Are you dreading Black Friday, cringing at the thought of the crowds. Well then just sit back and have some turkey leftovers and celebrate Slack Friday with a great holiday read by Simon and Schuster/Pocket Star e-books.
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TIM CRATCHIT’S CHRISTMAS
CAROL: THE SEQUEL TO THE CELEBRATED DICKENS CLASSIC
Jim Piecuch
November 17,
2014
$1.99
LOS ANGELES – USABookNews.com announced the winners and finalists of THE 2014 USA BEST BOOKS AWARDS on November 12, 2014. Awards were presented for titles published 2012-2014. This year’s contest yielded over 2,000 entries from mainstream and independent publishers, which were then narrowed down to over 400 winners and finalists spanning 100 categories.
Tim Cratchit's Christmas Carol: The Sequel to the Celebrated Dickens Classic by Jim Piecuch was one of the four finalists in the Best New Fiction Category!
SUMMARY:
In A
Christmas Carol, evil Scrooge was shown the error of his ways by three
helpful ghosts and vowed to become a better person. Bob Cratchit and his family
benefited most from Scrooge’s change of tune—but what happened after the goose
was given, and Scrooge resolved to turn over a new leaf?
Tim Cratchit's Christmas Carol shows us Tiny Tim as an adult. Having recovered from his childhood ailment, he began his career helping the poor but has since taken up practice as a doctor to London’s wealthy elite. Though Tim leads a very successful life, he comes home at night to an empty house. But this holiday season, he’s determined to fill his house with holiday cheer—and maybe even a wife.
When a single, determined young mother lands on Tim’s doorstep with her ailing son, Tim is faced with a choice: stay ensconced in his comfortable life and secure doctor’s practice, or take a leap of faith and reignite the fire lit under him by his mentor, Scrooge, that fateful Christmas so many years ago.
Tim Cratchit's Christmas Carol shows us Tiny Tim as an adult. Having recovered from his childhood ailment, he began his career helping the poor but has since taken up practice as a doctor to London’s wealthy elite. Though Tim leads a very successful life, he comes home at night to an empty house. But this holiday season, he’s determined to fill his house with holiday cheer—and maybe even a wife.
When a single, determined young mother lands on Tim’s doorstep with her ailing son, Tim is faced with a choice: stay ensconced in his comfortable life and secure doctor’s practice, or take a leap of faith and reignite the fire lit under him by his mentor, Scrooge, that fateful Christmas so many years ago.
Read an excerpt:
Dr. Timothy Cratchit emerged from his Harley Street office shortly
after six-thirty in the evening. He was surprised to find that the yellow-gray
fog that had blanketed London for the past week had disappeared, swept away by
a biting north wind. He paused for a moment to gaze up at the stars, a rare
sight in the
“Good evening, Doctor,” the coachman said as Tim approached.
“Good evening, Henry,” the doctor replied. “How are you tonight?”
The coachman, who was tall and lean, wore a knee-length black wool
coat and a black top hat, his ears covered by an incongruous-looking strip of
wool cloth below the brim.
“Cold, sir,” Henry replied. Tim grasped the vertical rail alongside
the carriage door and was about to hoist himself inside when he heard a shout.
Stepping back from the carriage, he turned to his left, toward the direction
where the sound had come from.
The gas lamps along the street penetrated just enough of the gloom to
allow Tim to distinguish a figure hurrying toward him. As the person drew
nearer, Tim could see that it was a woman, clutching a dirty bundle to her
chest. Thousands of poor women in London made a meager living sifting through
the city’s dustbins for usable items and selling them for whatever pittance
they could fetch. The bundle this woman cradled so carefully probably contained
an assortment of odd candlesticks, worn shoes, frayed shirts, and the like.
Still, this was not someone who would normally frequent Harley Street.
“Wait a moment, please,” Tim told the coachman, resignation in his
voice. He was eager to get home, and too tired to wait while the woman
unwrapped the bundle. He reached into his trousers pocket, found a half crown
and two shillings to give her so that she would continue on her way.
When the woman came to a stop in front of him, Tim noticed with
surprise that she was young, perhaps twenty years old. She was small, not much
over five feet tall, clad in a tattered dress covered by a dirty, threadbare
gray blanket that she had fashioned into a hooded cloak. Her dark brown hair
was matted
“Can I help you, miss?”
“Thank you for waiting, sir,” the woman said, still struggling to
catch her breath. “I was hoping that you could take a look at my son. He’s very
sick.” She tugged back a corner of what appeared to be a piece of the same
blanket that constituted her cloak to reveal the face of an infant.
Tim suppressed a groan. It had been a long day—all his days seemed
long now—and he was eager to get home. “Come inside, please,” he instructed the
woman. To Henry he said, “This shouldn’t take too long.”
Unlocking the office door, Tim went inside, lit a lamp, and then held
the door for the woman and baby to enter. Inside, the woman gazed at him with
an earnestness that aroused his sympathy.
“I’m very sorry to bother you like this, Doctor. I didn’t mean to come
so late, but I had to walk all the way from the East End, and it took longer
than I thought,” she explained. “I never would have found your office yet,
except that a kind old gentleman asked if I was lost and then pointed me to
your door. A
“Well,” Tim replied in a reassuring tone, “you’re fortunate that I had
to work late; I usually close the office at six.”
The woman shuffled her feet uneasily. “If it’s too late, sir, we can
come back tomorrow.”
“No, no, that’s all right. Now tell me, what is the matter?”
“It’s my Jonathan, sir. He’s been sickly since birth, and now he’s
getting worse,” she said. Tim noticed that her eyes were moist.
“Let’s take him into the examination room.” Tim led them in, lit the
lamps. The woman laid the child on the table and pulled back the blanket and
other wrappings. Tim was shocked to see that the boy was not an infant—his
facial features were too developed—but he was clearly undersized, and Tim did
not
“How old is the little fellow?”
“Three last summer, sir.”
Tim studied the boy. His eyes were open, brown like his mother’s, and
though they gazed intently at Tim, the little body was limp. No mental defect,
but something physical, and severe. Tim
placed a thumb in each of the tiny hands.
“Can you squeeze my thumbs, Jonathan?” he asked. The boy did so,
feebly.
“Very good!” Tim said. Jonathan smiled.
“I didn’t know who else to go to, sir,” the woman explained as Tim
flexed the boy’s arms and legs. “There’s no doctors who want to see the likes
of us, but then I remembered you, sir. You took care of me many years back,
when I had a fever. You came by the East End every week then, sir, and took
care of the poor folk.”
“I’m sorry, but I treated so many patients that I can’t recall you,
Miss, ah, Mrs.—”
“It’s Miss, Doctor. Jonathan’s father was a sailor. We were supposed
to marry, but I never seen him since before Jonathan was born. My name’s Ginny
Whitson.”
It was already clear to Tim that the child, like his thin, almost
gaunt mother, was badly malnourished. That accounted in part for his small
size. Tim also noticed that the boy’s leg muscles were extremely weak. Jonathan
remained quiet, looking at the strange man with a mixture of curiosity and
fear.
“Does Jonathan walk much?” Tim asked.
“No, sir, never a step. He could stand a bit until a few weeks ago,
but now he can’t even do that. I think it’s the lump on his back, Doctor.”
Tim carefully turned the boy over to find a plum-sized swelling along
the left edge of his spine at waist level. He touched it lightly, and Jonathan
whimpered. “How long has he had this?” Tim asked.
“I didn’t notice it till a year ago, sir. It was tiny then, but it’s
grown since. In the last month or so it’s gone from about the size of a grape
to this big.”
Tim hesitated. He needed to do some research and then give Jonathan a
more thorough examination before he could accurately diagnose and treat the
boy’s condition. He did have several possibilities in mind, none of them good,
but there was no sense alarming Ginny prematurely. After she had swathed her
child in the bundle of cloth, Tim ushered them back into the waiting room, where
he studied his appointment book.
“Can you come back at noon on Saturday? I’m sorry to make you wait
that long, but I have some things to check, and it will take time.” Ginny
nodded. “I’ll see then what I can do,” Tim said.
“Oh, Doctor, thank you so much,” Ginny blurted, grateful for any help
regardless of when it might come. She shifted Jonathan to her left arm, and
thrust her right hand into the pocket of her frayed and patched black dress.
Removing a small felt sack, she emptied a pile of copper coins onto the clerk’s
desk. Most were farthings and
halfpennies, with an occasional large penny interspersed among them.
“I know this isn’t enough even for today, sir,” she apologized. “But
I’ll get more, I promise. I’m working hard, you see, sir. Every day I go
door-to-door and get work cleaning house and doing laundry, and save all I
can.”
With his right hand, Tim swept the coins across the desktop into his
cupped left palm and returned them to Ginny. He was touched by her attempt to
pay him, knowing that she must have gone without food many times to accumulate
this small amount of money. Her devotion to her son and effort to demonstrate
her independence impressed him.
“There isn’t any fee, Miss Whitson. I’ll be happy to do whatever I can
for Jonathan at no charge.”
“But I can’t accept charity, Doctor,” the surprised woman answered.
“It wouldn’t be right, taking your time away from your paying patients.”
“We all need charity in one form or another at some time in our
lives,” Tim said. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if not for a great act of
charity long ago, and as for taking time away from my paying patients, that may
be more of a benefit than a problem. Come along, now, and I’ll give you and
Jonathan a ride home.”
Tim locked the office door and escorted Ginny and Jonathan to his
coach as tears trickled down her face, picking up dirt from the smudge on her
cheek and tracking it down to her chin. Jonathan began to cry soon after the
coach got under way, and Ginny comforted him with a lullaby, one that Tim remembered
his own mother singing to him. When the child finally fell asleep, both
remained silent, afraid to wake him. Once they reached the narrow streets
packed with sailors, beggars, drunks, and an assortment of London’s other poor
wretches, Ginny asked to be let out. Tim knocked twice on the roof, and Henry
reined in the horses.
As she was about to step out of the carriage, something she had said
earlier occurred to Tim. “One moment, Miss Whitson. You mentioned that someone
directed you to my office. Do you know who he was?”
“No, Doctor,” she replied, “and he didn’t say. He was an old
gentleman, thin, with a long nose and white hair. Neatly dressed, but his
clothes weren’t fancy, if you know what I mean, sir.”
Tim bade her good night and watched as she walked down the sidewalk,
past gin mills and dilapidated rooming houses. She soon turned into the
recessed doorway of a darkened pawnshop and settled herself on the stone
pavement. Tim briefly thought of going back to find out if she even had a home,
or if she was going to spend the night in the doorway. Fatigue slowed his
thoughts, however, and by the time the idea took root, the carriage was a block
away and gathering speed.
Tim lay back against the soft, leather-covered seat cushions,
pondering which of his Harley Street neighbors had directed her to his office.
Most of them would have ignored such a woman, or ordered her back to the slums.
Her description, though, didn’t fit any of them. He shook his head, trying to
remove the cobwebs from his tired mind. It must have been someone else, someone
he just couldn’t recall in his fuddled state. No sense wrestling with the
question, he concluded.
During the long drive across town to his home in the western outskirts
of London, Tim tried to relax. It had been another in a seemingly endless
string of days filled with consultations and surgeries. Tim had arrived at his
office at five-thirty that morning, half an hour earlier than usual, to prepare
for a seven
“Just give the doctor that bag of coins I asked you to bring,” the
duchess had ordered her maidservant. “I won’t insult you, Dr. Cratchit, by
asking your fee, but I’m sure there’s more than enough here to cover it, and
worth every farthing, too.”
When Tim’s clerk opened the leather pouch, he found it contained one
hundred gold guineas. Tim could not help contrasting the way his wealthy
patients tossed gold coins about with Ginny Whitson’s offer of her pathetic
little hoard of coppers. The thought stirred memories of his own childhood,
when pennies were so scarce that he and his brothers and sisters sometimes had
to roam through frigid alleys to scavenge wood scraps to keep a fire burning on
winter nights. It was on one such night when he lay awake, shivering on his
thin straw mattress, that he overheard the conversation that changed his life.
“I’m to get a raise in salary,” his father murmured excitedly, trying
not to wake the children.
“I don’t believe it,” Mrs. Cratchit declared. “That old miser would
die before he parted with an extra farthing.”
“It’s true, dear,” Bob Cratchit insisted. “I’ve never seen Mr. Scrooge
like that. We sat for an hour this afternoon, talking. He asked a lot of
questions about our family, Tim in particular.”
“I’m surprised that he even knew you had a family, Bob.”
“I was, too, dear, but he seemed to know a good bit about us. Why,
from a few things he said about hoping we had a good Christmas dinner, I think
he’s the one who sent the turkey yesterday. Who else could have done it?”
“Well, I hope you’re right, Bob. I’ll not believe any of it until I
see the proof.”
Tim smiled at the recollection of his mother’s skepticism. She had
always been the realist in the family, Bob the optimist. Tim had shared his
mother’s doubts. She and the children had despised Ebenezer Scrooge, blaming
his greed for the family’s struggles. But with his stomach filled to bursting
with turkey
The sudden stop as the carriage arrived at his front door shook Tim
from his reverie. He was out the door before Henry could dismount from the
driver’s seat and open it for him, a habit that Tim had observed left his
coachman more amused than chagrined.
“That’s all right, Henry,” he said, waving toward the carriage house.
“You and the horses get inside and warm up.”
Entering the large, well-lit foyer, Tim was greeted by his maid.
Bridget Riordan was a pretty Irish girl, with long, flaming red hair pinned up
under her white cap, numberless freckles on her cheeks and small nose, and
green eyes that always seemed to sparkle with happiness. She took Tim’s top
hat, coat, and
“Thank you, Bridget,” Tim replied, watching her walk gracefully toward
the kitchen. He loosened his cravat as he climbed the stairs, thought briefly
of skipping the meal and going directly to bed, and decided that he could not
afford the luxury since he had a long evening of work ahead of him.
As usual, Tim dined alone. At the time he had purchased the large
house, Tim had expected that he would one day need the space for the family he
hoped to have. However, the demands of his practice and the memory of his one
previous and unsuccessful attempt at courtship kept him from actively pursuing
any romantic interests. Now he sometimes wondered whether he would spend the
rest of his life a bachelor, without the happiness he had enjoyed as a child in
the crowded and bustling Cratchit home.
Solitary meals in the cavernous dining room always seemed to dim Tim’s
pleasure despite the hot, tasty food that Bridget prepared. When he had hired
them after buying the house, he had often insisted that she, Henry, and
William, the gardener, join him in the dining room. But the trio had been
servants
Shortly after nine o’clock, Tim retired to his upstairs study. There
each night he reviewed the next day’s cases, looked up information in his
medical books that he might need, and, if time permitted, read the most recent
scientific journals to keep up to date on the latest advances in medicine and
surgery. At
Having finished his preparation for the next day’s work, Tim drew out
his pocket watch. Not quite half past ten. He reached across the wide mahogany
desk for the latest issue of the Lancet, which had lain unread for more
than a week. Tim pushed it aside. It would have to wait until he had researched
Jonathan’s condition. Tim walked over to the bookcase, scanned several volumes,
removed a reference book, and returned to his chair. The coal fire that Bridget
had stoked was still burning strongly; he would see if he could find
confirmation of his suspicions regarding the boy’s problem, or alternative,
less dire diagnoses, before retiring. Balancing his chair upon its two rear
legs, he put his feet on the desk and opened the volume.
Tim did not know how long he had been reading. It seemed he had gone
over the same paragraph a dozen times without registering the information in
his mind when he felt how cold the study had become. He glanced toward the
fireplace, where a single small log emitted a parsimonious warmth. The room
seemed dark—looking over his shoulder at the gas lamp, he was surprised to see
only a candle in a tin wall sconce, flickering in a chill breeze that came
through a cracked windowpane. Strange, Tim thought, he was certain Bridget had
closed the curtains. And when had the window broken?
His eyes better adjusted to the gloom, Tim turned back toward the
fireplace. His surprise turned to shock when he looked down at his legs and saw
that the new black trousers he had been wearing were now coarse brown cloth
through which he could see the outline of his legs, withered and weak. The
Tim stared at the hearth, baffled, for how long he did not know. Then
he started to get up, reaching for the crutch, only to find that his legs were
so weak he could not stand. He gazed at his extended right hand. It was that of
a child. He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, and when he looked
around again, he was back in his own comfortable study. The gas lamp burned
brightly, the fire still blazed in its marble enclave. There was no crutch to
be seen. He flexed his legs. They were strong. He shuddered, perplexed at what
had occurred. Although he was quite sure that he had not fallen asleep, he
reassured himself that it must have been a dream. Not surprising, considering
his thoughts about Jonathan, and the unavoidable realization that the boy’s
plight reminded him so much of his own childhood illness. Tim stood, uneasy,
and dropped the reference book on the desk before heading to bed.
Standing over the washbasin, he poured water from a pitcher into the
ceramic bowl. He wet a washcloth and rubbed his face. Even in the light of the
single gas lamp, he could see the creases beginning to form on his forehead,
the dark circles under his blue eyes. A few strands of gray were sprinkled
through his blond hair. He thought he looked at least a decade older than his
thirty-two years. Combined with his short stature and thinness, Tim reflected
that in a few years he would look like a wizened old man.
Too much work, that was the cause, he thought. Unpleasant work. And
now he also had to do something about Jonathan Whitson, who had what was likely
a malignant tumor. A boy not yet four, probably sentenced to death by nature
before his life had a chance to begin. Five years ago, Dr. Timothy Cratchit
would have tackled the child’s case enthusiastically and with optimism. Now he
was reduced to performing fake surgeries to placate hypochondriacs.
Ginny Whitson had met him years earlier, and believed in his
abilities. He only wished that he shared her confidence.
Dr. Timothy Cratchit emerged from his Harley Street office shortly
after six-thirty in the evening. He was surprised to find that the yellow-gray
fog that had blanketed London for the past week had disappeared, swept away by
a biting north wind. He paused for a moment to gaze up at the stars, a rare
sight in the
usually haze-choked city. Then, pulling his scarf tightly around his
neck, he walked quickly down the steps and along the path to the curb, where
his brougham waited. The horses, a chestnut gelding and another of dappled
gray, stomped their hooves on the cobblestone pavement. They made an odd pair,
but Tim had chosen them for their gentle nature rather than their appearance. As the doctor approached, his coachman smiled
and swung open the side door. The coach’s front and rear lamps
barely pierced December’s early darkness.
“Good evening, Doctor,” the coachman said as Tim approached.
“Good evening, Henry,” the doctor replied. “How are you tonight?”
The coachman, who was tall and lean, wore a knee-length black wool
coat and a black top hat, his ears covered by an incongruous-looking strip of
wool cloth below the brim.
“Cold, sir,” Henry replied. Tim grasped the vertical rail alongside
the carriage door and was about to hoist himself inside when he heard a shout.
Stepping back from the carriage, he turned to his left, toward the direction
where the sound had come from.
The gas lamps along the street penetrated just enough of the gloom to
allow Tim to distinguish a figure hurrying toward him. As the person drew
nearer, Tim could see that it was a woman, clutching a dirty bundle to her
chest. Thousands of poor women in London made a meager living sifting through
the city’s dustbins for usable items and selling them for whatever pittance
they could fetch. The bundle this woman cradled so carefully probably contained
an assortment of odd candlesticks, worn shoes, frayed shirts, and the like.
Still, this was not someone who would normally frequent Harley Street.
“Wait a moment, please,” Tim told the coachman, resignation in his
voice. He was eager to get home, and too tired to wait while the woman
unwrapped the bundle. He reached into his trousers pocket, found a half crown
and two shillings to give her so that she would continue on her way.
When the woman came to a stop in front of him, Tim noticed with
surprise that she was young, perhaps twenty years old. She was small, not much
over five feet tall, clad in a tattered dress covered by a dirty, threadbare
gray blanket that she had fashioned into a hooded cloak. Her dark brown hair
was matted
in greasy clumps, and a smudge of dirt smeared her right cheek. Her face, though it was beginning to show the
premature wear of a hard life, was still quite pretty. She stood with her brown
eyes downcast, silently waiting for Tim to acknowledge her.
“Can I help you, miss?”
“Thank you for waiting, sir,” the woman said, still struggling to
catch her breath. “I was hoping that you could take a look at my son. He’s very
sick.” She tugged back a corner of what appeared to be a piece of the same
blanket that constituted her cloak to reveal the face of an infant.
Tim suppressed a groan. It had been a long day—all his days seemed
long now—and he was eager to get home. “Come inside, please,” he instructed the
woman. To Henry he said, “This shouldn’t take too long.”
Unlocking the office door, Tim went inside, lit a lamp, and then held
the door for the woman and baby to enter. Inside, the woman gazed at him with
an earnestness that aroused his sympathy.
“I’m very sorry to bother you like this, Doctor. I didn’t mean to come
so late, but I had to walk all the way from the East End, and it took longer
than I thought,” she explained. “I never would have found your office yet,
except that a kind old gentleman asked if I was lost and then pointed me to
your door. A
friend of yours, he said.”
“Well,” Tim replied in a reassuring tone, “you’re fortunate that I had
to work late; I usually close the office at six.”
The woman shuffled her feet uneasily. “If it’s too late, sir, we can
come back tomorrow.”
“No, no, that’s all right. Now tell me, what is the matter?”
“It’s my Jonathan, sir. He’s been sickly since birth, and now he’s
getting worse,” she said. Tim noticed that her eyes were moist.
“Let’s take him into the examination room.” Tim led them in, lit the
lamps. The woman laid the child on the table and pulled back the blanket and
other wrappings. Tim was shocked to see that the boy was not an infant—his
facial features were too developed—but he was clearly undersized, and Tim did
not
dare hazard a guess as to his age.
“How old is the little fellow?”
“Three last summer, sir.”
Tim studied the boy. His eyes were open, brown like his mother’s, and
though they gazed intently at Tim, the little body was limp. No mental defect,
but something physical, and severe. Tim
placed a thumb in each of the tiny hands.
“Can you squeeze my thumbs, Jonathan?” he asked. The boy did so,
feebly.
“Very good!” Tim said. Jonathan smiled.
“I didn’t know who else to go to, sir,” the woman explained as Tim
flexed the boy’s arms and legs. “There’s no doctors who want to see the likes
of us, but then I remembered you, sir. You took care of me many years back,
when I had a fever. You came by the East End every week then, sir, and took
care of the poor folk.”
“I’m sorry, but I treated so many patients that I can’t recall you,
Miss, ah, Mrs.—”
“It’s Miss, Doctor. Jonathan’s father was a sailor. We were supposed
to marry, but I never seen him since before Jonathan was born. My name’s Ginny
Whitson.”
It was already clear to Tim that the child, like his thin, almost
gaunt mother, was badly malnourished. That accounted in part for his small
size. Tim also noticed that the boy’s leg muscles were extremely weak. Jonathan
remained quiet, looking at the strange man with a mixture of curiosity and
fear.
“Does Jonathan walk much?” Tim asked.
“No, sir, never a step. He could stand a bit until a few weeks ago,
but now he can’t even do that. I think it’s the lump on his back, Doctor.”
Tim carefully turned the boy over to find a plum-sized swelling along
the left edge of his spine at waist level. He touched it lightly, and Jonathan
whimpered. “How long has he had this?” Tim asked.
“I didn’t notice it till a year ago, sir. It was tiny then, but it’s
grown since. In the last month or so it’s gone from about the size of a grape
to this big.”
Tim hesitated. He needed to do some research and then give Jonathan a
more thorough examination before he could accurately diagnose and treat the
boy’s condition. He did have several possibilities in mind, none of them good,
but there was no sense alarming Ginny prematurely. After she had swathed her
child in the bundle of cloth, Tim ushered them back into the waiting room, where
he studied his appointment book.
“Can you come back at noon on Saturday? I’m sorry to make you wait
that long, but I have some things to check, and it will take time.” Ginny
nodded. “I’ll see then what I can do,” Tim said.
“Oh, Doctor, thank you so much,” Ginny blurted, grateful for any help
regardless of when it might come. She shifted Jonathan to her left arm, and
thrust her right hand into the pocket of her frayed and patched black dress.
Removing a small felt sack, she emptied a pile of copper coins onto the clerk’s
desk. Most were farthings and
halfpennies, with an occasional large penny interspersed among them.
“I know this isn’t enough even for today, sir,” she apologized. “But
I’ll get more, I promise. I’m working hard, you see, sir. Every day I go
door-to-door and get work cleaning house and doing laundry, and save all I
can.”
With his right hand, Tim swept the coins across the desktop into his
cupped left palm and returned them to Ginny. He was touched by her attempt to
pay him, knowing that she must have gone without food many times to accumulate
this small amount of money. Her devotion to her son and effort to demonstrate
her independence impressed him.
“There isn’t any fee, Miss Whitson. I’ll be happy to do whatever I can
for Jonathan at no charge.”
“But I can’t accept charity, Doctor,” the surprised woman answered.
“It wouldn’t be right, taking your time away from your paying patients.”
“We all need charity in one form or another at some time in our
lives,” Tim said. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if not for a great act of
charity long ago, and as for taking time away from my paying patients, that may
be more of a benefit than a problem. Come along, now, and I’ll give you and
Jonathan a ride home.”
Tim locked the office door and escorted Ginny and Jonathan to his
coach as tears trickled down her face, picking up dirt from the smudge on her
cheek and tracking it down to her chin. Jonathan began to cry soon after the
coach got under way, and Ginny comforted him with a lullaby, one that Tim remembered
his own mother singing to him. When the child finally fell asleep, both
remained silent, afraid to wake him. Once they reached the narrow streets
packed with sailors, beggars, drunks, and an assortment of London’s other poor
wretches, Ginny asked to be let out. Tim knocked twice on the roof, and Henry
reined in the horses.
As she was about to step out of the carriage, something she had said
earlier occurred to Tim. “One moment, Miss Whitson. You mentioned that someone
directed you to my office. Do you know who he was?”
“No, Doctor,” she replied, “and he didn’t say. He was an old
gentleman, thin, with a long nose and white hair. Neatly dressed, but his
clothes weren’t fancy, if you know what I mean, sir.”
Tim bade her good night and watched as she walked down the sidewalk,
past gin mills and dilapidated rooming houses. She soon turned into the
recessed doorway of a darkened pawnshop and settled herself on the stone
pavement. Tim briefly thought of going back to find out if she even had a home,
or if she was going to spend the night in the doorway. Fatigue slowed his
thoughts, however, and by the time the idea took root, the carriage was a block
away and gathering speed.
Tim lay back against the soft, leather-covered seat cushions,
pondering which of his Harley Street neighbors had directed her to his office.
Most of them would have ignored such a woman, or ordered her back to the slums.
Her description, though, didn’t fit any of them. He shook his head, trying to
remove the cobwebs from his tired mind. It must have been someone else, someone
he just couldn’t recall in his fuddled state. No sense wrestling with the
question, he concluded.
