A Lawman for Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

  Travis’s curiosity was as aroused as the rest of them. He laughed shortly at Trent’s comment. “We hardly ever know what you mean, Trent. You’re a psychologist. Psychologists have their own way of looking at things.”

  “The point is, Kate wouldn’t be this dramatic over something like that,” Trent insisted. Just then, Kelsey walked into the room.

  The brothers instantly closed ranks around their sister, with Mike pouncing on her first. “How about you, Kelse? You have any idea why Kate wanted to see all of us at the same time like this?”

  “You don’t think she’s ill, do you?” Venus, Trevor’s wife, asked, concerned.

  The least she could do was dispel that worry for them, Kelsey thought. “No, Mom’s not ill.” The others watched her as if they expected her to further enlighten them. It was absolutely hell holding her tongue. “Maybe she just misses you,” Kelsey added with a careless shrug.

  Get out here, Mom, she silently begged, glancing toward the doorway that led into the dining room. I don’t know how much longer I can go on pretending I don’t know anything.

  “Why would she miss me?” Trent asked. “I work in the same office. She sees me every day,” he reminded Kelsey. It was because of Kate that he had gone into child psychology in the first place, and when he got his degree, she brought him into the practice with two other psychologists.

  Studying his sister as she spoke, Mike suddenly nodded, as if giving credence to what he was thinking. He watched Kelsey’s reaction as he said, “You do know what’s going on, don’t you?”

  “Mike, don’t badger your sister,” Miranda chided, coming to Kelsey’s rescue. “If Kelsey knew, she’d tell us.”

  A sense of guilt mingled with relief. Grasping at straws, Kelsey turned in Miranda’s direction. “Have I ever thanked you for marrying him and making him more civil?”

  Miranda grinned at her. “I really can’t take any credit for that. Mike evolved very nicely all by himself.”

  Mike pretended to take offense. He would have expected a show of a little more solidarity from Miranda. “What do you mean ‘evolved’?” he asked.

  Before either Miranda or Kelsey could offer an explanation, Kate came into the living room, bringing an end to the speculation. Bryan was with her and they were holding hands, presenting the same united front they always had while guiding their children through the various perplexing twists and turns.

  Travis was the first on his feet. “What’s going on, Dad?” he asked. Like his father, he was a lawyer, practicing at the same firm. He thought, if something was going on, that he would have picked up some telltale signs earlier today when they’d conferred about one of the firm’s cases. But there hadn’t been any indication of a problem.

  Was something wrong? Or were they all just jumping to conclusions because life had been so good for so long and everything must come to an end eventually? None of them were so short-sighted that they had forgotten what it felt like to lose their birth mother.

  “Does this have anything to do with the fact that you weren’t in yesterday?” Trent asked, suddenly remembering that she’d been vague when she’d called in.

  Kate smiled serenely at Trent as she sat down on the sofa. “Yes.”

  A small, sudden intake of breath closely resembling a gasp came from Venus. “You’re pregnant,” Trevor’s wife cried. She looked as surprised as the others were to hear the words when she realized that she’d said them out loud. Venus quickly covered her mouth.

  “Honey, don’t be silly, Kate’s not—” Trevor’s protest faded away as he glanced at the woman he and his brothers had adored almost from the first moment she’d come into their lives. His jaw dropped open as the protest died on his lips. “You’re kidding.”

  Quickly, her stepsons all moved in closer. “Kate?” Mike asked uncertainly.

  Kate laughed softly, shaking her head. “So much for a dramatic announcement,” she said with an amused sigh. “I should have known I couldn’t keep anything from you boys for long.”

  “Long?” Travis echoed Kate’s last word. “How long have you known you were expecting, Kate?”

  “Not long. Just since yesterday. I had a little incident—” Kate lifted her shoulders slightly, dismissing it before she gave any details.

  Her stepsons exchanged looks. They all knew how she tended to minimize things when it came to her own life. “What kind of an ‘incident’?” Trevor asked, concerned.

