A Cold Creek Noel (The Cowboys of Cold Creek) (15 page)

“I’m not sure. Jenna is famous for her spinach pinwheels, so
that’s what I’m hoping for. I should tell her to put signs up so we know what
we’re eating.”

He smiled and she wanted to drink in the sight of him, tall and
gorgeous and dearly familiar.

“I hadn’t realized you were coming to the McRavens’ party,” she
said rather inanely. As always, she felt as if she were operating on half-brain
capacity around him. “It’s a bit of a legend around here.”

“Mrs. McRaven invited us when they brought their dog Frank in
to me last week. Apparently he swallowed a Lego, but the trouble, uh, passed. I
thought coming to the party might be a good way to get to know some of the
neighbors.”

He tilted his head and studied her and she could feel herself
flush. She had to hope none of her friends decided to come out of the kitchen
just now to see her standing flustered and off balance next to Ben Caldwell.

“What about you?” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.
It’s kind of hard to escape the holiday spirit in a crowd like this.”

Had he
wondered
if she would come?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“Destry begged and begged this year. All her cousins and most
of her friends were coming.”

Before he could respond, someone jostled her from behind. She
wobbled a little in her impractical boots and would have fallen if he hadn’t
reached out and grabbed her. For a charged moment, they stared at each other and
she saw heat and hunger leap into his eyes.

The noise of the crowd seemed to fade away as if someone had
switched down the volume, and she was aware of nothing but Ben. Of his arms,
strong and comforting, of his firm mouth that had tasted so delicious against
hers, of his eyes that studied her with desire and something else, something
glittery and bright she couldn’t identify.

“Oh. I’m so sorry. Are you all right, my dear?”

She recognized Marjorie Montgomery’s voice and realized the
mayor’s wife—and the Dalton boys’ mother—must have been the one who bumped into
her. Still breathless—and grateful she had just set her plate on the table
before she was jostled, so at least she didn’t have spinach pinwheel smeared all
over both of them—she managed to extricate herself from Ben’s arms and
turned.

“I’m fine. No problem.”

Marjorie smiled innocently at her but she thought she saw a
crafty light in the older woman’s eyes. Oh, great. She and Ben would have no
peace now that her friends had decided they were destined for each other. She
wondered if she ought to warn him but decided that would just be too
awkward.

“It’s crazy in here,” Ben said. “I saw some open chairs over by
the French doors into the pool if you’re looking for a place to sit down.”

She didn’t miss the delight in Marjorie’s eyes. The woman
probably thought her transparent ploy was paying off. She ought to politely
decline and keep as far away as she could from Ben. The last thing she wanted to
do was give anybody else ideas about linking the two of them.

But she was weak when it came to him and she couldn’t resist
spending whatever time she had with him, even though he had made it quite clear
they couldn’t have a relationship. Maybe, like her, he knew he should stay away
but couldn’t quite manage it.

She probably shouldn’t find that so heartening.

“Sure.” She picked up her plate and a glass of water and headed
with him toward the chairs he indicated.

“Where are the kids?”

“Where else? In the pool.” He gestured through the glass doors
and she saw Jack playing in the shallow end with Laura’s son, Alex. Ava was
huddled with a group of girls, including Destry and Gabi.

“Taft offered to keep an eye on them for me so I could grab
something to eat, since he was watching Alex and Maya anyway. I figured they
were pretty safe with the fire chief on lifeguard duty.”

They lapsed into silence and she nibbled at a little delicacy
that tasted of pumpkin and cinnamon.

“So are you ready for Christmas?” she finally asked when the
silence grew awkward. She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth.
Good grief, could she sound any more mindless?

“No. Not at all,” he answered with a slight note of panic in
his voice. “I should be home wrapping presents right now. I don’t know the first
thing about how to do that. My wife usually took care of those details and then
Mrs. Michaels has stepped in since Brooke died. Maybe I’ll tell the kids Santa
decided not to wrap the presents this year and just jumble them under the
tree.”

“You can’t do that! The mystery and anticipation of unwrapping
the gifts is part of the magic!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Says the woman who would like to forget
all about the holidays.”

“Just because I don’t particularly enjoy Christmas doesn’t mean
I don’t know what makes the day a perfect one, especially for children,” she
protested. “Destry’s gifts have been wrapped and hidden away since
Thanksgiving.”

He was quiet for a long moment and then he shook his head.
“You’re remarkable, aren’t you?”

His words baffled her. Was he making fun of her? “Why do you
say that?”

“You hate Christmas but wouldn’t think for a moment of
short-shrifting your niece in any way. I just find that amazing. You really love
her, don’t you?”

She watched Destry through the glass, now playing ball with the
other girls. “I do. She’s the daughter I’ll probably never have.”

