“Good thing the guard rail was there under the piled-up snow,” he said. “Or you could’ve gone right over the edge and might not have been found until spring.”
“Well, isn’t that a lovely thought?”
She slipped a hand into her pocket and curled her fingers around the stun pen. Although he certainly looked normal enough (actually he was obscenely handsome, with slate gray eyes beneath black brows, a face that was all masculine planes and angles, and a jaw shadowed by a day’s worth of dark beard wide enough to park his Expedition on), from that casually issued comment about the reindeer, she feared he might be a 5150, which a cop she’d once interviewed for research had told her wasn’t merely an old Van Halen album but police code for a crazy person on the loose.
“And what do you mean, Blitzen?”
“He’s a reindeer.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Well, this one happens to belong to a friend of mine. He escaped from his pen yesterday.” He opened the driver’s door, looked into the car, and frowned. “Wow. Who’d have guessed an airbag could do that much damage?”
He looked down at her, eyes narrowed as he scrutinized her face. Then frowned. “You’re going to have some bruising. And maybe a black eye.” He skimmed a gloved finger beneath the eye in question. “But you’re damn lucky you weren’t burned.”
That was, admittedly, one positive. “I guess I am.”
Some people were touchers. Holly was not. Backing up a few steps, she flicked the cap off the marker-size stun pen, just in case. The salesman at the spy store had assured her that the electric arc that pulsated across the top of the pen would create a sharp, crackling sound, intimidating most would-be attackers.
And if that wasn’t enough, the 800,000 volt output would drop a guy to his knees. Although it was supposedly able to zap those volts through clothing, Holly wondered how effective it’d be through all those layers of down parka.
“You seriously have a friend who owns a reindeer?” Her tone radiated her skepticism.
“Not just one. Eight.”
“Next you’ll be telling me he uses them to pull his sleigh.”
“Actually he does.” He gave her a slow, easy smile that was too charming for comfort and sent something turning inside her. Steeling herself against its charm, she told herself that Ted Bundy had probably used much the same smile to lure unsuspecting victims into his Volkswagen. “But Blitzen is the one who always seems to get antsy this time of year.”
He had to be putting her on. Wasn’t he? Feeling like Alice after she’d fallen down the rabbit hole, Holly wondered if she was hallucinating. Maybe she’d knocked herself out in the accident and was dreaming this entire conversation.
Because if she was awake, he could be seriously unbalanced. She took another step backward and, considering her escape options after she’d tasered him, hoped he’d left the keys in the Expedition.
“You know,” he said, his midnight deep voice breaking into her tumultuous thoughts, “it’s obvious that your rig isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. And, as you’ve undoubtedly discovered, cell service here is pretty much non-available, so why don’t you let me give you a ride into town, then we can arrange to have your SUV towed to a garage in the morning?”
That was obviously the logical thing to do. The only thing to do. But accepting that didn’t stop every FBI serial killer profiling book she’d ever read for research to go flashing through her mind.
“Look.” He folded his broad arms and seemed to be holding in a sigh when she didn’t immediately jump at his offer. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m a former Marine.”
The proud. The few.
And wouldn’t he just look dandy on a recruiting poster?
While his service record was moderately encouraging, if it were true, it also could mean he was armed. Not that he’d need a gun to kill. From the size of those big, black-gloved hands, Holly suspected he’d be able to snap her neck before she knew what was happening. Before she could even turn off the safety switch on the stun pen and find a down-free place to jolt him.
She’d taken a self-defense course taught at the police station just last year. One of the basics she’d learned was GET—to go for the groin, eyes, and throat if attacked. Holly was considering the logistics of that when she realized he’d caught her checking out the G part of that acronym. Which was covered up by the heavy parka he was wearing, but given his size…
Heat flooded into cheeks that only moments earlier had been turning to ice.
“Sorry,” Holly muttered, wondering about the chances of an avalanche coming down the side of the mountain to bury her and save her from further humiliation. “Suspicion comes with the job.”
The humor in his gaze faded as he took a longer, more judicial look at her. “You a cop?”
“No. A writer. Mysteries.” And just because she wrote about serial killers and psychos didn’t mean she couldn’t tell fiction from reality. At least most of the time.
She waited for him to ask if she’d written anything he’d read. Instead, his cheeks creased as he flashed another of those devastating smiles—who knew Marines had dimples?—and said, “Cool.”
He held out his hand. “Gabriel O’Halloran. But most people, except my mother, call me Gabe.”
“Holly Berry.”
She waited for the inevitable joke about her name. It was especially difficult to escape this time of year.
Instead, he tilted his head. “The Holly Berry who wrote Blood Brothers? Deadly Deception? Power Play?”
“My publisher’s fond of alliteration.”
She was currently plotting her sixth book. The previous had garnered good reviews, even landing on some prestigious bestseller lists, and while she was no John Grisham, she was making a nice enough living.
“I thought you looked familiar. I’ve seen your photo on the back of your book covers. You’re a lot better looking in person, by the way. Not that it’s a bad photo. In fact, it’s pretty cool, with you in that kick-ass long black leather coat, glaring at something in the distance, looking like you eat bad guys for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, then either shoot them or send them up the river for life plus ten.
