One Season And Dynasties Collection

They moved quickly. He followed at his own pace.

There were four beds in the room, two on either side. Lily’s head practically whirled around as she scanned the room looking for her mother. Seeing her lying in the bed next to the window, she sprinted over.

“Mommy!” she cried happily, and then skidded to a stop as she took a closer look at the woman in the hospital bed.

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. Her mother was hooked up to two monitors as well as an IV. The monitors were making beeping noises.

The scene was clearly upsetting to the little girl, as were the bruises she saw along her mother’s arms and face.

Inching closer, Lily asked in a hushed voice, “Did you fall down, Mommy?”

Gina turned her head and saw her daughter for the first time. Light came into the woman’s eyes and she tried to open her arms so she could hug the little girl, but she was impeded by the various tubes attached to her.

“Oh, Lily-pad, I did. I tripped and fell down,” Gina told her daughter.

Miranda squeezed the woman’s hand lightly, letting Gina know that she understood she was lying for Lily’s sake.

“We were all worried about you,” she told her. “But Lily never gave up hope that we’d find you.”

The expression on Gina’s face reflected confusion and embarrassment. “I don’t remember what happened,” she admitted.

“That doesn’t matter right now, darling,” Amelia said in a soothing, comforting voice. “All that matters is that you’re here and you’re being taken care of.”

“Officer Kirby found you for me,” Lily told her mother excitedly. Taking Colin’s hand, Lily pulled on it to bring him closer. “This is Officer Kirby, Mommy,” she explained, showing off her brand-new champion to her mother.

Eyes that were the same shade of blue as Lily’s looked up at him. They glinted with sheer appreciation. “Thank you.”

“No thanks needed,” Colin told her, then explained, “It’s complicated.”

Miranda suppressed a sigh. The man just couldn’t accept gratitude, she thought. She wanted to call him out on it, but this definitely wasn’t the moment for that.

“We’re out of time,” she told Lily, as well as Amelia and Colin. And then she explained to Gina, “We promised the nurse on duty to only stay for ten minutes because it’s after hours.”

“We’ll come back tomorrow, Mommy,” Lily promised her solemnly.

Miranda bit her bottom lip. She wouldn’t be able to come by with Lily until after her shift at the hospital. She looked at the director, a mute request in her eyes.

Picking up the silent message, Amelia nodded obligingly. “See you then,” she told Gina, then patted the young mother’s hand. “Feel better, dear.”

Colin waited for the three females to file out of the room before he started to leave himself. He almost didn’t hear Gina say, “Thank you, Officer Kirby.”

Again, he wanted to tell the woman that he hadn’t been the one who had located her. But that would take time and the nurse at the station had given every indication that she would come swooping in the second their ten minutes were up. He didn’t trust himself not to snap at the nurse, which would undoubtedly upset the little girl, and in his estimation, she had been through enough.

So he merely nodded in response to the woman’s thanks and left the room.

“Mommy has to be more careful,” Lily said authoritatively as she and the three adults with her headed toward the elevator.

Miranda looked at the little girl as they got on. It wasn’t entirely clear to her if Lily actually believed what she was saying, or if she was saying it so as not to let the adults with her know that she knew something bad had happened to her mother.

In some ways, she felt that Lily was an innocent girl; in other ways, she seemed older than her years. Only children were often a mixture of both.

“That was a very nice thing you did,” Miranda told Colin once they reached the ground floor and got off the elevator. When he stared at her blankly, she elaborated. “Getting the nurse to allow us to see Gina.”

The officer said nothing. There was no indication that he had even heard her, except for his careless shrug.

The man was a very tough nut to crack. And she intended to crack him—but in a good way. Miranda smiled to herself. Whether Officer Kirby knew it or not, he had just become her next project.

They split up when they reached the hospital parking lot, with Miranda and Lily going back with Amelia, while Colin headed for his vehicle, a vintage two-door sport car that was a couple years older than he was.

