen stepped back two paces and ended up against a wall. The man followed, talking, his hands gesturing. Caleb recognized him.

Danny Bert. Used-car salesman. High school jock and bully.

Something dark moved inside Caleb, a primal sense of protectiveness. He picked up his pace, excusing himself as he brushed past the remaining people.

“You haven’t been around in a while, Kristen,” the suit was saying. “Maybe we should have coffee and talk over old times and this donor thing. I know a great little place that stays open late.”

“Sorry, Danny, I can’t, but I appreciate your interest in donating. Call the number on the card, and they’ll get you started.”

“I’d rather talk to you. Old times and all. Remember the junior prom? You and me. It might be worth that phone call you want me to make. Quid pro quo?”

Caleb didn’t like the sound of those words. Whatever they meant.

Kristen crossed her arms. Conflicting emotions flashed on her face. She didn’t want to turn away a possible donor, but Danny was coming on too strong. That he was a man accustomed to having his way was no secret to anyone in Refuge.

Caleb stepped in next to Kristen, ignoring the car salesman. “Ready to go? I could use that Coke you promised me.”

“Oh, there you are.” Relief smoothed the frown between her eyes. She relaxed her arms. “Yes, I’m ready. Let me grab the laptop first.”

“Sure thing.” He slipped an arm around Kristen’s waist, hoping Danny picked up on the subtle clues. Hoping even more that Kristen wouldn’t slap him silly.

Danny looked from him to Kristen. “You’re with him?”

The way the car salesman said him prickled the hair on the back of Caleb’s neck. He’d heard that tone before. Danny treated him like a speck of manure on the bottom of his shoe. Always had.

Maybe he was, but Kristen wasn’t.

For good measure, he shoulder jostled the former jock and left him standing there.

“I could have handled him,” Kristen said when they reached the dais.

The meeting room emptied, including Danny Bert, who was busy schmoozing someone else by the time he reached the exit. Probably selling the man a car. Or a beachfront property in Arizona.

“I know you could.” He closed the laptop, figuring she was mad now. “Sorry if I overstepped.”

“You didn’t. Thank you. Danny has always been pushy.”

“Yeah.”

She gathered her notes and stuck them in a tote. “I owe you that Coke.”

His head jerked up. “I just said that to—”

She put a hand on his arm. “I know. But a Coke sounds good after all that talking.”

“Pops might need me.”

“Your dad is at Bible study.”

“Oh.” He knew that. He hadn’t expected her to.

He shouldn’t go with her. They already spent so much time together he could barely think straight.

But he was a weak man. Slapping his hat on his head, he asked, “Where to?”

* * *

Kristen was chiding herself as she slid into the booth at the fast-food restaurant. Caleb had been sweet to rescue her from that irritant Danny Bert, but he hadn’t wanted to come here and extend their time together. Why had she insisted?

And what was it about her that found aloof men so intriguing?

Caleb set a lidded fountain drink in front of her and slid in on the other side of the booth. His foot jostled her boot cast.

“Sorry. Did that hurt?” He gripped his soda cup until she thought he’d pop the lid off.

“Not at all.”

His fingers eased their stranglehold. “When do you get free of the boot?”

“Another week, I hope. I’m healing faster than expected.”

She sipped at the Coke, remembering the only other time she and Caleb had shared a soda in this place. Maybe in this exact booth. “Tonight went great, I thought. I gave out ten cards.”

“About the same for me.”

“They won’t all follow through, but maybe some will.”

“Like Danny Bert?”

She rolled her eyes. “Danny’s a wart on the world.”

Caleb laughed, coughed, choked on his drink.

She handed him a napkin, chuckling. “It isn’t very Christian of me, but ever since I was his date to the junior prom, he thinks I owe him something.”

Caleb’s eyes danced. “Corsages are pricey.”

“Why, Mr. Girard, are you making fun of me?”

“Depends on how much you liked the flowers, I guess. I didn’t go to the junior prom.”

“Or the senior one, either.” A blush crept up her neck. Why had she said that? It was ages ago, and that she remembered seemed...pathetic.

“Nope. Neither one.” He pumped his straw up and down in the lid without drinking. “I was never much for dancing.”

“I thought all cowboys could scoot a boot.”

