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  She pushed back the covers. Even though she’d loved all the cuddling warmth, suddenly she didn’t need the blankets. Didn’t need the pillow. She just needed to be closer to Ike. “I do feel that way. That respect has to be earned.”

  “So that’s where the whole rose petal idea came from. Because you were pregnant, you were afraid the people in town—neighbors, friends—would assume I was with you out of honor or responsibility or some idiotic nonsense like that.”

  “Yup. That’s exactly how I feel about honor and responsibility.”

  He didn’t seem to hear her teasing attempt at humor, just went on. “So I wanted them to know—I wanted you to know—that I loved you over the top. Loved you in ways that have nothing to do with the baby or honor or responsibility or because you may or may not need someone. I never thought you needed anyone, Ginger. You’re strong as a rock. You are a rock.”

  “Man. Is there an insult in there? Because I feel I should have a chance to brush my hair and put on some makeup if you’re going to insult me.”

  “Quit it, Red. I need you to hear me.”

  The look in his eyes made her heart ache. “I wasn’t trying to make jokes, Ike. I’m listening.”

  “You are a rock. That’s the point. People do respect you. I respect you. You proved that from the first day you came back to town. You lit into anyone like a firecracker if you believed they were a threat to your grandfather. People just assumed that you came back because you had to—but that you’d take five minutes with Cashner, close down the place and lock him up in an institution.”

  “Yikes. That hurts. That anyone thought that of me.”

  “They hadn’t seen you in a lot of years, Ginger, except in passing. They only knew you as a girl. Your mom had been dead a long time. And while some saw your father now and then...”

  She nodded quickly, sadly. “I know...they assumed that I had some of my father’s blood. I’ve had that misconception bite me in the heart before. It’s partly why respect—real respect, earned respect—has always been so important to me.”

  “Well, from the day you came home, you threw off anyone’s preconceptions like that. You were nothing like your father. You came out fighting for your grandfather’s rights. For doing whatever you could to give him the best life he could have. And you sure argued with anyone who tried to stand in your way.”

  “Okay, okay. Enough about me.” If he kept talking, conveying how proud he was of her, how he perceived the things she’d done, she was afraid she’d cry. And dagnabbit, she never cried. “Let’s get into one of the real problems here. What are we going to do about your reputation, now that the whole party saw you kidnap me in the car with all the rose petals?”

  He sighed. “I’m afraid you’ll have to marry me. I’m afraid the kidnapping...well, I didn’t think of all the consequences. My practice will likely be shot. My patients will all think I’ve cracked, that the commonsense M.D. they knew must have become deranged and derailed somehow. And I can’t even defend myself,

  because it’s true.”

  “You think?” she asked tenderly.

  “Ginger, I’m crazy for you. The baby’s no burden. I’d love to be her father. Or his father. I’d love to give you a whole basket of babies, both genders...” He hesitated. “But to be honest, I’d prefer little girls with gorgeous eyes and terrible tempers.”

  “You want ornery children?”

  “I do.”

  “Oh, Ike.” Clearly, she had to save him. No one else would ever realize he was in such bad shape but her. She pushed back the last of the covers and more or less dove. Not as if she were diving into a pool or a lake, of course, but still, launching herself at Ike, on Ike, so that he simply had to fall into the mounds of down covers and mattress.

  He went down. And stayed down. Like a fighter who knew when he was licked—which Ike most certainly was.

  It killed her that he’d been so unsure. That Ike, who had so much natural confidence and common sense, could be lain low by worries about her. Of course, Ike wasn’t so self-aware. He still didn’t realize that he was just as driven as the other doctors in his family, to be there for others in need, to stand up...particularly when normal people would be running for the nearest exit.

  While she had him prone, she dipped down and kissed him...no teasing, no playing, not anymore. This kiss conveyed the real thing—that her being in love with him was the real thing. No pretense, no caution, no holding herself back. This was it, a plain old naked kiss, coming from her heart, eyes closed, pulse thumping like a rickety hiccup, love spilling out a deluge of desire and need before she could even try to get it under control

  Eventually, at some point, she let him up...seeing as they were both gasping for breath. The tension in his muscles was completely gone, except for one specific area.

  The wariness in his eyes had completely disappeared, too.

  He got it—that she was going to save him just as zealously as he’d saved her.

  Still, being Ike, he had to push. “Would you mind my taking a turn at being on top, Red?”

  She wanted to laugh, but her heart seemed to spill a more honest answer. “Any time you want, lover.”

  When he kissed her this time, she closed her eyes and felt awash with wave on wave of fierce tenderness.

  There was so much they had to sort out and fix and work with. But not now. Right now Ginger had no doubt that she and Ike could conquer the world together...as long as they had each other.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt of A Cold Creek Noel by RaeAnne Thayne!

