Winter love

Chapter 2

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That is one extremely tall woman.

The Reverend Simmon Elrod- Elrod to his friends, and most of his parishioners- made the observation while watching the uniformed woman stride towards him.

Gliding a swift but comprehensive glace over her imposing length, Elrod judged her to be some four or five inches shorter than his own six feet four- and- half inches. Which placed her at close to six food.

Oh, yeah, she was tell, all right, he reflected, feeling a little jolt as she moved from the darkness into the glance of the spotlights. Talland shapely and drop- dead gorgeous.

Admiring the spun good colour of her hairs beneath her regulation hat, Elrod extended his hands as she came to a halt a prudent distance from him.

"Good evening," Elrod said, offering her a smile as he took a careful step closer "I'm Simmon Elrod, pastor of the church. I placed the call to the station. Sorry to have had to bring you out here so late, and on such cold night, Officer..."

"Fox," She readily supplied, removing her hands from her weapon at her waist to gasp his in an unsurprising from grip. "And responding is my job, sir, time and cold weather not withstanding. "

Elrid like the sound of her voice. It was low, kind of throaty, with a sexy hint of smokiness. He liked the feel of her hand, too, the strength beneath the softness of her skin. He felt regret, along with a tingling sensation, when she slif her palm from his.

"The report said there's been an act of desecration," she said in brisk tones. She raised golden, delicately arched eyebrows over eyes that appeared to be the exact shade of dark, rich choclate.

" Yes that's correct." Brought back to the reality of why she was there, Elrod surpressed a sigh. Turning, he indicated the crèche set up off to the side of the walkway in front of the church.
"If you follow me?"

To the ends of the earth.
Startled by the errant thought, coming as it had on top of the holy she'd experienced by the touch of his hand, Cadd compressed her lips and trailed after the right reverend across the frost- stiffened lawn.

Why in the world would she have felt that electriclike zing from his hands against here, or had such thought about a stranger? Or any man, come to that. It was experience for Cadd- and one she felt she happily could live without.

She wasn't interested in feeling intrigued by a man. Cadd had grown up in a family of law enforcement officers. She knew, better than most, the constant dear their life parents loved with everyday.

When she had taken the oath to force, Cadd had added another path to herself- that of walking her choosen path alone, without the emotional baggage of a constantly concerned husband or siginificant other.

And she certainly didn't need the distraction of a zing of awareness now. This particular man was an ordained pastor in the bargain.
Cadd upbraided herself, her now- wary eyes measuring his impressive figure.

Of course, he didn't look anything like her idea of what a minister look like; he certainly didn't look like her pastor. That gentleman was elderly, almost fragile in appearance, thin and rather smallish.

The Reverend Elrod was the exact opposite of elderly, fragile, thin and small.

Cadd's eyes swept from the top of his head to running shoes on his big feet. Six- five, she decided, and approximately one hundred and right pounds, give or take a couple of ounces. And, unless she missed her guess, precious few of those few pounds were made of fat, but pure toned muscles.

He wasn't bad to look at, either, if one found attraction in a dark- haired man with a harshly hewn bone structure, a long, thin, aristocratic nose, sculpted lips, and piercigly direct dark blue eyes.

"__ as you can see,"
The deep syrup- over- sharpen sound of his voice snagged Cadd from mists of recurve. Fortunately, his pointing finger showed her the damage inflicted, sparing her embarrassment of having ask him to repeat the first part of his remark.

Oh, yes, Cadd could definitely see, and the sight instilled in her both a feeling of sickness and a flash of outrage.

The crèche was constructed entirely of wood, from the cradle to the attending figure to the stablelike shelter in which themself appeared to Cadd to have been cut from one- half to three- quater- inch plywood, and were scaled slightly larger than life- size. They stood well over six feet tall, most likely, she figured, to be clearly seen from the road. The paint on the flat surface used to depict clothing and facial features had been aplied by a steady hand, and a talented eye for detail.

The single figure in the scene not constructed of wood was that of the child. The infant Jesus was represented by a toddler's soft-skinned baby doll. It had been lovingly wrapped in a large woolen shawl- probably belonging to a parishioner or the pastor's wife. Cadd mused. She ignored a disquitening sensation instilled by the likehood that the reverend was married.

Collectively, the crèche was a beautiful and revernt price of work, worthy of admiration and praise, not wanton vadalism.

After years on the Spurcewood Police Force, Cadd had witnessed many scene of destruction, the result of violence, the aftermath of accidents of all kinds. She had reacted to those scene with revulsion for the sheer stupidity of it all.

But this...this scene before her had a different deeper effect on Cadd. Her dance of outrage stemmed from an inner spiritually unrelated to any particular religions belief or denomination.

Apalled, a sadness constricting her chest, Cadd states for a long silent moments at the figure depicting the Virgin Mother.