Evergreen Springs

Celebrate the magic of Christmas in Haven Point with New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne, where hope, home and happily-ever-after are as close as your holiday stocking…

Christmas is the last thing on Cole Barrett’s mind this year. He’s barely hanging on trying to care for his two grieving children since his ex-wife died in a tragic accident. For the reclusive Cole, this is no time for gift-giving and celebration—and certainly not for a sunny-natured optimist to blow into his screwed-up life.

Physician Devin Shaw has long researched the curative powers of Lake Haven’s mineral waters. Unfortunately, the hot springs are on Barrett property, forcing Devin to strike a bargain with the ranch’s attractively gruff owner: she’ll give Cole’s children a magical Christmas, and Cole will allow her patients access to the springs. But can she work her holiday magic to heal the Barrett family’s battered hearts—and her own?

Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne

“Hope’s Crossing is a charming series that lives up to its name. Reading these stories of small-town life engages the reader’s heart and emotions, inspiring hope and the belief miracles are possible.”

—Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“RaeAnne Thayne is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.… Once you start reading, you aren’t going to be able to stop.”

—Fresh Fiction on Snow Angel Cove

“A sometimes heartbreaking tale of love and relationships in a small Colorado town…. Poignant and sweet, this tale of second chances will appeal to fans of military-flavored sweet romance.”

—Publishers Weekly on Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

“Thayne, once again, delivers a heartfelt story of a caring community and a caring romance between adults who have triumphed over tragedies.”

—Booklist on Woodrose Mountain

“Thayne pens another winner by combining her huge, boisterous cast of familiar, lovable characters with a beautiful setting and a wonderful story. Her main characters are strong and three-dimensional, with enough heat between them to burn the pages.”

—RT Book Reviews on Currant Creek Valley

“Thayne’s beautiful, honest storytelling goes straight to the heart.… moving yet powerful romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on Wild Iris Ridge

Evergreen Springs

RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In memory of my dear father-in-law, Donald Thayne, who loved me like a daughter from the moment we met. Aloha ’Oe.

As always, I offer my endless thanks to my beloved family for their patience and encouragement, to all the hardworking people at HQN Books who had a hand in bringing this book to life and especially to you, my wonderful readers.

Contents

Cover

Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

DEVIN SHAW WAS BORED.

She supposed that particular state of affairs wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in her current role as substitute attending physician at the Lake Haven Hospital emergency department. While a juicy trauma might be professionally stimulating and serve to break up the monotony, she adored all her neighbors in Haven Point and the greater Lake Haven area too much to wish that sort of stress and pain on anyone.

Better to be stuck at the nurses’ station of the small emergency department trying without success—and not for the first time, alas—to learn how to knit.

“No. Your problem here has to do with the amount of tension on the working yarn,” Greta Ward insisted. “If you don’t have the right tension, you’ll end up losing control and making a huge mess you will only have to undo.”

The scarily efficient charge nurse of the emergency department at the Lake Haven Hospital leaned over her and tugged the yarn around her fingers in some kind of complicated way that Devin knew she would never be able to replicate.

“There. That’s better. Try again.”

Devin concentrated, nibbling on her bottom lip as she tried to work the needles that seemed unwieldy and awkward, no matter how she tried.

After her third time tangling the yarn into a total mess, Devin sighed and admitted defeat. Again. Every time they happened to be assigned to work together, Greta took a moment to try teaching her to knit. And every time, she came up short.

“People who find knitting at all relaxing have to be crazy. I think I must have some kind of mental block. It’s just not coming.”

“You’re not trying hard enough,” Greta insisted.

“I am! I swear I am.”

“Even my eight-year-old granddaughter can do it,” she said sternly. “Once you get past the initial learning curve, this is something you’ll love the rest of your life.”

“I think it’s funny.” Callie Bennett, one of the other nurses and also one of Devin’s good friends, smirked as she observed her pitiful attempts over the top of her magazine.

“Oh, yes. Hilarious,” Devin said drily.

“It is! You’re a physician who can set a fractured radius, suture a screaming six-year-old’s finger and deliver a baby, all with your eyes closed.”

“Not quite,” Devin assured her. “I open my eyes at the end of childbirth so I can see to cut the umbilical cord.”

Callie chuckled. “Seriously, you’re one of the best doctors at this hospital. I love working with you and wish you worked here permanently. You’re cool under pressure and always seem to know just how to deal with every situation. But I hate to break it to you, hon, you’re all thumbs when it comes to knitting, no matter how hard you try.”

