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  A Cowboy’s Christmas Eve

  R. C. Ryan

  New York Boston

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Ruth Ryan Langan

  Excerpt from Luke Copyright © 2016 by Ruth Ryan Langan

  Cover photography by George Kerrigan. Cover design by Elizabeth Turner. Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  ISBN: 978-1-4555-6709-6 (ebook)

  E3-20161107-DA-PC

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Yancy’s Snickerdoodles

  Also by R. C. Ryan

  A Preview of LUKE

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  Newsletters

  To my darling Tom for all the special Christmas memories.

  Chapter One

  Glacier Ridge, Montana—Present Day

  Colin Malloy urged his big bay gelding through snowdrifts that were belly high in places along the trail. When the latest snowstorm had begun in earnest in the hills, he’d had half a mind to remain snug and warm in his mountain cabin retreat until it blew itself out. But he couldn’t miss Christmas Eve supper at the ranch.

  Colin peered through the curtain of snow toward the distant lights of the Malloy Ranch. He wasn’t really bothered by the snowy trail or the bite in the wind. Having grown up on these thousand-plus acres here in Montana, he was as comfortable in a blizzard as he was sleeping under the stars on a warm summer night. Though he often enjoyed a quiet night up at the cabin, with a steak over the fire and a cold longneck, the thought of his family’s special Christmas Eve guest had him thinking instead about a bottle of champagne and some roast goose. But only if it came with a certain pretty dark-haired woman who’d been sneaking into his thoughts lately.

  Dr. Anita Cross, the beautiful new doctor who had come to Montana to join her uncle at the town’s medical clinic. The only time they’d ever spoken was when his nephew, Matt, had been seriously injured and required a doctor’s care. Anita had impressed him with not only her skill as a physician, but also with her radiant personality. Just the thought of her filled him with a sort of quiet joy. She had a smile that could light up the darkest night and a sweet nature that made him want to treat her with the greatest of care—that is, when he wasn’t thinking about taking her into his arms and tasting those perfect lips and ravishing her until they were both sated.

  He hadn’t felt like this about a woman since Shelby Ross, whose father owned a ranch in Rock Creek. They’d been barely out of their teens, but it had felt a lot like love. Maybe that was because his older brother had married the great love of his life, Bernadette, when the two were just seventeen and Colin had assumed that was how life was and would always be. Watching Patrick and Bernie had made Colin believe in true love and happily-ever-after. But those beliefs were shattered when the two had been killed in a brutal accident on a snowy road one cold December night. It wasn’t long after that that Colin learned Shelby had run off with one of her father’s wranglers.

  So much for true love and happy endings.

  Now, all these years later, he was beginning to believe in such things all over again.

  He swore softly.

  Not that a doctor from a big city would ever give him a second look, and if she did, he stood no chance of being alone with her. With his big, noisy family, they probably wouldn’t get a single word in edgewise tonight.

  “Come on, Buddy.” He leaned over to run a big, work-roughened hand over his horse’s snow-matted mane. “Time to get home and make sure Ma has a Merry Christmas. If I’m lucky, I can sit in the corner and stare to my heart’s content at the prettiest girl in the whole world, even though she doesn’t know I’m alive.”

  “Hey, Yancy.” Reed Malloy shook snow from his hair as he looked around the kitchen of his family’s ranch house, where the table was set with festive holiday plates, and the countertops were covered with serving dishes of every size and shape.

  Yancy Martin, the short, boyish-looking cook for the Malloy family for over thirty years, looked up to grin at the youngest of the Malloy men. “Hey, Reed.” He returned his attention to putting the finishing touches on an elegant holiday torte, making swirls of dark chocolate in the creamy white frosting.

  “Something smells amazing.” Luke Malloy, Reed’s older brother, trailed behind, his arm around the waist of his bride, Ingrid. “Looks like you’re going all out on the menu for Christmas Eve supper.”

  Yancy’s head came up. “Miss Grace told me she wanted it to be extra special, because of our guests.”

  “Guests?” Matt Malloy, oldest of the three brothers, walked into the kitchen hand in hand with his wife, Vanessa, and tried to dip a finger in the frosting. It was quickly slapped away by Yancy’s wooden spoon. “Are we having more than family here tonight?”

  Yancy gave a conspiratorial grin. “Your grandma invited old Doc Cross and his niece, Dr. Anita.”

  Luke shared a look with his brother. “All this fuss for two extra people?”

  “One of them is extra special, according to Miss Grace.”

  At their puzzled looks, Yancy shook his head, sharing a knowing smile with Vanessa and Ingrid. “Where’ve you three been? Don’t you know your grandmother has had her eye on Anita Cross as a potential wife for your uncle Colin ever since that pretty young doctor came to town?”

  The two women were nodding in agreement.