During the long drive across town to his home in the western outskirts
of London, Tim tried to relax. It had been another in a seemingly endless
string of days filled with consultations and surgeries. Tim had arrived at his
office at five-thirty that morning, half an hour earlier than usual, to prepare
for a seven
o’clock operation on the Duchess of Wilbersham. She had been
complaining for weeks about pain in her left shoulder, which she attributed to
a strain that refused to heal. Since she never lifted anything heavier than a
deck of cards at her daily whist game, Tim doubted the explanation, and several
examinations showed no sign of any real injury. The duchess had a reputation as
a hypochondriac who sought treatment for her phantom ailments from the best
doctors in London, then bragged about
how she managed to maintain her health by not stinting on the cost of
good medical care. To placate the pompous woman, Tim had finally caved in to
her demand that he operate to repair the tendons and ligaments she insisted had
been damaged. Because the surgery was minor and the duchess, with good reason,
abhorred hospitals, Tim performed the operation in his office, which was
equipped for such tasks. A small incision and internal examination verified his
suspicion that the duchess’s shoulder was perfectly sound. When she awoke, with
more pain from the surgery than she had ever experienced from her imaginary
injury, along with sutures and an application of carbolic acid to prevent
infection, she swore that the shoulder had not felt so well in ten years. Tim
wondered if she would be so pleased when the effects of the morphine wore off.
“Just give the doctor that bag of coins I asked you to bring,” the
duchess had ordered her maidservant. “I won’t insult you, Dr. Cratchit, by
asking your fee, but I’m sure there’s more than enough here to cover it, and
worth every farthing, too.”
When Tim’s clerk opened the leather pouch, he found it contained one
hundred gold guineas. Tim could not help contrasting the way his wealthy
patients tossed gold coins about with Ginny Whitson’s offer of her pathetic
little hoard of coppers. The thought stirred memories of his own childhood,
when pennies were so scarce that he and his brothers and sisters sometimes had
to roam through frigid alleys to scavenge wood scraps to keep a fire burning on
winter nights. It was on one such night when he lay awake, shivering on his
thin straw mattress, that he overheard the conversation that changed his life.
“I’m to get a raise in salary,” his father murmured excitedly, trying
not to wake the children.
“I don’t believe it,” Mrs. Cratchit declared. “That old miser would
die before he parted with an extra farthing.”
“It’s true, dear,” Bob Cratchit insisted. “I’ve never seen Mr. Scrooge
like that. We sat for an hour this afternoon, talking. He asked a lot of
questions about our family, Tim in particular.”
“I’m surprised that he even knew you had a family, Bob.”
“I was, too, dear, but he seemed to know a good bit about us. Why,
from a few things he said about hoping we had a good Christmas dinner, I think
he’s the one who sent the turkey yesterday. Who else could have done it?”
“Well, I hope you’re right, Bob. I’ll not believe any of it until I
see the proof.”
Tim smiled at the recollection of his mother’s skepticism. She had
always been the realist in the family, Bob the optimist. Tim had shared his
mother’s doubts. She and the children had despised Ebenezer Scrooge, blaming
his greed for the family’s struggles. But with his stomach filled to bursting
with turkey
left over from Christmas dinner, Tim dared to hope that his father was
right, and that old Scrooge might truly have undergone a change of heart. After
all, it was Christmas, a time when good things were supposed to happen.
The sudden stop as the carriage arrived at his front door shook Tim
from his reverie. He was out the door before Henry could dismount from the
driver’s seat and open it for him, a habit that Tim had observed left his
coachman more amused than chagrined.
“That’s all right, Henry,” he said, waving toward the carriage house.
“You and the horses get inside and warm up.”
Entering the large, well-lit foyer, Tim was greeted by his maid.
Bridget Riordan was a pretty Irish girl, with long, flaming red hair pinned up
under her white cap, numberless freckles on her cheeks and small nose, and
green eyes that always seemed to sparkle with happiness. She took Tim’s top
hat, coat, and
scarf. “Dinner will be ready in a half hour, Doctor,” she announced,
“so you can rest a bit if you’d like.”
“Thank you, Bridget,” Tim replied, watching her walk gracefully toward
the kitchen. He loosened his cravat as he climbed the stairs, thought briefly
of skipping the meal and going directly to bed, and decided that he could not
afford the luxury since he had a long evening of work ahead of him.
As usual, Tim dined alone. At the time he had purchased the large
house, Tim had expected that he would one day need the space for the family he
hoped to have. However, the demands of his practice and the memory of his one
previous and unsuccessful attempt at courtship kept him from actively pursuing
any romantic interests. Now he sometimes wondered whether he would spend the
rest of his life a bachelor, without the happiness he had enjoyed as a child in
the crowded and bustling Cratchit home.
Solitary meals in the cavernous dining room always seemed to dim Tim’s
pleasure despite the hot, tasty food that Bridget prepared. When he had hired
them after buying the house, he had often insisted that she, Henry, and
William, the gardener, join him in the dining room. But the trio had been
servants
since their childhood, and their previous masters, who had not shared
Tim’s lack of concern with class distinctions, had impressed upon them the idea
that it was improper for servants to associate with their master outside the
scope of their duties. The dinner conversations had been stilted, with Tim
trying to
make conversation and Bridget, Henry, and William replying in
monosyllables punctuated by “sir.” Tim had quickly given up the experiment, yet
he still could not help feeling a pang of sadness, mixed with a bit of
jealousy, every time the sound of their friendly conversation and laughter in
the serving room rose
high enough for him to hear. Still, he admitted that all three
servants had warmed to him over the past two years, and had grown more willing
to engage him in informal conversation. Perhaps one day they could dine
together without the awkwardness of his previous attempts, he thought.
Shortly after nine o’clock, Tim retired to his upstairs study. There
each night he reviewed the next day’s cases, looked up information in his
medical books that he might need, and, if time permitted, read the most recent
scientific journals to keep up to date on the latest advances in medicine and
surgery. At
one time he had contributed his share of new knowledge to the medical
profession, but for the last several years he just could not find the time to
do so. He really didn’t have the opportunity, anyway. How could he devise
innovative treatments, he asked himself, when most of the patients he saw, like
the duchess, had nothing seriously wrong with them to begin with?
Having finished his preparation for the next day’s work, Tim drew out
his pocket watch. Not quite half past ten. He reached across the wide mahogany
desk for the latest issue of the Lancet, which had lain unread for more
than a week. Tim pushed it aside. It would have to wait until he had researched
Jonathan’s condition. Tim walked over to the bookcase, scanned several volumes,
removed a reference book, and returned to his chair. The coal fire that Bridget
had stoked was still burning strongly; he would see if he could find
confirmation of his suspicions regarding the boy’s problem, or alternative,
less dire diagnoses, before retiring. Balancing his chair upon its two rear
legs, he put his feet on the desk and opened the volume.
Tim did not know how long he had been reading. It seemed he had gone
over the same paragraph a dozen times without registering the information in
his mind when he felt how cold the study had become. He glanced toward the
fireplace, where a single small log emitted a parsimonious warmth. The room
seemed dark—looking over his shoulder at the gas lamp, he was surprised to see
only a candle in a tin wall sconce, flickering in a chill breeze that came
through a cracked windowpane. Strange, Tim thought, he was certain Bridget had
closed the curtains. And when had the window broken?
His eyes better adjusted to the gloom, Tim turned back toward the
fireplace. His surprise turned to shock when he looked down at his legs and saw
that the new black trousers he had been wearing were now coarse brown cloth
through which he could see the outline of his legs, withered and weak. The
elegant marble of the fireplace had been replaced by cracked, ancient
bricks. Leaning against them was a crutch. His childhood crutch.
Tim stared at the hearth, baffled, for how long he did not know. Then
he started to get up, reaching for the crutch, only to find that his legs were
so weak he could not stand. He gazed at his extended right hand. It was that of
a child. He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, and when he looked
around again, he was back in his own comfortable study. The gas lamp burned
brightly, the fire still blazed in its marble enclave. There was no crutch to
be seen. He flexed his legs. They were strong. He shuddered, perplexed at what
had occurred. Although he was quite sure that he had not fallen asleep, he
reassured himself that it must have been a dream. Not surprising, considering
his thoughts about Jonathan, and the unavoidable realization that the boy’s
plight reminded him so much of his own childhood illness. Tim stood, uneasy,
and dropped the reference book on the desk before heading to bed.
Standing over the washbasin, he poured water from a pitcher into the
ceramic bowl. He wet a washcloth and rubbed his face. Even in the light of the
single gas lamp, he could see the creases beginning to form on his forehead,
the dark circles under his blue eyes. A few strands of gray were sprinkled
through his blond hair. He thought he looked at least a decade older than his
thirty-two years. Combined with his short stature and thinness, Tim reflected
that in a few years he would look like a wizened old man.
Too much work, that was the cause, he thought. Unpleasant work. And
now he also had to do something about Jonathan Whitson, who had what was likely
a malignant tumor. A boy not yet four, probably sentenced to death by nature
before his life had a chance to begin. Five years ago, Dr. Timothy Cratchit
would have tackled the child’s case enthusiastically and with optimism. Now he
was reduced to performing fake surgeries to placate hypochondriacs.
Ginny Whitson had met him years earlier, and believed in his
abilities. He only wished that he shared her confidence.
AUTHOR:
Jim Piecuch is an associate professor of history, and has published several
works of nonfiction. Tim Cratchit’s Christmas Carol is his first novel.
THE PERFECT GIFT
Dani-Lyn Alexander
November 17, 2014
$.99
SUMMARY:
’Tis the night
before Christmas…and businessman and single father Jason is scrambling to find
the dollhouse of the season for his seven-year-old daughter Emily. But when he
finally strikes gold at an obscure toy store, he’s met with
resistance—literally, as a beautiful woman named Leah is grabbing onto the
dollhouse box from the other side of the aisle, determined to get the same
Christmas present for her own daughter.
Desperate not to let the other win, Jason and Leah forge a pact: stay together until they find the same dollhouse at a different toy store. It sounds simple, but ten stores and many hours later, they still come up empty. They might not be finding another dollhouse, but they sure are finding a lot to talk about and, as their mutual attraction grows, the unlikely pair finds the greatest holiday gift of all—love.
Desperate not to let the other win, Jason and Leah forge a pact: stay together until they find the same dollhouse at a different toy store. It sounds simple, but ten stores and many hours later, they still come up empty. They might not be finding another dollhouse, but they sure are finding a lot to talk about and, as their mutual attraction grows, the unlikely pair finds the greatest holiday gift of all—love.
Read an excerpt:
Ten minutes. Jason had ten minutes to make the twenty-minute trip
across town. He’d never be on time for his meeting. He stared at his watch as
if it would tell him something different this time. Acid rolled in his stomach.
Well, they’d just have to wait. Christmas Eve was tomorrow and he had to take
care of getting Emily’s present. Truthfully, he should have gotten it already,
but between working, looking after the house, and taking care of Emily, he had
little time left over for anything else.
The only thing Emily had asked for this year was the Little Family
Dollhouse. She’d get other gifts, too, of course, but he had to be sure to have
that one. A coworker he’d spoken to before he left the office had told him how
popular the house was with girls Emily’s age. Every little girl she knew either
had one or had put it at the top of her list for Santa. Apparently now it was
almost impossible to find. She’d suggested this small, out-of-the-way toy store
that specialized in hard-to-find items. So here he was, sitting in a traffic jam,
hoping it wasn’t too late to get what he needed. Impatience threatened to
Emily was mature for seven, so he knew she’d accept that he couldn’t
find the dollhouse. Still, he didn’t want her to be disappointed. Since Karen’s
death, he’d raised her on his own, and so far it had proved to be the most
challenging, most rewarding thing he’d ever done, and he desperately wanted to
do it right.
The traffic light turned red, and Jason ground his back molars. Not
one car had moved while the light was green. Not. One. Car. City traffic was
the last thing he needed right now. He clutched the steering wheel tightly and
dropped his head onto his clenched fists. This was ridiculous. Who would
schedule a lunchtime meeting all the way across town on the day before
Christmas Eve? His boss, that’s who. How could he possibly get all of this
done? He rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands. Didn’t these people
need to be at work or something? The motorist behind him hit the horn—again—and
Jason couldn’t help but wonder what the man was beeping at. There was nowhere
to go. No doubt he was just voicing his frustration. While Jason could
certainly feel his pain, the constant honking was grating on his nerves.
Spotting a gap in the traffic, he darted to the right as soon as the
light changed. He whipped around the next corner and slipped into a parking
spot only two blocks from the toy store. Figuring he was lucky to get this
close, he locked the car and jogged the two blocks. The freezing-cold drizzle
not only soaked him but also coated the sidewalk with a thin sheet of ice.
Since he was dressed for work in his suit and hard-soled dress shoes, the going
wasn’t easy. Slipping when he turned to enter the store, he went down hard. His
feet slid out from under him and he hit the wet sidewalk, scraping his chin on
the step, tearing a hole in the knee of his pants, and soaking himself in the
process.
Could this day get any worse? Even as the thought crossed his mind, things
indeed got worse. As he pushed himself up, he caught a glimpse through the
front door of the toy store. Although a few customers still browsed inside, the
clerk was already putting the key into the lock. Oh, no! She can’t. Clutching
the handrail tightly, he hurried up the two front steps to the door, grabbing
hold of it before she could turn the key.
“I’m sorry, sir. We’re closing early today. I’m flying down to Florida
to visit family for the holidays.”
Soaking wet, shivering in the cold, he could certainly appreciate her
hurry to head south, but he had to get into that store. “Please. I just need
one thing. It’s really important. I promise I’ll only be a minute.”
Apparently, the woman could tell he was having a rough day, because
she gave him a sympathetic look as she held the door open and gestured for him
to enter.
“Thank you so much.”
He looked around, quickly locating the girls’ section and headed
straight for the aisle that held the dollhouses. The store was small but
crowded with merchandise, and it took him several trips up and
Unbelievable. He took a deep breath to ease the disappointment
pressing like a weight against his chest. Just when he thought this day
couldn’t get any worse, he spotted it. The Little Family Dollhouse. It sat on
the end of the aisle, pushed against the back of the shelf, and there was only
one left. Wary of his slippery shoes on the wet floor, he moved cautiously but
quickly toward the shelf. Breathing a sigh of
LEAH GRIPPED THE dollhouse as tightly as she could and stared into
eyes that had to be made from melted chocolate. She’d never seen such amazing
eyes, and her gaze held his.
“I’m sorry. I need to get this dollhouse.” He still hadn’t taken his
eyes from hers.
She smiled her best smile. “I’m sorry, too, but I had it first.”
“Look,” he started, smiling back at her, the expression filling his
eyes with even more warmth, and Leah’s heart melted a little bit. “I don’t mean
to be rude, but I really need to have this dollhouse.”
His eyes might have melted her heart, but there was no way she was
letting go of this box. Motherhood prevailed. She’d called all over the city
looking for this dollhouse, and now that she’d found it, nothing could make her
part with it, not even a pair of eyes she could easily lose herself in.
“This is the only thing my daughter asked for this year. I must have
it.” Her grin faltered for just a second before she plastered it firmly back in
place. Then she pulled her gaze away from his eyes, effectively removing any
temptation she might have felt to release her hold on the box.
Having been so enthralled by his eyes, she’d somehow missed taking in
the rest of him, and the sight that greeted her now left her momentarily
speechless. He was a mess. His gray pin-striped business suit was soaking wet,
dirty, and torn. Wet hair stuck up in thick, dark clumps along one side of his
head. A large scrape marred his very sexy chin.
All right, don’t go there. Wow, he really was having a bad
day.
He exhaled one of those annoyed male sighs she knew so well. “Look,
let’s be reasonable here. I already had the box in my hand when you grabbed
hold of it.”
“Actually, I had my hand on it first, and then you grabbed it.” Her
smile wavered as she started to realize he might not release his hold.
“Okay, I’ll pay you the cost of the dollhouse if you’ll let me have
this one.”
The dollhouse cost over a hundred dollars, and she had to admit the
money would come in handy. Her job as a receptionist didn’t pay much. The only
reason she hadn’t looked for the gift sooner was that
Allison hadn’t asked for anything else for Christmas. Leah had to have
the dollhouse for her.
“I’m sorry. Even though your offer is very generous”—you jerk—“I’m
afraid I can’t accept. My daughter is only seven, and this is the only thing
she asked for this year. I have to have it for her. I’ve already been all over
the city looking for it. I’m sure you can understand.”
She mentally kicked herself even as the words left her mouth. Maybe he
hadn’t realized how impossible these things were to find. If Mr. Chocolate Eyes
thought he’d be able to find another one, she might have a better chance of
getting him to release his hold on the box. He forked his free hand through his
hair. Good grief. No wonder it was so messy.
“Okay, let’s be reasonable.” He took another long breath, his wet
clothes clinging to broad shoulders. “Only one of us can have the dollhouse. I
understand your position. I have a seven-year-old as well. This dollhouse is
the only thing she put on her list for Santa this year. She’d be so
disappointed if it wasn’t under the tree. Please, is there any way I can talk
you into letting me have it?”
“We’re obviously both in the same position. As adults, surely we can
resolve this somehow.” She couldn’t help but wonder what he’d do if she just
yanked the box out of his hand and ran. The only
Definitely not an option. Allison didn’t have anyone but her mother
and had never known her father. He’d taken off the day he found out Leah was
pregnant. Right now Allison was with Leah’s parents in Ohio. She’d be home
tomorrow, though, and Leah had to be at the airport to pick her up, not sitting
in a jail cell for petty theft. No, she couldn’t run.
He was still staring at her, apparently thinking her silence meant she
was contemplating his offer. “All right, maybe we could—”
“Excuse me.” The sales clerk didn’t appear to be the least bit amused.
She stood with her arms folded across her chest, her foot tapping and a scowl
on her face. “Sir, I let you in because you told me you just needed one thing.
You said you’d only be a minute. I have to lock up now or I’m going to miss my
flight.”
“We seem to have a misunderstanding here.”
At least he had the good grace to blush when he explained the
situation.
“I don’t really care who gets the dollhouse. In one minute I’m locking
that door and I won’t sell it to wither of you.” She turned her back on them
and walked away, effectively ending any argument either of them could come up
with.
When the Christmas music stopped and the lights flipped off a minute
later, Leah panicked. “Come on. I really need to have this. Neither of us is
going to get it if you don’t let go. Now.” Desperation nearly choked her.
“Maybe we can find another one somewhere else, but we’re definitely not going
to find rwo. Let me have this one and I’ll help you find another one.”
He appeared to be as surprised as she was by the offer, but he still
didn’t let go.
“I’m leaving.” The clerk’s voice rang out, sounding completely
annoyed.
“No,” they cried in unison.
“I’ll tell you what.” The man quickly glanced at the clerk and then
back at her. “We’ll split the cost of this one and go together to look for
another one. Then we’ll split the cost of that one, and we’ll each end up with
a dollhouse.”
The rattle of keys made
Leah’s decision. “Fine. You’re on.”
Ten minutes. Jason had ten minutes to make the twenty-minute trip
across town. He’d never be on time for his meeting. He stared at his watch as
if it would tell him something different this time. Acid rolled in his stomach.
Well, they’d just have to wait. Christmas Eve was tomorrow and he had to take
care of getting Emily’s present. Truthfully, he should have gotten it already,
but between working, looking after the house, and taking care of Emily, he had
little time left over for anything else.
The only thing Emily had asked for this year was the Little Family
Dollhouse. She’d get other gifts, too, of course, but he had to be sure to have
that one. A coworker he’d spoken to before he left the office had told him how
popular the house was with girls Emily’s age. Every little girl she knew either
had one or had put it at the top of her list for Santa. Apparently now it was
almost impossible to find. She’d suggested this small, out-of-the-way toy store
that specialized in hard-to-find items. So here he was, sitting in a traffic jam,
hoping it wasn’t too late to get what he needed. Impatience threatened to
strangle him. He glanced again at the clock on the dashboard.
Emily was mature for seven, so he knew she’d accept that he couldn’t
find the dollhouse. Still, he didn’t want her to be disappointed. Since Karen’s
death, he’d raised her on his own, and so far it had proved to be the most
challenging, most rewarding thing he’d ever done, and he desperately wanted to
do it right.
The traffic light turned red, and Jason ground his back molars. Not
one car had moved while the light was green. Not. One. Car. City traffic was
the last thing he needed right now. He clutched the steering wheel tightly and
dropped his head onto his clenched fists. This was ridiculous. Who would
schedule a lunchtime meeting all the way across town on the day before
Christmas Eve? His boss, that’s who. How could he possibly get all of this
done? He rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands. Didn’t these people
need to be at work or something? The motorist behind him hit the horn—again—and
Jason couldn’t help but wonder what the man was beeping at. There was nowhere
to go. No doubt he was just voicing his frustration. While Jason could
certainly feel his pain, the constant honking was grating on his nerves.
Spotting a gap in the traffic, he darted to the right as soon as the
light changed. He whipped around the next corner and slipped into a parking
spot only two blocks from the toy store. Figuring he was lucky to get this
close, he locked the car and jogged the two blocks. The freezing-cold drizzle
not only soaked him but also coated the sidewalk with a thin sheet of ice.
Since he was dressed for work in his suit and hard-soled dress shoes, the going
wasn’t easy. Slipping when he turned to enter the store, he went down hard. His
feet slid out from under him and he hit the wet sidewalk, scraping his chin on
the step, tearing a hole in the knee of his pants, and soaking himself in the
process.
Could this day get any worse? Even as the thought crossed his mind, things
indeed got worse. As he pushed himself up, he caught a glimpse through the
front door of the toy store. Although a few customers still browsed inside, the
clerk was already putting the key into the lock. Oh, no! She can’t. Clutching
the handrail tightly, he hurried up the two front steps to the door, grabbing
hold of it before she could turn the key.
“I’m sorry, sir. We’re closing early today. I’m flying down to Florida
to visit family for the holidays.”
Soaking wet, shivering in the cold, he could certainly appreciate her
hurry to head south, but he had to get into that store. “Please. I just need
one thing. It’s really important. I promise I’ll only be a minute.”
Apparently, the woman could tell he was having a rough day, because
she gave him a sympathetic look as she held the door open and gestured for him
to enter.
“Thank you so much.”
He looked around, quickly locating the girls’ section and headed
straight for the aisle that held the dollhouses. The store was small but
crowded with merchandise, and it took him several trips up and
down the aisle to realize the dollhouse he needed wasn’t there. Great.
Now what would he do? He hated disappointing Emily. Shoving his fingers through
his hair in frustration, he turned to leave.
Unbelievable. He took a deep breath to ease the disappointment
pressing like a weight against his chest. Just when he thought this day
couldn’t get any worse, he spotted it. The Little Family Dollhouse. It sat on
the end of the aisle, pushed against the back of the shelf, and there was only
one left. Wary of his slippery shoes on the wet floor, he moved cautiously but
quickly toward the shelf. Breathing a sigh of
relief, he grabbed the box, turned to head for the register, and…met
with resistance. Snapping back around, he pulled again. Once more the box was
yanked away from him. He held tight to the dollhouse
as he peered around the corner of the aisle at the other set of
fingers holding onto his prize. A small, delicate hand had managed an
incredibly tight grip on the box. His gaze slid up the arm and into
the biggest, bluest, most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. The breath
caught in his throat.
LEAH GRIPPED THE dollhouse as tightly as she could and stared into
eyes that had to be made from melted chocolate. She’d never seen such amazing
eyes, and her gaze held his.
“I’m sorry. I need to get this dollhouse.” He still hadn’t taken his
eyes from hers.
She smiled her best smile. “I’m sorry, too, but I had it first.”
“Look,” he started, smiling back at her, the expression filling his
eyes with even more warmth, and Leah’s heart melted a little bit. “I don’t mean
to be rude, but I really need to have this dollhouse.”
His eyes might have melted her heart, but there was no way she was
letting go of this box. Motherhood prevailed. She’d called all over the city
looking for this dollhouse, and now that she’d found it, nothing could make her
part with it, not even a pair of eyes she could easily lose herself in.
“This is the only thing my daughter asked for this year. I must have
it.” Her grin faltered for just a second before she plastered it firmly back in
place. Then she pulled her gaze away from his eyes, effectively removing any
temptation she might have felt to release her hold on the box.
Having been so enthralled by his eyes, she’d somehow missed taking in
the rest of him, and the sight that greeted her now left her momentarily
speechless. He was a mess. His gray pin-striped business suit was soaking wet,
dirty, and torn. Wet hair stuck up in thick, dark clumps along one side of his
head. A large scrape marred his very sexy chin.
All right, don’t go there. Wow, he really was having a bad
day.
He exhaled one of those annoyed male sighs she knew so well. “Look,
let’s be reasonable here. I already had the box in my hand when you grabbed
hold of it.”
“Actually, I had my hand on it first, and then you grabbed it.” Her
smile wavered as she started to realize he might not release his hold.
“Okay, I’ll pay you the cost of the dollhouse if you’ll let me have
this one.”
The dollhouse cost over a hundred dollars, and she had to admit the
money would come in handy. Her job as a receptionist didn’t pay much. The only
reason she hadn’t looked for the gift sooner was that
she’d had to wait for her final paycheck before Christmas. Although
she was tempted to accept his offer, she still held tight.
Allison hadn’t asked for anything else for Christmas. Leah had to have
the dollhouse for her.
“I’m sorry. Even though your offer is very generous”—you jerk—“I’m
afraid I can’t accept. My daughter is only seven, and this is the only thing
she asked for this year. I have to have it for her. I’ve already been all over
the city looking for it. I’m sure you can understand.”
She mentally kicked herself even as the words left her mouth. Maybe he
hadn’t realized how impossible these things were to find. If Mr. Chocolate Eyes
thought he’d be able to find another one, she might have a better chance of
getting him to release his hold on the box. He forked his free hand through his
hair. Good grief. No wonder it was so messy.
“Okay, let’s be reasonable.” He took another long breath, his wet
clothes clinging to broad shoulders. “Only one of us can have the dollhouse. I
understand your position. I have a seven-year-old as well. This dollhouse is
the only thing she put on her list for Santa this year. She’d be so
disappointed if it wasn’t under the tree. Please, is there any way I can talk
you into letting me have it?”
“We’re obviously both in the same position. As adults, surely we can
resolve this somehow.” She couldn’t help but wonder what he’d do if she just
yanked the box out of his hand and ran. The only
problem being she’d have to stop and pay for it. She couldn’t just run
out of the store. Or could she? She glanced toward the front door and chewed on
her bottom lip. She could always come back in later,
after he’d gone, and pay for it. Of course, if the owner called the
police and they caught her before she could come back, she’d spend Christmas in
jail.
Definitely not an option. Allison didn’t have anyone but her mother
and had never known her father. He’d taken off the day he found out Leah was
pregnant. Right now Allison was with Leah’s parents in Ohio. She’d be home
tomorrow, though, and Leah had to be at the airport to pick her up, not sitting
in a jail cell for petty theft. No, she couldn’t run.
