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

A STONE CREEK CHRISTMAS

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

AT HOME IN STONE CREEK

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

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

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

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

—Publishers Weekly

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

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

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

—RT Book Reviews on Creed’s Honor

“Miller once again tells a memorable tale.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Creed in Stone Creek

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

adds quite a suspenseful punch.”

—RT Book Reviews on McKettricks of Texas: Austin

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

—RT Book Reviews on McKettricks of Texas: Garrett

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

—Library Journal on McKettricks of Texas: Tate

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

—Publishers Weekly on McKettrick’s Choice

Linda Lael Miller

Holiday in Stone Creek

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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A Stone Creek Christmas

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

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

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

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

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

Invariably, the message was the same: Help me.

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

Tonight it was a reindeer.

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

A reindeer?

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

But the silent cry persisted, plaintive and confused.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The reindeer or the man?”

“Both,” Ginger said with a dog smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The deer had antlers, which meant it was male.

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

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

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

Nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The deer hesitated, probably catching Ginger’s scent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ginger, your bed—?”

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

THEPONYWASNOT a happy camper.

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

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

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

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

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

But then—

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

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

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

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

Sophie had begged him not to leave her there.

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

He, of course, was the Grinch.

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

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

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

“I want to come home!”

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

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

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

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

“Honey—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At least if she lost the horse farm to Barker and his dream team of lawyers—more like nightmare team—she’d have the means to start over. The question was, would she have the heart to make a new beginning?

“Dad?” Sophie asked. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” Tanner said, looking around at the night-shrouded landscape surrounding him. There must have been a foot of snow on the ground already, with more coming down. Hell, November wasn’t even over yet.

“Couldn’t I at least come home for Christmas?”

“Soph, we don’t have a home, remember?”

She was sniffling again. “Sure we do,” she said very softly. “Home is where you and Butterpie are.”

Tanner’s eyes stung all of a sudden. He told himself it was the bitterly cold weather. When he’d finally agreed to take the job, he’d thought, Arizona. Cacti. Sweeping desert vistas. Eighty-degree winters.

But Stone Creek was in northern Arizona, near Flagstaff, a place of timber and red rock—and the occasional blizzard.

It wasn’t like him to overlook that kind of geographical detail, but he had. He’d signed on the dotted line because the money was good and because Brad was a good friend.

“How about if I come back there? We’ll spend Christmas in New York—skate at Rockefeller Center, see the Rockettes—”

Sophie loved New York. She planned to attend college there, and then medical school, and eventually set up a practice as a neurosurgeon. No small-time goals for his kid, but then, the doctor gene had come from Kat, not him. Kat. As beautiful as a model and as smart as they come, she’d been a surgeon, specializing in pediatric cardiology. She’d given all that up, swearing it was only temporary, to have Sophie. To travel the world with her footloose husband…

“But then I wouldn’t get to see Butterpie,” Sophie protested. A raw giggle escaped her. “I don’t think they’d let her stay at the Waldorf with us, even if we paid a pet deposit.”

Tanner pictured the pony nibbling on the ubiquitous mongo flower arrangement in the hotel’s sedate lobby, with its Cole Porter piano, dropping a few road apples on the venerable old carpets. And he grinned. “Probably not.”

“Don’t you want me with you, Dad?” Sophie spoke in a small voice. “Is that it? My friend Cleta says her mom won’t let her come home for Christmas because she’s got a new boyfriend and she doesn’t want a kid throwing a wet blanket on the action.”

Cleta. Who named a poor, defenseless kid Cleta?

And what kind of person put “action” before their own child, especially at Christmas?

Tanner closed his eyes, walking toward the dark house he didn’t know his way around in yet, since he’d spent the first couple of nights at Brad’s, waiting for the power to be turned on and the phones hooked up. Guilt stabbed through his middle. “I love you more than anything or anybody else in the world,” he said gruffly, and he meant it. Practically everything he did was geared to provide for Sophie, to protect her from the nameless, faceless forces who hated him. “Trust me, there’s no action going on around here.”

“I’m going to run away, then,” she said resolutely.

“Good luck,” Tanner replied after sucking in a deep breath. “That school is hermetically sealed, kiddo. You know that as well as I do.”

“What are you so afraid of?”

Losing you. The kid had no way of knowing how big, and how dangerous, the world was. She’d been just seven years old when Kat was killed, and barely remembered the long flight home from northern Africa, private bodyguards occupying the seats around them, the sealed coffin, the media blitz.

“U.S. Contractor Targeted by Insurgent Group,” one headline had read. “Wife of American Businessman Killed in Possible Revenge Shooting.”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Tanner lied.

“It’s because of what happened to Mom,” Sophie insisted. “That’s what Aunt Tessa says.”

“Aunt Tessa ought to mind her own business.”

“If you don’t come and get me, I’m breaking out of here. And there’s no telling where I’ll go.”

Tanner had reached the old-fashioned wraparound porch. The place had a certain charm, though it needed a lot of fixing up. He could picture Sophie there all too easily, running back and forth to the barn, riding a yellow bus to school, wearing jeans instead of uniforms. Tacking up posters on her bedroom walls and holding sleepovers with ordinary friends instead of junior celebrities and other mini-jet-setters.

“Don’t try it, Soph,” he said, fumbling with the knob, shouldering open the heavy front door. “You’re fine at Briarwood, and it’s a long way between Connecticut and Arizona.”

“Fine?” Sophie shot back. “This place isn’t in a parallel dimension, you know. Things happen. Marissa Worth got ptomaine from the potato salad in the cafeteria, just last week, and had to be airlifted to Walter Reed. Allison Mooreland’s appendix ruptured, and—”

“Soph,” Tanner said, flipping on the lights in the entryway.

Which way was the kitchen?

His room was upstairs someplace, but where?

He hung up his hat, shrugged off his leather coat, tossed it in the direction of an ornate brass peg designed for the purpose.

Sophie didn’t say a word. All the way across country, Tanner could feel her holding her breath.

“How’s this? School lets out in May. You can come out here then. Spend the summer. Ride Butterpie all you want.”

“I might be too big to ride her by summer,” Sophie pointed out. Tanner wondered, as he often did, if his daughter wouldn’t make a better lawyer than a doctor. “Thanksgiving is in three days,” she went on in a rush. “Let me come home for that, and if you still don’t think I’m a good kid to have around, I’ll come back to Briarwood for the rest of the year and pretend I love it.”

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re a good kid, Soph.” In the living room by then, Tanner paused to consult a yellowed wall calendar left behind by the ranch’s previous owner. Unfortunately, it was several years out of date.

Sophie didn’t answer.

“Thanksgiving is in three days?” Tanner muttered, dismayed. Living the way he did, he tended to lose track of holidays, but it figured that if Christmas was already a factor, turkey day had to be bearing down hard.

“I could still get a ticket if I flew standby,” Sophie said hopefully.

Tanner closed his eyes. Let his forehead rest against the wall where a million little tack holes testified to all the calendars that had gone before this one. “That’s a long way to travel for a turkey special in some greasy spoon,” he said quietly. He knew the kid was probably picturing a Norman Rockwell scenario—old woman proudly presenting a golden-brown gobbler to a beaming family crowded around a table.

“Someone will invite you to Thanksgiving dinner,” Sophie said, with a tone of bright, brittle bravery in her voice, “and I could just tag along.”

He checked his watch, started for the kitchen. If it wasn’t where he thought it was, he’d have to search until he found it, because he needed coffee. Hold the Jack Daniel’s.

“You’ve been watching the Hallmark Channel again,” he said wearily, his heart trying to scramble up his windpipe into the back of his throat. There were so many things he couldn’t give Sophie—a stable home, a family, an ordinary childhood. But he could keep her safe, and that meant staying at Briarwood.

A long, painful pause ensued.

“You’re not going to give in, are you?” Sophie asked finally, practically in a whisper.

“Are you just figuring that out, shortstop?” Tanner retorted, trying for a light tone.

She huffed out a weight-of-the-world sigh. “Okay, then,” she replied, “don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Chapter Two

ITWASAPITY Starcross Ranch had fallen into such a state of disrepair, Olivia thought as she steered the Suburban down the driveway to the main road, Ginger beside her in the passenger seat, Rodney in the back. The place bordered her rental to the west, and although she passed the sagging rail fences and the tilting barn every day on her way to town, that morning the sight seemed even lonelier than usual.

She braked for the stop sign, looked both ways. No cars coming, but she didn’t pull out right away. The vibe hit her before she could shift out of neutral and hit the gas.

“Oh, no,” she said aloud.

Ginger, busy surveying the snowy countryside, offered no comment.

“Did you hear that?” Olivia persisted.

Ginger turned to look at her. Gave a little yip. Today, evidently, she was pretending to be an ordinary dog—as if any dog was ordinary—incapable of intelligent conversation.

The call was coming from the ancient barn on the Starcross property.

Olivia took a moment to rest her forehead on the cold steering wheel. She’d known Brad’s friend the big-time contractor was moving in, of course, and she’d seen at least one moving truck, but she hadn’t known there were any animals involved.

“I could ignore this,” she said to Ginger.

“Or not,” Ginger answered.

“Oh, hell,” Olivia said. Then she signaled for a left turn—Stone Creek was in the other direction—and headed for the decrepit old gate marking the entrance to Starcross Ranch.

The gate stood wide open. No sheep or cattle then, probably, Olivia reasoned. Even greenhorns knew livestock tended to stray at every opportunity. Still, some kind of critter was sending out a psychic SOS from that pitiful barn.

They bumped up the rutted driveway, fishtailing a little on the slick snow and the layer of ice underneath, and Olivia tooted her horn. A spiffy new red pickup stood in front of the house, looking way too fancy for the neighborhood, but nobody appeared to see who was honking.

Muttering, Olivia brought the Suburban to a rattling stop in front of the barn, got out and shut the door hard.

“Hello?” she called.

No answer. Not from a human being, anyway.

The animal inside the barn amped up the psychic summons.

Olivia sprinted toward the barn door, glancing upward once at the sagging roof as she entered, with some trepidation. The place ought to be condemned. “Hello?” she repeated.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light, since the weather was dazzle-bright, though cold enough to crystallize her bone marrow.

“Over here,” said a silent voice, deep and distinctly male.

Olivia ventured deeper into the shadows. The ruins of a dozen once-sturdy stalls lined the sawdust-and-straw aisle. She found two at the very back, showing fresh-lumber signs of recent restoration efforts.

A tall palomino regarded her from the stall on the right, tossed his head as if to indicate the one opposite.