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  Chapter One

  “Come on, Luke. Come on, buddy. Hang in there.”

  Her wipers beat back the sleet and snow as Caidy Bowman drove through the streets of Pine Gulch, Idaho, on a stormy December afternoon. Only a few inches had fallen but the roads were still dangerous, slick as spit. For only a moment, she risked lifting one hand off the steering wheel of her truck and patting the furry shape whimpering on the seat beside her.

  “We’re almost there. We’ll get you fixed up, I swear it. Just hang on, bud. A few more minutes. That’s all.”

  The young border collie looked at her with a trust she didn’t deserve in his black eyes and she frowned, her guilt as bitter and salty as the solution the snowplows had put down on the roads.

  Luke’s injuries were her fault. She should have been watching him. She knew the half-grown pup had a curious streak a mile wide—and a tendency not to listen to her when he had an itch to investigate something.

  She was working on that obedience issue and they had made good strides the past few weeks, but one moment of inattention could be disastrous, as the past hour had amply demonstrated. She didn’t know if it was arrogance on her part, thinking her training of him was enough, or just irresponsibility. Either way, she should have kept him far away from Festus’s pen. The bull was ornery as a rattlesnake on a hot skillet and didn’t take kindly to curious young border collies nosing around his turf.

  Alerted by Luke’s barking and then the bull’s angry snort, she had raced to old Fe
stus’s pen just in time to watch Luke jig the wrong way and the bull stomp down hard on his haunches with a sickening crunch of bone.

  Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and she cursed under her breath as the last light before the vet’s office turned yellow when she was still too far away to gun through it. She was almost tempted to keep going. Even if she were nabbed for running a red light by Pine Gulch’s finest, she could probably talk her way out of a ticket, considering her brother was the police chief and would certainly understand this was an emergency. If she were pulled over, though, it would mean an inevitable delay and she just didn’t have time for that.

  The light finally changed and she took off fast, the back tires fishtailing on the icy road. She would just have to trust the salt bags she carried for traction in the bed of the pickup would do the job. Even the four-wheel drive of the truck was useless against black ice.

  Finally, she reached the small square building that held the Pine Gulch Veterinary Clinic and pulled the pickup to the side doors where she knew it was only a short transfer inside to the treatment area.

  She briefly considered carrying him in by herself, but it had taken the careful efforts of both her and her brother Ridge to slide a blanket under Luke and lift him into the seat of her pickup. They could bring out the stretcher and cart, she decided.

  She rubbed Luke’s white neck. “I’m going to go get some help, okay? You just hold tight.”

  He made a small whimper of pain and she bit down hard on her lip as her insides clenched with fear. She loved the little guy, even if he was nosy as a crow and even smarter, which was probably why his stubbornness was such a frustration.

  He trusted her to take care of him and she refused to let him die.

  She hurried to the front door, barely noticing the wind-driven sleet that gouged at her even under her Stetson.

  Warm air washed over her when she opened the door, familiar with the scent of animals and antiseptic mixed in a stomach-churning sort of way with new paint.

  “Hey, Caidy.” A woman in green scrubs rushed to the door. “You made good time from the River Bow.”

  “Hi, Joni. I may have broken a few traffic laws, but this is an emergency.”

  “After you called, I warned Ben you were on your way and what the situation was. He’s been getting ready for you. I’ll let him know you’ve arrived.”

  Caidy waited, feeling the weight of each second ticking away. The new vet had only been in town a few weeks and already he had made changes to the clinic. Maybe she was just being contrary, but she had liked things better when Doc Harris ran the place. The whole reception area looked different. The cheerful yellow walls had been painted over with a boring white and the weathered, comfortable, old eighties-era couch and chairs were gone, replaced by modern benches covered in a slate vinyl that probably deflected anything a veterinarian’s patients could leak on it. A display of Christmas gifts appropriate for pets, including a massive stocking filled to the top with toys and a giant rawhide bone that looked as if it came from a dinosaur, hung in one corner.

  Most significant, the reception area used to sit out in the open but it was now stuck behind a solid half wall topped with a glass partition.

  It made sense to modernize from an efficiency point of view, but she had found the comfortably worn look of the office before more appealing.

  Not that she cared about any of that right now, with Luke lying out in her truck, cold and hurt and probably afraid.

  She shifted impatiently. Where was the man? Trimming his blasted nails? Only a few moments had passed but every second delay was too much. Just when she was about call out to Joni to see what was taking so long, the door into the treatment area opened and the new vet appeared.

  “Where’s the dog?” he asked abruptly, and she had only a vague impression of a frowning dark-haired man in blue scrubs.

