A convenient proposal

“You can’t be serious.”

Mick concentrated on Kelly’s determined expression. She didn’t appear to be pulling his leg.

“Let’s go to my place and talk,” he suggested.

Kelly nodded. She hadn’t spoken since telling him…. Perhaps she’d gone into shock.

The drive to his house took less than five minutes.

“I understand that you must feel terrible about my brother,” he told her.

And he did. His journalistic training was too ingrained for him not to see both sides of the story. Despite his grief, he knew that Kelly had tried to defuse his brother’s fear, speaking to him calmly and gently. But his brother had been too worked up. He’d cocked the trigger of his handgun and that was it. Kelly had aimed, fired…

“Don’t think it’s guilt behind my suggestion,” Kelly said now. “Mick, I genuinely care about those children. I would do anything to help them. Anything.”

Something in him wanted to give her whatever she asked for. And, face it, she was offering him a solution to his own dilemma. “How will you feel in a year, or two, or ten? Kelly, I’m not interested in a temporary fix here.”

“I understand that. I do.”

In the small, bookshelf-lined room, her words echoed like a marriage vow….

Dear Reader,

“Shooting to kill is an officer’s nightmare.” This is the headline that caught my eye a few years ago when I was reading the Calgary Herald at my breakfast table. Years of Westerns, cop shows and mystery novels had ingrained in me the simple maxim that good guys shoot bad guys. But I had never before contemplated the complex dilemma an officer faces when making the choice to pull the trigger and end another life.

That morning the seed for A Convenient Proposal was planted. I knew I wanted to write a story about a cop who responds strictly by the book in a dangerous situation, then reacts like a sensitive human being in the months that follow. The cop is Kelly Shannon, the youngest of the three Shannon sisters.

If you read the first book of this trilogy, A Second-Chance Proposal, you may have wondered what Kelly was doing during her lengthy, unexplained absences from the Larch Lodge Bed and Breakfast near the end of the story. She wasn’t at work—she’d been suspended, remember?—and she certainly wasn’t out having fun.

Now I invite you to find out. To dive into Kelly’s story and meet the children and the man who will change her life forever.

Sincerely,

C.J. Carmichael

P.S. I’d love to hear from you. Please send mail to the following Canadian address: #1754-246 Stewart Green, S.W., Calgary, Alberta, Canada T3H 3C8. Or send e-mail to: [e-mail]. For more information visit: www.cjcarmichael.com.

A Convenient Proposal

C.J. Carmichael

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This trilogy is dedicated to my editors, Beverley Sotolov and Paula Eykelhof, with my thanks and affection.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to those who assisted me in my research, in particular Corporal Patrick Webb of the RCMP in Calgary, Constable Barry Beales of the RCMP Canmore Detachment and Lynn Martel, a reporter with the Canmore Leader.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

PROLOGUE

SHE COULDN’T STOP SHAKING as she stared at the gun—her own Smith & Wesson—in a carefully labeled plastic bag. The weapon was Crown evidence; she wouldn’t see it again for months.

On second thought, make that ever.

“You’d better sit down, Kelly.”

“What?” RCMP officer Kelly Shannon looked from the .38 to the familiar face of her commanding officer, Staff Sergeant Springer.

That brief thought of her future, of there being moments, days, years that would follow, made her so damn weary. All she wanted was to curl up on the rain-dampened ground and be left alone. But Springer had stuck by her side since he’d arrived at the Thunder Bar M forty minutes ago.

“Let me take you to your car. You need to get off your feet.”

If Kelly hadn’t already understood the gravity of the situation, the staff sergeant’s consideration and gentle tone would have tipped her off.

“I’m fine.” She tried to protest, but large, well-muscled Springer put a hand to her elbow and courteously led the way to her patrol car. She noted her driver’s-side door was still open, from that instant when she’d leaped out—galvanized by the sight of Danny Mizzoni holding a gun to her sister’s head.

Springer settled her in the passenger side of the car, then checked his watch. “Backup from Calgary should be here shortly.”