Olivia went to that stall and looked over the half gate to see a small, yellowish-white pony gazing up at her in befuddled sorrow. The horse lay forlornly in fresh wood shavings, its legs folded underneath.

Although she was technically trespassing, Olivia couldn’t resist unlatching the gate and slipping inside. She crouched beside the pony, stroked its nose, patted its neck, gave its forelock an affectionate tug.

“Hey, there,” she said softly. “What’s all the fuss about?”

A slight shudder went through the little horse.

“She misses Sophie,” the palomino said, from across the aisle.

Wondering who Sophie was, Olivia examined the pony while continuing to pet her. The animal was sound, well fed and well cared for in general.

The palomino nickered loudly, and that should have been a cue, but Olivia was too focused on the pony to pay attention.

“Who are you and what the hell are you doing sneaking around in my barn?” demanded a low, no-nonsense voice.

Olivia whirled, and toppled backward into the straw. Looked up to see a dark-haired man glowering down at her from over the stall gate. His eyes matched his blue denim jacket, and his Western hat looked a little too new.

“Who’s Sophie?” she asked, getting to her feet, dusting bits of straw off her jeans.

He merely folded his arms and glared. He’d asked the first question and, apparently, he intended to have the first answer. From the set of his broad shoulders, she guessed he’d wait for it until hell froze over if necessary.

Olivia relented, since she had rounds to make and a reindeer owner to track down. She summoned up her best smile and stuck out her hand. “Olivia O’Ballivan,” she said. “I’m your neighbor—sort of—and…” And I heard your pony calling out for help? No, she couldn’t say that. It was all too easy to imagine the reaction she’d get. “And since I’m a veterinarian, I always like to stop by when somebody new moves in. Offer my services.”

The blue eyes sized her up, clearly found her less than statuesque. “You must deal mostly with cats and poodles,” he said. “As you can see, I have horses.”

Olivia felt the sexist remark like the unexpected back-snap of a rubber band, stinging and sudden. Adrenaline coursed through her, and she had to wait a few moments for it to subside. “This horse,” she said when she’d regained her dignity, indicating the pony with a gesture of one hand, “is depressed.”

One dark eyebrow quirked upward, and the hint of a smile played at the corner of Tanner Quinn’s supple-looking mouth. That had to be who he was, since he’d said “I have horses,” not “we” or “they.” Anyhow, he didn’t look like an ordinary ranch hand.

“Does she need to take happy pills?” he asked.

“She wants Sophie,” the palomino said, though of course Mr. Quinn didn’t hear.

“Who’s Sophie?” Olivia repeated calmly.

Quinn hesitated for a long moment. “My daughter,” he finally said. “How do you happen to know her name?”

Olivia thought fast. “My brother must have mentioned her,” she answered, heading for the stall door and hoping he’d step back so she could pass.

He didn’t. Instead, he stood there like a support beam, his forearms resting on top of the door. “O’Ballivan,” he mused. “You’re Brad’s sister? The one who’ll be running the shelter when it’s finished?”

“I think I just said Brad is my brother,” Olivia replied, somewhat tartly. She felt strangely shaken and a little cornered, which was odd, because she wasn’t claustrophobic and despite her unremarkable height of five feet three inches, she knew how to defend herself. “Now, would you mind letting me out of this stall?”

Quinn stepped back, even executed a sweeping bow.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” the palomino fretted. “Butterpie needs help.”

“Give me a second here,” Olivia told the concerned horse. “I’ll make sure Butterpie is taken care of, but it’s going to take time.” An awkward moment passed before she realized she’d spoken out loud, instead of using mental email.

Quinn blocked her way again, planting himself in the middle of the barn aisle, and refolded his arms. “Now,” he said ominously, “I know I’ve never mentioned that pony’s name to anybody in Stone Creek, including Brad.”

Olivia swallowed, tried for a smile but slid right down the side of it without catching hold. “Lucky guess,” she said, and started around him.

He caught hold of her arm to stop her, but let go immediately.

Olivia stared up at him. The palomino was right; she couldn’t leave, no matter how foolish she might seem to Tanner Quinn. Butterpie was in trouble.

“Who are you?” Tanner insisted gruffly.

“I told you. I’m Olivia O’Ballivan.”

Tanner took off his hat with one hand, shoved the other through his thick, somewhat shaggy hair. The light was better in the aisle, since there were big cracks in the roof to let in the silvery sunshine, and she saw that he needed a shave.

He gave a heavy sigh. “Could we start over, here?” he asked. “If you’re who you say you are, then we’re going to be working together on the shelter project. That’ll be a whole lot easier if we get along.”

“Butterpie misses your daughter,” Olivia said. “Severely. Where is she?”

Tanner sighed again. “Boarding school,” he answered, as though the words had been pried out of him. The denim-colored eyes were still fixed on her face.

“Oh,” Olivia answered, feeling sorry for the pony and Sophie. “She’ll be home for Thanksgiving, though, right? Your daughter, I mean?”

Tanner’s jawline looked rigid, and his eyes didn’t soften. “No,” he said.

“No?” Olivia’s spirits, already on the dip, deflated completely.

He stepped aside. Before, he’d blocked her way. Now he obviously wanted her gone, ASAP.

It was Olivia’s turn with the folded arms and stubborn stance. “Then I have to explain that to the horse,” she said.

Tanner blinked. “What?”

She turned, went back to Butterpie’s stall, opened the door and stepped inside. “Sophie’s away at boarding school,” she told the animal silently. “And she can’t make it home for Thanksgiving. You’ve got to cheer up, though. I’m sure she’ll be here for Christmas.”

“What are you doing?” Tanner asked, sounding testy again.

“Telling Butterpie that Sophie will be home at Christmas and she’s got to cheer up in the meantime.” He’d asked the question; let him deal with the answer.

“Are you crazy?”

“Probably,” Olivia said. Then, speaking aloud this time, she told Butterpie, “I have to go now. I have a lost reindeer in the back of my Suburban, and I need to do some X-rays and then get him settled in over at my brother’s place until I can find his owner. But I’ll be back to visit soon, I promise.”

She could almost hear Tanner grinding his back teeth.

“You should stand up,” Olivia told the pony. “You’ll feel better on your feet.”

The animal gave a snorty sigh and slowly stood.

Tanner let out a sharp breath.

Olivia patted Butterpie’s neck. “Excellent,” she said. “That’s the spirit.”

“You have a reindeer in the back of your Suburban?” Tanner queried, keeping pace with Olivia as she left the barn.

“See for yourself,” she replied, waving one hand toward the rig.

Tanner approached the vehicle, and Ginger barked a cheerful greeting as he passed the passenger-side window. He responded with a distracted wave, and Olivia decided there might be a few soft spots in his steely psyche after all.

Rubbing off dirt with one gloved hand, Tanner peered through the back windows.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “It is a reindeer.”

“Sure enough,” Olivia said. Ginger was all over the inside of the rig, barking her brains out. She liked good-looking men, the silly dog. Actually, she liked any man. “Ginger! Sit!”

Ginger sat, but she looked like the poster dog for a homeless-pets campaign.

“Where did you get a reindeer?” Tanner asked, drawing back from the window to take a whole new look at Olivia.

Ridiculously, she wished she’d worn something remotely feminine that day, instead of her usual jeans, flannel work shirt and mud-speckled down-filled vest. Not that she actually owned anything remotely feminine.

“I found him,” she said, opening the driver’s door. “Last night, at the bottom of my driveway.”

For the first time in their acquaintance, Tanner smiled, and the effect was seismic. His teeth were white and straight, and she’d have bet that was natural enamel, not a fancy set of veneers. “Okay,” he said, stretching the word out a way. “Tell me, Dr. O’Ballivan—how does a reindeer happen to turn up in Arizona?”

“When I find out,” Olivia said, climbing behind the wheel, “I’ll let you know.”

Before she could shut the door, he stood in the gap. Pushed his hat to the back of his head and treated her to another wicked grin. “I guess there’s a ground-breaking ceremony scheduled for tomorrow morning at ten,” he said. “I’ll see you there.”

Olivia nodded, feeling unaccountably flustered.

Ginger was practically drooling.

“Nice dog,” Tanner said.

“Be still, my heart,” Ginger said.

“Shut up,” Olivia told the dog.

Tanner drew back his head, but the grin lurked in his eyes.

Olivia blushed. “I wasn’t talking to you,” she told Tanner.

He looked as though he wanted to ask if she’d been taking her medications regularly. Fortunately for him, he didn’t. He merely tugged at the brim of his too-new hat and stepped back.

Olivia pulled the door closed, started up the engine, ground the gearshift into first and made a wide 360 in front of the barn.

“That certainly went well,” she told Ginger. “We’re going to be in each other’s hip pockets while the shelter is being built, and he thinks I’m certifiable!”

Ginger didn’t answer.

Half an hour later, the X-rays were done and the blood had been drawn. Rodney was good to go.

TANNERSTOODINTHE middle of the barnyard, staring after that wreck of a Suburban and wondering what the hell had just hit him. It felt like a freight train.

His cell phone rang, breaking the spell.

He pulled it from his jacket pocket and squinted at the caller ID panel. Ms. Wiggins, the executive principal at Briarwood. She’d certainly taken her time returning his call—he’d left her a message at sunrise.

“Tanner Quinn,” he said automatically.

“Hello, Mr. Quinn,” Ms. Wiggins said. A former CIA agent, Janet Wiggins was attractive, if you liked the armed-and-dangerous type. Tanner didn’t, particularly, but the woman had a spotless service record, and a good résumé. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call sooner—meetings, you know.”

“I’m worried about Sophie,” he said. A cold wind blew down off the mountain looming above Stone Creek, biting into his ears, but he didn’t head for the house. He just stood there in the barnyard, letting the chill go right through him.

“I gathered that from your message, Mr. Quinn,” Ms. Wiggins said smoothly. She was used to dealing with fretful parents, especially the guilt-plagued ones. “The fact is, Sophie is not the only student remaining at Briarwood over the holiday season. There are several others. We’re taking all the stay-behinds to New York by train to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade and dine at the Four Seasons. You would know that if you read our weekly newsletters. We send them by email every Friday afternoon.”

I just met a woman who talks to animals—and thinks they talk back.

Tanner kept his tone even. “I read your newsletters faithfully, Ms. Wiggins,” he said. “And I’m not sure I like having my daughter referred to as a ‘stay-behind.’”

Ms. Wiggins trilled out a very un-CIA-like giggle. “Oh, we don’t use that term in front of the pupils, Mr. Quinn,” she assured him. “Sophie is fine. She just tends to be a little overdramatic, that’s all. In fact, I’m encouraging her to sign up for our thespian program, beginning next term—”

“You’re sure she’s all right?” Tanner broke in.

