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

He watched her pause to look in a store window, then suddenly turn and hurry to the corner. Perhaps it was all that cool reserve laced with the promise of heat. It was the kind of contrast that would draw a man. The thought of it tempting a piece of scum like Billy Rutherford made him frown.

“You’re wrong about Jodie helping him hide the money,” Dillon said.

Shane turned his attention back to the sheriff. “I’m not so sure. She’s smart enough to be putting on an act.”

Dillon smiled. “Oh, she’s smart all right, smart enough to come here to check you out. She doesn’t buy your cover. She’s curious as to why you’re wandering around without a home to go to for Christmas. And she wants to know why a corporate executive would want to try his hand at carpentry. I told her it’s a midlife crisis. Is it?”

“That’s what we agreed you’d say.”

“I’m asking for myself, now. You own a big investigative firm, and Billy Rutherford is small potatoes compared to some of the men you’ve hunted. Why not send one of your operatives?”

Shane studied the sheriff for a minute. Beneath the laid-back attitude there was a persistence and a shrewdness he admired. He decided to go with the truth. “I’ve been out of the field for a while, and I was feeling restless.” Empty was the word he’d come up with in the wee hours of the morning to describe the mix of emotions he’d been experiencing lately. But it was much less disturbing to define them as simple restlessness. “Don’t you ever miss it? Being in the field, I mean?”

Dillon shrugged. “In a town like this there’s not much to miss. Anything exciting happens, I’m right in the thick of it.”

The phone rang, and Dillon grinned. “And when my deputy is out, I get to double as my own receptionist during lunch hour. Never a dull moment.”

While Dillon handled the call, Shane glanced out the window again, but Jodie had disappeared. Whether she was cooperating with Rutherford or not, he had a gut feeling that Ms. Freemont was the key to finding both the money and the man. His plan was to get close to her, and his job was going to be a lot more interesting and pleasurable than he’d first thought.

“One more thing,” Dillon said as he hung up his phone. “I’ve known Jodie Freemont since she was a little girl. I promised her I’d tell you to keep your distance.”

Shane’s brows rose. “Does she think I have designs on her?”

“She’s more concerned about Sophie and Irene—being taken in by a smooth-talking charmer was the way she put it. But I don’t want her hurt again, especially by someone who’ll be leaving town once he gets his man. Am I making myself clear?”

“As crystal,” Shane said as he rose and walked to the door.

AT FIVE O’CLOCK on the dot, Jodie started her car. Two things were driving her as she shot it out of the parking lot: escaping from Mindy Lou’s overbearing concern and building her snare trap in the attic. Clyde Heffner, the student who had downloaded the diagram, was going to drop by and help her string it up around eight-thirty, not a minute too soon.

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, when her boss Angus Campbell had been droning on about the contributors who would be attending the Mistletoe Ball, that she’d realized the significance of what Sheriff Dillon had told her. If Billy had come back to town, he could have been the prowler in the attic last night. And if he came back tonight, she wanted to have the trap all set! Catching Billy and turning him over to the sheriff would change her image in Castleton once and for all.

When she had to stop for the light at the corner, she turned the jazz music station she favored up full blast. Her car, a five-year-old red hatchback, was her one luxury. True, it wasn’t the convertible she’d always dreamed of owning, but…

She lost her train of thought the moment she spotted Alicia Finnerty stepping off the curb with a group of women. Wasn’t that just her luck? It would be too much to hope that the woman wouldn’t recognize her car. Way too much, she thought, as Alicia glanced at her significantly, then turned to chatter to her companions.

One by one, the other women looked her way with varying expressions of concern and curiosity. Jodie was tempted to roll down her window, grab the rope lying on her passenger seat and wave it at them. Instead, she forced herself to smile as the light changed and she eased her car around the corner. Her impulsiveness had already gotten her into enough hot water today. And it hadn’t helped her one bit. It had only contributed to everyone’s notion that she was exactly like her mother, a woman who would never recover from the loss of a man.

No, if she wanted to change her image in the town, she was going to have to do something that destroyed the idea once and for all that she was the type of woman who would spend her whole life pining over a man who couldn’t be tied down.