Kelly leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes briefly. Sitting wasn’t such a bad idea. Her trembling was getting worse. Springer must have noticed, too, because he found a blanket and settled it over her lap.

“Thanks.” She knew this calm wouldn’t last long. Once the officers from Ident and the Major Crimes Unit arrived, there would be hours’—if not days’—worth of work to be done. She’d seen it before.

Homicides were rare in the rustic mountain community of Canmore, Alberta, but two-and-a-half years ago a young girl, Jilly Beckett, had been shot dead on this very property. Kelly had worked on that case.

But she wouldn’t be working on this one.

“Someone from MAP will be here shortly, too.” Springer patted her shoulder.

The representative from the Member Assistance Program would guide her through the next few hours. She would be suspended from duty, of course. There would be an investigation. Springer had already notified her of her rights. At some point she would need to hire a lawyer.

Anxiety set off another spasm of trembling. Kelly filled her lungs with air, then groped for the badge she’d always worn so proudly. Being a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police meant carrying on a tradition of honor. A tradition of which she was no longer worthy.

“I suppose you’ll want this,” she said, fumbling with the catch.

Springer put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “That isn’t necessary, Kelly. Keep it. You’re still one of us.”

The wail of approaching sirens crescendoed with the rumbling of tires on gravel as the squad cars from Calgary arrived. Kelly watched them stream onto Thunder Bar M land. They lined up behind the ambulance, where the paramedics were standing by the open back doors and watching calmly, knowing it would still be some time before the coroner gave them permission to move the body.

Car doors and voices slammed into the afternoon quiet. Springer’s hand tightened on her shoulder. She would soon be taken to the station, while these men and women worked at recording the details of the crime scene, collecting and cataloguing every shred of potential evidence.

How Dylan must hate this, she thought—having his land overrun with police and emergency workers. She wondered about her sister Cathleen, and hoped she was recovering from the shock of having Danny Mizzoni’s gun held to her head. Dylan and Cathleen were out by the creek now. Sharon, Danny’s wife—widow—and two kids, were in the kitchen with Danny’s brother.

Thinking of those innocent bystanders, Kelly couldn’t hold back a groan. Their pain, their anger, she could only imagine. Oh, what have I done?

The body was still prone on the top step of the veranda. Her shot had struck Danny square in the chest. Death had been almost instantaneous.

“You did exactly what you were supposed to do.” Springer had crouched beside her. He was talking like a coach preparing her for the last game of the season. “You followed procedure every step of the way. Don’t worry, Kelly. You’re young…you’ll get over this. Everything’s going to work out fine.”

The arrival of the team from Calgary had transformed the quiet crime scene into a bustling center of activity. Kelly watched the photographer check the lighting before taking some stills of the body. Someone else leaned over to examine the bullet wound in the victim’s chest.

So much blood.

Kelly looked away. A woman approached her from one of the parked police cars. Mid-thirties, short dark hair, tentative smile. Probably with Member Assistance. Springer obviously thought so, too. He let go of Kelly’s shoulder and stood.

“Staff Sergeant Springer,” he said, stepping forward to meet the new arrival.

“Corporal Webster,” said the woman.

Kelly glanced back at the body. One of the Ident men was making a chalk outline of the victim’s position on the rotting wood porch. From the corner of her eye, Kelly noticed movement from the back of the house.

The victim’s brother, Mick Mizzoni, also the editor of the Canmore Leader, was coming to check things out. He’d been en route to Calgary when Dylan had called him on Sharon’s instructions. As a result, he’d made it here even before the squad cars from Canmore. Now the broodily handsome man circled the busy police officers, his body visibly tense, his expression grim.

Abruptly he switched directions to face her. Kelly didn’t allow herself to shift her gaze or even blink. She felt his condemnation, the current of loathing traveling from man to woman the way electrical energy had passed from clouds to earth in the storm earlier.

As the moment between them stretched, she fought back the instinct to tell him she was sorry. No matter what words she chose, they would come out sounding trite.

