A Cold Creek Christmas Story

by RaeAnne Thayne

  She smiled, proud of her little community. While it might be primarily a ranching town, Pine Gulch was gaining a reputation as a foodie destination and a magnet for artists.

  “I understand they get customers from as far away as Jackson Hole who read about the pizza online and want to try a slice.”

  She was finishing her second slice when she spotted her friend Caidy Caldwell coming in with her husband, the local veterinarian, and their children. Caidy had grown up in Cold Creek Canyon and had been a friend for a long time. Celeste loved seeing her so happy with Ben.

  When she spotted Celeste, she waved, said something to Ben and the kids, then headed in her direction.

  “Hi, Celeste! I’m so glad I bumped into you. Great story time last week. The kids really enjoyed it.”

  “Thanks. It was great to see you there.”

  “I don’t know how you always manage to find such absolutely charming stories—old favorites and then so many that no one has ever heard before.”

  “That’s my job,” she said with a smile. That was one of her favorite parts about it, seeking out the new and unusual along with the classics everybody expected and loved.

  “You do it well,” Caidy said. “Almost too well. We might have to quit coming to the library. Every time you read a new book the kids have to buy it.”

  “Because they’re all so good.” Her stepdaughter, Ava, had joined her.

  “Right. But now the shelves of our home library are bulging.”

  “You can never have too many books,” Celeste answered.

  “That’s what I always say,” Ava exclaimed. She turned to Olivia. “Hi. I’m Ava Caldwell.”

  “Sorry. This is Flynn Delaney and his daughter, Olivia. Flynn, this is my friend Caidy Caldwell and her daughter, Ava. Ava also has a brother about your age named Jack and a new baby brother who is the cutest thing around, Liam.”

  As her friend smiled at the two of them, Celeste didn’t miss the flash of recognition or sympathy in her gaze before she smoothly masked her reaction. Caidy obviously had followed the news stories and knew what had happened to the girl.

  “I’m happy to meet you both,” her friend said with a smile. “Welcome to Pine Gulch. I hope you’re staying around for a while.”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Only until after the holidays.”

  “Well, you picked one of the best times of the whole year to be here. You won’t find many prettier winter wonderlands than this part of Idaho.”

  “It’s lovely,” he agreed.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner. I just needed to ask you again what time practice is tomorrow. I know you’ve told me a half dozen times but I swear Christmas makes my brain leak out of my ears.”

  “Four thirty sharp at the St. Nicholas Lodge at the ranch. We should be done by six thirty.”

  “Perfect. My kids are so excited about it.”

  Celeste had no idea how Hope had persuaded her to take on one more thing, in this case organizing a small program to be performed at an inaugural Senior Citizens Christmas dinner a few days before the holiday.

  Hope’s particular skill was getting Celeste to do things she ordinarily never would attempt—like publish her books and then agree to allow one of those books to be made into a movie.

  “Olivia, if you’re going to be here through Christmas, you should think about being in the play,” Ava suggested.

  Flynn tensed up at the idea, his jaw taut. To Celeste’s surprise, Olivia only looked intrigued.

  “I was in a play in school once. It was fun.”

  “This isn’t a huge production,” Celeste assured Flynn. “We’re just doing a simple Christmas program. Everybody who wants to participate gets a part. We’re mostly singing songs everybody already knows.”

  “Can I do it, Dad?”

  He frowned. “We’ll have to talk about that. We’re pretty busy cleaning out the house. I don’t know if we’ll have time to go to practices and things.”

  “There are only three practices,” Celeste said. “Tomorrow, Thursday night and Saturday morning, and then the show is Tuesday, the day before Christmas Eve. She would be more than welcome to come. The rehearsals and the show are all at the St. Nicholas Lodge at The Christmas Ranch, just five minutes from your place.”

  * * *

  A Christmas program. With an audience, applause. The whole bit. He wanted to tell them all absolutely not, to grab his daughter and drag her out of here.

  He’d had enough of performers to last him a lifetime. His entire life, he had been forced to wait on the sidelines while the important females in his life sought fame and recognition. His mother had made it clear from the time he was old enough to understand that he could never be the most important thing in her life—not when her adoring public already held that honor.

  Elise had pretended otherwise, but when it came down to it, he had been even less important to her, only a stepping-stone on her journey to success.

  He didn’t want Olivia anywhere near a stage or a movie set. So far she hadn’t shown any inclination in that direction, much to his relief. He wanted to keep it that way.

  He told himself he was being ridiculous. It was only a Christmas program, not a Broadway production. Still, he didn’t want to offer her any opportunity to catch the performing bug.

  She was still so fragile. While her physical wounds had mostly healed, emotionally and mentally she was still had a long journey.

  Was he being too protective? Probably. Her therapist in California told him he needed to relax and let go a little. He didn’t need to watch over her every single moment. Right now he had a tendency to want to keep her close, to tuck her up against him and make sure nothing terrifying or tragic ever touched her again.

  That wasn’t a healthy approach, either. He couldn’t protect her from everything, even though he wanted to.