  When Kate didn’t reply immediately, Kelsey answered for her, ending any escalating speculation on their part. “Mom fainted.”

  “In the house?” Laurel was the first to ask.

  “She wouldn’t have called it an ‘incident’ if it was in the house,” Trent said with conviction, looking at his stepmother. “Would you, Kate?”

  “She fainted in the car,” Kelsey answered.

  “Kelsey,” Kate chided. She was hoping to keep that from them. It was bad enough that Bryan knew.

  “They’ve got a right to know, Mom,” Kelsey pointed out. If she was the one in the dark, she would have wanted to know, she reasoned.

  All four of her half-brothers, as well as their wives and Travis’s fiancée, drew even closer, as if to physically protect Kate.

  “In the car?” Mike echoed, horrified. “Kate, you could have been—”

  Kate cut him off. There was absolutely no reason to go there or torture himself with what could have happened. She didn’t believe in speculation that left a person tortured.

  “But I wasn’t. I didn’t even get a bump on the head.” To prove it, she pushed back her bangs, exposing her forehead to Mike’s scrutiny. “One of Bedford’s finest was driving right behind me and he insisted on taking me to the hospital.”

  “Which reminds me,” Bryan said. “I want to meet this police officer. I need to personally thank him for taking care of you.”

  “Kelsey knows where he lives. She can get in contact with him and invite Officer Donnelly to dinner,” Kate told him.

  Which brought everyone’s focus back to a small but vital piece of information that had temporarily been pushed aside. Mike held up his hand, bringing the conversation to a temporary stop.

  “Hold it. Let me get this straight.” He spared his sister a glance before asking Kate, “Kelsey knew you were in the hospital and that you’d fainted?”

  “Of course she knew,” Trevor said impatiently, feeling just a little betrayed. “She just said Kate fainted.”

  Mike turned to his sister. “And when you called us to invite us over for dinner tonight, you knew Kate was pregnant?”

  This was where lying would really come in handy, Kelsey thought. But she opted to go with the truth. In the long run, it was for the best. Keeping the secret hadn’t been her idea anyway. “Yes.”

  Travis, Trent and Trevor were triplets and inclined, at times, to share the same thought. This was no exception as they simultaneously cried accusingly, “You knew and you didn’t tell anybody?”

  Kelsey held the truth up as a shield. “Not by choice. Mom asked me not to.”

  Mike shook his head, stunned by both the news and the fact that Kelsey had kept it from them. “Doesn’t matter. Since when could you ever keep a secret? You’re like a sieve. Secret goes in, secret comes out almost immediately.”

  Kelsey lifted her chin defensively. “There’re a lot of things about me that you don’t know,” she sniffed.

  Closing her fingers around her husband’s hand, Kate raised her voice to be heard above the growing din. “Boys, I didn’t have Kelsey call all of you here to listen to you argue. This is time for a celebration—”

  “Celebration? Why don’t we hold off for a while? The baby might turn out to be another Kelsey,” Trent pretended to protest. It got him a swat to the back of his head from his sister.

  When Trent turned to his wife for comfort, Laurel raised her hands in protest. “Don’t look at me. I’m on her side.”

  “Face it, guys,” Kelsey said cheerfully. “We finally outnumber you.�
��

  Travis addressed his stepmother. “I vote for a boy.”

  “Me, too,” Trent and Trevor chimed in.

  Mike raised his hand in the air. “Ditto.”

  Kate laughed. “Sorry, boys, I’m afraid that it doesn’t work that way.” She glanced at her daughters-in-law and Shana. “Maybe your ladies can explain it to you later.”

  “Or better yet, show us,” Trevor suggested, nuzzling Venus.

  “Later,” Bryan suggested firmly, then rose to his feet, bringing Kate up along with him. “C’mon, guys, dinner’s getting cold. Let’s take this discussion to the dining room,” he urged, leading the way.

  “What did you make, Kate?” Trevor asked, ushering Venus before him. More than anyone, Kate was responsible for his pursuing his love of cooking and getting a restaurant of his own.

