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| Christmas Is In the Air |
Celebrate Christmas
with the Whitlochs
When a blinding snowstorm shuts down the Crystal Creek
Ranch’s cattle operation, the Whitlochs have one mission – save the cattle. ER
doc Jake Whitloch joins in the rescue, but the form he finds in a snowdrift is
no cow. It’s a woman, a woman who consumes his thoughts despite that two carat
diamond sitting on her ring finger.
Noelle Beaupré thanks the rugged doctor for rescuing her from
freezing to death and the Whitlochs for taking her into their home, but now
it’s time for her to leave the ranch. She longs to stay with the man who’s
determined to protect her, but she doesn’t dare. Her deadly secret is in hot
pursuit. Any delay and she’ll endanger the family who opened their home to her.
Noelle leaving Crystal Creek Ranch? Jake can’t let her go,
but how can he convince her he’ll do anything to keep her safe?
This book includes your favorite Crystal Creek characters
from Book One of the Crystal Creek Series and several new characters, including
Max Whitloch’s children from his previous marriages who come to the ranch for Victoria
and Garrett’s wedding. All Max’s children will have their own books as they
pursue their quests for love.
While Crystal Creek Christmas could be read as a
standalone story, readers will enjoy it more if they have read Guarding Her
Heart, Book One of the Crystal Creek Series.
Chapter One
Dr. Jake Whitloch white knuckled the steering
wheel of the old ranch truck and squinted through the windshield. The truck’s
bumper crunched through hubcap high snow covering the service road. At ten
o’clock in the morning, the heavy snowfall had shrouded Crystal Creek Ranch
making the day as dark as night. He flipped on the headlights.
It was crazy to be out in this blizzard.
Hunting for stranded cattle made the risk a priority.
The Whitloch’s hired hands corralled together
their duallys and SUVs and headed out to the back pastures, doing what they did
best--risking their lives for the good of the ranch and for the owner they
admired—Rose Whitloch, Jake’s step-mother.
Jake couldn’t let the ranch hands do it alone.
He volunteered to check the south pastures.
He was out in the blizzard for a reason he
pushed out of his mind. In this weather, he focused on the truck and on the
road. No time to think about why he left Philadelphia.
The windshield wipers kicked back and forth
like the Rockettes performing their Christmas finale. The wipers flipped the
snowflakes right, then left. Faster, faster, but not fast enough. The snow
piled on the windshield, piled on the hood, kept falling, falling, falling.
Thlpt.
That sound again. Tire tread gripping for snow,
sliding over ice.
Panic shot up Jake’s throat. Lodged like a
spear gun at the base of his brain.
Tires scraped across the gravel-snow road. Jake
downshifted. Pumped the clutch. Tapped the brakes. The mounds of snow covering
the creek crept closer, closer.
The treads lodged into a road rut, jerked to a
stop. The brakes wheezed. The truck groaned.
Jake glanced out the side window. Not face on.
He didn’t want to see how close he was to the creek bank until his brain
understood that he had a few feet of buffer before falling over the edge.
He shifted his eyes sideways so hard he felt
the ache in the back of his head. He ignored it. He studied the ground. The
truck had stopped a few feet from the creek’s edge.
Closer than last time. But a few feet was a few
feet.
His lungs eased like a deflating tire. He’d
been right. That was the thought he allowed into his head. Behind that thought
pulsed the real relief— he was safe.
He eased out the clutch. The truck crept
forward. He squinted through the snow that whipped at the glass like the
Enterprise traveling through space at warp speed.
As far as he could see, thick snow blanketed
the ranch’s rolling hills and ragged bluffs.
The storm had started Monday. Four days ago.
There was no sign of it stopping. The snowbanks along the driveway and the
paths to the barn, the outbuildings, and the bunkhouse grew higher until they
were almost as tall as his stepmother’s two and one half-story ranch house.
The snow was beautiful. More beautiful than the
snow covered Philadelphia concrete and asphalt he trudged through every day to
work in the inner city hospital’s emergency room. He watched the pristine white
sift over the trees. It was as soothing as soaking in a tub of scented oil.
Fluffy. White. Snow.
Beautiful.
With the beauty, came treachery. Namely for the
cattle. They would be foraging through the snowdrifts in search of food.
Food that would be difficult to find during
this storm.
Jake and the hired hands navigated various
parts of the ranch to make sure the cattle stranded by the snowstorm had found
the bales of hay dropped by the helicopters.
He saw plenty of snow but no cattle. He only
prayed that no cow had been trapped in the snowdrifts and was starving to death
or worse freezing to death.
His sister and half-sisters told him he was
insane to go out in this weather.
It would’ve been more insane to sit in the
house and brood over the decision he’d made last weekend. He had to get away,
get away from the mental banter that questioned the wisdom of his decision.
