One Tough Christmas Cookie - Lucy McConnell Page 0,28

insert the needle.

Dunder turned his head away as if he couldn’t look. Her heart went out to him. He’d been sick for days now. Unlike some animals, he wasn’t taking it out on everyone and everything around him. He soldiered on, silently suffering and hoping the humans around him found a way to relive his pain. She wanted to hug him and tell him she was doing her best. Instead, she gave him the shot and then put the needle in the disposal case in her kit.

She handed the other two to Caleb. He wrapped his hand around hers and held on. “Thank you.”

Her body lit with awareness, and she was drawn into his intense stare like a tractor beam. She worked to come up with a response that would keep things light between them, because she had the feeling that if she let it get serious, she’d be swallowed up by him. Nothing came to mind. Absolutely nothing. “You’re welcome.”

He tucked the medicine in his inside coat pocket and then grinned. “Are you hungry? We have a big breakfast inside.”

She hesitated for only a second. A big family breakfast sounded heavenly. But she’d sworn she wasn’t going to let this place into her heart, and so the less time she spent out here, the better. “I’d better not. I have other things to do today. Will you thank your mom for the food she put in the fridge, though? It’s kept me alive.” That sounded bad. “I mean, it’s delicious, and it’s been a life saver for me not to have to cook.”

“I will.” He stepped back and showed her out.

On the way back to the clinic, she pondered Caleb. He was a cowboy through and through—including the confident swagger that drove her insane. But the tender way he cared for the reindeer was something else. Could there be more to him than a cocky grin? And did she dare find out? Because if she did, her life could get real messy real fast.

Chapter 10

Faith

As soon as the vaccinations arrived, Faith made arrangements to go out to Reindeer Wrangler Ranch. Caleb was accommodating but had given her the same warning about not going into the barn by herself. What did he think she was going to do, run off with a reindeer? It was great that he was so protective of the herd, but she wasn’t a threat, and it rubbed her the wrong way that he treated her like one.

Dad’s old pickup had a shell on the back with a heater so she could store the boxes of vaccines back there and they wouldn’t ice over. And it had four-wheel drive, which she suspected was a necessity in this neck of the woods. She packed up and headed out when it was still dark and the steering wheel cold as ice.

A strange sense of anticipation danced across her skin. It had to be because she was embarking on a big project doing something she loved and not because she was excited to see Caleb—and Dunder—again.

The reindeer responded well to the meds and was on his way to recovery. Caleb had texted her a picture of him standing over the trough the day before. She’d texted him back that Dunder could have a half feeding. If the food stayed down and the animal stayed up, then Dunder could have the rest an hour later. He’d sent her a thumbs-up emoji. She’d held her phone close for the hour, dying to hear back from him again. Just when she’d been about to give up and take a shower, it had dinged and she’d had a video of Dunder’s head in a food trough. He was steady on his feet and eating happily.

She could have kissed him. The reindeer, not the wrangler. Definitely the reindeer. Sure. And Dunder would take off on Christmas Eve to deliver presents with Santa. Oh brother! She had been out of the dating scene too long if she was daydreaming about kissing a cowboy.

However, once the thought of kissing Caleb entered her head, she had to force it back out again. The wrangler was off-limits. She needed to get this cowboy crush under control.

Spending all day with the whole Nichollas clan should take care of any lingering expectations that the family was perfect. Nothing made a person’s true colors shine through like handling large animals who didn’t want to be handled. She’d seen all types of bad behavior by frustrated owners—everything from excessive use of force