Holiday in Stone Creek: A Stone Creek Christmas

Chapter Four

OLIVIAAWAKENED on the following Thursday morning feeling as though she hadn’t slept at all the night before, with Ginger’s cold muzzle pressed into her neck and the alarm clock buzzing insistently. She stirred, opened her eyes, slapped down the snooze button, with a muttered “Shut up!”

Iridescent frost embossed the window glass in intricate fans and swirls, turning it opaque, but the light got through anyway, signaling the arrival of a new day—like it or not.

Thanksgiving, Olivia recalled. The official start of the holiday season.

She groaned and yanked the covers up over her head.

Ginger let out an impatient little yip.

“I know,” Olivia replied from under two quilts and a flannel sheet worn to a delectable, hard-to-leave softness. It was so warm under those covers, so cozy. Would that she could stay right there until sometime after the Second Coming. “I know you need to go outside.”

Ginger yipped again, more insistently this time.

Bleary-eyed, Olivia rolled onto her side, tossed back the covers and sat up. She’d slept in gray sweats and heavy socks—less than glamorous attire, for sure, but toasty and loose.

After hitting the stop button on the clock so it wouldn’t start up again in five minutes, she stumbled out of the bedroom and down the hall toward the small kitchen at the back of the house. Passing the thermostat, she cranked it up a few degrees. As she groped her way past the coffeemaker, she jabbed blindly at yet another button to start the pot she’d set up the night before. At the door she shoved her feet into an old pair of ugly galoshes and shrugged into a heavy jacket of red-and-black-plaid wool—Big John’s chore coat.

It still smelled faintly of his budget aftershave and pipe tobacco.

The weather stripping stuck when she tried to open the back door, and she muttered a four-letter word as she tugged at the knob. The instant there was a crack to pass through, Ginger shot out of that kitchen like a clown dog from a circus cannon. She banged open the screen door beyond, too, without slowing down for the enclosed porch.

“Ginger!” Olivia yelled, startled, before taking one rueful glance back at the coffeemaker. It shook and gurgled like a miniature rocket trying to lift off the counter, and it would take at least ten minutes to produce enough java to get Olivia herself off the launch pad. She needed to buy a new one—item number seventy-two on her domestic to-do list. The timer had given out weeks ago, and the handle on the carafe was loose.

And where the hell was the dog headed? Ginger never ran.

Olivia shook the last clinging vestiges of sleep out of her head and tromped through the porch and down the outside steps, taking care not to slip on the ice and either land on her tailbone or take a flyer into the snowbank beside the walk.

“Ginger!” she called a second time as the dog streaked halfway down the driveway, shinnied under the rail fence between Olivia’s place and Tanner’s and bounded out into the snowy field.

Goose-stepping it to the fence, Olivia climbed onto the lowest rail and shaded her eyes from the bright, cold sun. What was Ginger chasing? Coyotes? Wolves? Either way, that was a fight an aging golden retriever couldn’t possibly win.

Olivia was about to scramble over the fence and run after the dog when she saw the palomino in the distance, and the man sitting tall in the saddle.

Tanner.

The horse moved at a smooth trot while Ginger cavorted alongside, flinging up snow, like a pup in a superchow commercial.

Olivia sighed, partly out of relief that Ginger wasn’t about to tangle with the resident wildlife and partly because Tanner was clearly headed her way.

She looked down at her rumpled sweats; they were clean, but the pants had worn threadbare at the knees and there was a big bleach stain on the front of the shirt. She pulled the front of Big John’s coat closed with one hand and ran the other through her uncombed hair.

Tanner’s grin flashed as white as the landscape around him when he rode up close to the fence. Despite the grin, he looked pale under his tan, and there was a hollow look in his eyes. The word haunted came to mind.

“Mornin’, ma’am,” he drawled, tugging at the brim of his hat. “Just thought I’d mosey on over and say howdy.”

“How very Western of you,” Olivia replied with a reluctant chuckle.

Ginger, winded by the unscheduled run, was panting hard.

“What in the world got into you?” Olivia scolded the dog. “Don’t you ever do that again!”

Ginger crossed the fence line and slunk toward the house.

When Olivia turned back to Tanner, she caught him looking her over.

Wise guy.

“It would be mighty neighborly of you to offer a poor wayfaring cowboy a hot cup of coffee,” he said. He sat that horse as if he was part of it—a point in his favor. He might dress like a dandy, but he was no stranger to a saddle.

“Glad to oblige, mister,” Olivia joked, playing along. “Unless you insist on talking like a B-movie wrangler for much longer. That could get old.”

He laughed at that, rode to the rickety gate a few yards down the way, leaned to work the latch easily and joined Olivia on her side. Taking in the ramshackle shed and detached garage, he swung down out of the saddle to walk beside her, leading Shiloh by a slack rein.

“Looks to me like you don’t have a whole lot of room to talk about the state of my barn,” he said. His eyes were twinkling now under the brim of his hat, though he still looked wan.

It was harder going for Olivia—her legs were shorter, the galoshes didn’t fit so they stuck at every step, and the snow came to her shins. “I rent this place,” she said, feeling defensive. “The owner lives out of state and doesn’t like to spend a nickel on repairs if he can help it. In fact, he’s been threatening to sell it for years.”

“Ah,” Tanner said with a sage nod. “Are you just passing through Stone Creek, Doc? I had the impression you were a lifelong resident, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Except for college and veterinary school,” Olivia answered, “I’ve lived here all my life.” She looked around at the dismal rental property. “Well, not right here—”

“Hey,” Tanner said, quietly gruff. “I was kidding.”

She nodded, embarrassed because she’d been caught caring what he thought, and led the way through the yard toward the back door.

Tanner left Shiloh loosely tethered to the hand rail next to the porch steps.

Inside the kitchen, Olivia fed a remorseful Ginger, washed her hands at the sink and got two mugs down out of the cupboard. The coffeemaker was just flailing in for a landing, mission accomplished.

“Excuse me for a second, will you?” Olivia asked after filling mugs for herself and Tanner and giving him his. She slipped into the bedroom, closed the door, put down her coffee cup and quickly switched out the chore coat and her sweats for her best pair of jeans and the blue sweater Ashley had knitted for her as a Christmas gift. She even went so far as to splash her face with water in the tiny bathroom, give her teeth a quick brushing and run a comb through her hair.

When she returned to the kitchen, Tanner was sitting in a chair at the table, looking as if he belonged there, and Ginger stood with her head resting on his thigh while he stroked her back.

Something sparked in Tanner’s weary eyes when he looked up—maybe amusement, maybe appreciation. Maybe something more complicated.

Olivia felt a wicked little thrill course through her system.

“Thanksgiving,” she said without planning to, almost sighing out the word.

“You don’t sound all that thankful,” Tanner observed.

“Oh, I am,” Olivia insisted, taking a sip from her mug.

“Me, too,” Tanner said. “Mostly.”

She bit her lower lip, stole a glance at the clock above the sink. It was early—two hours before she needed to check in at the clinic. So much for excusing herself to go to work.