“She’s one of our most emotionally stable students. It’s just that, well, kids get a little sentimental around the holidays.”

Don’t we all? Tanner thought. He always skipped Thanksgiving and Christmas both, if he couldn’t spend them with Sophie. Up until now it had been easy enough, given that he’d been out of the country last year, and the year before that. Sophie had stayed with Tessa, and he’d ordered all her gifts online.

Remembering that gave him a hollow feeling in the middle of his gut.

“I know Sophie is stable,” he said patiently. “That doesn’t mean she’s completely okay.”

Ms. Wiggins paused eloquently before answering. “Well, if you would like Sophie to come home for Thanksgiving, we’d certainly be glad to make the arrangements.”

Tanner wanted to say yes. Instantly. Book a plane. Put her on board. I don’t care what it costs. But it would only lead to another tearful parting when it came time for Sophie to return to school, and Tanner couldn’t bear another one of those. Not just yet, anyway.

“It’s best if Sophie stays there,” he said.

“I quite agree,” Ms. Wiggins replied. “Last-minute trips home can be very disruptive to a child.”

“You’ll let me know if there are any problems?”

“Of course I will,” Ms. Wiggins assured him. If there was just a hint of condescension in her tone, he supposed he deserved it. “We at Briarwood pride ourselves on monitoring our students’ mental health as well as their academic achievement. I promise you, Sophie is not traumatized.”

Tanner wished he could be half as sure of that as Ms. Wiggins sounded. A few holiday platitudes were exchanged, and the call ended. Tanner snapped his phone shut and dropped it into his coat pocket.

Then he turned back toward the barn.

Could a horse get depressed?

Nah, he decided.

But a man sure as hell could.

A SNOWMANSTOOD in the center of the yard at the homeplace when Olivia drove in, and there was one of those foldout turkeys taped to the front door. Brad came out of the barn, walking toward her, just as Meg, her sister-in-law, stepped onto the porch, smiling a welcome.

“How do you like our turkey?” she called. “We’re really getting into the spirit this year.” Her smile turned wistful. “It’s strange, without Carly here, but she’s having such a good time.”

Grinning, Olivia gestured toward Brad. “He’ll do,” she teased.

Brad reached her, hooked an arm around her neck and gave her a big-brother half hug. “She’s referring to the paper one,” he told her in an exaggerated whisper.

Olivia contrived to look surprised. “Oh!” she said.

Brad laughed and released her from the choke hold. “So what brings you to Stone Creek Ranch, Doc?”

Olivia glanced around, taking in the familiar surroundings. Missing her grandfather, Big John, the way she always did when she set foot on home ground. The place had changed a lot since Brad had semiretired from his career in country music—he’d refurbished the barn, replaced the worn-out fences and built a state-of-the-art recording studio out back. At least he’d given up the concert tours, but even with Meg and fourteen-year-old Carly and the baby in the picture, Olivia still wasn’t entirely convinced that he’d come home to stay.

He’d skipped out before, after all, just like their mother.

“I have a problem,” she said in belated answer to his question.

Meg had gone back inside, but she and Brad remained in the yard.

“What sort of problem?” he asked, his eyes serious.

“A reindeer problem,” Olivia explained. Oh, and I got off to a fine start with your friend the contractor, too.

Brad’s brow furrowed. “A what?”

“I need to get out of this truck,” Ginger transmitted from the passenger seat. “Now.”

With a slight sigh Olivia opened Ginger’s door so she could hop out, sniff the snow and leave a yellow splotch. That done, she trotted off toward the barn, probably looking for Brad’s dog, Willie.

“I found this reindeer,” Olivia said, heading for the back of the Suburban and unveiling Rodney. “I was hoping he could stay here until we find his owner.”

“What if he doesn’t have an owner?” Brad asked reasonably, running a hand through his shaggy blond hair before reaching out to stroke the deer.

“He’s tame,” Olivia pointed out.

“Tame, but not housebroken,” Brad said.

Sure enough, Rodney had dropped a few pellets on his blanket.

“I don’t expect you to keep him in the house,” Olivia said.

Brad laughed. Reached right in and hoisted Rodney down out of the Suburban. The deer stumbled a little, wobbly legged from riding, and looked worriedly up at Olivia.

“You’ll be safe here,” she told the animal. She turned back to Brad. “He can stay in the barn, can’t he? I know you have some empty stalls.”

“Sure,” Brad said after a hesitation that would have been comical if Olivia hadn’t been so concerned about Rodney. “Sure,” he repeated.

Knowing he was about to ruffle her hair, the way he’d done when she was a little kid, Olivia took a step back.

“I want something in return, though,” Brad continued.

“What?” Olivia asked suspiciously.

“You, at our table, on Thanksgiving,” he answered. “No excuses about filling in at the clinic. Ashley and Melissa are both coming, and Meg’s mother, too, along with her sister, Sierra.”

The invitation didn’t come as any surprise to Olivia— Meg had mentioned holding a big Thanksgiving blowout weeks ago—but the truth was, Olivia preferred to work on holidays. That way, she didn’t miss Big John so much, or wonder if their long-lost mother might come waltzing through the door, wanting to get to know the grown children she’d abandoned so many years before.

“Livie?” Brad prompted.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be here. But I’m on call over Thanksgiving, and all the other vets have families, so if there’s an emergency—”

“Liv,” Brad broke in, “you have a family, too.”

“I meant wives, husbands, children,” Olivia said, embarrassed.

“Two o’clock, you don’t need to bring anything, and wear something you haven’t delivered calves in.”

She glared up at him. “Can I see my nephew now,” she asked, “or is there a dress code for that, too?”

Brad laughed. “I’ll get Rudolph settled in a nice, cozy stall while you go inside. Check the attitude at the door—Meg wasn’t kidding when she said she was in the holiday spirit. Of course, she’s working extra hard at it this year, with Carly away.”

Willie and Ginger came from behind the barn, Willie rushing to greet Olivia.

“His name is Rodney,” Olivia said. “Not Rudolph.”

Brad gave her a look and started for the barn, and Rodney followed uncertainly, casting nary a backward glance at Olivia.

Willie, probably clued in by Ginger, was careful to give Rodney a lot of dog-free space. Olivia bent to scratch his ears.

He’d healed up nicely since being attacked by a wolf or coyote pack on the mountain rising above Stone Creek Ranch. With help from Brad and Meg, Olivia had brought him back to town for surgery and follow-up care. He’d bonded with Brad, though, and been his dog ever since.

With Ginger and Willie following, Olivia went into the house.

Mac’s playpen stood empty in the living room.

Olivia stepped into the nearest bathroom to wash her hands, and when she came out, Meg was standing in the hallway, holding six-month-old Mac. He stretched his arms out to Olivia and strained toward her, and her heart melted.

She took the baby eagerly and nuzzled his neck to make him laugh. His blondish hair stood up all over his head, and his dark blue eyes were round with mischievous excitement. Giggling, he tried to bite Olivia’s nose.

“He’s grown!” Olivia told Meg.

“It’s only been a week since you saw him last,” Meg chided, but she beamed with pride.

Olivia felt a pang, looking at her. Wondered what it would be like to be that happy.

Meg, blond like her husband and son, tilted her head to one side and gave Olivia a humorously pensive once-over. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Olivia said, too quickly. Mac was gravitating toward his playpen, where he had a pile of toys, and Meg took him and gently set him inside it. She turned back to Olivia.

Just then Brad blew in on a chilly November wind. Bent to pat Ginger and Willie.

“Rudolph is snug in his stall,” Brad said. “Having some oats.”

“Rudolph?” Meg asked, momentarily distracted.

Olivia was relieved. She and Meg were very good friends, as well as family, but Meg was half again too perceptive. She’d figured out that something was bothering Olivia, and in another moment she’d have insisted on finding out what was up. Considering that Olivia didn’t know that herself, the conversation would have been pointless.

“Liv will be here for Thanksgiving,” Brad told Meg, pulling his wife against his side and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

“Of course she will,” Meg said, surprised that there’d ever been any question. Her gaze lingered on Olivia, and there was concern in it.

Suddenly Olivia was anxious to go.

“I have two million things to do,” she said, bending over the playpen to tickle Mac, who was kicking both feet and waving his arms, before heading to the front door and beckoning for Ginger.

“We’ll see you tomorrow at the ground-breaking ceremony,” Meg said, smiling and giving Brad an affectionate jab with one elbow. “We’re expecting a big crowd, thanks to Mr. Country Music here.”

Olivia laughed at the face Brad made, but then she recalled that Tanner Quinn would be there, too, and that unsettled feeling was back again. “The ground’s pretty hard, thanks to the weather,” she said, to cover the momentary lapse. “Let’s hope Mr. Country Music still has the muscle to drive a shovel through six inches of snow and a layer of ice.”

Brad showed off a respectable biceps, Popeye-style, and everybody laughed again.

“I’ll walk you to the truck,” he said, when Olivia would have ducked out without further ado.

He opened the driver’s door of the Suburban, and Ginger made the leap, scrabbling across to the passenger seat. Olivia looked at her in surprise, since she usually wasn’t that agile, but Brad reclaimed her attention soon enough.

“Is everything okay with you, Livie?” he asked. He and the twins were the only people in the world, now that Big John was gone, who called her Livie. It seemed right, coming from her big brother or her sisters, but it also made her ache for her grandfather. He’d loved Thanksgiving even better than Christmas, saying he figured the O’Ballivans had a great deal to be grateful for.

“Everything’s fine,” Olivia said. “Why does everybody keep asking me if I’m okay? Meg did—now you.”

“You just seem—I don’t know—kind of sad.”

Olivia didn’t trust herself to speak, and suddenly her eyes burned with moisture.

Brad took her gently by the shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. “I miss Big John, too,” he said. Then he waited while she climbed onto the running board and then the driver’s seat. He shut the door and waved when she went to turn around, and when she glanced into the rearview mirror, he was still standing there with Willie, both of them staring after her.

Chapter Three

ALTHOUGH BRADLIKED to downplay his success, especially now that he didn’t go out on tour anymore, he was clearly still a very big deal. When Olivia arrived at the building site on the outskirts of Stone Creek at nine forty-five the next morning, the windswept clearing was jammed with TV news trucks and stringers from various tabloids. Of course the townspeople had turned out, too, happy that work was about to begin on the new animal shelter—and proud of their hometown boy.