Besides, apologies for homicides were rarely accepted.

CHAPTER ONE

Two months later

“I WENT TO SEE the kids again today.” Kelly Shannon slouched into the tartan cushions of Scott Martin’s sofa.

“Kelly…was that wise?” At the other end of the couch, Scott propped his feet on the maple table, where he kept a dish of white peppermints and coasters for the coffee, water or tea he offered at the beginning of each session.

Kelly always took water. Now she swirled it in her glass, but the ice cube lodged at the bottom wouldn’t move. It was too big, or else the glass was too small.

“I know what you said about moving on. But I just can’t do it.” One of the worst consequences of being suspended was all the free time. She’d signed up for some volunteer assignments with a local charity, but had found it difficult to concentrate on all but the simplest of tasks.

“Kelly, spying on those kids is only making matters worse—”

“I know.” They circled the same issues at each weekly session. If she didn’t like Scott as much as she did, the sessions would be unbearable.

But Scott was okay. Over the past two months they’d achieved a certain comfort level in their weekly chats. Word had it he was happily married and totally besotted by his twin four-year-old daughters. You’d never know by his office, though. He didn’t have any framed pictures of his family on display. When she’d asked him about it once, his answer had surprised her.

“Lots of the clients I see are working through problems at home, with their marriage or their kids. They don’t need me throwing my domestic bliss in their face.”

It was that kind of sensitivity that made her respect Scott Martin—even though, in her heart, she knew these compulsory sessions weren’t doing the slightest bit of good. But her sisters had insisted, and Kelly figured it wasn’t worth arguing over.

“I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to go back to work, anyway,” she said. Definitely not in any capacity where she’d have to carry a gun.

“You say that now, Kelly, but it’s only been two months.”

Two months, where each day was worse than the one before it….

“Do you know what they were wearing, Scott? Pajamas! In November. And it was snowing.” Kelly leaned forward, cupping her hands over her knees. She could picture them so clearly, playing in the soft powder of a fresh snowfall, their little faces as solemn as if they were sitting in the front pew at church.

Every now and then the eldest, Billy, who was just five, had glanced in the direction of her car. Did he know who she was, what she’d done?

“And I don’t think their mother is feeding them properly. Even though I leave groceries by the door every week.” She’d never seen Sharon throw them away, but there were never any cooking odors coming from the small bungalow on First Avenue, either.

“Have you phoned Child Welfare?”

Annoyance propelled her to her feet. “Don’t piss me off, Scott.” She prowled the office, as she did every week, checking his bookcase for new volumes, examining the clean sweep of his polished maple desk, peering out the double-paned glass window at the Calgary traffic on Memorial Drive. Beyond the twin ribbons of concrete stood a row of mature, albeit heavily pruned, cottonwoods, planted to commemorate the veterans of the First World War. Beyond those, the Bow River. Follow that river upstream about an hour—and there would be Canmore. The mountain town she’d lived in all her life.

After training, she’d been stationed in northern Saskatchewan for about six years, but she’d petitioned hard to be returned to the place of her birth. Her middle sister, Cathleen, still lived there, although their elder sister Maureen had a legal practice here in Calgary.

“You’ve been put in a difficult situation, Kelly. Society generally accepts that while killing is wrong, it may be necessary in some situations to preserve order and protect the lives of the innocent. Intellectually, most of us accept that.”

Kelly stared out the window and nodded.

“This places a terrible onus of responsibility on the police officer entrusted to make these life-and-death decisions.”

Kelly said nothing. She and Scott had tromped over the moral and ethical issues so many times, the field was flattened. She supposed he thought that if he repeated himself often enough, she’d find absolution. The very idea was ridiculous.

“Kelly, you will learn to cope with this. I promise.”

Scott’s voice betrayed the pain he felt for her. That was something else she liked about him. The man cared.

Unfortunately, in her case, it couldn’t help.

Because she’d killed a man. And even if society decided she’d been acting within the rules by doing so, there was no way to avoid her moral culpability. The only remaining question was, how could she atone for taking another human life? If it was even possible.