“Why not? You’re young. What makes you think you won’t have a
family of your own someday?”

She wanted to answer that she was very much afraid she was
falling in love with a veterinarian who had made it plain he was only interested
in friendship, but of course she couldn’t. “Some of us are just meant to be
favorite aunts, I guess.”

Before he could respond to what she suddenly realized sounded
rather pathetic, she quickly changed the subject. “Do you want some help with
the children’s presents? I can sneak over after they’re in bed tonight and help
you wrap them. How long would it take? An hour, maybe. Tops.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head. “I’m
sure that’s not necessary. I’ll probably fumble my way through. Or just leave
things unwrapped. It won’t be the end of the world.”

Another rejection. She almost sighed. She should be used to it
by now. This time she had only been offering to help him but apparently even
that was more than he wanted from her.

“No problem. I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“That’s my line. I don’t want you to feel obligated to come
over at midnight on a pity mission to wrap presents for the inept single
father.”

“I never even thought of it that way!” she exclaimed. “I only
wanted to... I don’t know. Ease your burden a little.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it again, an odd light in
his eyes. “In that case, all right,” he said after a long moment. “Everything is
so crazy this year, with the rented house and Mrs. Michaels gone. I probably
should try to keep the rest of our holiday traditions as consistent as possible.
Santa Claus has always wrapped their gifts. I’m sure Jack won’t care but Ava
will probably consider it another failing of mine if I don’t do things the way
she’s used to.”

He paused. “I’m afraid my ledger of debt to you is growing
longer and longer.”

She managed a smile. “Friends don’t keep track of things like
that, Ben.”

Because that’s all they apparently would ever be, at least she
could be the best damn friend he’d ever had.

“Thank you.”

She couldn’t sit here and make polite conversation with him,
she decided. Not when she wanted so much more.

“Oh, there’s Becca and Trace. I promised Becca I would talk to
her about the menu for Christmas dinner. I should go do that. Will you excuse
me?”

He rose. “Sure.”

“I’m serious about helping you with the presents. Why don’t you
call me after the kids are asleep and I’ll run over?”

He looked rueful. “I should refuse. This is something I should
probably be able to handle myself, but the truth is I’m grateful for your
help.”

She smiled, doing her best to conceal any trace of yearning,
and walked away from him.

She was twenty-seven years old and had just discovered she must
have a streak of masochism. Why else would she continue to thrust herself into
situations that would only bump up her heartache?

Chapter Thirteen

B
en gazed at his phone, at the
OK. They’re
asleep
text message he had typed but hadn’t sent.

He should delete it right now and tell her he had changed his
mind. Caidy Bowman was dangerous to him, especially at ten-thirty at night.

He thought of how beautiful she had looked at the McRavens’
party, sweetly lovely, like a spun sugar Christmas angel. The first moment he
saw her at the party, standing by the refreshment table, he had been stunned by
his desire to whirl her around and into his arms. As ridiculously medieval as it
sounded, he had wanted to kiss her soundly and claim her as his for everyone at
the party to see.

“I’m crazy, Tri, aren’t I?”

The chihuahua cocked his head and appeared to ponder the
question.

“Never mind. It was rhetorical. You don’t have to answer.”

Tri yipped and jumped into his lap with amazing agility for a
three-legged dog. Resilient, the little dog, adjusting to whatever challenges
life delivered to him. Ben could only wish for a small portion of the dog’s
courage.

He glanced at his phone again and without taking time to think
it through, he hit the send button before he could change his mind.

Her answer came instantly, as if she had been waiting for him:
Be right
there.

Something in his chest gave a silly little kick and he shook
his head, reminding himself of all the very valid reasons he had given her a few
nights earlier. He wasn’t in a good place for a relationship with her. His kids
were struggling enough with this move. He couldn’t suddenly throw a woman into
the chaos to distract his attention from their needs.

This would be the last time, he told himself. He would accept
her help with his presents and then he had to do a better job of maintaining a
safe distance from her. He had talked to his contractor at the party and learned
the house was on schedule to be finished in about ten days, just after the New
Year. Maybe when he moved a few miles away, he could regain a little perspective
and be able to spend a few moments of the day without thinking about her,
longing for her.

“Yeah, I’m crazy,” he said to Tri. He set the dog onto the
ground and headed for Mrs. Michaels’s room, where all the children’s presents
were hidden in her locked closet.

Before she left, she had wrapped a few of the presents. He
found plenty of wrapping paper, tape and scissors in the closet.
Efficient Anne,
he thought fondly, missing her calming
presence in his life. If not for the chaos of living in a hotel and then moving
here to the ranch, his housekeeper probably would have finished the job weeks
ago.

