The Lawman's Christmas Wish (3 page)

Rachel's hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no! Is she okay?”

“Fine.” His answer was curt. “For now.”

Gage Parker, one of the best search-and-rescue guides in the business, unwound himself from a chair where he'd been jotting notes on a yellow tablet. Next to him was his new wife, Karenna, and baby Matthew, Gage's nephew. The baby was trying to walk, holding on to the leather sofa as he toddled around.

Cy, who'd been waiting patiently next to Reed, ambled over and sniffed the little guy with interest. Matthew gurgled happily and patted the dog's head with an awkward baby pat. Gage and Karenna looked at each other with besotted smiles, as if no baby had ever done anything quite this adorable. The trio looked so right for each other, Reed got that heartburn feeling in his belly again. Love did weird things to people.

“What do you mean, for now?” Karenna asked, pulling Matthew into her arms.

“You know Amy. Too trusting for her own safety.”

Gage snorted softly. “Typical.”

The two men exchanged glances. Here, at least, was someone who understood Amy's propensity for being just a little too independent. He still didn't understand why she got all huffy when he'd asked her to move in with him and Granny.
The idea made perfect sense. Staying in that rickety old house of hers made exactly none.

By now, Rachel was out from behind the desk and passing the cubicles as she headed toward the back of the office where another door led into the meeting room. There, guides and Amy met to plan tours, hash out problems and otherwise run the business of taking tourists into the Alaskan wilderness. As Reed followed the blonde receptionist, the smell of coffee increased. Maybe he could snag a cup. Amy always offered. And if he was real lucky, there might be a donut or two back here with his name on them.

Rachel opened the door and hollered, “Hey, everyone, Amy's house was broken into.”

The announcement was met with a sudden, stunned silence before chaos broke out. A chorus of concerned voices began asking questions Reed couldn't answer and expressing their general outrage that anyone would do such a thing—to Amy James, of all people. Amy, who was using everything she had to solve the town's financial crisis. Amy, who planned to donate her great-great-grandfather's treasure—worth an unknown fortune—to the town's coffers without a thought to herself. Amy, who was too stubborn to let him take care of her.

Reed took the final thought captive. He was still smarting from Amy's blunt, annoyed refusal. The truth hurt, but he got the point. Amy didn't want to be that close to him. But there was more than one way to keep his promise to protect Miss Independence. He knew Amy's employees, considered them friends. They had come to her assistance after Ben's death, and they'd stand by her now.

After a minute of noise, Reed raised one hand. “She'll need help cleaning up.”

A tiny smile pulled at his lips. He'd feel a lot better knowing she had an army of friends on the lookout.

Before he left Amy's house, he'd found boot prints in the snow beneath her bedroom window, a fact he'd shared with Amy. Even that hadn't convinced her to move to his place. Instead, she'd flounced upstairs, come back down with a baseball bat and declared the puny thing an adequate weapon. By that point he'd given up.

He'd snapped some photos of the imprints, dusted the windowsill and other likely areas for fingerprints, but he didn't hold out a lot of hope of discovering who the perpetrator was anytime soon. He'd also personally locked every open window and relocked the doors. And he'd phoned the local handyman to fix the broken window in Amy's bedroom.

No matter what Amy said, she needed more than a baseball bat and her faith in God. If God was looking out for her best interests, why had the house been broken into in the first place? And why had Ben died on those rapids? Why hadn't Reed been able to get to him in time? He'd played the scene over in his head until he was nuts, and he still couldn't understand why he hadn't been able to save his best friend.

Guilt was a wicked companion.

 

Glass tinkled against glass as the willowy blonde and emminently elegant Penelope Lear swept a pile of shards onto a dustpan held by her sandy-haired fiancé, Tucker Lawson.

Penelope paused, one hand on Tucker's shoulder. The pair didn't have to say a word for everyone in the place to see how much in love they were. Though only recently engaged, Tucker and Penelope were a match made in heaven. And in the Alaskan wilderness.

