Free A Christmas Miracle in Pajaro Bay (Pajaro Bay Series Book 6) by Barbara Cool Lee

A Christmas Miracle in Pajaro Bay
    M att DiPietro stood on the steps of the old Pajaro Bay Lighthouse, staring out into the darkness.
    It was a clear night. Not a wisp of fog. As icy cold as it got on the central coast of California in late December. Matt put his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
    He had needed a break. They both had. He had been spending his Christmas Eve working on a report for the Project, his former employers. He had promised to brief them on one of the Moreno cartel's obscure hideouts in the mountains.
    He had no idea why they needed the information, but it was no longer his problem. He would brief them and be done with it. He knew his wife hated these old ties to his past life, but he still felt an obligation to help, if he could.
    Lori was inside the lighthouse, working away in the little kitchen. Its cherry red Aga stove radiated warmth as she finished batch after batch of Christmas cookies: gingerbread men and oatmeal scotchies, cinnamon twists and chocolate-dipped biscotti. The baking was going on feverishly, though it was almost ten p.m. on this Christmas Eve.
    He knew what she was doing. She was avoiding thinking by working, baking, and fussing over the stove. She was keeping herself busy instead of dealing with what they both weren't ready to face.
    Neither of them had gone into the little bedroom down the hall. The door stayed closed to block the sight of the blue sailboat poster on the wall, and the little seashell mobile that Hector, the eccentric and addled old surfer, had insisted on giving them. The room was chock-full of decorations: the teddy bear from Father Anselm, the storybook prints from his sister, and Hector's handmade mobile, hanging crookedly above the empty little crib.
    Matt knew he would eventually give away all the things they had gathered for the baby who would never come.
    But not tonight.
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    R icky heard the cry of the gulls over the roar of the big cigarette boat's motors. All around him the sea was blackness, except for the white of the foam kicked up in the wake of the powerful craft.
    The trail of white trailed behind him. Nothing else. So far. But he was sure he was being followed.
    He held tightly to the wheel. The array of display screens in front of him were lit up, the only lights he saw for miles around. He was driving through the deep water without running lights, going faster than he'd ever gone in his life, but it wasn't fast enough.
    He wondered how long he had.
    He had never driven a boat like this. But he had filled the gas tank before. That had been one of his jobs when he'd worked for the Moreno cartel, and he remembered how it had seemed like he was pumping oceans of gas into the huge tanks of the cigarette boats. Much larger than the little panga boats he grew up with, these million-dollar speedboats were built to cross stretches of open water at incredible speeds. But that speed came at a cost.
    Fuel.
    He looked at the displays and tried to figure it out. Even at his best he wasn't good with numbers. He didn't know how the kilometers on the navigation screen compared to the fuel gauge. Did he have enough gas to make it all the way to Pajaro Bay?
    He had to make it. He was going to pay back the Shadow if it was the last thing he ever did. If he was going to die, he was going to make sure the score was evened up before he left this life.
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    T he timer went off and Lori put on the red oven mitt, stepped over the sleeping black German Shepherd, and opened the door of the cast-iron stove.
    The cookies smelled wonderful. She pulled them out and set them on the top of the Aga to cool.
    She was running out of places to put the cookies. The table was full, and the top of the stove wouldn't take one more baking pan. This would have to be the last batch. She needed to start boxing up the cookies so she could take them to the family dinner tomorrow.
    It struck her that she had baked at least one cookie for every person in Pajaro Bay. Even as large as