Christmas Kidnapping

by Cindi Myers

  “I don’t know.” She pushed the coffee cup away. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “What do you mean? Did something happen out there that changed your mind about him?”

  “I wasn’t aware that I’d made up my mind about him before,” Andrea said. “If you recall, before this whole thing happened, we had only just met.”

  Chelsea waved this notion away. “Call me a romantic, but the first time I saw you two together, I could tell something clicked. You seemed perfect together. Did anything that happened to you while you were running around in the woods make you think otherwise?”

  A kaleidoscope of memories played through her mind: Jack playing with Ian on the floor of the cabin, Jack making love to her with such exquisite tenderness and passion, Jack protecting her with his own body as a terrorist shot at them. Every image proved that he was a man of strength and character, capable of great emotion and caring.

  “Jack has a very dangerous job,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “One that requires a lot of his time and attention. The things that happened to us after those men kidnapped Ian—that kind of thing happens to Jack all the time. I think Ian and I need a little more stability in our lives.”

  “Maybe you do.” Chelsea leaned forward and covered Andrea’s hand with her own. “Or maybe you need a man who will go to the ends of the earth to protect you with everything he has. I know after what happened with Preston, getting anywhere near a law enforcement officer has to be scary, but tell the truth—in the three years you’ve been a widow, has any other man come even close to lighting you up the way Jack does?”

  “Are you saying I have a thing for dangerous men?”

  Chelsea sat back, smiling. “Maybe you do. Or maybe they have a thing for you.”

  The doorbell rang and Ian jumped up. “I’ll get it!” he shouted.

  “Ian, remember what I told you about opening the door to strangers.” Andrea hurried after her son, Chelsea behind her.

  “Hello, Andrea.”

  By the time the women made it to the door, Jack was standing just inside with Ian.

  As a psychologist, Andrea was familiar with all the physical manifestations of attraction—pounding heart, wobbly knees and light-headedness, for example. Clearly, her body was determined to remind her of the attraction she felt for Jack by manifesting every symptom in the book. “Hello, Jack.” Shaking, breathy voice—check.

  “I’ll just leave you two alone to talk.” Chelsea took Ian’s hand. “Come on, Ian. Let’s take Charlotte outside to play for a little bit.”

  “But I want to see Jack,” Ian wailed.

  “I promise to come see you when I’m done talking to your mom,” Jack said. “I brought that oil for your tricycle and I’ll need you to help me work on it.”

  “We could work on it now,” Ian said.

  “Let me talk to your mom first.”

  “Okay,” he relented.

  By the time they were alone, Andrea felt in more control of her emotions. “How are you doing, Jack?” she asked.

  He took a step toward her, moving a little more stiffly than he had when they first met. “Are you asking as my therapist or as my friend?”

  She fought the urge to back up. “Both,” she said.

  “My physical therapist lectured me on all the damage I’ve done by not staying off my leg and taking it easy, but she says I’ll recover in time. My boss has agreed to give me a desk job for a while, since I managed to get into so much trouble while I was on leave. As for the rest...” He shrugged. “I’m grateful I remembered Gus’s killer. I hated having that gap in my memory. It made me doubt myself—as a friend and as an agent with a job to do.”

  “So you have closure.” She clasped her hands tightly in front of her to keep from reaching out to him. Did she and Ian and everything that had happened between them not count with “the rest”?

  “His name was Roland Chambers. He was suspected of being Duane Braeswood’s second in command. Taking him out put one more chink in the organization.”

  “He’s out of your life for good now,” she said. “You can move on with the work you love.”

  “I guess so. We’ve confirmed the backpack I found in the mine definitely belonged to Mark Renfro. We still don’t know where he is or if he’s even alive, but it gives us a lead to follow. We’re still looking for the rest of the group, but we hope the evidence we’ve collected at the mine and at the fishing camp will eventually lead us to them.”

  “How’s Brian?” she asked. “I want to get his contact information and keep in touch with him.”

  “He’d like that. He’s back in Boulder right now. We were able to contact his dad and he flew in from Iceland yesterday. He hadn’t taken the threats against his son seriously. He thought they were some kind of fraternity prank or something and was too engrossed in his work to pay attention. I think this was a real wake-up call for him. He’s talking about taking Brian back to Iceland with him.”

  “I guess this is the kind of thing that would shake up anyone,” she said.

  “How are you and Ian doing?” he asked.

  “Ian is great. I guess it’s true about little kids—they’re very resilient. Right now all he cares about is counting down the days until Christmas. But I’ve made an appointment for him with a friend of mine who specializes in children’s therapy, just to make sure there’s no lingering concerns.”

