Mistletoe & Mayhem: Mistletoe & Mayhem / Santa's Sexy Secret

“Brace yourself,” she said as she threw the release lever. His grunt as he landed on the floor gave her some satisfaction. But the grin he shot her as the two ladies rushed to fuss over him cut it short. Sophie held one of his arms, Irene the other, as Shane rose to his feet.

“Are you all right?” Irene asked. “I knew that thingamajig wasn’t going to work right.”

“It worked fine,” Jodie said. “If Shane hadn’t interfered, I’d have caught our prowler.”

“There was a prowler then,” Sophie said. “I knew I saw someone climbing down that old maple tree in the backyard.”

“That’s how he got in, too,” Shane said. “When I saw him start up, I used the key you ladies gave me. I thought I’d have a better chance of getting him if I came up here.”

“Good thinking,” Sophie said.

“Except that it cost us our prowler,” Jodie pointed out.

Shane shrugged. “I would have had him if you hadn’t interrupted.”

Jodie strode forward until they were standing toe-to-toe. “I didn’t interrupt. You interfered.”

“Instead of arguing, the two of you ought to team up. That way you won’t get in each other’s way,” Sophie said. “Right now, I think we’d better go downstairs and inform Sheriff Dillon we’ve had another break-in.”

“And I’ll make some of my famous hot chocolate. It’s just the thing to calm everyone’s nerves,” Irene said, leading the way down the stairs.

“One taste and you’ll wish we left you hanging,” Jodie predicted in a low tone as she slipped past Shane and caught up with the two older women.

SHANE LEANED BACK in his chair and let the conversation hum around him. Across the length of the kitchen table, Dillon was jotting down information in his notebook. But no matter how cleverly or persistently the sheriff asked the question, no one was willing to say that the prowler in the attic had definitely been Billy Rutherford.

When it came right down to it, Shane wasn’t certain himself. Thanks to the darkness and the fact that he’d been occupied dodging fists, he hadn’t gotten a good look at the man’s face.

Shane shifted his gaze to Jodie. Had she gotten a better look? She said not, and she could be telling the truth. In his mind, he could still picture her stretching out that window, still feel the fear that had twisted in his gut when he’d grabbed her and found that she was already more than halfway out, teetering. If he’d been a second later…Quickly, he pushed the image out of his mind and reminded himself that she’d had the full benefit of the moonlight while she was at the window. He studied her in the harsh, overhead glow of the kitchen light. Could anyone look that innocent and still be a liar? Part of him wanted to say yes. But there was another part of him…His gaze dropped to her mouth. It was soft, unpainted. She was sitting three feet away from him and he could almost taste her. Desire crept through him, leaving a dull ache in its wake.

He wanted her, and it was interfering with his judgment. The only thing he should be thinking about was whether or not Jodie had gotten a good look at the intruder. And if she had, was she lying to protect Billy Rutherford?

Deliberately, Shane shifted his gaze to Dillon. His best guess was that the sheriff wasn’t sure about that, either. Otherwise the man would have beat a hasty retreat the moment he’d sampled Irene’s special hot chocolate.

It was “special” all right. Her secret recipe had all the flavor of warmed-up mud. Lazarus had taken one sniff of the sample she’d poured into his dish and all but loped out of the room. Shane glanced down at his own full mug. In a minute he’d have to take another drink. His excuse that it was too hot was wearing thin. There wasn’t a plant in sight, and there was no way to tip it up his sleeve since he was wearing a sweater.

When his gaze collided with Jodie’s, he saw the amusement as well as the challenge. She raised her mug in a mock salute.

He reached for his, gripping the handle carefully as he lifted it. Then suddenly, he winced and the mug slipped through his fingers, spilling its contents as it rolled to the edge of the table and dropped to the floor. In the time it took him to grip his shoulder with his free hand, he read the expressions of everyone in the room. Jodie’s was a mixture of admiration and envy, Dillon’s was one of surprise, but the ladies’ eyes were filled with worry and concern. He rubbed his shoulder, wincing again. “Sorry. I must have landed harder than I thought.”

“Don’t worry about a thing,” Irene said as she hurried over with a cloth.

“I’ll get you another in just a moment.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll just help Jodie finish hers.”

Dillon’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you want a lift to the emergency room?”

Keeping his expression pained, Shane shook his head. “My shoulder seemed fine before. It must be stiffening up.”

“Got just the thing,” Sophie said, rising and moving toward the pantry.

“I’d better file this report,” Dillon said, nodding to Irene and Jodie. “I’ll send a patrol car by every hour or so. And if any of you hear from Billy, I want you to call me.”

