The Cowboy's Christmas Miracle

“What’s to be afraid of? We’re only trying to find more sustainable ways of doing business.”

“You don’t have to sell me, boss. I’m on board. I know what you’re doing here and I’m all for it. Our overhead is about half of a typical ranch of the same size and the land is already healthier after less than a year. It’s working. But what you’re doing is fairly radical. You can’t argue that. A lot of people think you’re crazy to go without hormones, to calve in the summer, to move your cattle to a new grazing spot every couple of days instead of weeks. That kind of thinking isn’t going to make you the most popular guy at the cattle growers’ association.”

“It can’t hurt to let people see I don’t intend to come out only on the weekends and hide out here at the ranch. I’m not trying to convert anybody, I just want folks to see I’m willing to step out and try to be part of the community.”

“A noble effort, I guess.”

“You don’t mind if I tag along with you and Melina, then?”

“I suppose that would be okay. You want her to find you a date? There’s some real nice-lookin’ girls around here who’d probably love to hit the town with a guy who has a private jet and one of them penthouses in San Francisco.”

Carson narrowed his eyes at his foreman, whose sun-weathered features only grinned back at him. “Thanks, but no,” Carson muttered. “I don’t need help in the dating department.”

“You change your mind, you let me know.”

“Don’t hold your breath. I’m not interested in a social life, just in a little public relations.”

Chapter Three

Two hours later, he reminded himself of the conversation with his foreman as he listened to the Pine Gulch mayor ramble on about every single civic event planned for the coming year, from the Founders’ Day parade to the Memorial Day breakfast to the annual tradition of decorating the town park for the holidays.

Public relations, he reminded himself. That was the only reason for his presence. If that meant expiring from boredom, it was a small price to pay.

“This is a nice town, as you’ll find when you’ve been here a little longer,” Mayor Wilson assured him. “A nice town full of real nice people. Why, I don’t guess there’s a more neighborly town in all of Idaho. You could have done a lot worse if you’d settled somewhere else.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” he murmured to the other man, wondering when he could politely leave.

At least the mayor was willing to talk to him. He supposed he ought to be grateful for that. While he wasn’t encountering outright hostility from people at the party, he had seen little of that neighborliness Mayor Wilson claimed. Most were polite to him but guarded, which was about what he expected.

The server walked past with more of those divine spinach rolls. He grabbed one as she passed by, hoping she wasn’t keeping track of his consumption since he knew he’d had more than his share.

At least the food was good. Better than good, actually. He had come in with fairly low culinary expectations. A stock growers’ holiday party in Pine Gulch, Idaho, wasn’t exactly high on his list of places to find haute cuisine.

But the menu was imaginative and every dish prepared exactly right. He paid a Cordon Bleu-trained personal chef to fill his refrigerator and freezer here and in San Francisco and he thought the food at this party was every bit as good as anything Jean-Marc prepared.

None of it was fancy but everything he had tried so far exploded with taste, from the mini crab cakes with wild mushrooms to the caramel tart he’d tasted to the spinach rolls he couldn’t get enough of.

He could only hope the personal chef he hired from Jackson Hole for the guests who were coming to Raven’s Nest in a few days was half as good as this caterer.

The house party was an important one for McRaven Enterprises and he wanted everything to be exactly right, especially since he had a feeling this was his one and only chance to convince Frederick Hertzog and his son, Dierk, to sell their cellular phone manufacturing business to McRaven Enterprises.

Frederick loved all things Western. When Carson learned he and his family were traveling from Germany to Salt Lake City for a ski vacation, he had made arrangements to fly them to Raven’s Nest for a few days in an effort to convince the man McRaven Enterprises was the best company to take Hertzog Communications and its vast network of holdings to the next level.

He and Hertzog had had a long discussion the last time they met about some of the range policies Carson was trying to emphasize at Raven’s Nest and the man was interested to see those efforts in action.

