A Cold Creek Noel (The Cowboys of Cold Creek) (17 page)

Finally he knew he couldn’t remain quiet any longer. “Do you
think it’s any kind of conflict of interest for a veterinarian to be in love
with his patient’s human?”

* * *

Caidy stared at him, certain the stress of the past half
hour—coupled with her abject relief—must be playing tricks with her hearing. Did
he just say...?

Her heart pounded as if that belligerent bull that had started
this whole thing had just caught her in his sights and she couldn’t seem to
catch hold of any coherent thought. “Is that a hypothetical question?” she
finally said, her voice low and thready.

Ben—wonderful, strong, brilliant Ben—tightened his arms around
her, a soft, tender light in his eyes that made her catch her breath.

“I think you know the answer to that. I’ve been fighting this
like crazy for a hundred different, stupid reasons. But tonight when I listened
to you sing, I realized none of them matter. I love you, Caidy. I wasn’t looking
for it. Especially not now, when my life has so much chaos in it. I told myself
I didn’t want to take that kind of risk again.”

He smiled at her and she felt as bright and sparkly as that
angel on the top of the tree. “But here’s the thing. Somehow, you calm the
chaos. I don’t know how you did it, but you burst into my life with your fierce
courage and your dogs and your smile and turned everything I thought I wanted
spinning into an entirely different direction.”

“Ben,” she said softly, unbelievably touched that the man she
thought so taciturn and hard that first day could be saying these words to
her.

“I think I started to fall in love with you that day you came
to the clinic, so determined to get the very best care for your dog. I knew for
sure when you came here to help me wrap the children’s presents the other night,
even though you don’t like Christmas.”

“I don’t know. I think my perspective on that is changing a
little.”

He laughed and kissed her again. When she slid away a few
moments later, Sadie was sitting up, gazing around the room alertly while Tri
teased at her ear. Caidy didn’t know how her heart could contain more joy.

“To answer your question,” she said, “I don’t believe there is
a conflict of interest at all as long as said veterinarian doesn’t mind that the
human in question is also very much in love with him.”

“Is she?”

“Oh, yes. I love you. More than I can say. And Ava and Jack
too. I thought I was content with my life here on the ranch helping Ridge, but
over the past few weeks, I’ve come to realize something good and right has been
missing. You. All this time, I think I’ve just been waiting for you.”

He gazed at her for a long moment, his eyes fiery and bright,
then with aching softness he picked up her hand and kissed her palm. “I’m here
now. And I’m not going anywhere.”

She couldn’t contain the joy bubbling through her. Sadie would
be all right, at least for now. It was Christmas morning, the time for miracles
and hope, and she had eleven years of Christmases to make up for. What better
place to do it than in the arms of the man she loved fiercely?

She wrapped her arms around him and Ben laughed softly, almost
as if he couldn’t help himself, then kissed her again while the Christmas tree
lights gleamed and the two dogs snuggled by the fire and her heart sang.

Epilogue

“I
just love Christmas weddings,” Laura
exclaimed as she adjusted one of the pins keeping Caidy’s snowy-white veil in
place.

“It’s not Christmas,” Maya said, with irrefutable logic. In the
mirror, Caidy had a clear view of the little girl sitting on a bench in the room
reserved for brides at the small church in Pine Gulch, carefully holding Trace
and Becca’s chubby six-month-old son, who was gumming his fingers.

“Santa doesn’t come for five more days,” Maya pointed out.

“True,” her mother answered with a grin. “I should have said I
love Christmas
time
weddings. Is that better?”

“Yes.” Maya smiled, looking sweet and adorable in her
blue-and-silver flower-girl dress.

“The church looks beautiful,” Becca said, hurrying in to scoop
little Will out of Maya’s lap with unerring instincts, just as both of the
children started to get bored with the arrangement. “It looks like a snowy
wonderland with all those silvery snowflakes and the blue ribbons. Such a better
choice than the traditional red and green. As lovely as it is out there, it
doesn’t hold a candle to our blushing bride here. You look fantastic. Are you
happy, Caidy?”