“It wasn’t Billy,” Irene said as she escorted Dillon out of the room. “Even as a little boy, he didn’t like to climb trees.”

“I’ve got something that will take care of that shoulder,” Sophie said as she reentered from the pantry. “It works wonders for sore muscles and joints. Take off your sweater.” Then turning to Jodie, she said, “You’re going to give the lad a massage.”

“Me?” Jodie asked. “I can’t. I don’t know anything about—”

Sophie snorted. “It isn’t brain surgery we’re talking about. It’s a massage, and I can’t do it because of the arthritis in my hands. C’mon, I’ll talk you through it.”

Jodie turned to Shane, and discovered there’d be no help from him. He just sat there, grinning from ear to ear. But the challenge in his eyes had her stepping up beside Sophie.

“There,” Sophie said as she poured a dollop of oil into Jodie’s palms. “Now, rub them together. There, that’s good. Now, place your hands on his shoulders.”

Jodie moved around behind Shane’s chair. It was just a massage, she told herself. It wasn’t…well, it wasn’t a whole lot of other things. It wasn’t as though she were kissing him again. Or feeling his body pressed close. As the warmth started to spread through her, she quickly pushed the other things she’d been thinking about doing with Shane Sullivan out of her mind. She could do this. People gave massages to other people all of the time. For some people, it was a job.

“Now, press down,” Sophie said. “And release. That’s right. Press and release. I told you, you could do it. It’s as simple as breathing.”

Right, Jodie thought. Except that it wasn’t so easy to breathe anymore. The air around her seemed to have thickened slightly. Think of something else, she told herself. Think of the grin on his face. She drew in a deep breath and let it out.

“Now, move your hands closer to his neck,” Sophie said.

She did as she was told and tried to block the sensations that had begun to move through her. Closing her mind to everything else, she focused on moving her hands over Shane in the rhythm Sophie was dictating. She’d never before realized how sensitive her fingers were. Incredible. They were absorbing everything—the prickly hairs on the back of his neck, the pulse beating at his throat.

“Press, release. Press, release.”

Sophie’s voice came from a distance, but it didn’t matter because her hands seemed to have developed a will of their own. They were moving in a circular motion back to his shoulders, pressing and releasing, pressing and releasing. The feel of his skin beneath her hands was mesmerizing. The air seemed to be filled with the sound of her own breathing, her own heartbeat quickening. Beneath the musky scent of the oil, she could smell something much more intriguing, something dark and male.

Her palms recorded each separate sensation—the smooth, slick warmth of his skin, the taut muscles beneath that gave when she pressed. A feeling of power moved through her, and suddenly there were other places she wanted to touch. She stroked her hands down his spine, then moved them slowly up again. There was such heat here. It moved from his skin to hers and then spread until it burned deep in her center. She wanted to do more than touch him. She wanted to lean forward and press her mouth to the back of his neck. To taste him. To have him turn and…

His skin was only inches away from her lips when she paused. What was she thinking? Drawing back a little, she tore her eyes off Shane and glanced around the kitchen. It was empty. How long had she—

“Don’t stop.”

It took her a second to realize that he’d spoken, that it wasn’t just the voice in her head.

“I can’t. We can’t.” Before she could lift her hands from him, he snagged her wrist and turned to face her. The moment she looked into his eyes, they trapped her as swiftly, as surely, as his hand had. In them she could see exactly what she was feeling, and all she would have to do was lean forward. It wouldn’t take much effort, because she felt as if she were caught by some kind of magnetic force that was pulling her slowly and inexorably toward him. And in another moment, everything she’d been imagining since the first time she met him would become reality.

Since the first time she met him… It was that thought that gave her the strength to pull herself free. She didn’t know Shane Sullivan, not well enough to…She took three quick steps backward before she smacked into the refrigerator door.

“You—you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to fix myself a drink, something to get rid of the taste of that hot chocolate.” If she could just keep talking…No, talking was not going to do it. She had to stop looking at him or the magnetic pull was going to get hold of her again. Turning, she found herself face-to-face with the latest motto of the day: Follow Your Passion.

Your passion is catching Billy, she reminded herself as she pulled the refrigerator open, not making love to Shane Sullivan on the kitchen table. She saw nothing but the bottle of milk that Irene had used to make the hot chocolate. Just the memory of it had her shutting the door and reaching for the overhead cupboard. “I think Sophie…yes, here it is, Sophie’s cure for a head cold—a twenty-year-old, single-malt Scotch.” Without glancing at Shane, she hurried on. “Care to join me?”

