A Christmas Miracle for Daisy

Chapter One

‡

It was a parent’s worst nightmare, the kind of thing that kept one awake at night, worrying.

And then it happened, on the day before Halloween, on the day Daisy had gone to school as the Disney fairy Periwinkle, the frost fairy. Daisy had been so happy, so excited to wear her pretty sparkly tulle skirt and satin and sequin fairy wings.

He could see her as he’d left her in her classroom. Beaming, blowing him kisses, thrilled that there would be a Halloween class party and that the Pre-K class got to parade through the whole school, visiting all the classes, even the big kid classes in junior high.

He’d left her reluctantly, wishing he could be there to watch the parade but he had a meeting in Los Angeles, an important meeting that couldn’t be missed. And so he kissed the top of her head and watched her dance over to the other little girls clustered around the white board and walked out, heading for the parking lot.

Cormac had made it to his meeting and was still in it when the first text hit his phone.

School on emergency lockdown.

And then the next. Live shooter on campus.

Cormac left the meeting immediately, dashing to his car but it was slow getting out of Los Angeles, traffic thick, snarling the 405 South until he sat wedged between trucks and cars south of Huntington Beach, unable to move in any direction.

His worst fear had come true.

Daisy needed him and he couldn’t get to her.

He couldn’t help her. There was nothing he could do.

Nothing until it was all over, and while the situation lasted—two hours, forty-three minutes, and a handful of seconds—Cormac Sheenan suffered, struggling with the reality that his four-year-old was in danger while he sat trapped in his car on one of the biggest freeways in Southern California.

Cormac Sheenan hated being helpless.

He didn’t believe in helpless. Helpless was for the weak and those who couldn’t make decisions, and he was neither.

But during the San Clemente elementary school lockdown there was nothing he could do but wait for the next text to arrive. After the first messages from the school and sheriff’s department, the rest of the texts came from the frantic parents, parents like him who couldn’t get to the school, and then the parents who were there, but stuck behind yellow police tape and desperate for information.

The text exchanges were nauseating. Horrifying. Live shooter. School on lockdown. First responders on scene but unable to enter school until the police and sheriff had secured the premises. One or more hit. A dozen ambulances on scene.

Cormac didn’t know where the shots had been fired on the school grounds. He didn’t know if children had been hit. He didn’t know if Daisy’s Pre-K class was involved.

He didn’t know anything and the lack of information, and the inability to reach his daughter, pushed him to the edge.

He’d picked this school because it was small and set up on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The view from the school was stunning and he’d liked the tranquility of the setting and the warmth and efficiency of the staff.

Now he questioned everything.

His decision to enroll Daisy in a Pre-K class. His business interests, scattered all over the country. His ability to be a single parent.

And sitting there, so helpless, Cormac felt something in him crack.

He wasn’t a spiritual man. He didn’t talk to God. But inching along on the freeway, desperate to reach his daughter who had to be absolutely terrified, Cormac found himself praying.

Keep her safe.

Keep her safe.

She’s had enough grief and loss in her four years.

Keep her safe and I’ll change.

I’ll change. I’ll be a better man. I promise.

By the time he finally reached Daisy’s school, a heavily armed SWAT team was escorting children out, releasing them one by one to their parents.

Daisy ran towards him, her fairy wings gone, the tulle skirt of her costume torn. She was tearful but in one piece. He scooped her up and held her tightly, so grateful to have her in his arms.

His little girl needed to be safe, and as he rocked her, comforting her, Cormac realized he was done with the traffic and noise and chaos of Southern California. He was throwing in his towel, walking away from the congested sprawl of Los Angeles and Orange County and returning to Montana. Not just anywhere in Montana, but Marietta. It was the one place he never thought he’d call home again, but he was a father now, and he needed to put Daisy first.

Marietta was a good place for families, a good place for children. He’d put his house in San Clemente on the market immediately.

But he wasn’t just moving Daisy to Marietta. He was relocating his corporate office, too. If his staff didn’t like the idea of relocating to Montana, then they could find another job.

Chapter Two

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Whitney Alder stood woozily in the very long

line at the Denver pharmacy, waiting to pick up a prescription, feeling much like a sailor at sea.