She smiled at her brothers’ wives. She did feel a small pang
that her mother wasn’t there on her wedding day, but this was a time for joy,
not sadness. She might not have her mother with her, and that would always hurt,
but she did have these wonderful women who had become so dear to her.

“
Happy
doesn’t come close to
covering it. I don’t think I have room inside me to hold all the joy.”

“I don’t either,” Ava said, looking lovely in the bridesmaid
dress she was so very enthralled to be wearing.

“Same here,” Destry, in a matching dress, added.

Caidy smiled and squeezed both girls’ hands, the daughter of
her heart and the daughter she would be gaining officially in a matter of
moments.

Sometimes she couldn’t take in the changes in her life from
last Christmas. Over the years, she had told herself she was happy living at the
ranch, helping her brother with Destry, raising her dogs and her horses. Now she
could see how much power she had given one horrible, violent event over her
life. She had been hiding out there, slowly suffocating in her fears, afraid to
take any chances.

Ben had changed that. This past year had been filled with more
happiness than she could ever have imagined. A little sadness too, she had to
admit. After her miraculous Christmas recovery, Sadie had made it to springtime.
Her last months she had shown more energy than she had in years, but one April
morning Caidy had found her under the flowering branches of the crab-apple tree
beside the house. Ben had helped her bury her friend on a hillside overlooking
the ranch and the river and had held her while she wept.

The two of them had taken their time this past year, moving
slowly to give the children time to adjust to the idea of her being a regular
part of their lives.

Jack, with his sunny nature, had no problem accepting her. As
she might have expected, Ava had been a little more resistant. At first, the
girl had fought the idea of anyone wanting to replace her mother in their lives.
But now, a year after she and Ben started dating, Caidy believed she and Ava had
developed a strong, solid relationship.

A December wedding had been his idea, to give her something
joyful to remember—instead of pain and fear—during this time of hope and
promise.

Waiting all this time to start their lives together had seemed
endless. The day was finally here and she couldn’t imagine anything more
perfect.

“I think you’re ready now,” Laura said. “Oh, Caidy. I’m so
happy for you.”

Taft’s wife hugged her, though at four months pregnant, she was
beginning to bump out a little.

“Same here,” Becca said, kissing her cheek and squeezing her
hands. “You deserve a wonderful guy like Ben. I’m really glad he turned out not
to be a rude, arrogant, opinionated jerk.”

Caidy cringed, remembering her stupid words about him so long
ago. “None of you will let me forget that, will you?”

“Probably not.” Laura smiled.

A knock sounded on the door. When Ava opened it, Ridge poked
his head in, looking big and tough and gorgeous in his black Western-cut tuxedo.
“Are we ready in here? I know a certain veterinarian who’s a little impatient
out there.”

She drew a breath and adjusted her dress. “I think so.”

“Come on, girls. Time to get in your places,” Becca said.

Laura gave Caidy’s veil one more adjustment, then stood back.
“Okay. Perfect.”

With a deep breath, Caidy slipped her hand in the crook of her
brother’s arm.

Ridge reached his other hand over and squeezed her fingers.
“You’re stunning,” he said. “Mom and Dad would have been so proud of the
beautiful woman you’ve become. Inside and out.”

“Don’t make me cry,” she said, her throat thick with
emotion.

“It’s true. They would have liked Ben too. He’s a good man. The
highest praise I can give him is that I think he’s almost good enough for you.
I’m so glad you’re happy.”

She gave her brother a tremulous smile. “I am. It took me a
while to get here but I really am.”

“Let’s do this, then.”

The small but earnest church choir she now joined on Sundays
broke into singing Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major” and she drew a deep breath,
nerves skittering through her. As she and Ridge started down the aisle behind
the bridesmaids, she looked down and saw the gruff, sometimes taciturn
veterinarian she loved beyond measure smiling broadly. The best man—Jack—was
holding his hand.

