Free A Little New Year's Romance by Katie Ingersoll Page A

nagging and tugging at her heart? Okay, so she’d had a boyfriend or two in the past, but none of them affected her the way Daniel did. Was it possible that she’d found her true love? That she was in love with him?
    No. That couldn’t be it. They’d had less than two days together. But then, every time their hands had touched, there was the sensation of millions of electrical impulses going off simultaneously over her entire body. Nobody had ever caused that reaction in her before. She suspected no one but Daniel could cause it.
    Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was in love with him. That would explain why she couldn’t stop thinking about him, and yes, even praying for him and Dylan. Although Daniel tried to be optimistic about his son’s diagnosis, she could tell that deep within he wasn’t as hopeful as he appeared.
    She’d done some research on rare bone diseases and had printed out the information on each of the five most uncommon—including the experimental treatments for them. Not knowing which one was plaguing the boy made it difficult, but she figured it was likely one of these.
    Of course, it was possible she’d wasted her time doing that. After all, she wasn’t sure Daniel ever wanted to hear from her again. Maybe she could have brought it to the church and left it for him, but there was no guarantee he’d actually get it. And she didn’t know where he lived, so she couldn’t mail it to him.
    Even though she’d considered all these things, she still felt the desire to make the sacrifice of her time to compile and print the information. Just in case.
     
    ~~*~~
     
    Daniel tried not to think about Allison, but it was a futile effort—not to mention a complete waste of time. The harder he worked to push all thoughts of her aside, the more insistent they became. He was losing sleep wondering if she was still upset with him.
    Why had he accused her of such a heinous act? What had come over him that morning? Sure, she caught him off guard with her questions, but did he have to get so defensive? He knew he was only torturing himself with all of this, but he couldn’t help it.
    Not one of his reactions that morning made any sense. That wasn’t how he truly was, but it didn’t matter any more, did it? It happened, and she’d stormed off. He hadn’t seen or heard from her since then.
    How long had it been? Four, five weeks? If she’d calmed down, she would have called him by now. Wouldn’t she? He thought most any woman would—but then, she wasn’t ‘most any woman.’ She was Allison Benton, and he couldn’t shake her image from his head.
    Dear Lord, when would he be able to forget her and have some peace again? Was it even possible that he could forget her? And even if he did, would that really bring him any peace? Why must these thoughts of her torment him so deeply?
    Of course, he already knew the answer to that last question. He was in love with her. He’d known it from the moment he first looked into those stormy grey eyes that had haunted him. He’d known since the moment she first shook his hand and he felt a thousand volts of electricity hit him.
    Yes. He was in love with Allison. Trying to stop his feelings for her would be like attempting to stop a subway train by standing in the middle of the tracks—impossible. That’s why he’d gone to her apartment building two weeks earlier looking for her. But he didn’t know which one was hers. He was lucky, though. A middle aged lady came out soon after he’d arrived, and he asked if she knew Allison. She did, but said the younger woman had already moved out. No, she didn’t know where Miss Benton went.
    He couldn’t let that be the end of it. There were ways of finding someone, and he knew just the man for the job. That same afternoon, he’d hired Albert Colson. It hadn’t taken the Private Investigator long to locate her—less than a week—and Daniel gave him a healthy bonus for his speedy work.
    Now here he was, in the early