“I’m going to get the hang of this tonight,” she insisted. “If Greta’s eight-year-old granddaughter can do it, so can I.”

She picked up the needles again and concentrated under the watchful eye of the charge nurse until she’d successfully finished the first row of what she hoped would eventually be a scarf.

“Not bad,” Greta said. “Now just do that about four hundred more times and you might have enough for a decent-sized scarf.”

Devin groaned. Already, she was wishing she had stuck to reading the latest medical journals to pass the time instead of trying to knit yet again.

“I’ve got to go back to my office and finish the schedule for next month,” Greta said. “Keep going and remember—ten rows a day keeps the psychiatrist away.”

Devin laughed but didn’t look up from the stitches.

“How do you always pick the slowest nights to fill in?” Callie asked after Greta left the nurses’ station.

“I have no idea. Just lucky, I guess.”

It wasn’t exactly true. Her nights weren’t always quiet. The past few times she had substituted for the regular emergency department doctors at Lake Haven Hospital had been low-key like this one, but that definitely wasn’t always the case. A month earlier, she worked the night of the first snowfall and had been on her feet all night, between car accidents, snow shovel injuries and a couple of teenagers who had taken a snowmobile through a barbed-wire fence.

Like so much of medicine, emergency medicine was all a roll of the dice.

Devin loved her regular practice as a family physician in partnership with Russell Warrick, who had been her own doctor when she was a kid. She loved having a day-to-day relationship with her patients and the idea that she could treat an entire family from cradle to grave.

Even so, she didn’t mind filling in at the emergency department when the three rotating emergency medicine physicians in the small hospital needed an extra hand. The challenge and variety of it exercised her brain and sharpened her reflexes—except tonight, when the only thing sharp seemed to be these knitting needles that had become her nemesis.

She was on her twelfth row when she heard a commotion out in the reception area.

“We need a doctor here, right now.”

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Devin heard the receptionist ask in a calm voice.

Devin didn’t wait around to hear the answer. She and Callie both sprang into action. Though the emergency department usually followed triage protocol, with prospective patients screened by one of the certified nurse assistants first to determine level of urgency, that seemed superfluous when the newcomers were the only patients here. By default, they automatically moved to the front of the line, since there wasn’t one.

She walked through the doorway to the reception desk and her initial impression was of a big, tough-looking man, a very pregnant woman in one of the hospital wheelchairs and a couple of scared-looking kids.

“What’s the problem?”

“Are you a doctor?” the man demanded. “I know how emergency rooms work. You tell your story to a hundred different people before you finally see somebody who can actually help you. I don’t want to go through that.”

She gave a well-practiced smile. “I’m Dr. Shaw, the attending physician here tonight. What seems to be the problem?”

“Devin? Is that you?”

The pregnant woman looked up and met her gaze and Devin immediately recognized her. “Tricia! Hello.”

Tricia Barrett had been a friend in high school, though she hadn’t seen her in years. Barrett had been her maiden name, anyway. Devin couldn’t remember the last name of the man she married.

“Hi,” Tricia said, her features pale and her arms tight on the armrests of the wheelchair. “I would say it’s great to see you again, but, well, not really, under these circumstances. No offense.”

Devin stepped closer to her and gave her a calming smile. “None taken. Believe me, I get it. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

Tricia shifted in the wheelchair. “Nothing. Someone is overreacting.”

“She slipped on a patch of ice about an hour ago and hurt her ankle.” The man with her overrode her objections. “I’m not sure it’s broken but she needs an X-ray.”

At first she thought he might be Tricia’s husband but on closer inspection, she recognized him, only because she’d seen him around town here and there over the past few years.

Cole Barrett, Tricia’s older brother, was a rather hard man to overlook—six feet two inches of gorgeousness, with vivid blue eyes, sinfully long eyelashes and sun-streaked brown hair usually hidden by a cowboy hat.

He had been wild back in the day, if she remembered correctly, and still hadn’t lost that edgy, bad-boy outlaw vibe.

In a small community like Haven Point, most people knew each other—or at least knew

of

 each other. She hadn’t met the man but she knew he lived in the mountains above town and that he had inherited a sprawling, successful ranch from his grandparents.

If memory served, he had once been some kind of hotshot rodeo cowboy.

With that afternoon shadow and his wavy brown hair a little disordered, he looked as if he had just climbed either off a horse or out of some lucky woman’s bed. Not that it was any of her business. Disreputable cowboys were definitely

not

 her type.