  “Can I do it, Dad?” she asked again.

  This was the same girl who freaked out in large crowds, who didn’t like loud noises and who tended to panic if strangers tried to talk to her.

  Did she seriously think she could handle being onstage in front of a bunch of strangers?

  “We can talk about it later,” he said.

  “Absolutely,” Caidy said with a cheerful smile, though he thought he saw soft compassion in her gaze.

  Did she know about what had happened to Olivia? Probably. Most of the damn world knew. It had led media reports around the world for a week, had been on the cover of all the tabloids and celebrity rags.

  When an Oscar-nominated actress is gunned down by her equally famous if mentally ill boyfriend—who then shoots her young child before killing himself—people tended to pay attention.

  If he thought he could come to this remote corner of Idaho and escape notice, he was delusional. He doubted he could find anywhere on the planet where the news hadn’t reached.

  Maybe he could have taken Olivia on an African safari or something, but even then he wouldn’t have been surprised if people in the veld knew of Elise Chandler.

  “It was nice to meet you,” Ava said politely. “I hope we see you at rehearsal tomorrow.”

  His daughter needed friends, he thought again. They had always been important to her. Before everything happened, she always had been begging to have a friend over to use the pool or watch a movie.

  Since her release from the hospital, she hadn’t been interested in doing the normal things a seven-year-old girl would do. Ava Caldwell was older than his daughter, maybe eleven or twelve, but she seemed very kind. Maybe Celeste knew of some other likely candidates Olivia could hang out with while they were in town.

  If it helped her interact with children around her age, would the Christmas program really be that bad?

  Being a parent was a tough enough gig under
the best of circumstances. Throw in the kind of trauma his daughter had endured and he felt as though he was foundering, trying to stay afloat in thirty-foot swells.

  The Caldwells waved and headed for their table, and Flynn returned to his delicious pizza. The people at the Rocky Mountain Pizza Company knew what they were doing when it came to pie, he had to admit. Olivia, he saw, ate two pieces and even some of the family-style tossed salad, which seemed something of a record for her, given her poor appetite these days.

  While they ate, they talked about Christmas and books and a couple of movies they had all seen. Three different times, people who came into the restaurant stopped at their booth to say hello to Celeste.

  Olivia seemed to find that of great interest. “Do you know everybody who lives here?” she finally asked.

  Celeste laughed, a light, musical sound. “Not even close, though it feels like it sometimes. When you live in a place for a long time you get to know lots of people. I’ve been in Pine Gulch since I was eleven—except for the years I was away in Boise and Seattle for school.”

  “Where did you live before that?” he asked, suddenly intensely curious about her.

  He was even more curious when her cheerful features seemed to go still and closed. She didn’t say anything for several long seconds, so long that he wasn’t sure she was going to answer him at all.

  “It didn’t seem like a tough question,” he said mildly.

  “For you, maybe,” she retorted. “You grew up in California with your mother after your parents divorced, and spent your summers here with Charlotte, right?”

  How did she know that? he wondered. He only remembered meeting her a few times back when he would come to visit and didn’t remember ever sharing that information with her. Maybe Charlotte had told her.

  He gave her a close look but she seemed lost in her own thoughts.

  “That’s right,” he answered. “And you?”

  “No one specific place,” she finally answered. “I lived all over the globe, if you want the truth. I was born in a hut in Ghana, and before I was eleven, I lived in about two dozen countries. My parents were missionaries who started health clinics in underserved places of the world. Before I came to Pine Gulch, we were living in Colombia.”

  Some kind of vague, unsettling memory poked at him, a whisper he had once heard about Celeste and her sisters. Something to do with a kidnapping, with her parents.

  He couldn’t put his finger on the details. What was it? Was that the reason for those secrets in her eyes, for the pain he sensed there?

  He opened his mouth to ask her, but before he could a loud clatter echoed through the place as a server busing the table next to them dropped the bin of dishes.

  At the sudden, unexpected sound, Olivia gave one terrified gasp and slid from her seat under the table.

  Damn, he hated these moments when her PTSD took over. They left him both furious and profoundly sad. He took a breath and leaned down to talk her through it, but Celeste beat him to it. She reached down and gave Olivia’s shoulder a comforting squeeze beneath the table.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay. It was only dishes. That’s all. I know you were startled, but you’re safe, sweetheart.”

  Olivia was making little whimpering noises that broke his heart all over again.

  “I don’t like loud noises,” she said.

  “Especially when you don’t expect them and don’t have time to prepare. Those are the worst, right?”

  To his shock, Celeste spoke with a tone of experience. He gazed at her, trying to remember again what he knew about her and her sisters.

  “They are,” Olivia said. Though she still sounded upset, he could no longer hear the blind panic in her voice.

  “Why don’t you come up and finish your pizza? If you want, I can ask Lucy about fixing you one of their best desserts. It’s a big gooey chocolate-chip cookie they bake in the wood-fired oven and top with hand-churned ice cream. I think you’ll love it. I know it’s my favorite thing to eat when I’ve been startled or upset about something.”

