Excerpt: A Morning Glory Christmas

Chapter 1

Cee Cee Martinez passed her sour mood off on the weather. After all, she had to have something to blame her bad temper on, didn’t she? It would have been easier to say she had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed—we’ve all done that a time or two, haven’t we?—but it seemed a lie. She hadn’t left her four-poster, queen-size bed via any but the most ordinary means.

She could have rationalized her foul temper away by attributing it to the Monday-morning back-to-work blues. Everyone got those once in a while, didn’t they? But saying that wouldn’t be true either. Cee Cee loved Mondays. Most Mondays. This one? Not so much.

The weather. It had to be the lousy weather. Where else could she find such a willing, totally innocuous butt for her snarliness?

To top it off, Cee Cee was running late. That didn’t help her mood any. It never did. Not one bit.

Taking a final glance toward the unplugged, nearly cooled coffee pot, she grabbed her purse and the two loaves of pumpkin bread she had baked the previous evening and headed for the door, bracing to face the day ahead. With a grumble, she dropped her chin and pulled open the heavy front door.

It had snowed overnight, something not unheard of in upstate New York but, nonetheless, a point of contention on this particular morning. It wasn’t so much the snow that annoyed Cee Cee. She liked snow—under ordinary circumstances, that it. And in its proper time frame.

Today? Nothing ordinary about the day ahead. And the timing? To be perfectly honest, Cee Cee thought this snowstorm’s timing stank. It was the week before Thanksgiving. No time for snow now, when everything—and everyone—seemed to be dancing at double speed. Snow this early in the season could only mess things up—more than they were already messed, that is.

Cee Cee stepped out onto the wide, stone stoop and pulled the door shut behind her. Despite the familiar click of the heavy security lock she’d had installed a few years earlier, she twisted the knob in her hand and pushed against the door. It stayed firmly closed. Cee Cee gave it a last jiggle before she deemed it locked. She made her way down the steps, one white-knuckled hand holding onto the wrought-iron railing for dear life.

The death grip saved her. On the final step before the walkway, Cee Cee’s heel slipped. She would have fallen had she not been grasping the railing. Annoyance—but not surprise—shot through her.

“Just what I need, to break my neck in a stupid November snowstorm,” Cee Cee muttered. She tottered but didn’t fall. When she found her center of gravity and was certain—or as certain as she could be given the state of the day—she began to slowly move forward. The walkway’s snow cover made for slushy going but she didn’t slip again as she made her way to the car parked in her driveway.

Jamming the key into the door lock, she went on talking to herself. “If I fell I’d probably be covered by snow before lunchtime. Mail carrier would trip on my cold, frozen body. Who would miss me? No one, that’s who.”

She slid into the seat and turned the defroster on high. A blast of cold air hit her in the face, making the beads of perspiration on her upper lip feel like ice. Cee Cee swiped at her lip with one gloved finger, careful not to smudge her lip-gloss.

“The cat, maybe,” she allowed. She snapped down the rearview mirror and scowled at her reflection. “And only because without me she’d starve to death. Yeah, I lead a great life. So jam-packed full of fun, happy times. I’ve gotten to this point and the only one who would care if I croaked would be the cat. And only because she’s too spoilt to find her own meals. Sheesh.”

When the windows cleared enough so she could see out of them, Cee Cee backed out of the drive and drove at a snail’s pace down the street. A cloud of doom settled on her shoulders, pulling them down a fraction of an inch. Her expression brought deep furrows between her eyes.

Cee Cee had grown so used to the ridges on her otherwise-flawless skin she didn’t even feel them anymore. But her dissatisfaction? She was drowning in it.

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