“I don't understand why someone looking for the treasure would have to break your fine glassware,” Penelope said to Amy, her tone totally disgusted.

Amy, busy sorting the ruined food from the salvageable, exchanged amused glances with Casey Donner, one of her
guides and a dear friend. Both women were as practical as rain boots. Though a dear and gentle heart, Penelope was born a city girl, a wealthy socialite whose tastes ran to the finer things in life. Since coming to Treasure Creek, she'd toughened up considerably, following a wilderness trek that had almost cost her her life. Still, her expensive haircut and manicure were signs that Penelope would always enjoy the best. Amy's dollar-store tumblers probably weren't on Penelope's wedding registry.

“Don't worry about the dishes, Penelope. I'm just glad my boys are okay.”

“Oh, Amy.” Penelope's face paled. “I get a chill thinking about what might have happened if you had arrived home sooner.”

So did Amy. Even now she dreaded the moment everyone would leave. No matter what she'd told her sons and Reed, she was badly shaken by the incident. The notion that some unknown enemy had handled her personal belongings inside the home she considered a sanctuary left her feeling violated and vulnerable.

Vulnerability was a luxury she couldn't afford.

“The important thing is she didn't.” Nate McMann, one of her part-time, ultramasculine guides looked as out of place as Penelope as he crouched in front of the refrigerator with a scrubbing sponge. With his cowboy boots and Wrangler jeans, the rancher was more at home wrangling a five-hundred-pound steer than cleaning house.

“Aren't you scared to stay here by yourself?” Penelope asked, a tiny frown furrowing the perfect brow.

“I'll be fine,” Amy said, but her thoughts returned to that moment of panic when she'd looked down the darkened hallway and wondered who might be lurking. A nervous knot spread from her belly to her shoulders.

“You could spend the night with me,” Casey offered,
expressing concern. Wearing her usual cargo pants and unisex thermal shirt, Casey Donner was tomboy-tough, with a reputation for being as strong and capable as a man, even though, beneath the strength she was every bit a woman. As oilman Jake Rodgers had happily discovered.

“I appreciate the offer, Casey.” Amy glanced toward the breakfast nook where Karenna Parker was playing with the boys and baby Matthew to keep them out of the way. “But I don't want my sons to think there's any reason to be afraid.”

“But there
is
a reason, Amy,” Penelope said with a graceful shiver. “You could get hurt.”

Amy rubbed at the back of her neck. A headache was starting, and she was certain it was from tension. But running away from a problem never solved anything, and she was telling the truth when she said she didn't want her boys to know there was a reason to be afraid. Still, talking about the break-in upset her more than she wanted them to know.

“I'm glad all of you are here now. That's what matters. Let's just forget the other for a while, okay?”

Her friends exchanged glances and a silent agreement seemed to circle the room. No more talk of the break-in.

Nate dipped a pair of sponges into a bucket of soap suds and squeezed. Ketchup bloodied the water. “Business was slow anyway.”

Amy forced her gaze from the red water and the reminder that she or the boys could have been hurt—that instead of ketchup, someone could have been cleaning away blood. “No calls this afternoon?”

Her voice sounded high and strained, even to her own ears. The last thing she or the town needed after the miniboom of that last few months was a dead week. Without tourists, the town could not survive.

Rachel looked up from the kitchen sink where she was washing anything anyone stuck in front of her. If the
company's receptionist had closed the office, business must have been really slow.

“A few. Don't worry.” Rachel waved a drippy skillet.

“Snowmobile and ski season is upon us. We'll be wildly busy around Christmas and New Year's when the schoolkids are out on break.”

“You're right, of course. The Lord has brought us this far. He won't let us fail now.”

The pep talk was more for herself than anyone. Exhausted both physically and emotionally, she was running on fumes.

Nate pivoted on the toes of his boots. His green eyes rested on her, placid and sure. “Bethany's already booked a couple of December weddings. We're bound to attract a few tourists from those.”

