CHAPTER SEVEN

After leaving Stone Creek Ranch, the conversation with Brad draping her mind and heart like a lead net, Olivia stopped off at the clinic in town, just in case she might be needed.

She wasn’t, actually, and that was kind of deflating. As the on-call vet for the current twenty-four-hour time slot, she could be sent anywhere in the county, at any moment. But today all was quiet on the Western front, so to speak.

She headed for Ashley’s, fully intending to bite the mother bullet, but her sister’s silly yellow car, usually parked in the driveway at that time of morning after a routine run to the post office, was gone. Crews of local college kids, home on vacation, swarmed the snowy front yard, though, bedecking every shrub and window and eave with holiday lights.

Olivia was momentarily reminded of Snoopy and his decorated doghouse in the cartoon Christmas special she’d watched faithfully since she was three years old. The image cheered her a little.

“Commercial dog,” she muttered, though Ashley didn’t qualify for the term species-wise, waving to the light crew before pulling away from the curb again.

She ought to see if she could swing a haircut, she thought, cruising the slush-crusty main street of Stone Creek. Every street lamp and every store window was decorated, colored bulbs blinking the requisite bright red and green.

The Christmas-tree man had set up for business down by the supermarket—a new guy this year, she’d heard—and a plump Santa was already holding court in a spiffy-looking black sleigh with holly leaves and berries decorating its graceful lines. Its brass runners gleamed authentically, and eight life-size plastic reindeer had been hitched to the thing with a jingle-bell harness.

Olivia pulled into the lot—before she saw Tanner’s red truck parked among other vehicles. She should have noticed it, she thought—it was the only clean one. She shifted into reverse, but it was too late.

Tanner, delectable in jeans and a black leather jacket, caught sight of her and waved. His young daughter, she of the dramatic helicopter arrival, stood beside him, clapping mittened hands together to keep warm as she inspected a tall, lush tree.

Annoyed by her own reticence, Olivia sighed, pulled into one of the few remaining parking spots and shut off the Suburban.

“Hey,” Tanner said as she approached, working hard to smile.

Sophie was a very beautiful child—a Christmas angel in ordinary clothes. She probably looked just like her mother, the woman who had died so tragically, in Tanner’s arms, no less. The one he’d loved too much to ever forget, according to Brad.

While they were making love the day before, had Tanner been pretending Olivia was Katherine?

Olivia blushed. Amped up her smile.

“Olivia O’Ballivan,” Tanner said quietly, his eyes watchful, even a little pensive as he studied her face, “meet my daughter, Sophie.”

Sophie turned, smiled and put out a hand. “Hello,” she said. “Dad says you’re a veterinarian, and you took care of Butterpie. Thank you.”

Something melted, in a far and usually inaccessible corner of Olivia’s heart. “You’re welcome,” she answered brightly. “And so is Butterpie.”

“What do you think of this tree?” Sophie asked next, turning to the massive, fragrant blue spruce she’d been examining when Olivia drove in.

Olivia’s gaze slid to Tanner’s face, sprang away again. “It’s—it’s lovely,” she said.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” bellowed the hired Santa Claus. Apparently the guy hadn’t heard that the line was now considered offensive to women.

“Would you believe this place is run by a man named Kris Kringle?” Sophie said to Olivia, drawing her in somehow, making her feel included, as though they couldn’t buy the tree unless she approved of it.

Tanner nudged Sophie’s shoulder with a light motion of one elbow. “It’s an alias, kid,” he said out of the side of his mouth in a pretty respectable imitation of an old-time gangster.

“Duh,” Sophie said, but she beamed up at her father, her face aglow with adoration. “And I thought he was really Santa Claus.”

“Go get Mr. Kringle, so we can wrap this deal up,” Tanner told her.

Did he see, Olivia wondered, how much the child loved him? How much she needed him?

Sophie hurried off to find the proprietor.

“I take it Sophie will be around for Christmas,” Olivia ventured.

“Until New Year’s,” Tanner said with a nod. “Then she goes straight back to Connecticut. Butterpie’s going along—he’ll board in a stable near the school until Briarwood’s is built—so you won’t have to worry about a depressed horse.”

