Firefly Glen: Winter Baby (Harlequin Signature Select) Read Free Page B

stained-glass windows of the Congregational Church beamed rich reds and blues into the darkness.
    Most of all, he liked knowing that most of the 2,937 “Glenners,” whom he’d been hired to protect, were safely tucked in for the night. The rest, the Fussy Four Hundred, as they were known in the Sheriff’s Department, were gathered in the assembly room of City Hall for an ice festival planning session.
    Parker, who had just responded to a prowler call at the park—a false alarm, of course—was a little late to the meeting, which had begun at eight. By now the planning session had probably escalated from civilized discussion to hotheaded shouting, and Bourke Waitely was undoubtedly brandishing his cane like a weapon.
    But the image didn’t make Parker hurry. As long as he got there before nine, he’d arrive in time to forestall any actual violence.
    And when it was all over, he’d be off duty, and Theodosia Graham, who owned the Candlelight Café, had a hot, thick slice of pumpkin pie waiting for him.
    â€œYou’re one damned lucky man, Tremaine.”
    Realizing he’d spoken out loud, Parker had to laugh. The chuckle formed a small white puff in the icy air, like a visible echo.
    Lucky? Him? That was pretty damn funny, actually.
    He was the thirty-four-year-old divorced sheriff of a tiny Adirondack town that gave bad winters a new meaning, and he was looking forward to spendingChristmas Eve alone with a seventy-five-year-old spinster and a piece of pie.
    Plus, apparently he’d begun talking to himself on the sidewalk, which back in Washington, D.C. would have scared all the other pedestrians into crossing the street.
    Who in his right mind would call this lucky? He looked at himself in the window of Griswold’s Five and Dime. The only guy out here, shuffling along in a freezing rain, no wife waiting at home, no kids dreaming of sugarplums, not even a girlfriend dreaming of a diamond. The textbook illustration of a loser.
    So what the hell did he have to be so smug about?
    Nothing. He grinned at the guy in the window. Nothing except for the fact that, after twelve years of exile, he was home again. He had ditched a career he hated, even though everyone told him he was crazy to give it up. And the beautiful, bitchy wife he couldn’t please had finally ditched him, though everyone had told him he was nuts to let her go.
    But he didn’t care. He liked being alone, and he liked being the sheriff of Firefly Glen. In fact, he was so damn pleased with his life that he decided he’d give Theo Graham a great big sloppy Christmas kiss.
    â€œSheriff! Sheriff, come quick! It’s an emergency!”
    Parker looked over toward the emphatic voice. It was Theo. She had climbed down onto the front steps of City Hall, and she was leaning forward into the wind, her sweater wrapped tightly but inadequately around her bony shoulders.
    He loped up the icy steps carefully, wonderingwhat the problem was. Could he have misjudged the timing? Could Bourke Waitely actually have thumped someone with his cane? God, he hoped it hadn’t been Mayor Millner. Alton Millner would slap Waitely in jail just for the fun of it.
    â€œWhat’s happened, Theo?”
    â€œIt’s Granville Frome,” Theo said as they hurried through the doors. “He was boring everybody to tears with tourism figures, you know how he is. So Ward Winters called him a greedy little pea-brain, and before you could say ‘stupid old coot’ Granville came around the table and knocked Ward to the floor. They were still down there, wrestling like a couple of crazed teenagers, when I came out to look for you.”
    Parker shook his head. Ward Winters was usually smarter than that. Everybody in Firefly Glen knew that Granville Frome, who owned half the downtown property, wasn’t a greedy little pea-brain. Frome’s brain was much bigger than a pea, and his ego was considerably larger. And his