Free Holiday in Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller

have a dog. The problem was, he moved around too much--job to job, country to country. If he couldn't raise his own daughter, how could he hope to take good care of a mutt?
    Ginger made a low sound in her throat and looked up at him with those melty eyes of hers. He made a quick trip into the house for a hunk of cube steak and a bowl of water, and set them both down where she could reach them.
    She drank thirstily of the water, nibbled at the steak.
    Tanner patted her head. He'd seen her jump into Olivia's Suburban the day before, so she still had some zip in her, despite the gray hairs around her muzzle, but she hadn't gotten over that stall door by herself. Olivia must have left her here, to look after the pony.
    When he spotted an old grain pan in the corner, overturned, he knew that was what had happened. She must have found the pan in the junk around the barn, filledit with water and left it so the dog could drink. Then one of the animals, most likely Butterpie, had stepped on the thing and spilled the contents.
    He was pondering that sequence of events when his cell phone rang.
    Sophie.
    "This parade bites," she said without any preamble. "It's cold, and Mary Susan Parker keeps sneezing on me and we're not allowed to get into the minibar in our hotel suite! Ms. Wiggins took the keys away."
    Tanner chuckled. "Hello and happy Thanksgiving to you, too, sweetheart," he said, so glad to hear her voice that his eyes started stinging again.
    "It's not like we want to drink booze or anything," Sophie complained. "But we can't even help ourselves to a soda or a candy bar!"
    "Horrible," Tanner commiserated.
    An annoyed silence crackled from Sophie's end.
    "Butterpie has a new friend," Tanner said, to get the conversation going again. In a way, talking to Sophie made him miss her more, but at the same time he wanted to keep her on the line as long as possible. "A dog named Ginger."
    He'd caught Sophie's interest that time. "Really? Is it your dog?"
    It was telling, Tanner thought, that Sophie had said "your dog" instead of "our dog." "No. Ginger lives next door. She's just here for a visit."
    "I'm lonely, Dad," Sophie said, sounding much younger than her twelve years. She was almost shouting to be heard over a brass band belting out "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." "Are you lonely, too?"
    "Yes," he replied. "But there are worse things than being lonely, Soph."
    "Right now I can't think of any. Are you going to be all alone all day?"
    Crouching now, Tanner busied himself scratching Ginger's ears. "No. A friend invited me to dinner."
    Sophie sighed with apparent relief. "Good. I was afraid you'd nuke one of those frozen TV dinners or something and eat it while you watched some football game. And that would be pathetic. "
    "Far be it from me to be pathetic," Tanner said, but a lump had formed in his throat and his voice came out sounding hoarse. "Anything but that."
    "What friend?" Sophie persisted. "What friend are you having dinner with, I mean?"
    "Nobody you know."
    "A woman?" Was that hope he heard in his daughter's voice? "Have you met someone, Dad?"
    Damn. It was hope. The kid probably fantasized that he'd remarry one day, and she could come home from boarding school for good, and they'd all live happily ever after, with a dog and two cars parked in the same garage every night, like a normal family.
    That was never going to happen.
    Ginger looked up at him in adoring sympathy when he rubbed his eyes, tired to the bone. His sleepless night was finally catching up with him--or that was what he told himself.
    "No," he said. "I haven't met anybody, Soph." Olivia's face filled his mind. "Well, I've met somebody, but I haven't met them, if you know what I mean."
    Sophie, being Sophie, did know what he meant. Exactly.
    "But you're dating!"
    "No," Tanner said quickly. Bumming a cup of coffee in a woman's kitchen didn't constitute a date, and neither did sitting at the same table with her on Thanksgiving Day. "No. We're just--just