A Christmas Miracle by Anna Adams

Author:Anna Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

THAT WOMAN HAD come by the store again. It was Monday night. Fleming made a note. Maybe the woman had a pattern. Something had to be wrong to draw her back again and again, and then send her away without her saying a word.

Whatever was going on, the third visit finally spooked Fleming. She circled the store, locking doors and windows and turning down the lights so she could see out better than anyone could see inside.

She set the alarm and hurried out the back, unable to escape the feeling that she was being watched. She was letting that woman get in her head.

The fact that she was fleeing from an as-yet-imaginary threat didn’t ease her anxiety. She parked on the mountain, right in front of her house. No one had followed her. She was positive of that, but her hands shook as she shivered in the cold night air, trying to find her keys in the depths of her purse.

She’d forgotten to turn on the porch lights, and she jabbed at the keyhole a few times before she found the sweet spot and unlocked the door. The same key unlocked the dead bolt. She rushed inside, spooked by her own panic as much as by the wind howling around her, lifting her hair with rough hands. After she locked the door and twisted the dead bolt, she leaned against the door, laughing at her own foolishness.

Nevertheless, she checked the lock again. Even without strangers peeking into her store on a semi-nightly basis, she was sometimes a little antsy living up here on the mountain alone. The house that had been so warm and cozy and loving with her mother just down the hall, or puttering in the kitchen, could feel empty when Fleming was on her own.

She dropped her purse and keys and took off her coat to drape it over the straight-backed chair beside the desk in the hallway. Then she made her way to the kitchen. A quick survey of the refrigerator reminded her she should have stopped to pick up something she could make for dinner.

“Thank goodness for cheese and eggs,” she said, to break the echoing silence. She ought to get a puppy. Or a cat. A nice, big cat which would occupy itself when Fleming worked long hours, but be glad to have treats and company when she made it home.

Because she wanted to be a cat lady in a Christmas town.

As she was reaching for the eggs, the front doorbell rang. She jumped, but decided it was probably just the paper delivery guy, who always came in person instead of dropping off a pay envelope at the holidays. But when she opened the door, Jason stood outside, snow in his dark hair, his hand and most of his arm hidden by the thick branches of a beautifully scented fir tree.

“Merry Christmas.” He tilted the tree toward her.

“For me?”

She hadn’t put up a tree at home in years, not since her mother had started spending the holidays at Hugh’s place.

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