Yes, he was glad that his half-sister,
Victoria, had escaped the clutches of a serial killer, that she and Garrett
Nelson Reynolds were getting married, that Garrett had changed his mind about
pursuing his family’s vendetta to reclaim Crystal Creek Ranch.
He was glad Christmas was in three days.
But with Victoria’s and Garrett’s upcoming
Christmas Eve nuptials, the house was in turmoil.
Add to that the mysterious disappearance of
Maxwell Aloysius Whitloch, Sr., Rose’s ex-husband, Jake’s father and the father
of his siblings and half siblings.
The entire Whitloch clan had converged on the
ranch to help Victoria celebrate her wedding and to await word from their
oldest brother Max Junior regarding their father.
No word came.
That was when Jake had snatched up the battered
cowboy hat he wore whenever he visited the ranch, borrowed the foreman’s keys
to the ranch truck, and ventured into the snowstorm.
Jake guided the truck over the bumpy road. Snowflakes
batted the windshield. The wipers shoved the flakes aside but a new blanket
covered the windshield almost as quickly as the wipers whisked them away.
It was between swipes of the blades that he saw
the dark form in the snowdrift. That swelling he sometimes felt in his throat
when he worked in the emergency room flooded him. The rush always accompanied
unwanted emotions, emotions that bordered on fear, anxiety, that
not-a-good-feeling feeling.
The form didn’t move, didn’t react to the sound
of the engine charging through the snow.
He edged closer. The size of the form should
have grown larger. Instead, it seemed to shrink. It was small, too small to be
a cow. It had to be a calf. But in the middle of winter? He may be a city
slicker, but even he knew calving season was in the spring.
“How’re you doing out there, Doc?” Ralph’s, the
foreman, voice crackled over the walkie-talkie.
Jake pressed the talk button. “I haven’t seen
any cattle, but there’s something up ahead. I’m going to check it.” Jake aimed
the headlights over the mound and set the emergency brakes. “I’ll radio you
once I find out what this is.”
“Leave it, Doc,” Ralph said. “No reason to risk
your life for a cow. It’s snowing concrete blocks. When this storm lets up, me
or one of the hands will check it out.”
“Don’t worry, Ralph. It’s not a cow. It’s too
small to be a cow. I’ll get back to you.” Jake turned off the walkie-talkie.
Arguing with Ralph was wasting precious time if
this mound was an actual living, breathing creature. Human or animal, Jake was
in the business of saving lives.
He pulled up his coat collar and shoved down
his cowboy hat until the band caught his ears. He climbed out of the cab and
hunched his shoulders. Snow beat at his face and slapped his chest. He tucked
his chin and barreled into an army of snowflakes.
In the few minutes since he’d first spied the
mound, the snow had nearly covered the dark shape.
He reached a gloved hand toward the form and
dusted away the snow. A streak of strawberry blond hair glinted beneath the
flakes.
A snare drum heartbeat battered his rib cage.
What was he seeing? A fox? No. Lying in the snow was hair, not fur.
He bowed over the form and with both hands
brushed heaps of snow away from the figure.
Dark lashes appeared as two velvet crescents in
a face as white as the snow.
“Dear God.” He breathed.
The form was a person, a small person, a child.
What was this child doing wandering through a snowstorm?
Adrenaline shot through his veins. The familiar
metallic taste of the emergency room lifesaving mode burst into his mouth.
Someone in trouble. Save the person in trouble.
The muscles around his throat clenched. He’d
worked in an emergency room long enough to know the many reasons children ran
away. From home? From someplace else?
He scooped his arms beneath the tiny body,
braced his back and lifted the child from the snow mound. The lightness stunned
him. The poor thing weighed less than a bag of oats. How could a human weigh so
little?
The child’s wool jacket was slippery with snow,
and the unconscious form slid through his arms. He shifted the limp body and
held it close.
His hand pressed a pillowy soft shape. He
jerked upright. The stirring within heated him like a hot numbness that made
him want to dive into the snow to cool off.
In his arms was no child. In his arms, he held
a woman.
Amazon
Crystal Creek Christmas Book 2 of the Crystal Creek Series
Kobo
Crystal Creek Christmas Book 2 of the Crystal Creek Series
Barnes and Nobel
Crystal Creek Christmas Book 2 of the Crystal Creek Series
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/crystal-creek-christmas-laura-haley-mcneil/1121493147?ean=2940151317207
IBooks
Crystal Creek Christmas Book 2 of the Crystal Creek Series
Laura
Haley-McNeil is an award-winning author of romantic suspense and women’s
fiction in novel length and in short stories. Her work has been featured in
several women’s magazines. She has studied piano and ballet and has been a
board member for two community orchestras. She and her husband reside in
Colorado. When she isn’t writing, she jogs, bicycles and crochets.
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