Laramie, Texas Christmas by Cathy Gillen Thacker

Author:Cathy Gillen Thacker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2006-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

KEVIN’S DELIBERATELY uttered words were like a kick to Noelle’s gut. This was a nightmare—wanting so badly to be close to him, yet unable to tell him everything about herself, for reasons that had seemed valid at the time but now grew more questionable every day. The worst part of it was, she didn’t want to go back to where she had been or claim her past. And yet she was beginning to see that she would never be able to completely escape it.

“For instance,” Kevin continued amiably, coming over to sit next to her and Mikey, “periodically the county sets up roadblocks at night and checks for drunk driving. That’s not my favorite thing to do, but I know it saves lives. So we do it. And it never fails—we’ll pull over someone who’s obviously inebriated and they’ll swear up and down they haven’t had anything to drink. Then it’ll turn out their blood alcohol level is three times the legal limit, and they’ll show up in court and swear the lab was wrong. Fortunately, these days we have videotape sobriety tests, and once the judge or jury sees that, it’s usually a clear-cut case for a conviction.”

Noelle admired his dedication to upholding the law, even as she feared the more curious side of him. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “It must make you feel good, when you get somebody off the road who clearly shouldn’t be driving.”

Kevin nodded and regarded her with barely checked affection. “So what’s the best thing about your job?”

Noelle pretended an insouciance she couldn’t begin to feel. “I love it when an event comes together and everyone has a great time. Memories are made.”

“Worst part?” He moved closer and took her hand in his.

She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks even as she struggled to get a grip on her soaring emotions. “When everything that can go wrong does and we spend the evening narrowly averting one catastrophe after another.”

“And yet still manage to pull off a wonderful event,” he guessed.

“Usually that is the case,” Noelle admitted.

“When given lemons, make lemonade.”

She nodded, aware the two of them were very much in agreement about that. “It’s a lesson I learned early in my adult life.” Her cell phone rang just then. She went to get it out of her purse and looked at the caller ID. “Do you mind?” she asked Kevin with a frown. “It’s business.”

“Go ahead.”

Noelle listened to the Houston hotel manager, then groaned. “Tell me this is an early April fool’s joke,” she pleaded.

“It’s not an early April fool’s joke. Due to an outage of our computer system last October, we accidentally double booked the hotel ballroom for the night of January fifteenth. And since the other event is a fund-raiser for the president of the United States…”

“You expect Miss Sadie’s charity to bow out.”

“We can help you find an alternate site for the black-tie event that same night.”

Already switching to business mode, Noelle listened to the three possibilities mentioned.

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