role in the case had officially ended when he’d filed his report, but apparently the Kane family thought they owed him something for doing his job. Hence the invitation to the wedding.
But as far as Carter was concerned, weddings ranked right up there with Christmas.
If it were up to him, he’d happily skip them both.
Dash moved to the next family and Carter did a double take.
The child standing next to the Leightons looked familiar, too.
Because it was his child...
Thank you, Mom.
Relief poured through Carter as his gaze cut to the woman standing next to Dash. He choked back a laugh.
Not only had she brought Bea to the parade, his mom must have taken his daughter’s advice on what to wear for the occasion.
The knee-length down coat Karen insisted would never go out of style had, at least a decade ago. A leather bomber hat, complete with fur-lined earflaps, had been a Christmas present from Bea the previous year. The gaudy purple-and-red scarf that covered her face from nose to chin, a thank-you gift from a knitting group that had stayed at the inn.
Carter glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see the woman standing next to Anna’s twins lift her face toward the sky. The scarf slipped a few inches and Carter almost stomped on the brake, which would have made him responsible for a massive pileup of reindeer and musical instruments he would have been hard-pressed to explain to his supervisor.
Several people in the crowd shifted position, blocking Carter’s view, but he knew he hadn’t been imagining things. A delicate profile. A swatch of hair as dark and glossy as a coffee bean.
Ellery. Incognito.
Carter’s grip tightened on the steering wheel.
Why had she brought Bea to the parade?
A question you’d probably know the answer to if you’d listened to your mom’s voice mail, an inner voice chided.
But Carter had been helping a young mother locate the car keys her toddler had tossed in a snowbank a few minutes before the parade started and then a guy had tried to drive around the barricade...
Now he wished he’d taken the time.
It wasn’t that Carter didn’t trust his mom’s judgment. He did. What he didn’t trust was the tiny spark of something that flickered to life whenever Ellery was nearby. Like finding an ember in the ashes of a fire you thought had been stamped out.
He’d been burned once before, though, when he’d listened to his heart and not his head.
“Look, Miss El’ry.” Bea’s voice dropped to an almost reverent whisper as they strolled down one of the snowy paths fanning out from the pavilion after the parade. “Ponies!”
Ellery followed the little girl’s gaze to a sleigh parked under a nearby lamppost. She smiled at the description. Not ponies, but a matched pair of coal-black Friesians. The team stood shoulder to shoulder, their breath creating plumes of frost in the air. The bearded driver, clad in a buffalo-check flannel shirt and bib overalls, resembled the lumberjacks in the sepia photographs on display in Karen’s gathering room.
Ellery was about to suggest they walk over and say hello, but Bea had already changed direction. Ellery’s feet almost slid out from under her as she struggled to keep up.
The driver flicked the brim of his wool cap when they approached. “Good evening, ladies. Stanley Potter at your service. Are you ready for a little jaunt around the park?”
Bea clapped her hands over her mouth and the only sound that slipped out was a tiny squeak.
Ellery laughed. “I think that means yes.”
“Up you go, then.” Stanley held out a gloved hand and helped them onto a narrow wooden bench behind the driver’s seat. “Diamond and Opal will be happy to take you on a scenic tour of the town.”
He clicked his tongue and the team lurched forward, the rows of tiny silver bells attached to their leather harnesses playing a merry tune.
She studied the storefronts as the sleigh turned onto main street, hoping to see her brothers’ last name on one of the signs. Ellery’s brief online search before she’d left home hadn’t yielded any clues as to what her brothers did for a living, nor did they show up on any of the popular social media sites.
But then again, Ellery didn’t, either. Her parents had stressed the importance of connecting with people face-to-face and encouraged Ellery to do the same.
But what if there’d been more to it than that? What if they’d been afraid that her biological family would somehow find her?
Even as the thought sprang into Ellery’s head, it felt like a betrayal.
Lord, I’m questioning everything these days...
“Whoa!”
Ellery grabbed Bea’s hand as Stanley pulled back on the reins.
The team tossed their heads in response to the abrupt command but obeyed. The center of the street seemed like an unusual place to stop, so Ellery leaned forward.
“Is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” came the cheerful response. “We’ve never been pulled over before.”
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