Lakeshore Christmas Read Free

long lashes. His poise and formality when he’d greeted her had struck Maureen as unusual in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He regarded the rows of bread loaves and pastries, and his hand went inside the pocket of his olive-drab jacket. Then he sighed, freezing the air with his breath, and moved on. She had an urge to call him back, to offer…what? Maureen wasn’t given to social impulses, and she doubted a teenager would welcome an invitation from the town librarian, anyway.
    After nine minutes, she began to wonder if she had made a mistake with the time and place of her meeting with Eddie. Just to be sure, she opened her clipboard and consulted the printout of their e-mail exchange. No, she hadn’t gotten the time wrong. He was late. Totally, inexcusably late.
    By the time he was twelve minutes late, she was seriously nervous. She might need to phone him after all. Good grief, but she hated phoning. Or…wait. She could send him a text message. Perfect. A text message. She could ask him if he was still planning to meet with her.
    Yes, that would give him a chance to save face in case he’d forgotten the appointment. Why it was her job to save his face was another matter entirely.
    Taking out her mobile phone, she remembered the no-phone rule in the bakery. There was a sign just inside the door, depicting a symbol of a phone with a slash through it. Did that include sending a text message? Maureen was new to sending text messages, so she wasn’t sure.
    Just to be safe, she stepped outside, feeling almost furtive. Frowning down at the keypad, she composed a text message with too much care. “Come on,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s not as if this is going to be chiseled in stone.” Yet she agonized over the greeting. Did she even need a greeting? Or should she just plunge into the body of the message it self? And what about a sign-off? BEST WISHES? SEE YOU SOON? Was she MAUREEN? M.D.? No, that was weird. Okay. M. DAVENPORT. There.
    She hit Send.
    At that precise second, she noticed a little flashing icon on her screen, indicating she had a message. Strange. She almost never got text messages.
    This one was from—whoops—Eddie Haven, sent about an hour ago.
     
    RUNNING 15 MIN LATE. SORRY. SEE U 6:15.
     
    So now she would look like a neurotic psycho stalker, nagging him over a fifteen-minute delay and too much of a ninny to check her messages.
    Staring down at the tiny screen, she stood on the edge of the curb, wishing the pavement would crack open and swallow her up, sparing her this awkward meeting. Lost in thought, she didn’t notice the white, windowless van careening toward her until it was almost too late. She jumped away from the curb just as it angled into a parking spot a few feet away, nearly flattening her against the brick building. Rock music thumped from the scratchedand dented vehicle for a couple of seconds before the engine rattled to a halt.
    Clutching the mobile phone with frozen fingers, Maureen choked on a puff of exhaust. She heard the thud of a door, footsteps on pavement.
    A man in black appeared, glaring at her. She looked him up and down. He had the shaggy blond hair of an old-school California surfer. He wore ripped jeans and black high-top sneakers, and a jacket with a ski pass hanging from the zipper tag, open to reveal a formfitting black T-shirt. Eddie Haven had arrived. Wonderful. He was going to think the world of her.
    “Jesus Christ, lady. I didn’t see you there. I nearly ran you down,” he said.
    “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, you did.”
    “I didn’t see you,” he repeated.
    Of course he hadn’t. And it wouldn’t be the first time. “You should’ve been watching.”
    “I was, I—” He raked a hand through his long, wheat-colored hair. “Christ, you scared the shit out of me.”
    “There’s no need to take the Lord’s name in vain,” she said, then cringed at her own words. When had she turned into such a marm?
    “It wasn’t in