“Nah.” His mouth curved. “That’s only in the movies. All my boot scooting happens when a bull gets after me.”

Kristen laughed. “A regular twinkle toes?”

“Something like that.” He sipped from the straw. “You hungry? I was thinking some fries sound good.”

“I normally don’t eat fast food, but you go ahead.”

He scooted out of the booth, and she watched him walk to the counter. He wasn’t a swaggering cowboy, but he sure looked good in jeans and cowboy boots.

* * *

A dozen emotions flooded through Caleb as he carried his order back to the booth. He should hit the trail, forget the food, forget Kristen Andrews.

He doubted she remembered the only other time they’d been in this restaurant together, but he remembered. She’d been sixteen, a bouncy cheerleader in white shorts and a green shirt, cute and friendly as a pup. He’d fallen so in love with her, he hadn’t slept at all that night.

He slid the tray onto the table and sat again. They were adults now, so why couldn’t his heart behave like one?

He’d barely settled when she pinned him with those green eyes. “Why aren’t you married, Caleb?”

A dozen reasons. He came from bad blood. He didn’t know how to be a husband. He sure didn’t know how to be a father. He’d decided long ago to remain a bachelor like Pops.

“No one will have me,” he joked.

“Oh, come on.” She tapped his fingers like a schoolmarm with a ruler. “Be serious. Haven’t you ever been in love?”

“Once.” And once was all it took. “I decided the whole marriage and family thing wasn’t for me. You?”

“I’ve thought so a couple of times.”

His heart squeezed. “But?”

“Things haven’t worked out. Yet. I’m still praying and asking for God’s direction.” She pulled the straw loose from the lid and studied the drippy end. “I’d like to get married someday and have a family, the way my parents did.”

An all-American, traditional family like hers. He couldn’t begin to fathom what that was like.

“Must have been some smart man in Colorado who caught your eye.”

“There was.”

“But not anymore?” A zing of hope shot up like a July thermometer.

“Not sure. We’re...taking a break. His practice is really busy.”

He didn’t care how busy he was. If Kristen was his woman, he’d find time. “Practice? He a lawyer?”

“James is a doctor. A surgeon.”

Hoped faded, crashed, ached.

James. A doctor. Smart and successful. And probably rich. Exactly the kind of man Kristen deserved.

Another reason Caleb would remain a bachelor.

Chapter Four

“You’re going out to see that cute cowboy again?” Kristen’s coworker Trina stepped into the supply room inside the home health office, where Kristen gathered the supplies for another trip to the Girard ranch.

Kristen dropped dialysis tubing into her bag and reached for the wound-care supplies. Because his treatment took several hours, she saved Greg Girard’s visit for last.

“Which cute cowboy would that be?” She knew full well which one. Caleb was seldom far from her thoughts.

Something had changed between her and Caleb that late night over french fries and soda refills. She didn’t know what it was. She wasn’t a lovesick teenager anymore, but she couldn’t deny the powerful pull between her and the cowboy.

So powerful in fact, that she wanted closure with James. Not that she and Caleb were an item, but spending time with the cowboy had cleared the fog from her brain. She wasn’t in love with James. And he certainly hadn’t been in love with her. He’d wanted her, yes, but love and respect? Not even close.

She thanked God He’d opened her eyes to that truth before it was too late.

Trina reached for the irrigation syringes. “Caleb Girard is one of the most eligible and best-looking bachelors in Refuge. All that cowboy charisma is yummy.”

Chemistry and biology. Exactly. The fact that her nerve endings tingled whenever Caleb entered the house was a simple case of attractive male and single female on the rebound. Instant appeal. At least on her part. “Even if I did have my eye on him, Caleb isn’t interested in me.”

If they so much as brushed arms in the hallway, he jumped like she’d hit him with a defibrillator.

Look, but don’t get close was the message she received.

“He’s not interested in anyone from what I’ve noticed. And trust me, I’ve noticed. He rarely dates.”

Kristen had noticed, too.

“True. He’s not real social. Kind of shy, I think. Plus, running a ranch is hard, endless work. With his dad unable to contribute as much as he used to, all the chores fall on Caleb’s shoulders.”