Olivia’s throat thickened. All her emotions were close to the surface, she supposed because of the holidays and the situation with her mother, which might well morph into a Situation, and the knowledge that all good things seemed to be temporary.

“I’ll miss Butterpie,” she managed, shoving her cold hands into the pockets of her old down vest. It was silly to draw comparisons between her own issues and Sophie’s, but she couldn’t seem to help it. She was entangled.

“I’ll miss Sophie,” Tanner said.

Olivia wanted to beat at his chest with her fists, which just went to prove she needed therapy. She needs you! she wanted to scream. Don’t you see that you’re all she has?

Patently none of her business. She pretended an interest in a small potted tree nearby, a Charlie Brown-ish one that suited her mood. Right then and there she decided to buy it, take it home and toss some lights onto it.

It was an act of mercy.

“Olivia—” Tanner began, and his tone boded something serious, but before he could get the rest of the sentence out of his mouth, Sophie was back with Kris Kringle.

Olivia very nearly didn’t believe what she was seeing. The man wore ordinary clothes—quilted snow pants, a heavy plaid flannel shirt, a blue down vest and a Fargo hat with earflaps. But he had a full white beard and kind—okay, twinkly—blue eyes. Round red cheeks, and a bow of a mouth.

“A fine choice indeed,” he told Olivia, noting her proximity to the pathetic little tree no one else was likely to buy. Only the thought of it, sitting forgotten on the lot when Christmas arrived, amid a carpet of dried-out pine needles, kept her from changing her mind. “I could tie on some branches for you with twine. Thicken it up a little.”

Olivia shook her head, rummaged in her pocket for money, being very careful not to look at Tanner and wondering why she felt the need to do that. “It’s fine the way it is. How much?”

Kringle named a figure, and Olivia forked over the funds. She felt stupid, being so protective of a tree, and she didn’t even own any decorations, but Charlie Brown was going home with her anyway. They’d just have to make the best of things.

“Dad told me you found a real reindeer,” Sophie said to Olivia when she would have grabbed her tree, said goodbye and made a hasty retreat.

This drew Kris Kringle’s attention, Olivia noted out of the corner of her eye. He perked right up, listening intently. Zeroing in. If he thought he was going to use that poor little reindeer to attract customers, he had another think coming.

Sure enough, he said, “I just happen to be missing a reindeer.”

Olivia didn’t believe him, and even though she knew that was because she didn’t want to believe him, her radar was up and her antennae were beeping. “Is that so?” she asked somewhat stiffly, while Tanner and Sophie looked on with heightened interest. “How did you happen to misplace this reindeer, Mr.—?”

“Kringle,” the old man insisted with a smile in his eyes. “We did a personal appearance at a birthday party, and he just wandered off.”

“I see,” Olivia said. “Didn’t you look for him?”

“Oh, yes,” Kringle replied, looking like a right jolly old elf and all that. “No tracks to be found. We hunted and hunted. Is Rodney all right?”

Olivia’s mouth fell open. Kringle must be the reindeer’s rightful owner if he knew his name. It would be too much of a coincidence otherwise. “He’s—he’s fine,” she said.

Kringle smiled warmly. “The other seven have been very worried, and so have I, although I’ve had an idea all along that Rodney was on a mission of some kind.”

Olivia swallowed. She’d wanted to find Rodney’s rightful owner so he could go home. So why did she feel so dejected?

“The other seven what?” Tanner asked with a dry note in his voice.

“Why, the other seven reindeer, of course,” Kringle answered merrily after tossing a conspiratorial glance Sophie’s way. “If Rodney is safe and well taken care of, though, we won’t fret about him. Not until Christmas Eve, anyway. We’ll need him back by then for sure.”

If Olivia had had a trowel handy, she would have handed it to the guy, so he could lay it on thicker. He really knew how to tap in to Christmas, that was for sure.

“I thought Santa’s reindeer had names like Prancer and Dancer,” Sophie said, sounding serious.

Tanner, meanwhile, got out his wallet to pay for the big spruce.

“Well, they do,” Kringle said, still in Santa mode. “But they’re getting older, and Donner’s developed a touch of arthritis. So I brought Rodney up out of the ranks, since he showed so much promise, especially at flying. He’s only been on trial runs so far, but this Christmas Eve he’s on the flight manifest for the whole western region.”

