A Stone Creek Christmas. Linda Lael Miller

rising above Stone Creek Ranch. With help from Brad and Meg, Olivia had brought him back to town for surgery and follow-up care. He’d bonded with Brad, though, and been his dog ever since.

      With Ginger and Willie following, Olivia went into the house.

      Mac’s playpen stood empty in the living room.

      Olivia stepped into the nearest bathroom to wash her hands, and when she came out, Meg was standing in the hallway, holding six-month-old Mac. He stretched his arms out to Olivia and strained toward her, and her heart melted.

      She took the baby eagerly and nuzzled his neck to make him laugh. His blondish hair stood up all over his head, and his dark blue eyes were round with mischievous excitement. Giggling, he tried to bite Olivia’s nose.

      “He’s grown!” Olivia told Meg.

      “It’s only been a week since you saw him last,” Meg chided, but she beamed with pride.

      Olivia felt a pang, looking at her. Wondered what it would be like to be that happy.

      Meg, blond like her husband and son, tilted her head to one side and gave Olivia a humorously pensive once-over. “Are you okay?” she asked.

      “I’m fine,” Olivia said, too quickly. Mac was gravitating toward his playpen, where he had a pile of toys, and Meg took him and gently set him inside it. She turned back to Olivia.

      Just then Brad blew in on a chilly November wind. Bent to pat Ginger and Willie.

      “Rudolph is snug in his stall,” Brad said. “Having some oats.”

      “Rudolph?” Meg asked, momentarily distracted.

      Olivia was relieved. She and Meg were very good friends, as well as family, but Meg was half again too perceptive. She’d figured out that something was bothering Olivia, and in another moment she’d have insisted on finding out what was up. Considering that Olivia didn’t know that herself, the conversation would have been pointless.

      “Liv will be here for Thanksgiving,” Brad told Meg, pulling his wife against his side and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

      “Of course she will,” Meg said, surprised that there’d ever been any question. Her gaze lingered on Olivia, and there was concern in it.

      Suddenly Olivia was anxious to go.

      “I have two million things to do,” she said, bending over the playpen to tickle Mac, who was kicking both feet and waving his arms, before heading to the front door and beckoning for Ginger.

      “We’ll see you tomorrow at the ground-breaking ceremony,” Meg said, smiling and giving Brad an affectionate jab with one elbow. “We’re expecting a big crowd, thanks to Mr. Country Music here.”

      Olivia laughed at the face Brad made, but then she recalled that Tanner Quinn would be there, too, and that unsettled feeling was back again. “The ground’s pretty hard, thanks to the weather,” she said, to cover the momentary lapse. “Let’s hope Mr. Country Music still has the muscle to drive a shovel through six inches of snow and a layer of ice.”

      Brad showed off a respectable biceps, Popeye-style, and everybody laughed again.

      “I’ll walk you to the truck,” he said, when Olivia would have ducked out without further ado.

      He opened the driver’s door of the Suburban, and Ginger made the leap, scrabbling across to the passenger seat. Olivia looked at her in surprise, since she usually wasn’t that agile, but Brad reclaimed her attention soon enough.

      “Is everything okay with you, Livie?” he asked. He and the twins were the only people in the world, now that Big John was gone, who called her Livie. It seemed right, coming from her big brother or her sisters, but it also made her ache for her grandfather. He’d loved Thanksgiving even better than Christmas, saying he figured the O’Ballivans had a great deal to be grateful for.

      “Everything’s fine,” Olivia said. “Why does everybody keep asking me if I’m okay? Meg did—now you.”

      “You just seem—I don’t know—kind of sad.”

      Olivia didn’t trust herself to speak, and suddenly her eyes burned with moisture.

      Brad took her gently by the shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. “I miss Big John, too,” he said. Then he waited while she climbed onto the running board and then the driver’s seat. He shut the door and waved when she went to turn around, and when she glanced into the rearview mirror, he was still standing there with Willie, both of them staring after her.