KELLY HAD EVERY INTENTION of returning to her basement apartment after her late-afternoon session with Scott, but once she was back within Canmore’s town limits, the right-hand turn onto Bow Valley Trail compelled her. Soon she cruised past the tiny bungalow that Sharon Mizzoni rented. She parked her truck on the opposite side of the street, down the block a few houses. Turning her key onto auxiliary power so she wouldn’t waste gas, she continued to listen to a talk show on the CBC.

An hour passed. Maybe two. Outside it was dark and light now glowed from the small front window of the house, blending with the blue glare of the television set. The drapes weren’t drawn, and Kelly could see directly into the living room. Sharon sat in front of the set, a beer bottle in her hand. Three-year-old Amanda jumped on the sofa. There was no sign of Billy.

Kelly didn’t think the kids had been fed any dinner. It was almost eight. They should be having baths and brushing their teeth, getting ready for bed. Why wasn’t Sharon helping them?

With the heat off, the truck was cool. Frosty wind from the Rocky Mountains was forecast to bring more snow to Canmore this evening. Kelly zipped the down vest she wore over her fleece jacket, then slipped on leather gloves. She’d stay until the cold forced her on, or until the lights went out.

But the lights generally went out late at Sharon Mizzoni’s house. The death of her husband, Danny, had hit her hard and she’d turned to alcohol for solace. At times, Kelly almost envied her. She, too, longed for chemically induced oblivion. Drugs, alcohol, even an overdose of sleeping pills. Kelly had considered all of them in the darkest hours of these past months.

But two things stood in her way. Her sisters. And Sharon’s kids.

Kelly had always been in awe of her older sisters—Cathleen with her confident beauty and effortless appeal to members of the opposite sex, Maureen with her brains and her take-charge attitude. The two of them would never hold with her choosing the chicken’s way out—ending her own life. Probably, they’d haul her up from the grave and tell her Christmas dinner was going to be at her place for the next twenty years.

In the Mizzoni house, Billy had just come into view from the window. Kelly observed him pick up his little sister and carry her off down the hall. Probably taking the three-year-old to bed. Kelly had seen the same routine on previous nights, and, as always, her heart ached for the kids.

She wanted nothing more than to go into that house and mother those children. But she knew if she got out of her car, she’d end up in trouble. Sharon had noticed her hanging around before, and warned her to stay far, far away.

But that was impossible.

Kelly rubbed at the condensation forming on the inside of her truck’s window. On the radio Shania Twain was feeling like a woman. Stuck here in her four-by-four, Kelly felt hardly human.

If she hadn’t shot Danny Mizzoni, those kids would still have a father, and Sharon wouldn’t be drinking. Like a roller coaster forced to travel the same circuit again and again, she lived through those short seconds that had forever changed so many lives. Danny bringing out his gun, pointing it at her sister Cathleen…

Her shouted warning. “Police. Drop the gun, Danny!”

Danny’s stupid, knee-jerk reaction—cocking his weapon, bringing it up to Cathleen’s head….

Kelly had been trained to preserve life. She’d also been trained to make difficult choices. When Cathleen fell away from Mizzoni’s grasp, leaving him exposed, Kelly didn’t have to think. Her training took over. She aimed for the center of his body, as was RCMP policy.

BAM! The shot left her gun before she fully comprehended what she was doing. Instantly dead, Danny had loosened his hold on his gun. His blood had splattered on the rotting porch boards.

God, God, God… Kelly reached to turn up the volume on the radio. At that moment, a knock at her side window sent her heart slamming against her chest. She turned to see a man’s torso, his bare hand still rapping on the glass by her head.

Her panic subsided. Quite certain who this was, she unrolled her window with trembling fingers.

The man stooped, and she saw his face. His handsome, almost beautiful face, framed with thick dark hair. “On surveillance, Officer?”

