Christmastime Courtship

by Marie Ferrarella

  “That little girl I told you about?” Miranda began, feeling as if she was picking her way through a minefield that could blow up on her at any moment. “The one with your aunt’s name,” she reminded him, hoping that would get the officer to listen, and buy her a little more time.

  “Lily,” he repeated, all but growling the name. “What about her?” he asked grudgingly.

  He wasn’t a curious man by any stretch of the imagination, but there was something about this overly eager woman that had him wondering just where she was taking this.

  “Lily’s mother is missing,” she told him, never taking her eyes off his face.

  Rather than show some sort of reaction to what she’d just said, his expression never changed. He looked, Miranda thought, as if she’d just given him a bland weather report.

  She began to wonder what had damaged the man to this extent.

  “So go to the precinct and report it,” Colin told her. “That’s the standard procedure.”

  “The director at the shelter already did that,” Miranda answered.

  “All right, then it’s taken care of.” What more did she expect him to do? Colin wondered irritably as he began to walk away again.

  “No, it isn’t,” Miranda insisted, stepping out of her car and moving quickly between him and his motorcycle. “The officer who took down the information said that maybe Lily’s mother took off. He said a lot of women in her situation feel overwhelmed and just leave. He said that maybe she’d come to her senses in a few days and return for her daughter.”

  “Okay, you have your answer,” Colin said, moving around this human roadblock.

  Again Miranda shifted quickly so he couldn’t get to his motorcycle. She ignored the dark look he gave her. She wasn’t about to give up. This was important. Lily was depending on her to do everything she could to find her mother.

  “But what if she doesn’t?” Miranda asked. “What if she didn’t take off? What if something’s happened to Lily’s mother and that’s why she never came back to the shelter?”

  He felt as if this doe-eyed blonde was boxing him in. “That’s life,” he said, exasperated.

  “There’s a little eight-year-old girl at the shelter waiting for her mommy to come back,” Miranda told him with feeling. “I can’t just tell her ‘that’s life.’”

  Taking hold of Miranda’s shoulders, he moved her firmly out of his way and finally reached his motorcycle. “Tell her whatever you like.”

  Miranda raised her voice so that he could hear her above the sound of the cars going by. “I’d like to tell her that this nice police officer is trying to find her mommy.”

  Colin turned sharply on his heel and glared at this woman who refused to take a hint. “Look, lady—”

  “Miranda,” she prompted.

  “Miranda,” Colin echoed between gritted teeth. “You are a royal pain, you know that?”

  Miranda had always tried to glean something positive out of every situation, no matter how bleak it might appear. “Does that mean you’ll look for her?” she asked hopefully.

  Colin blew out an angry breath. “That means you’re a royal pain,” he repeated.

  With nothing to lose, Miranda climbed out on a limb. “Please? I can give you a description of Lily’s mother.” And then she thought of something even better. “And if you come with me, I can get you a picture of her that’ll be useful.”

  He had a feeling that this woman wasn’t going to give up unless he agreed to help her. Although it irritated him beyond description, there was a very small part of him that had to admit he admired her tenacity.

  Still, he gave getting her to back off one more try. “What will be useful is if you get out of my way and let me do my job.”

  Miranda didn’t budge. “Isn’t part of your job finding people who have gone missing?”

  “She’s not missing if she left of her own accord and just decided to keep on going,” he told the blonde, enunciating every word.

  “But we don’t know that she decided to keep on going. She did leave the shelter to go look for work,” Miranda told him.

  “That’s what the woman said,” Colin countered impatiently.

  “No, that’s what she did,” Miranda stressed. “Gina Hayden has an eight-year-old daughter. She wouldn’t just leave her like that.”

  “How do you know that?” Colin challenged. The woman lived in a cotton candy world. Didn’t she realize that the real world wasn’t like that? “Lots of people say one thing and do another. And lots of people with families just walk out on them and never come back.”

  Miranda watched him for a long moment. So long that he thought she’d finally given up trying to wear him down. And then she spoke and blew that theory to pieces.

  “Who left you?” she asked quietly.

  “You, I hope,” he snapped, turning back to face his motorcycle.

  He sighed as she sashayed in front of him yet again. This was beginning to feel like some never-ending dance.

  “No, you’re not talking about me,” Miranda told him. “You’re talking about someone else. I can see it in your eyes. Someone walked out on you, probably when you were a kid. So you know what that feels like,” she stressed.

  He needed this like he needed a hole in the head. “Look, lady—”

  “Miranda,” she corrected again.

  He ignored that. “You can take your amateur psychobabble, get back in your car and drive away before I haul you in for harassing a police officer.”

  Was that what he thought this was?

  She had to get through to him. Something in her heart told her that he’d find Gina, She just needed him to take this seriously.

  “I’m not harassing you—”

  He almost laughed out loud. “You want to bet?”

