The Sheriff's Christmas Surprise. Marie Ferrarella

to know,” he responded.

      She could have sworn a twinkle had entered those incredible green eyes.

      Or what could have passed for one, she amended silently. Seeing as how she’d never encountered a “twinkle” before that wasn’t captured within an old-fashioned string of Christmas lights. Like the ones her father used to string up around the house during the holidays, she remembered fondly.

      The next moment, Olivia felt a pang in the center of her chest. That she missed her parents went without saying, but she missed them the most around this time of year. Thanksgiving this year had been spent with her searching for Tina, an emptiness eating away at her as she stopped at one diner after another, encountering dead ends and pitying looks.

      She didn’t even want to think about what Christmas might be like if she didn’t find Tina.

      Decorations had started going up all over Dallas right after the pumpkins had been put away. That only prolonged her nostalgia and the sadness that inevitably overtook her. There was a very real chance that this year, she would wind up spending Christmas alone. Alone because she’d lost touch with all her friends in her drive to succeed, to give Tina a sense of stability and try to meet her every need. Alone because Tina wouldn’t be there.

      Damn it, since when did you turn into this maudlin, self-pitying creature? Your life is what you make it, so make it good, Livy, make it good.

      Besides, she wouldn’t be alone. If nothing else, Bobby would be there and Bobby needed her.

      She hugged the baby to her a little tighter.

      “Hey, aren’t you forgetting something?” Miss Joan called out after them.

      Olivia turned around, reaching into her purse with her free hand. Obviously the woman had changed her mind about being generous. Just as well.

      “I offered to pay you,” Olivia reminded the woman, crossing back to the counter.

      Miss Joan merely shook her head, a patient, tolerant expression on her face.

      “I was talking about the baby’s infant seat,” she said, pointedly holding it up. Olivia had left it on the counter after taking her nephew into her arms.

      Rick was at her side in two steps, picking up the seat.

      He nodded at Miss Joan. “Thanks.” With that, he was back at the front door in time to open it for Olivia and the baby. The latter began to rouse from his all-too-short nap.

      “I think he might be hungry,” Miss Joan speculated, raising her voice so that they would hear her as they walked out of the diner.

      Stopping again, Rick looked at Olivia. He hadn’t thought of that. For the most part, babies were beyond his realm of expertise. “She has a point. I could swing by the grocery store,” he volunteered. “Pick up some milk and a baby bottle—”

      “Or we could go to the backseat of my car,” Olivia interjected, stopping him before he could go any further. “I packed a few bottles and some formula for Bobby before I left. Tina only took one bottle with her.” A smile that was equal parts affectionate and long-suffering resignation came over her lips. “Tina doesn’t exactly plan things out.”

      But Olivia wasn’t like her sister, Rick observed. She came prepared. He found that to be an attractive quality in a woman.

      “She’s not alone,” he told her. “I see that a lot as sheriff.”

      Olivia unlocked her car. “You can put the seat in the back,” she told him.

      Seeing as how the diner was barely five feet away, he found the fact that she’d locked her vehicle before leaving it amusing. People didn’t lock their doors in Forever, much less their cars. In part that was because people trusted one another around here. In part it was because there wasn’t all that much worth taking. It all worked out in the end.

      And all that did was remind him that his job was superfluous. A halfway intelligent monkey could handle it. He needed something more challenging.

      No sooner had he deposited the seat into the back than Rick found himself on the receiving end of Olivia’s nephew, who was now fully awake and not in the best of moods.

      “Hold him for a second,” she said after the fact.

      He cradled the infant in the crook of his arm. “You asking me or telling me?”

      “Whichever works,” she answered glibly, then inclined her head in a semiapology as her tone replayed itself in her head. He undoubtedly thought she was being too bossy. God knew Tina had accused her of that often enough. “I’m sorry. I have a habit of issuing orders. Comes from taking charge so much, I guess. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

      Secure in his manhood and comfortable in his own skin, it would take a great deal more than a petite blonde in expensive high heels and a designer suit to rattle his confidence. Her apology, however, did surprise him. He would have put money on her never actually apologizing for anything she did. Maybe you couldn’t always tell a book by its cover. “No offense taken,” he answered. “I was just being curious.”

      Shifting the baby to his other arm, Rick peered over Olivia’s shoulder into her vehicle. He was about to ask if she wasn’t worried that the formula might have spoiled in the car, but he had his answer before he got to ask the question. She’d brought along a large cooler filled with ice and baby formula. He noticed that she’d also brought along several packages of disposable diapers. They were piled up on one side.

      Rick laughed to himself. Olivia Blayne struck him as the kind of person others gravitated to during a natural disaster. She obviously knew how to think on her feet and was prepared for anything.

      Except a runaway sister.

      But then, if he was being honest with himself, he still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that her sister hadn’t opted to run off rather than have every moment of her life planned out by a well-intentioned but highly dictatorial older sister.

      Or at least that was what he would have surmised Tina’s feelings to be on the matter.

      If it wasn’t for the fact that the baby had been left on his doorstep, Rick had to admit that he would have been inclined to just let the whole matter go, even if the woman making the charge was, hands down, the most gut-tightening attractive woman he’d laid eyes on in a very long time.

      Beauty-contest-winner pretty or not, though, that still didn’t make Olivia Blayne right, he thought.

      Bottle in hand, Olivia straightened up, hit the lock on the rear door and closed it.

      “Do you have a microwave or a stove where I could warm this up?” she asked, indicating the chilled bottle in her hand.

      “We have a microwave,” he assured her. There was one in the small room where he and the others took their lunch and occasionally, when he had someone sleeping it off in their only cell, their dinner. “We got it just after we learned how to make fire by rubbing two sticks together,” he couldn’t resist adding.

      Olivia opened her mouth to respond, then shut it again. She would have to be more careful how she phrased things around this small-town sheriff, she chided herself. There was obviously a vein of sensitivity beneath the rock-solid pectorals.

      Taking her nephew back from his arms, she flushed slightly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound as if I thought you were backward in Forever.”

      “But you do, don’t you?” he asked knowingly. There was no indication that he took offense at that, or even that he found it irritating. “Think it,” he added when she looked at him quizzically.

      “No,” Olivia denied with feeling, then, as he continued to look at her knowingly, she relented. “Well, maybe just a little. This is a small town,” she said by way of what she hoped he’d accept as an explanation.

      “Little or not, progress finds us all,” he assured her, then confided in a conspiratorial whisper,