The bitter question came from the children’s uncle, Mick Mizzoni. Before the shooting she and he had had an amicable relationship. He’d often come to her for police information when he was working on a story for the Canmore Leader. They’d crossed paths now and then in social settings, too—at the wedding of a mutual friend; a couple of times at the Canmore Folk Festival.

She’d half entertained a hope he might ask her out. But behind Mick’s casual banter had always been an almost imperceptible coolness. She’d assumed she simply wasn’t his type.

And that was before she’d killed his brother.

“Mick.” Kelly couldn’t meet his quiet, intense gaze for long. She glanced back at the house, not able to find the words to remind him she was on temporary leave from the RCMP. Undoubtedly he knew, and was only baiting her, anyway.

Mick Mizzoni had to hate her, and Kelly didn’t blame him. Mostly she hated herself, too.

“The children should be in bed,” she said.

Mick frowned, the expression not diminishing his attractiveness one iota. He wore a denim jacket over a rough wool sweater. Warm, substantial clothing that emphasized his masculinity.

“How the hell do you know?”

“I can see them through the window. Billy just carried Amanda to the bedroom. Sharon’s been drinking—” she glanced at the digital clock on her dash “—for at least two hours.”

Mick yanked open the door that separated them. “How long have you been sitting here?”

When she got out of the truck, she noticed that Mick backed off several steps. As if he couldn’t stand to be too close.

“Does it matter? What’s important is the kids. I don’t think they’ve even had supper. Most nights Sharon doesn’t move from the television.”

He cursed. “I know she’s drinking again. God, I’d hoped she’d finally put that life behind her…”

But her husband’s death had been too much for her to handle. “What can we do to help them?”

“We?” Mick’s voice had been relatively calm. Now she saw him struggle to regain that equilibrium.

“Kelly, I’m trying my damnedest not to blame you for what happened. I know Danny had a gun on your sister. I know you were trying to do your job. But given the consequences of that, maybe you ought to stay the hell away from Danny’s family.”

“I’m sorry.” She understood what he was saying, totally accepted that they all had to hate her for what she’d done. But it was because of her responsibility for Danny’s death that she couldn’t walk away from his kids. If she tried to explain, would Mick understand?

“Get in your truck, Kelly, and drive back to the right side of town.”

“But—”

He opened the truck door wider. She ignored him. The lights from Sharon’s window were irresistible. She advanced along the snow-packed road, until she stood in front of the small bungalow.

A moment later, Mick joined her. Together they watched Sharon tip the bottle of beer up to her mouth and suck back the last drop.

“The kids are my responsibility. I’m their uncle. Please leave, Kelly.”

“I can’t.” She swallowed the need to weep. Her tears would lead this man to not only hate her, but despise her, as well. Besides, what right did she have to give in to her pain, when he had to be suffering just as much?

Mick shifted his weight impatiently. “You aren’t helping anything by putting in time here. In fact, you could be making the situation worse. If Sharon notices you, she could freak out—”

“I know.” Sharon had seen her leaving behind a bag of groceries once, and she’d come out the back door screaming and yelling. But she’d taken the food inside, and so Kelly hadn’t stopped. She’d just tried to be quieter the next time.

“For good reason.”

“I realize that, Mick. But she’s not capable of being a mother to those kids right now.”

“I’m doing my best to help.”

She knew that, too. She’d seen him coming and going, often carrying a bag from a takeout restaurant. This was the first time, though, that he’d approached her before going inside.

“Whatever you’re able to do, it’s not enough. They were playing in the snow with only their pajamas on this morning. And Billy’s looking awfully pale. I think he’s lost weight—”

Mick slammed a hand against the trunk of a nearby tree. A dusting of snow was released into the air, and Kelly watched the flakes settle against the dark blue of his jacket.

“She loves those kids,” he said.

“I’m sure she must.”

“And they love her. You have no idea how devoted Billy is to his mother. You can’t think we should try to get them taken away from her?”

Had he noticed he’d used the word we? Kelly doubted it. “Mick, because of me they lost their father. I don’t want them to lose their mother, too.”