The Lawman's Christmas Wish

Keeping her tone even, she said, “No, Reed. I don’t. Now, kindly let go of my arm.”

Reed glanced down at the place where he gripped and dropped her arm like a hot potato. He took half a step back, swallowed hard and looked about as comfortable as a grizzly in a tutu. If she wasn’t so annoyed, Amy would have felt sorry for him.

“You’re not safe here.” Reed’s words were ground out with all the gentle persuasion of a pencil sharpener. “You need protection.”

“I can take care of myself.” When the police chief looked as if he would argue, she held up one finger—and discovered the thing was still trembling. She yanked it down to her side.

“The subject is closed. I am not leaving my home.”

Especially to move in with Reed. The idea of being in the same house day after day with him was—well—strange. Uncomfortable for some reason—though they’d been friends forever. Maybe that was the point. Reed and Ben had been friends, and Ben’s final letter to her niggled at the back of her mind constantly. He’d written the usual things at first—his love for her and the boys, his faith, the business—but then, as if he’d known he would never return, Ben had asked the unthinkable. If anything happened to him, he wanted her to find someone else. And he wanted her to do it before Christmas.

Now Christmas wasn’t that far away. Neither was Reed Truscott.

Fact of the matter, he and the boys dogged her footsteps all the way into the kitchen. Reed stalked her like a grizzly—and growled like one, too. Her sons had the deer-in-the-headlights look as their eyes volleyed between her and the police chief. Neither said a word. Dexter, she noticed, edged up against Reed’s leg. The police officer dropped a wide hand on her son’s small shoulder. Emotion curled in Amy’s belly, but was snuffed as quickly as a candle in gale force winds.

“I’m not suggesting anything illicit. My grandmother lives with me,” Reed said, still grumbling and insistent. “It’s not like we’re in love or anything.”

Amy fought down a blush. Illicit? In love? An uncomfortable flutter invaded her chest. Reed Truscott had to be the most confusing man on the planet.

To avoid his penetrating gaze, she turned a chair upright. Egg dripped off the seat cushion, the smell ripe. She curled her nose. Cleaning would take forever.

Keeping her voice even and cool, Amy said, “I think the world of your grandmother.” Irene Crisp was a tough little sourdough who looked as if a good Chinook wind would blow her away. But looks were deceiving with Granny Crisp as well as with Amy. Reed should know that. “But I can take care of myself and my boys.”

“You don’t know what you’re up against.”

It was so like Reed to shoot out orders and expect them to be obeyed. Granted, he was a great cop and often right, though not in this case. “I appreciate your concern, Reed. Really, I do.”

But she didn’t want to hear another word about moving in with a man who could propose a loveless marriage and not understand why she turned it down.

With the subject closed—at least in her mind—she took Sammy’s hand to stop him from going farther into the messy kitchen.

“Why don’t you and Dexter go into the living room and watch TV while Mama cleans up?” she said to the upturned face. “Then I’ll make some dinner, and everything will be back to normal.”

Sammy wasn’t buying it. He stuck a thumb in his mouth and shook his head. He hadn’t sucked his thumb in a long time. Not since Ben’s funeral. Dexter didn’t move from his position next to Reed, but his gray eyes remained wide and worried.

Amy’s heart pinched. She crouched down to their level. “Boys, we’re okay. The bad guys are gone.”

Sammy’s wet thumb popped from his mouth. “Will they come back?”

Amy pressed her lips together and couldn’t keep from looking at Reed. If he said one word—

“Whoever broke in wasn’t kidding around, Amy. Look at this place.” Reed made a wide arc with one arm, taking in the scattered belongings, opened drawers and spilled foods.

“They will keep trying to find that treasure.”

“Thanks a lot, officer,” she said with a tinge of sarcasm. To the boys she said, “Tonight we’ll make a tent in your room and all of us will sleep together. Just like one of Mama’s wilderness tours. You can be the guides and I’ll be the cheechako. Okay?”

Sammy nodded at the idea of Mama behaving like a green-horn, but Dexter, wise and old at nearly five, was silent.

“I’m serious, Amy,” Reed said. “You can’t stay here. You have to let me help.”

Help was one thing. Moving into his house was quite another. “No thief is going to run me and my babies out of the only home we’ve ever known.”

She and Ben had spent blood, sweat and tears remodeling this old house that her ancestor, Mack Tanner, had built for his reluctant bride more than a hundred years ago. It was old and crotchety and drafty in the brutal months, but the place had character and was filled with love and wonderful memories.

Reed shifted heavily and it occurred to her, reluctantly, that he was as exhausted by the last few months as she was. Like her, Reed would not back down. His sense of duty was legendary. And it was that sense of duty that bothered Amy. She didn’t want to be anyone’s “duty.”

“What if they come back?” he asked.

Her blood chilled at the thought. She rubbed her palms along the arms of her sweater.

“I’ll manage,” she said, with more bravado than she felt. She was single-handedly running a business, booking tour guides, dealing with love-hungry women, directing the annual church Christmas pageant and raising two little boys. She might be tired, but she could handle anything. “I’m not helpless, you know.”

Dark eyes narrowed in Reed’s rugged, weather-tanned face. “Never said you were.”

She jammed a fist on one hip. “Same as.”

Reed rolled his eyes heavenward. “You are the most exasperating…”

Amy couldn’t help smiling. “Okay, tough man, why would your house be any safer than mine?”

“Granny is there. I’m there. Cy is there. We can protect you.”

Amy scoffed. “Cy wouldn’t hurt a hot biscuit.” The malamute was gentle as a kitten.

“And—” he held up a finger as if to stop her argument “—my place sits off the road, up an incline that requires a four-wheel drive and a lot of patience to climb. It’s backed by a mountain. No one can get to you there. Come on, Amy. Be reasonable.”

Amy softened. Reed really was trying to do the right thing. He was misguided but well intentioned. “I’m not afraid to stay here.” Not much anyway. “God has always taken care of me, and He won’t let me down now.”

Reed gave one grunt that let her know what he thought about that. His brown eyes glazed over and Amy suspected that he was thinking of Ben. Well, so was she. God had carried her through the nightmare of loss and the last year of struggling to make ends meet and to keep the town afloat. Without faith in God to sustain her, she would have given up.

Reed’s gaze came back to hers. Jaw tight, he said, “Ben would expect me to take care of you.”

Amy’s hackles jumped up like barking dogs. Reed’s twisted sense of loyalty to her dead husband was the final straw.

“I said no, Chief Truscott, and I meant it.”

Reed was still stewing as he guided his Explorer back to the police station.

“She’s going to get herself hurt, and then what?” If anything happened to Amy or her boys, he wasn’t sure what he would do. A man could only live with so much guilt.

For one minute there, he’d been tempted to snatch her up, toss her over his shoulder like some barbarian, and drag her kicking and screaming to his place. Amy brought out the worst in him.

He shifted in the seat. Amy brought out something else in him, too.

“She’s Ben’s wife. End of story.”

Only, Ben was gone.