Her heart felt as if it would pound right out of her chest and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath in the cold air. She hadn’t had a panic attack since she graduated from college, not even during the worst of her pain and loss during the past two years, and she really didn’t want to start again.
Breathe, she ordered herself.
When they neared the house, the girls jumped down from their horses and Emery knew she couldn’t go inside.
“I’ll just wait for you out here with the horses,” she told them. “You go give your friend his homework.”
The implications of the connection began to sink through. Tanner must be one of the Dalton children. Wade’s, probably, since as far as she could determine, he was the only brother with grade-school-age kids, although Seth had older stepchildren. That made Tallie’s friend Tanner her…
She jerked her mind away. “Go ahead. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, but we might be a few minutes. You might get cold. I told Tanner I would explain our math assignment to him and I don’t know how long it will take.”
Before she could come up with an answer, a tall, dark-haired man with a definite air of authority walked out of a nearby barn. He stopped short when he spied them, then his handsome features lit up.
“Well, hello there, Miss Tallie and Miss Claire,” he called as he approached them. “What brings you all the way up to the Cold Creek on such a wintry day?”
Emery drew in a calming breath and then another one. He looked just like the picture she had of his father. Which brother was it? Her guess was Wade. He ran the family’s cattle operations, from what she could determine, while the youngest brother, Seth, was in charge of the horse training facility. A third brother, Jake, was a family physician in Pine Gulch.
She could have hired a private investigator to find all this information, but she hadn’t needed to go that far. A few clicks on the computer and she had found all she needed to know and then some.
“I’ve got Tanner’s homework, Mr. Dalton.”
“That is sure nice of you girls to ride over for that. It will give him something to do besides snipe at his brother and sister. He’ll be real glad to see a little company. And who’s your friend?”
“Her name is Ms. Kendall and she’s from Virginia,” Claire answered.
Emery didn’t feel she had any choice but to dismount. She prayed her shaking legs would hold her up.
“I’m Emery Kendall. I’m staying at Hope Springs through the holidays.”
He wore a battered leather work glove, but he removed it and reached out his hand. She shook it then quickly dropped her fingers.
“Nice to meet you, Miz Kendall. You picked a beautiful time of year for a visit. This area of eastern Idaho is pretty year round, but there’s something special about the place during the holidays, as long as you can stand the cold.”
She had only seen the one picture, but she knew his father shared that same smile, that same thick, wavy, dark hair.
“Let’s tie your horses so you can come in out of the cold for a minute and I’ll let Tanner know you all are here,” he said. “And don’t worry, he’s not contagious anymore. Just grumpy as can be.”
The girls giggled at that and followed him back up the porch steps and into the house.
The house was huge and warm and welcoming. Here were the Christmas decorations the girls’ home lacked. A massive Christmas tree decorated with plaid ribbons and hundreds of ornaments brushed the top of the soaring vaulted ceiling and pine garlands with matching ribbons draped the river rock fireplace and hung from the log staircase.
Whoever decorated the place had used a pleasing mix of color and texture to create a sense of brightness and warmth.
She was studying a particularly lovely embroidered sampler on the wall when a woman with blond hair and fine-boned features entered the room.
“Tallie and Claire Palmer. Two of my favorite people!”
“We brought Tanner’s homework assignment. Mrs. Peterson said he can turn it in when he goes back to class.”
“He’ll be so excited to see you,” the woman said with a warm smile. “Come on back to the kitchen. I just took a tray of cookies out of the oven. You’d better come grab one before the hungry little mouths around here gobble them all up.”
“And the hungry big mouths.”
The man owning the hungry big mouth in question swooped the woman into his arms and planted it on hers and kissed her soundly, apparently unembarrassed by the presence of a stranger.
“You’ll have to fight Cody for them, I’m afraid,” she answered after he released her. “He’s already snitched three off the cookie sheet before I could even transfer them to the cooling rack. I’m sure he had to have burned his tongue, but he’ll never admit it.”
Wade Dalton chuckled, then apparently remembered his manners. “Sorry. Carrie, this is Emery Kendall. She’s staying at Hope Springs and was nice enough to ride with the girls over here to bring Tanner’s homework. Emery, this is my wife, Caroline. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go fight off my kids for the cookies. It was nice to meet you.”
“Thank you,” she murmured. Only after he left the room did her heart rate seem to settle down.
“Tanner and Nat are in the family room playing video games,” Caroline said to the girls. “I’m sure Tanner would love some company besides family for a few minutes if you’ve got time to visit.”
The girls looked to Emery as if for permission and she wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Right now she didn’t feel in charge of anything, not even her own breathing. “A few moments, I suppose. Then we’d better ride back before your uncle begins to worry.”
“I told Tanner I would explain the math assignment,” Tallie said. “We’re subtracting fractions and stuff and it’s really hard.”
“That is so kind of you to help him,” Caroline said with a warm smile. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
Though it was only a first impression and she could be way off-base, for all she knew, Emery thought the other woman seemed completely sincere in her gratitude, the sort of person who could lift even the most defeated spirit just with her smile.
She would have been very much inclined to like her, even if she hadn’t already read and admired Caroline Montgomery Dalton’s self-help books on finding your life’s direction before she knew of the connection to the Daltons of Cold Creek Canyon.
“Emery, where did you say you were from?” Caroline asked when the girls hurried from the room.
“Virginia. Warrenton, an hour outside Washington, D.C.”
“Lovely country there. Are you in Pine Gulch visiting family?” Caroline asked.
Under the circumstances, Emery didn’t quite know how to respond to that particular question.
“I guess you could say I needed a change this Christmas. It’s been a…difficult year. My mother died of cancer in September.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss. I can only imagine how hard the holidays must be for you.”
Though she didn’t physically touch her, the concern in her voice was somehow just as comforting as an embrace.
“The grief is still very painful, especially as she was my…only family. I wasn’t quite ready to