The Lawman's Christmas Proposal

So far, she was doing a poor job.

“Then it’s good you’re here,” Jane said. “You’ve got the break from Grant’s family, and you can plan for the future.”

She nodded. Still, despite how determined she might have sounded to Jane, she worried. Her sales assistant job at a clothing store barely covered the rent on her new apartment. She’d had to take the position. With only a year of college behind her, she had left school to get married. Relocating to Arizona, planning a wedding, buying a house and getting swept up in the Price family’s social whirl had made her put school off for a while.

After she had gotten pregnant, she had tabled the idea of school indefinitely. Then she had gotten pregnant again...and Grant had died.

The end result was, she had no employable skills to speak of. The only bright spot was having a best friend with a night job who had volunteered to watch the kids while she worked during the day.

The sound of raised voices came from the hotel lobby. Andi jumped to change the subject. “That’s Grandpa, and he sounds excited.”

They heard a woman’s laugh.

“And that’s Tina,” Jane said. “I wonder what’s going on.”

They didn’t have to wait long to find out. Their cousin Tina entered the dining room. Smiling, she said, “You’ll never guess who Grandpa’s bringing along here with him.”

She was right, at least as far as Andi was concerned.

When Jed Garland walked into the room accompanied by a tall, broad-shouldered man with a noticeable limp, her heart skipped a few critical beats. The man locked gazes with her, and her heart leaped. Never in a million years would she have forgotten those deep blue eyes or that crooked grin or the thick black hair worn just bad-boy long. Never in a million centuries would she have expected—or wished—to run into Mitch Weston again.

She could only hope that since they had last seen each other, he had forgotten all about her.

Or had learned the value of forgiveness.

Chapter Two

All through the conversation in the dining room, Mitch managed to keep his smile in place. He hadn’t wanted to come in here and see Jed’s granddaughters, but the man had insisted.

No. Truth was, he hadn’t wanted to see Andi again.

Thankfully, his undercover work had prepared him well for slipping into different roles. He’d never had more of a need to hide his true self than he did now. His first glance at blonde, beautiful Andi today had rocked him just the way she had years ago.

Also thankfully, he’d heeded the surgeon’s caution to wear his knee brace. Otherwise, he’d swear his legs would have gone out right from under him.

“How long will you be around?” Jed asked.

Instinctively, he knew the man meant how long would he be in Cowboy Creek, a topic he didn’t want to get into. He forced a grin and pretended to misunderstand. “Surely you’re not inviting me for supper without clearing it with Paz first.”

“Of course you’ll join us.”

He shook his head. “You think you have to worry about Paz skinning your hide? If I didn’t show up at home tonight, my mom would have me stuffed and mounted. It’s the first time the whole family’s sitting down together for a meal since I’ve gotten back.” He shrugged. “Well, it’ll be the whole family if my dad manages to make it home.”

“He’s a good one for sticking to duties,” Jed said.

“And,” Tina put in, “the day he retires, Cowboy Creek will lose a good sheriff.”

“Which probably won’t be any time soon.” Mitch laughed, happy he’d detoured around the conversational land mine. “Like my grandpa, he always said he would never take off the badge.” And like his dad, he wouldn’t be keen on retiring, either. He didn’t like even being away from the job this long. “Well, I need to head back to town.”

“Don’t forget that box you said your mama sent along,” Jed reminded him.

“Yeah, her garden tomatoes. I’ll get them out of the truck now.” He moved slowly, giving his healing knee a chance to loosen up, rather than let them all see him hobbling from the room like an old man.

“I can go out with you,” Tina volunteered.

“Hold on,” Jed said. “I need to talk to you and Jane for a bit.” He turned to Andi. “Why don’t you go along with Mitch and retrieve that box for Paz? She’s eager to see what she can use from it for supper.”

Andi nodded. As they left the room, he caught her profile from the corner of his eye. When he and Jed had walked into the dining room, before she’d had time to raise her defenses, he’d seen the sparkle in her blue eyes and the smile on those full pink lips he’d always remembered.

Now, with her gaze frozen and her mouth pressed into a flat, determined line, she looked as if he were marching her to face a firing squad.