Olivia’s feelings about Brad’s fame were mixed—he’d been away playing star when Big John needed him most, and she wasn’t over that—but seeing him up there on the hastily assembled plank stage gave her a jolt of joy. She worked her way through the crowd to stand next to Meg, Ashley and Melissa, who were grouped in a little cluster up front, fussing over Mac. The baby’s blue snowsuit was so bulky that he resembled the Michelin man.

Ashley turned to smile at Olivia, taking in her trim, tailored black pantsuit—a holdover from her job interview at the veterinary clinic right after she’d finished graduate school. She’d ferreted through boxes until she’d found it, gone over the outfit with a lint roller to get rid of the ubiquitous pet hair, and hoped for the best.

“I guess you couldn’t quite manage a dress,” Ashley said without sarcasm. She was tall and blond, clad in a long skirt, elegant boots and a colorful patchwork jacket she’d probably whipped up on her sewing machine. She was also stubbornly old-fashioned—no cell phone, no internet connection, no MP3 player—and Olivia had often thought, secretly of course, that her younger sister should have been born in the Victorian era, rather than modern times. She would have fit right into the 1890s, been completely comfortable cooking on a wood-burning stove, reading by gaslight and directing a contingent of maids in ruffly aprons and scalloped white caps.

“Best I could do on short notice,” Olivia chimed in, exchanging a hello grin with Meg and giving Mac’s mittened hand a little squeeze. His plump little cheek felt smooth and cold as she kissed him.

“Since when is a year ‘short notice’?” Melissa put in, grinning. She and Ashley were fraternal twins, but except for their deep blue eyes, they bore no noticeable resemblance to each other. Melissa was small, an inch shorter than Olivia, and wore her fine chestnut-colored hair in a bob. Having left the law office where she worked to attend the ceremony, she was clad in her usual getup of high heels, pencil-straight skirt, fitted blazer and prim white blouse.

Up on stage, Brad tapped lightly on the microphone.

Everybody fell silent, as though the whole gathering had taken a single, indrawn breath all at the same time. The air was charged with excitement and civic pride and the welcome prospect of construction jobs to tide over the laid-off workers from the sawmill.

Meg’s eyes shone as she gazed up at her husband. “Isn’t he something?” she marveled, giving Olivia a little poke with one elbow as she shifted Mac to her other hip.

Olivia smiled but didn’t reply.

“Sing!” someone shouted, somewhere in the surging throng. Any moment now, Olivia thought, they’d all be holding up disposable lights in a flickering-flame salute.

Brad shook his head. “Not today,” he said.

A collective groan rose from the crowd.

Brad put up both hands to silence them.

“He’ll sing,” Melissa said in a loud and certain whisper. She and Ashley, being the youngest, barely knew Brad. He’d been trying to remedy that ever since he’d moved back from Nashville, but it was slow going. They admired him, they were grateful to him, but it seemed to Olivia that her sisters were still in awe of their big brother, too, and therefore a strange shyness possessed them whenever he was around.

Brad asked Olivia and Tanner to join him on stage.

Even though Olivia had expected that, she wished she didn’t have to go up there. She was a behind-the-scenes kind of person, uncomfortable at the center of attention. When Tanner appeared from behind her, took her arm and hustled her toward the wooden steps, she caught her breath. Stone Creekers raised an uproarious cheer, and Olivia flushed with embarrassment, but Tanner seemed untroubled.

He wore too-new, too-expensive boots, probably custom-made, to match his too-new hat, along with jeans, a black silk shirt and a denim jacket. He seemed as at home getting up in front of all those people as Brad did—his grin dazzled, and his eyes were bright with enjoyment.

Drugstore cowboy, Olivia thought, but she couldn’t work up any rancor. Tanner Quinn might be laying on the Western bit a little thick, but he did look good. Way, way too good for Olivia’s comfort.

Brad introduced them both: Tanner as the builder, and Olivia—“You all know my kid sister, the horse doctor”—as the driving force behind the project. Without her, he said, none of this would be happening.

Never having thought of herself as a driving force behind anything in particular, Olivia grew even more flustered as Brad went on about how she’d be heading up the shelter when it opened around that time next year.

More applause followed, the good-natured, hometown kind, indulgent and laced with chuckles.

Let this be over, Olivia thought.

“Sing!” someone yelled. The whole audience soon took up the chant.

“Here’s where we make a run for it,” Tanner whispered to Olivia, and the two of them left the stage. Tanner vanished, and Olivia went back to stand with her sisters and Meg.

Brad grinned, shaking his head a little as one of his buddies handed up a guitar. “One,” he said firmly. After strumming a few riffs and turning the tuning keys this way and that, he eased into “Meg’s Song,” a ballad he’d written for his wife.

Holding Mac and looking up at Brad with an expression of rapt delight, Meg seemed to glow from the inside. A sweet, strange alchemy made it seem as though only Brad, Meg and Mac were really there during those magical minutes, on that blustery day, with the snow crusting hard around everybody’s feet. The rest of them might have been hovering in an adjacent dimension, like actors waiting to go on.

When the song ended, the audience clamored for more, but Brad didn’t give in. Photographers and reporters shoved in close as he handed off the guitar again, descended from the stage and picked up a brand-new shovel with a blue ribbon on the handle. The ribbon, Olivia knew, was Ashley’s handiwork; she was an expert with bows, where Olivia always got them tangled up, fiddling with them until they were grubby.

“Are you making a comeback?” one reporter demanded.

“When will you make another movie?” someone else wanted to know.

Still another person shoved a microphone into Brad’s face; he pushed it away with a practiced motion of one arm. “We’re here to break ground for an animal shelter,” he said, and only the set of his jaw gave away the annoyance he felt. He beckoned to Olivia, then to Tanner, after glancing around to locate him.

Then, with consummate showmanship, Brad drove the shovel hard into the partially frozen ground. Tossed the dirt dangerously close to one reporter’s shoes.

Olivia thought of the finished structure, and what it would mean to so many stray and unwanted dogs, cats and other critters, and her heart soared. That was the moment the project truly became real to her.

It was really going to happen.

There were more pictures taken after that, and Brad gave several very brief interviews, carefully steering each one away from himself and stressing the plight of animals. When one reporter asked if it wouldn’t be better to build shelters for homeless people, rather than dogs and cats, Brad responded that compassion ought to begin at the simplest level, with the helpless, voiceless ones, and grow from there.

Olivia would have hugged her big brother in that moment if she’d been able to get close enough.

“Hot cider and cookies at my place,” Ashley told her and Melissa. She was already heading for her funny-looking hybrid car, gleaming bright yellow in the wintry sunshine. “We need to plan what we’re taking to Brad and Meg’s for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“I have to get back to work,” Melissa said crisply. “Cook something and I’ll pay you back.” With that, she made for her spiffy red sports car without so much as a backward glance.

Olivia had rounds to make herself, though none of them were emergencies, and she had some appointments at the clinic scheduled for that afternoon, but when she saw the expression of disappointment on Ashley’s face, she stayed behind. “I’ll change clothes at your house,” she said, and got into the Suburban to follow her sister back through town. Ginger had elected to stay home that day, claiming her arthritis was bothering her, and it felt odd to be alone in the rig.

Ashley’s home was a large white Victorian house on the opposite side of Stone Creek, near the little stream with the same name. There was a white picket fence and plenty of gingerbread woodwork on the façade, and an ornate but tasteful sign stood in the snowy yard, bearing the words “Mountain View Bed-and-Breakfast” in elegant golden script. “Ashley O’Ballivan, Proprietor.”

In summer, the yard burgeoned with colorful flowers.

But winter had officially come to the high country, and the blooming lilacs, peonies and English roses were just a memory. The day after Thanksgiving, the Christmas lights would go up outside, as though by the waving of an unseen wand, and a huge wreath would grace the leaded-glass door, making the house look like a giant greeting card.

Olivia felt a little sad, looking at that grand house. It was the off-season, and guests would be few and far between. Ashley would rattle around in there alone like a bean in the bottom of a bucket.

She needed a husband and children.

Or at least a cat.

“Brad was spectacular, wasn’t he?” Ashley asked, bustling around her big, fragrant kitchen to heat up the spiced cider and set out a plate of exquisitely decorated cookies.

Olivia, just coming out of the powder room, where she’d changed into her regulation jeans, flannel shirt and boots, helped herself to a paper bag from the decoupaged wooden paper-bag dispenser beside the back door and stuffed the pantsuit into it. “Brad was—Brad,” she said. “He loves being in the limelight.”

Ashley went still and frowned, oddly defensive. “His heart’s in the right place,” she replied.

Olivia went to Ashley and touched her arm. She’d removed the patchwork jacket, hanging it neatly on a gleaming brass peg by the front door as they came in, and her loose-fitting beige cashmere turtleneck made Olivia feel like a thrift-store refugee by comparison.

“I wasn’t criticizing Brad, Ash,” she said quietly. “It’s beyond generous of him to build the shelter. We need one, and we’re lucky he’s willing to help out.”

Ashley relaxed a little and offered a tentative smile. Looked around at her kitchen, which would have made a great set for some show on the Food Channel. “He bought this house for me, you know,” she said as the cider began to simmer in its shiny pot on the stove.

Olivia nodded. “And it looks fabulous,” she replied. “Like always.”

“You are planning to show up for Thanksgiving dinner out at the ranch, aren’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Olivia asked, even as her stomach knotted. Who had invented holidays, anyway? Everything came to a screeching stop whenever there was a red-letter day on the calendar—everything except the need and sorrow that seemed to fill the world.

“I know you don’t like family holidays,” Ashley said, pouring steaming cider into a copper serving pot and then into translucent china teacups waiting in the center of the round antique table. Olivia would have dumped it straight from the kettle, and probably spilled it all over the table and floor in the process.

She just wasn’t domestic. All those genes had gone to Ashley.

Her sister’s eyes went big and round and serious. “Last year you made some excuse about a cow needing an appendectomy and ducked out before I could serve the pumpkin pie.”

Olivia sighed. Ashley had worked hard to prepare the previous year’s Thanksgiving dinner, gathering recipes for weeks ahead of time, experimenting like a chemist in search of a cure, and looked forward to hosting a houseful of congenial relatives.

“Do cows even have appendixes?” Ashley asked.

Olivia laughed, drew back a chair at the table and sat down. “That cider smells fabulous,” she said, in order to change the subject. “And the cookies are works of art, almost too pretty to eat. Martha Stewart would be so proud.”

Ashley joined her at the table, but she still looked troubled. “Why do you hate holidays, Olivia?” she persisted.

“I don’t hate holidays,” Olivia said. “It’s just that all that sentimentality—”

“You miss Big John and Mom,” Ashley broke in quietly. “Why don’t you just admit it?”