  “And you?”

  She pressed her lips together, choosing her words carefully. “What happened shook me up a little,” she said. “I...I know we wouldn’t have made it without you.”

  He took another step toward her, until she could feel the heat of him and see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. “There’s something you need to know,” he said.

  She forced herself to meet his eyes, and the searching look he gave her made her breath catch. She pressed her lips together, afraid to speak, to break the spell between them.

  “When I faced that shooter in the woods, it wasn’t about Gus or the job or protecting myself or anything like that. It wasn’t even about revenge. All I wanted was to protect you. You and Ian. You were the only things that mattered. The only things that still matter.”

  “Oh, Jack.” She pressed her fingers to her lips, a sob catching in her throat. He gathered her close and she relaxed against him, unable to hold back anymore.

  He kissed the top of her head, his hands caressing her back. “I love you,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I love you, too. I know we just met, but...”

  “But it’s right. I’m as certain of that as...as I am that I would never forget your face.” He pulled back enough to smile at her and she returned the expression, happiness filling her up like light.

  “What about your job?” she asked.

  “What about it?”

  “You won’t be in Durango forever.”

  “I could be,” he said. “The Bureau’s resident agency here in Durango has an opening.”

  “What about your case?”

  “I can stay with the team until they leave here, then transfer to the resident agency.”

  She clutched his shirt front. “You’d do that for me?”

  “I told you. You and Ian are what matter most to me now.” He cradled her head in his hand and kissed her. The kiss was as familiar and welcome as the taste of sweet chocolate and as intoxicating as an exotic liqueur. This was what life with Jack would bring her—his steadfast love and protection along with an electric dose of the unexpected. As much as she claimed to crave the ordinary and sedate, she knew Chelsea had been right. Jack’s courage and willingness to face danger, to right wrongs, attracted her every bit as much as his muscular shoulders and tenderness toward Ian.

  “Jack!”

 
Andrea’s whole body hummed with the effect of that kiss when Jack raised his head to look at Ian. “What is it, Ian?”

  “Are you staying?”

  Jack looked at Andrea, who nodded. “I’m staying, buddy,” Jack said.

  “Then do you think, pretty soon, that you could teach me to ride a big bike? I asked Santa to bring me one for Christmas.”

  Jack released her and knelt in front of her son. “I hope I can teach you that, and a lot of other things,” he said.

  “Good.” Ian threw his arms around Jack’s neck and hugged him tightly. Andrea knelt to join in the embrace.

  “The three of us are going to be a family now,” she said. “Would you like that?”

  “Uh-huh.” He stepped back to regard them both solemnly. “Does this mean we can get a dog?”

  “We’ll have to talk about that later.” Jack stood and helped Andrea up beside him. He put his arm around her and looked at Ian. “What do you think about me marrying your mother?”

  Ian studied them a moment. “I guess that would be okay.” He turned and headed out of the room. “I’ll get my trike out of the garage. You can meet me out there.”

  Jack laughed. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “Nothing fazes him.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Andrea asked.

  “More than ready.” He began kissing her again and she wrapped herself around him. Ian and his trike would clearly have to wait a few minutes longer.

  * * * * *

  Cindi Myers’s miniseries

  THE MEN OF SEARCH TEAM SEVEN

  continues next month with PHD PROTECTOR. Look for it wherever

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  Landon

  by Delores Fossen

  Chapter One

  Deputy Landon Ryland was looking for a killer.

  He stood back from the crowd who’d gathered for the graveside funeral, and Landon looked at each face of the fifty or so people. Most he’d known since he was a kid, when he had visited his Ryland cousins here in Silver Creek, Texas.

  But today he had to consider that one of them might have murdered Emmett.

  Just the thought of it felt as if someone had Landon’s heart in a vise and was crushing it. Emmett and he were cousins. But more like brothers. And now Emmett was dead, and someone was going to pay for that.

  Especially considering how, and why, Emmett had died.

  Landon knew the how, but it was the why that was causing his sleepless nights. He intended to give the killer a whole lot worse than just lack of sleep, though.

  He glanced out of the corner of his eye when he sensed someone approaching. Landon didn’t exactly have a welcoming expression, and everybody had kept their distance. So far.

  Since he was on edge, he slid his hand over his gun, but it wasn’t necessary. It was Sheriff Grayson Ryland, yet another of his cousins.

  Grayson, however, was also Landon’s new boss.

