The Sergeant's Christmas Mission. Joanna Sims

      “Quiet.” Shane ordered his canine companion to stop barking. Without any protest, the dog stopped barking and sat at attention, waiting for his next order.

      “Man. Chill out!” the ex-sergeant hollered in a scratchy voice when the knocks kept on coming.

      His tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth and his eyes felt like they were glued shut. Damn, he felt lousier than usual.

      Shane sat up, his head throbbing, wondering if he had any beer left over from the night before. After a couple of seconds of sitting on the edge of the couch, trying to assess the situation, trying to figure out whether or not he could stand without falling down, Shane stood up. He cringed at the ache in his back and neck, the stiffness in his left shoulder, from a night spent on his thrift-store couch.

      “God bless,” he muttered as he stretched his back. He felt like a bag of broken pieces hung together by rusty nails and screws.

      More knocking.

      “I’m coming, damn it!”

      He kicked a couple of beer cans out of his path and shuffled his way from the small living room, through the galley kitchen, to the front door of his garage apartment. No one bothered to knock on his door—not his friends and certainly not his family. They’d all learned their lesson over time to let him come to them on his own terms, in his own time. Feeling annoyed and grouchy, Shane yanked open the door to give the person on the other side the death-stare. He was, unexpectedly, greeted by the loveliest wide-set, hazel eyes he’d ever seen in his life. He stared into those eyes, unable to look away, and something unexpected—something he couldn’t explain—rocked him at his core.

      “Hi,” the woman at his door said.

      Beyond her large hazel eyes, which were bright and clear, the woman’s face was rounded, a little on the plump side, and the full lips were unsmiling. She looked tired and tense, and her eyes, now wary, were on Recon.

      Shane took note of the two boys kneeling in the grassy courtyard between the main house and his garage apartment. This must be his new landlady; he heard the moving truck pull up, so he knew she had moved in. But he slept most days and played gigs in bars at night, which had allowed him, until now, to avoid her.

      “He’s friendly,” he said of Recon as he leaned against the doorway, feeling light-headed and craving a beer.

      The woman’s curly light brown hair was pulled back into a haphazard bun at the nape of her neck, and she was petite, with a full bust and rounded hips. She was dressed for comfort in a faded Manchester Yankees baseball T-shirt, threadbare jeans and aqua-blue Chuck Taylors. Several ringlets of hair weren’t long enough to be swept into the bun that framed her face; one ringlet had a Cheerio stuck in it. He almost reached out and plucked that Cheerio out of her hair but resisted the urge to do something so familiar with a stranger.

      “You have a...” He nodded toward her hair. “A Cheerio in your hair.”

      “What?” With a half-frustrated, half-humored expression on her face, she reached up and felt around until she found the round piece of dry cereal and tossed it on the ground. “Thank you for telling me. It’s been one of those mornings.”

      It had been one of those mornings for him, as well.

      “I’m Rebecca.” She extended her hand.

      Shane took her hand, which seemed so small and fragile in his own, and was careful not to crush the delicate bones in her slender hand when he shook it. The women in his past always told him that he didn’t know the strength of his own hands. For some reason, he wanted to be extra gentle with this woman.

      “Shane,” he introduced himself. “You the new owner?”

      “We moved in Saturday,” Rebecca said, her eyes floating between his face and Recon. “I thought you might have heard the truck...”

      He didn’t respond as the new landlady glanced over his shoulder at the piles of dirty dishes in the sink. If he’d known the new owner was going to be knocking on his door so early in the morning, he would have tried to clean up the place a bit the night before. Shane stepped all the way outside, told Recon to stay put and pulled the door almost shut behind him. He had no doubt that Rebecca could smell the scent of marijuana mingled with the stale air of his apartment.

      “Do I need to sign a new lease or are you giving me notice?” he asked. His previous landlady, Ginny Martin, had passed away and his lease had expired while her will was in probate. There was a shortage of housing in Bozeman, Montana; if he got kicked out of his apartment, he would most likely have to return to Sugar Creek Ranch, his family’s cattle spread.

      Rebecca, who held her body stiffly and had an anxious, worried look hovering in her eyes, glanced over her shoulder at her two boys before answering.

      “I’m not here to kick you out,” she told him. “I thought we’d see how it goes until the end of the month. Aunt Ginny always spoke so highly of you.”

      “All right.” Shane nodded with a deadpan expression that didn’t reflect his relief. Rebecca’s aunt Ginny had recently passed away and left her historic home to her niece. Ginny’s late husband had been an army man, which was partly why she’d had a soft spot for Shane. The feeling was mutual. Shane had been grateful to have a friend like Ginny and he missed her. It looked like, at least for now, Ginny was still looking out for him.

      “I have to get my boys to school.” She glanced at her phone to check the time. “We’re running late. As usual.”

      “Ok. Well. Nice meetin’ ya.” Shane opened his door, about to walk back inside and get back to the business of finding a beer and lying back down on the couch, when Rebecca stopped him.

      “Wait.” She waved her hand at him. “This wasn’t a social call.”

      Rebecca jogged over to the spot where her sons had been waiting for her, picked up the squirming kitten and headed his way with her two boys following along behind her.

      Great, Shane thought. I threw one back and four jumped into the boat.

      “We found this poor little kitten under the front porch this morning.” Rebecca held up the wiggly, bedraggled kitten for him to see. “Is it yours?”

      Shane got within three feet of the scraggly black-and-white kitten and started to sneeze.

      “No.” He shook his head. He had always been highly allergic.

      “Then we can keep him,” the younger of the two boys said to his mom.

      “I’m sorry, Caleb,” Rebecca said in a soft, but firm, tone. “We can’t.”

      She handed the older boy the keys to the car. “Carson, you and your brother wait for me in the car. I’ll be right there.”

      The kitten was making a high-pitched cry and Shane had a feeling the little creature was hungry, thirsty and missing its mom.

      “I’m not sure what to do with him.” Rebecca tried, unsuccessfully, to soothe the kitten. “I can’t just lock him up in the house. I don’t have a kitty box or food. Is there a shelter in town? Do you know?”

      She talked so fast that Shane couldn’t figure out when he was supposed to respond. That high-pitched crying noise was making his headache worse. While he was trying to figure out a solution to the problem, the kitten finally managed to twist out of Rebecca’s hands; the moment it hit the ground, the kitten bolted through the crack in his front door, into his house.

      “Oh!” Rebecca exclaimed. “I’m so sorry! I’ll go get him.”

      The last thing he wanted was for his new landlady, who held the fate of his address in her hands, to venture into his dungeon. No one went in there and that’s how he liked it.

      “No.” Shane blocked her path. “You’re late. Get your boys to school. I’ll catch the kitten.”

      “Catch?” She had