He expected to have more opportunities to entertain at Raven’s Nest. He preferred his solitude while he was here but he had built the house knowing some degree of entertaining was inevitable. It wouldn’t hurt to meet the caterer before he left, he decided. He could at least get a business card so he could pass it along to Carrianne, his enormously competent assistant who handled all his event-planning details.

The kitchen was at the rear of the community center. Just before he reached it, another server came through the doors carrying a tray laden with artfully arranged holiday sweets. Cookies and truffles and slices of nut bread.

He focused first on the food, wondering how upset she would be if he messed up her lovely tray by snatching one of those giant sugar cookies. He lifted his gaze to the server to ask and did a quick double take.

“Mrs. Wheeler!”

She wobbled a little and nearly dropped the entire platter. “Mr. McRaven,” she exclaimed, in the same voice she might have used if an alien spaceship suddenly landed in the middle of the room. “What are you doing here?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I was invited. Why do you sound so surprised? This is the cattle growers’ association holiday party, right? Since I run four hundred head of cattle at Raven’s Nest, doesn’t that make me eligible?”

She paused for only a moment and then continued to the buffet table, where she set down the tray before answering him. “Yes. Of course. I’m sorry. You certainly have the right to attend whatever party you’d care to. I just…wouldn’t have expected you here, that’s all. I was surprised to see you. The cattlemen’s association is usually old-timers. The local good old boys.”

“What about Viviana Cruz? You can’t call her a good ole boy and she runs the whole association.”

She smiled suddenly, brightly. “Point taken. Viv is definitely her own person. And we all love her for it.”

With that smile, Jenna Wheeler suddenly looked as delicious as the food she was so carefully arranging, enough to make his mouth water. Her cheeks were flushed like the barest hint of color on August peaches and her silky blond hair was doing its best to escape the confines of the hair clip holding it away from her face.

He wondered what she would do if he reached out to finish the job, just for the sheer pleasure of watching it swing free, but he quickly squashed the inappropriate reaction. She was an extraordinarily lovely woman, he thought, not particularly thrilled that he couldn’t seem to stop noticing that little fact about his neighbor.

“Are you helping the caterer tonight?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I guess you could say that. Is there something wrong with the food?”

“No. Quite the contrary. Everything has been perfect. I’m looking for a business card, in fact.”

She blinked at him for a long moment, her big green eyes astonished, then she quickly looked away as if she hadn’t heard him, her attention focused on arranging items on the buffet table for better access by the guests.

As the silence dragged on, he realized she wasn’t going to respond. “So would you mind getting one for me from the caterer when you have a minute?” he pressed.

Again she gave him that odd look, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to handle his request. Finally, she sighed and reached into the pocket of her red-and-green striped apron and pulled out a business card.

A nice touch for the caterer, he thought, to give all his servers business cards to be handed out upon request. He scanned it quickly, then felt his jaw drop.

Cold Creek Cuisine

Weddings, parties, reunions, or just an unforgettable, intimate dinner for two

Jenna Wheeler, owner

“You made all this?” he asked.

She gave him a long, cool look. “Why do you sound so surprised?” she parroted his own words back to him.

He had no good response to that, other than the obvious. “You’re a widowed mother of four young children. Quite frankly, I’m astonished you have time to breathe, forget about running a business.”

He didn’t add that from what he had seen of her children, he would think just keeping them out of mischief would require six or seven strong-willed adults. Armed with cattle prods, for good measure.

“It can be challenging sometimes,” she answered. “But I do most of the cooking when they’re in school or sleeping.”

Even when he came to Raven’s Nest to relax, he could never completely escape work. Carson often had to take conference calls from Europe or Japan at odd hours. He remembered now that he had sometimes seen lights glowing at her house late at night and had wondered about it.

He was struck by another sudden memory. “Is that why you had so many groceries in your van today? I thought maybe you were just stocking up in case of a blizzard.”

