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“I had no idea it was your birthday in three days!” Celeste exclaimed. “We can certainly consider this an early birthday present. That would be perfect!”
She reached into the bag and pulled out a small stuffed animal.
“That’s Sparkle, from the book!” Olivia rose to see it more closely.
“That’s right. My sister made this while she was drawing the pictures for the first Sparkle book last Christmas. We have just a few of them left over from the original hundred or so she made and I wondered if you might like one.”
Olivia’s eyes went huge. “Really? I can keep it?”
“If you want to.”
“Oh, I do!” Almost warily, she reached for the stuffed animal Celeste held out. When it was in her hands, she hugged it to her chest as if afraid someone would yank it away.
For just a moment, as Flynn watched, his daughter looked like any other young girl, thrilled to be receiving a present. The sheer normalcy made his throat suddenly ache with emotions.
* * *
The Cowboys of Cold Creek:
Love on the ranch!
A Cold Creek Christmas Story
RaeAnne Thayne
RAEANNE THAYNE finds inspiration in the beautiful northern Utah mountains, where the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author lives with her husband and three children. Her books have won numerous honors, including RITA® Award nominations from Romance Writers of America and a Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers and can be contacted through her website, www.raeannethayne.com.
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Contents
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
If she didn’t have thirty children showing up in the next half hour, Celeste Nichols would have been tempted to climb into her little SUV, pull out of the Pine Gulch library parking lot and just keep on driving.
She shifted the blasted endlessly ringing cell phone to the crook of her shoulder while she sorted through the books scattered across her cubicle in the offices of the library to find what she would be reading for story hour.
“I told you earlier in the week, I’m not ready to make a decision about this yet.”
Joan Manning, her and Hope’s long-suffering literary agent, gave a low, frustrated sound of disapproval. “We can’t hold them off much longer. We’ve already stalled for two weeks. They want to start production right after the holidays, and they can’t do that without signatures from you and Hope.”
Celeste gazed down at a copy of Dr. Seuss’s perennial holiday favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. She had a feeling she was the one being the Grinch here. Hope was completely on board with the extraordinary offer one of the leading animation companies had made for movie rights to their book, Sparkle and the Magic Snowball.
Celeste was the one who couldn’t quite be comfortable with the idea of someone else taking control of her words, her creation, and turning Sparkle into an animated movie, complete with the attendant merchandising and sublicensing. A fast-food chain was already talking about making a toy for its kids’ meals, for crying out loud.
The whole journey of the past twelve months seemed like a bizarre, surreal, completely unbelievable dream.
A year ago she had known exactly who she was—an unassuming children’s librarian in the small town of Pine Gulch, Idaho, in the western shadow of the Teton Mountain Range.
Now, to her immense shock, she was a celebrated author about to see the release of her second children’s book
