Callie's Christmas Wish. Merline Lovelace

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       Chapter One

      It started with the fountain.

      That damned Trevi Fountain.

      Callie and her two best friends had to take a long-dreamed-of trip to Italy this past September. Then she and Dawn and Kate had to defy the tradition that said just tossing a coin in the fountain would bring them back to Rome someday. Oh, no. The centuries-old tradition wasn’t good enough. They had to make separate, secret wishes.

      Kate’s came true while the three friends were still in Italy, when she and her husband reconciled mere weeks away from a divorce. Dawn didn’t realize her wish had been granted until she was back in the States and acting as surrogate nanny for a lively six-year-old. A few short weeks later, the laughing, flirtatious redhead had made the surprising and completely unexpected leap from carefree bachelorette to deliriously happy mother to Tommy and wife to hunky Brian Ellis.

      Callie had made a wish in Rome, as well. One she hadn’t shared with anyone. Not even her BFFs. It was too silly, too frivolous. And so not in keeping with her usual level-headed self.

      That ridiculous wish was coming back to haunt her now. Every part of her thrummed with nervous anticipation as she helped Dawn and Tommy loop fresh pine boughs into Christmas wreaths for the doors of the Ellises’ home. Luckily, the determined efforts of Tommy’s three-month-old wheaten terrier pup to get into the action kept both the boy and Dawn so amused that neither noticed Callie jump when the doorbell rang.

      The sound of the bell sent the pup into an immediate frenzy. His butt end whipped around. His claws skittered on the pine plank flooring. High-pitched yelps split the air as he careened out of the kitchen and down a hallway fragrant with the scent of the cloves and cinnamon and oranges in the Christmas potpourri.

      “That’ll be Joe.”

      Pushing to her feet, Dawn dusted the pine needles from the moss-colored turtleneck that clung to her generous curves and made her eyes appear an even deeper shade of emerald.

      “His message said his plane would touch down at three and he’d be here by four.” She slanted Callie a sly look. “Tall, dark, handsome and punctual. What more could a girl ask for?”

      Nothing, Callie agreed, her stomach fluttering. Not a single, solitary thing.

      Except...maybe...

      There it was! That absurd coin toss again. How juvenile to wish Joe would let just a tiny smidgen of romance sneak through his solid, masculine, don’t-mess-with-me-or-mine exterior. Hadn’t he put his highly lucrative business interests on hold for her? Devoted considerable time and expense to tracking down the source of the ugly emails she’d begun receiving a few weeks before the trip to Italy? Shaking her head at her own foolishness, Callie followed Dawn, the wildly yipping terrier and Tommy down the hall.

      “Joe promised he’d bring me a real, live boomerang from Australia,” the boy reminded them as he charged for the door. “Hope he remembered it!”

      He would. Callie didn’t doubt it for a second. In the few short months she’d known Joe Russo, she’d come to realize that nothing ever escaped the steel trap of his mind.

      They’d first met during a never-to-be-forgotten jaunt to Venice. At the time Joe headed a highly specialized personal security team guarding Carlo Luigi Francesco di Lorenzo, aka the Prince of Lombard and Marino, who also happened to be one of Italy’s most decorated air force pilots. Carlo, Kate’s husband, Travis, and Dawn’s now-husband, Brian, had been involved in testing some hush-hush, super-secret modification to NATO special ops aircraft flying sorties from a base in northern Italy.

      Callie and Joe had met again in Rome, when Travis surprised Kate with an elegant ceremony to renew their marriage vows. At that damned fountain! It must have been the stars in Kate’s eyes as she reaffirmed her love. Or the mischievous sparkle in Dawn’s when she announced she was flying home with the Ellises to assume duties as Tommy’s stand-in nanny. Whatever the impetus, Callie gave in to her friends’ urging that they all toss one last coin over their shoulders. Which was when she’d made that stupid, stupid wish.

      Not ten minutes later, she’d found herself separated from her friends and yielding to Joe Russo’s quiet but relentless interrogation. As she’d soon discovered, the man hadn’t transitioned from military cop to soldier of fortune to head of one of the world’s most exclusive personal protection agencies without learning how to extract secrets from even the most reluctant interviewees.

      He’d watched her, Joe had revealed. Saw how her shoulders braced every time she checked her email. Noted, too, how her eyes would flicker with distress before she withdrew even farther into her seemingly serene shell.

      Callie tried to deny it. Tried to shrug aside his laser-sharp perceptions. She was too used to safeguarding the privacy of the children she’d represented as an ombudsman for the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate to spill their—or her—secrets. At that point Joe reminded her that she’d walked away from her job some weeks ago. He also pointed out that he could tap into any legal and/or law enforcement agencies necessary to resolve whatever was scaring the crap out of her.

      Callie still couldn’t believe she’d broken down and told him about the threatening emails before she’d shown them to Kate and Dawn. Neither could her two best friends, for that matter. They’d let her know what they thought about that in some pretty forceful terms. But they got over their snit in short order and promptly threw a protective shield around her.

      First, Kate insisted Callie stay with her in DC after their return from Italy. Then, when Dawn married and moved out of the elegant gatehouse designed for Tommy’s live-in nanny, she’d insisted Callie take up residence there while Joe investigated the emails. And when the emails escalated from ugly to really scary, Joe tried to hustle her into protective custody.

      Callie had drawn the line at that. She was staying in DC, hundreds of miles from her Boston home. She had four fierce watchdogs in the persons of Kate and Dawn and their spouses guarding her day and night. She’d turned over every threatening communication to the authorities, and Joe had exercised the legal system to gain access to the juvenile court cases she’d worked.

      Enough was enough.

      But her heart had still pounded each time she checked her emails. It pounded even harder every time СКАЧАТЬ