Christmastime Courtship. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ other,” the successful Realtor added knowingly. “We’ll require more information to bring about the perfect subtle ‘meet’ to get this particular ball rolling.”

      Filled with anticipation, the three old friends got busy.

      * * *

      Every year, the holiday season seemed to begin earlier and earlier, Miranda Steele thought.

      Not that she was complaining. Christmas had always been her very favorite time of year. While others grumbled that the stores were putting up Christmas decorations way too soon, motivated by a desire to increase their already obscene profits, Miranda saw it as a way to stretch the spirit of Christmas a little further, thereby making the true meaning of the season last a little longer.

      But sometimes, like now, the pace became a little too hectic even for her. She had just put in a ten-hour day at the hospital, coming in way before her shift actually began in order to help decorate the oncology ward, where she worked. She felt particularly driven because she knew that for some of the children there it would be their last Christmas.

      As harsh and sad as that thought was to deal with, she chose to focus on the bright side: bringing the best possible Christmas she could to the children and their families.

      At times, she felt like a lone cheerleader, tirelessly attempting to drum up enthusiasm and support from the other nurses, doctors and orderlies on the floor until she had everyone finally pitching in, even if they weren’t all cheerful about it.

      She didn’t care if the rest of the staff was cheerful or not, as long as they helped out. And as was her habit, she worked harder than anyone to make sure that things were ultimately “just right.”

      If she were a normal person, about now she would be on her way home, having earned some serious bubble bath time.

      But soaking in a hot tub was not on this afternoon’s agenda. She didn’t have time for a bubble bath, as much as she longed for one. She had to get Lily’s birthday party ready.

      Lily Hayden was eight today. The little girl was one of the many children currently living with their moms at the Bedford Women’s Home, a shelter where Miranda volunteered four days a week after work.

      The other two or three days she spent at the city’s no-kill animal shelter, where she worked with dogs and cats—and the occasional rabbit—that were rescued from a possible bleak demise on the street. Miranda had an affinity for all things homeless, be they four-footed or two-footed. In her opinion there never seemed to be enough hours in the day for her to help all these deserving creatures.

      She had been working in all three areas for years now and felt she had barely been able to scratch the surface.

      Agitated, Miranda looked at the clock on her dashboard. The minutes were flying by.

      She was running the risk of being late.

      “And if you don’t get there with this cake, Lily is going to think you’ve forgotten all about her, just like her mom did,” Miranda muttered to herself.

      Lily’s mother had left the little girl at the shelter when she’d gone to look for work. That was two days ago. No one had heard from the woman since. Miranda was beginning to worry that Gina Hayden, overwhelmed with her circumstances, had bailed out, using the excuse that the little girl was better off at the shelter, without her.

      Stepping on the gas, Miranda made a sharp right turn at the next corner, reaching out to hold the cake box on the passenger seat in place.

      Focused on getting to the homeless shelter on time, Miranda wasn’t aware of the dancing red and blue lights behind her until she heard the siren, high-pitched, demanding and shrill, slicing through the air. The sound drew her attention to the lights, simultaneously making her stomach drop with a jarring thud.

      Oh damn, why today of all days? Miranda silently demanded as, resigned to her fate, she pulled her car over to the right. Even as she did so, something inside her wanted to push her foot down on the accelerator and just take off.

      But considering that her newfound nemesis was riding a motorcycle and her car was a fifteen-year-old asthmatic vehicle way past its glory days, a clean getaway was simply not in the cards.

      So she pulled over and waited for her inevitable ticket, fervently hoping the whole process was not going to take too long. She was already behind schedule. Miranda didn’t want to disappoint Lily, who had already been disappointed far too often in her short life.

      * * *

      This wasn’t his usual route. For some unknown reason, the desk sergeant had decided that today, he and Kaminski were going to trade routes.

      Sergeant Bailey had made the switch, saying something about “mixing things up and keeping them fresh”—whatever that was supposed to mean, Colin thought, grumbling under his breath.

      As far as he was concerned, one route was as good as another. At least here in Bedford the only thing people shot at him were dirty looks, instead of bullets from the muzzles of illegally gotten handguns. He had to admit that patrolling the streets of Bedford was a far cry from patrolling the barrio in Los Angeles, or driving on the roads in Afghanistan. In those situations, a man had to develop eyes in the back of his head to stay alive.

      Here in Bedford, those same eyes were in danger of shutting, but from boredom, not a fatal shot.

      He supposed, after everything he had been through in the last ten years, a little boredom was welcome—at least for a while.

      But he didn’t exactly like the idea of hiding on the far side of the underpass, waiting to issue a ticket to some unsuspecting Bedford resident.

      Yet those were the rules of the game here, and for now, he wasn’t about to rock the boat.

      First and foremost, he was here because of Aunt Lily. Because he owed her big-time. She had taken him in when no one else would, and to his discredit, he had repaid her by shutting her out and being surly. It wasn’t her fault he had behaved that way; the blame was his.

      In his defense—if he could call it that—he hadn’t wanted to risk forming another attachment, only to have to endure the pain that came if and when he lost her. Lost her the way he’d lost everyone else in his life that ever mattered. His mother. Some of the men in his platoon. And Owens, his last partner in LA.

      Colin’s method of preventing that sort of pain was to cut himself off from everyone. That way, the pain had no chance of ever taking root, no chance of slicing him off at the knees.

      At least that was what he told himself.

      Still, he reasoned, playing his own devil’s advocate, if there wasn’t some part of him that cared, that was still capable of forming some sort of an attachment, however minor, would he have uprooted himself the way he had in order to be here because Aunt Lily had asked him to?

      He didn’t know.

      Or maybe he did, and just didn’t want to admit it to himself.

      Either way, it wasn’t something that was going to be resolved today. Today he needed to focus on the small stuff.

      Right now he had a speeder to stop, he told himself, coming to life and increasing his own speed.

      Because СКАЧАТЬ