Love, Lies & Mistletoe

by Jennifer Snow

  She didn’t. Instead, she bounced Harper on her shoulder as she paced in front of the desk.

  “Okay, send me your résumé, and I’ll have a look,” Mike said.

  “Great. Where should I send it?” she mumbled into the phone, turning her back to Victoria.

  Please, let the email address be an easy one that she wouldn’t have to write down.

  “Michael...underscore Ainsley...underscore nineteen...not the numerals, actually spelled out...at Highstone...no, wait... Did I say the nineteen?”

  Heather sighed. “Yes.” Forget it, she’d ask her brother-in-law for the email later.

  “Great. So, Michael...underscore...” The man’s voice broke into another fit of loud, throat-ripping coughs.

  Victoria moved to stand in front of her, her eyes wide. “They sound terrible—who is that?” she asked. “And why are you on the rotary?”

  “Hey, anyone notice that the connection for the network is down?” Luke asked, entering a second later.

  Heather nodded and gestured at the receiver in her hand.

  “I’ll try to fix it,” Luke said, coming around the desk.

  Sure, why don’t they all hang out there?

  He glanced at her with a frown. “Who’s dying on the phone?”

  She was.

  “Sorry, Heather. Did you get that email?”

  “Yes, sir,” she lied. “Thank you. I’ll send it right away,” she said quickly, hanging up the phone.

  Oh, my God.

  Victoria was staring at her.

  “What?”

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she asked, still bouncing Harper on her shoulder.

  “No, of course—” She stopped. She couldn’t lie to her friend. “Yes...as fast as my little legs can go.” She stood and hugged her. “I’m so sorry, Vic.”

  Victoria waved a hand. “Don’t be. I knew this wasn’t a permanent situation. It’s fine,” she choked out, as tears formed in her eyes.

  “Oh, Vic—don’t do that!”

  “They’re happy tears, see?” She faked a weird, grimace-type smile.

  Luke laughed behind the desk. “Yep, those are happy tears.”

  Heather shot him a look. “Nothing is definite yet. I haven’t even sent my résumé.”

  “What company is it?”

  “Highstone Acquisitions.”

  Victoria’s eyes widened. “That’s wonderful! I applied there three times when I worked for Clarke and Johnston.”

  Heather frowned. “I never knew that. Why didn’t you tell me? My brother-in-law works there—I probably could have gotten you an interview.”

  “You were dating our boss, remember? Not exactly a trustworthy vault back then,” she said, looking envious. “So if Rob works there, you’re sure to get the position.” She didn’t sound thrilled.

  “Not necessarily,” Heather said, but she prayed Victoria was right.

  “Well, if you need a reference or anything...”

  “No offense, Vic, but I don’t think I’ll be adding front desk clerk to my résumé.”

  “I meant a coworker reference from when we worked together at Clarke and Johnston,” she said, playfully slapping her arm.

  Heather smiled at her friend. Nearly all traces of the high-powered, New York City woman had disappeared from her over the past few years, except for the tiniest spark in her eyes when she talked about her former life in the city. “Thanks,” she said.

  “I’m going to go feed the baby now,” Victoria said, choking up again as she left the room.

  “No crying!” Heather called after her.

  Luke checked the phone and then pointed at her. “You’re going to be crying if you remind Victoria again about how much she loved her life in New York.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “WHAT ON EARTH is that old lady doing?” Jacob mumbled, leaning low in the driver’s seat of his squad car to peer through the windshield. The people around here made no sense to him.

  Rolling down the passenger-side window as he slowed the car and pulled to the side of the road in front of Ginger Snaps, the bakery he avoided on Main Street, he called out, careful not to startle the woman and extra careful not to use the nickname he’d assigned to her. “Ginger! Mrs. Norris—what are you doing?”

  The woman was standing on a plastic step stool on the icy ground outside her bakery, holding on to the side of the building for support and using the end of a broomstick to swipe at the large icicles hanging from the awning.

  She stopped and turned to look at him. “I’m clearing the awning of icicles. You threatened me with a fine if I didn’t do it, remember?” she snapped.

  “You’re eighty years old. You shouldn’t be doing that. I meant ask someone to do it for you.” He’d noticed her granddaughter, Leigh, and her husband going inside the bakery at least once a week. And he was sure the guy was renting the space above the bakery for an office. Some bestselling author or something. Jacob may not care about the goings-on in town, but little escaped his notice.

  “I’m seventy-seven,” she said, resuming her attempt to knock them loose, swinging the broom haphazardly.

  He swallowed a curse and climbed out, sliding his hands into his gloves. “Get down, please,” he said, taking her elbow to assist her.

  “Don’t get fresh with me, young man.”

  Wow. “Just making sure you don’t break your neck on all of this packed snow that I’m pretty sure I asked you to have cleared weeks ago,” he said, taking the broom.

  “I’ll do that next,” she mumbled.

  He shook his head as he opened her bakery door and waved her inside, trying not to breathe in the delicious smell of gingerbread and cinnamon.