He carried the wrapping supplies down to the table in the
kitchen. After a careful look inside the children’s room to make sure they were
soundly sleeping, he made a few more quiet trips up and down the stairs to
transport the unwrapped gifts to the table.

Just as he finished the last load, he saw a flicker of movement
outside and then Caidy approaching from the ranch house, making her way through
the lightly falling snow. She had a couple of dogs with her and carried two
large reusable shopping bags that piqued his curiosity. As she neared the porch
steps, she gestured with one of her hands and gave an order to the dogs. Though
he couldn’t hear what she said, he guessed she was telling them to go back home.
One of the dogs moved with eagerness ahead of the other, which seemed to trudge
behind more slowly.

Caidy watched the dog in the moonlight for a moment and when
she turned, he thought she looked worried about something but he didn’t have
time to wonder about it before she climbed the steps and knocked softly on the
door.

She was bundled up from head to toe in a heavy wool coat and
nubby red scarf and hat. With her cheeks rosy from the cold, she looked
delicious.

“Hi,” she said, her voice pitched low, probably afraid of
waking the children.

“Hello,” he murmured and was struck by the quiet intimacy of
the night. With the fire crackling in the living room and the snow falling
softly, it would be easy to make the mistake of thinking they were alone here,
tucked away against the world.

Tri greeted her with a few eager sniffs of her boots and she
smiled at the dog. “Hi there. How are you, little friend?”

The dog seemed to grin at her and Ben wished for a little of
that easy charm.

“What’s all this?” he asked, gesturing to her shopping
bags.

“Christmas dinner. My arms are going to fall off if I don’t set
it down. Can I put it in the kitchen?”

“Of course. What do you mean, Christmas dinner?”

“It’s not much. We had an extra ham and I always keep mashed
potatoes in the freezer. You just have to add a little milk when you reheat them
in the microwave. And then I always make too much pie so I brought one of those
too. Without Mrs. Michaels, I wasn’t sure if you would have had much time to
think about fixing something nice for you and the kids.”

Right now he couldn’t think much beyond the next meal he had to
fix for the kids. Christmas dinner. She went to all that trouble?

Against his will, warmth seeped through him. Her thoughtfulness
astounded him and he didn’t quite know what to say.

“Thank you,” he finally managed to say. “Wow. Just...thank
you.”

She smiled and the sweetness of it nearly took his breath away.
“You’re welcome. Shall I put it in the refrigerator?”

He stirred himself to reach for the bags. “That would be
great.”

Caidy Bowman astonished him. She had endured unimaginable
horror and pain. Despite it, she was a nurturer, doing her best to make the
world around her a little brighter.

For the next few moments, he pulled out package after package.
It was more than just ham and potatoes. She had sent a jar of homemade
strawberry jam, some frozen bread dough with instructions for thawing and baking
written on them, even a small cheese ball and a box of crackers.

He was sure he would have muddled through some kind of dinner
with the children, but the fact that she had thought far enough ahead to help
touched something deep inside him.

I just want to help lift your burden a
little,
she had said earlier in the evening. He couldn’t remember
anybody ever spontaneously offering such a thing to him. Mrs. Michaels helped
him tremendously but he paid her well for it. This was pure generosity on
Caidy’s part and he was stunned by it.

“Shall we get started with wrapping?”

He wasn’t sure he trusted himself right now to spend five
minutes with her, but because she had come all this way—and brought Christmas
dinner to boot—he didn’t know how to kick her out into the snow.

“I’ve brought everything down, including all the wrapping paper
I could find.”

“Perfect.”

She took in the pile of presents with a slight smile dancing
across that expressive mouth. “Looks like the children will have a great
Christmas.”

He hurried to disabuse her of the notion that he ought to win
any Father of the Year awards. “Mrs. Michaels did a lot of the shopping, though
I did buy a few things online. So where do we start?”

“I guess we just dive in. You know, I can handle this, if you
have something else to do.”

Did she want him to leave? For an instant, he was unbelievably
tempted to do just that, escape into another room and leave her to it. But not
only would that be rude, it would be cowardly too, especially when she had gone
to all this trouble to walk down in the snow—and carrying a sumptuous meal
too.

“No. Let’s do this. With both of us working together, it
shouldn’t take long. You might have to babysit me a little.”

“Surely you’ve wrapped a present before.”

He racked his brain and vaguely remembered wrapping a gift for
his grandparents that first Christmas after they had taken him in, a
macaroni-covered pencil holder he had worked hard on in school. His grandfather
hadn’t even opened it, had made some excuse about saving it for later. Christmas
night when he had taken out a bag of discarded wrapping paper, he had seen it
out in the trash can, still wrapped.

“I probably did when I was a kid. I doubt my skills have
improved since then.”

“How can a man reach thirtysomething without learning how to
wrap a present?”