She didn’t have that far wrong. He planned to fire a few shots at her. Verbal ones. Questions he’d spent years asking himself.

And he didn’t intend to let her go free until he got the answers.

* * *

“ALL RIGHT, ABUELO, let’s hear it.”

Jed frowned. The sound of Mitch’s and Andi’s footsteps had barely faded from the dining room.

His youngest granddaughter, Tina, sat back in her chair and stared him down. “What’s so important I couldn’t take a few minutes to give Mitch a hand?”

“I wanted to go over some of those estimates for the last of the cabins again.”

Jane laughed. “You’re in trouble if you want me here for anything involving numbers. Didn’t you always say I’m the artistic one in the family?”

Tina shook her head. “It’s not that, Jane. Grandpa’s up to his tricks again. I know the signs. So should you.” The smile that tugged at her lips gave the lie to her stern expression. “Isn’t that right, Abuelo?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I pulled a few tricks on you both. But I don’t hear either of you complaining.”

“We aren’t,” Jane said. “In fact, you know we’re glad you’re two for two in the matchmaking stakes.”

He beamed at her.

“We’re very glad,” Tina agreed. “Andi’s a different story. We all want to see her happy again. But trying to match her up with someone she barely knows may not be the best idea. At least, not right now.”

“Huh-uh, cuz,” Jane said, “as Grandpa would say, you haven’t come close to hitting the mark there. You didn’t hang out much with us when Andi and I used to visit. But one summer, I spent plenty of time at the barn because that’s where she chose to go. And trust me, it wasn’t all due to her love of riding horses.”

“Really?” Tina’s gaze flew from Jane to him and back again.

Barely able to believe this unexpected good fortune, he grinned. Maybe this wouldn’t be his toughest match, after all. “You’re saying Andi had a hankering for Mitch?”

“I am,” Jane confirmed. “A major crush.”

“Really,” Tina said, thoughtfully this time. “And you think...”

“Yes, I think. Big-time.”

“I think, too.” But he wasn’t yet ready to share the rest of his thoughts on the matter. “And I do more than just let an idea sit in my head. I plan.”

“And you scheme,” Tina said.

“Yes,” Jane said, “and you force people into situations where they can’t avoid each other.”

“Darn straight, I do. Why wouldn’t I? If I didn’t, we’d all still be waiting for the two of you to get together with Cole and Pete.”

Jane laughed. “So now you’re determined to have a try at Andi and Mitch?”

“Darn straight,” he repeated.

“Well, you won’t get any argument from me, Grandpa. I go along with that.”

They both turned to look at Tina.

Quiet, levelheaded, by-the-books accountant Tina looked back at them, meeting their gazes with a frown. “You really think we ought to be pushing Andi into something like this?”

“Not pushing,” he said. “Assisting. If there’s still interest there, why shouldn’t we add a spark to it?”

“Like Grandpa did with you,” Jane said softly.

His granddaughters exchanged a glance.

Finally, Tina smiled. “Well, I can’t argue with that. All right. You can count me in, too.”

“That’s my girls,” he said.

* * *

MITCH AND ANDI left the hotel through the lobby and went down the porch steps, and still, as she walked along beside him, Andi said nothing.

Apprehension showed in the tiny lines around her eyes. Why wouldn’t she feel uneasy? She knew as well as he did they had unfinished business to discuss.

He remembered another day they had spent together when she hadn’t said a word. When they strolled down to the creek hand in hand, accompanied only by the sounds of crickets chirping. When his heart had thumped so hard he worried she could hear that, too.

Now his heart revved only in anger. Jaw clamped tight, he strode toward the parking area behind the hotel as quickly and steadily as his leg would allow.

“Been a long time,” he said as mildly as he could. A half-dozen years had passed since he’d last seen Andi. “I hear a lot has happened in your life.”

She nodded. “I’m a mom now, with two children, a boy and a girl.”

Her voice sounded strained, yet he couldn’t mistake the pride in it. He didn’t want to acknowledge even to himself how her statement made his anger rise.

When they were teens, he hadn’t thought too far into the future. He had simply known he would be settled down in Cowboy Creek and wearing a gold sheriff’s badge. He had also somehow known he would one day be the father of her kids.

Wrong, yet again.

