A Cold Creek Noel (The Cowboys of Cold Creek)

by Thayne, RaeAnne

  “It’s close to the back door for easy trips outside. That’s the important thing,” she said.

  “This works. I like the enclosure,” he said. Years ago, she had purchased a small baby play yard that worked well when she was treating an animal whose physical activity needed to be limited.

  “Come on out,” Ben coaxed the dog. Luke didn’t seem to want to move but with their encouragement and Dr. Caldwell helping him along, he rose slowly and hobbled out of the crate, then headed immediately for the soft bed of old blankets she had fashioned in the enclosure.

  “What sort of special instructions do I need?”

  “Our biggest fear right now is infection. We need to keep the injuries as clean as possible, especially that puncture wound from the bull.”

  “You don’t have to worry about anything,” Ridge said. “Caidy’s an expert. She used to work at the clinic with Dr. Harris.”

  “So I hear.”

  “She should have become a veterinarian,” Ridge went on. “It’s all she ever wanted to do.”

  Apparently blabbermouth syndrome ran in the family.

  “Is that right?” Ben said, giving her a curious look. She could tell he was wondering why she hadn’t pursued her dreams. What was so wrong about a person’s life changing direction?

  “Yes. I also wanted to be a ballerina when I was eight. And a famous movie star when I was eleven.”

  And a singer. She decided not to mention she had once wanted to sing professionally. That was another dream she had pushed aside.

  “I suppose you’re anxious to move into the house. The key is inside on the kitchen table. All the information, like the phone number to the house and the address, are on a paper I’ve also left for you there.”

  “Thanks.”

  One thing she had never anticipated doing with her life was being a landlord to an entirely too sexy veterinarian. Yet here she was. “Call if you have any problems or can’t figure out any of the appliances.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be fine. Make sure you let me know if you have any problems with Luke. Here. Let me leave my cell number.”

  He pulled a business card out of the inside pocket of his coat and left it on the kitchen counter. “If he starts to run a fever or has any other unusual symptoms that concern you, I want you to call me. Day or night.”

  She doubted she ever would. Even after all her years of working with Doc Harris, she hadn’t felt comfortable calling the old veterinarian in the middle of the night.

  “Thank you,” she answered.

  “I’d better head out. The kids are anxious to start decorating their tree.”

  “Oh. That reminds me. Destry and I dug through our old Christmas things earlier and found a few things we’re not using. You’re welcome to them.”

  She picked up the box off the kitchen table and handed it to him. He looked a little disconcerted but then smiled.

  “Thank you. I’m sure Mrs. Michaels and the children will find great use for them.”

  “Not you?”

  “I’m sure I’ll be roped into helping, like it or not.” He looked more resigned than truly reluctant.

  “If you’d like, I can carry it out for you while you two get the crate.”

  “That would be great. Thanks.” He smiled at her and she felt those ridiculous flutters again.

  “He seems nice,” Ridge said after they had loaded the crate and the ornaments and stood on the porch watching the two SUVs head back down the driveway toward the foreman’s house.

  She thought of how abrupt and harsh he had been the evening before at the clinic. Nice wouldn’t have been the word she used to describe Ben Caldwell then, but now she was beginning to wonder.

  “I guess,” she answered in what she hoped was a noncommittal voice.

  Ridge gave her a sidelong look. “You might want to think about showing a little more enthusiasm if you plan to run off with the man. At least to him. Occasionally a guy needs a little encouragement.”

  She rolled her eyes but quickly hurried into the house before Ridge could notice the blush she felt heating her cheeks. She suddenly had a very strong feeling she would have to work hard at being casual and uninterested in order to keep Ridge—and probably the rest of the Bowmans—from trying to do a little matchmaking for Christmas.

  * * *

  A woman’s body was a mysterious thing, full of secret hollows and soft, delectable curves.

  He was in heaven, warm, sweetly scented heaven. Ben trailed his fingers over the woman in his arms, his hands exploring all those hidden delights. He wanted to stay here forever with his face buried in skin that smelled sweetly of vanilla and rain-washed wildflowers and his hands finding new and exciting terrain to discover.

  His body was rock-hard and he pressed against her heat, tangling his fingers in acres of dark, silky hair. She smiled at him out of that sinfully delicious mouth that sent his imagination into overdrive, and her green eyes were bright as springtime. He groaned, his hunger at fever pitch, and kissed her.

  Her mouth was as warm and welcoming as the rest of her and when she danced her tongue along his, he groaned and gripped her hands, kissing her with all the pent-up need aching inside him.

  “Yes. Kiss me,” she murmured in that lilting, musical voice. “Just like that, Ben. Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

  All he could think about was burying himself inside. He shifted and prepared to do just that, his body taut and ready, when a phone trilled close to his ear.

  He froze...and woke up from the first sexy dream he’d had in ages.

