Page 76 of The Holiday Gift

His mouth tightened, his eyes darkening with familiar sadness. Each of them had struggled in different ways after their parents’ deaths. Ridge had become more stoic and controlled, Taft had gone a little crazy dating all the wild women at the tavern in town and Trace had become a dedicated lawman.

And she was still hiding away here at the River Bow.

“You need to move on,” her brother said. “Maybe it’s time you think about trying school again.”

“Maybe.” She gave a noncommittal answer, too tired to fight with him right now after the ordeal of Luke’s injury and the hours spent in the waiting room of the veterinary clinic. “Hey, thanks again for letting the vet stay in the foreman’s cottage. It shouldn’t be longer than a few weeks.”

Ridge wasn’t fooled for a moment. He knew she was trying to change the subject. For once he didn’t try to call her on it.

“Just think. For a few weeks anyway we’ll have our own veterinarian-in-residence. With your menagerie, that should come in pretty handy.”

She made a face. Given her unwilling reaction to the man, she would rather not have need of his professional services again anytime soon.

* * *

A good four inches of snow fell during the night. It clung to the trees and bowed down the branches, turning the town into an enchanting winter wonderland, especially with the craggy mountains looming in the distance.

Added to the few inches that had fallen the previous evening, that should be plenty for Destry to have a great time with her friends on the sleigh ride the next night, Caidy thought as she drove through the quiet stillness of the unplowed roads on her way to the clinic the next morning.

It wasn’t yet seven. She hadn’t slept well, her dreams a troubled, tangled mess. With worry for Luke uppermost in her mind, she had risen early and finished her chores. Ridge could take care of breakfast for him and Destry when he finished his own chores. Saturday morning pancakes were his specialty.

Even with her restless sleep, she could appreciate the beauty of the morning. Colorful Christmas trees gleamed in the windows of a few houses, and she liked to imagine the children there rushing to plug in the lights the moment they woke up so they could enjoy the display before the sun was fully up.

When she reached Dr. Caldwell’s office, she wasn’t particularly surprised to see the parking lot hadn’t been plowed yet. Like many of the small businesses in Pine Gulch, he probably paid a service to take care of that for him and the plows hadn’t made it here yet.

With four-wheel drive and high clearance, her truck had no problem navigating through the snow. Mindful of helping the plow work around her vehicle, she parked at the edge of the lot, next to a snow-covered Range Rover she assumed must belong to Ben.

As she headed for the building, she worried she might be waking him after a long night of watching over Luke. The sidewalks had been cleared, though. Unless he paid someone else to take care of that chore, she guessed Ben had taken care of the shoveling himself.

She wasn’t surprised to find the front door locked. When Doc Harris was here, she never had to bother with the front door; she could use the side entrance she had used the night before.

Likely that’s where she would find Ben Caldwell. She trudged through the snow, enjoying the brisk cold and the scent of snowy pine. A couple hard raps on the door elicited no response. She checked the door and the knob turned easily in her hand.

After a quick internal debate, she turned the knob and stepped inside. She opened her mouth to call out a greeting but the words vanished somewhere in the vicinity of her tongue—along with any remaining air in her lungs—at the sight of the new veterinarian coming out of the locker room wearing only jeans and toweling off his wet hair.

That dramatic cartoon gulp sounded in her head again. Wow. Double wow. With ice cream on top.

His chest was broad and well-defined with solid muscle and a little line of hair arrowed down to disappear in the waistband of his Levi’s, where he hadn’t yet fastened the top button.

Awareness bloomed inside her, as bright and vivid as the always unexpected crocuses that popped up through the snow along the fenceline of the River Bow every spring.

Her toes tingled and her heartbeat kicked up a notch and she wanted to stand here for the next few years and just stare.

He continued toweling his hair, oblivious to her, biceps flexing with the motion, and she completely forgot about the reason she had come. Suddenly he dropped the towel and saw her standing there.

His pupils widened and for a long moment, he returned her stare. Tension seethed between them, writhing and alive. Her insides trembled and every thought in her head seemed scrambled and incoherent.

Finally he cleared his throat. “Oh. Hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Sorry.” Her voice sounded raspy and she quickly cleared it, mortified that he had caught her gaping at him like Destry and her friends at a Justin Bieber concert. “I knocked and was just checking the door and it opened and...there you were.”

Could she sound any more stupid? Good grief. She wanted to slink away through the door and bury her face in a pile of snow somewhere. Anybody might think she’d never seen a gorgeous, half-naked man before.

“I just... I can go and come back, uh, later.”

“Why?” He grabbed a clean scrub top and she couldn’t seem to look away as he pulled it over that delicious chest, her gaze fixed on the disappearance of that little strip of hair trailing down his abdomen.

Despite his towel job, his hair was still wet and sticking up in spikes. He made an effort to smooth it down but only ended up making it look more tousled and sexy.

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