Her heart aching with love for him and for his children, Caidy
walked down the aisle beside her brother to the beautiful strains of the music
toward a future filled with joy and laughter and song.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt of
Real Vintage
Maverick
by Marie Ferrarella!

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Chapter One

I
t happened too quickly for him to even
think about it.

One minute, in a moment of exasperated desperation—because he
hadn’t yet bought a gift for Caroline’s birthday—Cody found himself walking into
the refurbished antique store that had, up until a few months ago, been called
The Tattered Saddle.

The next minute, he was hurrying across the room and
managed—just in time—to catch the young woman who was tumbling off a ladder.

Before he knew it, his arms were filled with the soft curves of
the same young woman.

She smelled of lavender and vanilla, nudging forth a sliver of
a memory he couldn’t quite catch hold of.

That was the way Cody remembered it when he later looked back
on the way his life had taken a dramatic turn toward the better that fateful
morning.

When he’d initially walked by the store’s show window, Cody had
automatically looked in. The shop appeared to be in a state of semi-chaos, but
it still looked a great deal more promising than when that crazy old coot Jasper
Fowler ran it.

Cody vaguely recalled hearing that the man hadn’t really been
interested in making any sort of a go of the shop. The whole place had actually
just been a front for a money-laundering enterprise. At any rate, the antique
shop had been shut down and boarded up in January, relegated to collecting even
more dust than it had displayed when its doors had been open to the public.

What had caught his eye was the notice Under new ownership in
the window and the store’s name—The Tattered Saddle—had been crossed out. But at
the moment, there was no new name to take its place. He had wondered if that was
an oversight or a ploy to draw curious customers into the shop.

Well, if it was under new ownership, maybe that meant that
there was new old merchandise to choose from. And that, in turn, might enable
him to find something for his sister here. As he recalled, Caroline was into old
things. Things that other people thought of as junk and wanted to discard, his
sister saw potential and promise in.

At least it was worth a shot, Cody told himself. He had tried
the doorknob and found that it gave under his hand. Turning it, he had walked
in.

Glancing around, his eyes were instantly drawn to the tall,
willowy figure on the other side of the room. She was wearing a long,
denim-colored skirt and her shirt was more or less the same color. The young
woman was precariously perched on the top step of a ladder that appeared to be
none too steady.

What actually caught his attention was not that she looked like
an accident waiting to happen as she stretched her taut frame out, trying to
reach something that was on a higher shelf, but that with her long, straight
brown hair hanging loose about her back and shoulders, for just an instant, she
reminded him of Renee.

A feeling of déjà vu seized him and for a moment, his breath
caught in his throat.

Balancing herself on tiptoes, Catherine Clifton, the former
Tattered Saddle’s determined new owner, automatically turned around when she
heard the little bell over the front door ring. She hadn’t anticipated any
customers coming in until the store’s grand reopening. That wasn’t for a couple
more days at the very least. Most likely a couple of weeks. And only if she
could come up with a new name for the place.

“We’re not open for business yet,” Catherine called out.

The next thing out of her mouth was an involuntary shriek
because she’d lost her footing on the ladder and both she and the ladder were
heading for a collision with the wooden floor.

The ladder landed with a clatter.

Catherine, fortunately, did not.

She was saved from what could have been a very bruising fate by
the very person she’d just politely banished from the premises.

Landing in the cowboy’s strong, capable arms knocked the air
out of her and, along with it, anything else she might have said at that
moment.

Which was just as well because she would have hated coming
across like some blithering idiot. But right now, not a single coherent thought
completed itself in her head. It was filled with just scattered words and a
myriad of sensations.

Hot sensations.

Everything had faded into the background and Catherine was
instantly and acutely aware of the man whose arms she’d landed in. The
broad-shouldered, green-eyed, sandy-haired cowboy held her as if she weighed no
more than a small child. The muscles on his bare arms didn’t even appear to be
straining.