She laughed out loud and he was quite certain it was the loveliest sound he had heard in a long time. “My boys eat a lot, I’ll grant you that. But not quite twenty grocery bags full. Yes, that’s why I had so many groceries in my van. It was also the reason for my panic this morning. I had a million things to do before tonight and couldn’t really afford the delay of being stupid enough to slide into a snowbank. Thank you again for pulling me out.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad I was there. I would have hated missing all this delicious food. Your tandoori beef skewers are particularly wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything like it.”

“Thank you.” She looked as surprised at the compliment as if he had just reached over and kissed her hard, right here above the maple pepper salmon bites.

Not a completely unappealing idea, he had to admit.

None of this made sense to him. Not his sudden fierce attraction to her or the fact that she was here in the first place.

He had paid in the mid seven figures for her ranch, more than its appraised value because he hadn’t wanted to quibble and risk missing out on the purchase after he had searched so long for the perfect rangeland for his and Neil’s plans for sustainable ranching.

He would think with careful management, she and her children would be well-provided-for the rest of their lives.

But she drove a five-year-old minivan and her house needed painting and she worked after her children were in bed to throw parties for other people.

It was none of his business, he reminded himself. She was none of his business.

Except she did fix a mean goat-cheese crostini.

“Well, your food is fantastic. Do you mind if I give your card to my assistant who plans my events for me? I expect I’ll be doing more entertaining at Raven’s Nest in the future. I was hoping to find someone closer than Jackson Hole to handle the catering when I entertain. I never expected her to live just down the hill.”

She paused for a long moment and he could clearly see the indecision in her eyes. He sensed she wanted to tell him no but instead she gave a short nod. “I suppose. I should warn you I’m very selective about the jobs I accept. If it doesn’t work for my children’s schedule, I have no qualms about turning something down. They come first.”

“Fair enough.”

He would have added more but the woman who had been helping Jenna serve at the party approached them at that moment. She barely looked at Carson but the quick glance she shot at him was icier, even more than Jenna’s had been.

“Jenna, the mayor is asking if you have more of your baconwrapped shrimp. He’s crazy about them, apparently. I told him I would ask.”

“I’ll have to go check the inventory in the kitchen.” She turned toward Carson with an apologetic expression he wasn’t completely certain was genuine.

“Will you excuse me? Things are a little hectic.”

“Of course,” he answered. He watched her go, not at all thrilled to realize the brief interaction with her had been the most enjoyable moments of his evening.

Why wouldn’t the man just leave already?

Jenna returned to the kitchen after making yet another trip to replenish the buffet table, fighting the urge to bury her face in a pitcher of ice water.

This was becoming ridiculous.

She had made a half-dozen trips out into the holidaybedecked community center, circulating among the guests with more cheesecake or toffee bites.

Every time, she had vowed to herself she wouldn’t pay the slightest bit of attention to Carson McRaven. But the instant she would walk out of the kitchen, her gaze would unerringly find him, no matter where he was standing.

He shouldn’t have stood out so glaringly. She had no reason to hone in on him like a heat-seeking missile. It wasn’t like he was wearing some fancy tailored Italian-cut suit or anything. He had on perfectly appropriate khaki slacks and a light blue dress shirt under a sport jacket that looked casual but probably cost more than the average fall steer at market.

The man was just too blasted good-looking, with that dark wavy hair and those intense blue eyes. It didn’t help that he wore his clothes with a careless elegance that was completely foreign compared to the off-the-rack crowd in Pine Gulch.

She couldn’t help noticing him, maybe because he looked like a fierce hawk taking tea with a flock of starlings.

This is the cattle growers’ association holiday party, right? Since I run four hundred head of cattle at Raven’s Nest, doesn’t that make me eligible?

If he was your average rancher, she was Julia Child.

“I can’t believe that man had the nerve to show up here.”

Jenna swiveled to find her sister-in-law coming through the doors with another empty tray. “What man?” she asked, playing innocent, just as if her thoughts hadn’t revolved around him from the moment she had discovered him at the party.