He was still staring at her, apparently thinking her silence meant she
was contemplating his offer. “All right, maybe we could—”
“Excuse me.” The sales clerk didn’t appear to be the least bit amused.
She stood with her arms folded across her chest, her foot tapping and a scowl
on her face. “Sir, I let you in because you told me you just needed one thing.
You said you’d only be a minute. I have to lock up now or I’m going to miss my
flight.”
“We seem to have a misunderstanding here.”
At least he had the good grace to blush when he explained the
situation.
“I don’t really care who gets the dollhouse. In one minute I’m locking
that door and I won’t sell it to wither of you.” She turned her back on them
and walked away, effectively ending any argument either of them could come up
with.
When the Christmas music stopped and the lights flipped off a minute
later, Leah panicked. “Come on. I really need to have this. Neither of us is
going to get it if you don’t let go. Now.” Desperation nearly choked her.
“Maybe we can find another one somewhere else, but we’re definitely not going
to find rwo. Let me have this one and I’ll help you find another one.”
He appeared to be as surprised as she was by the offer, but he still
didn’t let go.
“I’m leaving.” The clerk’s voice rang out, sounding completely
annoyed.
“No,” they cried in unison.
“I’ll tell you what.” The man quickly glanced at the clerk and then
back at her. “We’ll split the cost of this one and go together to look for
another one. Then we’ll split the cost of that one, and we’ll each end up with
a dollhouse.”
The rattle of keys made
Leah’s decision. “Fine. You’re on.”
AUTHOR:
Dani-Lyn Alexander is a native New Yorker. She was born in Rome, New York,
then moved to Rosedale, and finally to Long Island. She still lives on eastern
Long Island with her husband and three children. Please visit http://www.danilynalexander.com/.
THE
CHRISTMAS TRAIN
Rexanne Becnel
November 17, 2014
$1.99
SUMMARY:
Anna Spano is on
the train to meet her father while she befriends Eva Stephens, an older woman
who occasionally thinks she’s traveling to her home village in pre–World War II
for the holidays. Recognizing Miss Eva’s disorientation as the same dementia
her late grandmother experienced, Anna isn’t sure who is actually taking care
of whom on the journey.
At the far end of the journey, Tom Thurston is anxious about what to expect when his daughter arrives. So he’s doubly shocked when a teary old woman embraces him, convinced that he is her long-lost brother.
At Anna’s insistence, he reluctantly agrees to bring the woman home with them and try to locate her family. And as Anna clings loyally to her new friend, and Tom struggles to be who Miss Eva needs him to be, both father and daughter begin to understand one another. And through Miss Eva, they learn the true meaning of family, and of love.
At the far end of the journey, Tom Thurston is anxious about what to expect when his daughter arrives. So he’s doubly shocked when a teary old woman embraces him, convinced that he is her long-lost brother.
At Anna’s insistence, he reluctantly agrees to bring the woman home with them and try to locate her family. And as Anna clings loyally to her new friend, and Tom struggles to be who Miss Eva needs him to be, both father and daughter begin to understand one another. And through Miss Eva, they learn the true meaning of family, and of love.
Read an excerpt:
Tom Thurston stared at his phone in shock,
then dropped it on the kitchen counter as if it had burned his hand. Like a
ghost from the past, Carrie calls him and tells him she’s sending Anna to live
with him? She’d said, “I’ve raised her for the first ten years. It’s your turn
now.” Into his stunned silence she’d added, “I’ll let you know when she’s
arriving.” He sank onto a bar stool and stared blankly. What
Then she’d dropped the bomb: she was pregnant.
It was painful to remember his panic and her stunned
response. Backed against a wall, he’d blurted out that he was too young to get
married; they both were. But if she wanted, he would help her get an abortion.
Carrie, always fun-loving but often intense, had gone
ballistic, screaming and ranting that he was a son of a bitch and every other
foul name she could think of. And she’d been right. He knew that now, but at
the time he’d thanked his lucky stars to be rid of her. In a fit of rage she’d
vowed to keep the baby and make him sorry that he’d ever messed with her.
That was the last time he’d seen her. But as he’d started
his professional life as an engineer here in Iowa, the shadow of Carrie had
hung over him. Carrie and her baby. His baby. He’d expected to hear from
her once the baby was born, but when there was no word he got anxious. Did she
have the baby or not? Did she keep it or put it up for adoption?
He’s finally researched the births in Carrie’s hometown
and discovered that Caroline Spano—no
He had a daughter.
And now that daughter was ten years old, and coming here
to live with him.
“Damn it!” How was he supposed to fit her into his life?
But even more difficult would be explaining her to his parents and sister. What
would they think of him, their golden boy, who, as far as they knew, had never
screwed up. Even worse, how could he justify keeping such a huge secret from
them?
He braced his elbows on the counter. He supposed they
would forgive him eventually. And they would
But what about Joelle? Would she be able to forgive him?
Or would she dump him and his surprise daughter like a load of bricks?
Muffling a curse, he dropped his head into his hands. This
could not be happening. Not this fast, with no
Then one of the envelopes came back marked unable to
deliver. He’d done a cursory search for her with no success, and decided
that if she’d moved and couldn’t be bothered to contact him, then so be it. And
if he’d ever felt guilty on October 2 every year, he’d told himself that he’d
done all he could do.
Now, though, he was in a quandary. He could no longer
ignore the situation.
He stared at his phone. Taking a deep breath, he reached
for it and pressed *69. “Pick up, Carrie. Pick up
Anna rolled
up her favorite nightgown, three pairs of socks and underpants, and three
changes of
Her mother said it cost too much to send so much junk all
the way to Iowa. If her father wanted to drive
Anna swallowed hard and began to shove the nightgown into
her backpack. If her father did want her
Except for the Christmas present.
Wiping away her tears, Anna knelt down and pulled the box
out from under her bed. She’d found it in Nana Rose’s closet when her mother
told her to pick out a dress for Nana Rose to be buried in. Even though it had
only been October, the box had been wrapped in pretty Christmas paper with a
wide red ribbon and a gift tag with Anna written on it in Nana Rose’s
neat, familiar handwriting.
Setting the gift on her bed, she studied it and the rest
of the clothes that had to fit in her backpack.
When she first found it, she’d wanted so bad to open it.
Even now, just looking at it, knowing Nana Rose had wrapped it up so nice for
her, made her want to open it. But she had to wait. This was going to be the
worst Christmas of her life, but at least she had this present. When she opened
it on Christmas morning, it would be almost like Nana Rose was there with her.
Almost. Frowning, she emptied her backpack, wedged the box safely on the
bottom, then repacked her clothes on top of it.
She wasn’t sure where she would be on Christmas Day, but
at least she could look forward to opening this one last gift from Nana Rose.
The train depot was festooned for Christmas.
Garlands looped above the ticket counter. A huge wreath
hung over the wide arched entrance to the
Eva Stephens clutched the handle of her bag. It held no
presents, but she hoped her surprising visit after so long an absence would
prove present enough for her family. Her heart fluttered in her chest, an
unwelcome symptom according to her doctor. But she preferred to think of it as
butterfly wings beating eagerly for release. She was going home! After more
years than she could remember, she was going home for Christmas.
She coughed three times, like the nurse had taught her,
and felt the flutter subside. Then shifting her
Unfortunately people didn’t seem to dress as nicely as they
used to. She tried not to stare at a man in worn tennis shoes and a stained
sweatshirt. And behind her in line a woman dressed in painted-on jeans,
knee-high stiletto boots, and a sweater meant to emphasize her generous breasts
held the hand of a little girl, all the while reeking of cigarette smoke.
Eva wrinkled her nose. I hope they still have separate
smoking cars.
The child at least was properly dressed in corduroy
slacks, some sort of puffy blue jacket, and a matching
“Where to? Ma’am? Where to?”
“Oh.” Eva looked up with a start. “Am I next?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The ticket seller raised his brows, then
returned his attention to his computer screen. “Where to?”
“Let’s see.” She pulled out the slip of paper with the
town’s name on it. Not that she needed it to remember the name of her own
hometown. Still, every now and again she got these annoying little lapses of
memory. Better to be safe than sorry.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, yes. I want a ticket to Ennis. If you please.”
“Ennis.” He stared at his screen, a faint frown on his
face. Then he smiled. “Here it is. Ennis, Iowa. Right?”
Eva faltered. Ennis was in Germany, not Iowa. She looked
around her, at a loss suddenly for where she was.
“Ennis,” she repeated, tightening her grip on the handle
of her carpetbag. “I want to go to Ennis.”
“Okay, okay,” the man said. “Ennis it is. “Will that be a
round trip?”
“No.” Eva smiled at him, restored by overwhelming joy at
the thought of her hometown. “No,” she repeated, beaming pure happiness at the
ticket seller. “I only need a one-way ticket.”
“One way it is.” He glanced up at her. “Looks like you’re
pretty happy to be going.”
“Ach, so I
am.”
“That’ll be one hundred forty-eight dollars. Cash or
credit?”
Eva lifted her chin. “I deal only in the cash, young man.
Buying on credit gets a person into trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, taking the eight twentydollar
bills she slid into the tray beneath the glass
Eva nodded, taking the change he slid back to her and
folding it into her purse. “I will be very careful.”
“You’re boarding at three fifteen on platform seven. Merry
Christmas and have a good trip.”
“Thank you, and a Merry Christmas to you, too.”
As Eva turned away she nearly collided with the
cigarette-scented woman in the revealing sweater. “Oh,
“No problem,” the woman muttered, giving her a hard stare.
Eva nodded and headed toward the gates to the loading
platform. It was too cold to wait outside, so she
AUTHOR:
Tom Thurston stared at his phone in shock,
then dropped it on the kitchen counter as if it had burned his hand. Like a
ghost from the past, Carrie calls him and tells him she’s sending Anna to live
with him? She’d said, “I’ve raised her for the first ten years. It’s your turn
now.” Into his stunned silence she’d added, “I’ll let you know when she’s
arriving.” He sank onto a bar stool and stared blankly. What
was he supposed to do with a ten-year-old girl? Groaning,
he raked a hand through his hair. He
should have known this day would come—that his one big
mistake would eventually come back to haunt him. He’d met Carrie Spano in his
senior year at the University of Texas. A freshman, she’d been a beauty. Faced
with her dark, flashing eyes, her killer body, and her devil-may-care approach
to life, it had been easy to overlook her youth. By November they’d been an
item. But by April, with graduation and a new job on his horizon, she’d started
pushing for them to get married. Married? At twenty-two?
Then she’d dropped the bomb: she was pregnant.
It was painful to remember his panic and her stunned
response. Backed against a wall, he’d blurted out that he was too young to get
married; they both were. But if she wanted, he would help her get an abortion.
Carrie, always fun-loving but often intense, had gone
ballistic, screaming and ranting that he was a son of a bitch and every other
foul name she could think of. And she’d been right. He knew that now, but at
the time he’d thanked his lucky stars to be rid of her. In a fit of rage she’d
vowed to keep the baby and make him sorry that he’d ever messed with her.
That was the last time he’d seen her. But as he’d started
his professional life as an engineer here in Iowa, the shadow of Carrie had
hung over him. Carrie and her baby. His baby. He’d expected to hear from
her once the baby was born, but when there was no word he got anxious. Did she
have the baby or not? Did she keep it or put it up for adoption?
He’s finally researched the births in Carrie’s hometown
and discovered that Caroline Spano—no
father listed—had given birth to Anna Rose Spano on
October 2, 1991.
He had a daughter.
And now that daughter was ten years old, and coming here
to live with him.
“Damn it!” How was he supposed to fit her into his life?
But even more difficult would be explaining her to his parents and sister. What
would they think of him, their golden boy, who, as far as they knew, had never
screwed up. Even worse, how could he justify keeping such a huge secret from
them?
He braced his elbows on the counter. He supposed they
would forgive him eventually. And they would
accept Anna, he knew that. His mother was eager for a
grandchild and made no bones about it, especially to his recently married
sister.
But what about Joelle? Would she be able to forgive him?
Or would she dump him and his surprise daughter like a load of bricks?
Muffling a curse, he dropped his head into his hands. This
could not be happening. Not this fast, with no
warning whatsoever. Surely he and Carrie could come to
some sort of compromise. What if he offered her money to keep the child? After
all, she’d cashed the check he’d sent her right after he found out the baby was
born. Although she hadn’t acknowledged them, she’d cashed all the checks he’d
sent that first year.
Then one of the envelopes came back marked unable to
deliver. He’d done a cursory search for her with no success, and decided
that if she’d moved and couldn’t be bothered to contact him, then so be it. And
if he’d ever felt guilty on October 2 every year, he’d told himself that he’d
done all he could do.
Now, though, he was in a quandary. He could no longer
ignore the situation.
He stared at his phone. Taking a deep breath, he reached
for it and pressed *69. “Pick up, Carrie. Pick up
the damn phone,” he muttered as it rang and rang. He
wasn’t ready to be a father. A kid would ruin everything. He would not let
Carrie wreck his life without even giving him a chance to make some
counteroffer. But when he finally hung up after twenty rings, he knew he was
wrong. Carrie could wreck his life. She already had.
Anna rolled
up her favorite nightgown, three pairs of socks and underpants, and three
changes of
clothes—her favorites, just in case her mother didn’t get
around to sending the rest of her clothes and other things she’d packed into
two big cardboard boxes. Even with the boxes full, there were so many things
she loved that she had to leave behind. Her teddy-bear collection. Her shelf of
Goosebumps books. Her school papers, and the art projects that Nana Rose
had posted on the refrigerator. And then there was her bike, and all her Barbie
stuff.
Her mother said it cost too much to send so much junk all
the way to Iowa. If her father wanted to drive
back and get it, fine with her.
Anna swallowed hard and began to shove the nightgown into
her backpack. If her father did want her
and all her stuff, he would’ve said so a long time ago.
All the things her grandmother had scrimped and saved to buy her were as good
as gone.
Except for the Christmas present.
Wiping away her tears, Anna knelt down and pulled the box
out from under her bed. She’d found it in Nana Rose’s closet when her mother
told her to pick out a dress for Nana Rose to be buried in. Even though it had
only been October, the box had been wrapped in pretty Christmas paper with a
wide red ribbon and a gift tag with Anna written on it in Nana Rose’s
neat, familiar handwriting.
Setting the gift on her bed, she studied it and the rest
of the clothes that had to fit in her backpack.
When she first found it, she’d wanted so bad to open it.
Even now, just looking at it, knowing Nana Rose had wrapped it up so nice for
her, made her want to open it. But she had to wait. This was going to be the
worst Christmas of her life, but at least she had this present. When she opened
it on Christmas morning, it would be almost like Nana Rose was there with her.
Almost. Frowning, she emptied her backpack, wedged the box safely on the
bottom, then repacked her clothes on top of it.
She wasn’t sure where she would be on Christmas Day, but
at least she could look forward to opening this one last gift from Nana Rose.
The train depot was festooned for Christmas.
Garlands looped above the ticket counter. A huge wreath
hung over the wide arched entrance to the
station’s platforms, and a pair of lighted trees, flocked
white and laden with shiny red ornaments, flanked the information and security
booth.
Eva Stephens clutched the handle of her bag. It held no
presents, but she hoped her surprising visit after so long an absence would
prove present enough for her family. Her heart fluttered in her chest, an
unwelcome symptom according to her doctor. But she preferred to think of it as
butterfly wings beating eagerly for release. She was going home! After more
years than she could remember, she was going home for Christmas.
She coughed three times, like the nurse had taught her,
and felt the flutter subside. Then shifting her
carpetbag from her right hand to her left, she set out for
the ticket counter. How long since she’d been on a train? She couldn’t recall.
But some things never changed: the busy excitement of so many people rushing
everywhere; the low rumble of the massive engines that permeated even inside
the station building. And through the glass doors, the view of people queuing
up to board.
Unfortunately people didn’t seem to dress as nicely as they
used to. She tried not to stare at a man in worn tennis shoes and a stained
sweatshirt. And behind her in line a woman dressed in painted-on jeans,
knee-high stiletto boots, and a sweater meant to emphasize her generous breasts
held the hand of a little girl, all the while reeking of cigarette smoke.
Eva wrinkled her nose. I hope they still have separate
smoking cars.
The child at least was properly dressed in corduroy
slacks, some sort of puffy blue jacket, and a matching
blue and white muffler and stocking cap. She was a pretty
little thing with straight blond bangs hanging over striking blue eyes. She
didn’t look very happy, though.
“Where to? Ma’am? Where to?”
“Oh.” Eva looked up with a start. “Am I next?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The ticket seller raised his brows, then
returned his attention to his computer screen. “Where to?”
“Let’s see.” She pulled out the slip of paper with the
town’s name on it. Not that she needed it to remember the name of her own
hometown. Still, every now and again she got these annoying little lapses of
memory. Better to be safe than sorry.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, yes. I want a ticket to Ennis. If you please.”
“Ennis.” He stared at his screen, a faint frown on his
face. Then he smiled. “Here it is. Ennis, Iowa. Right?”
Eva faltered. Ennis was in Germany, not Iowa. She looked
around her, at a loss suddenly for where she was.
“Ennis,” she repeated, tightening her grip on the handle
of her carpetbag. “I want to go to Ennis.”
“Okay, okay,” the man said. “Ennis it is. “Will that be a
round trip?”
“No.” Eva smiled at him, restored by overwhelming joy at
the thought of her hometown. “No,” she repeated, beaming pure happiness at the
ticket seller. “I only need a one-way ticket.”
“One way it is.” He glanced up at her. “Looks like you’re
pretty happy to be going.”
“Ach, so I
am.”
“That’ll be one hundred forty-eight dollars. Cash or
credit?”
Eva lifted her chin. “I deal only in the cash, young man.
Buying on credit gets a person into trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, taking the eight twentydollar
bills she slid into the tray beneath the glass
partition. “But, ma’am,” he added, leaning nearer and
lowering his voice. “Don’t say too much about carrying only cash, okay? There’s
people who’d love to fleece a nice lady like you. You know what I mean?”
Eva nodded, taking the change he slid back to her and
folding it into her purse. “I will be very careful.”
She patted her purse and as added precaution hooked the
long strap over her head and shoulder. “But I thank you for your concern.”
“You’re boarding at three fifteen on platform seven. Merry
Christmas and have a good trip.”
“Thank you, and a Merry Christmas to you, too.”
As Eva turned away she nearly collided with the
cigarette-scented woman in the revealing sweater. “Oh,
my. Excuse me.”
“No problem,” the woman muttered, giving her a hard stare.
Eva nodded and headed toward the gates to the loading
platform. It was too cold to wait outside, so she
found a seat near the arched doors. Not long now. In less
than an hour she would be on her way home at last. Smiling, she settled her
purse and her carpetbag on her
lap and folded her hands over them. This would be the happiest Christmas ever.
Rexanne Becnel is the USA TODAY bestselling author of more than twenty
books, including Thief of My Heart, A Dove at Midnight, and Dangerous to Love. She lives in New
Orleans.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN MIRACLE
Christine
Feehan
November 17, 2014
$3.99
SUMMARY:
When Cole
Steele, a womanizer rumored to have killed his father, meets Maia Armstrong, a
veterinarian rumored to practice magic, the sizzling romance could melt all the
snow on his Wyoming ranch. And when an
injured horse brings them together, Cole can’t help but believe that Maia casts
spells on animals—and men. What else could explain the burning passion he feels
for her and the thawing of his heart just in time for Christmas?
Read an excerpt:
Cole Steele could hear the screams coming from the room down the hall.
He knew those nightmares intimately, because the demons also visited him every
time he closed his own eyes. He was a grown man, hard and disciplined and well
able to drink his way through the night if necessary, but Jase was just a young
teenager. Guilt edged his anger as he made his way through the dark to the
boy’s room. He should have done something, to spare his half brother the
horrendous legacy of his own past.
In truth, he hadn’t been in touch with his father for years. It hadn’t
occurred to him that his father would remarry a much younger woman and produce
another child, but he should have considered the possibility, not just dropped
off the face of the earth. Cole shoved open the bedroom door. Jase was already
fully awake, his eyes wide with the terror of his memories. Something twisted
hard and painfully in Cole’s chest.
“I’m here, Jase,” he announced unnecessarily.He wasn’t good at
soothing the boy. He had been born and bred in roughness and still had a
difficult time being gentle. Worse, Jase barely knew him. He was asking the
teenager to trust him in spite of his reputation and the rumors of attempted
murder flying freely through the town. It was no wonder the boy regarded him
with some suspicion. “I hate Christmas. Can’t we just make it go away?” Jase
asked. He threw back the covers and paced across the room, the same edgy
tension in his teenage body that Cole had in abundance as a grown man. Jase was
tall and gangly, like a young colt, all arms and legs, looking a bit like a
scarecrow in flannel pajamas.He had Cole’s dark hair, but his eyes must have
been his mother’s, as they were a deep, rich brown. Right now, his eyes were
wide with terror, and he turned away to hide his trembling.
Cole felt as if he were looking at himself as a youngster, only Jase
had poured himself into books and Cole had become a hellion. Cole knew what it
was like to hide the bruises and the terror from the rest of the world. He had
grown up living in isolation and hiding, and he still lived that way, but he
would be damned if this boy would endure the same.
“Did he shoot your dog for Christmas?” Cole asked bluntly. “That’s
what he did for me the last time I wanted to celebrate the holiday like my
friends. I haven’t ever wanted a Christmas since.He also beat the holy hell out
of me, but that was insignificant next to the dog.”
Jase faced him slowly. The horror was still all too stark in his eyes.
“I had a cat.”
“I’ll bet he said you weren’t tough enough and that only sissies
needed pets and Christmas. He wanted you to toughen up and be a man. Not get
attached to anything.”
Jase nodded, swallowing an obvious lump in his throat.
“He did a lot of things.”
“You have burn marks? Scars from cuts? He liked to whip me with a coat
hanger. And when I didn’t cry, he took to using other things.”
“I cried,” Jase admitted.
“I did too, at first. He was a mean son of bitch, Jase. I’m glad he’s
dead. He can’t touch you anymore. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you the
nightmares go away because I still have them. We both lived in hell and he had
too much money for anyone to want to believe us.” Cole rubbed his hands through
his thick black hair.
“He was sick, Jase. I got out, changed my name thinking he’d never
find me, and stayed as far from him as I could possibly get. That’s no excuse.
I should have kept tabs on him. Maybe I could have gotten you away from him.”
Jase shook his head. “He never would have let me go.”
“You know what they’re all saying, don’t you? They think I had
something to do with his death.”
Jase nodded, his eyes suddenly wary. “I’ve heard. Why did you come
back?”
“I was named your guardian in his will. It was the first I’d heard of
you. I didn’t know you existed until five months ago. I knew he must have done
the same thing to you and your mother that he did to me and mine. I thought I
could protect you, at least until you’re old enough to live on your own. I
figured I would be a better guardian than anyone else the court might appoint
or that our father had named if I didn’t accept.”
Dawn was creeping in through the huge plate-glass window. Cole watched
the sun come up. It was cold, and the ground outside was covered with several
feet of snow, turning the hills into a carpet of sparkling crystals. “You
hungry?”
“Are you cooking?”
Cole managed a lazy shrug even though he really wanted to smash
something. It was always there, that volcano inside him, waiting to erupt. The
thought of his father, the time of year, it wasn’t all that difficult to bring
rage to the surface. “I thought we’d go into town and give them all something
more to gossip about.”
Jase met Cole’s eyes squarely. “They say you killed the old man and
that you’re planning to kill me next. Sixtyfour million dollars is a lot of
money, twice as much as thirty-two.”
“They do say that, don’t they?” Cole said. “And don’t forget the
ranch. It’s worth twice that easily, maybe more with the oil and gas deposits.
I haven’t actually checked into how much yet.”His eyes had gone ice-cold, a
piercing blue stare that impaled the boy. “What do you say, Jase? Because in
the end, you’re the only one that counts as far as I’m concerned.”
Jase was silent a long time. “I say I’m glad you came back. But I
don’t understand why he left us the money and the ranch when he hated us both
so much. It doesn’t make any sense.” He looked around the enormous room,
frowning.
“I keep expecting him to show up in the middle of the night. I’m
afraid to open my eyes because I know he’s standing over the bed, just
waiting.”
“With that smile.”Cole’s voice was grim.
Jase nodded, a small shudder betraying the fact that he wasn’t as calm
as he tried to seem. “With that smile.” He looked at Cole. “What do you do when
the nightmares come?” He punched his fist into his pillow. Once. Twice. “I hate
this time of year.”
Cole felt a sharp pain in his chest and the familiar churning in his
gut. His own hand balled into a fist, but he tamped down the smoldering anger
and hung on to control for the boy’s sake. “I drink. I’m your guardian, so I
have to say that’s not allowed for you. At least not until you’re a hell of a
lot older.”
“Does it work?”
“No,” Cole said grimly. Honestly. “But it gets me through the night.
Sometimes I go to the workout room
“None of that works either, does it?” Jase had tried physical activity
as well, but he was finding that talking quietly with his half brother was
helpful. More helpful than anything else he’d tried. At least one person
believed him. And one person had gone through the same torment. It created a
bond in spite of the ugly rumors that surrounded his tough, harder-than-nails
half brother.
Cole shook his head. “No, none of it works, but it gets you through
the night. One night at a time. He’s dead, Jase, and that’s all that matters.”
Jase took a deep breath. “Did you kill him?”
“No, but I wish I had. I used to lie awake at night and plan how I’d
do it. That was before Mom died. Then I just wanted to get out.” Cole studied
the boy’s face. “Did you kill him?” He concentrated his gaze on the boy. Every
nuance. Every expression, the way he breathed. The flick of his eyes. The
trembling of his hands.
Jase shook his head. “I was too afraid of him.”
Cole let his breath out slowly. He had stayed alive using his ability
to read others, and he was fairly certain that Jase was telling the truth. Jase
had been in the house when someone had shot Brett Steele right there in his own
office. He wanted to believe that the boy wasn’t involved in Brett Steele’s
death. Cole wasn’t certain how he would have handled it if Jase had admitted
he’d done it, and for a man in Cole’s profession, that wasn’t a good thing.
“Cole, did he kill your mother?” For the first time, Jase sounded like
a child rather than a fourteen-year-old trying to be a man. He sank down onto
the bed, his thin shoulders shaking. “I think he killed my mother. They said
she was drinking and drove off the bridge, but she never drank. Never. She was
afraid to drink. She wanted to know what was happening all the time. You know
what he was like, he’d be nice one minute and come after you the next.”
Brett Steele had been a sadistic man. It was Cole’s belief that he had
killed for the sheer rush of having the power of life and death over anything,
human or animal. He’d enjoyed inflicting pain, and he had tortured his wives
and children and every one of his employees. The ranch was huge, a long way
from help, and once he had control over those living on his lands, he never
relinquished it. Cole knew he’d been lucky to escape.
