A Stone Creek Christmas. Linda Miller Lael

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.”

      The pony was not 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’re in 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 in to 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 nightshrouded 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.