Black Flame by Ruby Laska Page A

answered it.
    “Hello, Jarret-Burgess-Warner-Dixon-Olivo-Mason residence, Jimmy speaking.”
    “Jimmy? It’s Jayne!”
    “Merry Christmas, Jayne. Your sister has arrived safely. She is anxious to talk to you.”
    “Well, put her on! She left me like twenty messages, but we didn’t have service until just now.”
    “I’m afraid that Deneen is sleeping at the moment.” Jimmy knew that he ought to offer to wake her, but the thought of interrupting her—warm, her hair tousled, tucked under the covers just a few yards away—was too unsettling.
    “Sleeping? But it’s Christmas!”
    “She woke early to assist me at the recreation center.”
    “Aw, that’s sweet. But tell her to call me back the minute she gets this. But we won’t be here long. We only drove into town to see the lights, and we’re headed back to the cabin soon, and there’s no service there.” She hesitated, then added, “I have some big news to share, but I want to tell her first.”
    “News?”
    “You don’t sound very excited.”
    “Oh.” It would be breaking a confidence to confide that Deneen had planned to surprise them not just with a visit but with a wedding, and from the sounds of it, she had been right: big news probably meant that the couple had eloped. “I’m, um, just trying to get Christmas dinner on the table. Roan is here, and everyone is hungry.”
    “Oh, no. Please tell me you took my advice and ordered dinner from the grocery.”
    “I am perfectly capable of preparing a meal,” Jimmy reminded her. “Besides, your sister has decorated the table, so it is quite festive.”
    Jayne laughed. She did sound especially cheerful, further evidence that they had gotten married. Things were not looking good for poor Deneen.
    “Text me a picture,” Jayne asked. “We miss you guys.”
    “We do,” Matthew’s voice chimed in.
    “We’re going to get an early start tomorrow,” Jayne said. “We want to get on the road before dawn, so we’ll be back by midday. I can’t wait to see Neener!”
    “Please use extreme caution. Snow and ice are making the roads hazardous.”
    “We will,” Jayne promised. “And Jimmy?”
    “Yes?”
    “Take care of my baby sister, okay? She can get a little…fragile.”
    “I will,” Jimmy promised, even though he found himself bristling at Jayne’s words as he hung up.
    Jayne thought Deneen was fragile. To hear her talk, her parents and employers thought she was incompetent. And sometimes it seemed as though she believed it herself.
    But none of those adjectives were what Jimmy saw when he looked at her. A woman who could create a festive occasion from an ordinary day, beautiful decorations from odds and ends, smiles on children’s faces—a woman who could make a man like him feel like he wasn’t just capable of the same emotions as everyone else, but like he was bursting with them—was neither fragile nor incompetent.
    She was—because Jimmy was having trouble thinking of any other word for it—downright magical.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    A chorus of angels, all of them dressed in white robes, surrounded Deneen and sang encouragingly, their fluffy white wings fluttering. She was enjoying their rendition of “Angels We Have Heard On High” very much until one of them broke ranks and shouted, “You landed on Pennsylvania Avenue, sucker, and I’ve got a hotel!”
    Deneen’s eyes flew open in the darkness, her heart pounding. It took a moment for her to remember where she was: in a stranger’s bed, fourteen hundred miles from home, on possibly the most upsetting Christmas she’d ever had.
    But wait. When she lay down to take a nap, just a short one to recover from the flurry of cooking and decorating, it had been barely three o’clock. She’d meant to get up after half an hour or so, so she could change and fix up before guests arrived for Christmas dinner.
    But now they were here. All of them, from the sound of it. She grabbed her phone off the bedside table to check the time.
    “Dang