“It’s possible. I think the old man was capable of paying everyone off
from coroners to police officers. He had too much money and power for anyone to
cross him. It would be easy enough for a medical examiner to look the other way
if there was enough money in bribes. And if that didn’t work, there were always
threats. We both know the old man didn’t make idle threats; he’d carry them
out.”
Jase met his brother’s stare directly. “He killed your mother, didn’t
he?”
“Maybe. Probably.” Cole needed a drink. “Let’s go into town and get
breakfast.”
“Okay.” Jase pulled a pair of jeans from the closet. They were neatly
hung and immaculately clean, just like everything else in the room.“Who do you
think killed him? If it wasn’t either of us, someone else had to have done it.”
“He made a lot of enemies. He destroyed businesses and seduced as many
of his friends’wives as possible. And if he killed anyone else, as I suspect he
must have, someone could have known and retaliated. He liked to hurt people,
Jase. It was inevitable that he would die a violent death.”
“Were you surprised he left you the money and guardianship over me?”
“Yes, at first. But later I thought maybe it made sense. He wanted us to
be like him. He had me investigated and found I spent time in jail. I think he
believed I was exactly like him. And the only other choice of a guardian he had
was your uncle, and you know how much they despised one another.”
Jase sighed.“Uncle Mike is just as crazy as Dad was. All he talks
about is sin and redemption. He thinks I need to be exorcised.”
Cole swore, a long string of curses. “That’s a load of crap, Jase.
There’s nothing wrong with you.” He needed to move, to ride something hard, it
didn’t matter what it was. A horse, a motorcycle, a woman, anything at all to
take away the knots gathering in his stomach. “Let’s get out of here.”
He turned away from the boy, a cold anger lodged in his gut. He
detested Christmas, detested everything about it. No matter how much he didn’t
want the season to start, it always came. He woke up drenched in sweat, vicious
laughter ringing in his ears. He could fight the demons most of the year, but
not when Christmas songs played on the radio and in every store he entered. Not
when every
Counseling hadn’t helped either of them. When no one believed a word
you said, or worse, was bought off, you learned to stop trusting people. If
Cole never did another thing right in his life, he was going to be the one
person Jase would know he could always trust. And he was going to make certain
the boy didn’t turn out the way he had. Or the way their father had.
The brothers walked through the sprawling ranch house. The floors were
all gleaming wood, the ceilings
“Cole,” Jase asked, “why were you in jail?”
Cole didn’t break stride as he hurried through the spacious house. At
times he wanted to burn the thing down. There was no warmth in it, and as hard
as he’d tried to turn the showpiece into a home for Jase, it remained cold and
barren.
Outdoors it was biting cold. The frost turned the hills and meadows
into a world of sparkling crystal, dazzling the eyes, but Cole simply ignored
it, shoving his sunglasses onto his face. He went past the huge garage that
housed dozens of cars—all toys Brett Steele had owned and rarely ever used—to
go to his own pickup.
“I shouldn’t have asked you,”
Jase muttered, slamming the door with unnecessary force. “I hate questions.”
Cole paused, the key in the ignition. He glanced at the boy’s flushed
face. “It isn’t that, Jase. I don’t mind you asking me anything. I made up my
mind I’d never lie to you about anything, and I’m not quite certain how to
explain the jail time. Give me a minute.”
Jase nodded. “I don’t mind that you’ve been in jail, but it worries me
because Uncle Mike says he’s going to take you to court and get custody of me.
If I lived with him, I’d spend all my life on my knees, praying for my soul.
I’d rather run away.”
“He can’t get you away from me,” Cole promised, his voice grim. There
was a hard edge to the set of his mouth. He turned his piercing blue gaze
directly on his young half brother. “The one thing I can promise is I’ll fight
for you until they kill me, Jase.” He was implacable, the deadly ruthless stamp
of determination clear on his face.“No one is going to take you away from me.
You got that?”
Jase visibly relaxed. He nodded, a short jerky gesture as he tried to
keep his emotions under control. Cole wasn’t certain if that was good or bad.
Maybe the boy needed to cry his eyes out. Cole never had. He would never give
his father the satisfaction, even when the bastard had nearly killed him.
It was a long way to the nearest town. There had been numerous guards
at the ranch when his father was alive, supposedly for security, but Cole knew
better. Brett had needed his own private world, a realm he could rule with an
iron fist. The first thing Cole had done was to fire all of the ranch hands,
the security force, and the housekeeper. If he could have had them prosecuted
for their participation in Brett’s sadistic depravities, he would have. Jase
needed to feel safe. And Cole needed to feel as if he could provide the right
atmosphere for the boy. They had interviewed the new ranch hands together, and
they were still looking for a housekeeper.
“You, know, Jase, you never picked out one of the horses to use,” Cole
said.
Jase leaned forward to fiddle with the radio. The cab was flooded with
a country Christmas tune. Jase hastily went through the stations, but all he
could find was Christmas music and he finally gave up in exasperation. “I don’t
care which one I ride,” Jase said, and turned his head to stare out the window
at the passing scenery. His voice was deliberately careless.
“You must have a preference,” Cole persisted. “I’ve seen you bring the
big bay, Celtic High, a carrot every now and then.” The boy had spent a little
time each day, brushing the horse and whispering to it, but he never rode the
bay. Jase’s expression closed down instantly, his eyes wary. “I don’t care
about any of them,” he repeated.
Cole frowned as he slipped a CD into the player. “You know what the
old man was all about, don’t you, Jase? He didn’t want his sons to feel
affection or loyalty to anything or anyone. Not our mothers, not friends, and
not animals. He killed the animals in front of us to teach us a lesson. He
destroyed our friendships to accomplish the same thing. He got rid of our
mothers to isolate us, to make us wholly
“You didn’t do that,” Jase pointed out. “You don’t have a dog. You
haven’t had a dog in all the years you’ve been away. And you never got married.
I’ll bet you never lived with a woman. You have one-night stands and that’s
about it because you won’t let anyone into your life.” It was a shrewd guess.
Cole counted silently to ten. He was psychoanalyzing Jase, but he damned
well didn’t want the boy to turn the spotlight back on him. “It’s a hell of a
way to live, Jase. You don’t want to use me as a role model. I know all the
things you shouldn’t do and not many you should. But cutting yourself off from
every living thing takes its toll. Don’t let him do that to you. Start small if
you want. Just choose
Jase was silent, his face averted, but Cole knew he was weighing the
matter carefully. It meant trusting Cole further than perhaps Jase was willing
to go. Cole was a big question mark to everyone, Jase especially. Cole couldn’t
blame the boy. He knew what he was like. Tough and ruthless with no backup in
him. His reputation was that of a vicious, merciless fighter, a man born and
bred in violence. It wasn’t like he knew how to make all the soft, kind
gestures that the kid needed, but he could protect Jase.
Cole had no one. His mother had been just the opposite of Jase’s. His
mother had had a child because Brett demanded she have one, but she went back
to her modelthin figure and cocaine as soon as possible, leaving her son in the
hands of her brutal husband. In the end, she’d died of an overdose. Cole had
always suspected his father had had something to do with her death. It was
interesting that Jase suspected the same thing of his own mother’s death.
A few snowflakes drifted down from the sky, adding to the atmosphere
of the season they both were trying so hard to avoid. Jase kicked at the
floorboard of the truck, a small sign of aggression, then glanced
apologetically at Cole.
“Maybe we should have opted for a workout instead,” Cole said.
“I’m always hungry,” Jase admitted. “We can work out after we eat. Who
came up with the idea of Christmas anyway? It’s a dumb idea, giving presents
out when it isn’t your birthday.And it can’t be good for the environment to cut
down all the trees.”
Cole stayed silent, letting the boy talk, grateful Jase was finally
comfortable enough to talk to him at all.
Cole cleared his throat. The idea of trying to celebrate Christmas
made him ill, but the kid wanted it. Maybe even needed it, but had no clue that
was what his nervous chatter was all about. Cole hoped he could pull it off.
There were no happy memories from his childhood to offset the things his father
had done.
“We tried to get away from him, but he always found us,” Jase
continued.
“He’s dead, Jase,” Cole repeated. He took a deep breath and took the
plunge, feeling as if he was leaping off a steep cliff. “If we want to bring a
giant tree into his home and decorate it, we can. There’s not a damn thing he
can do about it.”
“He might have let her go if she hadn’t wanted to take me with her.”
Cole heard the tears in the boy’s voice, but the kid didn’t shed them.
Silently he cursed, wishing for inspiration, for all the right things to say.
“Your mother was an extraordinary woman, Jase, and there aren’t that many in
the world. She cared about you, not the money or the prestige of being Mrs.
Brett Steele. She fought for you, and she tried to give you a life in spite of
the old man. I wish I’d had the chance to meet her.”
Jase didn’t reply, but closed his eyes, resting his head back against
the seat. He could still remember the sound of his mother’s voice. The way she
smelled. Her smile. He rubbed his head. Mostly he remembered the sound of her
screams when his father punished her.
“I’ll think about the Christmas thing, Cole. I kind of like the idea
of decorating the house when he always forbade it.”
Cole didn’t reply. It had been a very long few weeks, but the
Christmas season was almost over. A couple more weeks, and he would have made
it through another December. If doing the Christmas thing could give the kid
back his life, Cole would find a way to get through it. The town was fairly big
and offered a variety of latenight and early-morning dining. Cole chose a diner
he was familiar with and parked the truck in the parking lot. To his dismay, it
was already filled with cars. Unfolding his
“You forgot your jacket,” he said.
“No, I didn’t. I hate the thing,” Jase said.
Cole didn’t bother to ask him why.He already knew the answer and vowed
to buy the kid a whole new wardrobe immediately. He pushed open the door to the
diner, stepping back to allow Jase to enter first. Jase took two steps into the
entryway and stopped abruptly behind the high wall of fake ivy. “They’re
talking about you, Cole,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”
The voices were loud enough to carry across the small restaurant. Cole
stood still, his hand on the boy’s shoulder to steady him. Jase would have to
learn to live with gossip, just as he’d learned to survive the nightmare he’d
been born into.
“You’re wrong, Randy. Cole Steele murdered his father, and he’s going
to murder that boy. He wants the money. He never came around here to see that
boy until his daddy died.”
“He was in jail, Jim, he couldn’t very well go visiting his
relatives,” a second male voice pointed out with a laugh. Cole recognized Randy
Smythe from the local agriculture store. Before he could decide whether to get
Jase out of there or show the boy just how hypocritical the local storeowners
could be, a third voice chimed in.
“You are so full of it, Jim Begley,” a female voice interrupted the
argument between the two men. “You come in here every morning grousing about
Cole Steele. He was cleared as a suspect a long time ago and given guardianship
of his half brother, as he should have been. You’re angry because your bar
buddies lost their cushy jobs, so you’re helping to spread the malicious gossip
they started. The entire lot of you sound like a bunch of sour old biddies.”
The woman never raised her voice. In fact, it was soft and low and harmonious.
Cole felt the tone strumming inside of him, vibrating and spreading heat. There
was
“So were a lot of people who didn’t belong there, Jim. And a lot
people who should have been in jail never were. That doesn’t mean anything.
You’re jealous of the man’s money and the fact that he has the reputation of
being able to get just about any woman he wants, and you can’t.” A roar of
laughter went up. Cole expected Begley to get angry with the woman, but
surprisingly, he didn’t. “Aw, Maia, don’t go getting all mad at me. You aren’t
going to do anything, are you? You wouldn’t put a hex on my…on
The laughter rose and this time the woman joined in. The sound of her
voice was like music. Cole had never had such a reaction to any woman, and he
hadn’t even seen her.
“You just never know about me, now do you, Jim?” She teased, obviously
not angry with the man. “It’s Christmas, the best time of the year. Do you
think you could stop spreading rumors and just wait for the facts? Give the man
a chance. You all want his money. You all agree the town needs him, yet you’re
so quick to condemn him. Isn’t that the littlest bit hypocritical?”
Cole was shocked that the woman could wield so much power, driving her
point home without ever raising her voice. And strangely, they were all
listening to her. Who was she, and why were these usually rough men hanging on
her every word, trying to please her? He found himself very curious about a
total stranger—a woman at that. “Okay, okay,” Jim said. “I surrender, Maia.
I’ll never mention Cole Steele again if that will make you happy. Just don’t
get mad at me.”
Maia laughed again. The carefree sound teased all of Cole’s senses,
made him very aware of his body and its needs. “I’ll see you all later. I have
work to do.”
Cole felt his body tense. She was coming around the ivy to the
entrance. Cole’s breath caught in his throat. She was on the shorter side, but
curvy, filling out her jeans nicely. A sweater molded her breasts into a
tempting invitation. She had a wealth of dark, very straight hair, as shiny as
a raven’s wing, pulled into a careless ponytail. Her face was exotic, the bone
structure delicate, reminding him of a pixie.
She swung her head back, her wide smile fading as she saw them
standing there. She stopped short, raising her eyes to Cole’s. He actually
hunched a little, feeling the impact in his belly. Little hammers began to trip
in his head, and his body reacted with an urgent and very elemental demand. A
man could drown in her eyes, get lost, or just plain lose every demon he had.
Her eyes were large, heavily lashed, and some color other than blue, turquoise
maybe, a mixture of blue and green that was vivid and
Jase nudged him in the ribs.
Cole reacted immediately. “Sorry, ma’am.” But he didn’t move. “I’m Cole
Steele. This is my brother, Jase.” Jase jerked under his hand, reacting to
being acknowledged as a brother.
The woman nodded at Cole and flashed a smile at Jase as she stepped
around them to push open the door.
“Holy cow,” Jase murmured. “Did you see that smile?” He glanced up at
Cole. “Yeah, you saw it all right.”
“Was I staring?” Cole asked.
“You looked like you might have her for breakfast,” Jase answered.
“You can look really intimidating, Cole. Scary.” Cole almost followed the
woman, but at the boy’s comment he turned back. “Am I scary to you, Jase?”
The boy shrugged. “Sometimes. I’m getting used to you. I’ve never seen
you smile. Ever.”
Cole raised his eyebrow. “I can’t remember actually smiling. Maybe
I’ll have to practice. You can work with me.”
“Don’t you smile at women?”
“I don’t have to.”
Cole Steele could hear the screams coming from the room down the hall.
He knew those nightmares intimately, because the demons also visited him every
time he closed his own eyes. He was a grown man, hard and disciplined and well
able to drink his way through the night if necessary, but Jase was just a young
teenager. Guilt edged his anger as he made his way through the dark to the
boy’s room. He should have done something, to spare his half brother the
horrendous legacy of his own past.
In truth, he hadn’t been in touch with his father for years. It hadn’t
occurred to him that his father would remarry a much younger woman and produce
another child, but he should have considered the possibility, not just dropped
off the face of the earth. Cole shoved open the bedroom door. Jase was already
fully awake, his eyes wide with the terror of his memories. Something twisted
hard and painfully in Cole’s chest.
“I’m here, Jase,” he announced unnecessarily.He wasn’t good at
soothing the boy. He had been born and bred in roughness and still had a
difficult time being gentle. Worse, Jase barely knew him. He was asking the
teenager to trust him in spite of his reputation and the rumors of attempted
murder flying freely through the town. It was no wonder the boy regarded him
with some suspicion. “I hate Christmas. Can’t we just make it go away?” Jase
asked. He threw back the covers and paced across the room, the same edgy
tension in his teenage body that Cole had in abundance as a grown man. Jase was
tall and gangly, like a young colt, all arms and legs, looking a bit like a
scarecrow in flannel pajamas.He had Cole’s dark hair, but his eyes must have
been his mother’s, as they were a deep, rich brown. Right now, his eyes were
wide with terror, and he turned away to hide his trembling.
Cole felt as if he were looking at himself as a youngster, only Jase
had poured himself into books and Cole had become a hellion. Cole knew what it
was like to hide the bruises and the terror from the rest of the world. He had
grown up living in isolation and hiding, and he still lived that way, but he
would be damned if this boy would endure the same.
“Did he shoot your dog for Christmas?” Cole asked bluntly. “That’s
what he did for me the last time I wanted to celebrate the holiday like my
friends. I haven’t ever wanted a Christmas since.He also beat the holy hell out
of me, but that was insignificant next to the dog.”
Jase faced him slowly. The horror was still all too stark in his eyes.
“I had a cat.”
“I’ll bet he said you weren’t tough enough and that only sissies
needed pets and Christmas. He wanted you to toughen up and be a man. Not get
attached to anything.”
Jase nodded, swallowing an obvious lump in his throat.
“He did a lot of things.”
“You have burn marks? Scars from cuts? He liked to whip me with a coat
hanger. And when I didn’t cry, he took to using other things.”
“I cried,” Jase admitted.
“I did too, at first. He was a mean son of bitch, Jase. I’m glad he’s
dead. He can’t touch you anymore. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you the
nightmares go away because I still have them. We both lived in hell and he had
too much money for anyone to want to believe us.” Cole rubbed his hands through
his thick black hair.
“He was sick, Jase. I got out, changed my name thinking he’d never
find me, and stayed as far from him as I could possibly get. That’s no excuse.
I should have kept tabs on him. Maybe I could have gotten you away from him.”
Jase shook his head. “He never would have let me go.”
“You know what they’re all saying, don’t you? They think I had
something to do with his death.”
Jase nodded, his eyes suddenly wary. “I’ve heard. Why did you come
back?”
“I was named your guardian in his will. It was the first I’d heard of
you. I didn’t know you existed until five months ago. I knew he must have done
the same thing to you and your mother that he did to me and mine. I thought I
could protect you, at least until you’re old enough to live on your own. I
figured I would be a better guardian than anyone else the court might appoint
or that our father had named if I didn’t accept.”
Dawn was creeping in through the huge plate-glass window. Cole watched
the sun come up. It was cold, and the ground outside was covered with several
feet of snow, turning the hills into a carpet of sparkling crystals. “You
hungry?”
“Are you cooking?”
Cole managed a lazy shrug even though he really wanted to smash
something. It was always there, that volcano inside him, waiting to erupt. The
thought of his father, the time of year, it wasn’t all that difficult to bring
rage to the surface. “I thought we’d go into town and give them all something
more to gossip about.”
Jase met Cole’s eyes squarely. “They say you killed the old man and
that you’re planning to kill me next. Sixtyfour million dollars is a lot of
money, twice as much as thirty-two.”
“They do say that, don’t they?” Cole said. “And don’t forget the
ranch. It’s worth twice that easily, maybe more with the oil and gas deposits.
I haven’t actually checked into how much yet.”His eyes had gone ice-cold, a
piercing blue stare that impaled the boy. “What do you say, Jase? Because in
the end, you’re the only one that counts as far as I’m concerned.”
Jase was silent a long time. “I say I’m glad you came back. But I
don’t understand why he left us the money and the ranch when he hated us both
so much. It doesn’t make any sense.” He looked around the enormous room,
frowning.
“I keep expecting him to show up in the middle of the night. I’m
afraid to open my eyes because I know he’s standing over the bed, just
waiting.”
“With that smile.”Cole’s voice was grim.
Jase nodded, a small shudder betraying the fact that he wasn’t as calm
as he tried to seem. “With that smile.” He looked at Cole. “What do you do when
the nightmares come?” He punched his fist into his pillow. Once. Twice. “I hate
this time of year.”
Cole felt a sharp pain in his chest and the familiar churning in his
gut. His own hand balled into a fist, but he tamped down the smoldering anger
and hung on to control for the boy’s sake. “I drink. I’m your guardian, so I
have to say that’s not allowed for you. At least not until you’re a hell of a
lot older.”
“Does it work?”
“No,” Cole said grimly. Honestly. “But it gets me through the night.
Sometimes I go to the workout room
or the barn. I hung a heavy bag in both places, and I beat on them
until my hands hurt. Other times I take the wildest horse we have and go out
into the mountains. I run the hills, using the deer trails, anything to make me
so tired I can’t think anymore.”
“None of that works either, does it?” Jase had tried physical activity
as well, but he was finding that talking quietly with his half brother was
helpful. More helpful than anything else he’d tried. At least one person
believed him. And one person had gone through the same torment. It created a
bond in spite of the ugly rumors that surrounded his tough, harder-than-nails
half brother.
Cole shook his head. “No, none of it works, but it gets you through
the night. One night at a time. He’s dead, Jase, and that’s all that matters.”
Jase took a deep breath. “Did you kill him?”
“No, but I wish I had. I used to lie awake at night and plan how I’d
do it. That was before Mom died. Then I just wanted to get out.” Cole studied
the boy’s face. “Did you kill him?” He concentrated his gaze on the boy. Every
nuance. Every expression, the way he breathed. The flick of his eyes. The
trembling of his hands.
Jase shook his head. “I was too afraid of him.”
Cole let his breath out slowly. He had stayed alive using his ability
to read others, and he was fairly certain that Jase was telling the truth. Jase
had been in the house when someone had shot Brett Steele right there in his own
office. He wanted to believe that the boy wasn’t involved in Brett Steele’s
death. Cole wasn’t certain how he would have handled it if Jase had admitted
he’d done it, and for a man in Cole’s profession, that wasn’t a good thing.
“Cole, did he kill your mother?” For the first time, Jase sounded like
a child rather than a fourteen-year-old trying to be a man. He sank down onto
the bed, his thin shoulders shaking. “I think he killed my mother. They said
she was drinking and drove off the bridge, but she never drank. Never. She was
afraid to drink. She wanted to know what was happening all the time. You know
what he was like, he’d be nice one minute and come after you the next.”
Brett Steele had been a sadistic man. It was Cole’s belief that he had
killed for the sheer rush of having the power of life and death over anything,
human or animal. He’d enjoyed inflicting pain, and he had tortured his wives
and children and every one of his employees. The ranch was huge, a long way
from help, and once he had control over those living on his lands, he never
relinquished it. Cole knew he’d been lucky to escape.
“It’s possible. I think the old man was capable of paying everyone off
from coroners to police officers. He had too much money and power for anyone to
cross him. It would be easy enough for a medical examiner to look the other way
if there was enough money in bribes. And if that didn’t work, there were always
threats. We both know the old man didn’t make idle threats; he’d carry them
out.”
Jase met his brother’s stare directly. “He killed your mother, didn’t
he?”
“Maybe. Probably.” Cole needed a drink. “Let’s go into town and get
breakfast.”
“Okay.” Jase pulled a pair of jeans from the closet. They were neatly
hung and immaculately clean, just like everything else in the room.“Who do you
think killed him? If it wasn’t either of us, someone else had to have done it.”
“He made a lot of enemies. He destroyed businesses and seduced as many
of his friends’wives as possible. And if he killed anyone else, as I suspect he
must have, someone could have known and retaliated. He liked to hurt people,
Jase. It was inevitable that he would die a violent death.”
“Were you surprised he left you the money and guardianship over me?”
“Yes, at first. But later I thought maybe it made sense. He wanted us to
be like him. He had me investigated and found I spent time in jail. I think he
believed I was exactly like him. And the only other choice of a guardian he had
was your uncle, and you know how much they despised one another.”
Jase sighed.“Uncle Mike is just as crazy as Dad was. All he talks
about is sin and redemption. He thinks I need to be exorcised.”
Cole swore, a long string of curses. “That’s a load of crap, Jase.
There’s nothing wrong with you.” He needed to move, to ride something hard, it
didn’t matter what it was. A horse, a motorcycle, a woman, anything at all to
take away the knots gathering in his stomach. “Let’s get out of here.”
He turned away from the boy, a cold anger lodged in his gut. He
detested Christmas, detested everything about it. No matter how much he didn’t
want the season to start, it always came. He woke up drenched in sweat, vicious
laughter ringing in his ears. He could fight the demons most of the year, but
not when Christmas songs played on the radio and in every store he entered. Not
when every
building and street displayed decorations and people continually
wished each other “Merry Christmas.” He didn’t want that for Jase. He had to
find a way to give the boy back his life.
Counseling hadn’t helped either of them. When no one believed a word
you said, or worse, was bought off, you learned to stop trusting people. If
Cole never did another thing right in his life, he was going to be the one
person Jase would know he could always trust. And he was going to make certain
the boy didn’t turn out the way he had. Or the way their father had.
The brothers walked through the sprawling ranch house. The floors were
all gleaming wood, the ceilings
open-beamed and high. Brett Steele had demanded the best of
everything, and he got it. Cole couldn’t fault him on his taste.
“Cole,” Jase asked, “why were you in jail?”
Cole didn’t break stride as he hurried through the spacious house. At
times he wanted to burn the thing down. There was no warmth in it, and as hard
as he’d tried to turn the showpiece into a home for Jase, it remained cold and
barren.
Outdoors it was biting cold. The frost turned the hills and meadows
into a world of sparkling crystal, dazzling the eyes, but Cole simply ignored
it, shoving his sunglasses onto his face. He went past the huge garage that
housed dozens of cars—all toys Brett Steele had owned and rarely ever used—to
go to his own pickup.
“I shouldn’t have asked you,”
Jase muttered, slamming the door with unnecessary force. “I hate questions.”
Cole paused, the key in the ignition. He glanced at the boy’s flushed
face. “It isn’t that, Jase. I don’t mind you asking me anything. I made up my
mind I’d never lie to you about anything, and I’m not quite certain how to
explain the jail time. Give me a minute.”
Jase nodded. “I don’t mind that you’ve been in jail, but it worries me
because Uncle Mike says he’s going to take you to court and get custody of me.
If I lived with him, I’d spend all my life on my knees, praying for my soul.
I’d rather run away.”
“He can’t get you away from me,” Cole promised, his voice grim. There
was a hard edge to the set of his mouth. He turned his piercing blue gaze
directly on his young half brother. “The one thing I can promise is I’ll fight
for you until they kill me, Jase.” He was implacable, the deadly ruthless stamp
of determination clear on his face.“No one is going to take you away from me.
You got that?”
Jase visibly relaxed. He nodded, a short jerky gesture as he tried to
keep his emotions under control. Cole wasn’t certain if that was good or bad.
Maybe the boy needed to cry his eyes out. Cole never had. He would never give
his father the satisfaction, even when the bastard had nearly killed him.
It was a long way to the nearest town. There had been numerous guards
at the ranch when his father was alive, supposedly for security, but Cole knew
better. Brett had needed his own private world, a realm he could rule with an
iron fist. The first thing Cole had done was to fire all of the ranch hands,
the security force, and the housekeeper. If he could have had them prosecuted
for their participation in Brett’s sadistic depravities, he would have. Jase
needed to feel safe. And Cole needed to feel as if he could provide the right
atmosphere for the boy. They had interviewed the new ranch hands together, and
they were still looking for a housekeeper.
“You, know, Jase, you never picked out one of the horses to use,” Cole
said.
Jase leaned forward to fiddle with the radio. The cab was flooded with
a country Christmas tune. Jase hastily went through the stations, but all he
could find was Christmas music and he finally gave up in exasperation. “I don’t
care which one I ride,” Jase said, and turned his head to stare out the window
at the passing scenery. His voice was deliberately careless.