Devin dismissed the man from her mind and focused instead on her patient, where her attention should have been in the first place.

“Have you been able to put weight on your ankle?”

“No, but I haven’t really tried. This is all so silly,” Tricia insisted. “I’m sure it’s not broken.”

She winced suddenly, her face losing another shade or two of color, and pressed a hand to her abdomen.

Devin didn’t miss the gesture and her attention sharpened. “How long have you been having contractions?”

“I’m sure they’re only Braxton Hicks.”

“How far along are you?”

“Thirty-four weeks. With twins, if you couldn’t tell by the basketball here.”

Her brother frowned. “You’re having contractions? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you’re already freaking out over a stupid sprained ankle. I didn’t want to send you into total panic mode.”

“What’s happening?” the girl said. “What are contractions?”

“It’s something a woman’s body does when she’s almost ready to have a baby,” Tricia explained.

“Are you having the babies

tonight

?” she asked, big blue eyes wide. “I thought they weren’t supposed to be here until after Christmas.”

“I hope not,” Tricia answered. “Sometimes I guess you have practice contractions. I’m sure that’s what these are.”

For the first time, she started to look uneasy and Devin knew she needed to take control of the situation.

“I don’t want to send you up to Obstetrics until we take a look at the ankle. We can hook up all the fetal monitoring equipment down here in the emergency department to see what’s going on and put your minds at ease.”

“Thanks. I’m sure everything’s fine. I’m going to be embarrassed for worrying everyone.”

“Never worry about that,” Devin assured her.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to get some information so we can enter it into the computer and make an ID band.” Brittney Calloway, the receptionist, stepped forward, clipboard in hand.

“My insurance information is in my purse,” Tricia said. “Cole, can you find it and give her what she needs?”

He looked as if he didn’t want to leave his sister’s side but the little boy was already looking bored.

Whose were they? The girl looked to be about eight, blonde and ethereal like Tricia but with Cole’s blue eyes, and the boy was a few years younger with darker coloring and big brown eyes.

She hadn’t heard the man had kids—in fact, as far as she knew, he had lived alone at Evergreen Springs the past two years since his grandmother died.

“You can come back to the examination room after you’re done out here, or you can stay out in the waiting room.”

He looked at the children and then back at his sister, obviously torn. “We’ll wait out here, if you think you’ll be okay.”

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’m sorry to be such a pain.”

He gave his sister a soft, affectionate smile that would have made Devin’s knees go weak, if she weren’t made of sterner stuff. “You’re not a pain. You’re just stubborn,” he said gruffly. “You should have called me the minute you fell instead of waiting until I came back to the house and you definitely should have said something about the contractions.”

“We’ll take care of her and try to keep you posted.”

“Thanks.” He nodded and shepherded the two children to the small waiting room, with his sister’s purse in hand.

Devin forced herself to put him out of her mind and focus on her patient.

Normally, the nurses and aides would take a patient into a room and start a chart but since she knew Tricia and the night was slow, Devin didn’t mind coming into her care from the beginning.

“You’re thirty-three weeks?” she asked as she pushed her into the largest exam room in the department.

“Almost thirty-four. Tuesday.”

“With twins. Congratulations. Are they fraternal or identical?”

“Fraternal. A boy and a girl. The girl is measuring bigger, according to my ob-gyn back in California.”

“Did your OB clear you for travel this close to your due date?”

“Yes. Everything has been uncomplicated. A textbook pregnancy, Dr. Adams said.”

“When was your last appointment?”

“I saw my regular doctor the morning before Thanksgiving. She knew I was flying out to spend the holiday with Cole and the kids. I was supposed to be back the next Sunday, but, well, I decided to stay.”

She paused and her chin started to quiver. “Everything is such a mess and I can’t go home and now I’ve sprained my ankle. How am I going to get around on crutches when I’m as big as a barn?”

Something else was going on here, something that had nothing to do with sprained ankles. Why couldn’t she go home? Devin squeezed her hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“No. You’re right.” Tricia drew a breath. When she spoke her voice only wobbled a little. “I have an appointment Monday for a checkup with a local doctor. Randall or Crandall or something like that. I can’t remember. I just know my records have been transferred there.”

“Randall. Jim Randall.”

He was one of her favorite colleagues in the area, compassionate and kind and more than competent. Whenever she had a complicated obstetrics patient in her family medicine practice, she sent her to Jim.

