A Cold Creek Noel. RaeAnne Thayne

so I can take you to school on my way to the clinic.”

      “I wouldn’t want to ride a bus. It’s probably totally gross.”

      That was another lovely gift from his late wife’s parents, thank you very little. Janet Marshall had done her best to turn his daughter into a paranoid germaphobe.

      “You can always use hand sanitizer.” This had become his common refrain, used to combat her objections for everything from eating in a public restaurant to sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall.

      She sniffed but didn’t have a response for that. Much to his relief, she let the subject go and subsided into one of her aggrieved silences. He had a feeling Ava was going to drive him crazy before she made it to the other side of puberty.

      A few moments later, he pulled into a side road with a log arch over it that said River Bow Ranch. Pines and aspens lined the drive. Though it was well plowed, he was still grateful for his four-wheel drive as he headed up a slight hill toward the main log ranch house he could see sprawling in the distance.

      Not far from the house, the drive forked. About a city block down it, he saw a smaller clapboard home with two small eaves above a wide front porch.

      He couldn’t help thinking it looked like something off of one of the Christmas cards the clinic had received, a charming little house nestled in the snow-topped pines, with split rail fencing on the pastures that lined the road leading up to it.

      “Can we ride the horses while we’re here?” Jack asked, gazing with excitement at a group of about six or seven that stood in the snow eating a few bales of alfalfa that looked as though they had recently been dropped into the pasture.

      “Probably not. We’re only renting a house, not the whole ranch.”

      Ava looked out the window at the horses too, and he didn’t miss the sudden light in her eyes. She loved horses, just like most nine-year-old girls.

      But even the presence of some beautiful horseflesh wasn’t enough. “You said we were only looking at it and if we didn’t like it, we didn’t have to stay,” she said in an accusatory tone.

      Oh, she made him tired sometimes.

      “Yes. That’s what I said.”

      “I like it,” Jack offered with his unassailable kindergarten logic. “They have dogs and horses and cows.”

      A couple of collies that looked very much like the one currently resting in his clinic watched them from the front porch of the main house as he pulled into the circular drive in front.

      Before he could figure out what to do next, the door opened and Caidy Bowman trotted down the porch steps, pulling on a parka. She must have been watching for them, he thought. The long driveway would certainly give advance notice of anybody approaching.

      She wore her dark hair in a braid down her back, topped with a tan Stetson. She looked rather sweet and uncomplicated, but somehow he knew the reality of Caidy Bowman was more tangled than her deceptively simple appearance would indicate.

      He opened his door and climbed out as she approached his vehicle.

      “The house is just there.” She gestured toward the small farmhouse in the trees. “Why don’t you drive closer so you don’t have to walk through the snow? Ridge plowed it out with the tractor this morning so you shouldn’t have any trouble. I’ll just meet you there.”

      “Why?” He went around the vehicle and opened the passenger door. “Get in. We can ride together.”

      For some reason she looked reluctant at that idea, but after a weird little pause, she finally came to where he was standing and jumped up into the vehicle. He closed the door behind her before she could change her mind.

      The first thing he noticed after he was once more behind the wheel was the scent of her filling the interior. Though it was a cold and overcast December day, his car suddenly smelled of vanilla and rain-washed wildflowers on a mountain meadow somewhere.

      He was aware of a completely inappropriate desire to inhale that scent deep inside him, to sit here in his car with his children in the backseat and just savor the sweetness.

      Get a grip, Caldwell, he told himself. So she smelled good. He could walk into any perfume counter in town and probably get the same little kick in his gut.

      Still, he was suddenly fiercely glad his house would be finished in only a few weeks. Much longer than that and he was afraid he would develop a serious thing for this prickly woman who smelled like a wild garden.

      “Welcome to the River Bow Ranch.”

      He almost thanked her before he realized she was looking in the backseat and talking to his children. She wore a genuine smile, probably the first one he had seen on her, and she looked like a bright, beautiful ray of sunshine on an overcast day.

      “Can I ride one of your horses sometime?”

      “Jack,” Ben chided, but Caidy only laughed.

      “I think that can probably be arranged. We’ve got several that are very gentle for children. My favorite is Old Pete. He’s about the nicest horse you could ever meet.”

      Jack beamed at her, his sunny, adorable self. “I bet I can ride a horse good. I have boots and everything.”

      “You’re such a dork. Just because you have boots doesn’t make you a cowboy,” Ava said with an impatient snort.

      “What about you, Ava? Do you like horses?”

      In the rearview mirror, he didn’t miss his daughter’s eagerness but she quickly concealed it. He wondered sometimes if she was afraid to hope for things she wanted anymore because none of their prayers and wishes had been enough to keep Brooke alive.

      “I guess,” she said, picking at the sleeve of her parka.

      “You’ve come to the right place, then. I bet my niece Destry would love to take you out for a ride.”

      Ava’s eyes widened. “Destry from my school? She’s your niece?”

      Caidy smiled. “I guess so. There aren’t too many Destrys in this neck of the woods. You’ve met her?”

      Ava nodded. “She’s a couple years older than me but on my very first day, Mrs. Dalton, the principal, had her show me around. She was supernice to me and she still says hi to me and stuff when she sees me at school.”

      “I’m very glad to hear that. She better be nice. If she’s not, you let me know and I’ll give her a talking-to until her ears fall off.”

      Jack laughed at the image. Ava looked as if she wanted to join him but she had become very good at hiding her amusement these days. Instead, she looked out the window again.

      “Here we are,” Caidy said when he pulled up front of the house. “I turned up the heat earlier when I came down to clean a little. It should be nice and cozy for you.”

      How much work had she done for them? He hoped it wasn’t much, even as he wondered why she was making this effort for them when he wasn’t at all sure she really wanted them there.

      “So all the rattraps are gone?” he asked.

      “Rats?” Ava asked in a horrified voice.

      “There are no rats,” Caidy assured her quickly. “We have too many cats here at the River Bow. Your father was making a joke. Weren’t you?”

      Was he? It had been quite a while since he had found much to joke about. Somehow Caidy Bowman brought out a long-forgotten side of him. “Yes, Ava. I was teasing.”

      Judging by his daughter’s expression, she seemed to find that notion just as unsettling as the idea of giant rodents in her bed.

      “Shall we go inside so you can see for yourself?” Caidy said.

      “I want to see the rats!” Jack said.

      “There