Читать онлайн «Star Light, Star Bright»

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter One

First Week of Advent

It was snowing again. Angela McKenna navigated the icy roads with her usual panic, driving her old Jeep at a snail’s pace. At least it had all-wheel drive. But even that wonderful invention wasn’t foolproof when it came to ice. This was her second winter spent on the shores of Lake Champlain, and she would have thought she’d have gotten used to the driving by now. After all, she could navigate the heart of Chicago, the insanity of New York, the freeways of L. A. without breaking a sweat. But let a few flakes of snow start drifting out of the Vermont skies and she was swamped with a tightly controlled terror. It was a good thing she didn’t have to go anywhere for work—she would have been hopeless. Except, maybe that would have forced her to learn how to drive in the snowy vicinity of Crescent Cove without courting a heart attack.

She usually avoided going out entirely when the weather was bad, but right now she was driving home from Burlington Airport after spending Thanksgiving with her parents in Chicago, and the sooner she got back the better. It was only going to keep on snowing.

They’d put the holiday decorations up in the middle of town while she’d been gone. Reindeer danced from every streetlight, and the big tree at the end of the main street was ablaze with lights. Wreaths were on every one of the white clapboard houses she passed.

She had to get home and off these snowy roads, she thought as she made her way through town with single-minded concentration, past the stores and restaurants, heading north, breathing deeply as she listened to the New Age holiday music on her car’s CD player, when for some reason she hit the right turn signal. She took the turn, half in a daze. In all the time she’d spent in Crescent Cove she’d never gone down this particular narrow road, never even noticed its existence, and why she’d do so in the middle of a raging blizzard made no sense at all. Nevertheless, that was exactly what she had done.

Well, it wasn’t actually a raging blizzard—more a flurry or two. And maybe she’d just been daydreaming—forgetting where she was, and taken the wrong turn. It would be easy enough to stop and head back the way she’d come. She’d never been gifted geographically, and if she kept going in a strange direction, God knows where she’d end up. Her safest bet was to turn around.

The street was packed with the early snow, and she pulled into a driveway beside a small store, then backed out again. Not into the street, but into a parking spot just outside the tiny shop.

Crescent Cove was too small a place, especially in the winter, for Angie not to have known every single side street, every shop, every restaurant. Nevertheless, this tiny shop was entirely new to her, and the warm light spilled out onto the sidewalk.