“We all miss Big John,” Olivia admitted. “As for Mom—well, she’s been gone a long time, Ash. A really long time. It’s not a matter of missing her, exactly.”

“Don’t you ever wonder where she went after she left Stone Creek, if she’s happy and healthy—if she remarried and had more children?”

“I try not to,” Olivia said honestly.

“You have abandonment issues,” Ashley accused.

Olivia sighed and sipped from her cup of cider. The stuff was delicious, like everything her sister cooked up.

Ashley’s Botticelli face brightened; she’d made another of her mercurial shifts from pensive to hopeful. “Suppose we found her?” she asked on a breath. “Mom, I mean—”

“Found her?” Olivia echoed, oddly alarmed.

“There are all these search engines online,” Ashley enthused. “I was over at the library yesterday afternoon, and I searched Google for Mom’s name.”

Oh. My. God, Olivia thought, feeling the color drain out of her face.

“You used a computer?”

Ashley nodded. “I’m thinking of getting one. Setting up a website to bring in more business for the B and B.”

Things were changing, Olivia realized. And she hated it when things changed. Why couldn’t people leave well enough alone?

“There are more Delia O’Ballivans out there than you would ever guess,” Ashley rushed on. “One of them must be Mom.”

“Ash, Mom could be dead by now. Or going by a different name…”

Ashley looked offended. “You sound like Brad and Melissa. Brad just clams up whenever I ask him about Mom—he remembers her better, since he’s older. ‘Leave it alone’ is all he ever says. And Melissa thinks she’s probably a crack addict or a hooker or something.” She let out a long, shaky breath. “I thought you missed Mom as much as I do. I really did.”

Although Brad had never admitted it, Olivia suspected he knew more about their mother than he was telling. If he wanted Ashley and the rest of them to let the proverbial sleeping dogs lie, he probably had a good reason. Not that the decision was only his to make.

“I miss having a mother, Ash,” Olivia said gently. “That’s different from missing Mom specifically. She left us, remember?”

Remember? How could Ashley remember? She’d been a toddler when their mother boarded an afternoon bus out of Stone Creek and vanished into a world of strangers. She was clinging to memories she’d merely imagined, most likely. To a fantasy mother, the woman who should have been, but probably never was.

“Well, I want to know why,” Ashley insisted, her eyes full of pain. “Maybe she regretted it. Did you ever think of that? Maybe she misses us, and wants a second chance. Maybe she expects us to reject her, so she’s afraid to get in touch.”

“Oh, Ash,” Olivia murmured, slouching against the back of her chair. “You haven’t actually made contact, have you?”

“No,” Ashley said, tucking a wisp of blond hair behind her right ear when it escaped from her otherwise categorically perfect French braid, “but if I find her, I’m going to invite her to Stone Creek for Christmas. If you and Brad and Melissa want to keep your distance, that’s your business.”

Olivia’s hand shook a little as she set her cup down, causing it to rattle in its delicate saucer. “Ashley, you have a right to see Mom if you want to,” she said carefully. “But Christmas—”

“What do you care about Christmas?” Ashley asked abruptly. “You don’t even put up a tree most years.”

“I care about you and Melissa and Brad. If you do manage to find Mom, great. But don’t you think bringing her here at Christmas, the most emotional day of the year, before anybody has a chance to get used to the idea, would be like planting a live hand grenade in the turkey?”

Ashley didn’t reply, and after that the conversation was stilted, to say the least. They talked about what to contribute to the Thanksgiving shindig at Brad and Meg’s place, decided on freshly baked dinner rolls for Ashley and a selection of salads from the deli for Olivia, and then Olivia left to make rounds.

Why was she so worried? she wondered, biting down hard on her lower lip as she fired up the Suburban and headed for the first farm on her list. If she was alive, Delia had done a good job of staying under the radar all these years. She’d never written, never called, never visited. Never sent a single birthday card. And if she was dead, they’d all have to drop everything and mourn, in their various ways.

Olivia didn’t feel ready to take that on.

Before, the thought of Delia usually filled her with grief and a plaintive, little-girl kind of longing. The very cadence of her heartbeat said, Come home. Come home.

Now, today, it just made her very, very angry. How could a woman just leave four children and a husband behind and forget the way back?

Olivia knotted one hand into a fist and bonked the side of the steering wheel once. Tears stung her eyes, and her throat felt as though someone had run a line of stitches around it with a sharp needle and then pulled them tight.

Ashley was expecting some kind of fairy-tale reunion, an Oprah sort of deal, full of tearful confessions and apologies and cartoon birds trailing ribbons from their chirpy beaks.

For Olivia’s money, it would be more like an apocalypse.

TANNERHEARDTHERIG roll in around sunset. Smiling, he closed his newspaper, stood up from the kitchen table and wandered to the window. Watched as Olivia O’Ballivan climbed out of her Suburban, flung one defiant glance toward the house and started for the barn, the golden retriever trotting along behind her.

She’d come, he knew, to have another confab with Butterpie. The idea at once amused him and jabbed through his conscience like a spike. Sophie was on the other side of the country, homesick as hell and probably sticking pins in a daddy doll. She missed the pony, and the pony missed her, and he was the hard-ass who was keeping them apart.

Taking his coat and hat down from the peg next to the back door, he put them on and went outside. He was used to being alone, even liked it, but keeping company with Doc O’Ballivan, bristly though she sometimes was, would provide a welcome diversion.

He gave her time to reach Butterpie’s stall, then walked into the barn.

The golden came to greet him, all wagging tail and melting brown eyes, and he bent to stroke her soft, sturdy back. “Hey, there, dog,” he said.

Sure enough, Olivia was in the stall, brushing Butterpie down and talking to her in a soft, soothing voice that touched something private inside Tanner and made him want to turn on one heel and beat it back to the house.

He’d be damned if he’d do it, though.

This was his ranch, his barn. Well-intentioned as she was, Olivia was the trespasser here, not him.

“She’s still very upset,” Olivia told him without turning to look at him or slowing down with the brush.

For a second Tanner thought she was referring to Sophie, not the pony, and that got his hackles up.

Shiloh, always an easy horse to get along with, stood contentedly in his own stall, munching away on the feed Tanner had given him earlier. Butterpie, he noted, hadn’t touched her supper as far as he could tell.

“Do you know anything at all about horses, Mr. Quinn?” Olivia asked.

He leaned against the stall door, the way he had the day before, and grinned. He’d practically been raised on horseback; he and Tessa had grown up on their grandmother’s farm in the Texas hill country, after their folks divorced and went their separate ways, both of them too busy to bother with a couple of kids. “A few things,” he said. “And I mean to call you Olivia, so you might as well return the favor and address me by my first name.”

He watched as she took that in, dealt with it, decided on an approach. He’d have to wait and see what that turned out to be, but he didn’t mind. It was a pleasure just watching Olivia O’Ballivan grooming a horse.

“All right, Tanner,” she said. “This barn is a disgrace. When are you going to have the roof fixed? If it snows again, the hay will get wet and probably mold….”

He chuckled, shifted a little. He’d have a crew out there the following Monday morning to replace the roof and shore up the walls—he’d made the arrangements over a week before—but he felt no particular compunction to explain that. He was enjoying her ire too much; it made her color rise and her hair fly when she turned her head, and the faster breathing made her perfect breasts go up and down in an enticing rhythm. “What makes you so sure I’m a greenhorn?” he asked mildly, still leaning on the gate.

At last she looked straight at him, but she didn’t move from Butterpie’s side. “Your hat, your boots—that fancy red truck you drive. I’ll bet it’s customized.”

Tanner grinned. Adjusted his hat. “Are you telling me real cowboys don’t drive red trucks?”

“There are lots of trucks around here,” she said. “Some of them are red, and some of them are new. And all of them are splattered with mud or manure or both.”

“Maybe I ought to put in a car wash, then,” he teased. “Sounds like there’s a market for one. Might be a good investment.”

She softened, though not significantly, and spared him a cautious half smile, full of questions she probably wouldn’t ask. “There’s a good car wash in Indian Rock,” she informed him. “People go there. It’s only forty miles.”

“Oh,” he said with just a hint of mockery. “Only forty miles. Well, then. Guess I’d better dirty up my truck if I want to be taken seriously in these here parts. Scuff up my boots a bit, too, and maybe stomp on my hat a couple of times.”

Her cheeks went a fetching shade of pink. “You are twisting what I said,” she told him, brushing Butterpie again, her touch gentle but sure. “I meant…”

Tanner envied that little horse. Wished he had furry hide, so he’d need brushing, too.

“You meant that I’m not a real cowboy,” he said. “And you could be right. I’ve spent a lot of time on construction sites over the last few years, or in meetings where a hat and boots wouldn’t be appropriate. Instead of digging out my old gear, once I decided to take this job, I just bought new.”

“I bet you don’t even have any old gear,” she challenged, but she was smiling, albeit cautiously, as though she might withdraw into a disapproving frown at any second.

He took off his hat, extended it to her. “Here,” he teased. “Rub that around in the muck until it suits you.”

She laughed, and the sound—well, it caused a powerful and wholly unexpected shift inside him. Scared the hell out of him and, paradoxically, made him yearn to hear it again. “That would be a little drastic,” she said.

Tanner put his hat back on. “You figure me for a rhinestone cowboy,” he said. “What else have you decided about me?”

She considered the question, evidently drawing up a list in her head.

Tanner was fascinated—and still pretty scared.

“Brad told me you were widowed,” she said finally, after mulling for a while. “I’m sorry about that.”

Tanner swallowed hard, nodded. Wondered how much detail his friend had gone into, and decided not to ask. He’d told Brad the whole grim story of Kat’s death, once upon a time.

“You’re probably pretty driven,” Olivia went on, concentrating on the horse again. “It’s obvious that you’re successful—Brad wouldn’t have hired you for this project if you weren’t the best. And you compartmentalize.”

“Compartmentalize?”

“You shut yourself off from distractions.”

“Such as?”

“Your daughter,” Olivia said. She didn’t lack for nerve, that was for sure. “And this poor little horse. You’d like to have a dog—you like Ginger a lot—but you wouldn’t adopt one because that would mean making a commitment. Not being able to drop everything and everybody and take off for the next Big Job when the mood struck you.”

Tanner felt as though he’d been slapped, and it didn’t help one bit that everything she’d said was true. Which didn’t mean he couldn’t deny it.

“I love Sophie,” he said grimly.

She met his gaze again. “I’m sure you do. Still, you find it easy enough to—compartmentalize where she’s concerned, don’t you?”