“You must have a preference,” Cole persisted. “I’ve seen you bring the
big bay, Celtic High, a carrot every now and then.” The boy had spent a little
time each day, brushing the horse and whispering to it, but he never rode the
bay. Jase’s expression closed down instantly, his eyes wary. “I don’t care
about any of them,” he repeated.
Cole frowned as he slipped a CD into the player. “You know what the
old man was all about, don’t you, Jase? He didn’t want his sons to feel
affection or loyalty to anything or anyone. Not our mothers, not friends, and
not animals. He killed the animals in front of us to teach us a lesson. He
destroyed our friendships to accomplish the same thing. He got rid of our
mothers to isolate us, to make us wholly
dependent on him. He didn’t want you ever to feel emotion, especially
affection or love for anything or anyone else. If he succeeded in doing that to
you, he won. You can’t let him win. Choose a horse and let yourself care for
it. We’ll get a dog if you want a dog, or another cat. Any kind of pet you
want, but let yourself feel something, and when our father visits you in your
nightmares, tell him to go to hell.”
“You didn’t do that,” Jase pointed out. “You don’t have a dog. You
haven’t had a dog in all the years you’ve been away. And you never got married.
I’ll bet you never lived with a woman. You have one-night stands and that’s
about it because you won’t let anyone into your life.” It was a shrewd guess.
Cole counted silently to ten. He was psychoanalyzing Jase, but he damned
well didn’t want the boy to turn the spotlight back on him. “It’s a hell of a
way to live, Jase. You don’t want to use me as a role model. I know all the
things you shouldn’t do and not many you should. But cutting yourself off from
every living thing takes its toll. Don’t let him do that to you. Start small if
you want. Just choose
one of the horses, and we’ll go riding together in the mornings.”
Jase was silent, his face averted, but Cole knew he was weighing the
matter carefully. It meant trusting Cole further than perhaps Jase was willing
to go. Cole was a big question mark to everyone, Jase especially. Cole couldn’t
blame the boy. He knew what he was like. Tough and ruthless with no backup in
him. His reputation was that of a vicious, merciless fighter, a man born and
bred in violence. It wasn’t like he knew how to make all the soft, kind
gestures that the kid needed, but he could protect Jase.
“Just think about it,” he said to close the subject. Time was on his
side. If he could give Jase back his life, he would forgive himself for not
bringing the old man down as he should have done years ago. Jase had had his
mother, a woman with love and laughter in her heart. More than likely Brett had
killed her because he couldn’t turn Jase away from her. Jase’s mother must have
left some legacy of love behind.
Cole had no one. His mother had been just the opposite of Jase’s. His
mother had had a child because Brett demanded she have one, but she went back
to her modelthin figure and cocaine as soon as possible, leaving her son in the
hands of her brutal husband. In the end, she’d died of an overdose. Cole had
always suspected his father had had something to do with her death. It was
interesting that Jase suspected the same thing of his own mother’s death.
A few snowflakes drifted down from the sky, adding to the atmosphere
of the season they both were trying so hard to avoid. Jase kicked at the
floorboard of the truck, a small sign of aggression, then glanced
apologetically at Cole.
“Maybe we should have opted for a workout instead,” Cole said.
“I’m always hungry,” Jase admitted. “We can work out after we eat. Who
came up with the idea of Christmas anyway? It’s a dumb idea, giving presents
out when it isn’t your birthday.And it can’t be good for the environment to cut
down all the trees.”
Cole stayed silent, letting the boy talk, grateful Jase was finally
comfortable enough to talk to him at all.
“Mom loved Christmas. She used to sneak me little gifts. She’d hide
them in my room. He always had spies, though, and they’d tell him. He always
punished her, but she’d do it anyway. I knew she’d be punished, and she knew it
too, but she’d still sneak me presents.” Jase rolled down the window, letting
the crisp, cold air into the truck. “She sang me Christmas songs. And once,
when he was away on a trip, we baked cookies together. She loved it. We both
knew the housekeeper would tell him, but at the
time, we didn’t care.”
Cole cleared his throat. The idea of trying to celebrate Christmas
made him ill, but the kid wanted it. Maybe even needed it, but had no clue that
was what his nervous chatter was all about. Cole hoped he could pull it off.
There were no happy memories from his childhood to offset the things his father
had done.
“We tried to get away from him, but he always found us,” Jase
continued.
“He’s dead, Jase,” Cole repeated. He took a deep breath and took the
plunge, feeling as if he was leaping off a steep cliff. “If we want to bring a
giant tree into his home and decorate it, we can. There’s not a damn thing he
can do about it.”
“He might have let her go if she hadn’t wanted to take me with her.”
Cole heard the tears in the boy’s voice, but the kid didn’t shed them.
Silently he cursed, wishing for inspiration, for all the right things to say.
“Your mother was an extraordinary woman, Jase, and there aren’t that many in
the world. She cared about you, not the money or the prestige of being Mrs.
Brett Steele. She fought for you, and she tried to give you a life in spite of
the old man. I wish I’d had the chance to meet her.”
Jase didn’t reply, but closed his eyes, resting his head back against
the seat. He could still remember the sound of his mother’s voice. The way she
smelled. Her smile. He rubbed his head. Mostly he remembered the sound of her
screams when his father punished her.
“I’ll think about the Christmas thing, Cole. I kind of like the idea
of decorating the house when he always forbade it.”
Cole didn’t reply. It had been a very long few weeks, but the
Christmas season was almost over. A couple more weeks, and he would have made
it through another December. If doing the Christmas thing could give the kid
back his life, Cole would find a way to get through it. The town was fairly big
and offered a variety of latenight and early-morning dining. Cole chose a diner
he was familiar with and parked the truck in the parking lot. To his dismay, it
was already filled with cars. Unfolding his
large frame, he slid from the truck, waiting for Jase to get out.
“You forgot your jacket,” he said.
“No, I didn’t. I hate the thing,” Jase said.
Cole didn’t bother to ask him why.He already knew the answer and vowed
to buy the kid a whole new wardrobe immediately. He pushed open the door to the
diner, stepping back to allow Jase to enter first. Jase took two steps into the
entryway and stopped abruptly behind the high wall of fake ivy. “They’re
talking about you, Cole,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”
The voices were loud enough to carry across the small restaurant. Cole
stood still, his hand on the boy’s shoulder to steady him. Jase would have to
learn to live with gossip, just as he’d learned to survive the nightmare he’d
been born into.
“You’re wrong, Randy. Cole Steele murdered his father, and he’s going
to murder that boy. He wants the money. He never came around here to see that
boy until his daddy died.”
“He was in jail, Jim, he couldn’t very well go visiting his
relatives,” a second male voice pointed out with a laugh. Cole recognized Randy
Smythe from the local agriculture store. Before he could decide whether to get
Jase out of there or show the boy just how hypocritical the local storeowners
could be, a third voice chimed in.
“You are so full of it, Jim Begley,” a female voice interrupted the
argument between the two men. “You come in here every morning grousing about
Cole Steele. He was cleared as a suspect a long time ago and given guardianship
of his half brother, as he should have been. You’re angry because your bar
buddies lost their cushy jobs, so you’re helping to spread the malicious gossip
they started. The entire lot of you sound like a bunch of sour old biddies.”
The woman never raised her voice. In fact, it was soft and low and harmonious.
Cole felt the tone strumming inside of him, vibrating and spreading heat. There
was
something magical in the voice, more magical than the fact that she
was sticking up for him.His fingers tightened involuntarily on Jase’s shoulder.
It was the first time he could ever remember anyone sticking up for him. “He
was in jail, Maia,” Jim Begley reiterated, his voice almost placating.
“So were a lot of people who didn’t belong there, Jim. And a lot
people who should have been in jail never were. That doesn’t mean anything.
You’re jealous of the man’s money and the fact that he has the reputation of
being able to get just about any woman he wants, and you can’t.” A roar of
laughter went up. Cole expected Begley to get angry with the woman, but
surprisingly, he didn’t. “Aw, Maia, don’t go getting all mad at me. You aren’t
going to do anything, are you? You wouldn’t put a hex on my…on
me, would you?”
The laughter rose and this time the woman joined in. The sound of her
voice was like music. Cole had never had such a reaction to any woman, and he
hadn’t even seen her.
“You just never know about me, now do you, Jim?” She teased, obviously
not angry with the man. “It’s Christmas, the best time of the year. Do you
think you could stop spreading rumors and just wait for the facts? Give the man
a chance. You all want his money. You all agree the town needs him, yet you’re
so quick to condemn him. Isn’t that the littlest bit hypocritical?”
Cole was shocked that the woman could wield so much power, driving her
point home without ever raising her voice. And strangely, they were all
listening to her. Who was she, and why were these usually rough men hanging on
her every word, trying to please her? He found himself very curious about a
total stranger—a woman at that. “Okay, okay,” Jim said. “I surrender, Maia.
I’ll never mention Cole Steele again if that will make you happy. Just don’t
get mad at me.”
Maia laughed again. The carefree sound teased all of Cole’s senses,
made him very aware of his body and its needs. “I’ll see you all later. I have
work to do.”
Cole felt his body tense. She was coming around the ivy to the
entrance. Cole’s breath caught in his throat. She was on the shorter side, but
curvy, filling out her jeans nicely. A sweater molded her breasts into a
tempting invitation. She had a wealth of dark, very straight hair, as shiny as
a raven’s wing, pulled into a careless ponytail. Her face was exotic, the bone
structure delicate, reminding him of a pixie.
She swung her head back, her wide smile fading as she saw them
standing there. She stopped short, raising her eyes to Cole’s. He actually
hunched a little, feeling the impact in his belly. Little hammers began to trip
in his head, and his body reacted with an urgent and very elemental demand. A
man could drown in her eyes, get lost, or just plain lose every demon he had.
Her eyes were large, heavily lashed, and some color other than blue, turquoise
maybe, a mixture of blue and green that was vivid and
alive and so darned beautiful he ached inside just looking at her.
Jase nudged him in the ribs.
Cole reacted immediately. “Sorry, ma’am.” But he didn’t move. “I’m Cole
Steele. This is my brother, Jase.” Jase jerked under his hand, reacting to
being acknowledged as a brother.
The woman nodded at Cole and flashed a smile at Jase as she stepped
around them to push open the door.
“Holy cow,” Jase murmured. “Did you see that smile?” He glanced up at
Cole. “Yeah, you saw it all right.”
“Was I staring?” Cole asked.
“You looked like you might have her for breakfast,” Jase answered.
“You can look really intimidating, Cole. Scary.” Cole almost followed the
woman, but at the boy’s comment he turned back. “Am I scary to you, Jase?”
The boy shrugged. “Sometimes. I’m getting used to you. I’ve never seen
you smile. Ever.”
Cole raised his eyebrow. “I can’t remember actually smiling. Maybe
I’ll have to practice. You can work with me.”
“Don’t you smile at women?”
“I don’t have to.”
AUTHOR:
Christine Feehan is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of thirty novels, including the
Carpathians, the Ghostwalkers, the Leopard People, and the Drake Sisters
series. Her books have been published in multiple languages and in many formats
including palm pilot, audiobook, and ebook. She has been featured in Time magazine and Newsweek, and lives in Cobb, California. Please visit http://www.christinefeehan.com/.
BRANDED
Colette Auclair
December 15, 2014
$5.99
SUMMARY:
The third
lighthearted romance in Colette Auclair’s award-winning Aspen Valley series, Branded will take readers on a wild and
dreamy ride through the beautiful valleys and mountains of Colorado. Professional, polite, and pearl-wearing,
dressage rider and resort consultant Cordy Sims is the last person anyone would
expect to initiate a weekend of debauchery. And yet, that’s exactly what she
does after meeting a handsome stranger at an Aspen resort. Agreeing that
they’ll leave personal details at the door, they indulge in a memorable weekend
of carnal recreation. On Sunday night, Cordy doesn’t want to leave this
charming, seductive man, but she must play by her own rules.
On Monday, Cordy sits in a meeting at the ad agency that’s hired her as a freelancer, and her professional and personal worlds collide. Turns out agency owner Jack Cormier looks just as good in the boardroom as he did in the bedroom. Forced to work together, Cordy and Jack can’t ignore the chemistry that crackles between them, or the deeper feelings that have developed. But secrets and scars from their pasts may prove too formidable, even for a love that’s as powerful as it is unexpected.
On Monday, Cordy sits in a meeting at the ad agency that’s hired her as a freelancer, and her professional and personal worlds collide. Turns out agency owner Jack Cormier looks just as good in the boardroom as he did in the bedroom. Forced to work together, Cordy and Jack can’t ignore the chemistry that crackles between them, or the deeper feelings that have developed. But secrets and scars from their pasts may prove too formidable, even for a love that’s as powerful as it is unexpected.
Read an excerpt:
Sometimes things aren’t what
they seem, but it seemed to Cordy that indeed, there was a man in a
It was exactly six-thirty-two a.m. on May 16, four hours before the
lifts opened. She stood there, panting
My first morning in Aspen and already
there’s a guy in a tuxedo. Talk about a town living up to the hype. The app on her phone beeped, telling her
she’d logged five miles and could begin her cool-down. After this run, she
would officially begin her part-work, part-leisure long weekend. She shook her
head and started across the black-diamond run, which without snow was steep but
hardly treacherous. As usual, she imagined how Marcas, her horse, would handle
it—her dressage horse wasn’t the world’s best trail horse, but she still wished
he were here with her. It would be fun to explore the mountains from his back.
Maybe she’d have him shipped to Colorado, if she ended up staying longer than a
few weeks.
“Damn!” the man said, bringing Cordy back to the present. What, you
just realized you were riding a ski lift the wrong way? Cordy thought as
she kept walking. She looked up the hill in time to see a silver cylinder hit
the grass. It bounced and tumbled down the ski slope, winking in the sun.
Remarkably, it stopped short, wedging itself between two small nearby boulders
with a muffled metallic clink.
“Excuse me, darlin’,” yelled the man.
Darlin’? Cordy looked up. She was not this man’s
darlin’, but she was the only one around.
“It seems my shaker and I have parted company. Could I trouble you to
fetch it for me?”
He had a Southern accent. “Why do you have a martini shaker?”
“I was making martinis.”
Silly me. “On a ski lift?” He was passing overhead
so she had to crane her neck to see him.
“Last evening. If you could just recover it, I’d be eternally
grateful.” He half-turned to face her as he
“Where were you making martinis?”
“Top of the mountain.”
“For mountain goats?”
She thought he grinned. “Will you please get it for me? It has great
sentimental value.”
She had to yell pretty loud now. “Then why’d you drop it?”
“Could you bring it to the hotel bar?”
“When?”
He shouted something, but she couldn’t make it out. What an idiot, to
drop a martini shaker. What
Who are you, JCL? “Guess I’ll fi nd out later today,” she
muttered. “If he isn’t too drunk to remember.”
She looked down the mountain and saw that the man had neglected to
jump off the lift and was headed back up.
Wow. He’s super drunk. She didn’t particularly want to have
another shouted conversation, so she jogged into the trees, out of earshot.
Still, she heard his voice.
“Take care of that shaker, darlin’!”
Cordy couldn’t remember if she’d ever been to a restaurant bar as
it opened. It made her feel so…pathetic. Occasionally she’d lingered over a
late brunch and been around when the dinner service began. But this? Nah.
It wasn’t every day you had to return a martini shaker to a man who
shouted to you from a ski lift.
Setting the shaker on the bar, she picked up the cocktail menu. The
thirtysomething bartender materialized before her, a dime-sized portion of a
darkgreen tattoo peeking above his starched white collar. His light-brown hair
kept to itself, a disciplined wavy mass Cordy found appealing. He angled his
head and indicated the shaker.
“We’re a full-service resort. We have our own shakers, but if you
insist . . .”
What? She followed his gaze. “Oh! I’m returning that.”
“So you’re the one.” He raised his chin.
“I didn’t steal it!” The bartender laughed and after a beat, Cordy
felt her cheeks relax. “Oh. You’re kidding.” Lighten up, Cordy! “What I
mean is, the owner is coming to get it.”
“Looks like a nice one. Would you like me to wipe it off for you?”
“No,” Cordy said quickly and too primly. She didn’t want to do that
clumsy drunk guy any favors
Thirty minutes later, as her cocktail neared its logical
conclusion (she was an admittedly slow drinker) and her salad was gone, Cordy
had mellowed. A smattering of other customers had come in, which Cordy
calculated was average for fi ve o’clock on a Friday in the off-season.
The off-season. Her favorite phrase because it had given her a dream career
that allowed her to make a
Or that’s what the agency was banking on. She thought they were overly
optimistic, but they were paying her well, so she’d give them their money’s
worth.
She had already completed a page of bullet points after being at
Pinnacle for less than twenty-four
Was someone playing a piano? As Cordy looked around, a lock of shiny
wheat-colored hair fell in front
“It’s on the house, madam.” Did management know why she was here and
was trying to impress her? As
“A gentleman came by and bought you a drink.”
“That’s impossible. I don’t know anyone here.”
“Begging your pardon, but that’s what happened.”
“Who was it?”
“He didn’t say,” the bartender replied as he wiped the bar.
“Where is he? I ought to thank
him.”
“He left.”
“What did he look like?”
The bartender filled his cheeks with air and puffed it out. “Dark
hair. A little taller than me.” He
That didn’t help. If it was the martini guy, surely he would have
taken the shaker.
The bartender spoke. “I’d say you have a secret admirer.”
“Right.” She said this merely to confirm she’d heard him because her
attention was back on the
Oh no. No. No no no no no.
“Excuse me, again,” Cordy said. “But where’s the piano?” She struggled
to sound polite and not distressed.
“Just behind that tree,” he said, nodding toward an impressively leafy
plant in the middle of the room that stretched to the ceiling. Cordy threw back
a mouthful of her complimentary drink, dabbed her lips with her napkin, and
took a breath before striding to the hidden instrument.
The man’s hands were sure and efficient as they transformed the keys
into a gorgeous melody. Playing
“Excuse me,” she said.
No response.
She stared for a moment, willing him to look at her. The mental energy
she expended could have bent
He looked at her. Mildly. And literally didn’t miss a beat.
She was pretty sure it was the martini shaker guy. Of course.
Because this was inconvenient, too. Maybe he didn’t recognize her. After
all, he’d been flying overhead and three sheets to the wind when they’d met
more than ten hours earlier. She sighed, flicked her hands at him, and said,
“Could you maybe skip over this song and play something else?”
He shook his head and a few strands of pin-straight brown hair flopped
into his eyes. “I’m sorry; I can’t
God. She spoke louder. “Yes, I know. I was wondering if you could play a
different song?” He continued
“Nothing, but—”
“This is part of my warm-up. I always play ‘So In Love.’ ”
It seemed he was embellishing the tune just to annoy her. The golden
buzz from her vintage cocktail
His voice was as smooth as a premium liqueur and his accent—Southern
and lyrical—disappeared. Still,
She blurted, “I’ll give you a hundred dollars to stop.”
He kept playing. “You abhor it that much?”
She rolled her eyes. “A hundred bucks to do less. Come on.”
“Deal.” He finished with a flourish, held out his hand with its long,
strong fingers, and raised his eyebrows at her.
“I don’t have that much cash on me.” She folded her arms under her
breasts.
“You should have thought of that before you bribed me to stop.”
“I’ll leave it with the bartender.”
“George? He’s a confirmed kleptomaniac. I’ll never see a red cent.”
“I’ll leave you a check, then.”
“I’m sorry, darlin’, but traditionally speaking, bribes are cash
only.” He whispered, “You don’t want
“It’s not a bribe. I made it worth your while to stop playing. Think
of it as a tip.”
“Pourboires are usually given as an expression of appreciation.”
“Pourboires?”
“Tips. Why did you want me to stop? That was a whole lot of hatred
aimed at poor Mr. Porter’s classic.”
Cordy sniffed and looked at the far wall over Martini Boy’s head. “I’d
rather not say.”
“All that hostility can’t be good for you. Why don’t we discuss it
over a . . . champagne cocktail?”
She knew her face betrayed her—her eyes widened, her eyebrows shot up,
and her mouth opened a little more than usual. There was a reason she wasn’t a
professional poker player or counterintelligence operative.
“No. Thank you. I should go.”
He tsked and shook his head. “I would’ve never taken you for a
welsher.”
“I’m not—Don’t worry, you’ll get your money.”
His full lips kicked up at the corners, making him more appealing than
she cared to admit. It was the
“As I see it, you owe me a hundred dollars and my martini shaker.
Which I thank you for returning, by
She looked at the top of the upright. “Hey, where’s your brandy
snifter? You’re good. A guy like
He swiveled on the piano bench to face her.
“Honey, your drink’s getting warm, and that’s a tragedy.” He stood. He
was taller than she’d predicted.
She sat. He stood. He sipped her drink. “Hey!” she said.
“Just as I feared. Too warm.” He beckoned the bartender.
“George, the lady is in dire need of another champagne cocktail, if
you will. This one is tepid. And
“It was fine,” Cordy said.
“No, it wasn’t. There’s nothing worse than warm champagne.”
“I can think of something worse.”
He sat, then looked at her, and his gaze was so focused, she felt
there must be a red laser dot on her
“Impertinent pianists.”
“Come now, was I really that bad?”
“You weren’t exactly cooperative. You could’ve stopped when I asked
the first time.”
“I assure you, under the right circumstances, with the right woman, I
can be the very picture of cooperation.”
Cordy shifted on her barstool. Where was George with her cocktail? And
why was Martini Boy with her
“They’ll manage,” he said, looking around the room. “Would you be so
kind as to hand me my
Cordy handed it to him and noted his clean, flat, broad nails rounding
out his capable hands. She also
“Yeah, so, about that. What was up with that?”
“What was up with what?”
“You dropping it. If it means so much to you, shouldn’t you have been
more careful?”
“People drop things all the time,” he said, turning the shaker as he
examined it. “It’s an international
“Clumsy people drop things. You play the piano like a dream, so I’m
guessing you’re not usually
“You give me an immense amount of credit. I hear Van Cliburn had an
embarrassing and expensive habit
Who was this guy who talked like he’d just stepped out of 1920?
Cordy was slightly surprised he was in
“Why were you in a tux riding the ski lift the wrong way and carrying
a martini shaker at six thirty in the
He grinned and took a few swallows of the water George had given them
with the drinks, making her
“What kind of party?”
“A formal one.”
She beetled her brows at him. “It went on until sunrise? At your age?
Were the cops involved? You
“Now that would be a tragedy of epic proportions.”
“Trust me, it’ll be fine.”
“Doubtful.”
“Was it a wedding? Which would be unusual on a Thursday, but not
unheard of.”
“No.”
“Graduation? Bar mitzvah? Barn raising?”
“You’re not going to guess the occasion. Have you considered the
possibility that I might just enjoy
“Oh!” Was this code? Was he telling her he was gay? Which would be
great, because they could pal
“Oh?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Oh.”
“What does ‘oh’ mean?”
“ ‘Oh’ means ‘oh.’ ” She couldn’t tell him what she was thinking. Even
her absent editor returned to keep her silent.
“ ‘Oh’ means ‘oh,’ huh? All right, then. Since you were so kind as to
return my shaker, I’m not going to
“Now we’re even,” Cordy said, feeling positively cocky. “You didn’t
answer my question and I didn’t answer yours. Let’s just enjoy our drinks,
okay?”
“Absolutely. Whatever you prefer.” He tipped his flute to clink with
hers, sipped, then paused. “Hmm.”
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just hmm.”
“What?”
“You won’t tell me what ‘oh’ means, but you expect me to tell you what
‘hmm’ means?”
Cordy went for the chink in his armor. “It would be the gentlemanly
thing to do.”
“If that’s what you think. I was thinking how it’s curious that a
woman such as yourself is here alone.”
“What makes you think I’m alone?”
“That would be because you are.”
“Why?”
“You’re in a resort town, at a resort. Most guests come with at least
one other person. In your case, I
“Don’t say that word.”
“Fiancé?”
“Yes. Just . . . don’t. Or I’ll take that shaker and throw it off a
cliff.” Cordy smoothed her hair behind
“I promise not to say ‘fiancé’ anymore. If you tell me why I can’t.”
She felt like Martini Boy was squeezing her windpipe.
“I can’t. Okay? It’s a . . . thing.” The words choked out. He must’ve
noticed because he nodded and didn’t argue. She wished she was one of those
people who could laugh and make light of it, but in this case, she couldn’t.
“Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be right back.” She reached under the bar to snag
her purse from the hook. Purse hooks under bars were a godsend. More points for
Pinnacle. Martini Boy
“Will you be back?” he asked, and sounded concerned.
She slid off the stool. “Yes. I need to use the restroom.”
By “use” she meant “regain my composure, then figure out what I want
to do next and if it involves
Sometimes things aren’t what
they seem, but it seemed to Cordy that indeed, there was a man in a
tuxedo riding down the chairlift in Aspen. And he was probably drunk,
which meant she wanted nothing to do with him.
It was exactly six-thirty-two a.m. on May 16, four hours before the
lifts opened. She stood there, panting
and staring. He was floating toward her, one arm slung along the back
of the chair and a foot, also in
formal wear, perched on the seat. The bands of his unfurled bow tie
fluttered in the breeze.
My first morning in Aspen and already
there’s a guy in a tuxedo. Talk about a town living up to the hype. The app on her phone beeped, telling her
she’d logged five miles and could begin her cool-down. After this run, she
would officially begin her part-work, part-leisure long weekend. She shook her
head and started across the black-diamond run, which without snow was steep but
hardly treacherous. As usual, she imagined how Marcas, her horse, would handle
it—her dressage horse wasn’t the world’s best trail horse, but she still wished
he were here with her. It would be fun to explore the mountains from his back.
Maybe she’d have him shipped to Colorado, if she ended up staying longer than a
few weeks.
“Damn!” the man said, bringing Cordy back to the present. What, you
just realized you were riding a ski lift the wrong way? Cordy thought as
she kept walking. She looked up the hill in time to see a silver cylinder hit
the grass. It bounced and tumbled down the ski slope, winking in the sun.
Remarkably, it stopped short, wedging itself between two small nearby boulders
with a muffled metallic clink.
“Excuse me, darlin’,” yelled the man.
Darlin’? Cordy looked up. She was not this man’s
darlin’, but she was the only one around.
“It seems my shaker and I have parted company. Could I trouble you to
fetch it for me?”
He had a Southern accent. “Why do you have a martini shaker?”
“I was making martinis.”
Silly me. “On a ski lift?” He was passing overhead
so she had to crane her neck to see him.
“Last evening. If you could just recover it, I’d be eternally
grateful.” He half-turned to face her as he
glided by.
“Where were you making martinis?”
“Top of the mountain.”
“For mountain goats?”
She thought he grinned. “Will you please get it for me? It has great
sentimental value.”
