A Stone Creek Christmas. Linda Lael Miller
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stared up at him. The palomino was right; she couldn’t leave, no matter how foolish she might seem to Tanner Quinn. Butterpie was in trouble.
“Who are you?” Tanner insisted gruffly.
“I told you. I’m Olivia O’Ballivan.”
Tanner took off his hat with one hand, shoved the other through his thick, somewhat shaggy hair. The light was better in the aisle, since there were big cracks in the roof to let in the silvery sunshine, and she saw that he needed a shave.
He gave a heavy sigh. “Could we start over, here?” he asked. “If you’re who you say you are, then we’re going to be working together on the shelter project. That’ll be a whole lot easier if we get along.”
“Butterpie misses your daughter,” Olivia said. “Severely. Where is she?”
Tanner sighed again. “Boarding school,” he answered, as though the words had been pried out of him. The denim-colored eyes were still fixed on her face.
“Oh,” Olivia answered, feeling sorry for the pony and Sophie. “She’ll be home for Thanksgiving, though, right? Your daughter, I mean?”
Tanner’s jawline looked rigid, and his eyes didn’t soften. “No,” he said.
“No?” Olivia’s spirits, already on the dip, deflated completely.
He stepped aside. Before, he’d blocked her way. Now he obviously wanted her gone, ASAP.
It was Olivia’s turn with the folded arms and stubborn stance. “Then I have to explain that to the horse,” she said.
Tanner blinked. “What?”
She turned, went back to Butterpie’s stall, opened the door and stepped inside. “Sophie’s away at boarding school,” she told the animal silently. “And she can’t make it home for Thanksgiving. You’ve got to cheer up, though. I’m sure she’ll be here for Christmas.”
“What are you doing?” Tanner asked, sounding testy again.
“Telling Butterpie that Sophie will be home at Christmas and she’s got to cheer up in the meantime.” He’d asked the question; let him deal with the answer.
“Are you crazy?”
“Probably,” Olivia said. Then, speaking aloud this time, she told Butterpie, “I have to go now. I have a lost reindeer in the back of my Suburban, and I need to do some X-rays and then get him settled in over at my brother’s place until I can find his owner. But I’ll be back to visit soon, I promise.”
She could almost hear Tanner grinding his back teeth.
“You should stand up,” Olivia told the pony. “You’ll feel better on your feet.”
The animal gave a snorty sigh and slowly stood.
Tanner let out a sharp breath.
Olivia patted Butterpie’s neck. “Excellent,” she said. “That’s the spirit.”
“You have a reindeer in the back of your Suburban?” Tanner queried, keeping pace with Olivia as she left the barn.
“See for yourself,” she replied, waving one hand toward the rig.
Tanner approached the vehicle, and Ginger barked a cheerful greeting as he passed the passenger-side window. He responded with a distracted wave, and Olivia decided there might be a few soft spots in his steely psyche after all.
Rubbing off dirt with one gloved hand, Tanner peered through the back windows.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “It is a reindeer.”
“Sure enough,” Olivia said. Ginger was all over the inside of the rig, barking her brains out. She liked good-looking men, the silly dog. Actually, she liked any man. “Ginger! Sit!”
Ginger sat, but she looked like the poster dog for a homelesspets campaign.
“Where did you get a reindeer?” Tanner asked, drawing back from the window to take a whole new look at Olivia.
Ridiculously, she wished she’d worn something remotely feminine that day, instead of her usual jeans, flannel work shirt and mud-speckled down-filled vest. Not that she actually owned anything remotely feminine.
“I found him,” she said, opening the driver’s door. “Last night, at the bottom of my driveway.”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Tanner smiled, and the effect was seismic. His teeth were white and straight, and she’d have bet that was natural enamel, not a fancy set of veneers. “Okay,” he said, stretching the word out a way. “Tell me, Dr. O’Ballivan—how does a reindeer happen to turn up in Arizona?”
“When I find out,” Olivia said, climbing behind the wheel, “I’ll let you know.”
Before she could shut the door, he stood in the gap. Pushed his hat to the back of his head and treated her to another wicked grin. “I guess there’s a ground-breaking ceremony scheduled for tomorrow morning at ten,” he said. “I’ll see you there.”
Olivia nodded, feeling unaccountably flustered.
Ginger was practically drooling.
“Nice dog,” Tanner said.
“Be still, my heart,” Ginger said.
“Shut up,” Olivia told the dog.
Tanner drew back his head, but the grin lurked in his eyes.
Olivia blushed. “I wasn’t talking to you,” she told Tanner.
He looked as though he wanted to ask if she’d been taking her medications regularly. Fortunately for him, he didn’t. He merely tugged at the brim of his too-new hat and stepped back.
Olivia pulled the door closed, started up the engine, ground the gearshift into first and made a wide 360 in front of the barn.
“That certainly went well,” she told Ginger. “We’re going to be in each other’s hip pockets while the shelter is being built, and he thinks I’m certifiable!”
Ginger didn’t answer.
Half an hour later, the X-rays were done and the blood had been drawn. Rodney was good to go.
Tanner stood in the middle of the barnyard, staring after that wreck of a Suburban and wondering what the hell had just hit him. It felt like a freight train.
His cell phone rang, breaking the spell.
He pulled it from his jacket pocket and squinted at the caller ID panel. Ms. Wiggins, the executive principal at Briarwood. She’d certainly taken her time returning his call—he’d left her a message at sunrise.
“Tanner Quinn,” he said automatically.
“Hello, Mr. Quinn,” Ms. Wiggins said. A former CIA agent, Janet Wiggins was attractive, if you liked the armed-and-dangerous type. Tanner didn’t, particularly, but the woman had a spotless service record, and a good résumé. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call sooner—meetings, you know.”
“I’m worried about Sophie,” he said. A cold wind blew down off the mountain looming above Stone Creek, biting into his ears, but he didn’t head for the house. He just stood there in the barnyard, letting the chill go right through him.
“I gathered that from your message, Mr. Quinn,” Ms. Wiggins said smoothly. She was used to dealing with fretful parents, especially the guilt-plagued ones. “The fact is, Sophie is not the only student remaining at Briarwood over the holiday season. There are several others. We’re taking all the stay-behinds to New York by train to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade and dine at the Four Seasons. You would know that if you read our weekly newsletters. We send them by e-mail every Friday afternoon.”
I just met a woman who talks