Rocky Mountain Miracle (16 page)

Maia put the star carefully to one side and reached for a second ornament. “We'll have fun making ornaments. And I checked out the kitchen. You're certainly not short on food supplies. We can bake all kinds of things and probably cook a traditional Christmas dinner as well.”

“I like the sound of that,” Jase said. “I'm hungry all the time.”

“He's a bottomless pit,” Cole confirmed. “We bring in more groceries than we do feed for the stock.”

Jase was thin, even for a teenager. Maia could imagine that he was just beginning to trust enough and be confident enough in his relationship with Cole to regain his appetite. She leaned back against the couch as she held up the second ornament. It was an alligator with a red knitted scarf circling the neck. The jaws of the alligator opened and closed when she turned the tip of the tail.

“Why would someone have an alligator hanging on the tree?” Cole asked, taking it from her to examine it closely. “I thought you always had Santa Claus and things like that. This is pretty cool.”

“Mom was from Louisiana,” Jase reminded. “She used to pretend the alligator was going to bite my finger. She said it was to remind her of home.”

“What else is in there?” Cole asked, curious. He had never really looked at any Christmas ornaments before, avoiding the decorated trees in the stores wherever he happened to be when the holiday rolled around. For most of his life he'd told himself it was stupid, hanging things on trees, but the little alligator evoking the memories of Jase's mother seemed different.

Maia handed him the next ornament, a crystal crescent moon with a small baby lying inside the curve of the moon and a little silver star hanging off the tip. It was dated fourteen years earlier. Cole turned it over and over. He looked at Jase. “This is commemorating when you were born. I wish I'd had the chance to meet your mother, Jase.”

“Too bad we can't get to town,” Maia said, struggling to keep tears from flooding her eyes. She might have lost her family, but when she had one, it had been wonderful. She'd been raised to feel secure and loved by her parents and grandmother. “This will be the first Christmas you're spending together as a family. We could have picked up an ornament celebrating that.”

“I would have liked that,” Jase said, taking the small crystal moon from Cole.

“The great thing about not having a tradition is, you get to start your own,” Maia pointed out.

“We don't need to go to a store,” Cole said gruffly. “I can carve an ornament for us. What do you think it should be?”

“Cole's a great wood-carver,” Jase said. “You should see some of the things he's done. Something to do with a horse, Cole. Can you do that?”

“I can come up with something.”

“Carve the date into it,” Maia advised.

“Dinner's ready if you two want to eat something.” Cole said to hide how uncomfortable he was with the way the conversation was going. Have someone take a few shots at him with a gun, and he was on familiar ground, but he was feeling his way with Jase, trying to give his brother a sense of security and home. He couldn't believe he'd opened his mouth and offered to carve a Christmas ornament.

He shoved his hands through his hair in sudden agitation. He didn't even know what a home was. Who was he kidding? He was beginning to sweat just thinking about night coming. They'd arisen late after staying up taking care of the horse, and now the afternoon was waning. He glanced out the window. The snow was coming down endlessly, large flakes that held them prisoner at the ranch. He hated the place. How could bringing in a tree and hanging a few ornaments change that?

Maia set the ornaments back in the box. “After dinner we should build a fire,” she said, indicating the huge stone fireplace that was a showpiece along the center of one wall.

Jase drew in his breath audibly, his shoulders stiffening and his face paling.

Cole stood up. “I don't think there's ever been a fire in
the fireplace.” He reached down and with his casual strength, pulled her up. He drew her body close to his, bending over her to examine the back of her head. “You have quite a bump there.”

“And a headache, but it will go away.” She knew better than to look up at him with his face so close to hers, but the temptation was too much. Her gaze met his. His eyes had once again darkened. She put her hand on his chest to keep a few inches between her and the heat of his body. Just for protection. If she knew any incantations for self-defense, she would have been chanting them. “What's the use of having a fireplace if you never light a fire?”

Cole exchanged a long look with Jase, even as his hand came up to capture Maia's. To press her palm tighter against his heart. “Good question.”