She had to yell pretty loud now. “Then why’d you drop it?”
“Could you bring it to the hotel bar?”
“When?”
He shouted something, but she couldn’t make it out. What an idiot, to
drop a martini shaker. What
an idiot to have a martini shaker on a chair lift. Still, it
was an interesting turn of events, and a good omen for this new chapter in her
life. Quirky. Not exciting, but unusual. She made her way down the slope and
plucked the shaker from the boulders. It was dimpled from its fl ight, but she
could make out the engraved initials JCL.
Who are you, JCL? “Guess I’ll fi nd out later today,” she
muttered. “If he isn’t too drunk to remember.”
She looked down the mountain and saw that the man had neglected to
jump off the lift and was headed back up.
Wow. He’s super drunk. She didn’t particularly want to have
another shouted conversation, so she jogged into the trees, out of earshot.
Still, she heard his voice.
“Take care of that shaker, darlin’!”
Cordy couldn’t remember if she’d ever been to a restaurant bar as
it opened. It made her feel so…pathetic. Occasionally she’d lingered over a
late brunch and been around when the dinner service began. But this? Nah.
It wasn’t every day you had to return a martini shaker to a man who
shouted to you from a ski lift.
A handsome man. Scratch that—a handsome drunk. He might not
even make it here. She’d have a cocktail and if he didn’t show by the time
she’d finished, she’d head back to her room, because she had better things to
do—those notes on the Pinnacle Resort weren’t going to write themselves.
Setting the shaker on the bar, she picked up the cocktail menu. The
thirtysomething bartender materialized before her, a dime-sized portion of a
darkgreen tattoo peeking above his starched white collar. His light-brown hair
kept to itself, a disciplined wavy mass Cordy found appealing. He angled his
head and indicated the shaker.
“We’re a full-service resort. We have our own shakers, but if you
insist . . .”
What? She followed his gaze. “Oh! I’m returning that.”
“So you’re the one.” He raised his chin.
“I didn’t steal it!” The bartender laughed and after a beat, Cordy
felt her cheeks relax. “Oh. You’re kidding.” Lighten up, Cordy! “What I
mean is, the owner is coming to get it.”
“Looks like a nice one. Would you like me to wipe it off for you?”
“No,” Cordy said quickly and too primly. She didn’t want to do that
clumsy drunk guy any favors
because she felt put-upon as it was. It was her own fault—no one
forced her to retrieve the shaker—but
she resented him all the same. “It’s fine as is.” She was waiting for
a stranger for whom she’d done a favor. She should feel good; instead, she felt
. . . owed. May as well enjoy myself while I wait. And act like a “real”
guest. With that in mind, she went for decadent and ordered a champagne
cocktail. To counter her immediate guilt, she followed with a respectable and
nutritious Cobb salad. She gazed at the entrance to the bar one more time,
noting the dark-wood backdrop and the paintings and fabrics in the oranges,
reds, and purples of a mountain sunset. Then she pulled out her leather
notebook and Cross pen and began to write her initial impressions of the
Pinnacle Resort at Aspen.
Thirty minutes later, as her cocktail neared its logical
conclusion (she was an admittedly slow drinker) and her salad was gone, Cordy
had mellowed. A smattering of other customers had come in, which Cordy
calculated was average for fi ve o’clock on a Friday in the off-season.
The off-season. Her favorite phrase because it had given her a dream career
that allowed her to make a
good living, own and show a horse, and travel around the world. She
had become a go-to professional for how to make more money in the off-season.
She could look at a resort, no matter where it was, and come up with ways to
make hay when the sun didn’t shine, as it were. For Cordy, it was akin to
taking a meh horse and making it a wow horse. She used to think
anyone could see the off-season potential in a resort, but she accepted that
she had a knack, though she was still reluctant to believe the hype heaped on
her by happy clients. After working for a company that ran several resorts
around the world, she went out on her own. Pinnacle was her first project as an
independent contractor, but the winter resort wasn’t her client. A small Aspen
ad agency that was trying to impress Pinnacle had hired her to overdeliver and wow
them. She was a surprise bonus, and her recommendation could be the tipping
point.
Or that’s what the agency was banking on. She thought they were overly
optimistic, but they were paying her well, so she’d give them their money’s
worth.
She had already completed a page of bullet points after being at
Pinnacle for less than twenty-four
hours. Not bad.
Was someone playing a piano? As Cordy looked around, a lock of shiny
wheat-colored hair fell in front
of her face. As she shoved it behind her ear, she saw a fresh
champagne cocktail in front of her. “Excuse me,” she called to the bartender,
who rushed over. “I didn’t order this.”
“It’s on the house, madam.” Did management know why she was here and
was trying to impress her? As
though she were a secret shopper or something? “Really? Why?”
“A gentleman came by and bought you a drink.”
“That’s impossible. I don’t know anyone here.”
“Begging your pardon, but that’s what happened.”
“Who was it?”
“He didn’t say,” the bartender replied as he wiped the bar.
“Where is he? I ought to thank
him.”
“He left.”
“What did he look like?”
The bartender filled his cheeks with air and puffed it out. “Dark
hair. A little taller than me.” He
shrugged in defeat.
That didn’t help. If it was the martini guy, surely he would have
taken the shaker.
The bartender spoke. “I’d say you have a secret admirer.”
“Right.” She said this merely to confirm she’d heard him because her
attention was back on the
music. What is that song? I know that song. And where is the piano?
Oh no. No. No no no no no.
“Excuse me, again,” Cordy said. “But where’s the piano?” She struggled
to sound polite and not distressed.
“Just behind that tree,” he said, nodding toward an impressively leafy
plant in the middle of the room that stretched to the ceiling. Cordy threw back
a mouthful of her complimentary drink, dabbed her lips with her napkin, and
took a breath before striding to the hidden instrument.
The man’s hands were sure and efficient as they transformed the keys
into a gorgeous melody. Playing
was muscle memory for him; that much was obvious. He rocked gently to
the rhythm as though in a trance, oblivious to her or even that he was in the
middle of a restaurant. If she weren’t in such a strange mood, she would have
appreciated his talent and artistry. But the only thing she wanted to do was
stop him.
“Excuse me,” she said.
No response.
She stared for a moment, willing him to look at her. The mental energy
she expended could have bent
several spoons, possibly a spatula. Or a shovel. He kept going, damn
him. “Excuse me!” she said, louder
this time.
He looked at her. Mildly. And literally didn’t miss a beat.
She was pretty sure it was the martini shaker guy. Of course.
Because this was inconvenient, too. Maybe he didn’t recognize her. After
all, he’d been flying overhead and three sheets to the wind when they’d met
more than ten hours earlier. She sighed, flicked her hands at him, and said,
“Could you maybe skip over this song and play something else?”
He shook his head and a few strands of pin-straight brown hair flopped
into his eyes. “I’m sorry; I can’t
hear you. I’m playing the piano.”
God. She spoke louder. “Yes, I know. I was wondering if you could play a
different song?” He continued
playing all those damned notes she hated, while conversing—of course
he was—he was a professional,
what did she expect? It wasn’t even multitasking for him, it was his
job to chat up diners while playing.
“This is a great song. Cole Porter. What do you have against Cole
Porter?”
“Nothing, but—”
“This is part of my warm-up. I always play ‘So In Love.’ ”
It seemed he was embellishing the tune just to annoy her. The golden
buzz from her vintage cocktail
had turned on her and was making her grumpy. He continued, “Have you
ever heard the words?
They’re beautiful.” Then, to add musical insult to emotional injury,
he started over and sang softly, so
only she could hear. Her own private concert from hell.
His voice was as smooth as a premium liqueur and his accent—Southern
and lyrical—disappeared. Still,
hearing a declaration of a searing love come out of this man’s mouth
only made her feel terrible. What
did Cole Porter know? This kind of love
doesn’t exist except in songs. I should know. Her throat ached, her cheeks heated and, lo and behold, she was
about to cry. This wasn’t going to happen. She clamped down on her
unacceptable emotional response, leaned toward him, and said, “Please.” “I’ll
finish—”
She blurted, “I’ll give you a hundred dollars to stop.”
He kept playing. “You abhor it that much?”
She rolled her eyes. “A hundred bucks to do less. Come on.”
“Deal.” He finished with a flourish, held out his hand with its long,
strong fingers, and raised his eyebrows at her.
“I don’t have that much cash on me.” She folded her arms under her
breasts.
“You should have thought of that before you bribed me to stop.”
“I’ll leave it with the bartender.”
“George? He’s a confirmed kleptomaniac. I’ll never see a red cent.”
“I’ll leave you a check, then.”
“I’m sorry, darlin’, but traditionally speaking, bribes are cash
only.” He whispered, “You don’t want
it to be traced.”
“It’s not a bribe. I made it worth your while to stop playing. Think
of it as a tip.”
“Pourboires are usually given as an expression of appreciation.”
“Pourboires?”
“Tips. Why did you want me to stop? That was a whole lot of hatred
aimed at poor Mr. Porter’s classic.”
Cordy sniffed and looked at the far wall over Martini Boy’s head. “I’d
rather not say.”
“All that hostility can’t be good for you. Why don’t we discuss it
over a . . . champagne cocktail?”
She knew her face betrayed her—her eyes widened, her eyebrows shot up,
and her mouth opened a little more than usual. There was a reason she wasn’t a
professional poker player or counterintelligence operative.
“No. Thank you. I should go.”
He tsked and shook his head. “I would’ve never taken you for a
welsher.”
“I’m not—Don’t worry, you’ll get your money.”
His full lips kicked up at the corners, making him more appealing than
she cared to admit. It was the
kind of appealing that made her want to stick around.
“As I see it, you owe me a hundred dollars and my martini shaker.
Which I thank you for returning, by
the way. It’s another reason I need to buy you a drink. In fact, I
hardly think a drink’s enough—after all, that shaker is very important to me. I
believe I owe you at least a dinner. Would you do me the honor of having dinner
with me this evening, Miss . . . ? It is Miss, correct?” He didn’t need
to know her name or her marital status. Not with that appealing smile chipping
away at her defenses. “That’s very generous of you, but I don’t know you and
you don’t know me. We don’t have to be friends. I’m sure you have plenty of
friends. I’ll give you your hundred dollars, you can take your shaker—it’s
right there on the bar, safe and sound—and we’ll go our separate ways. It’s not
necessary to have dinner. It’s not necessary to have drinks or coffee or . . .
anything. We had an encounter, then a business transaction, and that’s all.
Besides, you can’t leave your shift—as you pointed out, you only just started
playing, and the cocktail crowd is going to want their Gershwin as a backdrop
for their scintillating conversations.”
She looked at the top of the upright. “Hey, where’s your brandy
snifter? You’re good. A guy like
you could make a lot of . . . pourboires.” She gazed at his
face just in time to see it brighten. He didn’t smile, but his lips twitched
and his eyes lighted. She was on a roll and it felt good. “After you’re
done with your Harry Connick, Jr. stint, surely you have a few martinis to
make, don’t you? Or do you only bartend on top of the mountain with your
friends the goats?”
He swiveled on the piano bench to face her.
“Honey, your drink’s getting warm, and that’s a tragedy.” He stood. He
was taller than she’d predicted.
He had six inches on her, easy. She didn’t like that she had to look
up to him now, after getting to look down at him this hole time. “Let’s go rescue that drink,” he
said, and turned her with a finger on her shoulder. That finger then breezed
the small of her back, propelling her toward the bar. “And careful about
speaking ill of mountain goats,” he said as they walked. “They’re integral to
the ecosystem here, they please the tourists, and they’re remarkably rugged,
graceful, nimble creatures.” He pulled out her barstool for her. Cordy thought
about dismissing his gesture, but decided to finish her cocktail. He amused
her, and that was worth a few more minutes of her time. “I didn’t say anything
bad about goats. I called them your friends. What does that say about you?”
Plus he was easy on her eyes. He had great hair—the dark brown of a horse’s
deep bay coat, and glossy—with regular features, a nose straight and assertive
as a dressage whip, wide, dark eyes, full lips…A woman could do worse. He was
elegant, yes, but oh-so-unavoidably masculine. A dangerous combination, but
perfect for temporary scenery at a bar in a ski resort in Aspen.
She sat. He stood. He sipped her drink. “Hey!” she said.
“Just as I feared. Too warm.” He beckoned the bartender.
“George, the lady is in dire need of another champagne cocktail, if
you will. This one is tepid. And
I’ll have one as well.”
“It was fine,” Cordy said.
“No, it wasn’t. There’s nothing worse than warm champagne.”
“I can think of something worse.”
He sat, then looked at her, and his gaze was so focused, she felt
there must be a red laser dot on her
nose. Her pulse actually kicked up a notch. “And, pray tell, what
would that be?” This had to be what an impala felt like when it knew it
couldn’t outrun the lion.
“Impertinent pianists.”
“Come now, was I really that bad?”
“You weren’t exactly cooperative. You could’ve stopped when I asked
the first time.”
“I assure you, under the right circumstances, with the right woman, I
can be the very picture of cooperation.”
Cordy shifted on her barstool. Where was George with her cocktail? And
why was Martini Boy with her
and not at the piano? Normally she wouldn’t have asked, but her experience
with him had been anything but normal. “Don’t you need to get back to the
piano? People are starting to fidget.”
“They’ll manage,” he said, looking around the room. “Would you be so
kind as to hand me my
shaker? I’d like to inspect it for damage.”
Cordy handed it to him and noted his clean, flat, broad nails rounding
out his capable hands. She also
felt their fingers touch for a fraction of a second.
“Yeah, so, about that. What was up with that?”
“What was up with what?”
“You dropping it. If it means so much to you, shouldn’t you have been
more careful?”
“People drop things all the time,” he said, turning the shaker as he
examined it. “It’s an international
habit.”
“Clumsy people drop things. You play the piano like a dream, so I’m
guessing you’re not usually
clumsy. All that hand-eye coordination and everything.”
“You give me an immense amount of credit. I hear Van Cliburn had an
embarrassing and expensive habit
of dropping crystal.”
Who was this guy who talked like he’d just stepped out of 1920?
Cordy was slightly surprised he was in
color and not black-and-white like an old movie. Nobody really talked
like this. He was putting on an act.
He had to be. Well, two could play at this game. She was going to say
something out of character. Their drinks
arrived and Cordy took a good long sip. She furloughed her internal editor, the
one who kept her scrupulously polite, then looked at him.
“Why were you in a tux riding the ski lift the wrong way and carrying
a martini shaker at six thirty in the
morning?”
He grinned and took a few swallows of the water George had given them
with the drinks, making her
wait. He set the glass down and licked his lips. “Earlier in the
evening, I attended a party that demanded
formal wear.”
“What kind of party?”
“A formal one.”
She beetled her brows at him. “It went on until sunrise? At your age?
Were the cops involved? You
can tell me. After all, it’s not like we’ll see each other again.”
“Now that would be a tragedy of epic proportions.”
“Trust me, it’ll be fine.”
“Doubtful.”
“Was it a wedding? Which would be unusual on a Thursday, but not
unheard of.”
“No.”
“Graduation? Bar mitzvah? Barn raising?”
“You’re not going to guess the occasion. Have you considered the
possibility that I might just enjoy
dressing up?”
“Oh!” Was this code? Was he telling her he was gay? Which would be
great, because they could pal
around and she wouldn’t have to worry about getting involved.
She would never have guessed, but these days, with straight metrosexuals around
every corner, her gaydar was unreliable.
“Oh?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Oh.”
“What does ‘oh’ mean?”
“ ‘Oh’ means ‘oh.’ ” She couldn’t tell him what she was thinking. Even
her absent editor returned to keep her silent.
“ ‘Oh’ means ‘oh,’ huh? All right, then. Since you were so kind as to
return my shaker, I’m not going to
press you for an answer.”
“Now we’re even,” Cordy said, feeling positively cocky. “You didn’t
answer my question and I didn’t answer yours. Let’s just enjoy our drinks,
okay?”
“Absolutely. Whatever you prefer.” He tipped his flute to clink with
hers, sipped, then paused. “Hmm.”
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just hmm.”
“What?”
“You won’t tell me what ‘oh’ means, but you expect me to tell you what
‘hmm’ means?”
Cordy went for the chink in his armor. “It would be the gentlemanly
thing to do.”
“If that’s what you think. I was thinking how it’s curious that a
woman such as yourself is here alone.”
“What makes you think I’m alone?”
“That would be because you are.”
“Why?”
“You’re in a resort town, at a resort. Most guests come with at least
one other person. In your case, I
would expect you to be here with a man. A significant other of some
sort. Spouse, boyfriend, fiancé—”
“Don’t say that word.”
“Fiancé?”
“Yes. Just . . . don’t. Or I’ll take that shaker and throw it off a
cliff.” Cordy smoothed her hair behind
her ear and stared at the bubbles zipping to the surface of her drink.
Why did he have to say that?
“I promise not to say ‘fiancé’ anymore. If you tell me why I can’t.”
She felt like Martini Boy was squeezing her windpipe.
“I can’t. Okay? It’s a . . . thing.” The words choked out. He must’ve
noticed because he nodded and didn’t argue. She wished she was one of those
people who could laugh and make light of it, but in this case, she couldn’t.
“Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be right back.” She reached under the bar to snag
her purse from the hook. Purse hooks under bars were a godsend. More points for
Pinnacle. Martini Boy
stood. More points for Martini Boy.
“Will you be back?” he asked, and sounded concerned.
She slid off the stool. “Yes. I need to use the restroom.”
By “use” she meant “regain my composure, then figure out what I want
to do next and if it involves
you.”
AUTHOR:
Colette Auclair has been a copywriter for more than twenty
years. She’s ridden and shown horses since she was ten and owns a lovely
twenty-year-old Thoroughbred mare. A 2012 Golden Heart finalist in the
contemporary romance category, Thrown was her first novel and Jumped was her second.
Please visit http://www.coletteauclair.com/.
BLOND CARGO
John Lansing
October 20, 2014
$5.99
The second Jack Bertolino
thriller by John Lansing
“An unyielding pace, vigorous characters and explosive ending.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A fantastic read…This
extremely fast and well-thought-out thriller will remind some of James Patterson’s early
works.”
—Suspense Magazine
“Blond Cargo an extraordinary, must-read detective thriller. Can’t
wait for the next installment! Look out Patterson, someone’s gaining on you!”
—Amazon Reviewer
SUMMARY:
Blond Cargo is the highly
anticipated second Jack Bertolino installment from New York native and now Los
Angeles author John Lansing. This gripping eBook from the former
writer/producer of Walker, Texas Ranger
and Co-Executive producer of the ABC series Scoundrels
continues the story that began in The
Devil’s Necktie.
Jack Bertolino is back…in
the sequel to John Lansing’s bestseller The
Devil’s Necktie!
Jack’s son, Chris, was the
victim of a brutal murder attempt and Vincent Cardona, a mafia boss, provided
information that helped Jack take down the perpetrator of the crime. Jack
accepted the favor knowing there’d be blowback. In Blond Cargo, the
mobster’s daughter has gone missing and Cardona turned in his chit. Jack discovers that the young, blond mafia
princess has been kidnapped and imprisoned while rich, politically connected
men negotiate her value as a sex slave.
John Lansing taps into the
real life world of cops, crime, drugs and murder in Blond Cargo to deliver another sizzling whodunit.
Read an excerpt:
Jack Bertolino moved briskly down the polished terrazzo floor of the
American Airlines terminal at San Francisco International Airport. He walked
past travelers who were deplaning, waiting to board, eating, drinking, and
queuing up at ticket counters. Through the windows on either side of the
crowded terminal he could see a line of Boeing MD-80s and 737s.
Jack had his game face on. One thought only: take down the manager at
NCI Corp who was dirty.
Todd Dearling had been hired as one of five project managers,
developing a new generation of semiconductors meant to challenge Intel’s
control of the market. Yet the new engineer was plotting to steal the
proprietary architecture for the company’s most advanced technology and sell it
to an Argentinean competitor.
Jack had done a thorough background check on Dearling and found no
skeletons in the man’s closet, no gambling issues, no drugs, no priors; it was
greed, pure and simple. Cruz Feinberg, Jack’s new associate, had arrived in
Silicon Valley two days prior and wirelessly inserted a program onto Dearling’s
iPad while the stressed-out manager was sucking down his daily chai latte at
the local Starbucks. Any text or e-mail sent to or from Dearling was cloned and
sent to Cruz’s laptop. A piece of cake to pull off for the young tech whiz.
Jack was being well paid to catch the thief in the act—let the money and the
technology change hands, and then drop the hammer.
Todd Dearling had made reservations at the Four Seasons Hotel in East
Palo Alto. A car would be waiting at SFO to ferry his Argentinean counterpart
to the suite where the exchange was scheduled to take place.
Jack had booked Cruz into that same suite two nights earlier, where he
had set up wireless microcameras and wired the room for sound, to be routed to
the suite next door, where Jack’s team would document the crime.
Jack lived for these moments. Outsmarting intelligent men who thought
they were above the law. Badge or no badge, Jack loved to take scumbags down.
Ten minutes ago, Flight 378 from Buenos Aires had flashed from black
to green on the overhead arrivals screen. Dressed in a gray pinstripe business
suit and wheeling a carry-on suitcase, Jack walked toward a limo driver
stationed near the exit door of the international terminal. The man held a sign
chest-high that read emilio bragga.
Jack reached out a hand toward the driver, who was forced to lower his
placard, shake Jack’s hand, and make quick work of grabbing up Jack’s bag. Jack
headed quickly toward the exit, explaining to the driver that he was traveling
light and had no checked luggage.
As soon as the two men exited the building, Jack’s second employee,
Mateo Vasquez, dressed in a black suit, moved into the same spot, carrying a
sign that read Emilio bragga.
Jack and Mateo had once been on opposite sides of the thin blue line,
Jack as an NYPD narcotics detective, Mateo as an operative for a Colombian drug
cartel. When Jack busted the cartel, he made Mateo an offer—spend thirty years
in the big house, or come to work for the NYPD as a confidential
Thirty seconds later, the real Emilio Bragga walked up to Mateo,
stifled a yawn, and handed off his carry-on. He was short and stocky with a
rubbery face.
“Buenos días, Señor Bragga. I hope your flight was acceptable?”
Mateo asked deferentially.
“Barely. First class isn’t what it used to be.” Bragga’s accented English
was spoken in clipped tones. “Take me to the First National Bank. I have
business to attend to.”
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of business, Mateo might
have added, but refrained.
Jack arrived at the Four Seasons, generously tipped the limo driver,
and hurried up the elevator to the suite where Cruz was waiting. Once Jack
stripped off his suit jacket, he joined the young genius by his array of
monitors.
“They should make these baby ketchup bottles illegal,” Cruz said as he
tried to pound the condiment out of the room service minibottle of Heinz.
Growing frustrated, Cruz shoved a knife deep into the viscous ketchup and
poured a heaping red mound onto his fries. Happy with the results, he chowed
down on three drenched fries before wiping his hands on his jeans and returning
his gaze to the computer.
“It looks like he’s getting ready for a date,” Jack said as he took a
seat. Cruz kept his eyes trained on the four screens corresponding to the four
different camera angles of the room they were covering.
“Guy’s squirrelly,” Cruz said, biting into his cheeseburger.
They watched as Todd Dearling twirled a bottle of champagne in the ice
that had just been delivered from room service, along with a tray of finger
sandwiches and crudités. He was a slight, pale, middle-aged man with thinning
hair that he kept nervously brushing back off his forehead. He shrugged out of
his tweed sports jacket, but when he saw the sweat stains in the armpits of his
blue dress shirt, he slid it
Jack checked his watch and then his phone to make sure he was
receiving enough bars to communicate with Mateo. “I’m getting a little nervous.
You?” Cruz asked before sucking down the last of his Coke. He crumpled the
aluminum can with one hand and executed an overhand dunk into the bamboo trash
bin.
Cruz’s mother was Guatemalan, his father a Brooklyn Jew who founded
Bundy Lock and Key. That’s where Jack first met him. Cruz, who took after his
mother’s side of the family, looked taller than his five-foot-nine frame.
Darkskinned, intelligent brown eyes, a youthful angular face, and at
twenty-three, he could still pull off the spiky short black hair.
“I’ve got some energy going,” Jack said, “but it’s all good. You’d have to worry if you didn’t feel
pumped.”
Just then Jack’s phone vibrated and the number 999 appeared on his
text screen, code for It’s a go. Mateo and Emilio Bragga had just pulled
up to the front entrance of the Four Seasons Hotel.
“We’re on,” Jack said with a tight grin.
In another minute, a loud rap on a door made Cruz jump. “Is that
here?” he asked, and glanced over at the door to their suite.
“No, it’s next door. Great sound, Cruz,” Jack said, trying to keep his
newest charge calm.
Jack and Cruz watched as Dearling’s image moved from one screen to the
next, went over to the door, unlocked it, and ushered in Emilio Bragga. The man
of the hour wheeled his carry-on across the white marble floor, pushed the
retractable handle down into the bag, and gave Dearling an unexpected bear hug,
lifting the thin man off his feet. Once the blush faded and he had regained his
composure, Dearling
“I have them and more, Emilio. There are even some preliminary
renderings for the next series of chips. Consider it goodwill,” Dearling said.
He lifted the champagne bottle out of the melting ice with a flourish,
dripping water onto his dress shirt.
“No, business first,” Jack
said.
“No. Show them to me. Now,” Bragga ordered, his voice unyielding.
“Now we’re talking,” Cruz said to Jack, barely able to control his
excitement.
The next knock was more subdued than the first, just a quick double
knock.
“That’s here,” Jack said as he slid out of his chair and opened the
door. Mateo was thirty-nine years old, tall, handsome, with striking gray eyes,
long brown hair, and a thousand-dollar suit. He beamed at his old friend as he
walked in, bumped fists, and moved into position behind Cruz, eyes trained on
the computer screen.
Emilio Bragga placed his carry-on luggage on the couch as Dearling
pulled a slim buffed metal briefcase from behind the table and snapped it open
on the tabletop. Inside was a series of blue, red, silver, and gold flash
drives, seated in foam cutouts next to three bound technical binders.
Bragga leafed quickly through one of the binders, visibly relaxed, and
placed it back inside the case. He looked at Todd Dearling and nodded his head.
Then he smiled.
“This is the money shot,” Jack said. “Make it the money shot.”
Emilio Bragga walked over to the couch, ceremoniously produced a key,
and opened the lock. The sound of the zipper ratcheting around the
circumference of the bag got everyone’s full attention. And then Bragga flipped
open the canvas top.
Two hundred and fifty thousand, in crisp, banded hundred-dollar bills.
Jack’s team could almost hear Dearling’s breath catch in his throat.
“You see those appetizers?” Bragga said, gesturing to the tray of
crudités. “That is what this is.” He turned his gaze to the thick stacks of
money like it was nothing. “Antipasto…before the meal.”
