The Christmas Cradle. Linda Warren

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СКАЧАТЬ a little girl shouted, running up to him with a pair of low-rise jeans in her hands. Rhinestones glittered on the pockets and around the hem. “Can I have these? I really like them.”

      Colter grabbed his packages and turned to face the child. “You’re too young for jeans like that.”

      “But all the girls in my class are wearing them.”

      “Ellie—”

      He and Shannon had a daughter—a beautiful little girl with blond hair and green eyes. The Kincaid green eyes. She appeared to be around six or seven, and Marisa couldn’t look away. Through the panic rising in her, she realized Colter and Shannon had started a family very soon after she’d left.

      Before she could assimilate this piece of information, another child with blond hair came running up.

      “Daddy said I can’t have them,” the girl called Ellie told the other one.

      Marisa’s stomach tensed in pain. Colter has two daughters.

      “Go put the jeans back,” Colter said.

      “Aw, Daddy.”

      “Ellie.”

      “Okay, c’mon, Lori, we’ll find something else.”

      They ran off and Colter followed. He didn’t give Marisa a second glance.

      Colter stopped and put his arm around a woman who had her back to Marisa. Marisa couldn’t see the woman clearly, but it had to be Shannon Wells—Colter’s wife.

      Almost in slow motion, Marisa walked to the executive elevators. Once the doors closed, she jabbed the stop button and the elevator stalled. She sank to the floor, wrapped her arms around her trembling body and began to cry. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she didn’t bother to wipe them away as pain encompassed every part of her. Why today? Why did she have to see him and his perfect family today?

      And why, after so many years, did it still hurt so much?

      “MS. PRESTON? MS. PRESTON? Are you stuck in the elevator?”

      Marisa heard the man’s voice over the intercom and rose slowly to her feet. She hit Talk and released the stop button. “I’m fine, thank you. The elevator’s moving now.”

      When it reached the executive floor, the maintenance man was waiting. “Ms. Preston—”

      “I’m fine,” she murmured again, brushing past him and hurrying to her office, not wanting him to see she’d been crying. The news would quickly get back to her father, and she couldn’t deal with that right now.

      She went over to the window that overlooked downtown Dallas, she didn’t see anything except Colter’s angry face. So many years she’d waited to tell him about their son, yet she couldn’t even bring herself to utter the words in his presence. We had a son. He died. How could she say that to him? Oh God, she had to talk to someone.

      She picked up her phone. “Send Cari Michaels to my office, please.”

      “Yes, ma’am,” her secretary responded.

      Marisa wrapped her arms around her waist again to still her agitated nerves, and waited, staring out the window. Within minutes, Cari came through the door. Petite with dark eyes and hair, Cari had started working at Dalton’s as a sales-clerk. Today she was head of staff and, even though she had an office, she spent a lot of time on the floor making sure the store ran smoothly. Marisa had met her the first year she’d returned to Texas and they’d become fast friends, best friends. Cari knew all of Marisa’s secrets.

      “You’re going to get me in trouble,” Cari teased. “You keep forgetting I’m not allowed on the executive floor.”

      The executive floor was for the Preston family. Her father had a large suite of offices, as did she and her brother, Reed.

      Marisa turned from the window.

      “What’s wrong?” Cari asked immediately.

      “I saw him.”

      Cari frowned. “Him? Who?”

      “Him,” Marisa emphasized.

      “Oh, no.” Cari understood now, and Marisa blurted out what happened.

      “He was awful and I…I don’t understand.” Marisa was trembling visibly, and Cari quickly got her a glass of water.

      “Here—” Cari handed her the glass. “Sit down before you collapse.”

      Marisa sank into her chair and took a sip.

      “Are you okay?”

      Marisa nodded. “Seeing him was such a shock and he was so hateful, not at all like the man I once knew. It brought back so many memories. I wanted to tell him about our son, but he wouldn’t listen. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was. I wanted him to know—” Her voice wavered as emotion closed her throat.

      Cari knelt beside her. “Marisa, don’t do this to yourself. You were so young, and you did the best you could under the circumstances.”

      “Did I?” Marisa jerked to her feet and began to pace. “I don’t think so. I was weak and I let my mother control my life.”

      Cari stood, too. “Marisa, what good will it do to—”

      “My mother has these priceless crystal eggs that have figurines in them. I feel like one of those figurines, encased in glass, sheltered from the world, not allowed to live or make my own choices. That’s how both my parents treat me—like a piece of crystal.”

      Cari didn’t say anything.

      “Everyone knows my father created this job for me. I’m nothing but a figurehead. I’m allowed to decorate the store. That’s rich. That’s a joke.”

      “Marisa, please—”

      “But not anymore, Cari,” she said with renewed vigor. “No one’s going to treat me like that—including Colter Kincaid.”

      “What are you going to do?”

      “I have to see him again and tell him what really happened. That’s the only way I’ll have any peace.” She drew a deep breath. “But I don’t know where he lives. I never knew, even when we were together.”

      “Do you really not know?”

      Marisa swung to face her friend. “What?”

      “I guess it was inevitable that you’d run into him one day.”

      “What do you mean?”

      A look of momentary discomfort crossed Cari’s face. “He has a large horse ranch somewhere outside Mesquite.”

      “How do you know?” Marisa asked, pushing hair from her face.

      “A couple of years ago, he was featured СКАЧАТЬ