The Lawman's Christmas Proposal

by Barbara White Daille

She didn’t respond.

  “You owe me an explanation, at least,” he said harshly. “You walked away from me as if I’d never existed. I thought we had something good going.” Something good? Hell of an understatement. “I guess, no matter what you’d said then, thought is the key word here.”

  Over near the corral, a horse neighed and one ranch hand called out to another. Andi’s silence went on long enough to make him wonder if she would ever answer. But he’d had plenty of practice at holding on, waiting for a witness to make a statement or a perp to make a confession.

  Which would she do?

  “My mom got sick,” she said finally.

  “And when she got better, you couldn’t get in touch?”

  “She didn’t get better. She had breast cancer, and she wasn’t a survivor. Grandpa didn’t tell you?”

  He sucked in a breath. “I’d heard from my mom...after your mom passed away. But I didn’t know she’d gotten sick back then. Or that it was why you’d left.”

  “She wouldn’t let us tell anyone here, because she didn’t want Grandpa to worry.”

  “Jed didn’t know?”

  “Not right away. And once Mom got sicker, she didn’t want anyone around her except my dad and me. She held out for a long time, and we were grateful for every minute we had left with her. That’s why I didn’t come back here to visit until...until after she was gone.”

  Now he couldn’t keep from touching her. He rested his hand on her arm, feeling the warmth of her skin and the way her muscle tightened beneath his fingers. “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, then grabbed the carton from the hood and rushed away, but not quickly enough to keep him from seeing the tears in her eyes.

  He’d gotten answers to his questions, discovered his anger had slipped away, but didn’t know what he could find to replace it.

  He curled his fingers, trying to hang on to the warmth he would swear he still felt from her skin.

  * * *

  HER ARMS TREMBLING, Andi carried the carton Mitch had given her into the Hitching Post’s kitchen. She wasn’t shaky from the weight of the box but from seeing him again. And she wasn’t ready to consider what had brought on the reaction.

  As Andi set the carton down, Paz crossed the room to investigate. “Ah, very nice,” she murmured with a born chef’s appreciation.

  Jane merely leaned forward from her seat at the table to peer into the box. “All those healthy vegetables. They look heavy. I’m surprised Mitch didn’t volunteer to carry the box for you.”

  Andi heard the teasing in her cousin’s tone, but couldn’t summon the energy to match it. She said simply, “He had to get home.”

  She wasn’t about to tell anyone how abruptly she had turned and walked away. At the porch, she had risked a look over her shoulder and saw him climbing into his truck. Seeing the way he eased into position told her how much he must have been hurting.

  She didn’t want to think of him in pain.

  She didn’t want to think of him at all.

  “That’s good, right, Andi?” Jane said loudly.

  She started. “What?”

  Paz smiled at her. “I said, tomorrow, I will make my vegetable soup.”

  “That’s great. Sorry, I was daydreaming...” Andi looked toward the door. “I need to check on the kids.”

  “They’re fine,” Jane said. “Grandpa has them all in the sitting room.”

  “Then that’s where I’m headed.”

  “I’ll go with you. Unless you need some help, Paz? And if you do, I volunteer Andi.” Jane laughed.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Paz said, attempting to sound stern. “Pete loves my spicy vegetable soup, and this is your chance to learn how to make it.”

  At the look on her cousin’s face, Andi laughed.

  Smiling, she left the two women and went down the hall leading from the kitchen to the hotel’s lobby. She could hear voices coming from the sitting room.

  Her son gave a high-pitched screech of uncontained laughter. At the sound, tears welled in her eyes. Back home again after their last visit to Cowboy Creek, Trey had reverted to being quiet and withdrawn. The change in him had started not long after Grant’s death, and it broke her heart to think that maybe he, like Jane, had sensed changes in her she had hoped no one could see. She hadn’t been able to hide her stress, and all her worries kept her distracted. That had to stop, especially if it was already affecting her children.