The moment she reached the village limits, she floored the gas pedal and watched the speedometer climb to fifty-five. When she automatically eased the pressure, she suddenly frowned. Why in the world did she always follow all of the rules?

Go For It! The moment the motto popped into her mind, she watched as the needle climbed to five, then six, finally seven miles over the speed limit. Not enough to get a ticket. Maybe she’d go for that tomorrow.

Tonight, she had bigger plans: catching Billy Rutherford. What had yesterday’s motto been? Visualize Your Goal. Even as she smiled at the thought, she decided to give it a whirl. It couldn’t hurt, could it?

In her mind, she pictured herself on the front page of the Castleton Bulletin, delivering Billy Rutherford to Sheriff Dillon.

Yes! She nodded her head in satisfaction. That one photo would truly be worth a thousand words. It would change her image in one fell swoop. With a jazz rendition of “Jingle Bells” pouring out of the radio, Jodie kept the picture clear in her mind until Rutherford House came into view.

The moment she turned into the driveway, she stopped thinking about anything but the car that was parked in front of the garage.

It was in her space, but that’s not why she skidded to a stop behind Sophie’s station wagon and jumped out of her car. It was a red convertible, the kind she dreamed of owning one day. Circling to the driver’s side, she peered inside. A two-seater with leather seats. Exactly what she wanted. Quickly she backed up to get a better view. Without any difficulty at all, she pictured herself behind the wheel, driving down the main street of town, her hair ruffled by the wind.

Perfect.

SHANE WATCHED Jodie from the shade at the side of the garage. She hadn’t seen him yet, hadn’t even glanced his way. It was the car that had held her attention since she’d arrived. He couldn’t prevent a smile as he watched her circle it. He’d reacted much the same way the first time he’d seen it.

It suddenly occurred to him that the feeling he’d had more than once since he’d met her was one of…He searched for a word. Kinship? Recognition?

He found the thought both surprising and a little alarming. He had nothing in common with a smalltown librarian. And he didn’t want to have anything in common with her. A woman like that had home and hearth written all over her. She wasn’t his type at all. He’d long ago decided that he wasn’t the type of man who’d ever settle down.

Plus, she was his key to finding Rutherford and the money. Even if she wasn’t Billy’s accomplice, and he was beginning to believe that Dillon was right about that, she might still be the one person Billy might feel he could trust and turn to.

He’d seen evidence of her fierce loyalty to the Rutherford sisters, and it might very well extend to their nephew. He couldn’t fault that. In fact he admired it. Loyalty was rare these days. And it would draw a man back.

He watched her as she ran her hands over the hood of his car, slowly, hesitantly. Her fingers were short but slender, the nails tapered and unpolished. Her palms would be soft, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she would have that same hesitancy the first time she touched a man. And how that might change when she was aroused, when that latent passion broke free…

With a frown, Shane reined in his thoughts. Clearly, Jodie Freemont was a distraction. But he didn’t intend to let her interfere with his job.

If she was Billy’s accomplice, she’d know where the money was. If not, she could be his key to finding it. In both instances, he had to get close to her, win her trust.

So you’ll use her just as Billy did?

The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth he quietly stepped out of the shade.

“I think you’re breaking one of the commandments,” he said with a smile when he reached her.

Startled, Jodie snatched her hand from the hood of the car and whirled to find Shane at her side. “What? I wasn’t going to steal it. I was just touching it.”

“I was talking about the tenth commandment. ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”’

“I wasn’t…I was…” Pausing, she sighed. “I definitely was. You know, I’ve never understood that commandment. What’s wrong with coveting as long as that’s where it ends?”

“But usually it doesn’t end that way. Coveting is a lot like lust. It doesn’t go away. It just builds and builds until the temptation to reach out and take becomes so strong, you just can’t resist anymore. Go ahead.”

Jodie found that while she’d been looking into his eyes, listening to his words, her throat had gone dry as dust. He was talking in theory, not about anything, and certainly not anyone, specific. But his eyes had grown so dark that the image of herself that she could see in them suddenly seemed swallowed up. And his tone of voice had been so intimate, so inviting that she wanted in the worst way to reach out and touch him the same way she’d felt compelled to touch the car moments ago. Was this the way a moth was lured into a flame?

