Christmastime Courtship

Only if I’d been lucky, Colin thought.

Just what was this woman’s game? “And that would have been a problem because...?”

She never missed a beat. “Because I had to talk to you.”

The idea of just turning away and getting back on his motorcycle was exceedingly tempting, but for some reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on, Colin decided to hear this overly upbeat woman out.

“You are persistent, aren’t you?” he retorted.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Miranda did her best to try to get the officer to lighten up a little and smile.

His stoic expression never changed. “It is from where I’m standing.” He’d glimpsed her driver’s license yesterday and tried to recall the name he’d seen on it. Maybe if he made this personal, he’d succeed in scaring her off. “What do you want, Miriam?”

“Miranda,” she corrected, still sounding annoyingly cheerful. “That’s okay, a lot of people get my name wrong at first. It takes getting used to.”

“I have no intention of getting used to it,” he informed her. Or you.

As far as he was concerned, the woman was really pushing her luck.

“Look, I let you off with a warning yesterday,” he reminded her. “Would you like me to rescind that warning and give you a ticket?”

Colin was fairly confident that the threat of a ticket would be enough to make her back off.

“No. That was very nice of you yesterday. That’s the reason I came looking for you today.”

She wasn’t making any sense. And then he remembered what she’d said yesterday about asking him to pay a visit to some ward at the hospital.

That’s what this was about, he decided. Something about sick children. Well, he was not about to get roped into anything. Who knew what this woman’s ultimate game really was?

“Look, I already told you,” he retorted. “I’m not the type to come see kids in a hospital. I don’t like hospitals.”

Rather than look disappointed as he’d expected her to, the woman nodded. “A lot of people don’t,” she agreed.

Okay, she was obviously stalking him, and this was over. “Well then, have a nice day,” Colin told her curtly, and then turned to walk back to his motorcycle.

“I’m not here about the hospital,” Miranda called after him. “Although I’d like to revisit that subject at a later time.”

Colin stopped walking. The woman had to be one of the pushiest people he’d ever encountered, not to mention she had a hell of a lot of nerve.

Against his better judgment, he found himself turning around again to face her. “And just what are you ‘here’ about?” he asked.

There was absolutely nothing friendly in his voice that invited her to talk. But she did anyway.

“That little girl I told you about?” Miranda began, feeling as if she was picking her way through a minefield that could blow up on her at any moment. “The one with your aunt’s name,” she reminded him, hoping that would get the officer to listen, and buy her a little more time.

“Lily,” he repeated, all but growling the name. “What about her?” he asked grudgingly.

He wasn’t a curious man by any stretch of the imagination, but there was something about this overly eager woman that had him wondering just where she was taking this.

“Lily’s mother is missing,” she told him, never taking her eyes off his face.

Rather than show some sort of reaction to what she’d just said, his expression never changed. He looked, Miranda thought, as if she’d just given him a bland weather report.

She began to wonder what had damaged the man to this extent.

“So go to the precinct and report it,” Colin told her. “That’s the standard procedure.”

“The director at the shelter already did that,” Miranda answered.

“All right, then it’s taken care of.” What more did she expect him to do? Colin wondered irritably as he began to walk away again.

“No, it isn’t,” Miranda insisted, stepping out of her car and moving quickly between him and his motorcycle. “The officer who took down the information said that maybe Lily’s mother took off. He said a lot of women in her situation feel overwhelmed and just leave. He said that maybe she’d come to her senses in a few days and return for her daughter.”

“Okay, you have your answer,” Colin said, moving around this human roadblock.

Again Miranda shifted quickly so he couldn’t get to his motorcycle. She ignored the dark look he gave her. She wasn’t about to give up. This was important. Lily was depending on her to do everything she could to find her mother.

“But what if she doesn’t?” Miranda asked. “What if she didn’t take off? What if something’s happened to Lily’s mother and that’s why she never came back to the shelter?”

He felt as if this doe-eyed blonde was boxing him in. “That’s life,” he said, exasperated.

“There’s a little eight-year-old girl at the shelter waiting for her mommy to come back,” Miranda told him with feeling. “I can’t just tell her ‘that’s life.’”

Taking hold of Miranda’s shoulders, he moved her firmly out of his way and finally reached his motorcycle. “Tell her whatever you like.”

Miranda raised her voice so that he could hear her above the sound of the cars going by. “I’d like to tell her that this nice police officer is trying to find her mommy.”

Colin turned sharply on his heel and glared at this woman who refused to take a hint. “Look, lady—”

“Miranda,” she prompted.

“Miranda,” Colin echoed between gritted teeth. “You are a royal pain, you know that?”

Miranda had always tried to glean something positive out of every situation, no matter how bleak it might appear. “Does that mean you’ll look for her?” she asked hopefully.

Colin blew out an angry breath. “That means you’re a royal pain,” he repeated.

With nothing to lose, Miranda climbed out on a limb. “Please? I can give you a description of Lily’s mother.” And then she thought of something even better. “And if you come with me, I can get you a picture of her that’ll be useful.”

He had a feeling that this woman wasn’t going to give up unless he agreed to help her. Although it irritated him beyond description, there was a very small part of him that had to admit he admired her tenacity.

Still, he gave getting her to back off one more try. “What will be useful is if you get out of my way and let me do my job.”

Miranda didn’t budge. “Isn’t part of your job finding people who have gone missing?”

“She’s not missing if she left of her own accord and just decided to keep on going,” he told the blonde, enunciating every word.

“But we don’t know that she decided to keep on going. She did leave the shelter to go look for work,” Miranda told him.