  Coming back to the ranch for the holidays and to oversee the wedding had been the right decision. Being with Tina’s son, Robbie, and Pete’s kids was good for Trey.

  But being around Mitch wasn’t good for her.

  Thank goodness he had turned down Jed’s invitation to join them for dinner. Before that, she had noticed how quickly he deflected the question about him staying. She was certain he knew as well as she did Grandpa had meant his visit to Cowboy Creek.

  In any case, his answer might not have mattered. He had a long drive between his parents’ house in town and Garland Ranch. Judging by the trouble he’d had climbing into his truck, today’s trip to the hotel could very well be his last while he was here.

  In the sitting room, she found Jed in his favorite chair, holding Missy on his lap. “You’ll be spoiling her, Grandpa,” she scolded gently.

  “Then she’ll be spoiled,” he said with a grin. “I’m taking every chance I can get to hold her. She’s been away too long. You all have.”

  As she took a seat on one of the chairs near them, she forced a smile. Jed hadn’t made any secret of the fact that he wanted her and the kids to move to the ranch permanently.

  She wanted only to prove she could take care of her family on her own.

  Trey crossed the room to them, thumping his chest with one hand. “Look, Mommy. Look what I got.”

  Rachel, Pete’s five-year-old, followed in his footsteps. “It’s Robbie’s badge. Robbie let me play with it and I shared it with Trey.”

  “That’s very nice of you, Rachel. And that’s a very nice badge, sweetheart.” She tapped the plastic star-shaped pin and touched her son’s cheek.

  “I’m the chef.”

  “You mean sheriff,” Rachel corrected. She turned to Andi. “He means sheriff. Grandpa Jed said Mitch has a badge, too. Didn’t you, Grandpa Jed?”

  “I sure did.”

  Yes, Mitch had a badge. And a gun and an injury and a dangerous job. Grant’s position had the potential for danger, too. They’d both known it. But Mitch’s could expose him to risk every day of his life.

  “Mitch is going to show me his badge,” Rachel announced.

  “Well,” Andi said, “I think he must have forgotten. He’s gone home already.”

  “But he’s coming back tomorrow.”

  She froze. The clock on the wall chimed, saving her from having to reply for a moment. When it stopped, she looked from Rachel to Jed. “Mitch is coming here tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” Robbie put in. “Grandpa says so.”

  Nodding, Jed patted the phone on the end table beside his chair. “Just spoke to Nancy, and she confirmed he’s got nothing on his schedule. I told her I want him to come by and talk with me for a bit. And I want to make sure he catches up with Pete.”

  She fisted her hands in her lap. She didn’t want to see Mitch again.

  Watching him in the dining room surrounded by her family had been bad enough. It allowed her too much time to resurrect the many sweet memories she had buried long ago.

  But to her dismay, standing outside with him had been so much worse. Being with him had forced her to see what she didn’t want to admit.

  Time and distance and even marriage to a man she loved with all her heart hadn’t destroyed her feelings for Mitch.

  Chapter Three

  “Did living in LA turn you off your mom’s good cooking?”

  At his dad’s question, Mitch started. He looked up to find everyone at the table sitting with their eyes trained on him. The combined stares of his parents, two brothe
rs and two sisters added up to way more attention than he needed.

  “Are you kidding?” He forked up a chunk of onion, chewed and swallowed it. “I’m just trying to draw out the pleasure. You always did tell me I ate too fast.”

  “You both do that,” Nancy said.

  “Hazard of the profession,” his dad agreed.

  Mitch nodded and tried to ignore the elephant in the room. Since he’d been home, he’d had plenty of hugs and kisses from the girls and lots of slaps on the back from the boys. He couldn’t deny his family’s happiness at having him here again. He just hated to see them all suffering on his behalf.

  Everybody wanted to comfort him for his loss, he knew, but no one wanted to be the first to bring it up. His dad insisted on acting as though nothing much had happened. Even his mom hadn’t cornered him yet, as he’d expected.

  And he didn’t want to think about recent events at all.

