Christmas in Cold Creek

Chapter Two

Trace leaned back in his chair and set his napkin beside his now-empty plate. “Delicious dinner, Caidy, as always. The roast was particularly fine.”

His younger sister smiled, her eyes a translucent blue in the late-afternoon November light streaming through the dining room windows. “Thanks. I tried a new recipe for the spice rub. It uses sage and rosemary and a touch of paprika.”

“You know sage in recipes doesn’t really come from the sagebrushes out back, right?”

She made a face at the teasing comment from Trace’s twin brother, Taft. “Of course I know it’s not the same. Just for that, you get to wash and dry the dishes.”

“Come on. Have a little pity. I’ve been working all night.”

“You were on duty,” Trace corrected. “But did you go out on any actual calls or did you spend the night bunking at the firehouse?”

“That’s not the point,” Taft said, a self-righteous note in his voice. “Whether I was sleeping or not, I was ready if my community needed me.”

The overnight demands of their respective jobs had long been a source of good-natured ribbing between the two of them. When Trace worked the night shift, he was out on patrol, responding to calls, taking care of paperwork at the police station. As chief of the Pine Gulch fire department and one of the few actual fulltime employees in the mostly volunteer department, Taft’s job could sometimes be quiet.

They might bicker about it, but Trace knew no other person would have his back like his twin—though Caidy and their older brother, Ridge, would be close behind.

“Cut it out, you two.” Ridge, the de facto patriarch of the family, gave them both a stern look that reminded Trace remarkably of their father. “You’re going to ruin this delicious dessert Destry made.”

“It’s only boysenberry cobbler,” his daughter piped in. “It wasn’t hard at all.”

“Well, it tastes like it was hard,” Taft said with a grin. “That’s the important thing.”

Dinner at the family ranch, the River Bow, was a heralded tradition. No matter how busy they might be during the week with their respective lives and careers, the Bowman siblings tried to at least gather on Sundays when they could.

If not for Caidy, these Sunday dinners would probably have died long ago, another victim of their parents’ brutal murders. For a few years after that fateful time a decade ago, the tradition had faded as Trace and his siblings struggled in their own ways to cope with their overwhelming grief.

Right around the time Ridge’s wife left him and Caidy graduated from high school and started taking over caring for the ranch house and for Destry, his sister had revived the traditional Sunday dinners. Over the years it had become a way for them all to stay connected despite the hectic pace of their lives. He cherished these dinners, squabbles and all.

“I worked all night, too, but I’m not such a wimp that I can’t take care of my fair share,” he said with a sanctimonious look at his brother. “You sit here and rest, Taft. I wouldn’t want you to overdo. I’ll take care of the dishes.”

Of course his brother couldn’t let that insult stand, just as Trace expected. As a result, Taft became the designated dishwasher and Trace dried and put away the dishes while Destry and Ridge cleared the table.

Taft was just running water in the sink when Destry came in on her father’s heels, her eyes as huge and plaintive as one of Caidy’s rescued mutts begging for a treat. “Please, Dad. If we wait much longer, it will be too late.”

“Too late for what?” Taft asked innocently.

“Christmas!” Destry exclaimed. “It’s already the last Sunday in November. If we don’t cut down our tree soon, the mountains will be too snowy. Please, Dad? Please, please, please?”

Ridge heaved a sigh. He didn’t need to express his reluctance for Trace to understand it. None of his siblings had been very crazy about Christmas for nearly a decade, since their parents were killed just before Christmas Eve ten years ago.

“We’ll get one,” his brother assured Destry.

“What’s the point of even putting up a tree if we wait much longer? Christmas will be over.”

“It’s not even December yet!”

“It’s almost December. It will be here before we know it.”

“She sounds like Mom,” Taft said. “Remember how she used to start hounding Dad to cut the tree a few weeks before Thanksgiving?”

“And she always had it picked out by the middle of the summer,” Caidy answered with a sad little smile.

“Please, Daddy. Can we go?”

Trace had to smile at his niece’s persistence. Destry was a sharp little thing. She was generally a happy kid, which he found quite amazing considering her mother was a major bitch who had left Ridge and Destry when the little girl was still just a toddler.

“I guess you’re right.” Ridge eyed his brothers. “Either of you boys up for a ride to help me bring back the tree? We can get one for your places, too.”

Taft shrugged. “I’ve got a date. Sorry.”

“You have a date on a Sunday afternoon?” Caidy asked with raised eyebrows.

His brother seemed to find every available female between the ages of twenty-two and forty. “Not really a date. I’m going over to a friend’s house to watch a movie and order pizza.”

