Christmas in Cold Creek

His brother asked every year and every year Trace gave the same answer. “Not much sense when it’s just me. Especially since I’ll be working through Christmas anyway.”

Since he didn’t have a family, he always tried to work overtime so his officers who did could have a little extra time off to spend with their children.

Caidy glanced over at them and he saw his own melancholy reflected in her eyes. Christmas was a hell of a time for the Bowman family. It probably always would be. He hated that she felt she had to hide away from life here with the horses and the dogs she trained.

“Hey, do you think we could cut an extra tree down for my friend?” Destry asked him.

“I don’t mind. You’ll have to ask your dad, though.”

“Ask me what?” Ridge asked, busy tying the sled to his saddle for his horse to pull down the mountain.

“I wanted to give a tree to one of my friends.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve got plenty of trees. But are you sure her family doesn’t already have one?”

Destry shook her head. “She said they might not even put up a tree this year. They don’t have very much money. They just moved to Pine Gulch and I don’t think she likes it here very much.”

Trace felt the same sort of tingle in his fingertips he always got when something was about to break on a case. “What’s this friend’s name?”

“Gabi. Well, Gabrielle. Gabrielle Parsons.”

Of course. Somehow he’d known, even before Destry told him the name. He thought of the pretty, inept waitress with the secrets in her eyes and of the girl who had sat reading her book with such solemn concentration in the midst of the morning chaos at The Gulch.

“I met her the other day. She and her mother moved in near my house.”

Both Ridge and Caidy gave him matching looks of curiosity and he shrugged. “She’s apparently old Wally Taylor’s granddaughter. He left the house to her, though I gather they didn’t have much of a relationship.”

“You really do know everything about what goes on in Pine Gulch,” Caidy said with an admiring tone.

Trace tried his best to look humble. “I try. Actually, the mother is waitressing at The Gulch. I stopped there the other day for breakfast and ended up with the whole story from Donna.”

“What you’re saying, then,” Ridge said, his voice dry, “is that Donna is the one in town who knows when every dog lifts his leg on a fire hydrant.”

Trace grinned. “Yeah. So? A good police officer knows how to cultivate sources wherever he can find them.”

“So can we cut a tree for Gabrielle and her mom?” Destry asked impatiently.

He remembered the secrets in the woman’s eyes and her unease around him. He had thought about her several times in the few days since he saw her at the diner and his curiosity about why she had ended up in Pine Gulch hadn’t abated whatsoever. He had promised himself he would try to be a good neighbor. What was more neighborly than delivering a Christmas tree?

“I don’t see the problem with that. I can drop it off on my way home. Help me pick a good one for them.”

Destry gave a jubilant cheer and grabbed his hand. “I saw the perfect one before. Come on, over here.”

She dragged him about twenty feet away, stopping in front of a bushy blue spruce. “How about this one?”

The tree easily topped nine feet and was probably that big in circumference. Trace smiled at his niece’s eagerness. “I’m sorry, hon, but if I remember correctly, I think that one is a little too big for the living room of their house. What about this nice one over here?” He led her to a seven-foot Scotch pine with a nice, natural Christmas-tree shape.

She gave the tree a considering sort of look. “I guess that would work.”

“Here, you can help me cut it down then.” He fired up Ridge’s chain saw and guided his niece’s hands. Together they cut the tree down and Trace tied it to his own horse’s saddle.

“I hope Gabrielle will love it. You’re going to take it to her tonight, right?” she demanded, proving once more that she was nothing like her selfish mother except in appearance. Destry was always thinking about other people and how she could help them, much like Trace’s mother, the grandmother she had never met.

“I promise. But let’s get it down the hill first, okay?”

“Okay.” Destry smiled happily.

As they headed back toward River Bow Ranch while the sun finally slipped behind the western mountains, a completely ridiculous little bubble of excitement churned through him, like he was a kid waiting in line to see Santa Claus. He tried to tell himself he was only picking up on Destry’s anticipation at doing a kind deed for her friend, but in his heart Trace knew there was more to it.

He wanted to see Becca Parsons again. Simple as that. The memory of her, slim and pretty and obviously uncomfortable around him, played in his head over and over. She was a mystery to him, that was all. He wanted only to get to know a few of her secrets and make sure she didn’t intend to cause trouble in his town.

If anybody asked, that was his story and he was sticking to it.

Chapter Three

How did parents survive this homework battle day in and day out for years?

Becca drew in a deep, cleansing breath in a fierce effort to keep from growling in frustration at her sister and smoothed the worksheet out in front of them. They had only four more math problems and one would think she was asking Gabi to rip out her eyelashes one by one instead of just finish a little long division.

“We’re almost done, Gab. Come on. You can do it.”

“Of course I can do it.” Though she was a foot and a half shorter than Becca, Gabi still somehow managed to look down her nose at her. “I just don’t see why I have to.”

“Because it’s your homework, honey, that’s why.” Becca tried valiantly for patience. “If you don’t finish it, you’ll receive a failing grade in math.”

“And?”

Becca curled her fingers into fists. Her sister was ferociously bright but had zero motivation, something Becca found frustrating beyond belief considering how very hard she had worked at school, the brief times she had been enrolled. In those days, she would rather have been the one ripping out her eyelashes herself rather than miss an assignment.

Not that her overachieving ways and conscientious study habits had gotten her very far.

She gazed around at the small, dingy house with its old-fashioned wallpaper and the water stains on the ceiling. She had a sudden memory of her elegant town house in an exclusive gated Scottsdale community, trim and neat with its chili-pepper-red door and the matching potted yucca plants fronting the entry. She suddenly missed her house with a longing that bordered on desperation. She would never have that place back. Her mother had effectively taken it from her, just like she’d taken so many other things.

She pushed away her bitterness. She had made her own choices. No one had forced her to sell her town house and use the equity to pay back her mother’s fraud victims. She could have taken her chances that she might have been able to slither out of the mess Monica had left her with her career—if not her reputation—intact.

Again, not the issue here. She was as bad as Gabi, letting her mind wander over paths she could no longer change.

“If you flunk out of fourth grade, my darling sister, I’ll have to homeschool you and we both know I’ll be much tougher on you than any public school teacher. Come on. Four more questions.”

Gabi gave a heavy sigh and picked up her pencil again, apparently tired of pitting her formidable will against Becca’s. She finished the problems without any noticeable effort and then set down her pencil.

“There. Are you happy now?”

As Becca expected, her sister finished the problems perfectly. “See, that wasn’t so tough, now, was it?”

Gabi opened her mouth to answer but before she could get the words out, the doorbell rang, making them both jump. The sudden hope that leapt into Gabi’s eyes broke Becca’s heart. She wanted to hug her, tell her all over again that Monica wasn’t likely to come back.

“I’ll get it,” the girl said quickly, and disregarding all Becca’s strictures about basic safety precautions, she flung open the door.