Major Daddy

CARA COLTER

shares ten acres in the wild Kootenay region of British Columbia with the man of her dreams, three children, two horses, a cat with no tail and a golden retriever who answers best to “bad dog.” She loves reading, writing and the woods in winter (no bears). She says life’s delights include an automatic garage door opener and the skylight over the bed that allows her to see the stars at night.

She also says, “I have not lived a neat and tidy life, and used to envy those who did. Now I see my struggles as having given me a deep appreciation of life, and of love, that I hope I succeed in passing on through the stories that I tell.”

MAJOR COLE STANDEN’S SURVIVAL STRATEGY

(for handling emergencies when stranded with five children, one wounded senior citizen and a beautiful woman)

CODE YELLOW

Diaper change, liquid variety.

Emergency rating: minor.

CODE BROWN

Diaper change, horrible variety.

Clothespins and/or face mask may be required.

Emergency rating: moderate.

CODE RED

Brooke Callan. Beautiful, bossy and armed with Mace. Be alert for the heart to do strange things when she’s in the vicinity.

Emergency rating: major.

Contents

Prologue (#u1dd94599-03e7-55b8-943e-b8fcbf99bc9b)

Chapter One (#u5af69a5c-d6d1-5615-969b-dfd6a7daba17)

Chapter Two (#u487c24a0-45ca-5c49-8f88-747d96f09331)

Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue

Cole Standen woke with a start. For a moment, in the inky, impenetrable darkness, he thought he was in that inhospitable land of icy-cold nights, blowing sand, ragged, rocky places and hidden dangers. The blood surged and his muscles tensed, battle alert, ready. He held his breath, listening.

It was the scent that brought him back to reality. The aroma of cedar and pine, made richer by the dampness in the storm-tossed night, rushed in the open bedroom window and comforted him. It was the smell of his boyhood.

And then he became aware of the sounds outside the shelter of the sturdy cabin. The wind was savage, howling through the treetops. Rain hammered the metal roof. Waves crashed and rolled on the rock-lined shore of the lake.

He sighed and felt his muscles relax. He remembered he was home.

His eyes adjusted minutely to the murky darkness and the rough log walls of his bedroom came into focus. The mattress beneath him was firm and comfortable, a plaid bedroom-window curtain flapped and jigged with the wind.

He had gone to sleep with the wind high—raising the waves to ferocious whitecaps on the lake, swaying the treetops, shrieking through the soffit under the eaves—so he knew the wind had not woken him.

Cole had a soldier’s gift for sifting out those noises that were supposed to be there—no matter how chaotic—and sleeping through them with relative ease. But something out of the ordinary, no matter how small, could bring him instantly awake. The sound he thought he had heard was so fragile, so tiny, it was easy to believe he had imagined it.

He waited under the comfortable weight of a down comforter for his sense of safety to return, for his mind to sound the all clear.

He reminded himself that he was virtually alone here at this isolated bay on Kootenay Lake, an enormous body of water located in the shadows of British Columbia’s Purcell Mountains. Unlike most men, he craved solitude and found solace in it.

It was November. The summer people had boarded up the windows of the rare cabins that dotted the inlet and had gone home long ago.

Only the new house—rumored to be a movie star’s—showed signs of occupation. He had noticed fresh tire tracks on the impossibly steep driveway. At night, light spilled from windows of the house high on the point and wove ribbons of gold into the black, restless water beyond the bay.

The new house was a monstrosity of tasteless white stucco that had changed the landscape of Heartbreak Bay forever, and that Cole heartily resented every time he caught a glimpse of it. Still, it was a long distance up the bay, far enough away that his sense of isolation remained safely intact.

Despite how his reasoning mind tried to tell him he was as safe here as he could ever be anywhere, Cole’s deeper mind—that place of pure instinct that had kept him alive so many times—did not sound the all clear. Cole frowned, and then he heard it, suddenly, again.

His frown deepened, and he reached for the light beside his bed. The lamp clicked but did not come on. No power, not an unusual situation in this remote bay that was subjected to cruel weather from November until February. He reached for the flashlight on his night table and played the beam across the ceiling. The light did not persuade him that he had not heard a sound, frail and pitiful, like the mewing of a kitten.

Restless now, Cole threw back the covers, yanked on a pair of jeans, and went and stood at the window. The air was biting against his naked chest.

Tap. Tap. Tap. The hair on the back of his neck rose. The noise was puny, almost lost in the furor of the storm, and yet there it was again. Tap. Tap. Tap.

He followed the sound out of his bedroom, following the beam of his flashlight over rough hardwood floors, past the ragtag collection of cabin furniture in the living room.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound was on the other side of the front door. He told himself a tree branch must be scraping it. He reminded himself he was home, in Canada, safe, and yet it was a warrior who flung open the door, ready and fierce.

At first he saw only the night, felt the sting of rain against his face and the cold fingers of wind in his hair. But then that small sound, the kitten mewing, made him look down, and his flashlight beam illuminated a most startling sight.

His jaw dropped.

A small girl stood there, her white nightdress whipping around her, a doll wrapped in a bright blanket clutched tight to her chest.

Perhaps eleven, the child was painfully thin, and her long dark hair tangled, curly, around her head. Her eyes were huge and blue and frightened, and her teeth were chattering. A fine line of blue was appearing around her lips despite the sweater pulled over the nightdress.