  Miranda pushed on. “I’m just asking you to go out of your way a little and maybe make a little girl very happy. If her mother doesn’t turn up, Lily’s going to be sent to social services and placed in a foster home. The only reason she hasn’t been taken there already is that the director of the shelter agreed with me about waiting for her mom to come back. The director bought us a little time.” And that time was running out, Miranda added silently.

  “The kid can still be taken away,” Colin pointed out. “Her mother abandoned her.”

  Why couldn’t she get through to this officer? “Not if something happened to her and she’s unable to get back.”

  Colin sighed. He knew he should just get on his motorcycle and ride away from this woman. For the life of him, he didn’t know why he was allowing himself to get involved in this.

  “Did you call all the hospitals?”

  She nodded. “All of them. There’s no record of anyone fitting Gina’s description coming in on her own or being brought in.”

  So what more did this woman want him to do? “Well then—”

  “But there could be other reasons she hasn’t come back,” she insisted. “Gina could have been abducted, or worse.” Miranda looked at him with eyes that were pleading with him to do something.

  Colin shook his head. “I should have given you that ticket yesterday,” he told her gruffly.

  He was weakening; she could just feel it. “But you didn’t because you’re a good man.”

  “No, because I should have had my head examined,” he grumbled. “All right,” he relented, taking out his ticket book and flipping to an empty page.

  Miranda’s eyes widened. “You’re writing me a ticket?” she asked.

  “No, I’m taking down this woman’s description. You said you’d give it to me. Now, what is it?” Colin demanded.

  “What did you say your name was?” she asked.

  “I didn’t.” He could feel her looking at him. Swallowing a couple choice words, he said, “Office
r Colin Kirby.”

  “Thank you, Officer Colin Kirby.”

  Maybe he was losing his mind, but he could swear he could feel her smile.

  “The description?” he demanded.

  Miranda lost no time in giving it to him.

  Chapter Four

  “Okay,” Colin said, closing his ticket book and putting it away. “I’ll check with the other officer your director talked to. What’s his name or badge number?” he asked.

  Miranda shook her head. She hadn’t thought to ask for that information when the director had given her an update. “I’m afraid Amelia didn’t mention either one.”

  Colin looked at her. The name meant nothing to him. “Amelia?”

  “Amelia Sellers,” Miranda specified. “That’s the shelter’s director. She didn’t give me the officer’s name, but seemed pretty upset that he wasn’t taking the situation seriously.”

  Colin read between the lines. He assumed that the officer the shelter director had talked to hadn’t told her that he would get back to her. Not that he blamed the man.

  “I take it this Amelia isn’t as pushy as you,” he commented.

  Miranda wasn’t exactly happy with his description, but the situation was far too important for her to get sidelined by something so petty.

  “Actually, she can be very forceful. But the officer taking down the information really didn’t seem to think that Gina was missing,” Miranda said.

  She was looking at him with the kind of hopeful eyes that made men seriously consider leaping tall buildings in a single bound and bending steel with their bare hands in an attempt to impress her.

  If he was going to interact with this woman for any length of time, he was going to have to remember to avoid looking into her eyes, Colin told himself. They were far too distracting.

  “I bet you were prom queen, weren’t you?” he asked.

  The question came out of the blue and caught her completely off guard. It took Miranda a moment to collect herself and answer, “Actually, I didn’t go to the prom.”

  “No one asked you?” He found that rather hard to believe. She struck him as the epitome of a cheerleader. Was she pulling his leg?

  Miranda didn’t answer his question directly. She actually had been asked, just hadn’t said yes.

  “I had a scheduling problem,” she said vaguely. “The prom interfered with my volunteer work.”

  “In high school?” Colin asked incredulously.

  “You look surprised,” she noted, then told him, “People in high school volunteer for things.” At least, the people she’d kept company with had.

  Shrugging, he said, “If you say so.” He’d never concerned himself with social activities, even back then, nor did he involve himself with any kind of volunteer work. Most of his life he’d been a loner.

  Securing the ticket book in his back pocket, he told her, “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Don’t you want the phone number at the shelter?”

  He caught himself thinking fleetingly that he’d rather have her number. The next second he deliberately pushed the thought away. If he had her number, that might very well lead to complications, which was the very last thing he wanted. He supposed that obtaining the shelter’s number was innocuous enough. Most likely if he used it he’d wind up speaking to the director.

  “Right,” Colin answered, doing his best to exercise patience. “So what is it?”

  Miranda gave him the number to the shelter’s landline, then waited for him to take out the ticket book again so he could jot it down.

  Sensing what she wanted, he did just that. As he put the book away a second time he heard her asking, “Aren’t you going to follow me to the shelter?”

  It just didn’t end with her, did it? he thought, exasperated. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “To see Gina’s picture,” she reminded him. “I told you that there’s one at the shelter. Lily has it.”