Amy's friend, Bethany Marlow, now Nate's fiancée, had returned to Treasure Creek a few months ago to establish a wedding planning business. Amy had once suffered doubts that such an enterprise was viable in the tiny town, but she'd been delightedly wrong. When Bethany moved back to Treasure Creek to set up her wedding shop, no one could have imagined how busy she would be. Although the now infamous magazine article had regenerated some unsavory interest in Amy's family's missing treasure, it had also proven a boon for the town.

The knot in her shoulders relaxed a little. Talking about weddings and business took the edge off.

“That's great news, Nate. Is the wedding party for anyone we know?” She glanced around pointedly at several faces glowing with love. Nate's was one of them.

“Not me and Bethany. At least not yet.” He grinned, teeth flashing beneath his gorgeous green eyes. “She wants to make plans. Lots of plans. Gotta be perfect.”

“Well, she
is
a wedding planner. Think of the publicity and
the business the perfect wedding could bring. Not that either of you cares about that at your own wedding.”

“You got that right.” Nate was a tight-lipped rancher and part-time guide who naturally shied away from too much attention. Those who knew him knew the big wedding plans were a sure sign of how much he loved and wanted to please his bride-to-be.

“So if it's none of us, who
is
getting married?” Penelope asked as she dumped the dustpan into a large, plastic trashbag. Amy tried not to cringe at the clatter and clink of her broken belongings.

“A couple is coming up from Seattle to be married on skis, and Bethany's making all the arrangements, including accommodations for one hundred guests.”

“A wedding on skis,” Penelope mused. “Sounds…fun.” Her expression said just the opposite.

Her fiancé, Tucker, laughed. “Does that mean you want to get married on skis, too?”

Penelope pointed a manicured nail at him. “You're cute, but you'll be even cuter in tails and a cummerbund.”

“What? No skis?” Tucker teased. “No edgy Fifth Avenue goggles? No trendy pink-and-lime ski wear?”

“Only if you wear the pink,” she said, eyes sparkling with mischief.

A couple of the rugged guides looked aghast at the conversation, but Tucker was an attorney from the city. Even though he'd spent months stranded in the Alaskan wilderness, he and Penelope weren't exactly the rugged type. But they were a perfect match. And he was the right groom for the formal wedding Penelope was planning—with Bethany's help, of course.

Amy laughed, more anxiety easing away as Tucker stalked a squealing Penelope into the darkened living room—a fitting place for two romantics to sneak a kiss.

When the pair returned a couple of minutes later starry-eyed and grinning, a twinge of envy caught Amy by surprise. She and Ben had once been like this, though the last few years, with the babies and the business, had been hectic and they'd had less time for each other.

“The B and Bs must be thrilled to have so many customers this time of year,” she said.

Casey's short brown hair bounced against her face as she nodded. “I talked to Juanita this morning at Lizbet's Diner.” Juanita Phillips owned and operated the Treasure Creek Hotel. “She said the hotel was booked solid through the New Year and already had Valentine's bookings, too. She's in shock.”

“Good shock, if you ask me,” Rachel said. “We need that kind of shock at the tour office.”

A knock sounded at the door. Anxiety, momentarily at bay during the pleasant conversation, leaped into Amy's pulse. She jumped and spun, hand flying to her throat.

“Hey.” Nate rose, giving her a worried look. He tossed the sponge into the bucket and came to stand next to her. “You okay?”

“Of course I am.” Amy forced a smile. “The knock was unexpected. That's all.” Burglars didn't knock. Did they?

Casey flipped on the back porch light and yanked the door open. The tomboy guide feared nothing. “Reed. Hi. Come in.”

Hat in hand, the tall officer stepped inside. His gaze swept the room before landing on Amy. He frowned.

All her anxieties came rushing back and brought their friends along.

A
my James was as slippery as a young salmon. No matter how hard he tried to keep an eye on her, Reed never quite felt in control of the situation. Even though he'd gone back to her house with the troubling news from Lizbet's Diner that a couple of strangers had been asking about the treasure, Amy had insisted on staying right where she was. She'd looked worried, nervous and shaken, but she'd thrust out that stubborn little chin and refused to even let him bring up the subject of moving to his place. As if he would have in front of half the town.