Caleb would tromp into the house, ice frozen on his hair or soaking wet from rain, dutifully receive his dialysis lesson while he warmed up, talk a bit about the cows or horses or a red fox he’d seen and then head back out into the December cold.

She looked forward to those brief conversations as well as to the evenings they spent recruiting donors. They made a good team.

“Sounds like you’re admiring someone,” Trina said in a singsong voice, teasing.

“I do admire him. You should see him with his dad. It’s kind of heartrending, but tender and sweet, too. He’s desperate to make Greg well, as if he has that power.”

“Poor guy. Must be tough.”

“When we speak to groups about kidney donation, he visibly shakes. He hates being the center of attention, but he gets up there anyway.” And looked mighty fine doing it. A white shirt, well-pressed jeans and that black cowboy hat on a handsome man could give any woman cardiac arrhythmia.

Trina slipped a stack of medical forms onto a clipboard. “Sounds like a catch to me. Caring, thoughtful guy. Easy on the eyes. Kind of lonely and shy. You’d be doing him a favor to ask him out.”

Kristen shook her head and forced out a laugh as she slipped on her coat. Caleb was a catch. But, after the fiasco with James, she’d stick with friendship for now.

Friendship was less risky.

* * *

Kristen was here.

Caleb’s belly lifted and dropped like it did when he took a hill too fast in his pickup truck.

Cloaked to the ears in the white quilted coat with a green plaid scarf around her neck, the woman he couldn’t get out of his mind walked into his house, toting a pot of red flowers and a white paper sack.

She couldn’t possibly know about today. Unless Pops had told her. “What’s the occasion?”

“Christmas. These are poinsettias.” She handed him the flowers and the sack and began unwinding her scarf. “And some good news.”

His pulse jumped. “A donor?”

“Not yet, but we’re getting closer.” She took the white sack from him and went into the kitchen. That was Kristen, comfortable with people in a way he wasn’t. “The donation center says twenty-seven people have signed up to be tested for Greg since we started our awareness campaign.”

She looked so right in his house, he had the completely inappropriate longing to pull her close, the way a husband would greet a wife.

Instead, he shoved the idea as far back in his head as it would go—which wasn’t far enough—and set the potted plant on the bar between them. It was pretty. Brightened up the place. Like she did.

“Hear that, Pops?” he called toward the back of the house.

“Sure did.” Pops exited the laundry room, a basket in his arms. Caleb took it. Pops scowled but didn’t argue.

“I’m praying one of them is right for you,” Kristen said.

“Hard as it is to covet another man’s property,” Pops said, “I’m praying with you.”

Talk of prayer made Caleb fidgety. He’d tried it lately. Hadn’t done much good.

He put the thought on pause and frowned. Could God be responsible for the twenty-seven sign-ups?

Kristen removed a plate from the cabinet and arranged some Christmas cookies and perky gingerbread men in a pretty circle. He and Pops never got that fancy. They ate right out of the sack.

“You brought cookies?” he asked.

“I thought a celebration was in order.”

“It sure is.” Pops shot him a grin.

“Pops,” Caleb warned with a shake of his head.

The ornery old cowboy chuckled. “Oh, quit bellyaching. Every man gets older once a year. This little lady brought you flowers and cookies. Enjoy ’em.”

Caleb was watching Kristen’s face and saw when she caught on to Pops’s not-so-subtle hints.

“Today is your birthday? Why didn’t you tell me?” Her eyes lit up like candles on a cake. She circled the end of the bar and threw her arms around him. “Happy birthday!”

She smelled like sugar cookies and felt so right in his arms, he wanted to stand there for an hour. Made a man want to have a birthday every day, though his was nothing much to celebrate.

The snotty little imp in his head piped up. Kristen was taken. A doctor boyfriend. She was a people person, a hugger. Hugging meant exactly nothing.

His sneaky hands slid around her anyway. When the moment ended, he wanted to tell her it was the best birthday gift of his life. But that might hurt Pops’s feelings and make Kristen uncomfortable. Like Caleb was now.

“If I’d known, I’d have brought a birthday cake instead.” Her green eyes sparkled like jewels in sunlight. That was Kristen, sunny and warm on a cold, dark day.

“Aw, it’s no big deal. Cookies are great.”