“Go ahead and touch,” Shane said.

Jodie blinked. Could he read her mind? No. No, he was talking about the car. Reaching out, she ran her hand over the shiny surface of the hood again. It felt hard and satiny smooth, but different somehow. Was she imagining that it felt warmer, as if it had been heated by the thin, wintery sun? Suddenly, the image filled her mind of what it would be like to touch Shane. Visualize Your Goal. The motto moved through her thoughts, mocking her as the heat moved up her arm like little spools of ribbon unwinding slowly. Her fingers felt singed when she finally found the strength to snatch them back.

“You want to give it a try?”

Jodie moistened her lips. “What?”

“You want to take it out for a spin?”

“Me?”

“Sure.” Reaching into his pocket, he dangled the keys in front of her.

“I can’t,” she said backing a step away. “I don’t know how to drive a shift. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

“I could give you a lesson,” Shane offered.

Immediately, she pictured the two of them riding in the car, and the image was much more potent than the one she’d pictured earlier. This time he was touching her, sitting close, his hand over hers on the gear shift.

She shouldn’t. She couldn’t. She needed some distance until she figured out how to handle the way she was feeling. There was something she had to do…if she could just think of what it was….

“Come on,” Shane said.

“I can’t. I have some work to do before dinner.” Hurrying to her car, she lifted out the package of rope. When she turned, he was right beside her. She took a quick step backward. “And I…have to get the mail. I always stop at the mailbox when I turn in the driveway, but I got distracted.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

Jodie took a deep breath as she started down the driveway. If he even brushed accidently against her…No. It wasn’t going to happen. She concentrated on putting one foot carefully in front of the other on the hard-packed snow. By the time she reached the mailbox and emptied it, her breathing and her thought patterns were very nearly back to normal. Still, she avoided looking at him by sorting through the pile of Christmas cards, advertisements, bills…The moment she saw the handwriting, the letter slipped through her fingers. Shane was quicker than she was, and he grabbed it just before it hit the snow.

“It’s addressed to you, and there’s no stamp,” he said. “It must have been hand delivered.”

“It’s probably from a student. They never have any money.” Taking it from his outstretched hand, she tucked it quickly in her pocket and started back up the driveway. “Have a nice evening.”

Shane waited until she disappeared into the house before he headed back to his car. She was as easy to read as a first-grade primer. That letter wasn’t from a student. She hadn’t even been able to look him in the eye when she said it. He was willing to bet his car that Billy Rutherford had contacted his ex-fiancée.

What he wasn’t so sure of was whether she’d call Dillon or decide to help out her former lover.

3

THE SMELL assaulted her as soon as she opened the front door and stepped into the foyer. It was the same unidentifiable scent that filled the house every time that Irene cooked. Lazarus lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. He twitched his tail once in greeting, but otherwise gave no sign of life. Jodie could do nothing but sympathize. Dogs had a keen sense of smell, and no doubt he knew that he’d be going hungry tonight.

“I lost the coin toss,” Sophie said in a lowered tone as she appeared in the archway to the dining room.

“What happened to your lucky streak?” Jodie asked.

Sophie shrugged. “It was bound to run out. What we need is a two-headed coin.”

“What we need is to tell Irene she can’t cook.”

Sophie frowned. “She’s having enough trouble trying to accept that Billy stole all our savings. I hate to disillusion her any more.”

Setting down the mail and the package of rope, Jodie took the older woman’s hands in hers. “I know. But when you open the bed-and-breakfast for business…”

Sophie sighed. “We’ll sit down and have a talk with her after the Mistletoe Ball next Friday. She’ll be basking in the glory of having brought it off, and that will cushion the blow.”

Jodie squeezed Sophie’s hands. “I wish I’d had a sister like you when I was growing up.”

“Well, you’ve got me now,” Sophie replied. “Why don’t you ask Shane if he can get hold of a two-headed coin? He seems like an enterprising young man to me.”