Tanner and Olivia exchanged looks.

“You don’t need Rodney back until Christmas Eve?” Olivia asked. An owner was an owner, crazy or not. She took one of her dog-eared business cards out of her vest pocket, wrote Brad’s private number on the back with a pen Tanner provided and handed it to Kringle. “He’s at Stone Creek Ranch.”

“I’ll pick him up after I close the lot on the twenty-fourth,” Kringle said, still twinkling, and even going so far as to tap a finger to the side of his nose. If there had been a chimney handy, he probably would have rocketed right up it. He examined the card, nodded to himself and tucked it away. “Around six o’clock,” he added. “Even the last-minute Louies will have cleared out by then.”

“Right,” Olivia murmured, wondering if she’d made a mistake telling him where to find Rodney.

“Let me load up that tree for you,” Tanner said, hoisting Charlie Brown by his skinny, crooked trunk before Olivia could get a hold on it. Brown needles rained to the pavement.

Sophie tagged along with Tanner and Olivia while Kringle carried the big spruce to Tanner’s pickup truck. Branches of the lush tree rustled, and the evergreen scent intensified.

A few fat flakes of snow wafted down.

Olivia felt like a figure in a festive snow globe. Man, woman and child, with Christmas tree. Which was silly.

“My tree weighs all of three pounds,” she pointed out to Tanner under her breath. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on the new shelter?”

“More like thirty, with this pot.” Tanner grinned and held the little tree out of her reach. “Nothing much gets done on a holiday weekend,” he added, as if it was some big news flash or something. “Shouldn’t you be helping a cow give birth?”

“Cows don’t commonly give birth at this time of year,” Olivia pointed out. “It’s a springtime sort of thing.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Sophie interjected, rolling her eyes. “Yeesh.”

Olivia had to laugh. “Yeah,” she said, opening the rear doors of the Suburban to receive Charlie Brown. “Yeesh.”

“How about joining Sophie and me for supper tonight?” Tanner asked, blocking the way when she would have closed the doors again.

“We live in a dump,” Sophie said philosophically. “But it’s home.”

Olivia felt another pang at the word home. The rental she lived in definitely didn’t qualify, and though she had a history at Stone Creek Ranch, it belonged to Brad and Meg and Mac now, which was as it should be. “Well…”

“Please?” Sophie asked, suddenly earnest.

Tanner grinned, waited. The kid was virtually irresistible, and nobody knew that better than he did.

“Okay,” Olivia said. For Sophie’s sake and not—not at all—because she wanted to get in any deeper with Tanner Quinn than she already was.

“Six o’clock?” Tanner asked.

“Six o’clock,” Olivia confirmed, casting another glance at Kris Kringle, now busy instructing the hired Santa Claus on how to hold the sleigh reins. She’d call Wyatt Terp, the marshal over in Indian Rock, the county seat, she decided, and get him to run a background check on this dude, just in case he had a rap sheet or the men in white coats were looking for him.

Tanner and Sophie said their goodbyes and left, and Olivia sat in the driver’s seat of her Suburban for a few moments, working up the courage to call Wyatt. The only name she could give him was Kris Kringle, and that was bound to liven up an otherwise dull day in the cop shop.

“You mean there really is a Kris Kringle?” she asked ten minutes later, her cell phone pressed to one ear as she pulled into the lot at the hardware store to buy lights and tinsel for Charlie Brown.

“You’d be surprised how many there are,” Wyatt said drolly.

“So you have something on him, then? You’re sure it’s the same guy?”

“Kristopher Kringle, it says here. Christmas-tree farmer with a place up near Flagstaff. Only one traffic violation—he was caught driving a horse-drawn sleigh on the freeway two winters ago.”

Olivia shut off the Suburban, eyes popping. The painted sign on the weathered brick side of the hardware store read, in time-faded letters, “Smoke Caliber Cigarettes. They’re Good for You!”

“Nothing like, say, animal cruelty?”

