Together by Christmas. C.J. Carmichael

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      I won’t allow myself to be dragged into a competition. It’s ridiculous. I’ll hold my head high and act like I couldn’t care less about Randy James. No one will guess my true feelings.

      Bernie stared at the words on the page. At first reading they sounded good, but now… Well, holding her head high just seemed so awfully passive. She wasn’t the type to sit back and wait. Her marriage was in trouble and she had to do something.

      Chad was her husband. That made Miranda James the enemy. This was a war.

      And she needed a battle plan.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      MIRANDA SHOULDN’T have felt nervous driving out to the Addison farm this second time. She’d convinced him, hadn’t she? The elusive, reclusive Warren Addison would be the subject of the next Miranda James video biography. And she hadn’t even needed to promise her firstborn for the privilege.

      So why did she feel like a kid facing university finals—unable to recall a single fact she’d memorized the night before, stomach queasy, palms perspiring.

      Everyone thought success came so easily to her. No one in her life had ever guessed just how untrue this was. The things she didn’t care about—yes, those came easily. Like those two men at the restaurant when she’d had lunch with Catherine. They’d practically drooled over their plates watching her. But they were strangers. She had no interest in them.

      The men she’d really wanted in her life she’d never been able to keep.

      And the work she truly loved—filming video biographies—scared her to death half the time. At the beginning of each project she was so afraid of failure. And this time the stakes were even higher than usual.

      Everyone in Chatsworth knew what she’d come here to do. What if she did such a lousy job the CBC refused to air the finished project? She’d look like a fool. Everyone would consider her a fraud.

      A pretty face and nothing more.

      She’d feel more assured if she had more memories from her past to guide her. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t picture Warren playing with any of the other kids in their class when they were younger. In the high school years, he hadn’t attended any of the parties with her and her friends. As far as she knew, he hadn’t dated any of the girls.

      Yet he’d never been teased or treated like an outcast. Warren had too much natural dignity about him. She cast her mind back and realized that while she’d never really known him, she’d always kind of admired him. He didn’t care what others thought. He spoke his mind without obsessing how people might react to what he said. He had a confidence most adults never attained.

      Reflecting on their meeting the other day, she acknowledged that he hadn’t lost an ounce of that self-assurance.

      The long red barn of a prosperous dairy farm appeared to the right, signaling an upcoming turn. Miranda eased off the gas, glad that the roads had been plowed this morning. Still, a thin layer of packed snow made them treacherously icy.

      Three miles after the dairy farm, two more houses came into view, one on either side of the road. A large, shaggy mutt raced out from one spruce-lined driveway. He barked at her frantically as she passed by.

      “My car is probably the most exciting thing you’ve seen all day…hey, boy?”

      Saskatchewan was well known for being flat and treeless. In truth, this small corner of the province was neither. Admittedly, the hills were gentle contours at best, and the trees were mostly scrub poplars and willows, but Miranda found the land beautiful nonetheless. It didn’t hurt that the sky was clear and blue this morning and that sparkling frost coated every surface from tree branch to fence post. The forecast was for more snow and soon, though right now that seemed highly unlikely.

      Before she knew it, Miranda was driving past the turnoff to the Browning and Bateson farms. Since Libby’s and Gibson’s marriage, the two properties had been run as one operation, with the help of Libby’s father.

      Miranda didn’t know Libby all that well, but she remembered Gibson, all right. He and his best friend, Libby’s brother Chris, had dominated the dreams of every girl in school. She had been thrilled when Chris, two years her senior, had asked her out when she was in grade ten. Of course, her mother had nixed those plans. Probably wisely, Miranda had to admit with hindsight. At the time she’d been furious. Chris had been such a hunk. How tragic that he’d died so young in a car crash with his mother….

      Half an hour after leaving Chatsworth, Miranda pulled into the Addison lane. Deep snow covered the small stretch of private road. Worried about her car getting stuck, Miranda parked off to the side of the main road and walked in, carrying her camera case in one hand and her duffel bag in the other.

      Her new boots squeaked in the fresh snow; the cool breeze bit at her cheeks and the tip of her nose. On foot, she noticed the poplar trees lining the driveway appeared much larger. She could hear a flock of sparrows chattering on the branches of one of them.

      She stopped twenty yards from the house and took out her camera. “A typical Saskatchewan farmhouse,” she said, recording her voice along with the images. “Two stories, built from wood. Small, double-hung windows.”

      Swinging the camera to the right, she centered first the barns in her viewfinder, then an equipment shed. The paint on all these buildings was in even worse shape than the paint on the house.

      She turned off the power to the camera and slipped it back in its case. Smoke filtered out the plain metal chimney of the house. Peeking in one of the double-hung windows, she saw only frost. But Warren had to be in there, working, since no fresh tracks led from out his back door.

      Wouldn’t it be lovely to sneak inside and get a candid shot of him at his computer?

      She didn’t dare.

      After again bypassing the boarded front entry, she knocked at the back. Warren had the door open in a flash. He wore jeans and bare feet. He had long toes, she noted, before lifting her head to smile.

      “Right on time.” He closed out the frosty air with a firm shove on the slightly warped door.

      Her professional eye approved the dark turtleneck he was wearing—the style suited his long, narrow face, and the color coordinated perfectly with his hair and thick eyelashes.

      “It’s nice and warm in here. Smells yummy, too.”

      “I had oatmeal and cinnamon for breakfast.”

      No sign of the meal remained in the tidy kitchen. “Were you working?”

      “I was.”

      “Can I see?”

      He shrugged. “This way.”

      She dropped the duffel bag on the worn Arborite table and shrugged her jacket onto a kitchen chair. Warren led her through an arched entry into the next room. Papers covered the polished dining room table. A laptop computer hummed gently in one corner, while a violin concerto played softly from a radio on the matching buffet table against the far wall.

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