A Creed in Stone Creek Read Online Free

fast.
    “Listen, Tom,” she said earnestly, leaning forward and folding her hands on her desktop. “I’m a good citizen, an elected official. I vote in every election. I pay my taxes. On top of all that, I fulfill my civic duty by keeping the town—and the county—safe for democracy. Believe me when I tell you, I feel as much sympathy for Ona and her gallbladder as anyone else does.” She paused, sucked in a deep breath. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to join the Parade Committee.”
    Tom blushed a little. “Actually,” he said, after clearing his throat, “we were hoping you’d take over, sort of spearhead the thing.”
    Again, Melissa thought of her siblings.
    Olivia, a veterinarian and a regular Dr. Doolittle to boot, apparently able to converse with critters of all species, through some weird form of telepathy, oversaw the operation of the local state-of-the-art animal shelter, and directed the corresponding foundation.
    Ashley, too, was almost continually involved in one fundraising event or another—and their brother, Brad? He was a country-music superstar, even though he’d technically retired around the time he and Meg McKettrick got married. His specialty was writing whopping checks for pretty much any worthy cause—and doing the occasional benefit performance.
    “You have the wrong O’Ballivan,” she told Tom, feeling like a slacker. They were overachievers, her sibs, with a tendency to make her look bad. “Talk to Olivia—or Ashley. Better yet, have Brad buy you a parade.”
    Tom grinned faintly and then gave his head a sad little shake. “Olivia’s too busy,” he said. “Ashley is out of town. And Brad has his hands full running Stone Creek Ranch—”
    “No,” Melissa broke in, to stop the flow. “Really. I wouldn’t be any good at organizing a parade. I’ve watched a lot of them, on TV and right here in Stone Creek. I’ve seen Miracle on 34th Street four million times. But that’s the whole scope of my experience—I wouldn’t know the first thing about putting something like that together.”
    The sheriff colored up a little, under the jaw and around his ears. “You think Aunt Ona was an expert on parades, back when she took over? No, ma’am. She just pushed up her sleeves and plunged right in. Learned on the job.”
    “There must be someone else who could do this,” Melissa said weakly.
    But Tom shook his head again, harder this time. “We got the Food Concession Committee, and the Arts and Crafts Show Committee, and the committee to deal with the carnival folks. Everybody’s either already volunteering, doing something else or out of town.”
    Melissa set her jaw. By then, she was starting to feel downright guilty, but that didn’t mean she was going to give in.
    Out front, Andrea chirped a sunny greeting to someone. Melissa felt an odd little zip in the air, like the charge before a summer thunderstorm.
    “Then I guess you’ll have to cancel the parade this year,” Melissa said.
    And that was when the little boy she’d seen at the café that morning, eating pancakes at the counter, popped into her office.
    He looked up at Tom, then over at Melissa, his dark violet eyes troubled. His lower lip began to wobble.
    “There isn’t going to be a parade?” he asked.

CHAPTER TWO
    Q UICKLY—BUT NOT QUITE quickly enough, as it turned out—Steven pursued Matt through the open doorway, scooped him up from behind and immediately locked eyeballs with the certifiably hot woman he’d checked out while he and the boy were having breakfast earlier that morning, over at the café.
    When their glances connected, his-meets-hers, there was an actual impact, it seemed to Steven. He half expected things to explode all over the place, walls to tumble, ceilings to collapse, founts of fire to shoot up out of the floor, as in some apocalyptic action movie.
    Damn, he thought, dazed by the strength of his reaction. He’d known plenty of beautiful women in his time, none of whom had