“Nope,” Wyatt said. Olivia could hear some yukking going on in the background. Either the cops were celebrating early or the marshal had the phone on “speaker.” “Santa’s clean, Doc.”

Olivia sighed. She was relieved, of course, to learn that Kringle was neither an escaped maniac nor a criminal, but on some level, she realized, she’d been hoping not to find Rodney’s owner.

How crazy was that?

She got out of the car, after promising Charlie Brown she’d be back soon, and went inside to shop for a tree wardrobe. She bought two strands of old-fashioned bubbling lights, a box of shiny glass balls in a mixture of red, gold and silver, and some tinsel.

Ho, ho, ho, she thought, stashing her purchases in the back of the rig, next to Charlie. Deck the halls.

* * *

Even though they had a million things to do, Sophie insisted on stopping at Stone Creek Middle School when they drove past it. It was a small brick building, and the reader board in front read “Closed for Thanksgiving Vacation! See You Monday!”

The whole town, Tanner thought, feeling grumbly, was relentlessly cheerful. And what was up with that Kris Kringle yahoo, back at the tree lot, claiming he had seven reindeer at home, waiting to lift off on Christmas Eve?

Sophie cupped her hands and peered through the plate-glass door at the front of the school, her breath fogging it up. “Wow,” she said. “The computer room at Briarwood is bigger than this whole place.”

“Can we go now, Soph? We still need to pick up lights and ornaments and some things for you to wear, not to mention groceries.”

Sophie turned and made a face at him. “Bah-humbug,” she said. “Why are you so crabby all of a sudden?” She paused to waggle her eyebrows. “You looked real happy when Olivia was around.”

“That guy at the tree lot…”

“What?” Sophie said, skipping back down the snowy steps to the walk. “You think he’s a serial killer or something, just because he claims to be Santa?”

“Where do you get these things?” Tanner asked.

“He’s delusional, that’s all,” said the doctor’s daughter. “And probably harmless.”

“Probably,” Tanner agreed. He knew then what was troubling him—Olivia clearly didn’t want to surrender custody of the reindeer until she knew “Kris Kringle” was all right. And he cared, more than he liked, what Olivia wanted and didn’t want.

“Danger lurks everywhere!” Sophie teased, making mitten claws with her hands in an attempt to look scary. “You just can’t be too careful!”

“Cut it out, goofball,” Tanner said, chuckling in spite of himself as they both got back in the truck. “You don’t know anything about the world. If you did, you wouldn’t have run away from the field trip and tried to board an iron horse headed west.”

“Are we going to talk about that again?” Sophie fastened her seat belt with exaggerated care. “I’m a proactive person, Dad. Don’t you want me to be proactive?”

Tanner didn’t answer. Whatever he said would be wrong.

“That Santa shouldn’t be saying ‘ho, ho, ho,’” Sophie informed him as they pulled away from the curb. Next stop, the ranch, to drop off the tree, then on to a mall he’d checked on MapQuest, outside Flagstaff. “It isn’t politically correct.”

“Ask me what I think of political correctness,” Tanner retorted.

“Why would I do that when I already know?” Sophie responded cheerfully. “At Briarwood we call Valentine’s Day ‘Special Relationship Day’ now.”

“What’s next? ‘Significant Parental Figure Day’ for Father’s and Mother’s Day?”

Sophie laughed, her cheeks bright with cold and excitement. “It does sound kind of silly, doesn’t it?”

“Big-time,” Tanner said. He couldn’t even tell a woman on his executive staff that her hair looked nice without risking a sexual-harassment suit. Where would it all end?

At home, Tanner unloaded the tree and set it on the front porch so the branches could settle, while Sophie went out to the barn to eyeball the horses. In looks she resembled Kat, but she sure took after Tessa when it came to hay-burners.

“That dog is still here,” she reported when she came back. “The one that was waiting on the porch when we got back from riding this morning. Shouldn’t we take her home or something?”

“Ginger lives next door, with Olivia,” Tanner reminded Sophie. “If she wants to go home, she can get there on her own.”

“I hope she isn’t depressed, like Butterpie was,” Sophie fretted.

Tanner grinned, gave her ponytail a light tug. “She and Butterpie are buddies,” he said, recalling finding the dog in the pony’s stall. “Olivia will take her home after supper tonight, most likely.”

