A Cold Creek Noel

That surprise in his blue eyes annoyed the heck out of her. Did he think she would just abandon her dog here with a stranger for a couple of hours while she went off to have her hair done?

“Your choice.”

“I can help you back here. I’ve...had some training and I often helped Doc Harris. I actually worked here when I was a teenager.”

If her life had gone a little more according to plan, she might have been the one taking over Doc Harris’s clinic, though she hoped she wouldn’t be as surly and unlikable as this new veterinarian.

“That won’t be necessary.” Dr. Caldwell dismissed all her hopes and dreams and volunteer work at the clinic as if they meant nothing. “Joni and I can handle it. If you insist on waiting, you can go ahead and have a seat in the waiting room.”

What a jerk. She could push the matter. She was paying for the treatment here, after all. If she wanted to stay with her dog, there was nothing Dr. Ben No-Bedside-Manner Caldwell could do about it. But she didn’t want to waste time and possibly jeopardize Luke’s treatment.

“Fine,” she muttered. She turned and pushed through the doors into the waiting room, seething with frustration.

After quickly sending a message to Ridge updating him on the situation and reminding her brother he would have to pick his daughter, Destry, up from the bus stop, she plopped onto one of the uncomfortable gray benches and grabbed a magazine off the side table.

She was leafing through it, barely even registering the headlines in her worry over her dog, when the bells on the door chimed and a little boy of about five burst through, followed a little more slowly by an older girl.

“Daaad! We’re here!”

“Hush.” A round, cheerful-looking woman who looked to be in her early sixties followed more slowly. “You know better than that, young man. Your father might be in the middle of a procedure.”

“Can I go back and find him?” the girl asked.

“Because Joni isn’t out here either, they must both be busy. He won’t want to be bothered. You two sit down here and I’ll go back to let him know we’re here.”

“I could go,” the girl said a little sulkily, but she plopped onto the bench across from Caidy. Like father, like daughter, she thought. This was obviously the new vet’s family, and his daughter, at least, seemed to share more than blue eyes with her father.

“Sit down,” the girl ordered her brother. The boy didn’t quite stick his tongue out at his sister, but it was a close one. Instead, he ignored her—probably a much worse insult, if Caidy remembered her own childhood with three pesky brothers—and wandered over to stand directly in front of Caidy.

The little boy had a widow’s peak in his brown hair and huge dark-lashed blue eyes. A Caldwell trait, apparently.

“Hi.” He beamed at her. “I’m Jack Caldwell. My sister’s name is Ava. Who are you?”

“My name is Caidy,” she answered.

“My dad’s a dog doctor.”

“Not just dogs,” the girl corrected. “He’s also a cat doctor. And sometimes even horses and cows.”

“I know,” Caidy answered. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Is your dog sick?” Jack asked her.

“In a way. He was hurt on our ranch. Your dad is working on him now.”

“He’s really good,” the girl said with obvious pride. “I bet your dog will be just fine.”

“I hope so.”

“Our dog was hit by a car once and my dad fixed him and now he’s all better,” Jack said. “Well, except he only has three legs. His name is Tri. My dad says it’s ’cause he always tries hard, even though he only has three legs.”

Despite her worry, she managed a smile, more than a little charmed by the boy—and by the idea of the taciturn veterinarian showing any hint of sweetness.

“Tri means three,” Ava informed her in a haughty sort of tone. “You know, like a tricycle has three wheels.”

“Good to know.”

Before the children could say anything else, the older woman came back through the door leading out of the treatment room, her features set in a rueful smile.

“Looks like we’re on our own for dinner, kids. Your dad is busy fixing an injured dog and he’s going to be a while. We’ll just go catch some dinner and then head back to the hotel for homework and bed.”

“You’re staying at the Cold Creek Inn, aren’t you?” Caidy asked.

The other woman looked a bit wary as she nodded. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

“I’m Caidy Bowman. My sister-in-law Laura runs the inn.”

“You’re Chief Bowman’s sister?” There was a definite warmth in the woman’s voice now, Caidy noticed wryly. Her charmer of a brother often had that effect on those of the female persuasion, no matter their age.

“I am. Both Chief Bowmans.” With one brother who was the police chief and the other who headed up the fire department, not much exciting happened in town without someone in her family being in the thick of it.

“How nice to meet you. I’m Anne Michaels. I’m Dr. Caldwell’s housekeeper. Or I will be when he finally gets into his house. With the maids at the inn cleaning our rooms for us, there’s not much for me to do in that department. Right now I’m just the nanny, I suppose.”

“Oh?”

The woman apparently didn’t need any more encouragement than that simple syllable. “Dr. Caldwell is building a house on Cold Creek Road. He was supposed to close on it last week, but the contractor ran into some problems and here we are, still staying at the inn. Which is lovely, don’t get me wrong, but it’s still a hotel. After three weeks, all of us are a little tired of it. And now it looks like we’ll be there until after the New Year. Christmas in a hotel. Can you imagine such a thing?”

Maybe that explained the man’s grouchiness. She felt a little pang of sympathy, then she remembered how he had basically shoved her out of the treatment area. No, he was probably born with that temperament. He and Festus would get along just fine.

“It must be very frustrating for all of you.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Two children in a hotel, even a couple of rooms, for all those weeks is just too much. They need space to run. All children do. Why, in San Jose, the children had a huge backyard, complete with a pool and a swing set that rivaled the equipment at the nearest park.”

“Is that where you’re from, then? California?”

Anne Michaels nodded and Caidy thought she saw a note of wistfulness in the woman’s eyes that didn’t bode well for the chances of Dr. Caldwell’s housekeeper-slash-nanny sticking around in Pine Gulch.

Anne watched the children, who were paying them no heed as they played a game on an electronic device Ava had pulled out of her backpack.

“Yes. I’m from California, born and bred. Not Dr. Caldwell. He’s from back East. Chicago way. But he left everything without a backward look to head west for veterinary school at UC-Davis and that’s where he met the late Mrs. Caldwell. They hired me to help out around the house when she was pregnant with little Jack there and I’ve been with them ever since. Those poor children needed me more than ever after their mother died. Dr. Caldwell too. That was a terrible time, I tell you.”

“I’m sure.”

“When he decided to move here to Idaho, he gave me the option of leaving his employment with a glowing recommendation, but I just couldn’t do it. I love those children, you know?”

Caidy could relate. She loved her niece Destry as fiercely as if the girl were her own. Stepping in to help raise her after her mother walked out on Ridge and their daughter had created a powerful bond between them as unshakable as the Tetons.

“I’m sure you do.”