He noticed she hadn’t mentioned her husband. In letters, his mom filled him in on all the happenings in Cowboy Creek. No one knew about his relationship with Andi, but as he had worked with Jed, Nancy put special emphasis on everything concerning Garland Ranch. She had told him about Andi’s becoming a widow, losing her husband when he was killed in a car accident while traveling for his job.

“I was sorry to hear what happened,” he said.

“Thanks.”

She crossed her arms as if the sun had gone behind a cloud and left her chilled. Or as if she needed a comforting hug. He swallowed hard, feeling a small part of his anger slip away. Somehow, he managed to keep from wrapping his arms around her.

He could see the effect the loss had on her. While she was still as beautiful as ever, her face now looked stretched taut. Grief left her with nothing to soften her cheekbones or to fill the hollows beneath them.

Her eyes held a deep sadness. Tiny lines creased the skin in the outside corners. Those lines made him want to touch her. To stroke away her tension.

Instead, he reached into the truck for the box Nancy had sent along with him for the Hitching Post. The action gave him something else to do with his hands. It gave him time to pull himself together. Maybe, if he tried hard enough, that beat of time would let him swallow his remaining anger. For now.

He balanced the box on the truck’s hood and turned back to her. “I’m glad Jed sent you out here. It keeps me from having to track you down.”

He could see her nerves take hold in the way she brushed her hair away from her temple. The movement distracted him, again making him want to reach out to her. Unfortunately, the urge wasn’t strong enough to derail his thoughts for long.

He had all the sympathy in the world for her...but that still couldn’t give him answers. “What happened that summer, Andi? You were here one day and gone the next, and that was it. No note, no letter, nothing.”

She didn’t respond.

“You owe me an explanation, at least,” he said harshly. “You walked away from me as if I’d never existed. I thought we had something good going.” Something good? Hell of an understatement. “I guess, no matter what you’d said then, thought is the key word here.”

Over near the corral, a horse neighed and one ranch hand called out to another. Andi’s silence went on long enough to make him wonder if she would ever answer. But he’d had plenty of practice at holding on, waiting for a witness to make a statement or a perp to make a confession.

Which would she do?

“My mom got sick,” she said finally.

“And when she got better, you couldn’t get in touch?”

“She didn’t get better. She had breast cancer, and she wasn’t a survivor. Grandpa didn’t tell you?”

He sucked in a breath. “I’d heard from my mom...after your mom passed away. But I didn’t know she’d gotten sick back then. Or that it was why you’d left.”

“She wouldn’t let us tell anyone here, because she didn’t want Grandpa to worry.”

“Jed didn’t know?”

“Not right away. And once Mom got sicker, she didn’t want anyone around her except my dad and me. She held out for a long time, and we were grateful for every minute we had left with her. That’s why I didn’t come back here to visit until...until after she was gone.”

Now he couldn’t keep from touching her. He rested his hand on her arm, feeling the warmth of her skin and the way her muscle tightened beneath his fingers. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded, then grabbed the carton from the hood and rushed away, but not quickly enough to keep him from seeing the tears in her eyes.

He’d gotten answers to his questions, discovered his anger had slipped away, but didn’t know what he could find to replace it.

He curled his fingers, trying to hang on to the warmth he would swear he still felt from her skin.

* * *

HER ARMS TREMBLING, Andi carried the carton Mitch had given her into the Hitching Post’s kitchen. She wasn’t shaky from the weight of the box but from seeing him again. And she wasn’t ready to consider what had brought on the reaction.

As Andi set the carton down, Paz crossed the room to investigate. “Ah, very nice,” she murmured with a born chef’s appreciation.

Jane merely leaned forward from her seat at the table to peer into the box. “All those healthy vegetables. They look heavy. I’m surprised Mitch didn’t volunteer to carry the box for you.”

Andi heard the teasing in her cousin’s tone, but couldn’t summon the energy to match it. She said simply, “He had to get home.”

She wasn’t about to tell anyone how abruptly she had turned and walked away. At the porch, she had risked a look over her shoulder and saw him climbing into his truck. Seeing the way he eased into position told her how much he must have been hurting.

She didn’t want to think of him in pain.

She didn’t want to think of him at all.

