Christmas at Timberwoods - Fern Michaels [105]
“Like it?” he asked softly.
“But—but they take all the jewelry out of the window at night and they open an hour after the mall does—Lex! You arranged this ahead of time, didn’t you?”
He chuckled. “Everything but the ray of sunlight. Want to try the ring on? You don’t have to say yes yet.”
Heather saw someone moving inside the closed store and realized it was the jeweler. Mr. Marsden smiled at both of them as he unlocked the door.
“Come in, you two. I was just making coffee. Would you like some?”
He got no answer to that question. Heather and Lex were wrapped in each other’s arms, ignoring him, the ring, and the horde of shoppers that had begun to stream around them.
For more traditional holiday cheer from
bestselling author Fern Michaels,
don’t miss her wonderful, heartwarming
story in
MAKING SPIRITS BRIGHT.
Turn the page for special preview.
A Zebra paperback on sale in November 2011.
Chapter 1
Placerville, Colorado
November 2011
Melanie McLaughlin positioned her cursor on the Send icon, double-clicked, and waited for the window to pop up telling her that her mail had been sent. She signed off her e-mail account, then moved her mouse to exit the complicated graphics program she’d helped design last year. It was her biggest job to date, and she was happy to be finished. She didn’t want to work during the upcoming Christmas season. Fortunately, she was her own boss, so she made the rules. She just wanted to enjoy the holidays without any professional commitments, no last-minute all-night projects to finish. She’d worked diligently through the Thanksgiving holiday to make sure her schedule was completely cleared until after the New Year.
She’d promised Stephanie Marshall, her best friend, that she’d watch Stephanie’s girls, Amanda and Ashley, today, so that Stephanie and her fiancé, Edward Patrick Joseph O’Brien, “Patrick” to his friends, could spend Black Friday Christmas shopping. She thought it very courageous of the couple to tackle the crowds. Melanie had promised the girls she would take them skiing at Maximum Glide, then they would come back to her condo, where they would spend the evening learning to knit. Melanie had been an avid knitter since junior high, long before it was fashionable. Both girls were eager to learn, telling her they wanted to learn to knit so they could give their mother handmade Christmas gifts. Melanie smiled, remembering the first scarf she’d made for her mother. Even with its uneven stitches and horrid fluorescent orange, her mother had been delighted with her gift. She’d kept the scarf packed in a shoe box in the back of her closet all these years. For safekeeping, her mother’d said. Personally, Melanie thought her mother kept it out of sight to prevent temporary blindness by those unfortunate few who’d been forced to admire her handiwork. At the time, Melanie had reasoned the color would stand out on the slopes, her mother easily spotted in case of an emergency. She’d made sure to purchase plenty of red and green yarn for the girls’ first project: a pot holder. No way would she subject Stephanie to such a horrific color!
She pushed the power button to turn off her computer. For the entire month of December and what was left of November, she vowed not to turn it back on unless it was a dire emergency. That didn’t mean she couldn’t check her e-mail. She’d just do it from her cell phone.
Melanie rolled her chair away from the desk and almost ran over Odie, her three-year-old boxer. “Hey, bud, don’t sneak up on me like that. You’re liable to give me a heart attack.”
“Woof, woof!” Odie stood up, his shiny brown eyes beseeching her not to leave him behind.
She gave him a quick scratch between the ears. “You’re a lucky boy today. I promised Candy Lee I’d let her dog-sit, so there.” Candy Lee, a high school student who worked parttime at The Snow Zone ski shop, was a die-hard animal lover. Melanie brought Odie to the store whenever she knew Candy Lee was working. Today would be crazy busy, but Melanie knew there were