  “Not me,” Kate said, slipping her arm around Kelsey’s waist. “Kelsey wanted to make dinner.”

  “Oh God,” Travis groaned, rolling his eyes. “Get out the stomach pump.”

  Kelsey looked at his fiancée. “Shana, you want to hit him, or should I?”

  “We’re not married yet,” Shana reminded her. “You can do it.”

  “If you insist,” Kelsey said, grinning just before she smacked Travis upside his head.

  The day felt as if it had gone into a sudden death playoff, lasting way too long. Morgan had been involved in a two-hour car chase in pursuit of a stolen vehicle. It had ended badly, with the carjacker crashing the stolen car into another car. The driver of the second car had been thrown and was in critical condition, while the carjacker had gotten himself all but permanently sealed in the crumpled front seat.

  When the fire department came on the scene, they had to use the Jaws of Life to extract the carjacker. The man had screamed the entire time. Once freed, he’d been taken to the hospital in a second ambulance.

  The felon looked far too young to buy the alcohol emanating from his pores. Unlike the innocent driver he’d hit, the carjacker was conscious and cursing a blue streak as he was taken away to the hospital.

  How did people get to be so stupid? Morgan couldn’t help wondering as he hung a work lamp on the inside of the hood of Kate Marlowe’s car. Moving it over a fraction, he managed to maximize the beam of light.

  He’d just finished fiddling with the lamp when he heard a car approaching. It slowed down then stopped right before his house. Morgan reached for the weapon he’d laid down next to his tools.

  Getting out of her vehicle, Kelsey found herself looking down the barrel of a service revolver. Survival instincts had her instantly raising her hands over her head. She took a tentative step forward. Slowly.

  “I didn’t realize I had to ask for permission to approach.”

  What was she doing here? Morgan put the safety back on his weapon. “Sorry,” he apologized, his tone flat as he put his gun back down on the counter. “Wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Who were you expecting?” she asked, eyeing the weapon. “Some thug with a grudge?”

  He picked up a wrench. “Let’s just say that I like to be cautious.”

  “O-kay,” she allowed, stretching the single word out as far as it could go.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as he returned to work on the vehicle. He’d replaced a number of damaged hoses yesterday and wanted to be sure they were all carefully tightened. “Checking up on your mother’s car?”

  It was as good an excuse as any, she thought, working her way up to the real reason she was here. “Sort of.”

  He wasn’t used to having anyone stop by.

  Beth would have been inviting her to dinner, he thought. She always cooked more than they could eat in a single sitting. But all he had were the remnants of his fast food order. He sincerely doubted that Kelsey would be interested in splitting.

  “Want something to drink?” he finally offered. “I’ve got soda and beer.”

  “I’m fine,” Kelsey told him. “But thanks for offering.” She ran the tip of her tongue along her lips. Now or never. He’d already turned her mother down once, so what did she have to lose? “Speaking of which—”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  Kelsey cleared her voice. The words rushed out. “My mother sent me here to offer you an invitation to dinner tomorrow night.” She held up her hands in case he was going to turn her down. She’d already made up her mind not to take no for an answer. “Actually, it’s my father’s idea. Not that she wouldn’t have tried to invite you a second time herself—it’s just that I think she’s busy trying to process the fact that she’s going to have a baby.”

  Morgan set down the wrench he was holding and looked at her. “Why would your father want to invite me over?” The Marlowe home was located in Spyglass Hill. The people who lived in Spyglass Hill didn’t rub elbows with people from his side of town.

  “To say thank-you for saving his wife in person,” she told him simply.

  “Your father could just show up at the precinct if he wanted to do that.”

  “My dad doesn’t believe in doing things in half measures,” she informed him. “Not since he married Mom. From what I’m told by my brothers, she taught him how to seize life with both hands and embrace it.” But they were getting away from the immediate subject. “So, are you free?” she asked.

  As a rule, he went out of his way not to fraternize with people. “People” included the men and women on the job and his neighbors. The latter group had tried to get him to come to a barbecue and a birthday party. After two refusals, neighbors stopped trying.