As Devin guided Tricia from the wheelchair to the narrow bed in the room, the pregnant woman paused on the edge, her hand curved around her abdomen and her face contorted with pain. She drew in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. “Ow. That was a big one.”

And not far apart from the first contraction she’d had a few minutes earlier, Devin thought in concern, her priorities shifting as Callie came in. “Here we are. This is Callie. She’s an amazing nurse and right now she’s going to gather some basic information and help you into a gown. I’ll be back when she’s done to take a look at things.”

Tricia grabbed her hand. “You’ll be back?”

“In just a moment, I promise. I’m going to write orders for the X-ray and the fetal heartbeat monitoring and put a call in to Dr. Randall. I’ll also order some basic urine and blood tests, too, then I’ll be right back.”

“Okay. Okay.” Tricia gave a wobbly smile. “Thanks. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

* * *

HE TRULY DETESTED HOSPITALS.

Cole shifted in the uncomfortable chair, his gaze on the little Christmas tree in the corner with its colorful lights and garland made out of rolled bandages.

Given the setting and the time of year, it was hard not to flash back to that miserable Christmas he was eleven, when his mother lay dying. That last week of her life, Stan had taken him and Tricia to the hospital just about every evening. They would sit in the waiting room near a pitiful little Christmas tree like this one and do homework or read or just gaze out the window at the falling snow in the moonlight, scared and sad and a little numb after months of their mother’s chemotherapy and radiation.

He pushed away the memory, especially of all that came after, choosing instead to focus on the two good things that had come from hospitals: his kids, though he had only been there for Jazmyn’s birth.

He could still remember walking through the halls and wanting to stop everybody there and share a drink with them and tell them about his beautiful new baby girl.

Emphasis on the part about sharing a drink. He sighed. By the time Sharla went into labor with Ty, things had been so terrible between them that she hadn’t even told him the kid was on the way.

“I’m bored,” the kid in question announced. “There’s nothing to do.”

Cole pointed to the small flat-screen TV hanging on the wall, showing some kind of talking heads on a muted news program. “Want to watch something? I’m sure we could find the remote somewhere. I can ask at the desk.”

“I bet there’s nothing on.” Jazmyn slumped in her seat.

“Let’s take a look. Maybe we could find a Christmas special or something.”

Neither kid looked particularly enthusiastic but he headed over to the reception desk in search of a remote.

The woman behind the desk was a cute, curvy blonde with a friendly smile. Her name badge read Brittney and she had been watching him from under her fake eyelashes since he had filled out his sister’s paperwork.

“Hi. Can I help you?” she asked.

“Hi, Brittney. I wonder if we can use the TV remote. My kids are getting a little restless.”

“Oh. Sure. No prob.” Her smile widened with a flirtatious look in her eyes. He’d like to think he was imagining it but he’d seen that look too many times from buckle bunnies on the rodeo circuit to mistake it for anything else.

He shifted, feeling self-conscious. A handful of years ago, he would have taken her up on the unspoken invitation in those big blue eyes. He would have done his best to tease out her phone number or would have made arrangements with her to meet up for a drink when her shift was over.

He might even have found a way to slip away with her on her next break to make out in a stairwell somewhere.

Though he had been a long, long time without a woman, he did his best to ignore the look. He hated the man he used to be and anything that reminded him of it.

“Thanks,” he said stiffly when she handed over the remote. He took it from her and headed back to the kids.

“Here we go. Let’s see what we can find.”

He didn’t have high hopes of finding a kids’ show on at 7:00 p.m. on a Friday night but he was pleasantly surprised when the next click of the remote landed them on what looked like a stop-action animated holiday show featuring an elf, a snowman and a reindeer wearing a cowboy hat.

“How’s this?” he asked.

“Okay,” Ty said, agreeable as always.

“Looks like a little kids’ show,” Jazmyn said with a sniff but he noticed that after about two seconds, she was as interested in the action as her younger brother.

Jaz was quite a character, bossy and opinionated and domineering to her little brother and everyone else. How could he blame her for those sometimes annoying traits, which she had likely developed from being forced into little-mother mode for her brother most of the time and even for their mother if Sharla was going through a rough patch?

He leaned back in the chair and wished he had a cowboy hat like the reindeer so he could yank it down over his face, stretch out his boots and take a rest for five freaking minutes.

Between the ranch and the kids and now Tricia, he felt stretched to the breaking point.

Tricia. What was he supposed to do with her? A few weeks ago, he thought she was only coming for Thanksgiving. The kids, still lost and grieving and trying to settle into their new routine with him, showed unusual excitement at the idea of seeing their aunt from California, the one who showered them with presents and cards.

