Rescued by his Christmas Angel

132 Pages·2016·0.82 MB·English

by  Colter Cara

Nate felt as if he was making a choice, saying yes to something that was bigger
than he was. He had never felt like this—breathless with wanting, on fire with
life and longing.
The simplest things—discussing the newspaper, opening a fortune cookie at a
Chinese restaurant, playing with a puppy on the floor—all made him feel so
intensely alive, almost as if he had sleepwalked his way through life and now the
touch of Morgan’s lips, her eyes on his, her hand folded into his hand were
making him come fully, gloriously awake.
He anticipated seeing Morgan. He found himself thinking of little ways to win
her smile. He sent her a single orchid in a candleholder. He made her little
trinkets at the forge—a frog, a chunky bracelet, a set of little metal worry beads.
The feeling of choosing this was leaving him. Because with every day that
Morgan’s laughter and her nearness filled his life with light, it felt as if the
choice to walk away was a door that was closing.
What man could choose to go back to darkness after he had been in the light?
Dear Reader,
I had a wonderful visitor for some of the Christmas vacation. My grandson
Brayden was here. If you want to experience the magic of the season, there is
nothing like sharing it with a four-year-old.
While I was making a grocery list, Brayden decided he needed his own list, and
scribbled happily on a piece of paper beside me. Then he handed it to me and I
asked him (not being that good at deciphering scribbles) what was on it. He told
me chocolate meatballs.
Off we went to the grocery store. Brayden asked everyone—stock boys, clerks,
grandmothers, other kids—where the chocolate meatballs were. He spread
smiles from one end of the store to the other. But alas, to his grave
disappointment, we could not find the one item on his list.
The night before Christmas, I made a label on my computer that said “Chocolate
Meatballs” and filled a bag with those gorgeous round chocolates that look
exactly like meatballs.
Though Brayden received an amazing number of gifts and toys, it is the look on
his face when he opened his sock from Santa and found chocolate meatballs that
I will never forget. His eyes round with absolute wonder, he whispered, “Santa
knew where the chocolate meatballs were.”
And so that is what I wish for you this Christmas: moments of simple wonder,
moments of delightful magic and lots and lots of chocolate meatballs!
With best wishes for the holidays,
Cara
C C
ARA OLTER
Rescued by his Christmas Angel
Cara Colter lives on an acreage in British Columbia with her partner, Rob, and
eleven horses. She has three grown children and a grandson. She is a recent
recipient of an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in the Love and
Laughter category. Cara loves to hear from readers; you can contact her or learn
more about her through her website, www.cara-colter.com.
To Lynne and Larry Cormack
with heartfelt gratitude
for twenty-five years of friendship
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
TEARS. BOOKS THROWN. And pencils. Breakage. Name-calling. Screaming. Hair-
pulling. It was like a scene from a bad marriage or the kind of drama that a
reality television show adored, rife with mayhem, conflicts, conspiracies.
But it wasn’t a bad marriage, or bad TV.
It was Morgan McGuire’s life, and it didn’t help one bit that
each of the perpetrators in today’s drama had been under four feet tall. The day
had culminated with a twenty-one-child “dog pile on the rabbit.”
It was the kind of day they had failed to prepare her for at
teacher’s college, Morgan, first-year first-grade teacher, thought mournfully.
And somehow, fair or not, in her mind, it was all his fault.
Nate Hathoway, father of Cecilia Hathoway, the child who had
been at the very center of every single kerfuffle today, including being the rabbit
in that unfortunate dog pile.
Now, Morgan McGuire paused and stared at the sign in front of
her. Hathoway’s Forge. Her heart was beating hard, and it wasn’t just from the
walk from school, either.
Don’t do it, her fellow teacher Mary Beth Adams had said
when Morgan had asked her at lunch if she thought she should go beard the lion
in his den.
Or the devil at his fire, as the case might be.
“But he’s ignoring my notes. He hasn’t signed the permission
slip for Cecilia—”
“Cecilia?”
Morgan sighed. “Ace. Her real name’s Cecilia. I think she
needs something feminine in her life, including her name. That was what the
first fight this morning was about. Her hairstyle.”
Not that the haircut was that new, but today there had been a