She’d caught a bug earlier in the month after attending a conference in New York City. She’d taken a few days off, then returned to work but the bug had lingered on, settling into her chest, turning into bronchitis and now, walking pneumonia.

Her doctor today agreed it was time to get her on antibiotics, and had phoned in a prescription and Whitney was grateful to finally get some medicine, but could barely think, much less see straight. The blaring Christmas music didn’t help, Sleigh bells ring, are you listening, mocking the orange and black Halloween decorations festooning the long pharmacy glass window.

Whitney didn’t know which was more jarring: Christmas carols on October 30th, or that someone in the pharmacy had taken the time to cover the long window with beady-eyed rats, fanged spiders, and dancing skeletons.

Inching closer to the front of the line—apparently everyone in Denver was sick today—Whitney fished out her phone as it vibrated in her coat pocket. Andi, her assistant at Sheenan Media, had sent a text. Something big is happening! Call me!!!

Whitney didn’t feel like calling anyone, but Andi was not an alarmist. If Andi was writing with multiple exclamation marks, something indeed was happening.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Whitney asked, phoning Andi.

“I just thought you should know that there’s a big meeting with Sheenan Media’s executive team going on behind closed doors. It started an hour ago and they’re all still in the boardroom.”

As Creative Director for the media group, Whitney was part of the publishing division’s executive team. Normally she’d be at a meeting like that but she’d been out of the office for the past few days with her bug. “Do you know what it’s about?”

“I don’t know all the details yet, but Jeff had already gone home for the day and then suddenly he’s back, calling an emergency meeting and they’re all still locked in the boardroom at four o’clock on a Friday. That’s not normal.”

Whitney had to agree with her. That wasn’t normal. “And you have no idea at all what this is about?”

“I heard it has to do with Cormac Sheenan. He emailed all his corporate executive vice presidents but I don’t know what he said. Only it must be big, because Jeff is never in on Friday afternoons, and not late on the afternoon of his annual Halloween party.”

“Try to find out what’s what,” Whitney said.

“I will.”

*

Whitney didn’t hear from Andi again and spent the weekend trying not to worry about the Friday afternoon emergency meeting and what it could mean. From experience, though, a late afternoon meeting of the executive team, called on the spur of the moment, and held behind closed doors, meant change.

Had Sheenan Media been sold?

Or had Cormac Sheenan sold off the magazine division from Sheenan Media?

She didn’t want to speculate, and she didn’t want to worry, because it might be nothing. It might be a change that had nothing to do with her, or her own creative team. Maybe Jeff was being replaced. Maybe one of the other executive vice presidents was being replaced. It could be anything. She shouldn’t let her imagination run away with her. Monday would be here soon enough and she’d get the facts then.

*

Whitney arrived at the office early Monday morning, thinking she’d get in before everyone else arrived and be able to go through the mail on her desk and get caught up while it was quiet. But stepping out of the elevator to the fourteenth floor, she discovered that most of the lights were on, and people were at their desks even though it wasn’t even seven thirty yet.

She was just sitting down at her desk when Jeff Klein, the group publisher, and her immediate boss, rapped on her open door. “You have a minute?”

She stood back up, and gestured for him to come in. “I do.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Better. The antibiotics kicked in, thank goodness.”

“Well, don’t push too hard. Make it a half-day if you need to.”

“Thanks.” She looked expectantly at him. “So what’s up?”

“At nine thirty today, there’s going to be an announcement. I wanted you to hear before the news broke—”

“We’ve been sold.”

Jeff shook his head. “No. Nothing as bad as that.”

“But it isn’t good news.”

“It’s definitely a change. A big change.” He hesitated. “Cormac Sheenan is closing his personal offices in Southern California, and all regional offices, creating one big corporate office in Montana.”

Whitney sat down abruptly on the edge of the chair. “What?”

“Cormac sent an email to the executive vice presidents late Friday informing us of his plans. He is going to break the news to everyone at nine thirty in a company-wide email, but he’d wanted his executive team to hear it first, to make sure we were on board.”

“Which you’re not, right? You can’t be.” She searched his face. He looked tired, and stressed. “Do you really intend to move to Montana?”

“Definitely considering it.” He shrugged. “How can I not? I have a great job. It’s my dream job, and I’m paid really well, too.”