  She muttered something under her breath as she passed him, and he couldn’t be sure that it was an insult aimed at him, but it certainly wasn’t “thank you.”

  “Hey, Sheriff Matthews, when you’re done over there, could you maybe come do mine, as well?” Tina Miller, or Nosy Nelly, as he liked to think of her, called to him as she wrote on the specials board outside Joey’s Diner.

  He gave a mock salute and continued working. The day before, he’d issued twenty-four-hour warnings to the business owners along Main Street to clear their awnings of these dangerous icicles. By the look of things, everyone had ignored him. Except Ginger. Well, they wouldn’t be laughing when an icicle fell on a passerby, and they were suddenly smacked with a lawsuit.

  Oh, what was he thinking—no one sued anyone around here. A New York City boy from the time he could walk, he was so far out of his comfort zone in Brookhollow, he couldn’t even remember what his comfort zone felt like. But it certainly wasn’t this sense of being watched from afar and speculated about on a regular basis. He’d told himself that he was being paranoid, and that was natural given the extreme circumstances. But after his conversation with Heather the night before, he knew that wasn’t the case. People were watching and speculating and judging.

  After clearing the awning, he went inside the bakery and immediately wished he hadn’t. The tempting aromas were almost too much to resist. But diabetic from the age of eight, he rarely consumed sweets or refined carbs. Keeping his blood sugars under control was his first priority. “Here are your broom and your step stool,” he said, leaving them inside the door.

  “Did you want a muffin or something?” Ginger offered begrudgingly.

  “No. What I want is for you to ask your granddaughter or her husband to come clear the walkway...or at least put salt or sand on it or something.” He was wasting his breath. No one around here listened to him. He was just the big-city, hotshot cop who didn’t understand about small-town
life. Well, they were right about that. And unfortunately, uncleared walkways and awnings just didn’t compare to drug deals and dangerous criminals on his scale of what mattered. But unfortunately, this was what he was reduced to dealing with...and he was still a cop, for better or worse.

  “Will do,” she said, rushing to the kitchen at the sound of the oven timer.

  “No, you won’t,” he mumbled, heading back outside.

  As he returned to the squad car, his glucose monitor beeped. Great, he was low. He could have had a muffin. He sighed as he checked the numbers. Three point four and dropping. This stupid disease was responsible for all of this, he thought, the memory of his last day undercover never too far from his mind.

  His blood glucose monitor had been beeping that day, too, revealing that his sugar levels were dropping steadily for almost an hour. He’d searched his vehicle for a juice box or a granola bar...an old doughnut or candy...

  But found nothing.

  He hadn’t expected to be waiting that long for Leo Gonzales to emerge from the warehouse. Most exchanges happened quickly, so as not to draw attention. All Jacob had needed was visual confirmation that Gonzales was dealing with Mario Lorenzo, the drug lord they’d been chasing, and he’d have everything necessary to put the man away for a long time. His two-year undercover stint would be over and he could resume some semblance of a life after debriefing and resocialization.

  The longer he’d been under, the harder it had been to remember who he really was. He tried to visit his family—his sister and nephew—a weekend every month or a few stolen days over the holidays, but it had been getting tougher to leave the cartel unnoticed. Tougher to leave the persona behind and become Uncle Jacob again. Then to go back to being a drug-pushing thug.

  Deciding to work undercover hadn’t been easy for him, knowing he’d have to leave his family for long periods of time, but he’d gone into policing to make a difference, and despite the extreme living conditions and having to pretend to be something he despised, he was so close...he was making a difference...

  The door to the warehouse opened, and he sat straighter, but Gonzales exited alone, scanned the area, then went back inside. It wasn’t enough. He needed to see Gonzales and Lorenzo together.

  The monitor had beeped.

  Crap. He needed to eat. But he’d waited two years for this opportunity; he couldn’t leave now. Three SWAT team vehicles were parked two blocks away, awaiting his signal. He couldn’t sacrifice two years of weight gain, drug use and hurting people when they were so close.

  Searching his duffel bag in the backseat, he found half a chocolate bar. Who knew how long it had been in there, but he didn’t care—he needed to get his sugars up.

  He scarfed it down, but twenty minutes later, his blood sugar continued to drop again.

  Two point one. Stress often had this effect on his body.

  Sweat collected on his back beneath the bulletproof vest he wore and ran down his forehead. His mouth was dry and his hands unsteady.

  Come on. Come out.

  Fifteen minutes passed. The monitor continued to beep relentlessly, and his vision started to blur. He glanced at the reading. Under one. Even if they did come out, there was nothing he could do now except signal. He would be completely useless in helping to arrest these guys.

  He prayed he wouldn’t lose consciousness before he could at least do that much.

  His head swayed, and he fought to focus as the warehouse lights went off.

  What? That wasn’t right. Where were they? Was there another entrance into the building? He’d scoped the place out the night before. He reached for his radio, but it fell to the floor on the passenger side of the car.

  When he reached for it, his vest pressed against the steering wheel and sounded the horn.

  Oh, no.