“That’s good, right, Andi?” Jane said loudly.

She started. “What?”

Paz smiled at her. “I said, tomorrow, I will make my vegetable soup.”

“That’s great. Sorry, I was daydreaming...” Andi looked toward the door. “I need to check on the kids.”

“They’re fine,” Jane said. “Grandpa has them all in the sitting room.”

“Then that’s where I’m headed.”

“I’ll go with you. Unless you need some help, Paz? And if you do, I volunteer Andi.” Jane laughed.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Paz said, attempting to sound stern. “Pete loves my spicy vegetable soup, and this is your chance to learn how to make it.”

At the look on her cousin’s face, Andi laughed.

Smiling, she left the two women and went down the hall leading from the kitchen to the hotel’s lobby. She could hear voices coming from the sitting room.

Her son gave a high-pitched screech of uncontained laughter. At the sound, tears welled in her eyes. Back home again after their last visit to Cowboy Creek, Trey had reverted to being quiet and withdrawn. The change in him had started not long after Grant’s death, and it broke her heart to think that maybe he, like Jane, had sensed changes in her she had hoped no one could see. She hadn’t been able to hide her stress, and all her worries kept her distracted. That had to stop, especially if it was already affecting her children.

Coming back to the ranch for the holidays and to oversee the wedding had been the right decision. Being with Tina’s son, Robbie, and Pete’s kids was good for Trey.

But being around Mitch wasn’t good for her.

Thank goodness he had turned down Jed’s invitation to join them for dinner. Before that, she had noticed how quickly he deflected the question about him staying. She was certain he knew as well as she did Grandpa had meant his visit to Cowboy Creek.

In any case, his answer might not have mattered. He had a long drive between his parents’ house in town and Garland Ranch. Judging by the trouble he’d had climbing into his truck, today’s trip to the hotel could very well be his last while he was here.

In the sitting room, she found Jed in his favorite chair, holding Missy on his lap. “You’ll be spoiling her, Grandpa,” she scolded gently.

“Then she’ll be spoiled,” he said with a grin. “I’m taking every chance I can get to hold her. She’s been away too long. You all have.”

As she took a seat on one of the chairs near them, she forced a smile. Jed hadn’t made any secret of the fact that he wanted her and the kids to move to the ranch permanently.

She wanted only to prove she could take care of her family on her own.

Trey crossed the room to them, thumping his chest with one hand. “Look, Mommy. Look what I got.”

Rachel, Pete’s five-year-old, followed in his footsteps. “It’s Robbie’s badge. Robbie let me play with it and I shared it with Trey.”

“That’s very nice of you, Rachel. And that’s a very nice badge, sweetheart.” She tapped the plastic star-shaped pin and touched her son’s cheek.

“I’m the chef.”

“You mean sheriff,” Rachel corrected. She turned to Andi. “He means sheriff. Grandpa Jed said Mitch has a badge, too. Didn’t you, Grandpa Jed?”

“I sure did.”

Yes, Mitch had a badge. And a gun and an injury and a dangerous job. Grant’s position had the potential for danger, too. They’d both known it. But Mitch’s could expose him to risk every day of his life.

“Mitch is going to show me his badge,” Rachel announced.

“Well,” Andi said, “I think he must have forgotten. He’s gone home already.”

“But he’s coming back tomorrow.”

She froze. The clock on the wall chimed, saving her from having to reply for a moment. When it stopped, she looked from Rachel to Jed. “Mitch is coming here tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Robbie put in. “Grandpa says so.”

Nodding, Jed patted the phone on the end table beside his chair. “Just spoke to Nancy, and she confirmed he’s got nothing on his schedule. I told her I want him to come by and talk with me for a bit. And I want to make sure he catches up with Pete.”

She fisted her hands in her lap. She didn’t want to see Mitch again.

Watching him in the dining room surrounded by her family had been bad enough. It allowed her too much time to resurrect the many sweet memories she had buried long ago.

But to her dismay, standing outside with him had been so much worse. Being with him had forced her to see what she didn’t want to admit.

Time and distance and even marriage to a man she loved with all her heart hadn’t destroyed her feelings for Mitch.