Short of camping on her doorstep in the frigid temperatures, all he could do was cruise past the cheerful blue dwelling every half hour after the unofficial cleanup committee gave up and went home. In a town as small as Treasure Creek, one deputy per shift was generally all the help a chief of police could afford, though during the busy seasons, Reed had a couple of part-time locals to call on. When exhaustion had overcome Reed, Deputy Ken Wallace had promised to keep an eye on Amy's place.

Eyes as gritty as sandpaper, he pulled his SUV into the garage attached to his ranch-style split-level. Dark was absolute at 2:00 a.m. in Alaska, but the dome light flared on when
he opened the door and stepped out onto the concrete. Cy hopped down beside him and waited patiently at the locked entrance leading into the kitchen.

Though the garage was refrigerator-cold and ripe with the familiar smells of oil and grease, Reed paused on the single step to remove his boots. Granny Crisp was touchy about her clean floors. He took an old towel from a nail and carefully dried Cy's paws, too. No use getting Granny in a mood. He might own the house, but Granny was in charge of keeping things neat and tidy. For a little gnat of a woman, she could tear a strip off him with her black button eyes.

In his socks, he keyed the door and entered the kitchen, the only light glowing red from the microwave and stove clock. Cy's toenails clicked against Granny's polished linoleum. Reed reached for the light over the stove just as the overhead light flicked on. Temporarily blinded, he blinked rapidly until vision returned.

Granny Crisp stood in the doorway between the dining room and kitchen, a tiny twig of humanity. In gray thermal socks, a faded, red fleece robe that had seen too many washings, and sprouts of equally faded brown hair, she looked as harmless as a child. Reed knew better. The steel strength of her dark Russian ancestry ran through her veins.

Her gaze went first to his feet. He smiled inwardly. When it came to keeping a clean house, Granny was as predictable as the sunrise.

“Supper's in the oven,” she said in her strong, blunt manner. Someone who didn't know her well might think her rude, but beneath the hard shell and sharp tongue was a loving granny who'd always been there for him.

“It's 2:00 a.m.” With everything that went on today, Reed hadn't considered dinner, but right now all he wanted was a bed.

“I can tell time.” She went to the microwave and pushed
three beeps worth of buttons. The whirring sound started. “Amy and her kids all right?”

Reed accepted his fate. He would have to eat before he could sleep. Granny's law. A working man needs to eat. He scraped a chair out and sat, leaning his forehead on the heel of his hand. “At the moment.”

“You're worried.”

“Wouldn't be up half the night if I wasn't.”

“You don't worry about the rest of the town's residents this much.”

Reed squinted at her. Granny knew him too well. “Don't start.”

“Just saying.” She slid a plate in front of him, yanked a chair away from the table and perched. Cy collapsed on the floor between them with a sigh, rested his snout on crossed feet and closed his eyes.

Reed filled a fork with a steaming cube of beef and brown gravy. “You can go back to sleep.”

“Don't want to talk about it?”

“I'll clean up my mess.”

She chuffed. “Not what I meant and you know it. Trouble's been brewing ever since word of old Mack Tanner's treasure got out again.”

“Yeah.”

“Why doesn't Amy give it up? Why not open the silly thing once and for all, so whoever wants it so badly will have to back off?”

This was Granny. Do the practical thing. Do it now. Get it over with.

“She has some notion that waiting until Christmas is good for the town. Says they need this for morale.”

“Won't do anyone any good if a lot of people get hurt.”

“No argument from me.”

Granny was silent for a few minutes while Reed chewed
and swallowed, chewed and swallowed. Reed could practically see the wheels turning in her head.

“I think I see her point.”

“You would.”

“Don't sass.” The admonition was mild and brought a grunt from Reed. “When times are hard, folks need hope. That treasure represents something bigger than the fortune it may hold.”

