The Long-Awaited Christmas Wish
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Melissa Senate
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HarlequinPrologue
US marshal Rex Dawson thought he was alone on the footbridge across the Bear Ridge River in a rural Wyoming nature preserve, but a cute dog had come out of nowhere. The medium-size mutt was sniffing at the water’s edge on the side of the bridge, just a few feet from where Rex stood. He glanced around the wilderness on all sides for the dog’s owner, but he didn’t see or hear anyone. Rex would know if there was anyone nearby; it was his job to be attuned to his surroundings. And because he’d been waiting over an hour for a rogue witness who hadn’t shown up, Rex had been on red alert.
“Hey, buddy, you alone out here?” Rex asked, walking over to where the stray was pawing at something in the water against the wooden post of the bridge.
The dog looked up at him, head tilted. Some kind of shepherd mix, Rex figured, taking in the cinnamon and black markings and the tall, pointy ears that had to be four inches high. Rex glanced at what had caught the dog’s interest. A bottle—with what looked like a rolled-up piece of paper inside. It was one of those old-fashioned glass milk jugs, the kind with a wide neck and body and a metal cap.
“Message in a bottle?” Rex asked the dog, giving him a pat behind his ears.
He picked up the dirty bottle. He knew this type well. Rex had grown up on a dude ranch that his grandparents had started, and the family’s milk had come from their cow, Lizzie. His grandmother had liked old-fashioned milk bottles, but with the hinged tops. When his grandparents had passed on fourteen years ago and his dad had inherited the Dawson Family Guest Ranch, Bo Dawson had soon sold off the animals to pay for his drinking and gambling addictions and there was rarely milk in the fridge, despite his six kids. “Water is free and comes right out of the tap,” Bo would say, pointing at the sink. Rex still couldn’t think of the ranch without his dad coming to mind.
“Some things never change, buddy,” he told the dog. The sweet-faced mutt stared at Rex with those old-soul amber eyes. No collar. Too skinny. Dirty. A little on the timid side. He looked cold and lonely and hungry. Definitely a stray. “C’mon,” Rex said. “Let’s go warm up in my truck and we’ll see what the note in the bottle says.”
The dog tilted his head again and seemed to be saying, You talking to me? Rex headed for the small gravel parking lot, his new friend following. He got a blanket from the cargo area of his SUV and made a bed of sorts on the passenger seat. “Up you go,” Rex said, and the dog hopped in. Rex turned on the ignition, heat filling the vehicle, and the dog sighed and stretched out his long, narrow snout, resting his chin on Rex’s knee.
Aww. He petted his new buddy behind the ears, then looked at the bottle. “So let’s see what this message says.” He uncapped the bottle and fished out the rolled-up yellowed paper. It was a letter to Santa, dated fifteen years ago.
Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is a family. Just a mom OR a dad would be fine. I’m not picky. I would also really love to have a brother or a sister. But if that’s asking for too much, I’ll just take a mom or dad. I’ve been really good this year. You can ask Miss Meredith—she runs the foster home.
Maisey Clark, eight years old
Prairie City, Wyoming
One-two punch straight to the heart. Damn. He could just picture little Maisey Clark, sitting in her foster home in Prairie City and writing out this note in her best handwriting. He imagined her swiping an empty milk bottle, sliding in the rolled-up letter to Santa and tossing it out into the river, hoping it carried all the way to the north pole.
The bottle certainly hadn’t gotten very far. “But I hope her Christmas wish came true,” he said to the dog. “Think it did, River?”
River. Guess he’d named the stray. For where he’d found him, where he’d found the bottle, containing a fifteen-year-old letter to Santa.
He had to know. Actually, it was more than that—he needed to know that Maisey Clark had gotten her family. Between the cold, skinny stray dog and the fervent wish for a parent, Rex knew he should be counting his blessings. Yeah, his job was stressful and he’d been through some stuff he’d like to forget. But he had family. Despite losing his dad last December when the two of them had unfinished business, the six Dawson siblings were always there for one another. Sometimes he didn’t appreciate that enough.
“What do you think happened to Maisey, River?” he asked. “She’d be twenty-three now.” He really hoped her wish had come true. That she’d been adopted by a wonderful family. “Maybe they even had a cute pooch like you.”
River licked his hand and looked at him with those sweet eyes.
“I sure would like to take you home,” he said, petting River’s side. “But I don’t really have one. I have a condo in Cheyenne I rarely use because I’m always on the road.”
Right now, he was hours from that condo but just outside Bear Ridge, where he’d grown up and spent as little time as possible. He couldn’t rescue a dog when he was home maybe once every three months and otherwise lived in hotels across the country.
“I do know where to take you, though,” he said, scratching River under the chin. “The Dawson Family Guest Ranch. My sister and two of my brothers live on the property, and if one of them can’t take you in, they’ll find you a good home.” He had no doubt about that.
Rex pulled out of the parking lot, his head a jumble of Christmas wishes, stray dogs, rogue witnesses and tomorrow’s three meetings, including escorting a witness to court. Day after tomorrow he’d be accompanying a seventy-two-year-old widower to his new life in the Florida Keys, going over protocol of the witness protection program and sticking around for a while to get him acclimated to life under a new identity. Rex knew that wasn’t easy. But being on the run, scared and alone, wasn’t easy, either. Rex hoped to find his missing witness—the one who’d agreed to meet him at the river today but hadn’t—by Christmas.
Finding Maisey Clark should be a lot easier. If not a simple Google search, then through his access to databases. He had to know what happened, that Maisey had gotten a family. He wasn’t one to believe in Christmas wishes—or any kind—coming true. But for Maisey he’d make an exception.
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