“But…Shit.” He shoved back the hood of the parka and dragged a hand through his wavy black hair. “Why don’t you do me a favor and just shoot me and put me out of my misery before I dig this hole I’m sinking into any deeper?”
“I’m not armed.” Holly figured the taser pen didn’t really count and wasn’t prepared to tell him about that yet. Just in case. “Besides, you’re right. That’s exactly the look the photographer was going for.”
“Well, it worked. My mom’s a huge fan.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
A breath she’d been unaware of holding came out on a puff of ghostly white. He’d actually been kind of cute when he’d gotten all embarrassed. And that he had a mother—who made him smile when he talked about her—was a positive sign.
Until Ma Barker came to mind.
“Some moms read romance.” The smile in his gray eyes echoed the one on his sinfully chiseled lips. “Mine is into murder and mayhem.”
“Well, thank her for me.”
“I’ll do that. So, now that we’ve introduced ourselves, and hopefully you’ve decided I’m not going to slit your throat once I get you alone with me in my vehicle, are you ready to get going?”
“I didn’t think that,” she lied as she recapped the pen and reached into the backseat of the disabled Highlander to retrieve her suitcase and computer bag.
“It’s good that you’re not a cop,” he said conversationally, as he took the suitcase from her hand and began walking toward the Expedition.
“You don’t like cops?”
“My dad’s a cop and I like him just fine. He’s sheriff of Cascade County. Which is where you are,” he tacked on, in case she didn’t know. Which, admittedly, she didn’t. “He was an L.A. cop. I was in eighth grade when he turned in his shield and moved
up here.”
“That must’ve been a big change for all of you.”
“My sisters—I have three—bitched for a long time about missing all their girlfriends.”
“Totally understandable.”
“I suppose.” He shrugged. “But there was sure a lot of door slamming going on around the house for the first year or so. I missed the surfing. And the Cineplex, and, given that my hormones had just begun to kick in, all the girls in their itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikinis.”
“I can see how that would be a loss,” she said dryly.
Doing the math, since he seemed in his early to mid thirties, she guessed she hadn’t quite made it into bikinis by the time his family had left California.
“But the change seemed to suit my mother and him, which was the idea. She transferred to teaching English at Cascade County High until she retired last year.”
He opened the back of the Expedition, tossed in her case, and held out his hand for her computer, which she handed over.
“Dad says he never minded working the hard streets—burglary, murder, that sort of thing. It was the domestic disturbances that really got to him. Up here he mainly deals with tourists who don’t realize that tossing back tequila shooters at a mile-high elevation has a helluva more effect on your bloodstream than it does at sea level.”
He retrieved a black box, opened it, and took out some red plastic highway flashers. “There’s also the usual barking dogs, mailbox bashing, and the occasional tree snatching. Pop’s always said it’s sorta like retirement, but he doesn’t have to spend all his time fishing or playing golf.”
Holly had climbed up into the Expedition and was just beginning to relax when a head that could’ve belonged to a small horse suddenly popped up over the top of her seat. She couldn’t stop the slight sound—not quite a shriek, but close enough—from escaping her lips.
“Damn. Sorry about that.” Gabe unzipped the parka, reached into an inner pocket, and pulled out a Milk-Bone the size of a dinosaur thigh, which he tossed at the animal, who snapped it out of the air. “I should’ve warned you about Dog.”
Huge yellow canine teeth made short work of the cookie.
Holly, whose writer’s imagination had kicked back into gear, immediately thought of Cujo. She also wished she’d left the cap off the taser pen.
“He’s certainly large.”
“Yeah. But you don’t have to worry, because he’s about as vicious as a newborn kitten.” He climbed into the driver’s seat and rubbed a hand over the dog’s huge head. “Say hello to the lady, Dog.”
The dog sat on his haunches and lifted a gigantic brown paw between the seats.
“Hello, Dog.” The beast’s furry tail began pounding the floor like a jackhammer when Holly shook his extended paw. She glanced up at Gabe. “That’s his name?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t want to get too attached to him. It seemed naming him would make it harder to leave him behind.”
“Behind where?”
Wiping the dog drool onto her jeans, she looked back at the animal, who’d crawled up on the backseat and was now sprawled over what appeared to be a camouflage-colored sleeping bag.
“Baghdad. He was a stray pup running the streets. At the time he was about a tenth the size he is now and it was obvious he was on his own, so my squad started giving him food. Which, of course, had him adopting us back.”
“I imagine that’s not uncommon in such a situation.”
“Not at all,” he agreed. “A lot of the troops had camp dogs. Not only did it lift morale, some served as additional force protectors.”
“Still, I’ll bet those other troops didn’t jump through whatever hoops it took to bring them back to America.”
“No. But Dog was special. Although you could tell gunfire—and just about everything else—scared the hell out of him, he still insisted on going on patrol with us. He sniffed out an IED one day, which saved I don’t know how many lives. No way was I going to leave him behind after that.”