  He could still see Caidy Bowman, tangled around him, her body soft and warm, but when he blinked she disappeared.

  The phone trilled again and a quick glance at the alarm read 3:00 a.m. Nobody called at this hour unless it was an emergency. He grabbed for it, ignoring the lingering arousal of his body that had no chance in hell of being satisfied by an actual female right now.

  “Hello?” he growled.

  “I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry.” Hearing Caidy Bowman’s voice in his ear after he had just heard her in his dreams, pleading with him for more, was so disorienting that for a moment he couldn’t process the shift.

  “Hello? Are you there?” she asked. The urgency and, yes, fright in her voice pushed away the last clinging tendrils of his sultry dream.

  “I’m here. Sorry.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for the jeans he’d left there the night before. “What’s wrong? Luke?”

  “Yes. He’s not... Something’s wrong. I wouldn’t have called you, except...I don’t think it’s good. He’s struggling to breathe. I thought it might be an infection, but I haven’t seen any signs of a fever or anything. I lifted both dressings and they looked clean.”

  He growled and flipped on the bedside light, then scrubbed at his face to rub the last tendrils of that blasted dream away.

  “Give me five minutes.”

  “Is there something I can do so you don’t have to come up here?”

  “Probably not. Five minutes.”

  As he threw on a T-shirt and his jacket, a hundred possibilities raced through his head, very few of them leading to a good outcome. He quickly scribbled a note for Mrs. Michaels and stuck it on her door, though by now she was used to him dashing out in the middle of the night.

  Snow lightly gleamed in his headlights as he drove up to the ranch house. He saw lights in the kitchen and pulled as close as he could to th
e side door on the circular driveway, then hurried up the snow-covered walkway, his emergency kit in his hand.

  He didn’t even have to rap softly on the door before she yanked it open, her hair tangled around her face and her eyes huge with worry.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly. I didn’t want to call you but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  He had a strong feeling that wasn’t an easy admission for her to make. She struck him as a woman who didn’t like relying on others.

  Yes. Kiss me. Just like that, Ben. Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.

  He pushed away the memory of that completely inappropriate dream and did his best not to notice her faded T-shirt or the yoga pants she wore that stretched over every curve, to focus instead on the issue at hand.

  “It’s fine. I’m here now. Let’s see what we have going on.”

  The dog was clearly in distress, his respiratory rate fast and his breathing labored. His gums and lips were blue and Ben quickly pulled out his emergency oxygen mask and fit it over the dog’s mouth and nose.

  “It’s gotten worse, just in the few minutes since I called you. I don’t know what to do.”

  He ran his hand over the dog’s chest and knew instantly what the problem was. He could hear the rattle of air inside the chest cavity with each ragged breath. He bit out an oath.

  “What is it?”

  “Traumatic pneumothorax. He has air trapped in his chest cavity. We’re going to have to get it out. I have a couple of options here. I can take him into the clinic and do an X-ray first, or I can go with my instincts. I can feel the problem. I can try to extract the air with a needle and syringe, which will help his breathing. It’s your choice.”

  She paused for just a moment, then nodded. “I trust you. If you think you can do it here, go ahead.”

  Her faith in him was humbling, especially given the cold way he had treated her the day before. He fished in his bag for the supplies he would need, then knelt down beside the dog again.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  “Try to calm him as best you can and keep him still.”

  The next few moments were a blur. He was aware of her speaking softly, of her strong, capable hands at his side as she held the dog as firmly as possible. For the most part, he entered that peculiar zone he found whenever he was in the middle of a complicated procedure. He listened with his stethoscope until he could isolate the pneumothorax. The rest was quick and efficient: cleaning the area, inserting the needle in just the right spot, extracting the air with a gurgle, then listening again with the stethoscope to the dog’s breath sounds.

  This was one of those treatments that was almost instantly effective. Miraculous, even. One moment the dog was frantically struggling to breathe, the next his airway was free and clear and his respiratory rate slowed, his wild trembling with it.

  In just moments, he was moving air just as he should through his lungs and had calmed considerably. Satisfied, Ben took the emergency oxygen mask off Luke and returned the syringe to its packaging to be discarded back at the clinic.

  “That’s it?” Caidy’s eyes looked stunned.

  “Should be. We’re still going to want to watch him closely. If you’d like, I can take him back for another night at the clinic just to be safe.”

  “No. I... That was amazing!”

  She was gazing at him as if he had just hung the moon and stars and Jupiter too. He had a funny little ache in his chest, and another inappropriate bit of that crazy dream flashed through his head.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much. I was worried sick.”

  “I’m glad I was close enough to help.”

  “I’m sorry I had to wake you, though.”

  So was he. Or he told himself he was anyway. If she hadn’t, he probably would have a great deal more of his unruly subconscious to be embarrassed about. “No problem. It was worth it.”