“Of course it’s a big deal. At my house, Mom still bakes a cake and invites the whole family.” She roofed her hands over her head. “Then she makes us all wear those ridiculous pointed hats and leis. And the birthday boy or girl wears this huge flashing button that says, ‘Hug me. It’s my birthday.’”

Her family birthdays sounded amazing. He couldn’t fathom that, either.

Pops, whose eyes sparkled as much as Kristen’s, couldn’t let well enough alone. “Us old bachelors don’t know much about birthday partying. So what say you stick around after my date with R2-D2 and show us how it’s done?”

“Pops, Kristen’s worked all day.”

“Which means she’s gotta be hungrier than a toothless coyote in a lettuce factory. Why don’t you whip us up a steak while she and I visit our mechanical pal?” To Kristen, Pops said, “You wouldn’t turn down a sick old man on his son’s birthday, now would you?”

Pops had their guest between a rock and a boulder. She might not want to stay for dinner, but she was too kind to reject such a pitiful plea.

Every cell in Caleb’s stupid body was thrilled when she agreed.

* * *

The next morning was as cold as Antarctica but Caleb barely noticed. He was warm on the inside, thanks to Kristen and her birthday party ideas.

Collar turned up against the wind, Caleb poured feed into a trough while Pops was inside the barn, bottle-feeding the orphaned calf.

Caleb hummed a silly song, one Kristen had assigned as his penalty for losing one of her games. He still couldn’t believe how much fun he’d had playing those games and listening to Kristen laugh. She could be a bossy thing, forcing him and Pops to play kids’ games he’d heard of but never played. Charades. Minute to Win It, which had consisted of tossing marshmallows into a cup while standing on a strip of duct tape six feet across the room. When his toe had crossed the line, mostly on purpose, Kristen had gleefully penalized him. It was like living the childhood he’d never had.

Funny how something so simple with the right person could make a man this happy.

He hung the bucket on the fence and headed inside the barn, out of the wind. He’d have a busy day, moving hay to various pastures, counting cows, checking heifers. The weatherman was predicting a winter storm this weekend. He might have to cancel his weekly meeting at the fitness center with the group of gangly, struggling boys he mentored for Child Services. He disliked canceling but if there was the slightest chance of a storm, he had to get the animals ready. The house, too. With Pops on dialysis, a power outage could spell disaster.

Pops came out of a stall, empty bottle in hand. The calf followed, nudging at him. Rip moved between man and animal to force the little one back inside.

“Somebody had a good time last night,” Pops said.

Was he still humming? “Can’t remember laughing that much in a while.”

“It was good for you. Good for both of us.”

For those hours, he’d forgotten Kristen’s true reason for being at the ranch. He’d even forgotten how sick Pops was. “Hard to imagine you’re all that sick, the way you were hopping around on one foot last night.”

Pops gave Rip’s head a rub. “Couldn’t think of any other way to act out a flamingo. I sure ain’t pink.”

They both chuckled, remembering.

“She’s a fine girl.”

Caleb took off his gloves, slapped them against his thigh, not even pretending not to know who Pops meant. “Can’t argue that.”

“Pretty. Smart. A real Christian, the kind you don’t find every day.”

“What are you getting at, Pops? If you’re matchmaking, save your breath.”

“And what if I am? I may not be that old, but if things don’t look up real soon, I won’t be around this ranch forever.”

Caleb clenched his hands. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Son, death is a fact of life for everyone. My ticket to heaven was paid in full by Jesus a long time ago. I’m not scared of dying, but I am scared of leaving you alone.”

Emotion thickened in Caleb’s throat. He couldn’t have gotten a word out if he had to.

“See, it’s like this, Caleb. When I adopted you, you thought I was helping you. Truth was, I was the one in need. I needed you.”

“Aw, Pops.” He stared at his boots, chest aching.

“I don’t have a lot of regrets. I’ve lived most of my life the way I thought the Lord wanted me to. But I have one, a big one.”

“What’s that?”

“I regret not marrying and having the kind of family Kristen talks about. You missed out on that.”

“So did you.”

“Too late for me, but not for you. I want to see you settled before I leave this planet. I want to dance a Cajun jig at your wedding, and if God wills, stick around long enough to hold my first grandchild.”

