Caidy gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about those silly girls. They just want to go have fun.”
“Me too. You come.”
She sighed, resigned to her fate. “Yes, Queen Maya.”
The girl gave her sweet giggle as Caidy grabbed her coat out of the closet and quickly found mittens and a quite fancy chapeau handmade by Emery Kendall Cavazos that she had won in the gift exchange a few weeks earlier at the Friends of the Library Christmas party.
“Hurry up, Caid,” Taft said. “We don’t have all night. The sooner we go, the sooner we can get it over with and come back to watch the basketball game. Come on, Maya.”
“I stay with Auntie,” the girl said and Caidy’s heart melted, as it frequently did around her.
“I’ve got her,” she told her brother.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. We’re coming. I’m almost ready.”
Taft left and she quickly finished shoving on boots, grabbed Maya’s hand and hurried out to the hay wagon.
The horses stamped and blew in the cold air, which smelled of woodsmoke and snow. What a beautiful night. Perfect for a sleigh ride. Well, not officially a sleigh ride because the wagon had wheels, not runners, but she didn’t think any of them would quibble.
Ridge had lined the wagon with straw bales. To her dismay, everyone else was settling as they approached the wagon and the only free space left for her and Maya was near the back of the wagon—right next to Ben. Had her brothers colluded to arrange that? She wouldn’t put it past them.
Right now, Ben was more likely to throw her over the side than cooperate with any Bowman matchmaking efforts, but her brothers had no way of knowing that—unless Laura or Becca had spilled to their husbands.
“Auntie, up,” Maya said.
How was she going to manage this? Maya wasn’t heavy but Caidy didn’t think she could climb the ladder with her in her arms and she wasn’t sure Maya could negotiate them on her own. “If you want to lift her up, I can help her the rest of the way,” Ben said, obviously noticing her predicament.
Caidy scooped Maya into her arms and held her up for him. Their arms brushed as he easily tugged the girl the rest of the way. Did he feel the sparks between them, or was it just her imagination? Caidy climbed the ladder and stood for a moment, wishing she could squeeze up front with Ridge. Unfortunately, he already had Alex and Jack riding shotgun.
“Sit down, Caidy, or you’re going to fall over when Ridge takes off,” Taft ordered. Heaven save her from brothers who didn’t think she had a brain in her head.
Left with no choice, she sat on the same bale as Ben—who looked rugged and masculine in a fleece-lined heavy ranch coat the color of dust. At least Maya sat between them, providing some buffer.
Ridge turned around to make sure all his passengers were settled and then clicked to the big horses. They took off down the driveway, accompanied by the jangle of bells on the harnesses.
“Go, horsies! Jingle bells, jingle bells!” Maya exclaimed and Caidy smiled at her. When she lifted her gaze, she found Ben smiling down at the girl too. Her heart stuttered a little at the gentleness on his expression. She had called him rude and arrogant, yet here he was treating Maya, with her beautiful smile and Down syndrome features, with breathtaking sweetness.
She had to say something. Now was the perfect time. She clenched her fingers into her palms inside her mittens and turned to him. “Look, I...I’m sorry about earlier. What I said. It wasn’t true. Not any of it. I was just being stupid.”
“What?” he yelled, leaning down to hear over the rushing wind and the eight laughing girls.
“I said I’m sorry.” She spoke more loudly but at that moment all the girls started actually singing “Jingle Bells” in time with the chiming bells from the horses.
“What?” He leaned his head closer to hers, over Maya’s head, and she didn’t know what else to do but lean in and speak in his ear, though she felt completely ridiculous. She wanted to tell him to just forget the whole thing. She had come this far, though. She might as well finish the thing.
Up close, he smelled delicious. She couldn’t help noticing that outdoorsy soap she had noticed when they were kissing....
She dragged her mind away from that and focused on the apology she should be making. “I said I was sorry,” she said in his ear. “For what I said in the kitchen to my sisters-in-law, I mean. They were teasing me, uh, about you...and I was being completely stupid. I’m sorry you overheard. I didn’t mean it.”
He turned his head until his face was only inches from hers. “Any of it?”
“Well, you are pretty arrogant,” she answered tartly.
To her surprise, he laughed at that and the low, sexy timbre of it shivered down her spine and spread out her shoulders to her fingertips.
“I can be,” he answered.
“Sing!” Maya commanded as the girls broke into “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
She laughed and picked the girl onto her lap, grateful for her small, warm weight and the distraction she provided from this very inconvenient attraction she didn’t know what to do about to a man who was sending her more mixed signals than a broken traffic light.
She was taken further off guard when Ben began to sing along with Maya and the girls in a very pleasing tenor. He even sang all the extra lines about lightbulbs and reindeers playing Monopoly.
She had to turn away, focusing instead on the homes they passed, their holiday lights glittering in the pale moonlight.
This wasn’t such a bad way to spend an evening, she decided. Even with the caroling, she was surrounded by family she loved, by beautiful scenery, by the serenity of a winter night. She was happy she had come, she realized with some shock.