“You’ve known him less than a day, and you’re on a first-name basis with the handyman?”

“Mr. Sullivan sounds a little formal when he’s going to be joining us for meals.”

The thought of Shane Sullivan sitting down to one of Irene’s culinary creations had Jodie’s lips curving. She doubted he’d be taking many of his meals with them in the future. Then wrinkling her nose, she asked, “What could possibly smell that bad?”

“She’s calling it meat loaf.”

Lazarus moaned.

Jodie knelt and ran a sympathetic hand over him, then when he turned, began to scratch his stomach. He’d been nearly dead the night she’d found him lying along the road, and Doc Cheney, the town vet, hadn’t been sure he’d make it.

“What does that dog have to complain about?” Sophie asked. “If he doesn’t like the meat loaf, he can eat his canned dog food. We’re stuck.” She glanced down at the pile of correspondence. “Anything interesting in the mail.”

“No,” Jodie said as Sophie began to sort through it. Thank heavens she’d stuffed the letter in her pocket. “Just some circulars.”

“Oh, you’re home,” Irene said as she breezed into the foyer. Flour streaked her hair and seemed to hover in a little cloud around her. “You just have time to change before dinner.”

“Change what?” Jodie asked.

“Your clothes. Shane is joining us for dinner.”

“We have to dress up for the handyman?” Jodie asked.

Irene shooed her toward the stairs. “He’s a guest, too. And he’s worked very hard all afternoon. Haven’t you noticed all the mistletoe he’s hung?”

Jodie glanced up to see that mistletoe indeed now hung from the chandelier, as well as from every archway and door that led off from the foyer.

“We put it in every room,” Irene explained. “There was quite a bit we didn’t use for the ball, and we didn’t want it to go to waste. What do you think?”

“Very…Christmassy,” Jodie managed to reply.

Irene beamed a smile at her. “After you change, I could use your help in the kitchen. You could let me know what you think of my new gravy recipe.”

“Actually, I was planning on starting on my snare trap,” Jodie quickly improvised. “In the attic. Remember?” Grabbing the rope, she hopped over Lazarus and started up the stairs.

Once in her room, Jodie locked the door, set the rope down on her bed, then pulled the letter out of her pocket. It was Billy’s handwriting all right. She hadn’t been wrong about that. Staring at it, she sank down on the foot of her bed.

She hadn’t lied to the sheriff. Billy hadn’t tried to contact her after his arrest. But he’d given Irene a note for her shortly before the police had arrived at the house to take him away. In it, he’d asked her to believe in him, to believe in his love for her, and he’d promised she’d get her money back.

Even now, she could remember how much she’d wanted to believe him, how she’d clung for two months to her fantasy that he would keep his word. She’d checked the mailbox each day hoping for a letter until the day the bank had foreclosed on her house.

What did he possibly think he could say now? Tearing open the envelope, she unfolded the letter.

My dearest Jodie,

I haven’t written to you before because I didn’t want to put you in danger. But I’ll have your money for you soon. Please don’t tell anyone about this note. My life could depend on it. Yours, too.

I never lied to you about my feelings for you.

I’ll be in touch.

Billy

Slowly, she lowered the note to her lap. Damn Billy Rutherford. What she wanted to do was rip his words into shreds. But she would keep the note because it would inspire her more than one of Sophie’s calendar slogans ever could. She wasn’t going to be that big a fool again. Ever. She glanced at the note again.

“My life could depend on it. Yours, too.”

A ripple of fear moved through her. It was probably a lie. She doubted that Billy could tell the difference between the truth and a lie anymore.

Carefully folding the paper, she slipped it back into the envelope. It was only then that she recalled what Shane had noticed. It didn’t have a stamp. Had Billy delivered it himself?

Rising, she began to pace back and forth. It meant that Billy was definitely back in Castleton. It must have been him in the attic, and he hadn’t gotten what he was after. “I’ll have your money for you soon.” That meant he had to come back.