A tingling sensation danced through Catherine’s entire body,
which was stubbornly heating up despite all of her attempts to bank the
sensation—and her reaction to the man—down.

Her valiant efforts to the contrary, for just a moment, it felt
as if time had stood still, freezing this moment as it simultaneously bathed her
in a heretofore never experienced, all but debilitating, feeling of desire. For
two cents proper, using the excuse that this rugged-looking cowboy had saved
her, she would have kissed him. With feeling.

Catherine could absolutely visualize herself kissing him.

The fact that he was a complete stranger was neither here nor
there as far as she was concerned. Desire, she discovered at that moment, didn’t
have to make sense. It could thrive very well without even so much as a lick of
sense to it.

And for no particular reason at all, it occurred to her that
this man looked like the real deal. A cowboy. A real vintage cowboy.

Was he? Or had she managed to bump her head without knowing it
and was just hallucinating?

Their eyes met and held for a timeless instance. Only the
pounding of Catherine’s heart finally managed to sufficiently rouse her.

“Thank you,” she finally whispered.

Doing his best to focus and gather his exceedingly scattered
wits about him, Cody heard himself asking, “For what?”

Catherine let out a long, shaky breath before answering. “For
catching me.”

“Oh.” Of course that was what she meant. What did he think she
meant? Cody nodded his head. “Yeah. Right.”

The words emerged one at a time, each containing a sealed
thought. Thoughts he couldn’t begin to convey, or even understand.

Cody cleared his throat, then realized that he was still
holding the woman in his arms. He should have already released her.

Feeling awkward—he hadn’t spontaneously reacted to a woman in
this manner since his wife had died—he set her down. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” she told him. “I’m not.”
I’m
not sorry at all.
“If you hadn’t caught me just then, I might have
broken something—either some of the merchandise or, worse, one of my bones.”

The fact that if he hadn’t come in just now, her attention
wouldn’t have been thrown off and she very well could have remained perched on
the ladder was a point Catherine had no desire to bring up. Thinking of him as
her hero was far more pleasant.

Rather than comment, the tall cowboy merely nodded his head in
acknowledgment. At the same time, he began to back away.

“Didn’t mean to trespass,” he murmured by way of an apology. He
reached behind him for the doorknob, ready to make his getaway.

“You’re not trespassing,” Catherine was quick to protest. She
didn’t have the heart to chase out someone who could actually
buy
something in the store. “It’s just that I haven’t
exactly gotten the store ready for customers yet. But you can stay if you
like.”

If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn that her tone was
almost urging him to stay. And she had shifted her body so that she was now
standing between him and the front door.

Cody glanced around the store, still mulling over her initial
protest. “Looks okay to me,” he told her. “Actually, it looks a mite better than
it used to look when that old guy owned it.”

Catherine was eager to bring out the shop’s better features and
play them up so that she could attract actual customers rather than just the
pitying or dismissive glances that the store had been garnering before she’d
bought it. After the former owner had kidnapped Rose Traub, the people in
Thunder Canyon had deliberately shunned the store. And from what she’d heard,
before then the clientele was almost as ancient as some of the antiques that
were housed here. She wanted to change that as well. She wanted all age-groups
to have a reason to drop by and browse.

Fowler wasn’t in the picture anymore, having been sent to
prison, and the shop was something that she wanted to take on as a project,
something that belonged to her exclusively. After a lifetime of being the go-to
person, the main caregiver in a family of eight and always putting everyone
else’s needs ahead her own, it occurred to Catherine that time—and life—was
slipping by her. She needed to make her own way before she woke up one morning
to discover that she was no longer young, no longer able to grab her slice of
the pie that life had to offer.

Since this sexy-looking cowboy seemed familiar with the way the
store had been before she’d taken over, Catherine made a natural assumption and
asked, “Did you come in here often when Mr. Fowler owned it?”

“No,” he told her honestly. Antiques had never held any
interest for him. And they still didn’t, except that he knew his sister liked
them. “But I walked by the store whenever I was in town and I’d look in.”