The girls broke into “Silent Night” after that, changing up the lighthearted mood a little, and she hummed softly under her breath while Maya mangled the words but did her best to follow along. In the middle of the first “Sleep in heavenly peace” injunction, Ben leaned down once more.
“Why aren’t you singing?” His low voice tickled her ear and gave her chills underneath the layers of wool.
She shrugged, unable to answer him. She wasn’t sure she could tell him at all and she certainly couldn’t tell him on a jangly, noisy sleigh ride surrounded by family and Destry’s friends.
“Seriously,” he pressed, leaning away when the song ended and they could converse a little more easily. “Do you have some ideological or religious objection to Christmas songs I should know about?”
She shook her head. “No. I just...don’t sing.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Taft said. She must have spoken louder than she intended if her brother could overhear from the row of hay bales ahead of them.
“Caidy has a beautiful voice,” he went on. “She used to sing solos in the school and church choir. Once she even sang the national anthem by herself at a high school football game.”
Goodness. She barely remembered that. How did Taft? He had been a wildlands firefighter when she was in high school, traveling across the West with an elite smoke-jumper squad, but she now recalled he had been home visiting Laura and had come to hear her sing at that football game.
He was the only one of her brothers who had been able to make it. Ridge had still been feuding with their father and had been living on a ranch in Montana and Trace had been deployed in the Middle East.
She suddenly remembered how freaked she had been as she walked out to take the microphone and had seen the huge hometown crowd gathered there, just about everybody she knew. Despite all her hours of practice with her voice teacher and the choir director, panic had spurted through her and she completely forgot the opening words—until she looked up in the stands and saw her mother and father beaming at her and Taft and Laura giving her an encouraging wave. A steady calm had washed over her like water from the irrigation canals, washing away all the panic, and she had sung beautifully. Probably the best performance of her life.
Ju
st a few months later, her parents were dead because of her and all the songs inside her had died with them.
“I don’t sing anymore,” she said, hoping that would be the end of it. She didn’t want to answer the question. It was nobody’s business but her own—certainly not Ben Caldwell’s.
He gave her a long look. The wagon jolted over a rut in the road and his shoulder bumped hers. She could have eased far enough away that they wouldn’t touch but she didn’t. Instead, she rested her cheek on Maya’s hair, humming along with “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and gazing up at the few stars revealed through the wispy clouds as she waited for the ride to be over.
* * *
He sensed a story here.
Something was up with the Bowmans when it came to Christmas. He noticed that while Laura and the children were singing merrily away, Caidy’s brothers seemed as reluctant as she to join in. The police chief and fire chief would occasionally sing a few lines and Caidy hummed here and there, but none of them could be called enthusiastic participants in this little sing-along.
At random moments over the evening he had picked up a pensive, almost sad mood threading through their family.
He thought of that beautiful work of art in the dining room, the vibrant colors and the intense passion behind it, and then the way all the Bowmans shut down as if somebody had yanked a window screen closed when he had asked about the artist.
Their mother. What happened to her? And the father was obviously gone too. He was intensely curious but didn’t know how to ask.
The three-quarter moon peeked behind a cloud, and in the pale moonlight she was almost breathtakingly lovely, with those delicate features and that soft, very kissable mouth.
That kiss hadn’t been far from his mind all day, probably because he still didn’t quite understand what had happened. He wasn’t the kind of man to steal a kiss from a beautiful woman, especially not at the spur of the moment like that. But he hadn’t been able to resist her. She had looked so sweet and lovely there in her kitchen, worry for her ailing dog still a shadow in her eyes.
Holding her in his arms, he had desired her, of course, but had also been aware of something else tangled with the hunger, a completely unexpected tenderness. He sensed she used her prickly edges as a defense against the world, keeping away potential threats before they could get too close.
He remembered her cutting words to her brothers’ wives and that awkward moment when he had walked into the kitchen just in time to hear her call him arrogant and rude.
Why hadn’t he just slipped out of the kitchen again without any of the women suspecting he might have overheard? He should have. It would have been the polite thing to do, but some demon had prompted him to push her, to let her know he wasn’t about to be dismissed so easily.
She had apologized for it, said she hadn’t meant any of her words. So why had she said them?
He made her nervous. He had observed at dinner that she was warm and friendly to everyone else, but she basically ignored him and had been abrupt in their few interactions. It was an odd position in which to find himself and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it—just as he didn’t know how to deal with his own conflicted reaction to her.
One moment he wanted to retreat into his safe world as a widower and single father. The next, she forcibly reminded him that underneath those roles, he was still a man.
Brooke had been gone for two years. He would always grieve for his wife, for the good times they had shared and the children she had loved and raised so well. He had become, if not complacent in his grief, at least comfortable with it. This move to Idaho seemed to have shaken everything. When he agreed to take the job, he intended to create a new life for the children, away from influences he considered harmful. He never expected to find himself so drawn to a lovely woman with secrets and sadness in her eyes.
Through the rest of the sleigh ride, though he tried to focus on the scenery and the enjoyment his children were having, he couldn’t seem to stop watching Caidy. She was amazing, actually, keeping her attention focused on entertaining the very cute niece on her lap and making sure none of the gaggle of preadolescent girls suddenly fell out of the wagon. She managed all of those tasks with deft skill.