  He looked at her blankly for a split second until the information clicked into place. “Lily. Right, the little girl.”

  For a moment, he thought about telling her—again—that this wasn’t something he did. His main sphere of expertise was keeping the flow of traffic going at a reasonable rate.

  There were patrol officers who took this kind of information down, as well as detectives back at the precinct who specialized in missing persons. But he had no desire to get into all that with her. It would just lead to another prolonged debate.

  Besides, it wasn’t as if leaving the area was tantamount to abandoning a hub of vehicular infractions and crimes. And how long would following her to the shelter and getting that photograph of the runaway mother take, anyway?

  Making no effort to suppress the sigh that escaped his lips, he said, “Okay, lead the way.”

  The officer’s answer surprised her. She’d expected more resistance from him. Finally!

  Her mouth curved. “So then, you are going to follow me?”

  The woman had a magnetic, not to mention hypnotic, smile. He forced himself to look away.

  “That’s what ‘lead the way’ usually means,” he answered shortly.

  “I know that,” she acknowledged. “It’s just that I realize I’m asking you to go above and beyond the call of duty.”

  And yet here you are asking me, he thought, irritated. Colin was beginning to think that the woman could just go on talking indefinitely. He, on the other hand, wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

  “Just get in your car and drive, Miranda,” he instructed gruffly.

  Her mouth quirked in another smile that made him think of the first ray of sunshine coming out after a storm. “You remembered.”

  “Yeah,” Colin said shortly. He wasn’t about to tell her that, like it or not—and he didn’t—this fleeting contact with her had already left a definite imprint on his brain. “Well?” he prodded, when she continued standing there. “I don’t have all day.”

  “Right.”

  The next moment she was hurrying back to her vehicle. Getting in, she started up the engine mindful of the fact that she had to be careful to observe all the rules. She had no doubt that if she exceeded the speed limit—and there seemed to be a different one posted on each long block—the officer behind her wouldn’t hesitate to give her a ticket this time.

  He’d probably see it as a reward for humoring her, Miranda thought.

  But it didn’t matter. She’d gotten him to agree, however grudgingly, to try to find Lily’s mother, and that was all that did matter.

  The shelter wasn’t far away. Parking near the entrance, she got out of her car and stood beside it, waiting for the officer to pull into the parking lot.

  When he did, he found a spot several rows away from her.

  She watched him stride toward her. The dark-haired officer was at least six-one, maybe a little taller, and moved like one of those strong, silent heroes straight out of the Old West. She sincerely hoped that he would turn out to be Lily’s hero.

  “You’ve got ten minutes,” Colin told her the moment he reached her.

  He expected her to protest being issued a time limit. But she surprised him by saying, “Then I’d better make the most of it. Lily will probably be in the common area,” she added. “That’s where she watches for me to arrive.”

  “You come every day?” he questioned. Didn’t this woman have a social life? He would have expected someone who looked the way she did to have a very busy one.

  “I come here four, sometimes five days a week,” she told him matter-of-factly. “Other days I work at the animal shelter, exercising the dogs.”

  Nobody did that much volunteering, he thought, opening the door and holding it for her. She had to be putting him on.

  “What do you do whe
n you’re not earning your merit badges?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Sleep,” she answered, without missing a beat.

  She sounded serious, but he still wasn’t sure if he was buying this saint act. He was about to ask the woman if her halo was on too tight, cutting off the circulation to her brain, but he never got the chance. She’d turned away from him, her attention shifting to the little blonde girl who was charging toward her.

  “There she is,” Miranda declared, opening her arms just in time.

  The next second she was closing them around the pint-size dynamo, who appeared to be hugging her for all she was worth.

  “Did you find her?” the little girl cried eagerly, her high-pitched voice partially muffled against Miranda’s hip. “Did you find my mommy?”

  “Not yet, darling,” Miranda answered.

  Slowly, she moved the little girl back just far enough to be able to see the man she’d brought with her. “But this nice officer—” she nodded toward Colin “—is going to help us find her.”

  Colin noted that the firebrand who had dragged him here hadn’t used the word try. She’d gone straight to the word help, making it sound as if it would be just a matter of time before he located this missing mother who might or might not have taken off for parts unknown of her own free will.

  He didn’t like being tied to promises he had absolutely no control over, nor did he like deceiving people into thinking he could deliver on goods that he had no way of knowing he could even locate.

  But when he began to say as much to the little girl, he found himself looking down into incredible blue eyes that were brimming with more hope than he recalled seeing in a long, long time.

  How could this kid exist in a place like this and still have hope? he wondered.

  “Are you going to find her?” Lily asked, all four feet of her practically vibrating with excitement and anticipation. “Are you going to find my mommy?”

  “I’m—” He started to tell her that he would do what he could, because he wasn’t in the habit of lying, not to anyone. Not even to children, who usually fell beneath his radar.