Some kind of wonderful Read Online Free Page A

Some kind of wonderful
Book: Some kind of wonderful Read Online Free
Author: Maureen Child, Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress) DLC
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memories he'd spent the last two years burying.
    He turned left on Jingle Bell Way. "Where's your place?"
    "The Victorian here on the corner."
    "Naturally." He pulled up out front and parked the car at the curb. Studying her house, Jack felt another sigh building, but he squashed it. What would be the point?
    The name of her shop, Christmas Carol's, was just as cutesy as any other business in town. In the dark, it was hard to tell what color the place was, but there were neatly planted gardens lining the sidewalk leading to the front steps and baskets filled with flowers hung from the eaves and dotted the length of the wraparound porch. Strings of multicolored lights outlined the edge of the roof and then twined around the porch columns. A wide, and he assumed, artificial, evergreen wreath studded with bows and ornaments decorated the front door, and electric candles had been left burning in the windows.
    Jesus. She was every bit as bad as every other nut in town.
    "Christmas Carol's" she prompted from the back seat. "Get it?"
    "Yeah," he said, turning off the engine and unbuckling his seatbelt. "I picked right up on that subtlety."
    "Are you always this crabby? Or am I just special?"
    He turned around to look at her and managed to avoid bumping into the dog's nose as he did. "It's the middle of the night. I've been grocery-shopping. I'm driving around with a trained bear sitting in my front seat—"
    "And I appreciate it."
    He kept going. "I spent an hour traipsing around a

    Nativity scene looking for clues to the missing mother of an abandoned baby—"
    Carol frowned at him, and quickly leaned over to cover the baby's ears with her hands. "Don't say that in front of her."
    "What?"
    "A-B-A-N-D-O—"
    "For God's sake, it can't understand what we're saying."
    Carol straightened up and glared at him. Her dog must have picked up on her sudden twist of anger because the damn thing growled again and damned if it didn't sound like another crash of rolling thunder. Jack inched backward. No point in taking chances.
    "She's not an it. And you have no idea what she can and can't understand. People—even babies—know when they're being talked about. They know when they're loved. They know when they've been ... A-B-A-N—oh, forget it." Quickly, carefully, she undid the straps holding the newborn into the car seat, then scooped it up into her arms, tucking the blanket around it. "Doctors tell pregnant women to talk to their bellies, right?"
    A flash of memory zipped through Jack's brain and was gone again in the next heartbeat. He didn't even pause to be grateful. "Yeah. That's for the tone of voice to be heard."
    "Then why not just hum? Why talk to them? Babies have ears. They can hear."
    "Sure, but it's like me trying to understand Italian. It's just noise."
    "You don't know that for sure."
    "Neither do you." Jesus, had he just said that? Was he starting to sound like a third-grader? Were they about to get into a rousing chorus of "yes sir, no sir"? Or, "shut

    up, no you shut up"? Good God, what coming back to Christmas had brought him to. 'Tine. Talk to it. Sing to it. Whatever."
    Quinn whined, growled, and took a step forward. Unfortunately, that put one big paw directly on Jack's nuts. Pain exploded through his body and splintered into a fireworks show in his brain. He was pretty sure his eyes were wheeling behind closed lids. "Jesus, get off me." Groaning, he shoved at the damn dog and didn't budge it an inch. Instead, the damn thing stepped down even harder, pushing its face into Jack's and blowing hot dog breath all over him.
    "Quinn, sit down."
    "Not now" Jack managed to choke out through clenched teeth. Breath wheezed in and out of him as he tried to scoot out from under the dog. Christ, if the dog sat on him, he was a dead man.
    "Sorry! Quinn, no"
    Now the dog was getting agitated and that's all he'd need, Jack thought. The dog gets riled and he'd have two of its paws on his nuts and then he'd be looking for a job with the
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