Holiday in Stone Creek: A Stone Creek Christmas

ATHOME, OLIVIA showered, donned a ragged chenille bathrobe and listened to her voice mail, just in case there was an emergency somewhere. She’d already checked her cell phone, but you never knew.

The only message was from Ashley. “Where were you?” her younger sister demanded. “Today was Thanksgiving!”

Olivia sighed, waited out the diatribe, then hit the bullet and pressed the eight key twice to connect with Ashley.

“Mountain View Bed-and-Breakfast,” Ashley answered tersely. She already knew who was calling, then. Hence the tone.

“Any openings?” Olivia asked, hoping to introduce a light note.

Ashley wasn’t biting. She repeated her voice mail message, almost verbatim, ending with another “Where were you?”

“There was an emergency,” Olivia said. What else could she say? I was in bed with Tanner Quinn and I had myself a hell of a fine time, thank you very much.

Suspicion, tempered by the knowledge that emergencies were a way of life with Olivia. “What kind of emergency?”

Olivia sighed. “You don’t want to know,” she said. It was true, after all. Ashley was a normal, healthy woman, but that didn’t mean she’d want a blow-by-blow description—so to speak—of what she and Tanner had done in his bed.

“Another cow appendectomy?” Ashley asked, half sarcastic, half uncertain.

“A clandestine operation,” she said, remembering the black helicopter. That would give the local conspiracy theorists something to chew on for a while, if they’d seen it.

“Really? There was an operation?”

Tanner was certainly an operator, Olivia thought, so she said yes.

“And here I thought you were probably having sex with that contractor Brad hired to build the shelter,” Ashley said with an exasperated little sigh.

Olivia swallowed a giggle. Spoke seriously. “Ashley O’Ballivan, why would you think a thing like that?”

“Because I saw you leave with him,” Ashley answered. Her tone turned huffy again. “I wanted to tell Brad and Melissa that I’ve decided to look for Mom,” she complained. “And I couldn’t do it without you there.”

Olivia sobered. “Pretty heavy stuff, when Brad and Meg had a houseful of guests, wouldn’t you say?”

Ashley went quiet again.

“Ash?” Olivia prompted. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“So why the sudden silence?”

Another pause. A long one that gave Olivia plenty of time to worry. Then, finally, the bomb dropped. “I think I’ve already found her.”

Chapter Six

“THISPLACE,” SOPHIESAID, looking around at the ranch-house kitchen the next morning, “needs a woman’s touch. Or maybe a crack decorating crew from HGTV or DIY.”

Tanner, still half-asleep, stood at the counter pouring badly needed coffee. Between Sophie’s great adventure and all that sex with Olivia, he felt disoriented, out of step with his normal world. “You watch HGTV and DIY?” he asked after taking a sip of java to steady himself.

“Doesn’t everybody?” Sophie countered. “I’ve been thinking of flipping houses when I grow up.” She looked so much like her mother, with her long, shiny hair and expressive eyes. Right now those eyes held a mixture of trepidation, exuberance and sturdy common sense.

“Trust me,” Tanner said, treading carefully, finding his way over uncertain ground, because they weren’t really talking about real estate and he knew it. “Flipping houses is harder than a thirty-minute TV show makes it seem.”

“You should know,” Sophie agreed airily, taking in the pitiful kitchen again. “You’ll manage to turn this one over for a big profit, though, just like all the others.”

Tanner dragged a chair back from the table and sort of fell into it. “Sit down, Soph,” he said. “We’ve got more important things to discuss than the lineup on your favorite TV channels.”

Sophie crossed the room dramatically and dropped into a chair of her own. She’d had the pajamas she was wearing now stashed in her backpack, which showed she’d been planning to ditch the school group in New York, probably before she left Briarwood. Now she was playing it cool.

Tanner thought of Ms. Wiggins’s plans to steer her into the thespian program at school, and stifled a grimace. His sister, Tessa, had been a show-business kid, discovered when she did some catalog modeling in Dallas at the age of eight. She’d done commercials, guest roles and finally joined a long-running hit TV series. As far as he was concerned, that had been the wrong road. It was as though Tessa—wonderful, smart, beautiful Tessa—had peaked at twenty-one, and been on a downhill slide ever since.

“You’re mad because I ran away,” Sophie said, sitting up very straight, like a witness taking the stand. She seemed to think good posture might sway the judge to decide in her favor. In any case, she was still acting.

“Mad as hell,” Tanner agreed. “That was a stupid, dangerous thing to do, and don’t think you’re going to get away with it just because I’m so glad to see you.”

The small face brightened. “Are you glad to see me, Dad?”

“Sophie, of course I am. I’m your father. I miss you a lot when we’re apart.”

She sighed and shut off the drama switch. Or at least dimmed it a little. “Most of the time,” she said, “I feel like one of those cardboard statues.”

Tanner frowned, confused. “Run that by me again?”

“You know, those life-size depictions you see in the video store sometimes? Johnny Depp, dressed up like Captain Jack, or Kevin Costner like Wyatt Earp, or something like that?”

Tanner nodded, but he was still pretty confounded. There was nothing two-dimensional about Sophie—she was 3-D all the way.

But did she know that?

“It’s as if I’m made of cardboard as far as you’re concerned,” she went on thoughtfully. “When I’m around, great. When I’m not, you just tuck me away in a closet to gather dust until you want to get me out again.”

Tanner’s gut clenched, hard. And his throat went tight. “Soph—”

“I know you don’t really think of me that way, Dad,” his daughter broke in, imparting her woman-child wisdom. “But it feels as if you do. That’s all I’m saying.”

“And I’m saying I don’t want you to feel that way, Soph. Ever. All I’m doing is trying to keep you safe.”

“I’d rather be happy.”

Another whammy. Tanner got up, emptied his cup at the sink and nonsensically filled it up again. Stood with his back to the counter, leaning a little, watching his daughter and wondering if all twelve-year-olds were as complicated as she was.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” he ventured.

“I understand now,” Sophie pressed, and she looked completely convinced. “You’re the bravest man I know—you were Special Forces in the military, with Uncle Jack—but you’re scared, too. You’re scared I’ll get hurt because of what happened to Mom.”

“You can’t possibly remember that very well.”

Benevolent contempt. “I was seven, Dad. Not two.” She paused, and her eyes darkened with pain. “It was awful. I kept thinking, This can’t be real, my mom can’t be gone, but she was.”