She was reaching for the phone next to her bed when she snatched her hand back. If she told the sheriff now, she could picture exactly what would happen. He’d have his distant cousin Shane watching her like a hawk, and she might miss the one chance she had of catching Billy by herself. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Turning, she began to pace again. Catching Billy would allow her to kill two birds with one stone. She could change her image in the town forever, and she could get the money back that Billy had stolen from his aunts. They needed it. Because if they couldn’t make their bed-and-breakfast work, they could lose Rutherford House.

Pausing, she sank back down on the foot of her bed. The money was probably in the attic. Otherwise, why go there? So she’d set the trap. In her mind, she pictured Billy swinging back and forth from the rope she was going to string up in the attic. Once he was in it, she’d make him cough up the money and then she’d call the sheriff.

“CLYDE, I can’t thank you enough,” Jodie said as she followed him out onto the porch. “I never could have figured out how to weight it properly.”

“No problem, ma’am.”

And it hadn’t been. Jodie drew her coat more closely around her as she watched the skinny young man climb into his battered pickup truck and back down the driveway. In less than an hour, he’d adapted a trap designed for use in woods or jungles to something that would operate very efficiently in an attic. Clyde was a talented young man. What he needed was someone to give him a push into an engineering school; that just might get his mind off joining one of the militia groups he was always researching on the Internet. Tomorrow, she’d see his advisor at the college. And later in the week, she was going to have a talk with Nadine Carter and see if she could convince her to come back to school.

And tonight? Drawing in a breath of the crisp, cold air, she glanced up at the sky, polka-dotted with stars. Then crossing her fingers for luck, she wished on the biggest one. Please, let her catch Billy Rutherford III in her trap tonight.

But someone else might catch him first.

With a frown, she sank down on the top step and glared at the garage. In the moonlight, she could see that the space beside Sophie’s car was still empty. The red convertible had disappeared shortly before Clyde had arrived.

Jodie resented the idea that, just because there was now a man about the house, he would be the one to nab Billy. It struck her how much she really wanted to be the one to turn Billy over to the authorities. How much she didn’t want Shane to beat her to it.

Her eyes widened at the thought. Where had it come from? She’d never before thought of herself as the type of woman who had to compete with a man. And she wasn’t. There were plenty of reasons why she wanted to be the one to turn Billy Rutherford over to the police—and they had nothing to do with Shane Sullivan. In fact, she was going to put him out of her mind.

Just then a car pulled into the driveway and the headlights pinned her. Shane. She could just make out the red convertible in the moonlight. The urge to get up and run was almost overpowering, but she couldn’t bear the idea of him getting that look of amusement in his eyes at her expense. It wasn’t until he parked the car that she noticed the top was down and Lazarus was sitting in the passenger seat.

Lazarus, the dog who could barely get himself out of a prone position except to eat? And who in the world rode around with the top down in the middle of winter? She was still staring as the man and the dog started toward her.

“How did you bribe him to go with you?” she asked when Lazarus plopped his head into her lap.

“He followed me to the car,” Shane said.

“You never follow me to my car,” she said, leaning closer to scratch the dog behind his ears. “And I pay your vet bills.”

“Evidently, he prefers convertibles. There’s no accounting for taste.”

Jodie glanced up at him. “It’s a taste for French fries that lured him into your car. I can smell them on his breath.”

Shane grinned at her. “What can I say? We were hungry.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How can you be? You ate two slices of Irene’s meat loaf. I saw you.”

“It’s nice to know I’m not losing my touch.”

Jodie’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“You only think you saw me eat two slices.”

She studied him for a moment, intrigued. “What did you do with them? I know you didn’t feed them to Lazarus. He draws the line at Irene’s cooking.”

“A little sleight of hand,” Shane explained. “I worked my way through college as a weekend party magician.”

“You did not!” Jodie said.

He raised a hand. “Scout’s honor.”

“You weren’t a Boy Scout, either.”

His smile widened. “No, but I really was a party magician.” Before she could move, he reached behind her ear and when he withdrew his hand, it was holding a French fry.

“How did you—” The scent of it had her mouth watering.

“Here,” he offered.

She hesitated for only a minute. “Thanks,” she said as she popped it into her mouth, then chewed slowly. Even cool and slightly soggy, it tasted wonderful.