“She’s got a boyfriend.”

“You sure about that? Couldn’t tell it by the way she was laughing with you last night. Sparkly-eyed, she was, looking at you. And you’re looking back.”

“Kristen’s nice to everyone.”

“Keep telling yourself that, boy, and she’ll marry somebody else before you get out of first gear. A woman like Kristen is special. She won’t be left on the vine too long.”

“You’re shivering. Better get in the house.”

Pops pinned him with a glare. “Changing the subject won’t change the facts. You think about what I said. You don’t want to be ten years down the road like I was, kicking yourself for being stubborn and stupid.”

With that, Pops whirled and marched out of the barn, his frail body bent into the wind. Frigid air whipped in behind him. Caleb shivered, too. He’d never heard Pops talk like that and it scared him. He’d always thought Pops was happy with the bachelor life, and he’d figured if it was good enough for Greg Girard, it was good enough for Caleb.

Pops’s admission got him thinking. About Kristen. And kids. She’d be a fantastic mother. She’d read to her kids and rock them to sleep and throw wonderful birthday parties. Stuff he’d only fantasized about.

What would it be like to be part of that? To have his own family, his own kids, to have Kristen at his side forever?

He rubbed both hands over his face with enough vigor to cause a rash.

All the talk in the world didn’t change the facts of who he was. No matter what Pops thought, Caleb didn’t stand a chance with a woman like Kristen.

Chapter Five

Cold rain battering her uncovered head, Kristen darted from the doctor’s office to the parking lot. Her run wasn’t her usual 10K pace, but with the boot officially gone, she’d be back up to speed in a few weeks.

Inside the car, she wiggled her foot. It seemed like a lifetime since she’d been able to wear a real shoe. Even though the shoes were nursing clogs, they were way better than the heavy boot.

She couldn’t wait to show Caleb. Greg, too, of course. And her family. They’d all be thrilled. Not just Caleb.

The fact that the cowboy was on her mind pretty much every waking moment gave her pause. They were spending a lot of time together. That was part of the reason. The other part was confusing. One moment, she thought he liked her. The next, he was backing away. She didn’t want to play the rejection game again.

They’d had a grand time on Caleb’s birthday, and the teasing had continued after another talk at the Oak Street Church two evenings ago. Underneath his reserve, Caleb was a great guy.

She started the car, cranked up the heat and the wipers. Slushy rain spit against her windshield. She frowned at it. Was that sleet? Or maybe snow? Tonight was Terri Bates’s baby shower. As one of the planners, she hoped they didn’t have to cancel. The cake was already made, the finger foods ordered and the guest list confirmed.

Her cell phone jingled. She fished it from her bag and answered.

“Hi, Mom.”

“I’m just checking on you, sugar. The weather is supposed to get bad.”

“I know, but I still have patients to see.”

“How many?”

“Two who are essential. The others can be delayed or rescheduled if necessary. Right now, it’s only slushy rain.”

“Slushy rain brings freezing rain. The meteorologist is predicting a major ice storm. You know how dangerous that can be.”

Oklahoma ice storms were terrifying. Last year, six traffic fatalities occurred during a single-day event.

“Hopefully, the worst will hold off until after sundown when the temperature drops. By then, I’ll be safely home.” Making shower-cancelation calls to fifty people.

“Call or text when you get back to your apartment. You know I won’t relax or stop praying until you do.”

“Thanks, Mom. I appreciate the prayers, but don’t worry. I lived in the mountains long enough to know how to drive in bad weather.” Granted, Colorado mostly saw snow. No need to remind her mother of that.

“Remember the rules Dad taught you.”

Kristen smiled, but dutifully ticked off her dad’s ingrained instructions. “Drive slowly, especially on bridges and overpasses, and steer into a skid.”

“Preferably stay off the roads altogether. But if you do find yourself in an ice storm, stay wherever you are until it’s safe to drive or Dad comes to get you.”

“Will do, Mom. Thanks. I love you.” What would she do without her strong, supportive family?

“Be safe. I love you, too.”

She rang off and headed to her first patient, wipers flapping with the rhythm of the radio. The weather in Oklahoma was fickle. It might not do anything at all.

