Snowbound Snuggles

by T. F. Walsh

  Special thanks for research goes out to Randy Evans and Jason Jacobs for sharing their time and expertise on growing Christmas trees. To Glen Abel, a lifelong friend, who showed great patience and answered a variety of questions.

  About the Author

  Ellen Parker, a daughter of Wisconsin, currently lives in St. Louis and writes sweet, romantic suspense. When she’s not guiding characters toward “happily ever after” you can find her tending her postage stamp size garden or walking in the neighborhood. Visit her at www.ellenparkerwrites.wordpress.com or https://www.facebook.com/ellenparkerwrites?fref=ts

  This edition published by

  Crimson Romance

  an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  57 Littlefield Street

  Avon, MA 02322

  www.crimsonromance.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Ellen M. Parker

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-7158-9

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7158-9

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-7159-7

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7159-6

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © 123rf.com

  On His Watch

  Susanne Matthews

  Avon, Massachusetts

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For my daughter, Angela. You’ve shown that, with grit and determination, you can overcome anything.

  Chapter One

  “You’ve grown at least three inches taller this summer. Grandma won’t recognize you when she sees you at Christmas.” Nikki Hart smiled down at her daughter, Mandy, all arms and legs, reminding her of a new foal who had yet to adjust to its body. She pulled the pink princess nightgown over the child’s head. The sleeves didn’t reach her wrists. Something else she’s outgrown. Sam’s not going to like this, but what can I do?

  She was starting kindergarten tomorrow! The family had moved to Larosa, California, almost six months ago. Where had the time gone? Mandy’s shoulder-length, sun-bleached tresses gleamed in the soft bedroom light, their strawberry scent filling the room with freshness. Since she’d turned five two weeks ago, her daughter had grown an independent streak a mile long; if anyone tried to take away the strawberry-scented shampoo and body wash named after her favorite doll, they’d be in for a battle. She might have given up her blanket, but some things were sacrosanct.

  “I’m older now. I’m supposed to get bigger,” Mandy replied seriously, staring at her with her father’s dark brown eyes. She reached out and patted Nikki’s belly. “I’m going to be a big sister, not just a little one. Daddy said only babies are afraid of the dark. I’m not a baby. I can do this.”

  Mandy took a deep breath and stared down at the child-size sleeping bag on the guest room floor beside the bed covered with a navy and white handmade quilt.

  “Are you sure you want to do this tonight? There isn’t any hurry. You have a big day tomorrow.”

  The stubborn set of her daughter’s shoulders was all the answer she needed. With her arms crossed over her chest, she looked so much like her father in one of his moods, Nikki couldn’t help but laugh. She shook her head.

  “Do you have everything you need?”

  Mandy nodded and crawled into the sleeping bag, pulling her doll in beside her and picking up the flashlight she’d set on the pillow earlier. “I have the big flashlight and Benji.” She indicated the baby doll.

  “Tell me when you’re ready, and I’ll push you under the bed. I still don’t understand why you have to sleep under this bed.”

  “Because it’s the darkest place in the house, Mommy. I checked everywhere, even the basement. There are too many spiders and yucky bugs down there. I don’t want Lily, Megan, and Sally to think I’m a baby. That’s why I have to practice, so I won’t be scared.”

  I should have guessed. Only the power of a sleepover invitation could have pushed her out of her comfort zone. Nikki could empathize. At thirty-eight, she was still uncomfortable in dark, unfamiliar places. Maybe such fears were hereditary.

  “You’ll be fine, sweetie. I doubt Lily’s living room will be completely dark anyway, and you won’t be alone.”

  “Joey says the puppies can leave their mother soon. Please can you ask Daddy again if we can have one? Joey says it’ll be free. I wouldn’t need any other birthday presents—not even a party. Danny and I will take care of it, I promise. Daddy isn’t home much. We could keep the puppy out of his way.”

  Nikki shook her head. “You know, honey, just because you want something doesn’t mean that you can have it. Even a free puppy is a lot of work . . . ” She stopped as the joy faded from her daughter’s eyes.

  I’m starting to sound like Sam! Would it really be too much work? Maybe for once, I should put my foot down.

  “I know, Mommy.” She sighed deeply. Nikki bent down and gave her daughter a loud, smacking kiss. Maybe the Sheltie pup would stay small.

  “Let me talk to Daddy. I’m not promising anything.”

  Mandy jumped out of the sleeping bag and showered her face with kisses. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You’re the bestest mommy in the whole world. I’ll take really good care of the puppy.”

  “I didn’t say we’d get one for sure,” Nikki continued, knowing full well she’d advocate for her daughter. “Pleasant dreams. I love you.”

  She pushed the sleeping bag full of child under the double bed and dropped the bed skirt.

  “’Night, Mommy. Love you, too.”

  Nikki smiled and closed the bedroom door. She crossed the hall to the children’s bathroom. How could one small girl make such a mess? She took the basket hanging from a hook on the wall and tossed in the dolls and other essentials Mandy needed to take a bath. She hung the forest-green towels on the bar, sprayed and wiped down the tub, and put away the hair dryer, her mind traveling a mile a minute as she worked.