“Why not?”

“According to Sophie, it’s good for what ails you,” she said as she quickly filled two glasses, picked them up and turned. For a moment, just looking at him was enough to have her nerves knotting again. He was still naked from the waist up. He was still beautiful. And she wanted him even more than she had before.

She needed a drink. Holding the two glasses of Scotch in front of her like a shield, she moved forward. “What shall we drink to?” she asked as she set a tumbler in front of him.

“A pleasant day for the funeral,” Shane said.

Jodie blinked. “What?”

“Even twenty-year-old Scotch can be lethal if you’re going to knock down eight ounces.”

Jodie stared at the glass she’d filled to the brim as Shane took it from her and carried it along with his own to the counter. After carefully tipping most of the liquid back into the bottle, he gave her back her glass and lifted his own. “Why don’t we drink to the fantasy I was having a few moments ago?”

Jodie took a quick sip of her Scotch. Steadied by the heat that burned the back of her throat, she said, “It’s going to remain a fantasy.”

“I don’t think so.”

What she saw in Shane’s eyes made her throat go dry as dust again. It wasn’t the easy humor she was coming to expect. No, it was more like a threat—or a promise. She took another sip of scotch. “We can’t…We don’t even know each other.”

His smile bloomed slowly. “It’s not necessary to know someone all that well to—”

Jodie raised a hand to stop him. “It’s necessary for me.”

His grin widened. “Okay, ask me anything you want to know.”

There was a part of her that knew it was a trap. But another part of her just couldn’t resist. There was more to Shane Sullivan than he was letting on. “You’ll tell me the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

“So help me, ma’am.” He turned his chair around and straddled it. “Shoot.”

For the first time in her life, Jodie thought she might have. If only she’d had a gun handy. Not the kind that Hank Jefferson had refused to sell her. Not a real gun. But if she’d had a water pistol handy, she would have taken aim and unloaded it just to wipe the self-confident grin off his face.

Setting her glass on the table, she sat down and said, “You’re not really some distant cousin of Katie Dillon’s, are you?”

Shane shrugged. “Well, in the sense that all of us are kin, I must be related in some way.”

“Bull. You want to know what I think? I think you’re a bounty hunter who’s come here to track Billy Rutherford down.”

For a moment, Shane didn’t say anything. He didn’t even move. Dillon was right. She was smart. The admiration he felt for her mixed with the annoyance he felt for himself. He’d been careless. And the reason for it was sitting right across the table from him. Instead of keeping his mind on getting his man, he’d been entertaining thoughts of…Ruthlessly, he pushed his fantasies aside.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Jodie asked.

“What tipped you off?”

“In the attic, you mentioned handcuffs. I don’t think they’re standard equipment for burnt-out corporate executives.”

He recalled exactly when the words had slipped out, but he’d been hoping she wouldn’t notice. He rarely let his cover slip, but he supposed swinging from the rafters by his feet was some excuse.

“Why are you a bounty hunter?” Jodie asked.

“The usual reasons, I suppose. It pays well and I’m good at it. Why are you a librarian?”

“Inertia. I loved college, and applying for the job at the library allowed me to stay right on campus.” She met his eyes squarely. “That makes me like my mother. Afraid to try anything new.”

“You must enjoy it,” Shane said.

She shrugged. “Parts of it. I love books and I love to research things and discover the answers, the secrets.”

“It sounds a lot like bounty hunting.”

“Except that I spend most of my time in front of a computer screen, and lately…” Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “Hey, I’m supposed to be asking the questions, not answering them.”

“I’ve got a proposition for you. Why don’t we team up and track down Billy Rutherford together?” The surprised look on her face summed up his own feelings exactly. Where in the world had that question come from? He always worked alone.

“No.”

That one word should have flooded him with relief, not disappointment. And certainly not annoyance “Why not? Think about it. It makes perfect sense. Especially if we don’t want to stage another Keystone Cops scene like the one we played out in the attic.”

“I can’t,” Jodie said. “I want to catch Billy to prove something—that I’m not like my mother. How am I going to do that if I team up with a big-time bounty hunter?”

“I can see to it that you get all the credit.”

“But if you’re the one who really catches Billy, I’d know it. And if I’m going to change how everyone thinks of me, I think I have to convince myself first. So my answer is no.”

Shane watched in silence as she rose and turned away. He let her get to the door before he said, “One more thing…”

She turned.

“Something very important you ought to know about me—I never take no for an answer. I’m going to persuade you to change your mind.”