  “Wife?” Reed started laughing. “Seems to me Gram Gracie’s had every pretty girl in the town of Glacier Ridge paired with Colin since we were teenagers. None of them worked out. What makes her think this will be any different?”

  Yancy shrugged.

  It was the boys’ great-grandfather, Nelson LaRou, called “Great One” by all of them, seated in his favorite chair across the room, who answered. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s the two family weddings this past year. First Matt to his Nessa and then”—he turned to fix Luke with a pointed stare—“Luke and Ingrid.” He paused to sip the martini Yancy had learned to fix to his exact specifications and gave a nod of approval. “Now Grace Anne hopes a
ll that romance rubs off on your uncle Colin. I swear, my daughter’s bound and determined to get that poor man married off before, as she says, it’s too late.”

  Reed reached for a gingerbread cookie cooling on a wire rack, until Yancy stopped him with a hairy eyeball. “Too late for what?”

  “Too late for him to give me more grandchildren.” Grace Malloy breezed into the kitchen, wearing her usual ankle-skimming denim skirt and a sky-blue blouse that matched her eyes, her white hair a cap of breeze-tossed curls.

  She made a full circle in the room, staring around with satisfaction. “It all looks and smells wonderful, Yancy.”

  Reed put a hand on her arm. “Are you really setting up poor Colin on the pretext of a holiday dinner?”

  “Setting up poor Colin?” Grace gave her grandson a withering look. “I’m merely being a good mother and a good neighbor. After all, Anita came to Glacier Ridge from Boston to give her aging uncle a hand at the clinic, and she hasn’t had any time off since. She’s young and beautiful and certainly deserves at least a bit of a social life. It’s the same with Colin. He’s spent so many years helping us with the ranch, not to mention helping your father and me with you three—a handful, I might add—he’s forgotten there even is such a thing as a social life.”

  Reed merely shook his head. “Poor Colin. Being led to the slaughter like a lamb, without even a warning.”

  “Enough of that kind of talk. He’ll thank me one day. And,” Gracie added with a twinkle in her eye, “I’ll expect you to be here to witness his eternal gratitude. Maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll even steer you toward finding that one special woman for yourself.”

  Reed put his hand up to his ears and gave a mock shudder. “Now you’re working overtime to ruin my Christmas, Gram Gracie. I’ve seen enough lovey-dovey stuff around here in the past year to give me a sugar buzz.”

  The others shared a laugh as Reed rushed from the kitchen and up the stairs to shower and dress for Christmas Eve supper.

  Dr. Leonard Cross poked his head into the examining room, where his niece was busy soothing the mother of a crying five-year-old girl.

  Anita Cross put her hand on the mother’s shoulder. “The rapid strep test confirmed that it’s strep throat, Millie. I’ll write a prescription. Agnes will have it at the reception area when you check out. Be sure to pick it up at Woodrow’s Pharmacy before it closes tonight, and start Brittany on the medication right away. She won’t be feeling 100 percent by tomorrow, but she’ll feel a lot better than she does right now.”

  “Oh, thank you, Dr. Anita. She’s been so worried that Santa wouldn’t find her here at the clinic if she had to be admitted.”

  Turning on her megawatt smile that always put her patients at ease, Anita closed her hand over the little girl’s tightly clenched fist. “You’ll be home in plenty of time for Santa to visit, Brittany. You should know that Santa has no problem finding children who have to be in the clinic. He visits children on Christmas Eve no matter where they are.”

  Big blue eyes went even wider. “He does?”

  “He does. Why, when I was working in the hospital in Boston, Santa visited every boy and girl there and left them exactly what they’d asked for.”

  “That’s nice.” The tears were replaced with a big smile. “But I’m glad I can go home.”

  “So am I. I can’t think of a better place to be on Christmas Eve than with the people you love. Merry Christmas,” Anita called as the mother and daughter walked out of the room and her uncle stepped inside.

  Seeing that he’d changed from his white lab coat to a suit jacket, she arched a brow. “Is Dr. Miller here from Rock Creek yet?”

  Her uncle shook his head. “Not yet. I expect he’ll be here any minute. He’s already half an hour late.”

  “Have you phoned him?”

  “Twice. No service. But he gave me his word he’d take care of things here while we’re at the Malloy Ranch. I’m sure he’ll be along any minute now.”

  Anita gave a sigh. “Is that the last of the patients?”

  “According to Agnes. I told her to duck out of here as soon as she finishes with Millie Davis so she doesn’t get stuck for another hour or two.”

  He glanced out the window at an approaching truck bearing the Malloy logo on the side. “There’s our limousine. I promise you, you’re going to love Christmas Eve dinner at the Malloy ranch. Nobody cooks like Yancy Martin. You’re in for a fine feast.”

