The Shadows of Christmas Past

for their son? No doubt they wanted him to keep his mind strictly on business.

    They were right , she told herself an hour later in her kitchen. Harrison Blethyin did need to keep his mind on business first.
    "Too bad."
    Not only had she looked forward to being kissed, Marj also wanted to talk more with Harry.
    But he'd been swept off by the Fennicks before she had a chance to get a cell phone number.
    And the Fennicks didn't have a telephone. She and Harry needed to discuss when he'd look for the wolf, and how. Even more importantly, she was worried about Phil Fennick. Of course she wanted to help. Why had the Fennicks kept the news about their son quiet?
    Well, they were very private people, and they had called in professional help. But Phil was only sixteen, seventeen at most. Didn't the authorities have to be notified about a runaway minor?
    She knew a lot more about animals than she did about people. Maybe, sometimes, that wasn't such a good thing.
    A disturbing hint of longing and loneliness threaded through her. Not only did she want to see the handsome, confident stranger again, she desperately wanted to. There was something challenging about him—and, oh my, he was so very sexy.
    "Sexy, which can be defined as trouble . What do you guys think? Do I want that tall, dark, and dangerous kind of trouble?"
    Oh, yes , her body responded.
    Marj wasn't exactly alone in the room, so technically she wasn't talking to herself. Besides the newly christened Noel, Taffy lay on the white tiled floor munching on a chew toy, and the puppies and kittens slept in boxes in opposite corners. There was a relaxed buzz of animal contentment, but right now the emotional background noise didn't soothe Marj's restive mood.
    She felt suddenly weary, and a glance at the digital dock on the microwave showed her it was later than she thought.

    Late or not, she had chores to do before she could get to bed. She was glad that she didn't have any sick animals in the clinic, so she only had to check the kennel building. The animals had been fed hours ago, but she always made sure they had plenty of water. And she always took the time for some petting and to communicate with her rescued animals.
    She grabbed a worn old pea coat off a hook by the back door, and went out into the December night. Stars burned brightly overhead, and the cold, dry air was crisp and tangy in her lungs. Though the outside lights weren't on, the long, low kennel building next to the barn was easy to make out in the silvery moonlight. She could have found it simply by following the emotional charge surrounding the place though. All the animals inside were waiting for her evening visit.
    There was a soft and sentimentally sloppy part of her that was always tempted to move all of her rescued animals inside, to let them have the run of her home. But that way lay disaster.
    Then she'd be tempted to make every abused, lost, unwanted dog, cat, llama, ferret, and whatever else landed on her doorstep into a personal pet. The goal was to find homes for the rescued animals, not to turn into an eccentric old lady with dozens of "babies" underfoot. To adopt them herself would be to deny a lot of fine animals homes with people who needed to love them and to be loved by them.
    So, Taffy was her only official pet. She shouldn't have let Noel inside—especially since the racer was undoubtedly used to living in a kennel—but Taffy had insisted.
    Not that he was spoiled, or anything. And he wasn't the one dealing with housebreaking his newfound love.
    Sometimes it was not such a gift to be able to talk to animals.
    She was almost to the kennel door when all the dogs inside began to bark. And not the scattered barks of welcome that always accompanied her visits; they were baying a warning, and she heeded it.
    She ran for the switch inside that would turn on all the floodlights. Coyotes came around at night sometimes, and if the light didn't scare them off, she had a rifle stored in the building.
    Just as Marj reached the light switch inside the door, and the night turned bright, a heavy body plowed into her. She went down hard on the concrete stoop. Pain shot through her hip and her head, and the breath was knocked out of her.
    "Where is it?" a voice asked from inside the kennel. "Is it in here?"
    The man who'd tackled her dragged Marj to her feet on the stoop. Her ears were ringing, and she was dizzy. The dogs were barking wildly, and their concentrated excitement hit her even