5

“ALL I CAN SAY is that Albert wouldn’t have to spend any money advertising his specials if he could just hire that man to sit in the window drinking cappuccinos every day.” Having made this pronouncement from the doorway, Mindy Lou breezed into Jodie’s office and settled herself comfortably in one of the chairs.

Shane, Jodie thought, but she asked the question just the same. “Which man?”

“Your handyman, of course,” Mindy Lou stated with a beaming smile. “The man who convinced you to change from herbal tea to cappuccinos is also changing the drinking habits of most of the female population of Castleton.”

“He didn’t convince—” Jodie began, but Mindy Lou was on a roll.

“Nadine claims that cappuccino sales at Albert’s have tripled since he came to town. And he doesn’t have a date for the Mistletoe Ball yet.” Mindy Lou leaned closer. “Nadine asked him if he was going, and she’s very depressed because he didn’t take the hint and ask her.”

“I’m going to have to do something about that,” Jodie said, jotting a reminder down on her desk calendar.

“Are you going to ask him to the ball?”

Glancing up, Jodie blinked at the expression of astonishment on her assistant’s face. “No. Of course not. What I meant was that I’m going to have a talk with Nadine and try to convince her to come back to school. Throwing herself at every good-looking man who comes into Albert’s is not her only ticket out of Castleton.” Then setting her pencil down, she said, “Why shouldn’t I ask him? Not that I’m going to, because I’m not.”

“You could certainly ask him,” Mindy Lou said. “It’s just that you never have a date for the ball.”

“Because attending is part of my job. Angus depends on me to help him keep the names of the contributors straight. The money that’s raised through the Mistletoe Ball keeps this library running.” Why in the world was she defending the fact that she was dateless? Why did she sound like…poor Jodie?

Mindy Lou smiled. “If you did go with Mr. Sullivan, it would certainly distract Alicia Finnerty from her suicide watch.”

“Please.” Jodie dropped her head in her hands. “Don’t tempt me. I’d do almost anything to get her out of my hair. I know she means well, but lately she’s everywhere I go.”

“She’s probably trying to catch a glimpse of Billy Rutherford. Because of the reward and all.”

“Reward?” Jodie asked.

“It’s all over town that an insurance company is offering to pay $250,000 to anyone who can recover the money. And everyone in town is betting that Billy will contact you or one of his aunts.”

“Great.” With a sigh, Jodie leaned back in her chair. No wonder Billy hadn’t made any move to contact her. If he did, someone was bound to spot him. And it wasn’t just Alicia Finnerty keeping her under surveillance. She’d been running into Mike Buckley, Sheriff Dillon’s deputy, everywhere she turned, too. In the past two days, the only person she hadn’t seen much of was Shane Sullivan.

“They’ll catch him, you know,” Mindy Lou assured her in a comforting tone. “Sheriff Dillon is meeting with your handyman right now.”

“Dillon’s meeting with Shane?”

“They were at Albert’s when I stopped in to get you a cappuccino. I’m betting Billy Rutherford will be arrested and back in jail before you know it.”

That was precisely what Jodie was beginning to fear. Picking up her notebook, Jodie rose. “Can you cover for me? I have a research project to finish.”

“Sure thing,” Mindy Lou said. “It’s your break time anyway.” Reaching into the paper bag she was carrying, she pulled out a foam cup. “Here you go. Enjoy.”

Managing a smile, Jodie took it as she left the room. But the moment she had escaped into a stairwell, she frowned down at the cup in her hand. How was she supposed to enjoy it? If she didn’t do something soon, Shane Sullivan was going to get credit for everything—from changing her beverage of choice to capturing Billy Rutherford.

Oh, he’d promised that he’d persuade her to change her mind and join forces with him, she thought as she climbed the stairs to the second floor. But in the past two days, he hadn’t come anywhere near her except at dinner. He’d been too busy, she supposed. Even though she’d had trouble believing he’d been a burned-out corporate executive, she’d seen with her own eyes that he was pretty competent with a hammer and a paintbrush. Sophie and Irene were excited that one of the second-floor bedrooms was ready for guests.

Pushing through the door to the stacks, Jodie headed down one of the narrow aisles. From the time she was a little girl, she’d loved to go to the library. It was an escape, a place where she could relax and straighten out her thoughts. Pausing, she ran her hand along the spines of several volumes until she found one bound in leather. Opening it, she breathed in. Old books had a special scent that never failed to trigger the feeling of peace she’d always found in them as a child. Drawing in another breath, she leaned against the shelves.

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