“I do not,” he argued. He did “compartmentalize”—he had to—but he sure as hell wouldn’t call it easy. Every parting from Sophie was harder on him than it was on her. He was the one who always had to suck it up and be strong.

Olivia shrugged, patted the pony affectionately on the neck and set aside the brush. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she told the animal. “In the meantime, think good thoughts and talk to Shiloh if you get too lonesome.”

Tanner racked his brain, trying to remember if he’d told Olivia the gelding’s name. He was sure it hadn’t come up in their brief but tempestuous acquaintance. “How did you…?”

“He told me,” Olivia said, approaching the stall door and waiting for him to step out of her way, just like before.

“Are you seriously telling me I’ve got Mr. Ed in my barn?” he asked, moving aside so she could pass.

She crossed to Shiloh’s stall, reached up to stroke his nose when he nuzzled her and gave a companionable nicker. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said, with so much smug certainty that Tanner found himself wanting to prove a whole bunch of things he’d never felt the need to prove before.

“Because I compartmentalize?” Tanner gibed.

“Something like that,” Olivia answered blithely. She turned from Shiloh, snapped her fingers to attract the dog’s attention and started for the barn door.

“See you tomorrow, if you’re here when I come by to look in on Butterpie.”

Utterly confounded, Tanner stood in the doorway watching as Olivia lowered a ramp at the back of the Suburban for Ginger, waited for the dog to trot up it, and shut the doors.

Moments later she was driving off, tooting a merry “so long” on the horn.

THATNIGHTHEDREAMED of Kat.

She was alive again, standing in the barn at Butterpie’s stall gate, watching as the pony nibbled hay at its feeder. Tall and slender, with long dark hair, Kat turned to him and smiled a welcome.

He hated these dreams for being dreams, not reality. At the same time he couldn’t bring himself to wake up, to leave her.

The settings were always different—their first house, their quarters in the American compound in some sandy, dangerous foreign place, even supermarket aisles and gas stations. He’d be standing at the pump, filling the vehicle de jour, and look up to see Kat with a hose in her hand, gassing up that old junker she’d been driving when they met.

He stood at a little distance from her, there in the barn aisle, well aware that after a few words, a few minutes at most, she’d vanish. And it would be like losing her all over again.

She smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes, in the set of her full mouth. “Hello, Tanner,” she said very softly.

He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Somehow he knew that this visit was very different from all the ones that had gone before.

She came to stand in front of him, soft as summer in her white cotton sundress, and touched his arm as she looked up into his face.

“It’s time for me to move on,” she told him.

No.

The word swelled up inside him, but he couldn’t say it.

And Kat vanished.

Chapter Four

OLIVIAAWAKENED on the following Thursday morning feeling as though she hadn’t slept at all the night before, with Ginger’s cold muzzle pressed into her neck and the alarm clock buzzing insistently. She stirred, opened her eyes, slapped down the snooze button, with a muttered “Shut up!”

Iridescent frost embossed the window glass in intricate fans and swirls, turning it opaque, but the light got through anyway, signaling the arrival of a new day—like it or not.

Thanksgiving, Olivia recalled. The official start of the holiday season.

She groaned and yanked the covers up over her head.

Ginger let out an impatient little yip.

“I know,” Olivia replied from under two quilts and a flannel sheet worn to a delectable, hard-to-leave softness. It was so warm under those covers, so cozy. Would that she could stay right there until sometime after the Second Coming. “I know you need to go outside.”

Ginger yipped again, more insistently this time.

Bleary-eyed, Olivia rolled onto her side, tossed back the covers and sat up. She’d slept in gray sweats and heavy socks—less than glamorous attire, for sure, but toasty and loose.

After hitting the stop button on the clock so it wouldn’t start up again in five minutes, she stumbled out of the bedroom and down the hall toward the small kitchen at the back of the house. Passing the thermostat, she cranked it up a few degrees. As she groped her way past the coffeemaker, she jabbed blindly at yet another button to start the pot she’d set up the night before. At the door she shoved her feet into an old pair of ugly galoshes and shrugged into a heavy jacket of red-and-black-plaid wool—Big John’s chore coat.

It still smelled faintly of his budget aftershave and pipe tobacco.

The weather stripping stuck when she tried to open the back door, and she muttered a four-letter word as she tugged at the knob. The instant there was a crack to pass through, Ginger shot out of that kitchen like a clown dog from a circus cannon. She banged open the screen door beyond, too, without slowing down for the enclosed porch.

“Ginger!” Olivia yelled, startled, before taking one rueful glance back at the coffeemaker. It shook and gurgled like a miniature rocket trying to lift off the counter, and it would take at least ten minutes to produce enough java to get Olivia herself off the launch pad. She needed to buy a new one—item number seventy-two on her domestic to-do list. The timer had given out weeks ago, and the handle on the carafe was loose.

And where the hell was the dog headed? Ginger never ran.

Olivia shook the last clinging vestiges of sleep out of her head and tromped through the porch and down the outside steps, taking care not to slip on the ice and either land on her tailbone or take a flyer into the snowbank beside the walk.

“Ginger!” she called a second time as the dog streaked halfway down the driveway, shinnied under the rail fence between Olivia’s place and Tanner’s and bounded out into the snowy field.

Goose-stepping it to the fence, Olivia climbed onto the lowest rail and shaded her eyes from the bright, cold sun. What was Ginger chasing? Coyotes? Wolves? Either way, that was a fight an aging golden retriever couldn’t possibly win.

Olivia was about to scramble over the fence and run after the dog when she saw the palomino in the distance, and the man sitting tall in the saddle.

Tanner.

The horse moved at a smooth trot while Ginger cavorted alongside, flinging up snow, like a pup in a superchow commercial.

Olivia sighed, partly out of relief that Ginger wasn’t about to tangle with the resident wildlife and partly because Tanner was clearly headed her way.

She looked down at her rumpled sweats; they were clean, but the pants had worn threadbare at the knees and there was a big bleach stain on the front of the shirt. She pulled the front of Big John’s coat closed with one hand and ran the other through her uncombed hair.

Tanner’s grin flashed as white as the landscape around him when he rode up close to the fence. Despite the grin, he looked pale under his tan, and there was a hollow look in his eyes. The word haunted came to mind.

“Mornin’, ma’am,” he drawled, tugging at the brim of his hat. “Just thought I’d mosey on over and say howdy.”

“How very Western of you,” Olivia replied with a reluctant chuckle.

Ginger, winded by the unscheduled run, was panting hard.

“What in the world got into you?” Olivia scolded the dog. “Don’t you ever do that again!”

Ginger crossed the fence line and slunk toward the house.

When Olivia turned back to Tanner, she caught him looking her over.

Wise guy.

“It would be mighty neighborly of you to offer a poor wayfaring cowboy a hot cup of coffee,” he said. He sat that horse as if he was part of it—a point in his favor. He might dress like a dandy, but he was no stranger to a saddle.

“Glad to oblige, mister,” Olivia joked, playing along. “Unless you insist on talking like a B-movie wrangler for much longer. That could get old.”

He laughed at that, rode to the rickety gate a few yards down the way, leaned to work the latch easily and joined Olivia on her side. Taking in the ramshackle shed and detached garage, he swung down out of the saddle to walk beside her, leading Shiloh by a slack rein.

“Looks to me like you don’t have a whole lot of room to talk about the state of my barn,” he said. His eyes were twinkling now under the brim of his hat, though he still looked wan.

It was harder going for Olivia—her legs were shorter, the galoshes didn’t fit so they stuck at every step, and the snow came to her shins. “I rent this place,” she said, feeling defensive. “The owner lives out of state and doesn’t like to spend a nickel on repairs if he can help it. In fact, he’s been threatening to sell it for years.”

“Ah,” Tanner said with a sage nod. “Are you just passing through Stone Creek, Doc? I had the impression you were a lifelong resident, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Except for college and veterinary school,” Olivia answered, “I’ve lived here all my life.” She looked around at the dismal rental property. “Well, not right here—”

“Hey,” Tanner said, quietly gruff. “I was kidding.”

She nodded, embarrassed because she’d been caught caring what he thought, and led the way through the yard toward the back door.

Tanner left Shiloh loosely tethered to the hand rail next to the porch steps.

Inside the kitchen, Olivia fed a remorseful Ginger, washed her hands at the sink and got two mugs down out of the cupboard. The coffeemaker was just flailing in for a landing, mission accomplished.

“Excuse me for a second, will you?” Olivia asked after filling mugs for herself and Tanner and giving him his. She slipped into the bedroom, closed the door, put down her coffee cup and quickly switched out the chore coat and her sweats for her best pair of jeans and the blue sweater Ashley had knitted for her as a Christmas gift. She even went so far as to splash her face with water in the tiny bathroom, give her teeth a quick brushing and run a comb through her hair.

When she returned to the kitchen, Tanner was sitting in a chair at the table, looking as if he belonged there, and Ginger stood with her head resting on his thigh while he stroked her back.

Something sparked in Tanner’s weary eyes when he looked up—maybe amusement, maybe appreciation. Maybe something more complicated.

Olivia felt a wicked little thrill course through her system.

“Thanksgiving,” she said without planning to, almost sighing out the word.

“You don’t sound all that thankful,” Tanner observed.

“Oh, I am,” Olivia insisted, taking a sip from her mug.

“Me, too,” Tanner said. “Mostly.”

She bit her lower lip, stole a glance at the clock above the sink. It was early—two hours before she needed to check in at the clinic. So much for excusing herself to go to work.

“Mostly?” she echoed, keeping her distance.

“There are things I’d change about my life,” Tanner told her. “If I could.”

She drew nearer then, interested in spite of herself, and sat down, though she kept the width of the table between them. “What would you do differently?”

He sighed, and a bleak expression darkened his eyes. “I’d have kept the business smaller, for one thing,” he said. The briefest flicker of pain contorted his face. “Not gone international. How about you?”

“I’d have spent more time with my grandfather,” she replied after giving the question some thought. “I guess I figured he was going to be around forever.”

“That was his coat you were wearing before.”

“How did you guess that?”

“My grandmother had one just like it. I think they must have sold those at every farm supply store in America, back in the day.”

Olivia relaxed a little. “How’s Butterpie?”

Tanner sighed, met Olivia’s gaze. Held it. “She’s not eating,” he said.

“I was afraid of that,” Olivia murmured, distracted.

“I thought my grandmother was going to live forever, too,” Tanner told her.

It took Olivia a moment to catch up. “She’s gone, then?”

Tanner nodded. “Died on her seventy-eighth birthday, hoeing the vegetable garden. Just the way she’d have wanted to go—quick, and doing something she loved to do. Your grandfather?”

