Military Grade Mistletoe. Julie Miller

him as soon as he’d unzipped it. “You’re later than I thought. Did you get any dinner? I can heat up some meatloaf and potatoes in the microwave.” Seven months pregnant and wearing fuzzy house slippers with the dress she’d worn to work, she shuffled into the kitchen, hanging his coat over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “Would you rather have a sandwich?”

      Harry followed her, feeling guilty that, even after all these years, she felt so compelled to take care of him. “I’m good.”

      “Did you eat?” she stopped in front of the open refrigerator and turned to face him.

      Hope was only a year older than Harry, and he topped her in height, and had outweighed and outmuscled her for years. But she could still peer up at him over the rims of her glasses with those dove-gray eyes and see right into the heart of him, as though the tragic childhood they’d shared had linked them in some all-knowing, twin-like bond. Lying to Hope wasn’t an option.

      “No.”

      “I wish you’d take better care of yourself. It wasn’t that long ago you were in a hospital fighting for your life. Besides getting winter clothes that fit, you need sleep and good food inside you.” She nudged him into a chair, kissed his cheek and went to work putting together a meatloaf sandwich for him. “You found Daisy’s house okay? What did you think of her?”

      Harry pictured a set of deep blue eyes staring up at him above purple glasses, in an expression similar to the pointed look Hope had just given him. Only, he’d had a very different reaction to Daisy’s silent request. Yes, he’d reacted to the fear he’d seen there and taken action like the Marine he was trained to be, but there was something else, equally disconcerting, about the way Daisy had studied him in her near-sighted squint that he couldn’t quite shake.

      “She’s a hugger.” Surprised that those were the first words that came out of his mouth, Harry scrubbed his palm across the stubble itching the undamaged skin of his jaw.

      But the faint air of dismay in his tone didn’t faze Hope. In fact, something about his comment seemed to amuse her. “I told you she was friendly and outgoing. She approached me that first morning in our adult Sunday School class. I’d still be sitting in the corner, just listening to the discussion if she hadn’t sat down beside me and started a conversation.”

      Yep. The woman certainly had a talent for talking.

      “There’s Uncle Harry.” Pike Taylor strolled into the living area, carrying their squirmy, wheaten-haired son, Gideon, who was decked out in a fuzzy blue outfit for bedtime. Even out of uniform, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, Pike carried himself with the wary alertness of the Kansas City cop he was. But the tall, lanky man who’d been there to protect his sister from both their abusive father and a serial rapist while Harry had been stationed over in the Heat Locker reminded Harry of an overgrown kid when he set his son down and chased him over to his play area in the living room. Even the dog got into the game, joining in with a loud bark and circling around the toddler, which only made the little boy chortle with glee. That muscle ticked in Harry’s cheek as the urge to smile warred with the images of something darker trying to surface. Gideon lost his balance and plopped onto the extra padding of his diaper before using the German shepherd’s fur to pull himself back onto his pudgy little feet and change directions. “Look out,” Pike warned from his wrestling position on the floor. “He’s been asking for his roommate all evening.”

      Gideon toddled over to Harry’s knee, joyfully repeating a phrase that sounded a lot like “Yucky Hair,” which was apparently going to be his nickname for the duration of this visit. Gideon’s little fingers tugged at Harry’s jeans and reached for him, demanding to be picked up. Although Harry was half afraid to hold the stout little tyke, he could feel the expectation radiating off Hope not to deny her son the innocent request. Unwilling to refuse his sister anything that would put a smile on her face, Harry picked up his nephew and set him on his lap. He pushed aside the salt and pepper shakers that Gideon immediately reached for, and let him tug at the buttons of his Henley sweater, instead. Hans lay down close by Harry’s feet, keeping an eye on the little boy as if he didn’t trust Harry with the toddler, either. Harry shifted in his seat, uncomfortable being the center of all this attention. Gideon batted at Harry’s face and he lifted his chin, pulling away from the discomfiting contact. Hell, the dog was better with the child than he was. He needed to distract himself fast, or he was going to end up in a dark place that no one in this room wanted him to visit.

      Turning his chair away from the watchful German shepherd, Harry latched onto the first thought that came to mind. “Daisy’s a little scattered, isn’t she?”

      Pike tossed a couple of toys into Gideon’s playpen before rising to his feet and crossing to the table. “Scattered? You mean her house? She’s been working on it for three years. I can’t imagine what it’s costing her to redo it from top to bottom like that. Plus, she’s doing a lot of the cosmetic work herself.”

      “I meant she rambled from one topic to the next. I had a hard time keeping up.”

      “She does live alone,” Pike suggested. “Maybe she was lonesome and wanted to talk to somebody.”

      Hope snickered at her husband’s idea. “She’s been at school all day, with hundreds of students. She’s had plenty of people to talk to.”

      “Teenagers,” Pike countered. “It’s not the same as talking to an adult.”

      Dismissing the explanation with a shake of her head, Hope opened a cabinet to pull out a bag of potato chips. “It’s not exactly like you’re Mr. Conversation, Harry. You’re quiet like I am with new people. Maybe you made her nervous and she was chatting to fill the silence. I do that when my shy genes kick in.”

      Not in any universe would he describe Daisy Mega-Hugger as a shy woman. But maybe something about him had made her nervous. The scars that turned his ugly mug into an acquired taste? Not announcing his visit before showing up on her doorstep? Was there something more to those footprints in the snow than she’d let on? The idea of a Peeping Tom had upset her, yes, but now that he considered her reaction, she hadn’t seemed surprised to discover signs of an intruder.

      Hope ripped open the bag of chips and crunched one in her mouth before dumping some onto the plate beside his sandwich. “She is one of those women who seems to have a lot of irons in the fire. She’s always volunteering for one thing or another. Daisy has the biggest heart in the world.”

      Harry pulled a toddler fist away from the tip of his nose. Was that big heart why she’d even considered giving Mr. Rude a place to live as her tenant? “I actually waited there a little while after I left. She had a guy coming in to talk about renting her upstairs.”

      Pike came up behind Hope and reached around her to snatch a chip and pop it into his mouth. “Mr. Friesen is the uncle of one of our receptionists at the precinct. I ran a background check on him for her.”

      “He showed up before I got out of there. I waited outside for half an hour to make sure he left without incident.”

      Hope’s eyes were wide as she set the plate in front of Harry. “Without incident? That sounds ominous.”

      Harry ate a bite before breaking off a morsel of the soft bread for Gideon to chew on, in an effort to distract the toddler from grabbing the whole sandwich. “While I was there, she had me check out some suspicious tracks in her backyard. Looked to me like someone had been casing her house.”

      Pike pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat. “Did you report it to KCPD?”

      So, he thought the situation seemed troublesome, too. “I advised her to.”

      Hope moved a subtly protective hand to her swollen belly. “You checked out the house for her, didn’t you? Her locks and everything are secure?

      “She’s got new windows on the ground floor. Dead bolts on the doors.” But he hadn’t checked any of them to see if they were locked. Surely, the woman had sense enough to... The second bite of his sandwich went stale in his mouth. He should have done that for her,