  Anita knew it wasn’t the feast she was looking forward to as much as the chance to spend some time with a certain cowboy. From the first moment she’d met Colin Malloy, quietly taking charge of the chaos that always seemed to accompany his family during a crisis, he had become, in her mind, the personification of a real Montana cowboy. Tall and ruggedly handsome. A body sculpted with muscle from years of ranch chores. Dark hair always in need of a trim. A quiet man who didn’t say much, but when he spoke in that low, easy drawl, she felt a hitch in her heart. And when he aimed those blue eyes her way and smiled, her whole world seemed to tilt.

  She didn’t need food. Colin Malloy was a feast for her eyes and heart and soul.

  Until coming to Montana, she’d despaired of ever meeting a man who could check off every item on her wish list.

  Of course, she thought, there had been men in the past, and one in particular, who had tempted her to believe they were special. Not one had ever lived up to the promise.

  She thought about the bitter tears she’d shed over Dr. Jason Trask. At the time, she’d thought her heart would never mend. Now she realized she’d been too young and foolish to recognize that while she’d been spinning dreams of love and marriage, he’d been concerned only with himself and his career. It was only later, hearing the whispers and rumors, that she learned she’d been one of many naïve med students who had fallen for his tired line. As she followed her uncle along the hallway, she paused to greet Burke Cowley, the Malloy ranch foreman, who was heading toward them. “Hello, Burke.”

  “Miss Anita.” The courtly old cowboy removed his wide-brimmed hat and gave her a smile.

  “I’ll just be a minute while I get my coat.”

  “I’ll let you lock up.” Her uncle picked up several handled bags, which contained the cookies she’d lovingly baked, along with gifts she’d insisted on wrapping for the entire Malloy family.

  With his hands filled, he indicated several more bags, and Burke picked them up.

  Over his shoulder, her uncle called, “We’ll load these and wait for you in the truck. I’m sure Dr. Miller will be here any minute now.”

  Anita stepped into her office and was hanging up her lab coat when she heard voices calling from the reception area. She hurried out to find a rancher with his arm around a teen boy’s shoulders.

  The boy’s arm was wrapped in a bloody towel.

  “Ma’am.” The rancher looked relieved. “I saw old Doc Cross getting into a truck outside. I called to him, but he couldn’t hear me over the wind blowing, and I was afraid we were too late to get any help. My name’s Huck Whitfield. This is my son Ben. He put his hand through a glass windowpane.”

  “Mr. Whitfield. Ben. I’m Dr. Anita Cross.”

  “I heard old Doc talked a niece into coming out from the big city to give him a hand with this place.”

  “That’s me. And I assure you, I didn’t need to be talked into coming. I’m loving this experience in your pretty town. Please come this way.” She led them to an examining room and carefully removed the blood-soaked towel.

  She looked up at the boy. “That’s a nasty cut, Ben.” She tried to put him at ease. “You must have been really mad at that window to hit it so hard.”

  Instead of the expected laugh, two bright spots of color bloomed on the boy’s cheeks. “Oh no, ma’am. I was just giving my pa a hand trying to clear the snow.”

  His father nodded. “That’s a fact.”

  “I was only teasing.”

  At that, the father and son realized her joke and shared a grin. />
  She indicated the table. “You can lie down here. I’ll need to look at this closely under the lights to remove any glass fragments. From the looks of all that blood, you’ll need a few stitches.” She started toward the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  Once in the hallway, she punched in the number of Dr. Rob Miller, praying he would tell her he’d be here any minute now. In reply, she got a notice of no service.

  She retrieved her lab coat before going in search of her uncle and Burke. When she stepped outside, she was surprised to see that a heavy snow had begun falling, and even though it was early evening, the sky had grown as dark as night.

  Burke lowered the window as she approached the truck.

  “Sorry, Uncle Leonard. I tried Dr. Miller’s number, with no response. I won’t be able to go with you. This is an emergency. Huck Whitfield and his son, Ben, came in while you were loading the truck. Ben put his hand through a window, and the cut looks deep. I’d hoped to pass them along to Rob Miller, but since he’s still not here, I have to stay. From the looks of that boy’s arm, I’ll be another hour or more.”

  Old Dr. Cross gave a sigh. “That’s what I was afraid of. Even on Christmas Eve, we always seem to get slammed with one emergency or another. That’s why I arranged for a doctor here, just in case.”

  Anita gave him a gentle smile. “Please don’t worry, Uncle Leonard. You go ahead and have a lovely dinner with the Malloy family. I’ll stay here and take care of business.”

  The two men exchanged a look before Burke said, “We’ll wait for you.”

  “There could be complications. I don’t want to hold up the entire Malloy family on Christmas Eve.”

  Burke considered before nodding. “All right. But don’t you worry, ma’am. I’ll take Dr. Cross out to the ranch now, and I’ll head right back for you.”

  “That’s awfully generous of you, Burke, but you could end up missing dinner.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, ma’am.”