* * *

By the time she reached the Girard ranch, tension knotted Kristen’s shoulders. She leaned close to the windshield, squinting through the heavy, pounding onslaught of slushy rain.

“So much for hoping this would blow over,” she grumbled.

She prayed she’d be able to get Greg’s treatment in and get home before the storm strengthened.

As she parked her Honda, the front door of Caleb’s house opened and he stomped out. Head down, no coat, he jogged to the car and yanked the door open.

“Have you lost your mind?” He looked as dark and stormy as the skies.

Kristen stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you watch the weather? Turn around and go home right now while you can.”

“Your dad needs his treatment, as you well know.” He was starting to make her mad. “And I’m not leaving until he gets it.”

“That’s stupid. Pops wouldn’t want you to risk your life.” Fat drops of rain pummeled his head. She was tempted to do the same.

“I’m already here. And you aren’t well trained enough to do the treatment by yourself.” Hurt by his tone, she shoved her nursing bag into his gut and pushed past him to get out of the car. “Let’s do this, so I can get out of your way.”

She started up the rise, fueled by wounded annoyance and not caring if he remained out in the rain and cold until he turned into a Popsicle.

The silly notion cooled some of her anger. But she didn’t wait for him. She marched up on the porch, pushed open the wooden door and went right in, closing it behind her.

Take that, cowboy.

Before she could unwind her scarf, Caleb entered, dripping wet and puffing like a steam engine. He glared at her. She glared back. What was his problem? Was he already sick of her?

The collie rose from his spot by the fireplace and came to greet her. She rubbed his ears, trying to decide what to say to Caleb.

“I’ll get towels,” he said. From his expression, he’d probably strangle her with them. He plunked her nurse’s tote on a chair and left her alone with the dog.

“Grouch,” she said. Rip wagged his tail and looked sweet.

From the back of the house, an area she hadn’t seen, she heard male voices. One was quiet and soothing, the other hot and loud.

What was he so mad about?

She removed her coat and gloves, but they were wet, so she waited by the door. Rip waited with her, licking the moisture from her clogs.

Both Girard men entered the room together. Caleb didn’t look quite so thunderous. He’d dried off and his boots were missing.

He hadn’t even noticed that her boot was missing, too.

Pops took one look at her face and asked, “Did he bark at you?”

Kristen bent to pat the collie again. “No, he’s a sweet dog. He likes me.”

Pops snorted. “I meant Caleb.”

“Oh.” Her gaze flashed to the cowboy. “A little.”

“Don’t take it to heart. He fusses like an old hen because he’s worried about you. Does me that way all the time.”

“Pops.” Caleb shook his head and handed her a towel. “Warm from the drier.”

His tone was nicer.

“Thank you. This feels wonderful.”

She patted her face and hair, wiped off her coat and dabbed at her scrubs. Rip had taken care of her shoes. Caleb reached for her coat and she gave it to him. He hung it on the back of a chair close to the fire. Was that his form of an apology?

“Beastly out there, huh?” Pops said. “You want some coffee? You like cocoa better, don’t you? Caleb, make her some cocoa.”

“That’s not necessary,” she said. Caleb was grumpy enough. No use ordering him to make refreshments. He’d likely blow a fuse.

Naturally, the cowboy ignored her protest and went into the kitchen. She could see him from the open-concept living room, moving around, taking down the ingredients for hot chocolate. He opened the fridge. Took out milk. Clunked a pan against the metal burner.

Then, and only then, did he look at her, his expression unreadable. “Get going on Pops’s treatment, so you can get out of here.”

Okay. Fair enough. Like Pops said, he was concerned about the weather.

His motive might be good, but his delivery needed work.

“You need to be in on the instructions,” she said.

Caleb shot her a frosty look and turned off the burner with a heavy sigh. She ushered Pops into the bedroom, where he relaxed in his recliner while they went through the protocol. Caleb kept looking from the machine to the window and back again. Maybe he was afraid of storms?

When the machine was set to run for the next few hours, she handed Greg the remote and put a stack of magazines at his elbow. “Need anything else?”

“If I do, I’ll holler. Go on and have that cocoa.”

Caleb went ahead of her to the kitchen. The ingredients were in the pot. All he had to do was turn on the stove.