If he hadn't been so tired, he would have rolled his eyes. “What it represents to me is trouble.”

“In the form of a certain little redhead who doesn't know what's good for her?”

“I tried to get her to move out here with us.”

Granny cocked her head, one eyebrow rising. “That a fact?”

“Temporarily.” Reed's gaze slid away. He stabbed a piece of beef, not wanting to admit to Granny how distressed he was over Amy's refusal.

“Did you ever consider that a woman might want something more permanent in her life?”

A knot formed in his gut, a familiar phenomenon of late, with the issue of Amy and her boys ever on his mind. Granny didn't know about the ill-fated proposal. Make that
proposals.
What would she say if she did?

“She had Ben,” he mumbled, and then shoved his mouth full.

“Had.”

As if he needed another reminder that Ben was past tense and Amy James was unattached.

 

Two days after the break-in, Amy was starting to feel comfortable in her own home again. She regretted the loss of the lamp she and Ben had bought on their first anniversary, and
she was furious that her photo albums had been ripped, but overall, she, Sammy and Dexter were okay.

Now, if the chief of police would find someone else to worry about, she'd be perfect.

Okay, maybe not perfect, but surviving.

She plopped down on the foot of Dexter's bed to pull on clean socks. Since the break-in, she'd slept in with the boys. Even though she claimed the move was for them, she felt safer in their room than hers. The thought of an unknown man—if it was a man—rifling through her underwear drawer gave her the creeps.

“Mama?” Dexter jumped onto the bed next to her.

“What, baby?” Tonight was practice at the church for the Christmas pageant. Time to break out her collection of crazy Christmas socks and to put away her Thanksgiving turkey tubes.

“Do you know what the teacher asked us today?”

“What?” She paused in sliding on a pair of lighted Rudolph knee-highs to smile down at her handsome son. Dexter and Sammy attended the preschool at the church and were forever asking, “Do you know what?”

“Teacher asked what we wanted to be when we grow up. Know what I said?”

“A cliff diver?” Last year, he'd seen a TV program on the subject and declared this his life's ambition.

“Nope. A policeman. Like Chief Reed.”

Oh. “You'll make a fine police officer. Now, get your shoes on. We're leaving soon.”

Dexter somersaulted from the bed and landed loudly and in a sprawl beside his shoes. “I might be a gymnast, too.”

Amy held back a smile. “Very useful in police work.”

Little Sammy, playing happily on the rug with Hot Wheels, looked up. “When I gwow up, know what I'm gonna be?”

“What?”

His baby face full of innocent sincerity, he said, “A pink dolphin.”

Sputtering with laughter and filled with joy, Amy swooped down upon her two sons for a noisy wrestling match on the rug. No matter how stressful life became, Dexter and Sammy made every day worthwhile.

 

“Chief Truscott, welcome.”

Reed nodded politely as he ran a cautious gaze around the chaotic scene inside the sanctuary of Treasure Creek Christian Church. He preferred calm and controlled, though lately he'd settle for controlled. Calm hadn't reigned in Treasure Creek in months. He spoke before he thought. “Noisy.”

Jenny Michaels, the pastor's friendly wife, chuckled. “If you think this is noise, stop by the day care sometime.”

Reed allowed a half smile. Mrs. Michaels, in her mid-forties, with short, coifed blond hair, a moderate overbite, and a pair of reading glasses hanging around her neck, was known in town as a kind, gentle woman with a passion for children's ministry. She also ran the church's day-care center and preschool. Amy's kids attended the center. “Amy here yet?”

If the reverend's wife thought it odd that he asked after Amy James, she didn't react. Instead, she glanced at her watch. “Running late. Must have gotten delayed at the office.”

A frisson of alarm skittered along Reed's nerve endings. It was past seven and dark as pitch outside. Amy had no business being out there alone. When he'd asked earlier in the day, she'd told him she would be here tonight, directing the Christmas pageant just as she was every Tuesday night at seven. She'd also added the oft-repeated invitation for him to join the festivities. So here he was, though not to join the festivities, but to keep an eye on a certain redhead who didn't comprehend the threat to her safety.