“Heart attack,” Olivia said, running her palms along the thighs of her jeans. Why were they suddenly moist?

Tanner was silent for what seemed like a long time, though it was an easy silence. Then he finished his coffee and stood. “Guess I’d better not keep you,” he said, crossing the room to set his cup in the sink.

Ginger’s liquid eyes followed him adoringly.

“I’d like to look in on Butterpie on my way into town, if that’s okay with you?” Olivia said.

One side of Tanner’s fine mouth slanted slightly upward. “Would it stop you if it wasn’t okay with me?”

She grinned. “Nope.”

He chuckled at that. “I’ve got some things to do in town,” he said. “Gotta pick up some wine for Thanksgiving dinner. So if I don’t see you in my barn, we’ll meet up at Brad and Meg’s place later on.”

Of course her brother and sister-in-law would have invited Tanner to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. He was a friend, and he lived alone. Still, Olivia felt blindsided. Holidays were hard enough without stirring virtual strangers into the mix. Especially attractive ones.

“See you then,” she said, hoping her smile didn’t look forced.

He nodded and left, closing the kitchen door quietly behind him. Olivia immediately went to the window to watch him mount Shiloh and ride off.

When he was out of sight, and only then, Olivia turned from the window and zeroed in on Ginger.

“What were you thinking, running off like that? You’re not a young dog, you know.”

“I just got a little carried away, that’s all,” Ginger said without lifting her muzzle off her forelegs. Her eyes looked soulful. “Are you wearing that getup to Thanksgiving dinner?”

Olivia looked down at her jeans and sweater. “What’s wrong with my outfit?” she asked.

“Touchy, touchy. I was just asking a simple question.”

“These jeans are almost new, and Ashley made the sweater. I look perfectly fine.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Well, what do you think I should wear, O fashionista dog?”

“The sweater’s fine,” Ginger observed. “But I’d switch out the jeans for a skirt. You do have a skirt, don’t you?”

“Yes, I have a skirt. I also have rounds to make before dinner, so I’m changing into my work clothes right now.”

Ginger sighed an it’s-no-use kind of sigh. “Paris Hilton you ain’t,” she said, and drifted off to sleep.

Olivia returned to her bedroom, put on her normal grubbies, suitable for barns and pastures, then located her tan faux-suede skirt, rolled it up like a towel and stuffed it into a gym bag. Knee boots and the blue sweater went in next, along with the one pair of panty hose she owned. They had runs in them, but the skirt was long and the boots were high, so it wouldn’t matter.

When she got back to the kitchen, Ginger was stretching herself.

“You’re coming with me today, aren’t you?” Olivia asked.

Ginger eyed the gym bag and sighed again. “As far as next door, anyway,” she answered. “I think Butterpie could use some company.”

“What about Thanksgiving?”

“Bring me a plate,” Ginger replied.

Oddly disappointed that Ginger didn’t want to spend the holiday with her, Olivia went outside to fire up the Suburban and scrape off the windshield. After she’d lowered the ramp in the back of the rig, she went back to the house for Ginger.

“You’re all right, aren’t you?” Olivia asked as Ginger walked slowly up the ramp.

“I’m not used to running through snow up to my chest,” the dog told her. “That’s all.”

Still troubled, Olivia stowed the ramp and shut the doors on the Suburban. Ginger curled up on Rodney’s blanket and closed her eyes.

When they arrived at Tanner’s place, his truck was parked in the driveway, but he didn’t come out of the house, and Olivia didn’t knock on the front door. She repeated the ramp routine, and then she and Ginger headed into the barn.

Shiloh was back in his stall, brushed down and munching on hay.

Olivia paused to greet him, then opened the door to Butterpie’s stall so she and Ginger could go in.

Butterpie stood with her head hanging low, but perked up slightly when she saw the dog.

“You’ve got to eat,” Olivia told the pony.

Butterpie tossed her head from side to side, as though in refusal.

Ginger settled herself in a corner of the roomy stall, on a pile of fresh wood shavings, and gave another big sigh. “Just go make your rounds,” she said to Olivia. “I’ll get her to take a few bites after you’re gone.”

Olivia felt bereft at the prospect of leaving Ginger and the pony. She found an old pan, filled it with water at the spigot outside, returned to set it down on the stall floor. “This is weird,” she said to Ginger. “What’s Tanner going to think if he finds you in Butterpie’s stall?”

“That you’re crazy,” Ginger answered. “No real change in his opinion.”

“Very funny,” Olivia said, not laughing. Or even smiling. “You’re sure you’ll be all right? I could come back and pick you up before I head for Stone Creek Ranch.”

Ginger shut her eyes and gave an eloquent snore.

After that, there was no point in talking to her.

Olivia gave Butterpie a quick but thorough examination and left.

TANNERBOUGHTAHALFCASE of the best wine he could find—Stone Creek had only one supermarket, and the liquor store was closed. He should have lied, he thought as he stood at the checkout counter, paying for his purchases. Told Brad he had plans for Thanksgiving.

He was going to feel like an outsider, passing a whole afternoon and part of an evening with somebody else’s family.

Better that, though, he supposed, than eating alone in the town’s single sit-down restaurant, remembering Thanksgivings of old and missing Kat and Sophie.

Kat.

“Is that good?” the clerk asked.

Distracted, Tanner didn’t know what the woman was talking about at first. Then she pointed to the wine. She was very young and very pretty, and she didn’t seem to mind working on Thanksgiving when practically everybody else in the western hemisphere was bellying up to a turkey feast someplace.

“I don’t know,” Tanner said in belated answer to her cordial question. He’d been something of a wine aficionado once, but since he didn’t indulge anymore, he’d sort of lost the knack. “I go by the labels, and the price.”

The clerk nodded as if what he’d said made a lick of sense, and wished him a happy Thanksgiving.

He wished her the same, picked up the wine box, the six bottles rattling a little inside it, and made for the door.

The dream came back to him, full force, as he was setting the wine on the passenger seat of his truck.

Kat, standing in the aisle of the barn, in that white summer dress, telling him she wouldn’t be back.

It was no good telling himself he’d only been dreaming in the first place. He’d held on to those night visits—they’d gotten him through a lot of emotional white water. It had been Kat who’d said he ought to watch his drinking. Kat who’d advised him to accept the Stone Creek job and oversee it himself instead of sending in somebody else.

Kat who’d insisted the newspapers were wrong; she hadn’t been a target—she’d been caught in the cross fire of somebody else’s fight. Sophie, she’d sworn, was in no danger.

She’d faded before his eyes like so much thin smoke a couple of nights before. The wrench in his gut had been powerful enough to wake up him up. The dream had stayed with him, though, which was the same as having it over and over again. Last night he’d been unable to sleep at all. He’d paced the dark empty house for a while, then, unable to bear it any longer, he’d gone out to the barn, saddled Shiloh and taken a moonlight ride.

For a while he’d tried to outride what he was feeling—not loss, not sorrow, but a sense of letting go. Of somehow being set free.

He’d loved Kat, more than his own life. Why should her going on to wherever dead people went have given him a sense of liberation, even exaltation, rather than sorrow?

The guilt was almost overwhelming. As long as he’d mourned her, she’d seemed closer somehow. Now the worst was over. There had been some kind of profound shift, and he hadn’t regained his footing.

They’d been out for hours, he and Shiloh, when he was crossing the field between his place and Olivia’s and that dog of hers came racing toward him. He’d have gone home, put Shiloh up with some extra grain for his trouble, taken a shower and fallen into bed if it hadn’t been for Ginger and the sight of Olivia standing on the bottom rail of the fence.

She’d been wearing sweats and silly rubber boots and an old man’s coat, and for all that, she’d managed to look sexy. He’d finagled an invitation for coffee—hell, he’d flat out invited himself—and thought about taking her to bed the whole time he was there.

Not that he would have made a move on Doc. It was way too soon, and she’d probably have conked him over the head with the nearest heavy object, but he’d been tempted, just the same.

Tempted as he’d never been, since Kat.

At home he left the wine in the truck and headed for the barn.

Shiloh was asleep, standing up, the way horses do. When Tanner looked over the stall door at Butterpie, though, his eyes started to sting. Butterpie was lying in the wood shavings, and Olivia’s dog was cuddled up right alongside her, as though keeping some kind of a vigil.

“I’ll be damned,” Tanner muttered. He’d grown up in the country, and he’d known horses to have nonequine companions—cows, cats, dogs and even pygmy goats. But he’d never seen anything quite like this.

He figured he probably should take Ginger home—Olivia might be looking for her—but he couldn’t quite bring himself to part the two animals.

“You hungry, girl?” he asked Ginger, thinking what a fine thing it would be to have a dog. The problem was, he moved around too much—job to job, country to country. If he couldn’t raise his own daughter, how could he hope to take good care of a mutt?

Ginger made a low sound in her throat and looked up at him with those melty eyes of hers. He made a quick trip into the house for a hunk of cube steak and a bowl of water, and set them both down where she could reach them.

She drank thirstily of the water, nibbled at the steak.

Tanner patted her head. He’d seen her jump into Olivia’s Suburban the day before, so she still had some zip in her, despite the gray hairs around her muzzle, but she hadn’t gotten over that stall door by herself. Olivia must have left her here, to look after the pony.

When he spotted an old grain pan in the corner, overturned, he knew that was what had happened. She must have found the pan in the junk around the barn, filled it with water and left it so the dog could drink. Then one of the animals, most likely Butterpie, had stepped on the thing and spilled the contents.

He was pondering that sequence of events when his cell phone rang.

Sophie.

“This parade bites,” she said without any preamble. “It’s cold, and Mary Susan Parker keeps sneezing on me and we’re not allowed to get into the minibar in our hotel suite! Ms. Wiggins took the keys away.”

Tanner chuckled. “Hello and happy Thanksgiving to you, too, sweetheart,” he said, so glad to hear her voice that his eyes started stinging again.

“It’s not like we want to drink booze or anything,” Sophie complained. “But we can’t even help ourselves to a soda or a candy bar!”

“Horrible,” Tanner commiserated.

An annoyed silence crackled from Sophie’s end.

“Butterpie has a new friend,” Tanner said, to get the conversation going again. In a way, talking to Sophie made him miss her more, but at the same time he wanted to keep her on the line as long as possible. “A dog named Ginger.”

He’d caught Sophie’s interest that time. “Really? Is it your dog?”

It was telling, Tanner thought, that Sophie had said “your dog” instead of “our dog.” “No. Ginger lives next door. She’s just here for a visit.”