  He liked it that way. Morgan had made his peace with facing day-to-day life away from the force as a solitary man. He kept his head high and his expectations low. That way he wasn’t caught unaware or disappointed.

  But Kelsey was a different story entirely. She continued looking at him expectantly. She might have gone on like that indefinitely, he realized. He finally shrugged his shoulders and said yes to get rid of her. “Okay. Yes, I guess so.”

  “Good.” She moved on to the next step. “Mom wanted me to ask you what your favorite meal is.”

  He laughed shortly, adjusting one of the belts. “Anything that microwaves in less than five minutes.”

  Watching him work, Kelsey shook her head. “I think she was referring to a real meal, Officer Donnelly.”

  It had been a very long time since he’d found himself facing a real meal. Morgan raised his eyes from the inside of the engine and looked at her. “I don’t know. Surprise me.”

  I want to, Morgan Donnelly, Kelsey caught herself thinking as heat rushed up and down her body.

  But, because her mother expected some feedback, Kelsey pressed. “No, really. Pot roast, lasagna, chicken parmesan, name it. My parents really want to show you how much they appreciate you going out of your way.”

  He said something under his breath that she didn’t catch, other than “good deed” and “punished.” “Just doing my job,” he told her dismissively. “It’s part of the job description.”

  “You hung around at the hospital to see how my mother was doing and you’re working on her car right now. As far as I know, that doesn’t come under anything that can be found in the police procedure manual.”

  After hours, dressed as a civilian, he found that he didn’t work and play well with others. The uniform was his shield, something he could hide behind. Right now, he had no place to hide.

  He’d already turned the Marlowe woman down once, he thought, annoyed. Why couldn’t she just take no for an answer?

  “This isn’t necessary, you know,” he told Kelsey, grinding out the words. “The invitation, dinner, not necessary,” he repeated with feeling.

  “I’m afraid it is as far as my dad’s concerned. And you already know Mom wants you to come.” She was losing ground and tried another approach. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to talk if you don’t want to. There’ll be plenty of people there to pick up the slack for you.”

  “Plenty of people?”
Morgan questioned. He hadn’t any desire to attend when he’d just assumed it was going to be just Kelsey and her parents. Now he really didn’t want to accept the invitation.

  Kelsey nodded. “Yes. My brothers and their wives. All except for Travis. He’s just engaged but almost married. His fiancée will be there, too. And in Trent’s case, his son.”

  “Brothers.” Morgan rolled the word around in his mouth. When he’d been very young he’d wished for a brother or two to take the edge off his loneliness. He’d learned how to do that on his own. “How many do you have?”

  “Too many,” she quipped. Especially when they ganged up on her. But for the most part, she wouldn’t have traded her life for anyone’s. She paused, debating with herself if she should add the last part. “And I should tell you before you show up and it throws you—”

  Morgan stopped trying to work and gave her his full attention. He had no idea where she was going with this. “Throws me?”

  “Yes. Three of my brothers are triplets.” And then she replayed her words in her head and laughed. “Well, of course it would take three of them to be triplets. If there were only two, they’d be twins. Anyway, Trent, Travis and Trevor take some getting used to before you can tell them apart. It’s a little overwhelming at first, but it can be done,” she assured him.

  She made it sound as if it would be more than a onetime event. He wasn’t sure if he could stand even one dinner. For now, he didn’t argue. “You said three of your brothers, so how many do you have?” he repeated.

  “Just four.” Her own words amused her. There was no “just” when it came to her brothers, especially when she thought back to the years when they were growing up. But she didn’t want to rattle Donnelly. “And they’re all decent guys—just don’t tell them I said so.”

  He had no intention of spilling to her brothers because, more than likely, he wouldn’t be meeting them. But then he had a nagging feeling that if he protested, the perky woman before him with the dancing, bright blue eyes and the torrent of golden-blond hair would launch into some kind of frontal attack until he surrendered.

  So, for the sake of peace, he nodded. “No problem.”