A Cold Creek Holiday

“I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that. I was just worried. A storm’s coming and I was afraid they would be caught up in it.” He paused, giving her a careful look. “They told you they could go, didn’t they?”

She remembered Claire’s claims that she had told her uncle they were going. “I might have been given that impression,” she admitted slowly. “But I should have made sure.”

He led Cielo into a stall and began brushing the horse with practiced motions that told her even if he hadn’t lived here in some time, he was no stranger to horses or ranching.

“Their parents gave them a little more freedom to come and go as they please. They’re used to riding all over the ranch and even to the neighboring ranches, something I’m not completely comfortable with. It’s been one of many small adjustments over the past few months.”

“How long have their parents been gone?”

“Since September.”

She wanted to ask him what had happened to them, but he spoke before she could come up with a tactful way to broach the subject.

“Look, you’re only here for a few days.” His words were clipped, abrupt. “I would appreciate it if you would stay away from the girls.”

She stared, the words of sympathy she had been gathering crumbling to ash in her mouth. “Excuse me?”

He shrugged. “Nothing personal. I’m sure you’re a nice lady and all. But Tallie and Claire have suffered enough loss the past few months. We’re all struggling to find our way here together. It’s hard enough for them to have strangers coming and going in their lives. That’s one reason I’m thinking about scaling down the guest ranch part of the operation here. I’m doing my best to keep them separate from the few guests we still have. Going for horseback rides with you, making cookies, sewing hats. It’s all too much. They’re going to think they have some kind of relationship with you. When you head back east to your life, the girls are going to feel abandoned by one more person in their lives.”

“A rancher and an armchair psychiatrist. An interesting combination.” She tried and failed to keep the bite from her voice.

She was beyond annoyed, suddenly. Had she ever asked for the girls’ company? No. Her whole intent in coming to Hope Springs had been to spend the holidays alone, not to suddenly find herself responsible for the emotional well-being of two orphaned little girls. She was only trying to be kind to them, not trying to insinuate herself into their lives.

“I’m no psychiatrist, armchair or otherwise,” he answered. “Or a rancher, for that matter. I’m only an army Ranger who’s far more at home with my M4 carbine in my hands than a curry comb these days. I don’t know a damn thing about raising two little girls. I’m going completely on instinct here—that’s all I can do, really—and my gut is telling me it’s not good for them to become too close to you.”

Emery fought the urge to pick up the hayfork leaning against the stable wall and bash him over the head with it. Of course, if he was a highly trained soldier, he would probably have it out of her hands before she could even think about using it.

He was the girls’ guardian, she reminded herself. It was his right—and obligation—to act in whatever way he thought was in their best interest.

“I will certainly do my best to stay out of their way,” she finally answered. “But I refuse to be cold or rude to them when our paths cross, just to pander to your paranoia. It’s not in my nature.”

“I can see that. I wouldn’t want you to be rude,” he answered and she could almost see his tongue dip into his cheek at the words.

She scowled. “The girls asked me to go riding and to help them sew hats for their friends. I did offer to help them make cookies, but only because Claire was distraught over missing that particular holiday tradition, not because I was trying to worm my way into their lives. I have work enough of my own to do. I thought I was coming to Idaho for seclusion and peace, not to entertain two lost, lonely little girls. Maybe before you start warning your guests to stay away from Claire and Tallie, you ought to ask yourself what they’re missing from you that prompts them to latch onto the first kind stranger who comes along.”

He drew in a breath, but she didn’t give him an opportunity to respond to her counterattack; she just turned on her heels, thrust open the barn door and marched out into the fading December afternoon.

He deserved that, he supposed.

Nate watched his guest flounce out of the barn and winced as he remembered his accusatory tone. He had certainly botched yet another of his interactions with her. What was it about the woman that brought out the worst in him? He considered himself a pretty decent guy, for the most part. He usually tried to treat women with respect and appreciation. But without even trying, Emery Kendall seemed to hit all his hot buttons. She was sleek and cultured and sophisticated.

In comparison to all that blond perfection, he felt stupid and rough-edged. Just the poor dumb Mexican kid of the town whore.

He checked the horses one last time then left the barn. He really sucked at this whole hospitality thing. He wanted to shut the gates of Hope Springs and keep everybody out, guests and interfering neighbors alike.