Kristen leaned a hip against the counter and faced him. The kitchen was small, and they were close.

She could see the outline of his whiskers, which had darkened with the day. Masculine. Attractive. She swallowed, looked down and watched his competent, cowboy hands as he prepared the hot drink. He worked without much thought, a man accustomed to caring for himself.

A frisson of pity surprised her. Caleb had cared for himself basically all his life. No mama or daddy to guide him the way she’d had. No one to call and make sure he was safe in a storm. No one to come to his rescue or kiss his boo-boos or listen to his dreams. Yet behind the gruff exterior, he’d become a good, steady man, fiercely loyal to the one person who’d treated him well. And Mom claimed he spent his Saturday mornings with a group of troubled teens, the way Pops had done for him.

A chunk of her heart melted.

He handed her a cup of steaming chocolate. A handful of mini marshmallows floated on top, the way she liked it.

She sipped, watching him over the top of her cup.

He sipped his, returning her stare.

Neither spoke for a long time.

Only the click of the dialysis monitors and Rip’s gentle snore broke the silence. It was a surprisingly comfortable silence. Eye to eye, sipping at the sweet liquid in the warm, cozy kitchen while, outside, winter tormented the earth.

When she sipped and came up with a marshmallow mustache, Caleb lips tilted. He handed her a paper towel. “I owe you an apology.”

“It’s okay.”

“Pops was right. I bark when I’m worried. It’s getting nasty outside.”

“The drive out here wasn’t too bad.”

“That’s changing rapidly.” He hitched his head toward the outdoors. “Look outside.”

Kristen set her cup on the counter and went to the double windows in the living room. Caleb followed, standing close enough that his leather-and-woods scent circled around her, heady.

“Oh, no.”

Sleet pounded the earth, already turning the yard white.

“That’s not snow.”

Snow, she could handle. “Do you think the roads are freezing over yet?”

“The ground was already frozen. Add freezing rain and then sleet and you’re looking at roads of solid ice.”

Tension sprang up in Kristen’s shoulders. Driving home in the dark in an ice storm could spell disaster.

* * *

Caleb had one nerve cell left and it was sparking like a broken highline.

Having Kristen here in his house day after day was both glorious and awful. He was like a puppy, eager to see her but terrified of being kicked.

The woman had a boyfriend. But ever since his talk with Pops, Caleb kept imagining Kristen in a lacy wedding gown.

Now here she was in the flesh, and he kept having the same vision. Only the wedding wasn’t for her and some rich doc. It was for him and her, followed rapidly by a breath-grabbing vision of her rocking his baby in a wooden rocker with a sweet Madonna smile on her lips.

He was going seriously nuts.

To add to his torment, curtains of sleet hammered his house and gave no sign of letting up.

To make one final check of the animals, he left the house, Rip at his side, while R2-D2 filtered Pops’s blood. He slipped a few times, almost fell. Once he went down but managed to grab the shed door and pull himself back to his feet. He went inside the small shed to test-fire the generator. Just in case.

He started back to the house, shocked at how much the conditions had deteriorated since he’d first come outside. Ice pellets sluiced down the collar of his coat. Sleet stung his cheeks. He shivered, moving as fast as he could without taking another tumble.

They were in for a doozy of an ice storm. He had to get Kristen home. Fast.

By the time Greg’s treatment was complete, the TV on the wall was warning motorists to stay off the roads.

“You need to get out of here,” he told Kristen.

She frowned at the windows. “That bad?”

“Vicious.”

He helped her gather her supplies, stewing, thinking. Was it safe for her to drive?

Greg had followed them into the living room. He stood at the front windows. “Looks too treacherous, Kristen. Maybe you ought to stay here until this settles down.”

Caleb’s heart slammed against his rib cage. Yes. No!

He wasn’t the sort of man who encroached on another man’s territory. Having Kristen under his roof any longer than it took to do the treatments would kill him...as in hammer him in the head dead. He’d implode like one of those buildings loaded with dynamite. Only the dynamite inside him was all the words he wanted to say, the love he wanted to share.

“I’ll make it.” Kristen wound the plaid scarf around her pretty neck. “It’s not that far into town.”

Four miles might as well be a thousand on wet ice.