  She glanced at the clock on the counter. Eight-fifty. Normally, her husband’s clinic closed at eight, but Sam had called earlier and said an emergency had come in. He’d sounded tense, so she suspected the injury must have been a bad one.

  Satisfied the children’s bathroom was as clean as she could get it, she turned on the nightlight and went down the hall to the master bedroom. She removed her clothes and donned the new royal blue silk lounge pajamas she’d bought last week in Santa Rosa when she’d gone in for her prenatal visit. The baby bump was barely visible beneath the loose, flowing top.

  She hadn’t gained a lot of weight with this pregnancy, but she was older, and everything seemed a little harder than five years ago when she’d carried Mandy. She was tired a lot of the time—too tired to spend much time on her artwork—but she rested a bit during the day while Mandy and her older brother, Danny, played quietly indoors.

  This child, whom they’d tentatively named Kylie Elizabeth, was unexpected, and although Sam had been upset when he’d learned she was pregnant again, he’d slowly come around. He seemed happy about the prospect of another daughter. She smiled.

  Sam seemed more relaxed than he’d been since before they’d left San Francisco. He’d let her help dec
orate the clinic, and she handled the reception on his secretary’s day off. They were almost a team again, the way they’d been before they’d married. He worked hard to make the clinic a success and while she admired her husband’s skills as a physician, as a father he had a lot to learn.

  Could his age have something to do with that? He was welcoming daughters when his friends were welcoming granddaughters. There’d been a few of his colleagues from the hospital at their wedding, but she didn’t think she’d ever met a friend of Sam’s who wasn’t involved with the hospital or the clinic in some way. He didn’t golf or fish, and he wasn’t much of a sports fan. Before moving to Larosa, he’d spent most of his time at the hospital. Now, he spent his days at the clinic. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a weekend off. He needed to spend more time with his kids and get to know them.

  She stepped into the adjacent bathroom, brushed her chin-length copper hair, checked it for signs of tell-tale gray, and pushed it behind her ears. One of the perks of being a redhead was her hair would lighten, but not necessarily turn gray. She’d taken a chance, cut a foot off it a few weeks back, and liked it this way. Nikki added a fresh coat of mascara to her hazel eyes and touched up her lipstick. Slight swelling was part and parcel of this pregnancy, and her hands and feet were puffy tonight. When she tried to remove her rings, they wouldn’t budge. I’ll take them off in the morning and have Sam put the diamond in the safe until the baby comes. As an afterthought, she spritzed the air with her favorite perfume and walked through the mist. If Sam wasn’t too tired, maybe they could talk about getting away as a family for a few days next month, maybe plan a visit to the San Francisco Zoo over the Columbus Day Weekend. There was a new baby orangutan the kids would love to see.

  The sound of breaking glass coming from downstairs shattered the stillness. Nikki tensed. Had the sound come from the kitchen? Had she left a window open? She’d shut the bedroom window a few moments ago because the wind had picked up and its whistling sound bothered her. Could it have knocked over the crystal vase of roses Sam had sent her this morning? Perhaps Mrs. Olsen’s tabby had jumped in the window and knocked the vase over. The cat had been a regular visitor when the previous owners had lived here, and he saw no reason to curtail his visits. She’d almost had a heart attack the last time he entered, bringing her a gift—a dead mouse—and Danny had laughed himself silly at “Mommy’s girliness.” Sam, not an animal lover, had threatened to poison the animal if it came into the house again. If the cat had broken the vase, its days were numbered.

  Or what if someone was in the house? She’d noticed a lot of strangers in town, some looking more unkempt than others. There were plenty of family campers, but every now and then, she’d seen so-called gold prospectors combing the Larosa hills. Trudy, Mandy’s best friend Lily’s mother, had said they were harmless but to a girl like Nikki from San Francisco, dirty, half-starved men meant trouble. They could easily be junkies desperately needing a fix.

  She took a deep breath. She didn’t hear any other suspicious sounds. As Sam would say, she was letting her imagination run wild. Most likely it was one of Larosa’s minor quakes that had caused a glass to slip off the table. Just a few miles off the San Andreas Fault, the town was constantly trembling. She barely noticed the Earth’s slight shaking anymore.

  Even though she’d convinced herself nothing was amiss, Nikki tiptoed to the guest room, got down on all fours, and peeked under the bed. Mandy was asleep. The child slept like the dead once she was out. Nikki reached for the flashlight, turned it off, and used the bed to leverage her body upright again.

  She picked up the cell phone she’d left on the dresser earlier, made sure it was on in case Sam called, and dropped it into the right pocket of her pajama top. Carrying the flashlight, she slipped out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  Maybe getting a dog’s a good idea. It would keep the damn cat out of the house.

  Nikki stood still in the hallway and listened. The only thing she could hear was the sound of the television in the den. Someone was buying a vowel.