He supposed that made him sound like some kind of hermit. He wasn’t. He liked people, for the most part, and considered the others in his unit a genuine brotherhood.

But coming home to Pine Gulch seemed to bring out the worst in him. All the childhood pain and shame and confusion, those demons he had worked so hard to exorcise after he left came bubbling back up from somewhere deep inside, like one of those sulfur hot pots not far away in Yellowstone, oozing and ugly and acrid.

He looked over at Emery’s cabin, where the lights glowed merrily against the gathering twilight.

She was only looking for a quiet place to spend the holidays, she had said. She was paying for a quiet escape. Whether he wanted to be running a guest ranch or not, he had opened the gates and allowed her in, so he was stuck—at least until he figured out what to do with Hope Springs and with the girls who had been left in his care.

Whatever she might be running from, whatever the cause of those secrets he could see in the deep blue of her eyes, he owed it to her not to let the hot mess of his life, both past and present, spill over and burn her.

Emery woke up to pitch darkness, bitter cold, and the vicious howling of wind beneath the eaves.

For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she registered the thick weight of the down comforter, the sturdy hollows and curves of the log ceiling above her, the flannel sheets that were worlds different from the 600-threadcount Egyptian cotton she used at home, but somehow comforting nonetheless.

Idaho. She was staying at a cabin in Cold Creek Canyon, just a short distance from the Daltons.

That deduction left her with two further mysteries for her sleep-numbed mind to work through. Why was she so blasted cold? And what had awakened her from fragmented dreams of her empty arms and her empty heart?

A loud banging rang out through the cabin from the other room, far too sharp and urgent to be something random from the wind she could hear howling under the eaves.

She really didn’t want to leave protection of the blankets in order to check it out. If she was this cold with the covers tucked to her chin, how much worse would it be when she pushed them away?

“Ms. Kendall? Emery?” a man’s low voice pushed through the howling wind and the stubborn cobwebs of sleep. Nate Cavazos, she realized.

“Coming,” she called out, trying to gather her scrambled thoughts together. She reached for the bedside lamp, still not completely familiar with the cabin’s layout to make her way in pitch darkness.

The light didn’t switch on and she frowned. That must be why it was so dark and so cold in here. That storm howling out there must have cut the power, which meant the electric fireplace wasn’t working, either.

Though everything inside her protested the invasion of even more cold, she managed to push away the covers and scramble in the blackness for the slippers she had left by the side of the bed. She might have to climb out of what little warmth she had left, but she wasn’t about to touch her bare feet to the icy wood floor.

“Ms. Kendall?” Nate called again, raising his voice louder to be heard over the roar of the wind.

“I’m coming. Just a moment.”

Groping her way in the dark, she made her way through the doorway of the bedroom then cursed when she cracked her knee on the mission rocking chair her outstretched hands must have missed.

She finally found the door, more by instinct than sight, and fumbled with the locks. She yanked it open then caught her breath as wind and snow swept inside in a mad icy rush.

Through the swirling snow, she could barely see Nate in the glow of the small lantern he held. He looked big and dark and dangerous. She remembered their tense discussion earlier in the barn and every instinct cried out for her to shove the door against him.

She ignored them all and opened the door farther. “It must be brutal out there. Come inside out of the wind.” Her voice still sounded raspy and she tried to clear the sleep out of it as he pushed past her into the small cabin.

She was instantly aware of the heat emanating from him despite his snow-covered winter coat.

“Power’s out. Guess you figured that out by now. I tried to start the generator for you behind the cabin, but the damn thing’s being stubborn.”

Ah. No wonder she was quickly turning to a solid block of ice.

“Does this happen often?” she asked, grateful she could see enough from his lantern light to grab the nubby throw off the back of the couch and wrap it around her.

He shrugged. “Sometimes. When I was a kid, I remember the power would go out just about every time we had a bad snowstorm. I think it’s a combination of the wind and the heavy snowfall dragging down the power lines that run up the canyon. I don’t expect it will be out for long. Maybe a few hours. Meantime, I’m afraid you’ll have to come up to the house while we wait for the power crews to fix it.”

She wrapped the throw more tightly around her. “Why? Don’t you think I should be warm enough if I huddle under the blankets and put my coat on?”