  After another moment, Olivia peeked her head out from under the booth. “They’re not going to make that sound again, are they?”

  “I don’t think so. That was an accident.”

  “I hope they don’t have another accident,” she answered in a small voice.

  “If they do, your dad and I are right here to make sure nothing hurts you.”

  That seemed enough to satisfy her. His daughter slid back onto the seat. She still had a wild look in her eyes, and he noticed she edged closer to him and constantly looked toward Celeste for reassurance while they finished their pizza.

  He didn’t miss the protective expression Celeste wore in return, an expression that turned his insides just as gooey as that chocolate-chip cookie she was talking about.

  He couldn’t let himself develop feelings for this woman, no matter how amazing she was with his child, he reminded himself.

  He had to focus on his daughter right now. She was the only thing that mattered.

  Chapter Six

  “Is she asleep?” Celeste whispered an hour later, when they made the turn onto Cold Creek Road.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror and could see Olivia curled into the corner, her eyes closed and her cheek resting on her hand.

  “Looks like it.” He pitched his voice low. “She’s always been a kid who can sleep anywhere, especially when she’s had a long day. Driving in the car has always knocked her right out. When she was going through the terrible twos and used to fight going to bed, I would strap her in her car seat and drive her around the block a few times. She always ran so hard that when she finally stopped, she would drop like a rock by the time we hit the first corner.”

  “Did she stay asleep?”

  “Yeah. That was the amazing part. She never seemed to mind when I unstrapped her from her car seat and carried her into the house to her bed. I was kind of sorry when she outgrew that phase and started sleeping in her own bed without a fuss.”

  Beside him, he caught a flash of white in the darkness as Celeste smiled a little. “I imagine she was an adorable toddler.”

  “Oh, she was. Scary smart and curious about everything.”

  He felt a sharp pang in his heart when he thought again about how much she had changed, how she had become so fearful and hesitant. Would the old Olivia ever return, or was this their new version of normal?

  “I wish you could have known her three months ago. Before.”

  Celeste reached out to touch his arm briefly, like a little bird landing on a branch for only a moment before fluttering away again.

  “She’s a wonderful girl, Flynn. A terrible thing happened to her, yes, but she’s already demonstrated what a survivor she is. Trust me. She’ll get through it in time. She may always have those dark memories—nothing can take them away completely—but eventually she’ll learn how to replace them with happier thoughts.”

  He glanced over at her. “Is that how you coped?”

  He could sense her sudden fine-edged tension. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “What happened to you? I vaguely remember my grandmother saying something about you and your sisters enduring a terrible ordeal, but I’ve been racking my brain and can’t remember what. I should. I’m sorry.”

  She was silent for a long time and he didn’t press, just continued driving through the quiet night through Cold Creek Canyon.

  The creek here wound beside the road and through the trees, silvery in the moonlight. Tall pines and firs grew beside cottonwoods along the banks, at times almost forming a tunnel over the road. It was beautiful and mysterious at night with the snow fluttering gently against the windshield and the occasional house or ranchette decorated with Christmas lights.

  She finally spoke when t
hey were almost to the Star N. “It’s a time of my life I don’t like to think about,” she murmured.

  “Oh?”

  She sighed. “I told you my parents moved us around the globe under sometimes difficult circumstances.”

  He nodded, wondering what her life must have been like without any kind of stable place to call home. Had she thrived there or had she always felt as if something were missing in her life?

  She loved to read. Perhaps books had been her one constant friend through all the chaos and uncertainty.

  “When I was eleven, we moved to Colombia to open a clinic in a small, undeveloped region. My parents were assured over and over that it was a safe area to bring their daughters.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “The village where we lived might have been safe, but several in the region were not.”

  With reluctance he pulled up in front of her house, wishing he could keep driving. He shouldn’t have worried. She didn’t appear to notice where they were, that he had parked the vehicle and turned to face her. She hardly seemed aware he was there as she spoke, her features tight and her eyes focused on some spot through the windshield that he had a feeling wasn’t anywhere close to eastern Idaho.

  “We had been living in the village about six weeks when the clinic drew the attention of the local rebel leader in one of those unstable villages who happened to be in need of some extra cash to fund his soldiers. I guess Juan Pablo thought he could get a handsome sum in ransom if he kidnapped the crazy American do-gooders. The only trouble with that plan was that my parents weren’t associated with any larger organization with deep pockets. They were free agents, I guess you could say. There was no money to pay a ransom and no one to pay it.”

  “What happened?”

  “Juan Pablo didn’t believe my parents when they insisted no one could pay a ransom. He thought if he held us long enough, the US government at least would step in, especially with the lives of three young girls at stake. We were held hostage for several weeks in a squalid prison camp.”

  What the hell had her parents been thinking, to drag three young girls all over the world into these unstable situations? He was all for helping others and admired those selfless people who only wanted to make a difference in the world, but not when it cost the well-being of their own children.