“Maybe I should drive you.”

She gave him one of those insulted, I-am-woman looks and exited the house.

With more misgivings than a debutante in a pigpen, Caleb watched from the porch. Sleet swirled up in his face, pitted his cheeks. His eyes burned from the cold.

She’d walked less than two yards when her vinyl clogs slipped. Her arms windmilled.

Bolting from the porch in one leap, he skidded behind her in time to stick out his arms, but not in time to brace his legs.

Kristen fell back against him. He circled her waist. His boots slipped.

They went down. Hard.

All he could feel was the frozen ground, Kristen’s puffy coat and the freezing rain melting against his scalp.

He battled to a stand, somehow bringing her up with him. The ground was slicker than a used-car salesman. Any second, one of them could unbalance the other and down they’d go.

“Are you hurt?” He turned her to face him.

“No.”

“What about your leg...” He looked down, suddenly realizing what was different about her today. “Your boot is gone.”

She huffed. “Took you long enough to notice.”

Was he supposed to notice?

Holding on to his arm, Kristen started toward her Civic again. They slipped, almost went down again.

She was starting to make him mad. Barking mad, as in worried. “It’s idiotic to think you can drive in this.”

She turned his arm loose and slid the rest of the way to the vehicle, slamming into the side. Holding on to the ice-covered car, she turned her head, glaring. “Are you calling me an idiot?”

Caleb’s shoulders heaved. He slid in next to her, using the car as support. His breath puffed white fog. The freezing rain was giving him hypothermia.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I just don’t like the idea of you out by yourself in this kind of weather. If you wreck or run off in a ditch—”

“I have a cell phone.”

Irritating, independent woman. “But no one will be able to get to you. Be sensible and let me drive you home.”

“What makes you think you can drive any better than me?”

When had she become so unreasonable? “My truck is heavy, a three-quarter-ton four-wheel drive. We stand a better chance of actually getting to town in it than in your lightweight car.”

She considered for less than a second. “My dad would agree with you.”

“One sensible Andrews anyway,” he grumbled. “I’ll bring the truck around. Wait inside your car out of this weather.”

He made his way up the rise to the carport. Driving in this weather was madness. But Kristen wanted to go home, and he wanted her safe and sound and out of his house. He yelled in the back door to let Pops know where he was going, got in his truck and drove carefully out to the road.

He waited while Kristen locked her car—as if some fool would be out burglarizing cars tonight—then slid her way to his truck, where she slammed into the side. Laughing. The crazy woman was laughing.

Nothing was funny to him right now.

He’d get out and open her door, but the truck would probably slide off on its own. Not a happy thought.

Using the overhead handle, she pulled herself up and into the cab, taking care, he noted, to keep her weight off the formerly broken leg.

“If I wasn’t trying to get home, the icy ground would be fun.”

“You’re not a rancher.” He’d probably have three babies tonight, all of them in danger of freezing to death in this wet, cold weather unless he stayed out in the barn with the mamas. “Buckle up and hold on.”

Once she was settled, he eased off the brake. Traction was limited, but the truck crawled forward.

They didn’t talk. Tension filled the cab. Caleb thought his shoulder muscles might snap in half.

Kristen leaned forward, staring out at the crystallized terrain as if her kryptonite eyes could melt the ice. Caleb focused on holding the truck on the road. No one else had driven this way since Kristen had come in. No tracks, no ruts, and the dirt and gravel had disappeared beneath a thick sheet of ice. Nothing to give him traction.

They’d traveled less than a quarter mile when he started up a small hill. The truck slowed to a crawl. He gently pressed the accelerator. All four wheels spun. The truck slipped to one side. Caleb eased off the gas pedal. And the truck began a slow, silent slide. Backward.

Caleb was helpless to stop it. One tap of the brakes and they’d be in a ditch or worse, upside down.

Holding the wheel, he did his best to stay on the road until gravity stopped them at the bottom of the hill.

Kristen looked at him with worried eyes. “I don’t think we can do this, Caleb.”

Suddenly, it hit Caleb like a brick to the face. The woman he couldn’t get out of his head or his heart, the woman who belonged to a Colorado doctor, was stranded in the ice storm. Maybe for days. With him.

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