“Goodbye, Officer Kirby!” Lily called after him. When he glanced over his shoulder in response to her parting words, Lily waved at him as hard as she could. It looked as if she was close to taking off the ground.

Colin nodded once, climbed into his car and drove off.

Lily insisted on standing there until she couldn’t see him any longer.

“He’s a hero,” she told the two women when she finally turned around and got into the director’s car.

“Yes, he is,” Miranda agreed.

A very reluctant hero, she added silently.

“Hey, Kirby, there’s someone here who’s been waiting to see you for some time now,” the desk sergeant told Colin when he came into the precinct and walked by the man’s desk.

It was past the end of his shift and Colin was more than tired. It had been two days since he’d led that little safari of females into the hospital and he’d assumed—hoped, really—that Miranda was now a thing of the past.

But the moment the desk sergeant said there was someone waiting to see him, he knew in his gut that it had to be her. Granted, it could have easily been anyone else; Bedford wasn’t exactly a minuscule city and it felt as if the population was growing every day. But somehow he just knew it had to be the woman he had made the fatal mistake of pulling over that day.

The annoyingly perky, pushy woman he just couldn’t seem to get rid of. She was like a burr he couldn’t shake loose.

“Where?” Colin growled.

“Need your eyes checked, Kirby?” the desk sergeant asked. “She’s sitting right over there.” He pointed to the bench situated against the wall fifteen feet away.

Reluctantly, Colin sighed and looked in the direction the desk sergeant was pointing.

Damn it, he thought.

It was her—and she was looking right at him. It was too late to make an escape.

He might as well find out what she wanted.

Striding over to the bench, he saw her rise to her feet. The woman appeared ready to pounce on him.

Now what?

Bracing himself for the worst, he skipped right over any kind of a formal greeting and asked, “Something else you want me to do?”

Just as sunny as ever, Miranda thought, more convinced than before that he needed her to turn him around. “No, actually, I brought something for you,” she told him, hoping that would get rid of the scowl on his face.

It didn’t.

He needed to stop her right there, Colin thought, instantly on guard. “I can’t accept any gifts,” he told her. “The department frowns on its officers taking any sort of gratuities in exchange for services rendered, either past, present or in the future.”

He sounded so incredibly uptight, Miranda thought. They’d crossed paths not a moment too soon.

“This isn’t a gratuity,” she assured him, trying to put his fears to rest.

He wasn’t about to stand here exchanging words with her. For one thing, she was far better equipped for a verbal battle than he was. For another, he didn’t have time for this.

“Whatever you want to call it—gratuity, gift or bribe—I can’t accept it.” He concluded in a no-nonsense voice, thinking that would be the end of it.

He should have known better. The woman had shown him that, right or wrong, she wasn’t one to back off.

And she was clearly not listening to him but was reaching into the large zippered bag she’d picked up from the bench. Extracting something from inside it, she held up what appeared to be an eleven-by-fourteen poster board for him to look at.

It was a drawing.

“Lily drew this just for you,” Miranda told him. She pointed to the blue figure in the center of the page. It was twice as large as the four other figures present. “In case you don’t recognize him, that’s you.”

And then she proceeded to point out the other people in the drawing. “That’s Lily, her mother in the hospital bed, Amelia, and that’s me.” Miranda indicated the figure in the corner, who was almost offstage, appearing to look on.

Colin couldn’t help staring at the central figure. “I’m a giant,” he commented, surprised that the little girl would portray him that way.

As if reading his mind, Miranda explained, “That’s how she sees you. You are a giant in her eyes. Heroes usually are,” she added.

The term made him uncomfortable. “I’m not a hero,” he retorted.

“I hate to break this to you, but you are to Lily,” she told him.

Colin continued looking at the drawing, still not taking it from her. His attention was drawn to the stick figure the little girl had drawn of Miranda.

“You could stand to gain some weight,” he observed, still not cracking a smile.

“That’s good,” she responded, as if they were having an actual serious conversation. “That means I get to indulge in my craving for mint chip ice cream.”

He glanced at her rather than the drawing, his eyes slowly running over her, taking in every curve, every detail.

