The Lawman's Christmas Wish

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.”