“She should be here by now.” He reached for his cell phone and began stabbing numbers.

Mrs. Michaels lightly touched his arm. “There she is.”

Sure enough, Amy, flanked by her sons, blew through the door like a swift, fresh breeze. Reed's chest clutched. He jammed his cell phone into his pocket and stalked toward her. “Are you all right?”

Amy ground to a halt in the entry between the foyer and the sanctuary. “Reed! What a surprise. I'm glad you could make it.”

From the expression in her amused blue eyes, Amy suspected his presence at the church was not for spiritual reasons. She was right. He was here to keep an eye on her. And she wasn't cooperating.

Before he could find out why she was late, someone called her name. He glanced up to see Penelope Lear bending over a large cardboard box. “Amy, come look at the shepherds' costumes Bethany made. They're so cute.”

“Be right there.”

Before she could move, Renee Haversham came rushing toward her, trailing an electrical cord. “Amy, one of the microphones shorted out. What are we going to do?”

While she was talking to Renee, Joleen Jones appeared. Joleen was one of the newcomers, her overdone makeup and big hair a dead giveaway that Alaska was not her native land. She was a silly thing, jumping on every man in sight. Reed had an urge to run every time they met.

“Amy, Greg has the flu. Can I have his solo part? I've been practicing. Listen. ‘Fear not, for behold,'” Joleen's high-pitched, annoying voice rose as she dramatically threw one arm high into the air. “‘I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.'”

“Wonderful, Joleen. Really. But let's just pray that Greg will recover by then. We have more than three weeks.”

Joleen looked a little crestfallen, but didn't argue.

In a matter of seconds, Amy was surrounded by people, all asking questions or announcing problems for her to solve.

“Amy, who's doing the programs?”

“Check with Nadine on those. She agreed to type them up.”

“I asked her already. She has conjunctivitis. Can't use the computer.”

“I'll take care of them. Don't worry.”

“Amy, the silver glitter is on back order.”

“I'll talk to Harry. Maybe he can get it somewhere else.”

Reed watched in wonder as Amy fielded each concern with equal aplomb, all the while working her way down the aisle, away from him and toward the front, where yet another army of pageant participants waited.

He'd thought she needed protection from the treasure thieves, but now he wondered if she couldn't use a bodyguard here at church. Even with her antlike energy, the woman had to get tired.

A small, sturdy body slammed into his lower leg. Small arms twined around his kneecap. He glanced down into the serious gray eyes of Amy's older son.

“Chief Reed, are you going to be in the pageant? Mama said you'd make a great Joseph.”

Why would she say a weird thing like that? The only time he'd been in a Christmas program, he'd been ten years old and the director had cast him as an angel, complete with halo. The only reason he'd done it was the bag of candy waiting when the program ended. Well, candy and Granny Crisp. That was the last time he could remember attending church. After that, his father dragged him off to the Aleutians and a rough fisherman's way of life. Granny Crisp said he needed to get his spiritual house in order, but—well, churches made him uncomfortable. Like now, when a small boy with Ben's cleft
chin was clinging to his leg like a barnacle. He never knew what to say to kids, so he simply rested one hand on the boy's hair. Had his own hair, now coarse and springy, ever been that fine?

“Chief Reed?”

“What?” Reed said absently as he scanned the room for Amy. The tiny redhead stood on the dais, arms gesturing, trying to direct the group into their places. She looked like a red ant trying to control a herd of sheep. A really pretty red ant.

“Where's Cy?”

“In the truck.”

“Why?”

Reed glanced down. “His feet are wet.”

“Yours, too,” the boy said, looking pointedly at Reed's glistening boots.

Strike one. Try again. “No dogs in church.”

Dexter's gray eyes blinked, then widened, his voice aghast. “Doesn't Jesus like dogs?”

“Sure He does.”
I guess. I mean, how would I know?