  He glanced down at his plate. The roast Nancy had made for supper, always his favorite, tasted dry as dust. It wasn’t Mom’s good cooking that had him distracted, though. It was the vision of a slim woman with long blond hair and sad eyes.

  “Your mom said you were out to Jed’s place this afternoon.” His dad passed him the meat platter. “How’s everything at Garland Ranch?”

  “And how’s Daffodil?” his younger sister Laurie asked. Daffodil was an old mare living out her days at the ranch.

  “I didn’t go near the corral,” he had to confess.

  Like the typical teen she was, Laurie rolled her eyes. She loved anything that walked on four legs, but especially horses.

  “You need to drop by the office,” his dad said, “and say hello to the boys.”

  He nodded. He knew most of the men in Cowboy Creek’s sheriff’s department. Heck, he’d grown up with them. Considering what had happened, seeing them didn’t rank high on his list. Then again, stopping by the office gave him something to do.

  It might help keep his mind off Andi and his decision not to visit the ranch again.

  “Oh, Mitch,” Nancy said. “I forgot to tell you. You hadn’t made it home yet when Jed called. He wants you to go back out to the ranch tomorrow. He seems to have something important on his mind.”

  Again, he had to appreciate the work that had trained him to keep his reactions hidden. He also suddenly found a lot more to like in his dad’s idea. “Thanks for passing the message along. I’ll probably be a while at the department tomorrow. But I’ll get out there again one of these days.” On another trip back home. When Andi wasn’t there.

  “From what your mom says, maybe you ought to make the trip a priority,” his dad suggested.

  “I can go with you after school,” Laurie offered. “I can see Daffodil and then go for a ride.”

  “And,” his mother said, “I told Jed I’d send along some more vegetables for Paz.”

  His brothers volunteered to help her box up the canning jars.

  As he considered the conversation, Mitch sat back in his chair and shifted his leg to make himself more comfortable.

  Nothing had been mentioned about what had brought him home. No furtive looks had been exchanged between anyone at the table. Yet somehow, he felt certain every member of his family had given the elephant in the room a strong, steady push in the right direction.

  At least, from their perspective.

  * * *

  LATE THE NEXT AFTERNOON, accompanied by nonstop chatter from Laurie, Mitch drove up the road to Garland Ranch for the second time in two days.

  She went on about her classes and friends and riding and the holiday open house Jed held every year at the hotel. He hadn’t made it back for one of those parties since he’d left town to go to school. Maybe he’d be gone for this one.

  He thought again about his family ganging up on him over today’s trip. Something had made them all suddenly think the return to Garland Ranch would do him good.

  Sure, they wanted him to relax and unwind and go back to being the son and brother they’d always known. That wasn’t going to happen, no matter how much they tried. He would never be the man he was before the incident. The incident...

  He’d trained himself to use that cop-speak every time he thought about the day. To put a professional spin on an event leaving more than one man dead. To keep from obsessing over the knowledge his partner’s death was personal and a memory he would always carry with him.

  He ran his hand over his face, then opened the window all the way, hoping the fresh air would chase away the images filling his mind.

  “Hey,” Laurie yelped. “It’s December. You want me to catch pneumonia and miss the party?”

  “You’d go to that open house if you had both legs and one arm in a cast.”

  “Sure would.” She laughed.

  He thought again of his family’s efforts to get him out to the ranch. Their methods had sent up a red flag. Something wasn’t right about their determination.

  “You do much riding out at Jed’s?” he asked.

  “Not as much anymore,” she admitted.

  “Mom says you spend weekends there, though.”

  To his surprise, her cheeks turned red. “Well, I go to see Daffodil. She’s old, you know.”

  “Yeah. She had been getting up there even when I worked the ranch. She always thought she should be treated like a queen.”

  “Jed said she earned that right. And Eddie... I mean, Pete thinks she likes when I visit.”

  “Sounds like Eddie-I-mean-Pete knows a thing or two about horses.”