“I’m lonely, Dad,” Sophie said, sounding much younger than her twelve years. She was almost shouting to be heard over a brass band belting out “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” “Are you lonely, too?”

“Yes,” he replied. “But there are worse things than being lonely, Soph.”

“Right now I can’t think of any. Are you going to be all alone all day?”

Crouching now, Tanner busied himself scratching Ginger’s ears. “No. A friend invited me to dinner.”

Sophie sighed with apparent relief. “Good. I was afraid you’d nuke one of those frozen TV dinners or something and eat it while you watched some football game. And that would be pathetic.”

“Far be it from me to be pathetic,” Tanner said, but a lump had formed in his throat and his voice came out sounding hoarse. “Anything but that.”

“What friend?” Sophie persisted. “What friend are you having dinner with, I mean?”

“Nobody you know.”

“A woman?” Was that hope he heard in his daughter’s voice? “Have you met someone, Dad?”

Damn. It was hope. The kid probably fantasized that he’d remarry one day, and she could come home from boarding school for good, and they’d all live happily ever after, with a dog and two cars parked in the same garage every night, like a normal family.

That was never going to happen.

Ginger looked up at him in adoring sympathy when he rubbed his eyes, tired to the bone. His sleepless night was finally catching up with him—or that was what he told himself.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t met anybody, Soph.” Olivia’s face filled his mind. “Well, I’ve met somebody, but I haven’t met them, if you know what I mean.”

Sophie, being Sophie, did know what he meant. Exactly.

“But you’re dating!”

“No,” Tanner said quickly. Bumming a cup of coffee in a woman’s kitchen didn’t constitute a date, and neither did sitting at the same table with her on Thanksgiving Day. “No. We’re just—just friends.”

“Oh.” Major disappointment. “This whole thing bites!”

“So you said,” Tanner replied gently, wanting to soothe his daughter but not having the first clue how to go about it. “Maybe it’s your mind-set. Since today’s Thanksgiving, why not give gratitude a shot?”

She hung up on him.

He thought about calling her right back, but decided to do it later, after she’d had a little time to calm down, regain her perspective. She was a lucky kid, spending the holiday in New York, watching the famous parade in person, staying in a fancy hotel suite with her friends from school.

“Women,” he told Ginger.

She gave a low whine and laid her muzzle on his arm.

He stayed in the barn a while, then went into the house, took a shower, shaved and crashed, asleep before his head hit the pillow.

And Kat did not come to him.

OLIVIAHADSTOPPEDBY Tanner’s barn on the way to Stone Creek Ranch, hoping to persuade Ginger to take a break from horsesitting, but she wouldn’t budge.

Arriving at the homeplace, she checked on Rodney, who seemed content in his stall, then, gym bag in hand, she slipped inside the small bath off the tack room and grabbed a quick, chilly shower. She shimmied into those wretched panty hose, donned the skirt and the blue sweater and the boots, and even applied a little mascara and lip gloss for good measure.

Never let it be said that she’d come to a family dinner looking like a—veterinarian.

And the fact that Tanner Quinn was going to be at this shindig had absolutely nothing to do with her decision to spruce up.

Starting up the front steps, she had a sudden, poignant memory of Big John standing on that porch, waiting for her to come home from a high school date with Jesse McKettrick. After the dance all the kids had gone to the swimming hole on the Triple M, and splashed and partied until nearly dawn.

Big John had been furious, his face like a thundercloud, his voice dangerously quiet.

He’d given Jesse what-for for keeping his granddaughter out all night, and grounded Olivia for a month.

She’d been outraged, she recalled, smiling sadly. Tearfully informed her angry grandfather that nothing had happened between her and Jesse, which was true, if you didn’t count necking. Now, of course, she’d have given almost anything to see that temperamental old man again, even if he was shaking his finger at her and telling her that in his day, young ladies knew how to behave themselves.

Lord, how she missed him, missed his rants. Especially the rants, because they’d been proof positive that he cared what happened to her.

The door opened just then, and Brad stepped out onto the porch, causing the paper turkey to flutter on its hook behind him.

“Ashley’s going to kill me,” Olivia said. “I forgot to pick up salads at the deli.”

Brad laughed. “There’s so much food in there, she’ll never know the difference. Now, come on in before we both freeze to death.”

Olivia hesitated. Swallowed. Watched as Brad’s smile faded.

“What is it?” he asked, coming down the steps.

“Ashley’s looking for Mom,” she said. She hadn’t planned to bring that up that day. It just popped out.

“What?”

“She’s probably going to announce it at dinner or something,” Olivia rushed on. “Is it just me, or do you think this is a bad idea, too?”

“It’s a very bad idea,” Brad said.

“You know something about Mom, don’t you? Something you’re keeping from the rest of us.” It was a shot in the dark, a wild guess, but it struck the bull’s-eye, dead center. She knew that by the grim expression on Brad’s famous face.

“I know enough,” he replied.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up, but I was thinking about Big John, and that led to thinking about Mom, and I remembered what Ashley told me, so—”

“It’s okay,” Brad said, trying to smile. “Maybe she won’t bring it up.”

Olivia doubted they could be that lucky. Ashley was an O’Ballivan through and through, and when she got on a kick about something, she had to ride it out to the bitter end. “I could talk to her…”

Brad shook his head, pulled her inside the house. It was too hot and too crowded and too loud, but Olivia was determined to make the best of the situation, for her family’s sake, if not her own.

Big John would have wanted it that way.

She hunted until she found Mac, sitting up in his playpen, and lifted him into her arms. “It smells pretty good in here, big guy,” she told him. There was a fragrant fire crackling on the hearth, and Meg had lit some scented candles, and delicious aromas wafted from the direction of the kitchen.

Out of the corner of her eye Olivia spotted Tanner Quinn standing near Brad’s baby grand piano, dressed up in a black suit, holding a bottle of water in one hand and trying hard to look as though he was enjoying himself.

Seeing his discomfort took Olivia’s mind off her own. Still carrying Mac, she started toward him.

A cell phone went off before she could speak to him—How the Grinch Stole Christmas—and Tanner immediately reached into his pocket. Flipped open the phone.

As Olivia watched, she saw the color drain out of his face.

The water bottle slipped, and he caught it before it fell, though barely.

“What’s wrong?” Olivia asked.

Mac, perfectly happy a moment before that, threw back his head and wailed for all he was worth.

“My daughter,” Tanner said, standing stock-still. “She’s gone.”

Chapter Five

THISWASTHECALL Tanner had feared since the day Kat died. Sophie, gone missing—or worse. Now that it had actually happened, he seemed to be frozen where he stood, fighting a crazy compulsion to run in all directions at once.

Olivia handed off the baby to Brad, who’d appeared at her side instantly, and touched Tanner’s arm. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”

Before he could answer, the cell ran through its little ditty again.

He didn’t bother checking the caller ID panel. “Sophie?”

“Jack McCall,” his old friend said. “We found Sophie, buddy. She’s okay, if a little—make that a lot—disgruntled.”

Relief washed over Tanner like a tidal wave, making him sway on his feet. “She’s really all right?” Jack had been there for Tanner when Kat was killed, and if there was a blow coming, he might try to soften it.

Olivia stood looking up at him, waiting, her hand still resting lightly on his arm, fingers squeezing gently.

“She’s fine,” Jack said easily. “Like I said, she’s not real happy about being nabbed, though.”

“Where was she?” Tanner had to feel around inside his muddled brain for the question, thrust it out with force.

“Grand Central,” Jack answered. “She sneaked away from the school group while they were making their way through the crowds after the parade. Fortunately, one of my guys spotted her right away, and tailed her to the station. She was buying a train ticket west.”

Coming home. Sophie had been trying to come home.

Brad pulled out the piano bench, and Tanner sat down heavily, tossing his friend a grateful glance.

“Question of the hour,” Jack went on. “What do we do now? She swears she’ll run away again if we take her back to school, and I believe her. The kid is serious, Tanner.”

Tanner let out a long sigh. He felt sick, light-headed, imagining all the things that could have happened to Sophie. And very, very glad when Olivia sat down on the bench beside him, her shoulder touching his. “Can you bring her here?” he asked. “To Stone Creek?”

“I’ll come with her as far as Phoenix,” Jack said. “I’ll have my people there bring her the rest of the way by helicopter. The jet’s due in L.A. by six o’clock Pacific time, and it’s a government job, high-security south-of-the-border stuff, so I can’t get out of the gig.”

Tanner glanced sidelong at Olivia. She took his hand and clasped it. “I appreciate this, Jack,” he said into the phone, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Send Sophie home.”

Olivia smiled at that. Brad let out a sigh, grinned and went back to playing host at a family Thanksgiving dinner, taking his son with him. Folks started milling toward the food, laid out buffet-style in the dining room.

“Ten-four, old buddy,” Jack said. “Maybe I’ll stop in out there and say hello on my way back from Señoritaville. Book me a room somewhere, will you? I could do with a few months of R & R.”

A few minutes before, Tanner couldn’t have imagined laughing, ever again. But he did then. “That would be good,” he said, choking up again. “Your being here, I mean. I’ll ask around, find you a place to stay.”

“Adios, amigo,” Jack told him, and rang off.

“Sophie’s okay?” Olivia asked softly.

“Until I get my hands on her, she is,” Tanner answered.

“Stay right here,” Olivia said, rising and taking off for the dining room beyond.

A short time later she was back, carrying two plates. “You need to eat,” she informed Tanner.

And that was how they shared Thanksgiving dinner, sitting on Brad O’Ballivan’s piano bench, with the living room all to themselves and blessedly quiet. Tanner was surprised to discover that he wasn’t just hungry, he was ravenous.

“Feeling better?” Olivia asked when he was finished.

“Yeah,” he answered. “But I don’t think I’m up to socializing all afternoon.”

“Me, either,” Olivia confessed. She’d only picked at her food.

“Is there a sick cow somewhere?” Tanner asked, indulging in a slight grin. After the shock Sophie had given him, he was still pretty shaken up. “That would probably serve as an excuse for getting the heck out of here.”

“They’re all ridiculously healthy today,” Olivia said.

Tanner chuckled. “Sorry to hear that,” he teased.

She laughed, but the amusement didn’t quite get as far as her eyes. Tanner wondered why the holiday made her so uncomfortable, but he didn’t figure he knew her well enough to ask. He knew why he didn’t like them—because the loss of his wife and grandmother stood out in sharp relief against all that merriment. And maybe that was Olivia’s reason, too.

“I am pretty concerned about Butterpie,” she said, as if inspired. “What do you say we steal one of the fifty-eight pumpkin pies lining Meg’s kitchen counter and head back to your barn?”

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.”

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