Jane Goodger by A Christmas Waltz Page A

none of the bad things that had happened to her over the years were real.
    Amelia gave herself a bit of a shake, then took a deep breath. “I shall cross that bridge when I come to it,” she announced stalwartly. “There is nothing to do about what I’ve already done. You are right. I can only move forward and forget all this ever happened.” She clenched her fists to give herself the resolve to listen to those words of wisdom. “When are you leaving for Abilene?” she asked.
    “When am I leaving for Abilene?”
    “Surely you didn’t think I would travel there myself,” Amelia said, completely dumbfounded by his reaction.
    “You came here by yourself,” he pointed out with infuriating logic.
    Amelia could feel her eyes start to burn with tears. God help her but she’d never been this weepy in her entire life, and she refused to give in to it.
    “Hell, if you’re going to start that crying again, I’ll go.”
    Amelia lifted her chin. “I was not going to start crying and I would never use tears to manipulate a man,” she said with a certain amount of guilt. She was fairly sure she might have used tears more than once in her life to get her way with her brother. But she was not doing that now. She despised these particular tears.
    Boone narrowed his eyes at her. “I may be just a country doctor, but those sure look like tears to me,” he said.
    Amelia smiled, unable to keep her ire up. “Perhaps a smidgeon of a tear. But I am not crying. And I would very much appreciate it if you could go to Abilene for me.”
    Boone grunted what Amelia thought was consent. “I have some business there anyway,” he said.
    Just then a small furry animal seemed to appear out of nowhere, and jumped on Amelia’s lap. She let out a screech before realizing it was just a little black-and-white cat. “Oh, what a pretty kitty,” she said, then let out a small cry when she saw it was missing one eye. “Poor thing.”
    “That’s Blink,” Boone said.
    Amelia laughed. “What a positively terrible name for such a pretty girl.” The cat was kneading her lap rather painfully at the moment, but Amelia didn’t care.
    “Boy.”
    “Even so. Poor thing.”
    “You probably won’t like what I named my dog, then.”
    “The old dog out front?”
    “Three Legs.”
    Amelia’s mouth gaped open, but she let out a laugh. “I didn’t notice that particular affliction.”
    “That’s because most of the time he’s too lazy to get up. But he gets around just fine if he puts his mind to it.”
    Amelia smiled as something immense dawned on her. “You save things,” she said, as if making a great discovery.
    “I am a doctor,” he stated.
    “No. That’s not what I mean. I mean, you can’t help yourself. Julia, the cat, the dog. Me. You, Dr. Kitteridge, as disagreeable as you are, are rather nice.”
    “I never said I wasn’t.”
    “But you’ve been acting absolutely horrid to me this entire time, and you’re not horrid at all, are you?”
    “I can be if you want.”
    Amelia gave him a look of pure exasperation. “You never had any intention of making me go to Abilene by myself, did you? Be honest.”
    “Probably not,” he said, as if admitting a great flaw.
    Amelia felt a great sense of relief for some strange reason. A bit of the tension that had made the base of her head ache for days was slightly relieved. She put the cat aside, stood, and gave his cheek a quick kiss.
    “Thank you,” she said, then turned back to the cat, not noticing that Boone’s entire body turned rigid, his face to stone, as if she’d struck him, not kissed him.
     
    Boone mumbled something and left the room before he made a complete idiot of himself. It had been the most innocent of all kisses, but seeing that it was his first, it pierced his heart in such an unexpected way, it nearly drove him to his knees.

Chapter 5
    Boone had learned at an early age that something was inherently wrong with him.
    He was four years old when his mother died