Silent Night in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad
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Название: Silent Night in Dry Creek

Автор: Janet Tronstad

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Короткие любовные романы

Серия: Mills & Boon Love Inspired

isbn: 9781408963975

isbn:

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      “Do you always loom over your prisoners like this?” Jasmine asked.

      Wade was standing so close she could count the whiskers on his chin. He stepped back in surprise. “You’re not my prisoner. I’m protecting you.”

      She stepped to the refrigerator and opened the door. “I don’t think anyone camps out in freezing temperatures because they’re protecting someone.”

      “I do,” Wade said quietly.

      “Yeah, well, Lonnie isn’t coming here. He doesn’t even know how to get here.” She saw the doubt race across his face. “I know I could have told him how to find me, but I didn’t. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.”

      Jasmine wasn’t looking at Wade, but she knew if she looked up she would see an expression of incredulity on his face. A lawman could never trust an ex-con, not entirely….

      JANET TRONSTAD

      grew up on a small farm in Montana that had a barn, even if it wasn’t big enough for an angel to swing from the rafters. Maybe that’s why Dry Creek has a barn big enough so the angel can really fly. Janet has always loved a story that’s better than life. Today, she lives in Pasadena, California, where she works as a full-time writer.

      Silent Night in Dry Creek

      Janet Tronstad

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      MILLS & BOON

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      For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

      —Luke 2:11

      I have been blessed in my life to have some

      warm, wonderful aunts (my mother’s sisters).

      This book is dedicated to them:

      Wilma A (deceased now but I think of her often),

      Grace L, Alice N, Mary M and Gladys B.

      Contents

      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

      Epilogue

      Questions for Discussion

      Chapter One

      “You want me to keep an eye on her?” Wade Sutton pushed the café curtain aside and looked through the window to the only street in Dry Creek, Montana. Clumps of melting snow lined the rough asphalt road and the one vehicle in sight was an old motorcycle leaning against the corner of the hardware store. A tall, red-haired woman was walking toward that store right now, swinging her arms as if she was on some mission from God.

      Wade grinned slightly as the edge of his hand pressed against the cold window. It was a cloudy December day and seeing the woman in her bulky, gray sweater and faded dress made his heart beat faster. He liked a strong woman and he could tell by the way she walked that she was a fine one.

      Suddenly, a gust of wind blew the woman’s skirt up to her knees. She caught the material before it could go any higher. Now, that was the problem with all the piety in this small town, he thought. What was the point of a woman wearing a dress if she didn’t show more leg than that?

      Wade leaned forward to see if the wind would blow again.

      “Nice looking, isn’t she?” Sheriff Carl Wall said, moving the toothpick in his mouth. The two men were sitting in the café with their empty breakfast plates on the table in front of them. It was ten o’clock in the morning and the waitress was back in the kitchen. No one else was around.

      “She’s a regular movie star.” Wade let the curtain fall into place and turned his attention to the other man. He knew the woman couldn’t be as pious as she looked. Not if the sheriff had asked him to come up from Idaho Falls to watch her. “What’s her thing? Stolen property? Blackmail? Arson?”

      Wade was ready to sink his teeth into a surveillance job. Until six months ago, when he’d injured his leg while taking down some drug dealers, he’d been the busiest independent private investigator in the Rocky Mountain area. Now, no one except his old friend here was willing to defy the doctors and consider hiring him while he was still in physical therapy.

      “Jasmine Hunter hasn’t done anything,” the sheriff said as he leaned back. “In fact, she even agreed to be the angel in the Christmas pageant this year, so she’s real popular around here.”

      Wade remembered those pageants. “Then she’s just plain nuts.”

      The annual pageant was held in an old barn on the edge of Dry Creek. The angel traditionally flew over the crowd with the help of a pulley in the hayloft. Wade had been the last kid allowed to swing as the angel. Now, it was always an adult.

      “They’ve retired that leather pulley system you used. The pageant committee put in a whole new rope and wheel job. It’s as safe as riding in an airplane.”

      Wade grunted. He’d take his chances with the old system; he didn’t trust anything designed by a committee. Either way, it took nerve, though. Maybe that СКАЧАТЬ