“You don’t look as if you indulge in anything that’s nonessential,” he told her.

She laughed. It was a melodic sound he tried not to notice.

“You’d be surprised,” she told him. When she saw him look at her quizzically—most likely because she was thin—Miranda explained, “I do a lot of running around—at the hospital, at the women’s shelter and especially at the animal shelter.” They had her exercising the dogs, which meant that she was exercising, as well.

“Don’t you take any time off for yourself?” Colin asked, positive that she was putting him on.

Miranda smiled. The man just didn’t get it, did he? “The women’s shelter and animal shelter are my ‘time off’ for myself,” she stressed. “I like feeling that I’m helping out and doing something productive. It makes me feel good about myself,” she explained.

He still wasn’t completely convinced. “Did you ever hear the saying ‘Too good to be true’?”

She tried to suppress the grin that rose to her lips. “Are you saying that you think I’m good?”

“You’re missing the point of the rest of the saying,” he pointed out. Taking a breath, he decided that this meeting was over. “Anything else?” he asked her, impatience pulsing in his voice.

“Well, since you asked—have you thought any more about visiting my kids at the hospital?”

She called them ‘her’ kids, not just ‘the’ kids. Did she feel as if they were hers? he wondered incredulously.

He should never have asked if there was anything else. “No, I haven’t,” he answered, upbraiding himself.

Not about to be put off, Miranda asked, “Well, would you think about it? Please?” she added. “Christmas is getting closer.”

Why should that make a difference? Christmas had ceased to have meaning for him when he’d lost his mother.

“Happens every year at this time,” he answered.

Miranda gave it another try. “Well, like I told you, I think it would do them a lot of good. Their lives are really hard and they don’t have all that much to look forward to.”

“And my visiting would give them something to look forward to?” he asked sarcastically.

She never wavered. “Yes, it would.”

The woman just wasn’t going to give up. He didn’t like being made to feel guilty.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, only because he felt it was the one way to get her to cease and desist. And then he looked at his watch. “Don’t you have to be someplace, volunteering?”

“Actually, I do,” she said, slipping the straps of her bag over her shoulder. “I promised I’d come by the animal shelter. There’s this German shepherd that needs a foster home until she can be placed.”

The woman was a relentless do-gooder. “Right up your alley,” he cracked.

Miranda smiled at him. He saw the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Actually, it is.”

“Then you’d better get to it.”

“I will. Oh, don’t forget your picture,” she prompted. Picking up the poster board drawing, she forced it into his hands.

“Right,” he muttered, less than pleased.

He was still standing there, looking down at the drawing, as she hurried out the door.

Chapter Seven

Colin frowned. He needed to have his head examined. He obviously wasn’t thinking clearly.

Or maybe at all.

Why else would he be out here, parked across the street from Bedford’s no-kill animal shelter, waiting for that overachieving do-gooder to come out?

As far as he knew, he was free and clear, which meant that he could go on with his life without being subjected to any more taxing, annoying requests.

So why the hell was he here, willingly putting himself in that woman’s path again? Why would he be setting himself up like this?

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what Miranda was like. He’d learned that she was the kind of person who, if given an inch, wanted not just a mile but to turn it into an entire freeway.

Colin sighed. Knowing that, what was he doing out here?

Satisfying his own curiosity, he supposed.

A curiosity, he reminded himself, he hadn’t even been aware of possessing a short while ago—not until life had thrown that woman into his path and she’d come charging at him like some kind of undersized, stampeding unicorn.

Damn it, go home, Kirby, he ordered himself, straightening up beside his vehicle. Go home before anyone mistakes you for some kind of stalker and calls someone from the department on you.

He’d talked himself out of being here and was just about to open his car door when he heard the sound of metal scraping on concrete across the street. A second later, he realized that the gates in front of the animal shelter were being opened.

Someone was coming out.

Colin’s suspicions were confirmed a heartbeat later when he heard someone calling his name.

“Officer Kirby, is that you?”