She obviously loved children and she was very good with them. Why didn’t she have a husband and a wagonload of children herself?
None of his business, he reminded himself. Her dog was his patient and he was currently a temporary tenant at her ranch, but that was the extent of their relationship. He would be foolish to go looking for more. That didn’t stop him from being intensely aware of her as the wagon jostled his shoulder against hers every time Ridge hit a rut.
“Brrr. I’m cold,” Maya said, snuggling deeper into Caidy’s lap.
“So am I,” she answered. “But look. Ridge is taking us home now.”
Ben looked around. Sure enough, her brother had perfect timing. Just as the enthusiasm began to wane and the children started to complain of the cold, Ben realized the big, beautiful draft horses were trudging under the sign announcing the entrance to the River Bow Ranch.
“No more horsies?” Maya asked.
“Not today, little bug.” Taft held his arms out and his stepdaughter lunged into them. “We’ll come back and go for another ride sometime soon, though, I promise.”
“She’s a huge fan of our horses,” Caidy said with a fond smile for the girl. “Especially the big ones for some odd reason.”
Instead of heading toward the ranch house, Caidy’s brother turned the horses down the little lane that led to the house he was renting. The wagon pulled up in front.
“Look at that. Curb service for you,” Caidy said. She finally met his gaze with a tentative smile. He was aware of an unsettling urge to stand here in the cold, staring into those striking green eyes for an hour or two. He managed a brief smile in return, then turned his attention to climbing out of the wagon and gathering his kids.
“Let’s go. Jack, Ava.”
“I don’t want to get off! Why does everyone else get to keep riding?” Jack had that tremor in his voice that signaled an impending five-year-old tantrum.
“Only for another minute or two,” Ridge promised. “We’re just heading back to the house and then the ride will be done. The horses are tired and need their beds.”
“So do you, kiddo,” Ben said. “Come on.”
To Ben’s relief, Jack complied, jumping down into his arms. Ava clearly wanted to stay with the other girls but she finally waved to them all. “See you tomorrow on the bus,” she said to Destry.
“Great. I’ll bring that book we were talking about.”
“Okay. Don’t forget.”
Ava waved again and jumped down without his help.
“Thanks for letting us tag along,” he said to the wagon in general, though he meant his words for Caidy. “Ava and Jack had a blast.”
“What about you?” she asked.
He didn’t know her well enough yet to interpret her moods. All he knew was that she looked remarkably pretty in the moonlight, with her eyes sparkling and her cheeks—and the very tip of her nose—rosy.
“I enjoyed it,” he answered. He was a little surprised to realize it was true. He hadn’t found all that many things enjoyable since his wife died. Who would have expected he would enjoy a hayride with a bunch of giggly girls and Caidy and her forbidding brothers, who would probably have thrown him off the wagon if they had known about that late-night kiss—and about how very much he wanted to repeat the experience?
“I especially enjoyed the peppermint hot cocoa.”
She looked pleased. “I’m glad. Peppermint is my favorite too.”
“Good night.”
He waved and carried Jack into the foreman’s cottage, wondering what the hell he was going to do about Caidy Bowman. She was an intriguing mystery, a jumble full of prickles and sweetness, vinegar and sugar, and he was far more fascinated by her than he had any right to be.
Chapter Ten
If she stood at her bedroom window, looking out at the night and the sparkling lights nestled among the trees, well, that was her own business. She told herself she was only enjoying the peace and serenity of these quiet December nights, but that didn’t completely explain away the restlessness that seemed to ache inside her.
It certainly had nothing to do with a certain dark-haired man and the jittery butterflies he sent dancing around inside her.
She couldn’t hope to avoid him forever, though. On Wednesday, less than a week before Christmas, she woke from tangled dreams with an odd sense of trepidation.
The vague sense of unease dogged her heels like a blurred shadow as she headed out to the barn with a still-sleepy Destry to feed and water the horses and take care of the rest of their chores.
She couldn’t figure it out until they finished in the barn and headed back to the welcoming warmth of the house for breakfast before the school bus came. When they walked into the kitchen, they were greeted by a happy bark from the crate she had returned to the corner and she suddenly remembered.
This was the day she had to take Luke back to the veterinarian to have his wound checked and his stitches removed. She stopped stock-still in the kitchen, trepidation pressing down on her. Drat. She couldn’t avoid the man forever, she supposed. A few more days would be nice, though. Was it too late to make an appointment with the vet in Idaho Falls?
“What’s wrong?” Destry asked. “Your face looks funny. Did you see a mouse?”
She raised an eyebrow. “In my kitchen? Are you kidding me? I better not. No. I just remembered something...unpleasant.”
“Reverend Johnson said in Sunday school that the best way to get rid of bad thoughts is to replace them by thinking about something good.”
The girl measured dry oatmeal into her bowl and reached for the teakettle Caidy always turned on before they headed out to the barn. “I’ve been trying to do that whenever I think about my mom,” she said casually.
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