“You think we should try to light a fire?” Jase was breathing too fast, almost gasping for air. He actually looked scared, searching the living room as if someone might have heard them talking.

“Calm down,” Cole said gently. “You're starting to wheeze. He's dead, Jase. Keep telling yourself that. This is our house now, and we can have a damned fire in the fireplace if we want to have one.” He allowed Maia escape him. “You're right. We have a ghost in the house, and I want him gone.”

Jase slowed his breathing, following Cole's direction until the wheezing was gone. “All right, we'll light the fire.”

Maia followed them into the kitchen. Cole swept his arm briefly around Jase's shoulders. It was momentary, but he'd done it obviously without thinking about it and that pleased her. “I'm sorry if I'm stepping on everyone here,” she said. “I'm not trying to push anything on the
two of you. You're both obviously uncomfortable with having a fire. We don't need one. Please don't change everything for me. It's your home, do whatever makes you comfortable.”

“Our father liked to brand things,” Cole said. “Including people.”

Maia winced at the grim tone. She stared in horror first at Cole, then Jase. “No way.” She felt sick, actually sick.

The brothers nodded.

How did anyone survive such a childhood? Who was she to tell them how to get over it? Horrified at the things she'd said to Cole, she gripped the back of a chair, her knuckles white. “Please don't feel like you have to celebrate Christmas for me. Is that what you're doing?”

Jase shook his head adamantly. “No, I want to celebrate it for my mother. I thought a lot about what you said. She loved this house. He wouldn't let her have any of the things she wanted in it, but she would tell me what she'd put in spots if she had her way. She wanted cream-colored drapes in the library. She said they'd look great with the wood.”

“Cream-colored drapes? I guess we're going to change the drapes.” Cole raised his eyebrows at Maia. “You know anything about drapes?”

She laughed just like he knew she would. “Don't panic. We're grown-up. We can figure out how to fit drapes.” Maia didn't feel like laughing, but Cole was trying to bring back levity for Jase's sake, and she was more than willing to help him.

Cole knew he could get used to the way the house felt with her in it. Jase set the table, and Cole pulled a chair around for Maia. “Sit down. You're looking a little pale. I'll
see to the horse tonight. Maybe you should have let me put a couple of stitches in that cut on your head.”

“I don't think so.” She glared at him. “You come near me with a needle, and you'll find out how mean I can be.”

Jase snorted. “You're a baby, Doc.”

“Oh, like you'd let him sew up your head! I'd wind up looking like Frankenstein's mother.”

Jase grinned at Cole. “She'd make a great monster, don't you think?”

“Great, just like the
The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I'm Sally.”

Jase and Cole exchanged a puzzled look. Both shrugged, nearly at exactly the same moment.

Maia groaned. “Don't tell me you're both so deprived you never saw that movie? Good grief. Live a little. Rent it. I'll even spring for it.”

“Yeah, she says that now with the snow coming down, but once the roads are clear, she's going to renege,” Cole said. “Eat your steak.”

“I don't eat meat, but the salad's wonderful,” Maia said politely.

Jase took one look at Cole's face and burst out laughing. “I wish I had a camera.”

“And why don't you eat meat?”

Maia made a face at him. “I told you why.”

“I guess I could understand if animals talk to you all the time,” Cole teased.

The tone was gruff, but Maia was pleased he'd actually managed to say something to kid her. She tried to keep a stern face, but she knew her eyes gave her away every time. When she wanted to laugh, it always showed.

“You wouldn't want to eat your clients,” Jase added.

“Oh you two are a laugh a minute,” Maia said. “You should take your little comedy act out on the road.”

“She's getting grouchy. Must be the headache. Women, by the way”—Cole leaned across the table toward Jase, to impart his wisdom in a conspirator's overloud whisper—“get headaches a lot.”

Jase's grin widened.

Maia lifted an eyebrow. “Really? I wouldn't have thought you'd get that reaction, Steele, but now that I've spent time with you, I can see it.”

Jase nearly fell off his chair laughing, so much so that Cole rolled up a newspaper and smacked him over the head.