  The warehouse door opened, and Gonzales and Lorenzo exited, Gonzales’s gaze landing directly on Jacob, as if he knew he’d be there. Jacob grabbed the radio and hit the button for the signal as gunfire rang out and his world went black.

  That day, four months ago, would have put an end to Mario Lorenzo and his cartel if the drug lord hadn’t escaped before the SWAT teams arrived. Now all that would put the man behind bars was Jacob’s statement, which was still under evaluation because he’d lost consciousness immediately after the visual confirmation, making his observations questionable. While Gonzales had been caught with enough evidence to put him away, the head of the operation was still a free man until a court case could be scheduled, and Jacob had his day on the witness stand.

  Shutting off the vehicle, Jacob jogged across the street to Joey’s. The diner’s fifties-style décor, complete with red leather bar stools and a jukebox in the corner, was seriously something out of the movie Grease, but he had to admit the food was better than anything he’d ever tasted.

  The place was packed. Every table and booth was occupied, and even the stools at the counter were all taken. The plates piled with eggs, pancakes, sausages and toast passing by him, as Tina and her daughter, April, delivered the meals, made his stomach growl and his mouth water. His monitor beeped again. He could get something to go. Sit in the car and eat until his blood sugar returned to normal.

  Going to the register, he waited. He knew what he wanted. Eggs Benedict and a side order of bacon. Two side orders of bacon.

  Tina moved past him and rang in an order.

  “Hi, can I place an order to go?” he asked.

  She didn’t glance up as she said, “You’ll have to give me like ten minutes, we’re backed up in the kitchen.”

  Once his blood sugar level started to drop, it went down quickly. He didn’t want to pass out in the busy diner. So far, he’d been successful in keeping his diabetes to himself...except for Mrs. Kelly who’d found one of his needles in his bathroom when she’d been cleaning. He cringed at the memory. She had accused him of being a drug addict and had refused to give him back his insulin until he’d explained everything to her and then reassured her, he could clean his own apartment. “Can I at least order now?”

  “I told you, you’re going to have to wait. Tables get priority over takeout,” Tina said.

  He sighed and turned to lean against the counter. He’d leave and go someplace else, but the fact was there was nowhere else. No pizza places within a ten-mile radius, no sub sandwich chain stores, no familiar coffee shops...just Joey’s Diner. God, he missed the city.

  He spotted Heather sitting alone at the corner booth near the window, hesitated for a fraction of a second, then headed toward her.

  She had a laptop open on the table and was typing furiously with one hand, while eating—eggs Benedict, of course—with the other.

  “That’s quite the talent,” he said.

  “Lucky for me, I’m ambidextrous,” she said with a quick glance in his direction.

  “Well, I can see that you’re busy, but if I promise to be quiet, can I share your table?”

  She looked surprised when she finally gave him her attention. “You always eat alone.”

  “And I would today, but all the tables are full, including the bar stools.”

  “So you only want to eat with me because there’s nowhere else to sit?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Charming.”

  “Honest.”

  She laughed and gestured for him to be her guest. “Go ahead.”

  He slid into the booth. “Look, if it makes you feel better—if I have to sit with someone, I’m glad it’s you.”

  Heather’s expression was one of amusement as she said, “Am I supposed to be flattered?”

  “Yes. You’re probably the only person in Brookhollow that I can actually tolerate.” He shrugged out of his jacket and tucked it next to him on the seat.

  “Tolerate? Wow. Anyway, you promised not to talk, so shhh, I
have five minutes to finish this,” she said, resuming her typing.

  Jacob silently nodded and leaned back against the cushioned booth. He attempted to flag Tina for coffee as she passed, but she ignored him. “If only the food wasn’t so good around here,” he mumbled.

  “You’re talking.”

  “Sorry.” He stared out the window for a long moment, then he said, “What are you doing, anyway?”

  She cocked her head as she glanced over the top of the computer. “You barely talk to anyone around here, unless it’s to yell at them about a hazardous front step or something, and now you can’t shut up?”

  “I don’t yell. I ask. They ignore. So, what are you working on?”

  “A résumé,” she said, lowering her voice.

  “Don’t you already have two jobs in town?”

  “It’s for a job in New York.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “One I won’t get if I don’t send this. Hold on,” she said, typing a few more things.

  He watched her lips move as she scanned the screen in front of her.

  Cute.

  In fact, if he allowed himself the opportunity to look, she was cute. Long, dark hair that once again smelled like peppermint and waved around her shoulders beneath the purple hat she wore. Her hazel eyes had flecks of gold around the center that resembled a starburst, and her long, thin neck was exposed beneath her slightly open scarf.

  “What’s with the hat and scarf inside?” It was like eighty degrees inside the crowded diner.

  “I’m always cold,” she said, closing her laptop.

  “Done?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She gathered her things and stood, sliding her arms into her jacket.

  “You’re leaving?”

  Reaching for her coffee cup, she drained the contents. “Yes. You already said you just wanted my table.”

  “But you were going to tell me about the job in New York.” Any opportunity to talk about the city made him feel better. Being around a fellow New York native somehow made him feel better, too. Probably why he found himself at the pool hall bar far too often.