The two men shook hands. The deal was consummated. It was all gravy
now, Jack thought. He would contact Lawrence Weller, CEO of NCI, who would have
Bragga quietly arrested at the airport and Dearling picked up outside his
condominium, thereby avoiding any negative publicity regarding the security
breach that could affect the value of NCI’s stock.
“Start taking sick days as we get closer to the rollout date,” Bragga
advised. “Then you’ll take a forced medical leave. I’ll set you up with a
doctor in San Francisco who’s a friend. He’ll recommend you spend a month at a
local clinic to recuperate while we launch and beat NCI to market. Six
months later and with two million in your account, you’ll give notice and head
up my division. Did I ever tell you how beautiful the women in Mendoza are?”
Bragga’s speech was interrupted by another knock on the door.
“Room service,” a muted voice said.
“We’re good,” Dearling shouted as he moved toward the door while
Bragga instinctively closed the lid of his bag, covering the money.
Jack gave his team a What the hell? look. “Who are these
jokers?”
“Complimentary champagne from the management of the Four Seasons,”
intoned the muffled voice.
“Don’t open the door,” Bragga
hissed.
“Don’t open the door,” Jack said at the same time. But Dearling had
already turned the handle.
Three men dressed in navy blue blazers with gold epaulettes pushed a
service cart draped with a white cloth into the room with a bottle of champagne
in a silver ice bucket and a huge bouquet of flowers in a crystal vase. “Three
men on one bottle,” Jack said as he pulled his Glock nine-millimeter out of his
shoulder rig and headed for the door.
“We weren’t the only ones who hacked his computer,” Cruz intuited.
“Don’t leave the room,” Jack told him over his shoulder. He quickly
exited the suite, followed by Mateo. Cruz nodded, but his wide eyes never left
the computer screen.
The lead man pushed the cart toward Dearling, but instead of slowing
down, he muscled the cart up against the timid man’s waist, picked up speed,
and forced him to backpedal across the room. Dearling’s eyes bugged, his face a
mask of terror. The flowers and champagne tumbled off the cart, and the crystal
vase shattered on impact. The champagne bottle exploded. Flowers and glass and
water and bubbly
Bragga placed himself in front of his bag of cash and took a gun
barrel to the side of his head. The gash spurted blood, drenched his shirt,
turned his legs to rubber, and took him down onto one knee. The gunman made a
fast reach past him for the bag, but Bragga grabbed the thug around one thigh
and tried to bulldog him to the ground.
“I’m gonna shoot you, you dumb prick,” the gunman grunted, rapidly
losing control of the situation.
“So much for keeping it on the QT,” Jack said to Mateo as he kicked
the door open and followed his gun into the room.
The third uniformed man spun as the door smashed against the jamb and
Jack’s fist exploded into his face. The man’s head snapped back, and blood
streamed out of his broken nose. His arms flailed, and his gun was suspended in
midair for a split second before the man and the gun hit the floor.
The man who’d pushed the cart turned his weapon on Jack, who fired
first, blasting the man in the shoulder. The force of Jack’s bullet propelled
the gunman’s body backward onto the cart before he flopped to the stone floor,
landed on his shoulder in the broken glass, and cried out in pain. The gun
discharging in the close confines of the hotel suite stopped the action. The
room smelled of cordite,
Jack turned his Glock on the second man. “Give me your gun or your
friend’s going to bleed out,” he stated with extreme calm.
Before Jack could take control of the weapon, Bragga stripped it from
the gunman’s hand and smashed him in the temple with surprising violence. Then
he swung the confiscated Colt back and forth between Jack and Mateo, stopping
them in their tracks.
“Nobody move and nobody follow,” Bragga said as he half-zippered the
suitcase with one hand and picked up the carry-on bag.
“Drop your weapons,” he ordered Jack and Mateo through clenched teeth
as blood continued to drip down the side of his face. They complied, knowing he
wouldn’t make it as far as the lobby. Bragga walked around the couch on
unsteady legs, muscling the heavy bag. His eyes bored into Mateo, the “driver”
who had betrayed him, and ordered him to clear the doorway with a sharp wave of
his gun barrel. Mateo took a half step to the side, gave the short man just
enough room to pass, and pistoned with his full two hundred pounds of muscle,
leading with his elbow and hitting Bragga in the back of the head, just above
the neck. The Argentinean went down hard.
The overstuffed bag bounced on the floor, the luggage’s zipper split
open, and a green wave of banded hundreds cascaded out onto the polished white
Carrara marble. “That was a cluster fuck,” Jack said with disgust as he picked
up his Glock and surveyed the carnage in the suite. Mateo collected the fallen
weapons, grabbed a towel off the wet bar, and used it as a compress to stanch
the first gunman’s bleeding wound. He was all business. “Call 911 and have them
send an ambulance,” Jack said to Cruz, who he knew could hear him over one of
the multiple microphones.
“That was insane.”
Jack turned around and found Cruz standing, wild eyed, in the hall
directly behind him.
“Call 911 and lock the door. Did we get it all?”
“I copied Lawrence Weller and you on your cell, iPad, and laptop.”
“Good man,” Jack said.
“No, really, you, Mateo . . . man.” Cruz shuddered as he pulled out
his cell and dialed the emergency phone line. Jack was not one normally given
to second-guessing, but at the moment he found himself seriously questioning
his new career choice as a private investigator.
Muttering a curse, Jack holstered his nine-millimeter, crossed the
room, and proceeded to snap plastic flex-cuffs on the broken assembly of
thieves.
Jack Bertolino moved briskly down the polished terrazzo floor of the
American Airlines terminal at San Francisco International Airport. He walked
past travelers who were deplaning, waiting to board, eating, drinking, and
queuing up at ticket counters. Through the windows on either side of the
crowded terminal he could see a line of Boeing MD-80s and 737s.
Jack had his game face on. One thought only: take down the manager at
NCI Corp who was dirty.
Todd Dearling had been hired as one of five project managers,
developing a new generation of semiconductors meant to challenge Intel’s
control of the market. Yet the new engineer was plotting to steal the
proprietary architecture for the company’s most advanced technology and sell it
to an Argentinean competitor.
Jack had done a thorough background check on Dearling and found no
skeletons in the man’s closet, no gambling issues, no drugs, no priors; it was
greed, pure and simple. Cruz Feinberg, Jack’s new associate, had arrived in
Silicon Valley two days prior and wirelessly inserted a program onto Dearling’s
iPad while the stressed-out manager was sucking down his daily chai latte at
the local Starbucks. Any text or e-mail sent to or from Dearling was cloned and
sent to Cruz’s laptop. A piece of cake to pull off for the young tech whiz.
Jack was being well paid to catch the thief in the act—let the money and the
technology change hands, and then drop the hammer.
Todd Dearling had made reservations at the Four Seasons Hotel in East
Palo Alto. A car would be waiting at SFO to ferry his Argentinean counterpart
to the suite where the exchange was scheduled to take place.
Jack had booked Cruz into that same suite two nights earlier, where he
had set up wireless microcameras and wired the room for sound, to be routed to
the suite next door, where Jack’s team would document the crime.
Jack lived for these moments. Outsmarting intelligent men who thought
they were above the law. Badge or no badge, Jack loved to take scumbags down.
Ten minutes ago, Flight 378 from Buenos Aires had flashed from black
to green on the overhead arrivals screen. Dressed in a gray pinstripe business
suit and wheeling a carry-on suitcase, Jack walked toward a limo driver
stationed near the exit door of the international terminal. The man held a sign
chest-high that read emilio bragga.
Jack reached out a hand toward the driver, who was forced to lower his
placard, shake Jack’s hand, and make quick work of grabbing up Jack’s bag. Jack
headed quickly toward the exit, explaining to the driver that he was traveling
light and had no checked luggage.
As soon as the two men exited the building, Jack’s second employee,
Mateo Vasquez, dressed in a black suit, moved into the same spot, carrying a
sign that read Emilio bragga.
Jack and Mateo had once been on opposite sides of the thin blue line,
Jack as an NYPD narcotics detective, Mateo as an operative for a Colombian drug
cartel. When Jack busted the cartel, he made Mateo an offer—spend thirty years
in the big house, or come to work for the NYPD as a confidential
informant. Mateo had made the right choice and Jack had earned himself
a loyal operative when he became a private investigator.
Thirty seconds later, the real Emilio Bragga walked up to Mateo,
stifled a yawn, and handed off his carry-on. He was short and stocky with a
rubbery face.
“Buenos días, Señor Bragga. I hope your flight was acceptable?”
Mateo asked deferentially.
“Barely. First class isn’t what it used to be.” Bragga’s accented English
was spoken in clipped tones. “Take me to the First National Bank. I have
business to attend to.”
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of business, Mateo might
have added, but refrained.
Jack arrived at the Four Seasons, generously tipped the limo driver,
and hurried up the elevator to the suite where Cruz was waiting. Once Jack
stripped off his suit jacket, he joined the young genius by his array of
monitors.
“They should make these baby ketchup bottles illegal,” Cruz said as he
tried to pound the condiment out of the room service minibottle of Heinz.
Growing frustrated, Cruz shoved a knife deep into the viscous ketchup and
poured a heaping red mound onto his fries. Happy with the results, he chowed
down on three drenched fries before wiping his hands on his jeans and returning
his gaze to the computer.
“It looks like he’s getting ready for a date,” Jack said as he took a
seat. Cruz kept his eyes trained on the four screens corresponding to the four
different camera angles of the room they were covering.
“Guy’s squirrelly,” Cruz said, biting into his cheeseburger.
They watched as Todd Dearling twirled a bottle of champagne in the ice
that had just been delivered from room service, along with a tray of finger
sandwiches and crudités. He was a slight, pale, middle-aged man with thinning
hair that he kept nervously brushing back off his forehead. He shrugged out of
his tweed sports jacket, but when he saw the sweat stains in the armpits of his
blue dress shirt, he slid it
back on. He hurried over to the thermostat near the door, appearing on
a new screen, and turned up the air.
Jack checked his watch and then his phone to make sure he was
receiving enough bars to communicate with Mateo. “I’m getting a little nervous.
You?” Cruz asked before sucking down the last of his Coke. He crumpled the
aluminum can with one hand and executed an overhand dunk into the bamboo trash
bin.
Cruz’s mother was Guatemalan, his father a Brooklyn Jew who founded
Bundy Lock and Key. That’s where Jack first met him. Cruz, who took after his
mother’s side of the family, looked taller than his five-foot-nine frame.
Darkskinned, intelligent brown eyes, a youthful angular face, and at
twenty-three, he could still pull off the spiky short black hair.
“I’ve got some energy going,” Jack said, “but it’s all good. You’d have to worry if you didn’t feel
pumped.”
Just then Jack’s phone vibrated and the number 999 appeared on his
text screen, code for It’s a go. Mateo and Emilio Bragga had just pulled
up to the front entrance of the Four Seasons Hotel.
“We’re on,” Jack said with a tight grin.
In another minute, a loud rap on a door made Cruz jump. “Is that
here?” he asked, and glanced over at the door to their suite.
“No, it’s next door. Great sound, Cruz,” Jack said, trying to keep his
newest charge calm.
Jack and Cruz watched as Dearling’s image moved from one screen to the
next, went over to the door, unlocked it, and ushered in Emilio Bragga. The man
of the hour wheeled his carry-on across the white marble floor, pushed the
retractable handle down into the bag, and gave Dearling an unexpected bear hug,
lifting the thin man off his feet. Once the blush faded and he had regained his
composure, Dearling
was all smiles. He could smell his fortune being made. “First, tell me
you have them,” Bragga said brusquely, his smile tightening.
“I have them and more, Emilio. There are even some preliminary
renderings for the next series of chips. Consider it goodwill,” Dearling said.
He lifted the champagne bottle out of the melting ice with a flourish,
dripping water onto his dress shirt.
“A celebratory drink and then business.”
“No, business first,” Jack
said.
“No. Show them to me. Now,” Bragga ordered, his voice unyielding.
“Now we’re talking,” Cruz said to Jack, barely able to control his
excitement.
The next knock was more subdued than the first, just a quick double
knock.
“That’s here,” Jack said as he slid out of his chair and opened the
door. Mateo was thirty-nine years old, tall, handsome, with striking gray eyes,
long brown hair, and a thousand-dollar suit. He beamed at his old friend as he
walked in, bumped fists, and moved into position behind Cruz, eyes trained on
the computer screen.
Emilio Bragga placed his carry-on luggage on the couch as Dearling
pulled a slim buffed metal briefcase from behind the table and snapped it open
on the tabletop. Inside was a series of blue, red, silver, and gold flash
drives, seated in foam cutouts next to three bound technical binders.
Bragga leafed quickly through one of the binders, visibly relaxed, and
placed it back inside the case. He looked at Todd Dearling and nodded his head.
Then he smiled.
“This is the money shot,” Jack said. “Make it the money shot.”
Emilio Bragga walked over to the couch, ceremoniously produced a key,
and opened the lock. The sound of the zipper ratcheting around the
circumference of the bag got everyone’s full attention. And then Bragga flipped
open the canvas top.
Two hundred and fifty thousand, in crisp, banded hundred-dollar bills.
Jack’s team could almost hear Dearling’s breath catch in his throat.
“You see those appetizers?” Bragga said, gesturing to the tray of
crudités. “That is what this is.” He turned his gaze to the thick stacks of
money like it was nothing. “Antipasto…before the meal.”
The two men shook hands. The deal was consummated. It was all gravy
now, Jack thought. He would contact Lawrence Weller, CEO of NCI, who would have
Bragga quietly arrested at the airport and Dearling picked up outside his
condominium, thereby avoiding any negative publicity regarding the security
breach that could affect the value of NCI’s stock.
“Start taking sick days as we get closer to the rollout date,” Bragga
advised. “Then you’ll take a forced medical leave. I’ll set you up with a
doctor in San Francisco who’s a friend. He’ll recommend you spend a month at a
local clinic to recuperate while we launch and beat NCI to market. Six
months later and with two million in your account, you’ll give notice and head
up my division. Did I ever tell you how beautiful the women in Mendoza are?”
Bragga’s speech was interrupted by another knock on the door.
“Room service,” a muted voice said.
“We’re good,” Dearling shouted as he moved toward the door while
Bragga instinctively closed the lid of his bag, covering the money.
Jack gave his team a What the hell? look. “Who are these
jokers?”
“Complimentary champagne from the management of the Four Seasons,”
intoned the muffled voice.
“Don’t open the door,” Bragga
hissed.
“Don’t open the door,” Jack said at the same time. But Dearling had
already turned the handle.
Three men dressed in navy blue blazers with gold epaulettes pushed a
service cart draped with a white cloth into the room with a bottle of champagne
in a silver ice bucket and a huge bouquet of flowers in a crystal vase. “Three
men on one bottle,” Jack said as he pulled his Glock nine-millimeter out of his
shoulder rig and headed for the door.
“We weren’t the only ones who hacked his computer,” Cruz intuited.
“Don’t leave the room,” Jack told him over his shoulder. He quickly
exited the suite, followed by Mateo. Cruz nodded, but his wide eyes never left
the computer screen.
The lead man pushed the cart toward Dearling, but instead of slowing
down, he muscled the cart up against the timid man’s waist, picked up speed,
and forced him to backpedal across the room. Dearling’s eyes bugged, his face a
mask of terror. The flowers and champagne tumbled off the cart, and the crystal
vase shattered on impact. The champagne bottle exploded. Flowers and glass and
water and bubbly
flooded the slick stone floor. Dearling’s body slammed into the
television set on the far wall; his head whipped back and splintered the flat
screen. Glass rained down on the Judas as he slid to the floor behind the cart.
Bragga placed himself in front of his bag of cash and took a gun
barrel to the side of his head. The gash spurted blood, drenched his shirt,
turned his legs to rubber, and took him down onto one knee. The gunman made a
fast reach past him for the bag, but Bragga grabbed the thug around one thigh
and tried to bulldog him to the ground.
“I’m gonna shoot you, you dumb prick,” the gunman grunted, rapidly
losing control of the situation.
“So much for keeping it on the QT,” Jack said to Mateo as he kicked
the door open and followed his gun into the room.
The third uniformed man spun as the door smashed against the jamb and
Jack’s fist exploded into his face. The man’s head snapped back, and blood
streamed out of his broken nose. His arms flailed, and his gun was suspended in
midair for a split second before the man and the gun hit the floor.
The man who’d pushed the cart turned his weapon on Jack, who fired
first, blasting the man in the shoulder. The force of Jack’s bullet propelled
the gunman’s body backward onto the cart before he flopped to the stone floor,
landed on his shoulder in the broken glass, and cried out in pain. The gun
discharging in the close confines of the hotel suite stopped the action. The
room smelled of cordite,
the only sounds heavy breathing and Todd Dearling’s whimpering. Mateo
picked up the third man’s pistol and covered Jack’s back.
Jack turned his Glock on the second man. “Give me your gun or your
friend’s going to bleed out,” he stated with extreme calm.
Before Jack could take control of the weapon, Bragga stripped it from
the gunman’s hand and smashed him in the temple with surprising violence. Then
he swung the confiscated Colt back and forth between Jack and Mateo, stopping
them in their tracks.
“Nobody move and nobody follow,” Bragga said as he half-zippered the
suitcase with one hand and picked up the carry-on bag.
“Drop your weapons,” he ordered Jack and Mateo through clenched teeth
as blood continued to drip down the side of his face. They complied, knowing he
wouldn’t make it as far as the lobby. Bragga walked around the couch on
unsteady legs, muscling the heavy bag. His eyes bored into Mateo, the “driver”
who had betrayed him, and ordered him to clear the doorway with a sharp wave of
his gun barrel. Mateo took a half step to the side, gave the short man just
enough room to pass, and pistoned with his full two hundred pounds of muscle,
leading with his elbow and hitting Bragga in the back of the head, just above
the neck. The Argentinean went down hard.
The overstuffed bag bounced on the floor, the luggage’s zipper split
open, and a green wave of banded hundreds cascaded out onto the polished white
Carrara marble. “That was a cluster fuck,” Jack said with disgust as he picked
up his Glock and surveyed the carnage in the suite. Mateo collected the fallen
weapons, grabbed a towel off the wet bar, and used it as a compress to stanch
the first gunman’s bleeding wound. He was all business. “Call 911 and have them
send an ambulance,” Jack said to Cruz, who he knew could hear him over one of
the multiple microphones.
“That was insane.”
Jack turned around and found Cruz standing, wild eyed, in the hall
directly behind him.
“Call 911 and lock the door. Did we get it all?”
“I copied Lawrence Weller and you on your cell, iPad, and laptop.”
“Good man,” Jack said.
“No, really, you, Mateo . . . man.” Cruz shuddered as he pulled out
his cell and dialed the emergency phone line. Jack was not one normally given
to second-guessing, but at the moment he found himself seriously questioning
his new career choice as a private investigator.
Muttering a curse, Jack holstered his nine-millimeter, crossed the
room, and proceeded to snap plastic flex-cuffs on the broken assembly of
thieves.
AUTHOR:
John Lansing spent five
years writing for TV hit Walker, Texas Ranger, and another three years
studying the life of an NYPD Inspector. What emerged from his combined writing
about a cop and time spent with an actual cop was Jack Bertolino—a fictional
character with very real-life stories. Lansing was also a Co-Executive Producer
for ABC's Scoundrels. John's first book was Good Cop, Bad Money,
a true crime tome with former NYPD Inspector Glen Morisano. The Devil's Necktie was his
first novel. A native of Long Island, John now resides in Los Angeles. Please visit http://www.johnlansing.net/.
A LAST GOODBYE
J.A. Jance
November 24, 2014
.99
An Ali Reynolds e-novella
SUMMARY:
Find out where
fan favorite Ali Reynolds’ new adventure takes her in A Last Goodbye as New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance brings her trademark breakneck pace to
this fun and exciting e-novella, in which Ali Reynolds takes on double
responsibilities as both sleuth and bride.
Ali Reynolds is
finally getting married to her longtime love B. Simpson. They wanted a simple
Christmas Eve wedding, but nothing is ever simple with Ali. Even as a motley
crew of her friends—Leland Brooks, Sister Anselm, and others—descend on Vegas,
the bride-to-be finds herself juggling last-minute wedding plans and a mystery
in the form of a stray miniature dachshund. Ali’s grandson rescues the little
dog, but Ali’s not in the market for a new pet right before her honeymoon, and
leaves no stone unturned in hunting for the dog’s owner. But what she finds is
more than just a shaggy dog story…Bella’s elderly owner has vanished, and her
son seems to be behind it. So it’s Ali and B. to the rescue—and still making it
to the church on time!
Read an excerpt:
Ali Reynolds leaned her head back against the pillow in the soaking
tub and closed her eyes. With
Because Ali and B. had chosen to be married in a hotel, much of the
planning was done by simply
Preparations for Ali’s previous weddings had been well beyond Edie
Larson’s geographic reach—Chicago
This time around, Ali wasn’t so lucky. Her parents, Bob and Edie
Larson, were both retired now,
In the past, Ali had found the term “bridezilla” mildly amusing, but
when it came to dealing with an
With her own dress safely in hand, Edie had gone on to tackle outfits
for the twins, Ali’s grandchildren,
Ali’s father, Bob, was not an official member because Ali’s son,
Chris, would do the honor of walking her down the aisle. Even so, Edie had gone
so far as to bully her husband into actually buying a tux as opposed to renting
one so Bob would have one to wear to formal dinner nights on their next cruise.
Edie had been in despair about Ali’s ever finding a suitable wedding dress, and
her sense of dread deepened when her daughter abruptly removed herself from the
wedding planning equation. For the better part of two weeks in early December,
Ali avoided all the frenetic pre-wedding activity by, as Edie put it, “larking
off” to England.
That’s what Ali and B. had both expected her trip to Bournemouth would
be—a lark. She went along for the ride when her longtime majordomo, Leland
Brooks, returned home to the British Isles after living in self-imposed exile
in the U.S. for the better part of sixty years. The trip was actually a
thank-you from B. and Ali for Leland’s years of loyal service, including his
having saved Ali’s life a month earlier in a nighttime desert confrontation
with a kidnapper.
Ali had expected that her responsibilities would entail providing
backup in case any of Leland’s long-lost relatives decided to go off the rails.
She was also there as the designated driver, since most
In a role-reversal variation on Driving Miss Daisy, Ali had
taken the wheel of their “hired” Range Rover and driven Leland through the
snowy English countryside from London to Bournemouth, Leland’s hometown, on the
south coast of England. Together they even took a sentimental side trip to one
of Leland’s favorite childhood haunts: Stonehenge.
In a small fashion boutique in Bournemouth, Leland had helped Ali find
the perfect dress for her third and, as she put it, hopefully last wedding.
Even now, her lovely lace-adorned ivory silk knee-length
Ali Reynolds leaned her head back against the pillow in the soaking
tub and closed her eyes. With
the help of the pummeling water jets, she let the rush of the past few
days recede into the background.
She and B. had made it. They were finally in Las Vegas. The rest of
the wedding party was there, too.
Back in November, when she and B. Simpson had first settled on a
Christmas Eve wedding at the Four
Seasons, it seemed entirely doable—a piece of cake. After all, how
hard could it be?
Because Ali and B. had chosen to be married in a hotel, much of the
planning was done by simply
cruising through the wedding planning pages on the Four Seasons
website. Arranging the time, date, flowers, type of ceremony—including their
preferred verbiage in the vows—was just a matter of making a few mouse clicks
on her computer. Ditto for the menus. One was for what they were calling the
rehearsal dinner despite the fact that there would be no rehearsal until the
morning of the wedding. She also used the website to choose separate menus for
both the reception and the post-ceremony supper. Ali stepped away from her computer,
thinking that she had most everything handled. Unfortunately, she had failed to
take her mother’s reaction into consideration.
Preparations for Ali’s previous weddings had been well beyond Edie
Larson’s geographic reach—Chicago
for the first ceremony and Los Angeles for the second. Caught up in
running the family business,
the Sugarloaf Café in Sedona, Arizona, 363 days a year, all Ali’s
parents had been able to do on the two
previous occasions was arrive in time for the rehearsal dinners and
depart immediately after the nuptials.
This time around, Ali wasn’t so lucky. Her parents, Bob and Edie
Larson, were both retired now,
having sold the restaurant. Bob had found plenty to do in retirement,
but Edie, left with too much time
on her hands, had hit the wedding planner ground at a dead run, a
reaction for which Ali herself had
been totally unprepared.
In the past, Ali had found the term “bridezilla” mildly amusing, but
when it came to dealing with an
Edie who had suddenly morphed into what could only be called the
bride’s “momzilla”? That wasn’t amusing in the least. To Ali’s surprise, Edie
had whipped out her long-unused Singer sewing machine and set about stitching
up a storm. In keeping with the season, Edie’s mother-of-the-bride dress was a
deep-green velvet and probably the most sophisticated attire Ali had ever seen
in her mother’s wardrobe.
With her own dress safely in hand, Edie had gone on to tackle outfits
for the twins, Ali’s grandchildren,
Colleen and Colin, who would serve as flower girl and ring bearer
respectively. Colleen’s dress was a ruby-red taffeta, and Colin’s tux, also
homemade, came complete with a matching rubyred taffeta cummerbund. Once that
was finished, Edie took it upon herself to sew identical cummerbunds for all
the men in the wedding party.
Ali’s father, Bob, was not an official member because Ali’s son,
Chris, would do the honor of walking her down the aisle. Even so, Edie had gone
so far as to bully her husband into actually buying a tux as opposed to renting
one so Bob would have one to wear to formal dinner nights on their next cruise.
Edie had been in despair about Ali’s ever finding a suitable wedding dress, and
her sense of dread deepened when her daughter abruptly removed herself from the
wedding planning equation. For the better part of two weeks in early December,
Ali avoided all the frenetic pre-wedding activity by, as Edie put it, “larking
off” to England.
That’s what Ali and B. had both expected her trip to Bournemouth would
be—a lark. She went along for the ride when her longtime majordomo, Leland
Brooks, returned home to the British Isles after living in self-imposed exile
in the U.S. for the better part of sixty years. The trip was actually a
thank-you from B. and Ali for Leland’s years of loyal service, including his
having saved Ali’s life a month earlier in a nighttime desert confrontation
with a kidnapper.
Ali had expected that her responsibilities would entail providing
backup in case any of Leland’s long-lost relatives decided to go off the rails.
She was also there as the designated driver, since most
car rental agencies didn’t allow octogenarians to rent vehicles.
In a role-reversal variation on Driving Miss Daisy, Ali had
taken the wheel of their “hired” Range Rover and driven Leland through the
snowy English countryside from London to Bournemouth, Leland’s hometown, on the
south coast of England. Together they even took a sentimental side trip to one
of Leland’s favorite childhood haunts: Stonehenge.
In a small fashion boutique in Bournemouth, Leland had helped Ali find
the perfect dress for her third and, as she put it, hopefully last wedding.