  Laughing, she smacked his arm, the way she had done a hundred times before. It surprised him to realize he’d missed that, along with roughhousing with the boys.

  “All right,” she said, “I meant Eddie. He takes care of the stables.”

  Just the job he’d had the first time he’d seen Andi. The luckiest day of his life till then.

  It looked as though his little sister might have the same kind of good fortune. Maybe hers would last. “Am I going to have to play biggest brother and give the guy a warning about being good to my sister?”

  “Show him your gun. That’ll work even better.”

  His hands clamped onto the steering wheel so tightly, he could barely make the turn into the drive. The flash of memory that hit made him wince.

  PTSD, the psychiatrist assigned to him after the shooting had labeled it, the body giving way as remembered trauma took control. According to the shrink, the stress showed up in different ways.

  Yeah, he’d dealt with that, right after the...incident. It had eased up a lot since then. He was fine. Fine, except for those nights he woke up in a sweat. And those times he paced his apartment to outrun the demons chasing him.

  And, so it seemed, when he heard his baby sister joke about his weapon.

  He parked near the corral on Garland Ranch and shot a glance at the woman who stood outside the fence, her back to them. Andi. He thought of all the drugs the shrink had offered him and he had refused. Seeing Andi again made him feel better than any drug ever could.

  With one boot planted on the lowest rail, she watched a blond-haired little boy on a small Shetland. Her son, Trey, he had no doubt.

  “That’s him,” Laurie said, as if she’d read his mind. But one glance told him her mind was on the teenager leading the horse. He’d wager he knew who that was, too.

  By the time he had eased out of the truck and made his way around it, Laurie had left him far behind.

  Either Andi had no interest in newcomers or she hadn’t recognized Laurie as his sister, because she hadn’t moved from her spot near the rail. He had time to notice the fall of blond hair around her shoulders and the way her jeans hugged her curves. He even had time to remember how it had felt to hold those curves. By the time she turned to look his way, he’d broken into a sweat brought on by the memories. That was the kind of healing meds he needed.

  Dragging his shirtsleeve across his brow, he took a deep breath. Then he moved forward, cursing his knee brace and ev
ery halting step she had to see.

  She clung to the top rail the way he’d gripped the steering wheel. Her gaze shot toward the barn.

  “Eddie and Laurie are with the boy. Your son?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me about your kids.”

  The light in her face told him he’d said the right thing. The same light he once saw when she looked at him.

  “Trey is two, almost three.”

  “Ah. The terrible twos?” When her eyes widened in surprise, he shrugged. “I remember my brothers and sisters going through them.”

  “Well, I’ll admit my son has had his moments.” A smile lit her face even more. “It’s been good for Trey to be here on the ranch and around Tina’s son, Robbie, and Pete’s two kids. You remember Pete Brannigan?”

  He nodded. “Jed said he’s ranch manager now. And he did mention the kids.”

  “Yes. He has a girl and boy of his own. All three of the kids are just old enough not to take any interest yet in my daughter, Missy.”

  “She’s...?”

  “Six months.”

  “Yeah, she’s young.” He did the math. By rights, he and Andi could have started a family of their own before either of her kids had been born. But she had left him, and they had lost their chance.

  The sudden faraway look in her eyes prompted him into speech. “Jed tells me you’re staying at the hotel.”

  “Temporarily,” she shot back.

  He winced at the echo of his response when Jed had mentioned his coming home. Hopefully, he hadn’t sounded as defensive. Looked as if Andi didn’t plan to stay around Cowboy Creek. Neither did he.

  “I’m only here through the holidays,” she added.

  “This is just a short visit for me, too.”

  “And then you’ll go back to Los Angeles.”

  She sounded as if what he did concerned her. He couldn’t trust that he’d read her right. But he would bet good money she hadn’t forgotten their summer.

  He would never forget that day he’d looked across the barn to find the hottest girl he’d ever seen standing in the doorway, a blonde angel in a T-shirt, jeans and riding boots. He’d fallen head over heels and would have sworn she’d done the same.