He froze.

You should have been faster, he upbraided himself. Better yet, he shouldn’t have been here to begin with.

Caught, he turned around, to see Miranda hurrying across the street toward him.

She wasn’t alone.

She had a lumbering, overly excited German shepherd running with her. Miranda appeared to be hanging on to the leash for dear life. At first glance, it was difficult to say exactly who had who in tow.

Both woman and dog reached him before he had a chance to finish his thought.

Her four-footed companion suddenly reared up on its hind legs and came within an inch of planting a pair of powerful-looking front paws against his chest.

“You sure you can handle him?” Colin asked, far from pleased and moving back just in time to escape the encounter.

“Her,” Miranda corrected, tugging harder on the leash. “It’s a her.”

That, in his opinion, was not the point. Whether the animal was too much for her was.

“Whatever.” He never took his eyes off the dog. “You look like you’ve met your match,” he told her as he took another step back.

“Down, Lola,” Miranda ordered in an authoritative voice. The mountain of a dog immediately dropped to all four legs, resuming her initial position. “Good girl,” Miranda praised, petting the German shepherd’s head while continuing to maintain a firm hold on the leash with her other hand. Her attention shifted to Colin. “You’re not afraid of a frisky puppy, are you, Officer?”

Colin continued eyeing the animal cautiously. “That all depends on whether or not that ‘puppy’ is bigger than I am.”

“Don’t let Lola scare you,” Miranda told him. “She was just excited to see you.” She petted the dog again. Lola seemed to curl into her hand. “I think she sees everyone as a potential master.”

“Uh-huh.” He wasn’t all that sure he was buying this. Colin continued to regard the dog warily.

“Heel, Lola,” she ordered, when the dog started to move in Colin’s direction again. When Lola obeyed, Miranda looked at the police officer, wondering what he was doing here. This was not his usual patrolling area, and he was out of uniform. “Were you waiting for me, Officer Kirby?” she asked.

The expression on her face was nothing short of amused. A week ago, seeing an expression like that, seemingly at his expense, would have been enough for him to take offense, but for some reason now, he didn’t.

Instead, he let it ride. Reaching into the back seat of his car, he took out the drawing she’d given him the other day at the precinct. “I came by to give you this.”

Lola’s ears perked up and the animal looked as if she was debating whether or not the drawing he was holding was something to eat.

Miranda pulled a little on the leash, drawing the dog back.

“That’s not for you, Lola,” she informed the eager German shepherd. Her eyes shifted back to the police officer. “Why are you giving it to me?” she asked. “Lily drew it for you. She wanted you to have it. It was her way of saying thank you.”

Colin shrugged. “Yeah, well, I don’t have anyplace to put it,” he told her, still holding out the drawing.

He kept one eye on the German shepherd to make sure Lola didn’t grab a chunk out of the poster board. He didn’t want it, but there was no reason to let it be destroyed.

Holding the dog’s leash tightly, Miranda made no effort to take the drawing from him. Instead, she looked at the tall, imposing police officer. The solemn expression in his eyes convinced her more than ever that the man needed fixing.

“You don’t have any closets?”

“Of course I have closets,” he retorted. What kind of question was that? Did she think he lived in a public park?

“Well, you could put the drawing in one of your closets,” she suggested helpfully. “That is, if you don’t want to hang it on your refrigerator.”

Still not taking it from him, she glanced at the drawing. Thinking back, Miranda could remember producing something like that herself when she was younger than Lily. Hers had been of her parents and herself—and Daisy, her father’s beloved Doberman. That had stayed on display on the fridge for almost a year.

“Most people put artwork like that on their refrigerator,” she added, smiling encouragingly. This was all undoubtedly alien to him. “You must be new at this.”

Colin furrowed his brow in concentration as he wondered what made this woman tick—and why she seemed to have singled him out like this. “I guess I’m new at a lot of things,” he observed.

Her smile turned almost dazzling. “Hey, even God had a first day.”