“McRaven!” Terri’s glare looked incongruous on her pixie features. “Does the man have to ruin everything? It’s not enough that he waltzes away with your ranch and starts building that Taj Mahal on it but now he has to show up all over town like he owns the place.”

“He didn’t waltz away with anything, Terri. You know that. He paid good money for the ranch. And the house he built is big but it’s not obscenely big.”

“It’s the biggest house in town. I mean, who really needs a twelve thousand square foot mansion out in the middle of freaking nowhere? Do you have any idea what kind of hit he’s going to take if he ever tries to sell the place? Who else is going to want to shell out that kind of money in this soft market?”

“Does everything have to come down to real estate with you?”

Terri made a face. “I can’t help it. I’ve got loan-to-values and escrow analyses on the brain.”

When her sister-in-law wasn’t helping her serve the mad rush of holiday events she had overcommitted to, Terri was studying for her real-estate license.

“McRaven should have taken a good look at the market around here before he jumped in and started building his megahouse,” she added.

“I’m guessing he doesn’t care about the market. He’s got the money and the land. He’s free to build whatever kind of house he wants on it.”

She had to admit, she hadn’t been thrilled that, for ten months, Raven’s Nest had seen a constant stream of workers and delivery trucks and construction vehicles, with their dust and noise. The boys had been fascinated by it all but she had mostly found it annoying. And, okay, she had resented that Carson had the endlessly deep pockets to come in and make all the changes she and Joe had only ever been able to dream about in whispered conversations in the dark quiet of their bedroom.

“I still don’t think it’s right,” Terri muttered. “He doesn’t belong here. It doesn’t help that he comes in looking like he just finished a photo shoot for some sexy men’s magazine. No man should be allowed to be that rich and that unbelievably gorgeous. It’s just not fair.”

“You’re a married woman, Terri!” she teased.

“Very happily married,” she agreed. “But you have to agree, that man is lethal.”

Jenna decided she would be wise to just keep her mouth shut right about now.

“You should see Annalee Kelley putting out the vibe. She’s all over him. If Annalee has her way, she’ll be the first one in town to see the inside of Raven’s Nest. Or at least one of the bedrooms there.”

Okay, she didn’t want to go there, Jenna decided, and quickly changed the subject.

“How are the crab cakes? They seem to be going fast, don’t they?”

Terri looked reluctant to be distracted but finally gave in. “You have, like, three left out there. You’ve done a fantastic job, as usual, Jen. Everybody’s raving about how delicious the food is and at least a half-dozen people begged me for your white chocolate mousse recipe.”

She had been working like crazy to make everything perfect for the party. It was amazing the sense of satisfaction she found.

“Thanks for all your help these last few weeks as everything has been so crazy, Terri. You’ve saved my bacon.”

“You’re welcome, hon. I’m just glad this is our last gig for a while. I can’t wait for the cruise this week. I’m going to completely put the stupid real-estate test out of my head and just bask by the pool with an umbrella drink in my hand.”

Her brother and his family were leaving the day before Christmas for a weeklong cruise on the Mexican Riviera.

“Well, I won’t have umbrella drinks but I’ll be glad to take a rest, too. It will be nice to have things get back to normal.”

“As normal as your life can get when you live just down the hill from the McRaven McMansion. I heard from Melina Parker that he’s got guests coming in this weekend. You let me know if there are any naked hot tub parties up there, okay? As much as I despise the man, I might have to come over with Paul’s binoculars, just for a little peek.”

Oh, as if she needed that visual image in her head. She thrust a platter at her sister-in-law to distract her. “Here. This is the last of the crostini. Try to move them. I don’t want to take any home with me.”

Terri grinned but obediently headed back out to the party.

The next time Jenna dared venture out of the kitchen, Carson McRaven was nowhere in sight. She told herself that odd, hollow feeling in her stomach was simply relief that he was gone and she could finally concentrate on the job at hand.

It certainly wasn’t disappointment.

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