“I rely on two really cool inventions. You may have heard of
them. Store gift-wrapping and the very handy and ubiquitous gift bag.”

She laughed, and the sound of it in the quiet kitchen entranced
him. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll take care of all the oddly shaped gifts and you
can handle the easy things. The books and the DVDs and other basic shapes. It’s
a piece of cake. Let me show you.”

For the next few moments, he endured the sheer torture of
having her stand at his side, her soft curves just a breath away as she leaned
over the table beside him.

“The real trick to a beautifully wrapped present is to make
sure you measure the paper correctly. Too big and you’ve got unsightly extra
paper to deal with. Too small and the package underneath shows through.”

“Makes sense,” he mumbled. He was almost painfully aware of
her, but beneath his desire was something deeper, a tenderness that terrified
him. He meant his words to her earlier in the evening. She was an amazing person
and he didn’t know how much longer he could continue to ignore this inexorable
bond between them.

“Okay, after you’ve measured your paper, leaving an extra inch
or two on all sides, you bring the sides up, one over the other, and tape the
seam. Great. Now fold the top and bottom edges of the end on the diagonal like
this—” she demonstrated “—and then tape those down. Small pieces of tape are
better. Can you see that?”

Right now, he would agree to anything she said. She smelled
delicious and he wanted to pull her onto his lap and just nuzzle her neck for a
few hours. “Okay. Sure.”

“After that, you can use ribbon to wrap around it or just stick
on a bow. Doesn’t it look great? Do you think you can do it now on your
own?”

He looked down blankly at the present. “Not really,” he
admitted.

She frowned, so close to him he could see the shimmery gold
flecks in her eyes. “What part didn’t you get? I thought that was a great
demonstration.”

He sighed. “It probably was. I only heard about half of it. I
was too busy remembering how your mouth tastes like strawberries.”

She stared at him for a long charged moment and then she
quickly moved to the chair across the table from him.

“Please stop,” she said, her voice low and her color high.

“I’d like to. Believe me.”

“I’m serious. I can’t handle this back-and-forth thing. It’s
not fair. You flirt with me one minute and then push me away the next. Please.
Make up your mind, for heaven’s sake. I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I don’t either,” he admitted. He was an ass. She was
absolutely right. “I think that’s the problem. I keep telling myself I can’t
handle anything but friendship right now. Then you show up and you smell
delicious and you’re so sweet to bring dinner for us. To top it all off, you’re
so damned beautiful, all I can think about is kissing you again, holding you in
my arms.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide. He saw awareness there and
something else, something fragile.

He wanted her fiercely. Because she trembled whenever he
touched her, he suspected she shared his hunger. He could kiss her—and possibly
do more—now, but at what cost?

She was a vulnerable woman. He was no armchair psychologist,
but he guessed she was hiding herself away here on this ranch because she saw
only weakness and fear in herself. She saw the sixteen-year-old girl who had
cowered from her parents’ killers. She didn’t see herself as the strong,
powerful, desirable woman he did.

He could hurt her—and that was the last thing he wanted to
do.

“Sorry. Forget I said that. We’d better get these presents
wrapped so you can go home and get some sleep.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide and impossibly green. Finally
she nodded. “Yes. I would hate to be down here wrapping gifts if one of the
children woke up and came down for a drink of water or something.”

She turned her attention to the task at hand. He fumbled
through wrapping a book for Ava and did an okay job but nothing as polished as
Caidy’s presents. After a few more awkward moments with only the sound of
rustling paper and ripping tape, he decided he needed something as a buffer
between them.

He rose from the table and headed for Mrs. Michaels’s radio/CD
player in the corner. When he turned it on, jazzy Christmas music filled the
empty spaces. She didn’t like holiday songs, he remembered, but she didn’t seem
to object so he left the station tuned there.

The pile dwindled between them, and at some point she started
talking to him again, asking little questions about the gifts he and Mrs.
Michaels had purchased, about the children’s interests, about their early
Christmases.

When he left to look for one more roll of paper in Mrs.
Michaels’s room, he returned to find her humming softly under her breath to
“Angels We Have Heard on High,” her voice soft and melodious.

He stood just on the other side of the doorway, wondering what
it might take for her to sing again. She stopped abruptly when she sensed his
presence and returned to taping up a box containing yet another outfit for Ava’s
American Girl doll.

“You found more paper. Oh, good. That should help us finish
up.”

He sat back down and started wrapping a DVD for Jack.

“Tell me about Christmas when you were a kid,” she said after a
moment.

That question came out of left field and he fumbled for an
answer. “Fine. Nothing memorable.”

“Everybody has some fond memory of Christmas. Making Christmas
cookies, delivering gifts to neighbors. What were your traditions?”