Season Of Wonder. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ Dani have any idea how fascinated the people of Haven Point were with these new arrivals in their midst?

      Or maybe that was just him.

      As he followed her down the hall in her white lab coat, his dogs behaving themselves for once, Ruben told himself to forget about his stupid attraction to her.

      Sure, he might be ready to settle down and would like to have someone in his life, but he wasn’t at all sure if he had the time or energy for that someone to be a woman with so many secrets in her eyes, one who seemed to face the world with her chin up and her fists out, ready to take on any threats.

      When they walked into the clinic waiting room, they found her two girls there. The older one was texting on her phone while her sister did somersaults around the room.

      Dani stopped in the doorway and seemed to swallow an exasperated sound. “Mia, honey, you’re going to have dog hair all over you.”

      “I’m a snowball rolling down the hill,” the girl said. “Can’t you see me getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”

      “You’re such a dorkupine,” her sister said, barely looking up from her phone.

      “I’m a dorkupine snowball,” Mia retorted.

      “You’re a snowball who is going to be covered in dog hair,” Dani said. “Come on, honey. Get up.”

      He could tell the moment the little girl spotted him and his dogs coming into the area behind her mother. She went still and then slowly rose to her feet, features shifting from gleeful to nervous.

      Why was she so afraid of him?

      “You make a very good snowball,” he said, pitching his voice low and calm as his father had taught him to do with all skittish creatures. “I haven’t seen anybody somersault that well in a long time.”

      She moved to her mother’s side and buried her face in Dani’s white coat—though he didn’t miss the way she reached down to pet Ollie on her way.

      “Hey again, Silver.”

      He knew the older girl from the middle school, where he served as the resource officer a few hours a week. He made it a point to learn all the students’ names and tried to talk to them individually when he had the chance, in hopes that if they had a problem at home or knew of something potentially troublesome for the school, they would feel comfortable coming to him.

      He had the impression that Silver was like her mother in many ways. Reserved, wary, slow to trust. It made him wonder just who had hurt them.

      “How are things?” he asked her now.

      For just an instant, he thought he saw sadness flicker in her gaze before she turned back to her phone with a shrug. “Fine, I guess.”

      “Are you guys ready for Christmas? It’s your first one here in Idaho. A little different from New York, isn’t it?”

      “How should we know? We haven’t lived in the city for, like, four years.”

      Dani sent her daughter a look at her tone, which seemed to border on disrespectful. “I’ve been in vet school in Boston the last four years,” she explained.

      “Boston. Then you’re used to snow and cold. We’re known for our beautiful winters around here. The lake is simply stunning in wintertime.”

      Mia tugged on her mother’s coat and when Dani bent down, she whispered something to her.

      “You can ask him,” Dani said calmly, gesturing to Ruben.

      Mia shook her head and buried her face again and after a moment, Dani sighed. “She wonders if it’s possible to ice-skate on Lake Haven. We watched the most recent Olympics and she became a little obsessed.”

      “You could say that,” Silver said. “She skated around the house in her stocking feet all day long for weeks. A dorkupine on ice.”

      “You can’t skate on the lake, I’m afraid,” Ruben answered. “Because of the underground hot springs that feed into it at various points, Lake Haven rarely freezes, except sometimes along the edges, when it’s really cold. It’s not really safe for ice skating. But the city creates a skating rink on the tennis courts at Lake View Park every year. The volunteer fire department sprays it down for a few weeks once temperatures get really cold. I saw them out there the other night so it shouldn’t be long before it’s open. Maybe a few more weeks.”

      Mia seemed to lose a little of her shyness at that prospect. She gave him a sideways look from under her mother’s arm and aimed a fleeting smile full of such sweetness that he was instantly smitten.

      “There’s also a great place for sledding up behind the high school. You can’t miss that, either. Oh, and in a few weeks we have the Lights on the Lake Festival. You’ve heard about that, right?”

      They all gave him matching blank stares, making him wonder what was wrong with the Haven Point Helping Hands that they hadn’t immediately dragged Dani into their circle. He would have to talk to Andie Bailey or his sister Angela about it. They always seemed to know what was going on in town.

      “I think some kids at school were talking about that at lunch the other day,” Silver said. “They were sitting at the next table so I didn’t hear the whole thing, though.”

      “Haven Point hosts an annual celebration a week or so before Christmas where all the local boat owners deck out their watercraft from here to Shelter Springs to welcome in the holidays and float between the two towns. There’s music, food and crafts for sale. It’s kind of a big deal around here. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.”

      “I’m very busy, with the practice and the girls, Deputy Morales. I don’t have a lot of time for socializing.” Though Dani tried for a lofty look, he thought he caught a hint of vulnerability there.

      She seemed...lonely. That didn’t make a lick of sense. The women in this town could be almost annoying in their efforts to include newcomers in community events. They didn’t give people much of an option, dragging them kicking and screaming into the social scene around town, like it or not.

      “Well, now you know. You really can’t miss the festival. It’s great fun for the whole family.”

      “Thank you for the information. It’s next week, you say?”

      “That’s right. Not this weekend but the one after. The whole thing starts out with the boat parade on Saturday evening, around six.”

      “We’ll put it on our social calendar.”

      “What’s a social calendar?” Mia whispered to her sister, just loud enough for Ruben to hear.

      “It’s a place where you keep track of all your invitations to parties and sleepovers and stuff.”

      “Oh. Why do we need one of those?”

      “Good question.”

      Silver looked glum for just a moment but Dani hugged her, then faced Ruben with a polite, distant smile.

      “Thank you for bringing СКАЧАТЬ