“You just had dinner,” Caidy pointed out.

Taft grinned. “That’s the thing about food … and other things. No matter how good the feast, you’re always ready for more in a few hours.”

“How old are you? Sixteen?” Ridge asked with a roll of his eyes.

“Old enough to thoroughly enjoy my pizza and everything that goes along with it,” Taft said with another grin. “But you boys have fun cutting down your Christmas trees.”

“You in?” Ridge asked Trace.

Since he didn’t have a pizza buddy right now—or any other kind of euphemistically termed acquaintance—Trace figured he might as well. “Sure. I’m up for a ride. Let’s go find a tree.”

He could use a ride into the mountains. It might help clear the cobwebs out of his head from a week of double shifts.

The decision had been a good one, he decided a half hour later as he rode his favorite buckskin mare, Genie, up the trail leading to the evergreen forest above the ranch. He had needed to get out into the mountains on horseback again. The demands of his job as head honcho in an overworked and underfunded police department often left him with too little leisure time. He ought to make more time for himself, though. Right now, with feathery snowflakes drifting down and the air smelling crisp and clean, he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

He loved River Bow Ranch. This was home, despite the bad memories and their grim past. Counting Destry now, five generations of Bowmans had made their home here, starting just after World War I with his great-grandfather. It was a lovely spot, named not only for the family name but also for the oxbow in Cold Creek that was a beautiful nesting spot in the summer for geese and swans.

Below the ranch, he could see the lights of Pine Gulch gleaming in the dusk. His town. Yeah, it might sound like something out of an old Western, but he loved this little slice of western heaven. He’d had offers from bigger departments around Idaho and even a couple out of state. A few of them were tempting, he couldn’t deny that. But every time he thought about leaving Pine Gulch, he thought about all the things he would have to give up. His family, his heritage, the comfort of small traditions like breakfast at The Gulch after an overnight shift. The sacrifices seemed too great.

“Thanks for coming with us,” Destry said, reining her tough little paint pony next to his mare.

“My pleasure. Thanks for asking me, kid.” His niece was turning into a good rider. Ridge had set her on the back of a horse from just about the moment she could walk and it showed. She had a confident seat, an easy grace, that had already won her some junior rodeo competitions.

“Are you finally going to put up a tree this year, Uncle Trace?”

“I don’t know. Seems like a lot of trouble when it’s only me.”

He hated admitting that but it was true. He was tired of being alone. A year ago, he thought he was ready to settle down. He’d even started dating Easton Springhill. From here, he could see across the canyon and up to where she ran her family’s place, Winder Ranch.

Easton wasn’t for him. Some part of him had known it even as he’d tried to convince himself otherwise. Just how wrong she’d been for him had become abundantly clear when Cisco Del Norte came back to town and he saw for himself just how much Easton loved the man.

The two of them were deliriously happy now. They had adopted a little girl, who was just about the cutest thing he’d ever seen, all big eyes and curly black hair and dimples, and Easton was expecting a baby in the spring. While Trace still wasn’t crazy about Cisco, he had to admit the guy made Easton happy.

He had tried to convince himself he was in love with Easton but he recognized now that effort had been mostly based on hope. Oh, he probably could have fallen in love with her if he’d given a little more effort to it. Easton was great—warm and compassionate and certainly beautiful enough. They could have made a good life together here, but theirs would never have been the fierce passion she shared with Cisco.

A passion he couldn’t help envying.

Maybe he would always be the bachelor uncle. It wasn’t necessarily a bad role in life, he thought as Destry urged her pony faster on the trail.

“Almost there!” she exclaimed, her face beaming.

A few moments later they reached the thickly forested border of the ranch. Destry was quick to lead the way to the tree she had picked out months ago and marked with an orange plastic ribbon, just as their mother used to do.

Ridge cut the tree quickly with his chain saw while Destry looked on with glee. Caidy and a couple of her dogs had come up, as well—Trace had left Grunt, the ugly little French bulldog he’d inherited from Wally Taylor, back at the ranch house since the dog couldn’t have kept up with the horses on his stubby little legs.

His sister didn’t help cut down the tree, only stood on the outskirts of the forest, gazing down at town.

“How about you?” his brother asked. “You want us to cut one for you while we’re up here?”

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.

If ever a girl needed to heed stranger danger, it was now, Becca thought with a spurt of panic at the sight of the Pine Gulch chief of police standing on her doorstep. Trace Bowman looked dark and dangerous in the twilight and all her self-protective instincts ramped up into high gear.