Their Christmas Angel. Tracy Madison

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СКАЧАТЬ a muffled chorus of “Okay, Daddy,” reached his ears. He hoped either they’d both be cast as angels or neither would, otherwise keeping the peace for the next six or so weeks would become highly difficult.

      On the other hand, he supposed if such a scenario were to happen, it would provide a valuable life lesson that the girls would eventually have to learn. He just hated any possibility that brought so much as a lick of pain or disappointment to his daughters. In his estimation, they’d already faced their fair share of heartbreak in their young lives. If the choice was his, Parker would move heaven and earth to keep Erin and Megan from experiencing another drop of sadness. He couldn’t, naturally, but the wish remained.

      “Oh! Look, Erin,” Megan said as they approached the school, “is that a—”

      “Watch out, Daddy!” Erin hollered. “Don’t hit the angel!”

      Don’t hit the...what? But her words, along with her volume and the frightened quality of her tone, shocked Parker into a state of alert awareness, and his heart leaped to his throat as he saw that, yes, an angel—or rather, a woman dressed as an angel—was barreling at top speed from the sidewalk to the street, in chase of some type of large, fast-moving animal. A dog? Maybe, but the beast seemed to have horns, so he couldn’t say for certain.

      Acting on instinct and adrenaline, Parker muffled a curse and swerved slightly to the left, in the opposite direction of the halo-adorned female, while simultaneously braking the car. He would not be father-of-the-year if he ran over a friggin’ angel, especially with his daughters—both of whom were now yelling, “Daddy! Stop! Please stop!”—as witness.

      God must have tuned in at the exact right second, because several blessed events happened in quick succession. One, he managed to stop the car without too much hassle and he did not hit the woman or the runaway creature. Two, the left-hand side of the road—where half of his car now resided—stayed miraculously free of oncoming vehicles.

      Parker inhaled a long, stabilizing breath and put the car into Park. The angel-woman now stood almost directly in front of him, and the car’s headlights illuminated her startled expression and rounded eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself and her lips moved in an expletive that Parker identified without being able to hear her voice. Lord. That was close.

      Mirroring his thoughts, Megan said in a hushed and somber voice, “I can’t believe you almost killed a beautiful angel, Daddy. That would’ve been so bad. Very, very, very bad. The police would probably have put you in jail! And thrown away the key! And...and—”

      “Look at her again, Megan,” Erin said. “She’s not a real angel. She’s close enough now that I can see it’s really Miss Bradshaw.”

      “Oh! It is Miss Bradshaw,” Megan said. “Why does she look like an angel?”

      “I bet she’s dressed that way for the tryouts,” Erin said. “So Daddy almost killed our music teacher, not an angel. That would’ve been bad, too, because she’s really great.”

      “Yeah! Really bad!” Megan chimed in. “We love Miss Bradshaw!”

      Hmm. This woman was the new music teacher? Why didn’t he remember meeting her at the school’s open house last month? He always made a point of talking to the girls’ teachers, to explain about Bridget in the hopes of avoiding confusion, but Erin hadn’t felt well—the beginnings of a cold—and Megan’s excitement level had skyrocketed through the roof that night. Those two hours had passed swiftly, and no...Parker wasn’t sure if he’d met Miss Bradshaw.

      “I did not almost kill anyone, angel or teacher,” Parker said, unbuckling his seat belt. Even if he had hit her—and yeah, thank God he hadn’t—he’d been driving slow enough that it was unlikely a collision would’ve caused life-threatening injuries. Probably, anyway.

      He could’ve hurt her, though, and it did not matter in the slightest that the woman—Miss Bradshaw—should have known better than to run pell-mell into a street, especially at twilight. The possibility of what could’ve occurred made him sick to his stomach.

      “But you might have,” Erin said, “if you’d hit her with the car.”

      “But I didn’t,” Parker replied.

      “Yeah, Erin. He didn’t!” Megan added.

      “Well, I know that, Megan. I do have eyes, you know!”

      “Wait here, girls,” Parker said, breaking into their almost argument. “Let me make sure your angel-teacher is okay, and then—”

      His jaw slammed shut as Miss Bradshaw, in attempting to walk toward his side of the car, slipped and lost her balance. She landed on the ground, bounced to her feet instantly and scowled while wiping the snow from her behind. Ouch, that had to hurt. And again, she mouthed an expletive that he easily identified without the benefit of sound.

      “Wait here,” he repeated, flipping on the emergency lights. Once he knew that she wasn’t hurt in any way, he had to get his car out of the wrong lane of traffic. “I’ll only be a second.”

      By the time he exited the car, she’d moved closer and was standing only a few feet from where he stood. “I’m so, so, so sorry,” she said in rushed syllables as they came face-to-face. “Roscoe—that would be my dog—got loose, and I...well, I was only thinking of catching him before he got too far away or hurt. I wasn’t thinking about the road at all.”

      And oh, if ever a living and breathing human could actually be an angel, it was this woman. She was as close to fitting the description of ethereal as Parker had ever seen, with her long, pale blond hair, thickly lashed eyes—green, he thought, but he’d require better light to be 100 percent positive—full mouth and the gentle, almost-delicate arc of her cheeks.

      A white, ankle-length and cinched-at-the-waist dress—complete with wings attached to the back—didn’t hide her curvy figure, and while he had no idea if she wore high heels or flats, he guessed she couldn’t be taller than five feet plus an inch or three. There wasn’t any way he wouldn’t remember this woman, so no, Parker had not met her during the open house.

      “Are you okay?” Parker asked, vastly more concerned in establishing her welfare before worrying about her dog’s, who seemed to be long gone. “Not feeling faint or anything, are you?”

      “A little shaken, but that’s to be expected. Again, I’m so sorry for almost running smack into your car.” She shivered from the cold, her fall or the near collision with his car. Or, Parker supposed, all three. Angling her body, she scanned the stretch of sidewalk and houses across the street from the school. “But you should probably move your car and I need to find my dog.”

      “I... Right. Of course, but I’d like to help. Let me get my kids situated in the auditorium and I’ll come back out.” He noticed with some humor that the band around her forehead had slipped, causing her halo to droop and giving her the appearance of a disheveled angel. It was, Parker decided, fairly adorable. She shivered again and her teeth chattered, so he took off his jacket. “Here, wear this,” he said, handing her the coat, “before you freeze to death.”

      For whatever reason, he expected her to argue, but she didn’t. She surprised him with a grateful smile and small nod. “Thank you. I’m Nicole, by the way, and yes...if you really don’t mind, I’d appreciate your help in locating Roscoe.”

      “Wouldn’t have offered if I minded, and I’m Parker.” He was about to СКАЧАТЬ