Mild curiosity was responsible for that. He might not look it,
but Cody had made a point of always taking in all of his surroundings. It kept
him from being caught off guard—the way he had when Renee had become ill.

“Oh,” Catherine murmured. All right, the place had held no real
attraction for him, at least it hadn’t before. But he’d walked in this morning.
Something had obviously changed. “Well, what made you come in today?”

She glanced over her shoulder to see if there was anything
unusual out on display that might have caught the cowboy’s eye. But nothing
stood out for her.

Cody wasn’t sure what this gregarious woman was fishing for,
but he could only tell her the truth. “I’m looking for a present for my sister.
Her birthday’s coming up and I need to get something into the mail soon if it’s
going to get there in time.”

Okay, she wasn’t making herself clear, Catherine thought.
Desperate to hone in on a reliable “X-Factor,” she tried again.

“Why here?” she pressed. “Why didn’t you just go to the mall?
There’re lots of stores there.” And heaven knew a far more eclectic collection
of things for someone to choose from.

The expression that fleetingly passed over the cowboy’s tanned
face told her exactly what he thought of malls.

But when he finally spoke, he employed a measured, thoughtful
cadence. “I haven’t put much thought into it,” he readily admitted. “I guess I
came here because I wanted to give Caroline something that’s genuine, that isn’t
mass-produced. Something that isn’t in every store from New York City to Los
Angeles,” Cody explained.

He looked around the shop again, but not before discovering
that it took a bit of effort to tear his eyes away from the shop’s new owner.
Close up, the talkative young woman didn’t really look like Renee, but there was
an essence, a spark, an unnamable
something
about
her that did remind him of his late wife. So much so that even as he told
himself that he really should be leaving, he found himself continuing to linger
on the premises.

“The stuff in this store is...” His voice trailed off for a
moment as he searched for the right word. It took a little doing. For the most
part, Cody Overton was a man given to doing, not talking.

Catherine cocked her head, waiting for him to finish his
sentence. When he didn’t, she supplied a word for him. “Old?”

“Real,” he finally said, feeling the word more aptly described
what he was looking for. “And yeah, old,” he agreed after a beat. “But there’s
nothing wrong with old as long as it’s not falling apart,” he was quick to
clarify.

Catherine smiled. She liked his philosophy. In a way, it
embodied her own.

And then, just like that, an idea came to her.

Her eyes brightened as she looked up at the cowboy that fate
had sent her way. This could be one of those happy accidents people were always
talking about, she thought.

But first, she needed to backtrack a little. “I’m sorry, I
completely forgot my manners. My name’s Catherine Clifton,” she told him,
putting her hand out. “I’m the new owner,” she added needlessly.

Cody looked down at her hand for a moment, as if he was rather
uncertain whether to take it or not. He wasn’t a man who went out of his way to
meet people. Even an extremely attractive woman. He kept to himself for the most
part.

But again, there was something about this woman that pulled at
him. That nudged him. After a beat, he slipped his hand over hers.

“Cody Overton.” He felt it only right to tell her his name
since she had given him hers.

He watched in mute fascination as the smile began in her eyes,
then feathered down to her lips. “Pleased to meet you, Cody Overton,” she said.
“You’re my very first customer.”

“Haven’t bought anything yet,” he felt obligated to point
out.

The man was obviously a stickler for the truth, she couldn’t
help thinking. She liked that. Moreover, she could really use someone like that,
someone who would tell her the truth no matter what.

She paused a moment, wondering how the man would react to what
she was about to propose.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Catherine felt good about this. The sparkle in her deep,
chocolate-colored eyes grew as she dove in. “Cody, how old are you?” she wanted
to know.

The question caught him completely off guard. The last time he
recalled being asked his age like that, he’d been a teenager, picking up a
six-pack of beer for his buddy and himself. At the time, he’d figured that his
deep voice and his height would make questioning unnecessary. He’d assumed
wrong.