Glad Tidings: An Anthology by Debbie Macomber

Author:Debbie Macomber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Holiday, Contemporary, General
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2017-10-24T05:23:58+00:00

Chapter One

“Maryanne Simpson of the New York Simpsons, I presume?”

Maryanne glared at the man standing across from her in the reception area of the radio station. She pointedly ignored his sarcasm, keeping her blue eyes as emotionless as possible.

Nolan Adams—Seattle’s most popular journalist—looked nothing like the polished professional man in the black-and-white photo that headed his daily column. Instead he resembled a well-known disheveled television detective. He even wore a wrinkled raincoat, one that looked as if he’d slept in it for an entire week.

“Or should I call you Deb?” he taunted.

“Ms. Simpson will suffice,” she said in her best finishing-school voice. The rival newspaperman was cocky and arrogant—and the best damn journalist Maryanne had ever read. Maryanne was a good columnist herself, or at least she was desperately striving to become one. Her father, who owned the Seattle Review and twelve other daily newspapers nationwide, had seen to it that she was given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the Seattle paper. She was working hard to prove herself. Perhaps too hard. That was when the trouble had begun.

“So how’s the heart?” Nolan asked, reaching for a magazine and flipping idly through the dog-eared pages. “Is it still bleeding from all those liberal views of yours?”

Maryanne ignored the question, removed her navy-blue wool coat and neatly folded it over the back of a chair. “My heart’s just fine, thank you.”

With a sound she could only describe as a snicker, he threw himself down on a nearby chair and indolently brought an ankle up to rest on his knee.

Maryanne sat across from him, stiff and straight in the high-backed chair, and boldly met his eyes. Everything she needed to know about Nolan Adams could be seen in his face. The strong well-defined lines of his jaw told her how stubborn he could be. His eyes were dark, intelligent and intense. And his mouth…well, that was another story altogether. It seemed to wrestle with itself before ever breaking into a smile, as if a gesture of amusement went against his very nature. Nolan wasn’t smiling now. And Maryanne wasn’t about to let him see how much he intimidated her. But some emotion must have shone in her eyes, because he said abruptly, “You’re the one who started this, you know?”

Maryanne was well aware of that. But this rivalry between them had begun unintentionally, at least on her part. The very morning that the competition’s paper, the Seattle Sun, published Nolan’s column on solutions to the city’s housing problem, the Review had run Maryanne’s piece on the same subject. Nolan’s article was meant to be satirical, while Maryanne’s was deadly serious. Her mistake was in stating that there were those in the city who apparently found the situation amusing, and she blasted anyone who behaved so irresponsibly. This was not a joking matter, she’d pointed out.

It looked as if she’d read Nolan’s column and set out to reprimand him personally for his cavalier attitude.

Two days later, Nolan’s column poked fun at her, asking what Ms.

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