  “Still out in my truck.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “Why? I can’t treat him out there.”

  She wanted to take that giant rawhide bone out of that stocking and bean him with it. “Yes, I’m aware of that,” she said, fighting down her frustration. “I didn’t want to move him. I’m afraid something might be broken.”

  “I thought he was gored.”

  She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she had said in that frantic call to let Joni know she was on her way.

  “He did end up on the business end of a bull at some point. I’m not sure if that was before or after that bull stepped on him.”

  His mouth tightened. “A young dog has no business running wild in the same vicinity as a dangerous bull.”

  His criticism stung far too close to her own guilt for comfort. “We’re a working ranch at the River Bow, Dr. Caldwell. Accidents like this can happen.”

  “They shouldn’t,” he snapped before turning around and heading back through the treatment area. She followed him, heartily wishing for Doc Harris right now. The grizzled old vet had taken care of every dog she had ever owned, from her very first border collie and best friend, Sadie, whom she still had.

  Doc Harris was her friend and mentor. If he had been here, he would have wrapped her in a warm hug that smelled of liniment and cherry Life Savers and promised her everything would be all right.

  Dr. Ben Caldwell was nothing like Dr. Harris. He was abrasive and arrogant and she already heartily disliked him.

  His eyes narrowed with surprise and displeasure when he saw she had followed him from the waiting room to the clinic area.

  “This way is quicker,” she explained. “I’m parked by the side door. I thought it would be easier to transport him on the stretcher from there.”

  He didn’t say anything, only charged through the side door she indicated. She trotted after him, wondering how the Pine Gulch animal kingdom would get along without the kindness and compassion Dr. Harris had been renowned for.

  Without waiting for her, he opened the door of the truck. As she watched, it was as if a different man had suddenly taken over. His harsh, set features seemed to ease and even the stiff set of his shoulders relaxed.

  “Hello there,” he crooned from the open vehicle door to the dog. “You’ve got yourself into a mess, haven’t you?”

  Even through his pain, Luke responded to the gentle-sounding stranger by trying hard to wag his tail. There was no room for both of them on the passenger side, so she went around to the driver’s side and opened that door, intent on helping to lift the dog from there. By the time she made it that short distance, Dr. Caldwell had already slipped a transfer sheet under the dog and was gripping the edges.

  His hands were big, she noticed, with a little light area of skin where a wedding ring once had been.

  She knew a little about him from the gossip around town. It was hard to miss it when he was currently staying at the Cold Creek Inn—owned and operated by her sister-in-law Laura, married to Caidy’s brother Taft.

  Though Laura usually didn’t gossip about her guests, over dinner last week her other brother, Trace—who made it his business as police chief to find out about everyone moving into Pine Gulch—had interrogated her so skillfully, Laura probably didn’t realize what she had revealed.

  From that conversation, Caidy had learned Ben Caldwell had two children, a girl and a boy, ages nine and five, respectively, and he had been a widower for two years.

  Why on earth he had suddenly pulled up stakes to settle in a quiet town like Pine Gulch was a mystery to everyone. In her experience, peop
le who came to this little corner of Idaho in the shadow of the Tetons were either looking for something or running away.

  None of that was her business, she reminded herself. The only thing she cared about was the way he treated her dogs. Judging by how carefully he moved his hands over Luke’s injuries, he appeared competent and even kind, at least to animals—something she generally considered a far more important character indicator than how a man treated other people.

  “Okay, Luke. Just lie still, there’s a good boy.” He spoke in a low, calm voice. “We’re going to move you now. Easy. Easy.”

  He handed the stretcher across the cab to her and then reached for the transfer sheet. “I’m going to lift him slightly and then you can slide the board under him. Slowly. Yes. That’s it.”

  She had plenty of experience transferring injured animals. Years of experience. It bothered her to be treated as if she didn’t know the first thing about this kind of emergency care, but now didn’t seem the time to correct him.

  Together they carried the stretcher into the emergency treatment room and set the dog gingerly down on the exam table.

  She didn’t like the pain in Luke’s eyes. It reminded her a lot of how Lucky, her brother Taft’s little beagle cross, had looked right after the car accident that had nearly killed him.

  Now Lucky was happy as a pig in clover, she reminded herself. He lived with Taft and Laura and their two children at Taft’s house near the mouth of Cold Creek Canyon and thought he ruled the universe. If Lucky could survive his brush with death, she couldn’t see any reason for Luke to do otherwise.

  “That’s a nasty puncture wound. At least an inch or two deep. I’m surprised it’s not deeper.”

  That could be because she had managed to pull Luke to safety before Festus could finish taking his bad mood out on a helpless dog.