She had assured him her doctor said she was fine to travel. Over their Skype conversation, she had given him a bright smile and told him she wanted to come out while she still could. Her husband was on a business trip, she told him, and she didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving on her own.

How the hell was he supposed to have figured out she was running away?

He sighed. His life had seemed so much less complicated two months ago.

He couldn’t say it had ever been

uncomplicated

, but he had found a groove the past few years. His world consisted of the ranch, his child support payments, regular check-ins with his parole officer and the biweekly phone calls and occasional visits to wherever Sharla in her wanderlust called home that week so he could stay in touch with his kids.

He had tried to keep his head down and throw everything he had into making Evergreen Springs and his horse training operation a success, to create as much order as he could out of the chaos his selfish and stupid mistakes had caused.

Two months ago, everything had changed. First had come a call from his ex-wife. She and her current boyfriend were heading to Reno for a week to get married—her second since their stormy marriage ended just months after Ty’s birth—and Sharla wanted him to meet her in Boise so he could pick up the kids.

Forget that both kids had school or that Cole was supposed to be at a horse show in Denver that weekend.

He had dropped everything, relishing the rare chance to be with his kids without more of Sharla’s drama. He had wished his ex-wife well, shook hands with the new guy—who actually had seemed like a decent sort, for a change—and sent them on their way.

Only a few days later, he received a second phone call, one that would alter his life forever.

He almost hadn’t been able to understand Sharla’s mother, Trixie, when she called. In between all the sobbing and wailing and carrying on, he figured out the tragic and stunning news that the newlyweds had been killed after their car slid out of control during an early snowstorm while crossing the Sierra Nevada.

In a moment, everything changed. For years, Cole had been fighting for primary custody, trying to convince judge after judge that their mother’s flighty, unstable lifestyle and periodic substance abuse provided a terrible environment for the children.

The only trouble was, Cole had plenty of baggage of his own. An ex-con former alcoholic didn’t exactly have the sturdiest leg to stand on when it came to being granted custody of two young children, no matter how much he had tried to rebuild his life and keep his nose out of trouble in recent years.

Sharla’s tragic death changed everything and Cole now had full custody of his children as the surviving parent.

It hadn’t been an easy transition for any of them, complicated by the fact that he’d gone through two housekeepers in as many months.

Now he had his sister to take care of. Whether her ankle was broken or sprained, the result would be more domestic chaos.

He would figure it out. He always did, right? What other choice did he have?

He picked up a

National Geographic

 and tried to find something to read to keep himself awake. He was deep in his third article and the kids on to their second Christmas special before the lovely doctor returned.

She was every bit as young as he had thought at first, pretty and petite with midlength auburn hair, green eyes that were slightly almond shaped and porcelain skin. She even had a little smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Surely she was too young to be in such a responsible position.

He rose, worry for his sister crowding out everything else.

“How is she? Is her ankle broken? How are the babies?”

“You were right to bring her in. I’m sorry things have been taking so long. It must be almost the children’s bedtime.”

“They’re doing okay for now. How is Tricia?”

Dr. Shaw gestured to the chair and sat beside him after he sank back down. That was never a good sign, when the doctor took enough time to sit down, too.

“For the record, she gave me permission to share information with you. I can tell you that she has a severe sprain from the fall. I’ve called our orthopedics specialist on call and he’s taking a look at her now to figure out a treatment plan. With the proper brace, her ankle should heal in a month or so. She’ll have to stay off it for a few weeks, which means a wheelchair.”

His mind raced through the possible implications of that. He needed to find a housekeeper immediately. He had three new green broke horses coming in the next few days for training and he was going to be stretched thin over the next few weeks—lousy timing over the holidays, but he couldn’t turn down the work when he was trying so hard to establish Evergreen Springs as a powerhouse training facility.

How would he do everything on his own? Why couldn’t things ever be easy?

“The guest room and bathroom are both on the main level,” he said. “That will help. Can we pick up the wheelchair here or do I have to go somewhere else to find one?”

The doctor was silent for a few beats too long and he gave her a careful look.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.

She released a breath. “Your sister also appears to be in the beginning stages of labor.”

He stared. “It’s too early! The babies have to be too small.”

Panic and guilt bloomed inside him, ugly and dark, and he rose, restless with all the emotions teeming inside him. She shouldn’t have been outside where she risked falling. He

told

 her she didn’t have to go out to the bus to pick