He thought of the last few days since he’d run into this sorceress. She made him behave in a manner that was completely foreign to his normal mode of operation. Exactly what was this secret power she seemed to have that caused him to act so out of character?

“Not like this,” he murmured under his breath.

He heard Miranda laugh in response. The sound was light, breezy, reminding him of the spring wind that was still three months away.

For some reason, an image of bluebells in his mother’s garden flashed through his mind, catching him completely by surprise. He hadn’t thought of his mom’s garden for more than twenty-two years.

He shook his head, as if to free himself of the memory and the wave of emotion that came with it. Colin felt as if he was getting all turned around.

“Is something wrong, Officer?” Miranda asked, concerned.

“You mean other than the fact that I should be home nursing a beer, instead of standing out here trying to make you take back this drawing?” Colin asked, exasperated.

“It’s not my drawing to take,” Miranda reminded him. “Lily wanted you to have it.” And then she abruptly switched subjects. “Seriously? A beer?” she asked. “What about dinner?”

Colin stared at her. “Is this mothering-smothering thing of yours just something that spills out without warning, or do you have to summon it?” he asked.

She ignored his question. Instead, she made a quick judgment call.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I owe you a dinner. Why don’t you come on over to my place and I’ll make it?”

“What?” he cried, dumbfounded. There was no way he could have heard her correctly.

“I’d offer to come over to your place and make dinner there—you know, familiar surroundings and all that to keep you from getting skittish—but I’ve got a feeling the only things in your refrigerator, now that we’ve established the fact that you have one, are probably half-empty cartons of ten-day-old Chinese takeout. Maybe eleven days.”

He continued to stare at her, as close to being overwhelmed as he had ever been.

When she finally stopped talking for a moment, he jumped in and took advantage of it. “You done yet?”

“That depends,” she answered, lifting her chin as if getting ready for a fight. “Are you coming?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“Then I’m not done.” Glancing at the dog by her side, she added, “I have a very persuasive companion right here who could help me make my argument. All things considered, I’d suggest that you avoid her attempts to convince you to see things my way and just agree to come along to my place.”

Damn it, this was insane. But he could actually feel himself weakening. He really did need to have his head examined.

Colin put on the most solemn expression he had at his disposal. “You know, there’re laws against kidnapping police officers.”

Rather than back away, Miranda leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with humor. “Not if, ultimately, that police officer decides to come along willingly.”

Then, as if on cue, Colin’s stomach began to rumble and growl. Audibly.

Miranda smiled broadly. “I think your stomach is siding with Lola and me,” she told him.

Colin scowled in response. She continued to hold her ground. He had to be crazy, but he found himself actually admiring her tenacity. If he had an iota of sense, he’d jump in his car and get the hell out of here.

But he didn’t.

“That dog couldn’t care less one way or another,” he told her, thinking that might blow apart her argument and finally get her to back off.

She studied him for a long moment. Lola tugged on her leash, leaning forward as far as she could, but Miranda continued regarding the man before her, and seemed practically oblivious to the German shepherd. She was mulling over his response.

“You never had a pet when you were growing up, did you?” she asked Colin.

“Why would you say that?”

Miranda smiled. She had her answer. He hadn’t told her she was wrong—which told her she was right.

“Because of what you just said,” she murmured. “If you’d ever had one, you’d know that pets, especially dogs, do care about their humans.”

He had her there, he thought. “I’m not her human,” Colin pointed out.

“No, but at least for now, I am, and I care about you,” she told him. “Lola picked up on that.”

That was all so wrong, he didn’t even know where to start.

“First of all, you said you were probably going to take a German shepherd home to give him—her—” he corrected, “a foster home. That means you’re taking this dog home for the first time. She doesn’t know a thing about you and she’s not really your dog yet,” he stressed. “And second of all—or maybe this should be first—” he said pointedly, “why the hell should you care if I have anything in my house to eat or not?”

Miranda never blinked once during what he considered to be his well-constructed argument. Instead, she looked at him, totally unfazed, and when he was done she asked, “Why shouldn’t I?”