“Well, that’s quite a story.” She couldn’t imagine the paperwork that it would have taken to get a stray dog from Iraq into America. “Sounds like you were lucky to have met each other.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much the way I look at it, too.”
“What kind of dog is he, anyway?”
“Beats me, but my best guess is a cross between a Great Dane and a Hummer.”
After flashing her another quick grin, he crunched his way back through the snow and set up the flashers in both directions from the disabled Highlander.
“They’ll go for thirty hours before the batteries run out,” he told her when he returned. “Give us plenty of time to get a tow truck out here in the morning.”
“I appreciate that. Of course, that leads to the problem of where I’m going to spend the night. Is there a town nearby?”
“Yeah. About forty-five minutes away in this weather.”
“I guess I won’t have any choice but to get a motel room there.”
“That might be a little tricky this time of year,” he said. “Given that it’s a really small place and high tourist season. But we’ll work something out.”
She had an idea of what that something might be. If he was thinking she was going to spend the night with him, he was going to be disappointed. But, weighing her options, Holly decided she’d wait until they got to town to face that discussion.
“Were you serious about the tree snatching?” she asked, deciding to change the subject.
“Yeah. The timber industry’s taken a hit these past years, but there’s still some good money to be made in stolen trees.”
“Really?” She looked up at the towering fir trees packed together beside the road. “How much money?”
His laugh was deep and rich and took a bit of chill from her blood, making her feel as if warm brandy had begun flowing in her veins. “Enough.”
Sensing that he was laughing at her, she folded her arms. “Something funny?”
“Not about timber theft. A full grown old growth cedar can bring in five thousand bucks at a sawmill, and a larcenous guy could make a hundred thousand with a few days’ hard work, so it’s not as benign a crime like it sounds. But, like I said, it’s a good thing you’re not a cop, because your face gives away your thoughts.”
He twisted the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life and began blowing blessed heat through the dashboard vents. “I could practically see the wheels of a possible murder-for-tree plot turning in your head.”
“It has its possibilities,” she allowed on a voice as chilly as the outside temperature. An intensely private person, Holly wasn’t wild about anyone reading her so well. Especially since Gabriel O’Halloran was the first person to ever have accused her of being that easily read. “Though at the moment I’m working on another idea. A black widow murder.”
“Ah.” He nodded as he pulled the Expedition back onto the narrow road. “The chirpy, white-haired owner of Black Forest Cookies who’s accused of having poisoned six husbands.”
“You’ve heard of the case?”
“Sure. Leavenworth’s just on the other side of the mountains,” he reminded her. “Maybe you could call it The Cookie Caper.”
She was about to inform him that his suggested title was more suited to a cozy mystery when she realized he was joking, playing with her alliterative title idea. Again, not exactly serial killer behavior.
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
Chapter Three
Having already had one accident that day, Holly was relieved when he kept the Expedition at a safe crawl, the yellow beam of the headlights bouncing off the wall of white stuff that continued to fall.
“We’ll be in the town in another twenty minutes or so,” he told her after they’d been driving approximately twenty-five minutes.
He’d turned the radio down, but she’d listened to a steady stream of road closures throughout the state. His voice sounded deeper and richer in the intimacy of
the snow-shrouded silence.
“Okay, here’s where I admit I have no idea what town that might be.”
“Santa’s Village.”
“You can’t be serious.” Maybe he wasn’t a stone-cold killer, or even 5150 insane, but once again Holly began to worry about him being delusional.
“It’s the town’s name, all right. Population six hundred twenty-seven.” He glanced over at her. “It’s also not on the way to Leavenworth.”
She definitely would’ve noticed that town on the map while planning her trip. “Damn GPS.”
Not encouraging was that she’d bought the faulty navigation system from the same guy who’d sold her the purse-size Zeus Lightning Bolt taser pen. What if it turned out he was pushing fake Chinese stuff on an unsuspecting public? How many lives could that put at risk?
“Ah.” He nodded as she filed the idea of a faulty taser away. She couldn’t see it working in her black widow cookie killer story, but perhaps, like all the other bits and pieces of criminal behavior she had tucked away in her mind, it could prove useful down the road. “It told you to turn right at that crossroad outside Skykomish,” he guessed.
“Exactly.” Which was where she’d obviously gone wrong. “How did you know?”
He shrugged. “It seems to be a glitch in some programs. We’ve gotten lost drivers before.”
“Who suddenly find themselves in Santa’s Village.”
“Yep.”
Damn. “That’s certainly a colorful name. Is it one of those cutesy theme towns?”
Leavenworth, where she’d been headed, had re-created itself from a dying timber and railroad town into a faux Alpine Bavarian Village, which reputedly drew two-and-a-half million tourists a year.
“It pretty much is.” He glanced over at her. “Sounds like you’re not a fan of cute.”
“Cute has its place. Like puppies and kittens. Johnny Depp. I just don’t celebrate Christmas.”
“So, is that a religious thing? Or were you at some time traumatized by a department store Santa?” Easy humor laced his voice.
“Let’s just say the rampant commercialism gets to me.” Her tone, chillier than the snow falling outside, strongly suggested they drop the entire subject.
Silver Bells Page 10