  “Is there anything else I need to be concerned about?”

  “I don’t think so. We cleared his lungs. If he has any more breathing trouble, we’re going to want to x-ray to see if something else is going on. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stick around a little longer to make sure he remains stable.”

  “Can I get you something? Coffee probably isn’t a good idea at three-thirty in the morning if you want to catch a few hours of sleep when we’re done here, but we have tea or hot cocoa.”

  “Cocoa would be good.”

  He didn’t want to think about how comfortable, almost intimate, it was to sit here in this quiet kitchen while the snow fluttered softly against the window and the big log house creaked and settled around them. Only a few moments later, she returned with a couple of mugs of hot chocolate.

  “It’s from a mix. I thought that would be faster.”

  “Mix is fine,” he answered. “It’s all I’m used to anyway.”

  He took a sip and almost sighed with delight at the rich mix of chocolate and raspberry. “That’s not any old mix.”

  She smiled. “No. I buy from a gourmet food store in Jackson Hole. It’s imported from France.”

  He sipped again, letting the sensuous flavors mix on his tongue. Worth an interrupted night’s sleep, just for a little of that divine hot chocolate.

  She sat across the table from him and he couldn’t help noticing how the loose neckline of her shirt gaped a little with each breath.

  “So how is the house working out?”

  “Fine, so far. But then, I haven’t even had one full night’s sleep in it.” And what little sleep he had enjoyed had been tormented by futile dreams of something he couldn’t have.

  “I’m sorry again about that, especially considering you had to stay the night with Luke last night.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t be sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s just part of my life, something I’m very used to. I often get emergency calls.”

  Even without the work-related sleep disruptions, his sleep was frequently restless. “The house works well. The kids are happy to have a little more room and Mrs. Michaels is over the moon to have a kitchen again. She made her famous macaroni and cheese for dinner. You’ll have to try it sometime. It’s as much a gourmet treat as your hot chocolate. I have to admit, I’ve missed her cooking.”

  “You must feel very lucky that she was willing to come with you from California.”

  “Lucky doesn’t begin to describe the half of it. I would be completely lost without her. Since Brooke—my wife—died, Anne has kept us all going.”

  “Of all the places you could have bought a practice, why did you pick Pine Gulch?” She seemed genuinely interested and he leaned back in his chair, sipping at his drink, enjoying the quiet conversation more than he probably should.

  “Doc Harris and I have known each other since before I graduated from veterinary school. We met at a conference and had kept up an email correspondence. When he told me he was retiring and wanted to sell his practice, it seemed the perfect opportunity. I had...reasons for wanting to leave California.”

  She didn’t press him, though he could see the curiosity in her eyes. He wanted to tell her. He wasn’t sure why—perhaps the quiet peace of the kitchen or the way she had looked at him with such admiration after the thoracentesis. Or maybe just because he hadn’t talked about it with anyone, not even Mrs. Michaels.

  “My wife has been gone for two years now and I think the kids and I both needed a new start, you know? Away from all the old patterns and relationships. The familiar can som
etimes carry its own burdens.”

  “I can understand that. I’ve had plenty of moments when I just want to pick up and start over.”

  What would she want to run from? he wondered. He had a feeling there was far more beneath the surface of Caidy Bowman than a beautiful cowgirl who loved animals and her family.

  “So you just packed everybody up and headed to the mountains of Idaho?”

  “Something like that.”

  She sipped at her hot cocoa and they lapsed into silence broken only by the dog’s breathing, comfortable and easy now, he was gratified to see. She had a little dab of chocolate on her upper lip and he wondered what she would do if he reached across the table and licked it off.

  “Is it rude and intrusive for me to ask about your wife?”

  That was one way to squelch his inappropriate desire. He shifted in a chair that suddenly felt as hard and unforgiving as a cold block of cement.

  “She...died in a car accident after slipping into a diabetes-related coma while she was behind the wheel.”

  He didn’t add the rest, about the unborn child he hadn’t wanted who had died along with her, about how angry he had been with her for the weeks leading up to her death, furious that she would put him in such an untenable position after they had both decided to stop once Jack was born, when doctors warned of the grave risks of a third pregnancy.

  He hated himself for the way he had reacted. The temper he had inherited from his grandfather, the one he worked constantly to overcome, had slipped its leash and he had been hateful and mean and had even taken to sleeping in the guest room after she told him she was pregnant, just days after they had decided he would have a vasectomy.

  Caidy gave him a sympathetic look, which he definitely did not deserve. “Diabetes. How tragic. She must have been young.”

  “Thirty.”

  Her mouth twisted. “I’m sorry. Really sorry.”

  Yes. Tragic. Something that never should have happened. He blamed himself—and so did Brooke’s parents, which was the reason they were trying to poison Ava and Jack against him.