Even now, her lovely lace-adorned ivory silk knee-length
sheath was hanging in its original clear plastic wrap in the closet
here at the Four Seasons. Needless to
say, Edie was greatly relieved to know that the wedding dress issue
had at last been handled even if she
hadn’t been allowed to make it or choose it.
AUTHOR:
J.A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the Ali Reynolds series, the J.P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, as well as four interrelated Southwestern thrillers featuring the Walker family. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Brisbee, Arizona, Jance and her husband live in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona. Please visit http://www.jajance.com/.
TREACHEROUS TART
Ellie Grant
October 28, 2014
Pocket Books
Mass Market ISBN: 9781451689563
eBook ISBN: 9781451689587
$7.99
Praise for Treacherous Tart:
“The second book in Grant’s Pie Shop mystery series settles into Durham, North Carolina. The plot has more than one angle, and the reader will be intrigued by different stories within the book. The characters are great, and you really get to know them more through the course of the tale. Treacherous Tart is a great read for all cozy mystery fans.”
—Romantic Times
“The mystery is intense, the stray cat and her little family that Maggie and Clara own is adorable, and perhaps most importantly, the pages of recipes this author gifts to the reader makes for the perfect explanation of why everyone should read and enjoy cozy mysteries.”
—Suspense Magazine
“The second Pie Shop mystery is an entertaining culinary cozy with dynamic witty lead sleuths, denier Aunt Clara and several viable suspects filled with rage at the apparent uxoricide serial killer. Team Grant provides the audience with a winning regional investigative whodunit.”
—The Mystery Gazette
“Ellie Grant writes an intelligent novel that keeps readers guessing...Treacherous Tart makes murder enthralling.”
—Single Titles
Summary:
There are worse crimes than using frozen pie crust…
Festive pastries are flying off the shelves at Pie in the Sky, where Maggie Grady and her Aunt Clara sell the best desserts in Durham, North Carolina. Yet it’s not just the tantalizing scents of cinnamon and nutmeg in the air, for murder is on the menu too…
As Christmas approaches, Aunt Clara’s love life is heating up. Maggie likes seeing her beloved partner-in-pie happy with her new beau, Donald Wickerson—until Maggie’s own boyfriend, local reporter Ryan Summerour, discovers that several of Donald’s wealthy exes met with unfortunate “accidents.”
Is Clara’s boyfriend just looking to fatten his bank account? Before Maggie can discover, a dying Donald stumbles in Pie in the Sky. The way to a man’s heart may be through his stomach, but someone found a handgun more effective. Even worse, Clara – who was out back feeding a stray cat at the time—had motive, means, and no human witnesses.
To clear Clara’s name, Maggie and Ryan start sifting through suspects. Could the murderer be one of Donald’s numerous former in-laws, or an embittered flame? And can Maggie find the culprit before the killer serves up a second helping?
Read an excerpt:
Chapter 1 Excerpt:
Is there any way this could be a different Donald Wickerson?” Maggie Grady asked as she and Ryan Summerour sat drinking coffee. “One who doesn’t seem to kill the women who fall in love with him?”
It was the Christmas season at Pie in the Sky, a pie shop near the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina. Temperatures had dipped obligingly low for holiday festivities and shoppers. A snowstorm had added a powdery white dusting to rooftops and trees. It was a perfect Christmas-
card scene.
Except for one thing.
Maggie’s Aunt Clara seemed to be smitten with a man who might be responsible for the deaths of each of his six wives.
“I don’t think there’s any mistake. I’ve done my research.”
Ryan owned and operated his family’s business, the Durham Weekly newspaper. He’d first received a tip about Donald Wickerson from a friend in Georgia about six months ago. Since then he’d followed other newspaper stories about the man they’d dubbed the Black Widower as the man had moved to North Carolina.
He’d known about Wickerson long before Aunt Clara had met him at the library a few months before. He just never expected her to meet and fall for the man.
Maggie shook her head in frustration. Her short brown hair flew around her pretty face. She closed her green eyes—the same color as her aunt’s.
“I can’t believe it. Just as I get my life settled, Aunt Clara goes off the deep end for some ‘black widower.’ It’s crazy.”
“Give her a break. She’s been alone for a long time. She’s looking for someone special in her life. My father would be the same way if he met someone who was interested in golf and didn’t mind him trumpeting his political views every five minutes. I don’t know how my mother lived with him.”
Ryan ran his hand through his dark-blond hair. Instead of calming it down, the gesture made the ends curlier. He squinted at a stack of old newspaper articles from around the state, selecting one from the top, and holding it an arm’s length away from his blue eyes. He was in his forties, and fighting the need to wear glasses.
“You’re going to have to give in and get glasses.” Maggie watched him with a smile. “If you hold papers any farther from your face when you read, you’ll go cross-eyed.”
Maggie and Ryan had only been a couple for a few weeks—they’d met after Maggie moved back home to Durham earlier in the fall. It had been a difficult transition settling back into small-town life since she’d spent the past ten years working in New York, but meeting Ryan had helped.
It was a good relationship, after they’d worked out the kinks. They’d met under unfortunate circumstances. Ryan had wanted to write a story about her for the Durham Weekly, but it hadn’t been very flattering given that she’d come home in a firestorm after being fired from her job for embezzlement.
But they’d clicked soon after. They seemed to have a lot in common, despite the differences in their choice of work. They’d both graduated from Duke University. They’d both grown up here and had become part of family-owned businesses.
“Okay, let’s just focus on what we can do to keep your aunt from being Donald’s next victim.”
“I thought you were going to write about him in the paper?” Maggie got up to start cleaning the pie shop. It was almost six, closing time.
There had been a flurry of activity earlier, before the snow had started falling. People liked to load up on extra food before it snowed. After the white stuff was on the ground, they wanted to stay inside, make popcorn, and drink hot chocolate. “I want to write about him, but I can’t use his real name. After the first article came out in my friend’s newspaper, his lawyer threatened to sue. I’ve been careful. I
can’t afford a big lawsuit. He has a lot more money than I do since he keeps inheriting from his dead wives.”
He got up and took their coffee cups to the kitchen. Maggie followed him to get the mop. The dark-blue tile floor in the eating area of Pie in the Sky was excellent for hiding coffee stains from customers.
But she still knew they were there.
“Have you talked to Frank about it?”
Frank Waters was a Durham homicide detective who’d helped Ryan with a few other articles he’d written in the ten years he’d been running the paper. Frank was friends with Ryan’s father, Garrett, who’d run the paper before him.
“There’s nothing he can do.” Ryan put the cups and other dishes he found into the dishwasher in the kitchen. “Technically, Donald hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s been investigated after each of his wives’ deaths—they never find anything. All of their deaths were ruled accidents. Frank warned me about using Donald’s real name. That’s about it.”
Maggie viciously rammed the mop into the wringer on the bucket. “Well, I’m not standing around waiting until Donald ‘accidentally’ kills Aunt Clara. I just got her back in my life again. I’m not losing her to some lucky serial killer who preys on women with a little money and property.”
She’d been trying to find some way to broach the subject with her aunt to warn her of his intentions, but she still hadn’t found the right moment, or the right way to go about it.
The front door chimed, letting them know someone had come in.
“Yoo-hoo!” Aunt Clara called from the front. “Is anyone here? I know it’s closing time, but we’d like some coffee, please!”
Maggie peeked around the corner of the service window between the kitchen and the front shop area. “He’s with her. We’ll have to table this discussion until later.”
“There you are!” Aunt Clara’s merry voice matched the holiday decorations and the twinkling lights around the pie shop. “I was beginning to wonder what a person had to do to get some service in this joint.”
Her aunt giggled as she held Donald’s hand, which made Maggie cringe. Clara’s wrinkled face was still pretty with its slight blush and sharp green eyes. In her youth, red hair had flowed softly around her shoulders. Now that she was older, she cut and dyed her hair, making it a strange, orange-colored
fringe of sorts that still framed her face.
“Well, some customers can be very annoying,” Maggie joked, quickly shooting a pointed glare at Donald, who didn’t seem to notice.
It was hard to keep from turning to Donald and accusing him of preying on her aunt, but it seemed she had no choice but to be amiable since she had no real proof that he’d done anything wrong.
At least not yet.
Maggie spared them a smile as she brought out two cups of coffee. “What are you two up to?”
“We’re back from a wonderful program about the history of Christmas at the library. Donald said he wanted to try our Marvelous Mince pie.”
Donald smiled and kissed Clara’s hand. “That’s right. Your pretty little aunt convinced me that her mincemeat pie is as good as my mother’s used to be. I have my doubts. Clara can be quite persuasive.”
Maggie wanted to slap Donald and tell him to keep his hands off her aunt.
But what if Ryan was wrong? What if Donald was her aunt’s last chance at happiness?
Donald certainly didn’t look like a killer. He was tall and handsome for an older man. He reminded her of a model for an ad selling flannel shirts and boots. He had that rugged, outdoor quality to him.
She couldn’t ruin a possible chance for her aunt’s happiness without hard proof. “My aunt makes a mean mincemeat pie. I’ll be happy to get you a slice. Anything for you, Aunt Clara?”
“Yes, honey. I’ll take a slice of the coconut custard. It’s named after me. I feel guilty if I don’t eat some once in a while. Not too much—I don’t want to put on any weight.”
Donald stared into her eyes. “You have such a trim little figure. I’m sure you don’t have to worry about it, Clara. Now me, on the other hand, I have to be careful or what’s left of my muscle will go right to fat.”
Maggie wished she were charmed by how cute they were together as he patted his flat stomach. Aunt Clara beamed at him adoringly.
It was hard to look at the two of them together without thinking about those other women who’d once thought he was charming.
Maggie hurried back into the kitchen to get the slices of pie.
“You have to tell her.” Ryan had already dished out some mincemeat pie for her. “She has to know.”
“What would I say? ‘Ryan thinks the man you’re dating is a killer’? She’d ask how you know. You don’t really have that answer.”
“We could show her the old newspaper clippings.”
Maggie thought about it as she sliced Clara’s Coconut Cream pie for her aunt. “Maybe that would work. I could accidentally leave your file open with the clippings on the kitchen table at home.”
Ryan scoffed at that. “That’s going to be better than telling her?”
“It would present the evidence you have at the same time as the accusation.” Maggie closed up the pies and put them back into the refrigerator. She picked up a pie plate in each hand. “She doesn’t know anything about this. She hasn’t made the connection yet between your articles and Donald. I don’t want to just blurt it out.”
Ryan put a fork on each plate. “If you’re going to do that, I think you should do it here. We could set something up like we’re looking at the file when she walks in.”
“How is that better?”
He shrugged. “It would be safer. I’m worried what her reaction will be, aren’t you? She should know the truth, but I don’t want her to run to him for comfort.”
“And if she chooses to go out with him anyway and hates me for bringing the whole thing up?”
“She’s not going to hate you for saving her life. She might not like it at first, but she’ll forgive you later. I’ll bet the women Donald killed would have wanted someone in their family to do as much for them.”
Maggie rolled her eyes at the idea and took the pie out to Aunt Clara and Donald.
“Thank you so much, Maggie.” Donald’s smile seemed warm and genuine as he took the pie from her. “Your aunt has told me all about you. I look forward to furthering our acquaintance in the future.”
“Me too.” Maggie moved away to continue closing down the pie shop for the night. She wished he wasn’t trying so hard to be charming. It made it hard to dislike him. Either he was innocent or he had his act down perfectly.
“Sit with us for a minute.” Her aunt pulled out a new dark-blue chair for her. “Everything looks so wonderful in here now that the remodeling is done.”
The entire shop had recently received a much-needed face-lift, playing up Pie in the Sky’s history, and family ties to Duke University. The dark-blue school colors were echoed in the new seat covers, tile floor, and counter. The old, flat ceiling lights had been replaced by coffee-cup-shaped lights.
Maggie had hung old photos taken at the school and at Pie in the Sky. It was a great touch.
Maggie didn’t want to refuse her aunt. It was important to maintain her relationship with Aunt Clara through this. Even if she was worried about Donald, alienating Aunt Clara would be like handing her over to the man.
So she sat.
“Your aunt tells me you used to work in New York City.” Donald carefully chewed his pie as he spoke.
He was certainly neat and had excellent manners—all the better to snag the ladies and kill them, she supposed.
Ryan had said that this man preyed on older women who were well off and alone. Maybe she could say something to warn him off, to make sure he understood how things were. If he was eventhinking about killing her aunt to get her money and property, he needed to think again.
“Now that I’m Aunt Clara’s full partner in the pie shop, it’s nice to see some new things done around here.”
“Yes,” Aunt Clara chimed in. “Maggie and I work very well together. Of course, there’s going to come a time when being here five days a week at five thirty in the morning might get to be too much for me. I’m glad I’ll have her to take over.”
Maggie was surprised by her aunt’s words. “You’ve never said anything about retiring. Is something wrong?”
“No, of course not,” Clara denied. “I’m only thinking about the future.”
“Your aunt has worked hard her whole life, from what she’s told me,” Donald intervened. “You have to expect she might want a nice, long rest. Maybe in the Bahamas, or Mexico. It would be good to get away from these harsh winters near the mountains.”
“Aunt Clara loves winter.” Maggie mangled the dish towel she held. “She loves snow and ice. And she loves working at Pie in the Sky.”
“You’re absolutely right.” Aunt Clara put her hand on Maggie’s. “And I’m not talking about right now or even tomorrow. Just someday. I’m not the spring chicken who first opened this place before you were born.”
Aunt Clara transferred her gaze and her hand to Donald with a sweet smile. “I’ve been learning about the fine art of enjoying life without working. One doesn’t need to work hard all the time. That’s why I took off early today. I deserve an occasional day off.”
Maggie could hardly believe her ears. She’d never heard her aunt sound this way. It had to be Donald. He was already setting her up to depend on him. Next, he’d convince her to marry him and then he’d be trying to figure out ways to get rid of Maggie.
She had to nip this in the bud.
“Excuse me, but I’m not such a lady of leisure.” Maggie got to her feet and tried to keep her tone light and airy. She didn’t want to tip Donald off. “The pie shop won’t close itself.”
“Go right ahead, honey.” Aunt Clara nibbled at her pie. “We’ll finish up here, and Donald said he’ll take us home.”
“Ryan’s here.” He waved to Aunt Clara from the service window. “I’ll have him take me home. You two take your time. I’ll see you when I get there.” She took the dirty coffeepots to the kitchen to be washed.
When the door between the dining room and the kitchen had swung closed behind her, Maggie’s anger boiled over.
Chapter 1 Excerpt:
Is there any way this could be a different Donald Wickerson?” Maggie Grady asked as she and Ryan Summerour sat drinking coffee. “One who doesn’t seem to kill the women who fall in love with him?”
It was the Christmas season at Pie in the Sky, a pie shop near the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina. Temperatures had dipped obligingly low for holiday festivities and shoppers. A snowstorm had added a powdery white dusting to rooftops and trees. It was a perfect Christmas-
card scene.
Except for one thing.
Maggie’s Aunt Clara seemed to be smitten with a man who might be responsible for the deaths of each of his six wives.
“I don’t think there’s any mistake. I’ve done my research.”
Ryan owned and operated his family’s business, the Durham Weekly newspaper. He’d first received a tip about Donald Wickerson from a friend in Georgia about six months ago. Since then he’d followed other newspaper stories about the man they’d dubbed the Black Widower as the man had moved to North Carolina.
He’d known about Wickerson long before Aunt Clara had met him at the library a few months before. He just never expected her to meet and fall for the man.
Maggie shook her head in frustration. Her short brown hair flew around her pretty face. She closed her green eyes—the same color as her aunt’s.
“I can’t believe it. Just as I get my life settled, Aunt Clara goes off the deep end for some ‘black widower.’ It’s crazy.”
“Give her a break. She’s been alone for a long time. She’s looking for someone special in her life. My father would be the same way if he met someone who was interested in golf and didn’t mind him trumpeting his political views every five minutes. I don’t know how my mother lived with him.”
Ryan ran his hand through his dark-blond hair. Instead of calming it down, the gesture made the ends curlier. He squinted at a stack of old newspaper articles from around the state, selecting one from the top, and holding it an arm’s length away from his blue eyes. He was in his forties, and fighting the need to wear glasses.
“You’re going to have to give in and get glasses.” Maggie watched him with a smile. “If you hold papers any farther from your face when you read, you’ll go cross-eyed.”
Maggie and Ryan had only been a couple for a few weeks—they’d met after Maggie moved back home to Durham earlier in the fall. It had been a difficult transition settling back into small-town life since she’d spent the past ten years working in New York, but meeting Ryan had helped.
It was a good relationship, after they’d worked out the kinks. They’d met under unfortunate circumstances. Ryan had wanted to write a story about her for the Durham Weekly, but it hadn’t been very flattering given that she’d come home in a firestorm after being fired from her job for embezzlement.
But they’d clicked soon after. They seemed to have a lot in common, despite the differences in their choice of work. They’d both graduated from Duke University. They’d both grown up here and had become part of family-owned businesses.
“Okay, let’s just focus on what we can do to keep your aunt from being Donald’s next victim.”
“I thought you were going to write about him in the paper?” Maggie got up to start cleaning the pie shop. It was almost six, closing time.
There had been a flurry of activity earlier, before the snow had started falling. People liked to load up on extra food before it snowed. After the white stuff was on the ground, they wanted to stay inside, make popcorn, and drink hot chocolate. “I want to write about him, but I can’t use his real name. After the first article came out in my friend’s newspaper, his lawyer threatened to sue. I’ve been careful. I
can’t afford a big lawsuit. He has a lot more money than I do since he keeps inheriting from his dead wives.”
He got up and took their coffee cups to the kitchen. Maggie followed him to get the mop. The dark-blue tile floor in the eating area of Pie in the Sky was excellent for hiding coffee stains from customers.
But she still knew they were there.
“Have you talked to Frank about it?”
Frank Waters was a Durham homicide detective who’d helped Ryan with a few other articles he’d written in the ten years he’d been running the paper. Frank was friends with Ryan’s father, Garrett, who’d run the paper before him.
“There’s nothing he can do.” Ryan put the cups and other dishes he found into the dishwasher in the kitchen. “Technically, Donald hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s been investigated after each of his wives’ deaths—they never find anything. All of their deaths were ruled accidents. Frank warned me about using Donald’s real name. That’s about it.”
Maggie viciously rammed the mop into the wringer on the bucket. “Well, I’m not standing around waiting until Donald ‘accidentally’ kills Aunt Clara. I just got her back in my life again. I’m not losing her to some lucky serial killer who preys on women with a little money and property.”
She’d been trying to find some way to broach the subject with her aunt to warn her of his intentions, but she still hadn’t found the right moment, or the right way to go about it.
The front door chimed, letting them know someone had come in.
“Yoo-hoo!” Aunt Clara called from the front. “Is anyone here? I know it’s closing time, but we’d like some coffee, please!”
Maggie peeked around the corner of the service window between the kitchen and the front shop area. “He’s with her. We’ll have to table this discussion until later.”
“There you are!” Aunt Clara’s merry voice matched the holiday decorations and the twinkling lights around the pie shop. “I was beginning to wonder what a person had to do to get some service in this joint.”
Her aunt giggled as she held Donald’s hand, which made Maggie cringe. Clara’s wrinkled face was still pretty with its slight blush and sharp green eyes. In her youth, red hair had flowed softly around her shoulders. Now that she was older, she cut and dyed her hair, making it a strange, orange-colored
fringe of sorts that still framed her face.
“Well, some customers can be very annoying,” Maggie joked, quickly shooting a pointed glare at Donald, who didn’t seem to notice.
It was hard to keep from turning to Donald and accusing him of preying on her aunt, but it seemed she had no choice but to be amiable since she had no real proof that he’d done anything wrong.
At least not yet.
Maggie spared them a smile as she brought out two cups of coffee. “What are you two up to?”
“We’re back from a wonderful program about the history of Christmas at the library. Donald said he wanted to try our Marvelous Mince pie.”
Donald smiled and kissed Clara’s hand. “That’s right. Your pretty little aunt convinced me that her mincemeat pie is as good as my mother’s used to be. I have my doubts. Clara can be quite persuasive.”
Maggie wanted to slap Donald and tell him to keep his hands off her aunt.
But what if Ryan was wrong? What if Donald was her aunt’s last chance at happiness?
Donald certainly didn’t look like a killer. He was tall and handsome for an older man. He reminded her of a model for an ad selling flannel shirts and boots. He had that rugged, outdoor quality to him.
She couldn’t ruin a possible chance for her aunt’s happiness without hard proof. “My aunt makes a mean mincemeat pie. I’ll be happy to get you a slice. Anything for you, Aunt Clara?”
“Yes, honey. I’ll take a slice of the coconut custard. It’s named after me. I feel guilty if I don’t eat some once in a while. Not too much—I don’t want to put on any weight.”
Donald stared into her eyes. “You have such a trim little figure. I’m sure you don’t have to worry about it, Clara. Now me, on the other hand, I have to be careful or what’s left of my muscle will go right to fat.”
Maggie wished she were charmed by how cute they were together as he patted his flat stomach. Aunt Clara beamed at him adoringly.
It was hard to look at the two of them together without thinking about those other women who’d once thought he was charming.
Maggie hurried back into the kitchen to get the slices of pie.
“You have to tell her.” Ryan had already dished out some mincemeat pie for her. “She has to know.”
“What would I say? ‘Ryan thinks the man you’re dating is a killer’? She’d ask how you know. You don’t really have that answer.”
“We could show her the old newspaper clippings.”
Maggie thought about it as she sliced Clara’s Coconut Cream pie for her aunt. “Maybe that would work. I could accidentally leave your file open with the clippings on the kitchen table at home.”
Ryan scoffed at that. “That’s going to be better than telling her?”
“It would present the evidence you have at the same time as the accusation.” Maggie closed up the pies and put them back into the refrigerator. She picked up a pie plate in each hand. “She doesn’t know anything about this. She hasn’t made the connection yet between your articles and Donald. I don’t want to just blurt it out.”
Ryan put a fork on each plate. “If you’re going to do that, I think you should do it here. We could set something up like we’re looking at the file when she walks in.”
“How is that better?”
He shrugged. “It would be safer. I’m worried what her reaction will be, aren’t you? She should know the truth, but I don’t want her to run to him for comfort.”
“And if she chooses to go out with him anyway and hates me for bringing the whole thing up?”
“She’s not going to hate you for saving her life. She might not like it at first, but she’ll forgive you later. I’ll bet the women Donald killed would have wanted someone in their family to do as much for them.”
Maggie rolled her eyes at the idea and took the pie out to Aunt Clara and Donald.
“Thank you so much, Maggie.” Donald’s smile seemed warm and genuine as he took the pie from her. “Your aunt has told me all about you. I look forward to furthering our acquaintance in the future.”
“Me too.” Maggie moved away to continue closing down the pie shop for the night. She wished he wasn’t trying so hard to be charming. It made it hard to dislike him. Either he was innocent or he had his act down perfectly.
“Sit with us for a minute.” Her aunt pulled out a new dark-blue chair for her. “Everything looks so wonderful in here now that the remodeling is done.”
The entire shop had recently received a much-needed face-lift, playing up Pie in the Sky’s history, and family ties to Duke University. The dark-blue school colors were echoed in the new seat covers, tile floor, and counter. The old, flat ceiling lights had been replaced by coffee-cup-shaped lights.
Maggie had hung old photos taken at the school and at Pie in the Sky. It was a great touch.
Maggie didn’t want to refuse her aunt. It was important to maintain her relationship with Aunt Clara through this. Even if she was worried about Donald, alienating Aunt Clara would be like handing her over to the man.
So she sat.
“Your aunt tells me you used to work in New York City.” Donald carefully chewed his pie as he spoke.
He was certainly neat and had excellent manners—all the better to snag the ladies and kill them, she supposed.
Ryan had said that this man preyed on older women who were well off and alone. Maybe she could say something to warn him off, to make sure he understood how things were. If he was eventhinking about killing her aunt to get her money and property, he needed to think again.
“Now that I’m Aunt Clara’s full partner in the pie shop, it’s nice to see some new things done around here.”
“Yes,” Aunt Clara chimed in. “Maggie and I work very well together. Of course, there’s going to come a time when being here five days a week at five thirty in the morning might get to be too much for me. I’m glad I’ll have her to take over.”
Maggie was surprised by her aunt’s words. “You’ve never said anything about retiring. Is something wrong?”
“No, of course not,” Clara denied. “I’m only thinking about the future.”
“Your aunt has worked hard her whole life, from what she’s told me,” Donald intervened. “You have to expect she might want a nice, long rest. Maybe in the Bahamas, or Mexico. It would be good to get away from these harsh winters near the mountains.”
“Aunt Clara loves winter.” Maggie mangled the dish towel she held. “She loves snow and ice. And she loves working at Pie in the Sky.”
“You’re absolutely right.” Aunt Clara put her hand on Maggie’s. “And I’m not talking about right now or even tomorrow. Just someday. I’m not the spring chicken who first opened this place before you were born.”
Aunt Clara transferred her gaze and her hand to Donald with a sweet smile. “I’ve been learning about the fine art of enjoying life without working. One doesn’t need to work hard all the time. That’s why I took off early today. I deserve an occasional day off.”
Maggie could hardly believe her ears. She’d never heard her aunt sound this way. It had to be Donald. He was already setting her up to depend on him. Next, he’d convince her to marry him and then he’d be trying to figure out ways to get rid of Maggie.
She had to nip this in the bud.
“Excuse me, but I’m not such a lady of leisure.” Maggie got to her feet and tried to keep her tone light and airy. She didn’t want to tip Donald off. “The pie shop won’t close itself.”
“Go right ahead, honey.” Aunt Clara nibbled at her pie. “We’ll finish up here, and Donald said he’ll take us home.”
“Ryan’s here.” He waved to Aunt Clara from the service window. “I’ll have him take me home. You two take your time. I’ll see you when I get there.” She took the dirty coffeepots to the kitchen to be washed.
When the door between the dining room and the kitchen had swung closed behind her, Maggie’s anger boiled over.
Author:
Ellie Grant is a pseudonym for husband and wife authors who get help writing from their cat, Quincy and their big rescue puppy, Rudy. They live in North Carolina with their family. Visit them at www.elliegrant.com.
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Very nice post and very nice blog.
ReplyDeleteI found you in the comments of the answer to the Book Blogger Hop question on Mo_ Books' Blog.
Nice to see you are participating. We always have wonderful, thoughtful questions. If you haven't added your name to Billy's linky, please do so others can stop by. Welcome to our Friday meme.
I am VERY picky about what goes on my blog. :)
Happy Hopping!!
Elizabeth
Silver's Reviews
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Hi Elizabeth Thanks for the comment and searching me out :)
DeleteThe blog question pulled me in.
That is wonderful the question pulled you in.
DeleteI hope we see you more often. Each week brings a new question to ponder.
Nice to meet you.
Elizabeth