Читать книгу The Lawman's Christmas Wish - Линда Гуднайт, Линда Гуднайт - Страница 10

Hair rose on the back of Amy’s neck. Of all the arrogant, overreactive statements! She bit back a sharp retort while trying hard to see Reed’s point. Ten seconds later she gave up. His point was ridiculous. Besides, the idea of moving in with Reed, for any reason, made her feel…funny.

“Don’t be silly.” She spun away and stalked out of the bedroom. Sammy and Dexter followed, little legs sprinting to keep up. They knew from experience that when Mommy moved, she moved fast.

She was already down the wooden staircase and making the turn toward the ransacked kitchen when Reed caught up with her. He grabbed her elbow. Amy stopped, not that she had much choice with fingers of steel and nearly two hundred pounds of muscle latched on to her.

“Come on, Amy, be reasonable. You have to.”

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.

The malamute in the passenger seat listened in silence, head cocked, his one good eye sympathetic. Reed reached across to ruffle the thick, dark fur. Cy was a lot easier to talk to than most humans, and a lot more dependable. A few years back, he’d given an eye to protect his owner, a fact that had earned him the right to sleep on the foot of Reed’s bed. Reed Truscott put a lot of stock in loyalty. It was what had gotten him into this dilemma with Amy in the first place. “Aw, Ben.”

As much as he missed his good friend Ben James, he couldn’t imagine how hard the man’s death was on Amy. But Amy was a whirlwind, staying so busy with saving the world—or at least with saving Treasure Creek—that she didn’t realize how much she needed a man’s help. She’d give him an ulcer if he wasn’t careful.

With a sigh, he ran a weary hand down his face. He hadn’t slept well since this mess over the treasure had started. Actually, he hadn’t slept well since Ben’s death. Nightmares brought him back to that moment on the rapids when Ben threw himself into the icy water to rescue a capsized tourist and never returned. Some friend Reed Truscott proved to be.

With a groan, he tried to focus on something else. Thinking of his part in Ben’s death drove him crazy. He’d been helpless then and he felt helpless now. But he still believed he should have done something.

He’d never told Amy about Ben’s final moments but he replayed them often in his thoughts. Reed could almost feel the icy, snow-laden wind of that horrible January day, the slippery, snowpacked rocks beneath his feet, and the taste of fear in his mouth as he ran toward the river, sliding, falling, only to scramble to his feet and fall some more. He knew the capsized kayak was too far out and the rapids too wild and frigid, but he tried anyway. Long after Ben disappeared beneath the foam, Reed had searched by raft and on foot, and with every step, every stroke of the oar, he’d chanted his promise to care for Ben’s family.

Though a search party eventually arrived, he’d been the one to find Ben’s broken body hours later, far downstream—a sight that was burned into his memory with painful clarity. While he’d held his friend in his arms, knowing he and no one else must take the news to Amy, he sobbed his grim promise one last time.

He’d told her that night, and in the process, he proposed marriage. He thought it was the right thing to do. The thing Ben wanted. Amy hadn’t agreed.

To make matters more insane, shortly thereafter Amy had been interviewed by Now Woman magazine. She talked about the handsome tour guides who worked for her, in an effort to promote the business, and now every love-starved female in the Lower 48 had converged upon the tiny Alaskan settlement noted for having more males than female residents.

“Maybe not every love-starved female,” he conceded to his canine companion. “But too many.”

Several had made a play for him, which just proved their desperation.

Still, a few of his buddies were now engaged or married because of that influx of females. They seemed happy about it, too. Not that he gave a frozen frog about love or marriage. He was too busy trying to keep the peace amongst all the ones who did.

Turning down Treasure Creek Lane, the town’s main thoroughfare, he eased the Explorer over the snow-dusted street and into a parking spot outside the brightly painted facade of Alaska’s Treasures tour company. Amy’s business matched the other rustic-looking buildings—bright paint, clapboard and turn-of-the-century style.

Treasure Creek remained much as it had been in the Gold Rush Days. So much so that a man could close his eyes and imagine the rinky-tink of piano and the clip-clop of horse hooves that had filled the town a hundred years ago.

He climbed out of the SUV and sucked in the chilly smell of snow coming down out off the mountains. Treasure Creek enjoyed mild winters, comparatively speaking, and today’s temperatures around freezing felt almost balmy. Black night would be upon them soon, and even now the streetlights sent a weak glow over the piles of shoveled snow. Dark or light, tired or rested, duty called the sheriff of Treasure Creek.

Amy employed a tight-knit group. The guides and office staff would want to know about the break-in.

“Come on, boy,” he said to the waiting dog.

Cy leaped happily to the ground and shook out his fur, eager for exercise. His warm breath puffed gray around his muzzle as he hopped onto the curb. Reed moved more slowly, as tired today as he’d been as a teenager when he’d labored long hours on the freezing deck of a crab boat.

As far as his father, Wes Truscott, was concerned, his son was a dead weight who should be able to earn his keep. Reed had then, and he would now. Treasure Creek depended on him to keep its citizens safe. And that included Ben’s widow.

Inside the small office of Alaska’s Treasures tour company, he was greeted by the toasty, warm smell of fresh coffee and the friendly smile of Rachel Adams, Amy’s receptionist. His belly growled, a reminder that his last meal had been somewhere around six this morning at Lizbet’s Diner. Granny Crisp would have a hot meal in the microwave if he ever made it home.

“Amy’s place was broken into,” he said without fanfare.

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.