  She reached Danny’s room and opened the door. When she saw his bed was empty, she relaxed and shook her head in resignation. As much as it annoyed her to admit it, this time Sam was right. Her imagination did tend to look for boogeymen where there weren’t any. Clearly her eight-year-old and his bottomless pit of a stomach had decided to have another bedtime snack. No doubt he was the culprit. She left the room and placed the flashlight on the hall table where it usually sat in case of a power outage.

  “What did you break this time?” she called as she headed down the stairs. “I swear, you’re like a bull in a china shop.”

  The sound of the garage door opening indicated Sam’s arrival. Although the clinic was nearby, since he carried major opiate drugs back and forth, Sam always took his car to work. He’d enter the house through the garage, leaving his lab coat and shoes out there and washing his hands at the sink he’d had installed for that purpose.

  “Let’s get this cleaned up before your father comes in.” She turned the corner into the kitchen and stopped cold.

  The fridge door was open, the pitcher of orange juice shattered on the floor beside what was left of her crystal vase full of roses, the red petals vanishing in her son’s blood. So much blood! Danny lay there, his head at an awkward angle, his eyes open, looking into the face of death. A scream froze in her throat as arms grabbed her from behind, and the sting of the knife bit into her upper back.

  Her upper body was on fire. Danny! Mandy! She swallowed her cries and slid to the floor, trying to stop herself from placing the full weight of her body on her abdomen, her right hand slipping into her pocket and silently pressing nine-one-one on the phone. She kept her hand over the small screen to hide its glow. Breathing was agonizing.

  With what little strength she could muster, she pulled herself across the glass and juice-covered ceramic floor until she was close enough to touch her son’s lifeless hand, tears of pain and sorrow running down her cheeks. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. She reached out her left hand, stretching to touch his face but couldn’t manage it. She groaned.

  “What the hell? Leroy, I told you to kill her, not just cut her. She won’t bleed out from that wound. The boss said no survivors. There should be another kid in the house. Go and look upstairs. I’ll take care of this.”

  She tried to turn her head to look at the man speaking, see if she recognized him, but he placed his boot on her head, forcing her face into the blood-covered floor.

  “It’s nothing personal, Mrs. Hart. For some reason you need to suffer, or I’d cut your throat, too, and make it quick. Everyone has to die sometime, and today’s your day.”

  Something pierced her lower back, sending wave after wave of excruciating pain through her body, and her unborn daughter kicked in protest. Nikki fought to suppress the scream of agony for Mandy’s sake. Blackness edged around her.

  Please God, don’t let him look for her under the guest room bed. If she doesn’t wake up, she’ll be safe under there, won’t she? Sam! Oh God, Sam.

  As if the sound were coming from far away, she forced herself to open her eyes and turned her head to face the door. Heavy boots entered the kitchen. She looked up. Instead of Sam, a man dressed in camouflage pants and matching jacket—the kind of thing a hunter might wear—stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He had blood on his blue, latex-gloved hands. Sam wouldn’t be able to save them.

  She forced her eyes to stay open and stared at the third man. He was bald, with thick, black eyebrows, and a diamond earring in his left ear. His face and head were badly scarred. His lips were thin, and he smiled cruelly.

  So this is what Satan looks like.

  The demon moved to the counter, grabbed her cooking shears, and rooted through the drawers until he found her plastic bags. He walked over and stared down at her. Hatred burned in the monster’s eyes. The man turned away, and walked back through the door leading into the garage. />
  It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Nikki struggled against the intense pain, willing herself to stay awake, but she could feel life slowly slipping away from her. She wanted to scream, to rant at the injustice of it all. Thoughts of the child in her belly, the child who’d never nuzzle at her breast, filled her with sadness. Danny would never hit a grand slam. Mandy would never attend the sleepover. Tears of hopelessness trickled down her cheeks, and her eyes closed. The sound of the door opening roused her, and she forced her eyelids open once more.

  “Good job.” Another man closed the door to the garage and stepped farther into the kitchen. “Our employer is pleased.” He nodded his head at something on the wall behind her. “It’s what we were told to print. We probably should have written it at the clinic, too, but it’s too late to go back. Everything we need is in the safe in the den. The good doctor was most accommodating when we promised to spare his wife and children.” He laughed. “The man was a fool.”

  He spoke with an accent Nikki couldn’t place, and when he walked toward her, she closed her eyes, hoping he’d think her dead and leave her alone. A bone-chilling cold had invaded her body, increasing her agony, and it was almost impossible to keep from trembling. She prayed it would be over soon.

  The unmistakable crunch of someone taking a bite out of one of the apples she kept in a bowl on the counter echoed in the room. Unexpectedly, a boot caught her in the ribs, and flipped her over onto her back. Instinctively, she gripped the phone tighter. She swallowed a groan, kept her eyes closed, and held onto consciousness by the thinnest of threads. It was difficult to concentrate on what the men were saying.

  “Boss, there’s no one upstairs. The little girl’s room is empty, the bed made. She’s not here. I tossed the master bedroom while I was up there, picked up some jewelry and a little money. For a rich man, he didn’t live very high off the hog. Are you sure we got the right guy?”