A Cold Creek Noel (The Cowboys of Cold Creek) (6 page)

“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 the
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 sometimes carry its own burdens.”

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