Holiday in Stone Creek: A Stone Creek Christmas

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?”