“You like Olivia, don’t you?” Sophie asked, with a touch of slyness, as she climbed back into the truck.

Tanner got behind the wheel, started the engine. Olivia was right. The rig was too clean—it had stood out like the proverbial sore thumb back in town, at the tree lot. Maybe he could find a creek to run it through or something. With the ground frozen hard, it wouldn’t be easy to come up with mud.

So where were the other guys getting all that macho dirt streaking their rigs and clogging their grilles?

“Of course I like her,” he said. “She’s a friend.”

“She’s pretty.”

“I’ll grant you that one, shorty. She’s very pretty.”

“You could marry her.”

Tanner, in the process of turning the truck around, stopped it instead. “Don’t go there, Soph. Olivia’s a hometown girl, with a family and a veterinary practice. I’ll be moving on to a new place after Stone Creek. And neither one of us is looking for a serious relationship.”

Sophie sighed, and her shoulders sloped as though the weight of the world had just been laid on them. “I almost wish that Kris Kringle guy really was Santa Claus,” she said. “Then I could tell him I want a mom for Christmas.”

Tanner knew he was being played, but his eyes burned and his throat tightened just the same. No accounting for visceral reactions. “That was pretty underhanded, Soph,” he said. “It was blatant manipulation. And guilt isn’t going to work with me. You should know that by now.”

Sophie folded her arms and sulked. Only twelve and already she’d mastered the you’re-too-stupid-to-live look teenage girls were so good at. Tessa had been world champ, but clearly the torch had been passed. “Whatever.”

“I know you’d like to have a mother, Sophie.”

“You know, but you don’t care.”

“I do care.”

A tear slid down Sophie’s left cheek, and Tanner knew it wasn’t orchestrated to win his sympathy, because she turned her head quickly, so he wouldn’t see.

“I do care, Sophie,” he repeated.

She merely nodded. Gave a sniffle that tore at his insides.

Maybe someday she’d understand that he was only trying to protect her. Maybe she wouldn’t.

He wondered if he could deal with the latter possibility. Suppose, even as a grown woman, Sophie still resented him?

Well, he thought grimly, this wasn’t about him. It was about keeping Sophie safe, whether she liked it or not.

He took the turnoff for Flagstaff, bypassing Stone Creek completely. Sophie was female. Shopping would make her feel better, and if that didn’t work, there was still the Christmas tree to set up, and Olivia coming over for supper.

They’d get through this, he and Sophie.

“The time’s going to go by really fast,” Sophie lamented, breaking the difficult silence and still not looking at him. “Before I know it, I’ll be right back at Briarwood. Square one.”

Tanner waited a beat to answer, so he wouldn’t snap at the kid. God knew, being twelve years old in this day and age couldn’t be easy, what with all the drugs and the underground Web sites and the movement to rename Valentine’s Day, for God’s sake. No, it would be difficult with two ordinary parents and a mortgaged house, and Sophie didn’t have two parents.

She didn’t even have one, really.

“Everything’s going to be all right, Soph,” he said. Was he trying to convince her, or himself? Both, probably.

“I could live with Aunt Tessa on Starcross—couldn’t I? And go to Stone Creek Middle School, like a regular kid?”

Tanner nearly had to pull over to the side of the road. Instead, he clamped his jaw down tight and concentrated harder on navigating the slick high-country road curving ever upward into the timbered area around Flagstaff.

He should have seen this coming, after the way Sophie had made him stop at the school in town so she could look in the windows, but the kid had a gift for blindsiding him.

“Aunt Tessa,” he said evenly, “is only visiting for the holidays.”

“She’s bringing her horses.”

“Okay, a few months at most. Can we not talk about this for a little while, Soph? Because it’s a fast track to nowhere.”

That was when she brought out the big guns. “They have drugs at Briarwood, you know,” she said with a combination of defiance and bravado. “It’s not an ivory tower, no matter how good the security is.”

That time he did pull over, with a screech of tires and a lot of flying slush. “What?” he rasped.

“Meth,” Sophie said. “Ice. That’s—”

“I know what ice is,” Tanner snapped. “So help me God, Sophie, if you’re messing with me—”

“It’s true, Dad.”