  The ink was barely dry on his contract with the sheriff’s office, but he was the newest lawman in Silver Creek. Newest resident, too, of the Silver Creek Ranch since he’d moved to the guesthouse there until he could find his own place. Landon just wished his homecoming had been under much better circumstances.

  “You see anything?” Grayson said. He was tall, lanky and in charge merely by being there. Grayson didn’t just wear a badge—he was the law in Silver Creek, and everybody knew it.

  Grayson was no doubt asking if Landon had seen a killer. He hadn’t. But one thing was for certain: she wasn’t here.

  “Any sign of her yet?” Landon asked.

  Grayson shook his head, but like Landon, he continued to study the funeral attendees, looking at each one of them from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat. Also as Landon had done, Grayson lingered a moment on Emmett’s three brothers. All grief stricken. And that didn’t apply just to them but to the entire Ryland clan. Losing one of their own had cut them each to the bone.

  “Tessa Sinclair might not be able to attend, because she could be dead,” Grayson reminded him.

  Yes. She could be. But unless Landon found proof of that, she was a person of interest in Emmett’s death. Or at least, that was how Grayson had labeled her. To Landon, she was a suspect for accessory to murder since Emmett’s body had been found in her house. That meant she likely knew the killer.

  She could even be protecting him.

  Well, she wouldn’t protect that piece of dirt once Landon found him. And old times wouldn’t play into this. It didn’t matter that once she’d been Landon’s lover. Didn’t matter that once they’d had feelings for each other.

  Something that didn’t sit well with him, either.

  But despite how Landon felt about her and no matter how hard he looked at the attendees, Tessa wasn’t here at the funeral. With her blond hair and starlet looks, she would stick out, and Landon would have already spotted her.

  Grayson reached in his pocket, pulled out a silver star badge and handed it to Landon. It caught the sunlight just right, and the glare cut across Landon’s face, forcing him to shut his eyes for a second. He hoped that wasn’t some kind of bad sign.

  “You’re certain you really want this?” Grayson pressed.

  “Positive.” He glanced at his cousin. Not quite like looking in a mirror but close enough. The Ryland genes were definitely the dominant ones in both of them. “You haven’t changed your mind about hiring me, have you?”

  “Nope. I can use the help now that I’m short a deputy. I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into.”

  Landon knew. He was putting himself in a position to catch a killer.

  He clipped the badge onto his shoulder holster where once there’d been a different badge, for Houston PD. There he’d been a detective. But Landon had given that up when Emmett was murdered, so he could come home and find the killer.

  Too bad it didn’t look as if he would find him or her here.

  “I’ll see you back at the sheriff’s office,” Landon said, heading toward his truck. It was only about a fifteen-minute ride back into town, not nearly enough time for h
im to burn off this restless energy churning inside him.

  This is for you, Landon.

  The words flashed through his head and twisted his gut into a knot so tight that Landon felt sick. Because that was what the handwritten note had said. The note that had been left on Emmett’s body. Someone had killed Emmett because of Landon.

  But why?

  Landon had thought long and hard on it, and he still couldn’t figure it out. Since he’d been a Houston cop for nearly a decade, it was possible this was a revenge killing. He’d certainly riled enough criminals over the years, and this could have been a payback murder meant to strike Landon right in the heart.

  And it had.

  Somewhere, the answers had to be in his old case files. Or maybe in the sketchy details they’d gotten from witnesses about the hours leading up to Emmett’s death. Something was there. He just had to find it.

  He took the final turn toward town, and Landon saw something he sure as hell didn’t want to see.

  Smoke.

  It was thick, black and coiling from what was left of a barn at the old Waterson place. The house and outbuildings had been vacant for months now since Mr. Waterson had died, but that smoke meant someone was there.

  Landon sped toward the blaze and skidded to a stop about twenty yards away. He made a quick 911 call to alert the fire department, and he drew his gun just in case the person responsible for that blaze was still around. However, it was hard to see much of anything, because of the smoke. It was stinging his eyes and making him cough.

  But he did hear something.

  A stray cat, maybe. Because there shouldn’t be any livestock still inside that barn.

  Landon went to the back of the barn, or rather what was left of it, and he saw something that had his heart slamming into overdrive.

  Not a cat. A woman.

  She had shoulder-length brown hair and was on her side, moaning in pain. But she was only a couple of feet from the fire, and the flames were snapping toward her.

  Cursing, Landon rushed to her just as the gust of the autumn wind whipped some of those flames right at him. He had to put up his arm to protect his face, and in the same motion, he grabbed her by the ankle, the first part of her he could reach, and he dragged her away from the fire.