Chapter Three

“Did living in LA turn you off your mom’s good cooking?”

At his dad’s question, Mitch started. He looked up to find everyone at the table sitting with their eyes trained on him. The combined stares of his parents, two brothers and two sisters added up to way more attention than he needed.

“Are you kidding?” He forked up a chunk of onion, chewed and swallowed it. “I’m just trying to draw out the pleasure. You always did tell me I ate too fast.”

“You both do that,” Nancy said.

“Hazard of the profession,” his dad agreed.

Mitch nodded and tried to ignore the elephant in the room. Since he’d been home, he’d had plenty of hugs and kisses from the girls and lots of slaps on the back from the boys. He couldn’t deny his family’s happiness at having him here again. He just hated to see them all suffering on his behalf.

Everybody wanted to comfort him for his loss, he knew, but no one wanted to be the first to bring it up. His dad insisted on acting as though nothing much had happened. Even his mom hadn’t cornered him yet, as he’d expected.

And he didn’t want to think about recent events at all.

He glanced down at his plate. The roast Nancy had made for supper, always his favorite, tasted dry as dust. It wasn’t Mom’s good cooking that had him distracted, though. It was the vision of a slim woman with long blond hair and sad eyes.

“Your mom said you were out to Jed’s place this afternoon.” His dad passed him the meat platter. “How’s everything at Garland Ranch?”

“And how’s Daffodil?” his younger sister Laurie asked. Daffodil was an old mare living out her days at the ranch.

“I didn’t go near the corral,” he had to confess.

Like the typical teen she was, Laurie rolled her eyes. She loved anything that walked on four legs, but especially horses.

“You need to drop by the office,” his dad said, “and say hello to the boys.”

He nodded. He knew most of the men in Cowboy Creek’s sheriff’s department. Heck, he’d grown up with them. Considering what had happened, seeing them didn’t rank high on his list. Then again, stopping by the office gave him something to do.

It might help keep his mind off Andi and his decision not to visit the ranch again.

“Oh, Mitch,” Nancy said. “I forgot to tell you. You hadn’t made it home yet when Jed called. He wants you to go back out to the ranch tomorrow. He seems to have something important on his mind.”

Again, he had to appreciate the work that had trained him to keep his reactions hidden. He also suddenly found a lot more to like in his dad’s idea. “Thanks for passing the message along. I’ll probably be a while at the department tomorrow. But I’ll get out there again one of these days.” On another trip back home. When Andi wasn’t there.

“From what your mom says, maybe you ought to make the trip a priority,” his dad suggested.

“I can go with you after school,” Laurie offered. “I can see Daffodil and then go for a ride.”

“And,” his mother said, “I told Jed I’d send along some more vegetables for Paz.”

His brothers volunteered to help her box up the canning jars.

As he considered the conversation, Mitch sat back in his chair and shifted his leg to make himself more comfortable.

Nothing had been mentioned about what had brought him home. No furtive looks had been exchanged between anyone at the table. Yet somehow, he felt certain every member of his family had given the elephant in the room a strong, steady push in the right direction.

At least, from their perspective.

* * *

LATE THE NEXT AFTERNOON, accompanied by nonstop chatter from Laurie, Mitch drove up the road to Garland Ranch for the second time in two days.

She went on about her classes and friends and riding and the holiday open house Jed held every year at the hotel. He hadn’t made it back for one of those parties since he’d left town to go to school. Maybe he’d be gone for this one.

He thought again about his family ganging up on him over today’s trip. Something had made them all suddenly think the return to Garland Ranch would do him good.

Sure, they wanted him to relax and unwind and go back to being the son and brother they’d always known. That wasn’t going to happen, no matter how much they tried. He would never be the man he was before the incident. The incident...

He’d trained himself to use that cop-speak every time he thought about the day. To put a professional spin on an event leaving more than one man dead. To keep from obsessing over the knowledge his partner’s death was personal and a memory he would always carry with him.

He ran his hand over his face, then opened the window all the way, hoping the fresh air would chase away the images filling his mind.

“Hey,” Laurie yelped. “It’s December. You want me to catch pneumonia and miss the party?”

“You’d go to that open house if you had both legs and one arm in a cast.”

“Sure would.” She laughed.