He believed her. That was the worst thing of all. His stomach rolled, and for a moment he thought he might have to shove open the door and get sick, right then and there.

“It’s a pervasive problem,” Sophie said, sounding like a venerable news commentator instead of a preadolescent girl.

“Has anyone offered you drugs? Have you taken any?” He kept his hand on the door handle, just in case.

“I’m not stupid, Dad,” she answered. “Drugs are for losers, people who can’t cope unless their brains have been chemically altered.”

“Would you talk like a twelve-year-old for a few minutes? Just to humor me?”

“I don’t take drugs, Dad,” Sophie reiterated quietly.

“How are they getting in? The drugs, I mean?”

“Kids bring them from home. I think they mostly steal them from their parents.”

Tanner laid his forehead on the steering wheel and drew slow, deep breaths. From their parents. In his mind, he started drawing up blueprints for an ivory tower. Not that he’d use ivory, even if he could get it from a legitimate supplier.

Sophie touched his arm. “Dad, I’m trying to make a point here. Are you okay? Because you look kind of…gray. You’re not having a heart attack or anything, are you?”

“Not the kind you’re thinking of,” Tanner said, straightening. Pulling himself together. He was a father. He needed to act like one.

When he was sure he wasn’t a menace to Sophie, himself and the general driving public, he pulled back out onto the highway. Sophie fiddled with the radio until she found a station she liked, and a rap beat filled the truck cab.

Tanner adjusted the dial. Brad O’Ballivan’s voice poured out of the speakers. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

It figured. Tessa was practically being stalked by the song, according to her, and now he probably would be, too.

“Is that the guy who hired you to build the animal shelter?” Sophie asked.

Beyond relieved at the change of subject, Tanner said, “Yes.”

“He has a nice voice.”

“That’s the word on the street.”

“Even if the song is kind of hokey.”

Tanner laughed. “I’ll tell him you said so.”

After that they talked about ordinary things—not drugs at Briarwood, not Sophie’s longing for a mother, destined to be unrequited, not weird Kris Kringle, the reindeer man. No, they discussed a new saddle for Butterpie, and what to get Tessa for Christmas, and the pros and cons of nuking a package of frozen lasagna for supper.

Reaching the mall, Tanner parked the truck and the two of them waded in. They bought ornaments and lights and tinsel. They cleaned out the “young juniors” department in an upscale store, and chose a yellow cashmere sweater for Tessa’s gift. They had a late lunch in the food court, watching as the early shoppers rushed by with their treasures.

On the way out of town they stopped at a Western supply store for the new saddle, and after that, a supermarket, where they filled two carts. When they left the store, Tanner almost tripped over a kid in ragged jeans, a T-shirt and a thin jacket, trying to give away squirmy puppies from a big box. The words “Good Xmas Presents” had been scrawled on the side in black marker.

Tanner lengthened his stride, making the shopping cart wheels rattle.

Sophie stopped her cart.

“Oh, they’re so cute,” she said.

“Only two left,” the kid pointed out unnecessarily. There were holes in the toes of his sneakers. Had he dressed for the part?

“Sophie,” Tanner said in warning.

But she’d picked up one of the puppies—a little golden-brown one of indeterminate breed, with floppy ears and big, hopeful eyes. Then the other, a black-and-white version of the dog Tanner remembered from his first-grade reader.

“Dad,” she whispered, drawing up close to his side, the full cart she’d been pushing left behind by the boy and the box, to show him the puppies. “Look at that kid. He probably needs the money, and who knows what might happen to these poor little things if they don’t get sold?”

Tanner couldn’t bring himself to say the obvious—that Sophie would be leaving for a new school in a few weeks, since Briarwood was definitely out of the question now that he knew about the drugs. He’d just have to buy the dogs and hope that Olivia would be able to find them good homes when the time came.

At the moment, turning Sophie down wasn’t an option, even if it was the right thing to do. He’d had to say no to one too many things already.

So Tanner gave the boy a ridiculous amount of money for the puppies, and Sophie scared them half to death with a squeal of delight, and they loaded up the grub and the dogs and headed back to Starcross Ranch.