“What about your wife? What does Susan say? Is she good with this?”

“We are all in shock, but she’s not opposed to Montana. She’d definitely rather go to Bozeman than a big city like New York or Detroit.”

“So that’s where the new corporate office will be? In Bozeman?”

“Actually, in Marietta. It’s where Cormac was raised. Marietta is a small town thirty-five miles east of Bozeman.”

Whitney closed her eyes, pressed her fingertips to her brow. She knew exactly where Marietta was. She’d grown up in Bozeman. Had played her fair share of volleyball games in Marietta and Livingston. Marietta was a small town. A very small town…

“This is a tough time to move, with the holidays approaching,” Jeff added. “And Cormac realizes he can’t expect everyone to move over Thanksgiving and Christmas, so he’s giving people the next sixty days to prepare for the move, with the expectation that staff be in Marietta at the start of the new year. Those who don’t choose to relocate will receive a severance package.”

“He’s moving hundreds of people to Marietta?”

“I think he anticipates most will go, and then he’ll fill in the gaps once we’re in Montana, hiring from the community. I’m sure HR will start reaching out to headhunters in the coming weeks as well.” Jeff paused. “I know it’s a shock, but you’re going to go, too. Right?”

Whitney didn’t even need time to think about her answer. She was from Bozeman. She’d been raised in Montana. It was a great state, a beautiful state, but there was no way she could return to live there now, and definitely not as part of Sheenan Media.

“I don’t think so,” she said quietly. “I love Denver. This is home now.”

*

The email from Cormac Sheenan arrived in her inbox at precisely nine thirty a.m.

The man himself entered her office at ten.

Cormac didn’t knock or make a sound. The only indication that someone was there—that he was there—was the prickle at her nape and the woosh of awareness that she wasn’t alone.

Lifting her head, Whitney spotted him standing across from her desk, hands in his pockets, expression faintly mocking.

“Good morning,” he said.

She laid her pen down, regarded him steadily. It was almost two years since she’d last seen him and he hadn’t changed. If anything, he was even more ruggedly handsome. Still tall, fit and tan, his dark blonde hair now had bits of white gold in places from the hours he spent in the water.

This morning his square jaw was clean shaven, highlighting the masculine angles, but she knew how much he loved to skip shaving on the weekends, as well as how good he looked with day-old stubble.

“Morning,” she said coolly, biting down on the inside of her lip

to keep the emotion from her voice. Not just because Cormac valued reason, not emotion, but because she refused to show weakness in front of him. He’d use any weakness to his advantage, as he always had. It was the Cormac Sheenan way.

“It’s been awhile,” he said, crossing the floor to drop into one of the leather chairs flanking her desk.

She opened her mouth to tell him she hadn’t invited him in, or offered him a seat in her office, but checked the words. They’d just sound angry. Bitter. Which would immediately put her at a disadvantage. Better to think this through. Choose her words with care. “Yes, it has.”

“Almost two years,” he said, extending his long legs out, his elbows propped on the arms of the chair, the fabric of his shirt straining over his thick biceps.

She didn’t want to notice his biceps. Or his gray-green eyes. Or the hard beautiful lines of his face.

Instead she focused on what he’d taken from her. On how he’d cheated her.

The lawsuit had been horrendous. It had been devastating to not just lose April, but then to lose her best friend’s daughter, too. Daisy had been in her life since birth. And then suddenly she was gone. Suddenly everyone was gone.

After the disastrous conclusion to the custody battle, Whitney wanted out, away from Cormac, but the publishing group, headed by Jeff, didn’t want to lose her. He’d fought to keep her and she agreed to stay on, as long as she didn’t have to work with Cormac. Cormac promised to keep his distance. And he had, until today.

Just seeing him lounging across from her made her insides rise and fall, and she’d never liked those loop-de-loop rollercoasters. She didn’t enjoy that much adrenaline. And Cormac Sheenan was pure adrenaline.

Once upon a time that had been a good thing. But not anymore.

“This is a….surprise,” she said, struggling to slow her pulse. It was difficult when she was so aware of him filling the chair, filling her office, making her heart race as if it remembered how she’d once felt about him. As if it remembered how much she’d loved him. Wanted him.