LITMIR.BIZ

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owners either dropping off or picking up their dogs.

      He sniffed in the scent of cinnamon and listened to the sound of another Christmas carol coming over the speakers behind the counter. Lights twinkled on various-size fake trees, each pine with its own different theme. Larger ornaments interspersed with snowflakes hung from the ceiling, and wreaths of all sizes hung on the walls. Shelves lined the back walls, but even from here, Ethan could see they lacked merchandise.

      He sensed Holly was in more financial distress than just behind in her rent and wondered if she was even going to make it through the holidays. The closer he inspected the store, the more gaps he found on the trees, shelves and walls. Would her last-ditch effort to set up decorations for other people work?

      He hoped so. Even though he needed the rent money for his shelter, it wouldn’t be coming from here. He’d already made up his mind and couldn’t immediately evict his friend’s widow. What a mess. He refocused on the snow globe with the Santa figure. Picking it up, he shook it again, creating a flurry of activity inside. The turbulence suited his mood.

      “How much is this?”

      “Twenty-four ninety-nine. I have others if you’d like to see them. They’re right this way.”

      Holly had no idea why she prolonged Ethan’s visit. She should be shooing him out the door so she could free herself from his closeness and plan her going-out-of-business strategy before Cameron showed up. Somehow she knew Ethan wasn’t quite ready to leave yet, and all of a sudden she wanted his company to chase away the loneliness inside the shop.

      Staring at the shelf along the back wall that contained what was left of her snow-globe merchandise, she wondered why the pretty glass orbs were her favorites. Was it because of the intricate work inside? The bright colors in some, the muted colors in others? The idea that each time she shook up the make-believe snow, she created a new scene?

      She picked up one with a happy family opening presents on Christmas morning inside. Turning the key on the bottom, she wound the music box, shook the globe and set it back on the shelf, the strains of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” keeping time with the swirling snow.

      Ethan stirred next to her. He obviously wasn’t comfortable with her choice, either.

      He picked up one containing the manger scene. Ethan fumbled for a moment as he tried to turn the crank on the bottom to listen to the music inside, but without his fingers, the task was impossible until he flipped it into his injured hand and used the good one to start the music.

      “What happened to your hand?”

      Disgust, sadness and resignation flickered through his eyes as he looked at her, but his expression remained immobile. Holly forgot to breathe. In that quick instant his pain was her own—the death of a dream, a shattered life struggling to mend, a man trying to continue on as if nothing had happened, and yet in a flash everything had changed.

      She knew it well. “I’m sorry. Forget that I asked.”

      “It’s okay, Holly. You’re not the first to ask and you won’t be the last.” Setting the snow globe back down on the shelf, Ethan pulled up the sleeve of his dress shirt, exposing more scarring that went to his elbow. “It looks a lot better than it did a few months ago. I served as an army chaplain’s assistant in Afghanistan.”

      “What’s that?” Holly never took her eyes off the man’s arm. She wasn’t repulsed, but she wasn’t comfortable, either. Some people wore their scars on the outside, others on the inside and others in both ways.

      “I was a bodyguard to whatever chaplain I was assigned to. This time it was a pastor, but I’ve protected rabbis and priests. We were heading out from our base camp when our convoy encountered a roadside IED. I was one of the lucky ones. The chaplain and two soldiers were killed along with two innocent civilians.”

      “What’s an IED?”

      “Improvised explosive device. It’s technical words for a bomb.”

      “I’m so sorry. That must have been horrible for you.” Holly knew there was more to the story than just the spoken words, yet she dared not ask. Having closed off her emotions after Jared’s death, Holly refused to let them open up again.

      “I saw a lot of horrible things over there.” Ethan looked as if he wanted to say more about that subject, but his expression closed again and she could almost see his thoughts shift. She braced herself for the next topic of why he was in the store. “Now, about the garage. I’ll expect Cameron at eight.”

      “That works for me, but Cameron will be a bit testy that early in the morning.”

      “He’s almost a teenager. I wouldn’t expect anything less. It will be good for him.” Ethan cracked a smile and studied the manger inside the snow globe again. “I’ll take this one.”

      “But you don’t have to buy anything.”

      “I don’t have to—I want to.” Back at the counter, he handed her his credit card, giving Holly her fourth transaction of the day. It wouldn’t meet her overhead, but it would help cover something. When she went to wrap it up, he put his good hand on her arm, causing her heart to flutter. “It’s a gift for you. We all have troubles, Holly. Sometimes it helps to know that we don’t have to carry them alone.”

      Chapter Two

      What had Ethan been thinking? Holly needed money, not a manger scene inside a snow globe. The irony that they were both in the same position but for different reasons would have struck him as funny if things weren’t so complicated. Somehow, though, the action seemed right. For a moment, he saw behind her mask of exhaustion and fear and glimpsed the beautiful, caring, compassionate and vulnerable woman underneath.

      The kind of woman Jared would fall for. He could, too, if that was what he wanted.

      But wanting to protect her when he had to be part of her problem? Sure, he hadn’t been the cause of her financial woes, but deep down he knew that being behind in her bills bothered her and he felt like a cad. His mom would have never gone over there and asked for the back rent. As soon as he met Holly Stanwyck, he knew he wasn’t going to get it from her. Even if she did somehow come up with it, he wasn’t sure he would take it and hoped her idea for the holiday decorating service panned out because she needed money.

      The woman also needed some divine intervention right now. He’d add her to his prayers tonight and ask his mother to do the same. Knowing Nan, though, Holly was already on the list.

      He slammed his car door shut. As a career soldier forced out because of his injuries, he’d never make it in the civilian world if he didn’t toughen up. Right. He was just a big softy, regardless of which side he was on. He’d always had pieces of candy in his pocket for the Afghan children and biscuits for the stray dogs. Now he was opening a sanctuary for dogs to stay while their owners served on foreign soil and to help transport stray dogs adopted by servicemen overseas and reunite them stateside.

      Head down to keep the lingering snowflakes from his eyes, and hands bunched inside his coat pockets, he headed toward home and the kennels in the enclosed porch of his house in town that he used as the temporary sanctuary. The permanent one was going to be at his family’s farmhouse outside of town, but it needed to be refurbished before he could take the dogs out there. He needed money to do that; some of it he’d hoped to get from Holly. Now he’d have to look elsewhere, since his disability checks barely covered anything.

      The lemon scent of cleaner and varied barks greeted him when he walked through the double French doors off the back porch.

      “How’d it go?” Meredith, his cousin and fellow board member of Beyond the Borders Dog Sanctuary, greeted him.

      “As well as I suspected. There won’t be any funds coming from the store anytime soon.”

      “I’m sorry to hear that. Holly’s such a nice woman. She’s just had a lot to deal with lately.”

      Ethan didn’t bother

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