“It's not that funny, little bro.”

“If I'm little, what's Maia? I'm taller than she is.”

“Everything is taller than Maia.”

Maia managed an indignant glare. “I'm not short. I happen to be the perfect height. Sheesh, not everyone has to be a moose.”

“Now she's calling you a moose,” Jase said. He was laughing so hard he was beginning to wheeze.

Cole reached out and put a calming hand on his shoulder. “She's going to kick off an asthma attack if you're not careful, and she'll be chasing you around the house with that needle she uses on the horse. Take a breath, Jase. Use your inhaler if you have to.”

Although he was automatically breathing slow, deep breaths to aid his younger brother, Cole was watching Maia as well. She was clearly becoming distracted, trying to stay in the conversation, but bothered by something he couldn't hear or see.

“What is it, Doc?”

The smile faded from her face, and she turned her head toward the kitchen door. “Do you have a patio out there, a shelter?”

“Of course. Everything is connected by walkways to the house,” Cole said. “That way, when it snows, there's no way to get lost.”

Maia stood up, pushing back her chair. “I'll be right back.”

Jase was startled out of his wheezing when she left the room. “What's she up to, Cole?”

“Lord only knows,” Cole said, but he glanced toward the kitchen door. The sound of the wind and tree branches hitting the house could be heard, but nothing else.

“I like having her here,” Jase confided.

“So do I.” Cole realized it was true. He never spent so much time in anyone's company. Jase had been the first real commitment he'd made outside of his job. Maia brightened the house, brought warmth and laughter and a sense of home. His heart lurched at the idea. “Do you think any woman would make this place feel the way she makes it, or just the doc?” He kept his voice very neutral but found his stomach was tied up in knots. The kid mattered to him, even his opinion mattered, and that realization was almost as shocking.

Jase shook his head. “It's definitely the doc. I like her a lot, Cole.”

Cole crumpled his napkin and threw it on the table. “Yeah, I do too.”

Jase frowned. “You don't sound too happy about it.”

“Would you be? Hell, look at us, Jase. We're about as dysfunctional as two men could get. You think the doc is
going to be looking at me. I can't even make up my mind if I want her to.” He shoved his chair back.

“She kissed you,” Jase pointed out. “Do you think she kisses everyone?”

Cole's entire body tensed, every muscle contracting. The knots in his belly hardened into lethal lumps. “She'd better not be kissing everyone,” Cole said. There was enough of an edge to his voice that Jase looked wary.

“Are you angry, Cole?”

“I just don't trust anything I don't understand, Jase. I don't altogether understand the doc or how she makes me feel.” Telling the kid the truth wasn't as easy as he thought it would be when he'd first made the promise to himself. He hadn't counted on meeting Maia Armstrong and feeling so intensely about her.

“Well talk nice to her,” Jase advised. “Otherwise, you'll scare her off.”

“Scare whom off?” Maia asked as she came back into the room carrying her small bag. She was dressed in a thick coat and mittens. “If you're talking about me, Jase, your brother doesn't scare me. He's all growl and no bite.”

“Where the hell do you think you're going?”

Jase groaned and shook his head, covering his face with his hands. “Do you ever listen? Even I know you can't talk to women like that.”

“Thank you, Jase,” Maia said. “You know, Cole, if you took a few lessons from your younger brother, you might develop a certain charm.”

“Just answer me.”

Maia sighed, color washing into her face. “I have to make a call.”

“A call? What the hell?”

“You already said that. Didn't he say that, Jase? Yes, a call. I heard an animal, and I'm going to go see what's wrong.”

“I didn't hear anything,” Jase said, frowning slightly.

Cole ignored his younger brother, his gaze holding Maia to him. “Didn't you pay any attention to me saying I wanted everyone to stick together when we went outside?”

Maia winced a little at his sharp tone. “Yes, of course I did.” Truthfully the moment she heard the call of an animal in distress she hadn't thought of anything else. “I'm just going out onto the patio. You can come if you want, but you'll have to stay quiet.”