The Lawman's Christmas Wish. Линда Гуднайт

probably long gone, but they also might be lurking in the bushes. I’ll take my chances in the house with you.”

      Reed thought Amy might have just paid him a compliment. Though he’d rather she was somewhere safer, her logic made sense. An intruder could just as easily be outside as in. And Reed had the advantage of a loaded pistol.

      They fell in step. As they passed Amy’s vehicle, her two little boys tumbled out and followed.

      “Chief Reed, someone broke our stuff.”

      Reed gazed down at the knee-high child. Dexter’s little head was tilted back, looking up with big gray eyes that trusted the police to do something. Police business Reed could handle, but kids were a puzzle. “Don’t be scared.”

      It was a lame thing to say, but Dexter seemed okay with it. Like his mother, the child bowed his head, shoved his hands in his coat pockets and traipsed across the yard, ready to face whatever was inside the house. Three-year-old Sammy, though, clung to his mother’s hand and stayed as close to her as possible. Reed couldn’t help feeling sorry for the little guy.

      They reached the back door and Reed thrust out an arm to stop them from entering. “Lock’s jimmied. Was the door open when you arrived?”

      Amy nodded. “Yes.”

      Incredulous, he stared down into eyes bluer than arctic waters. His gut did that weird clutching thing again. “And you went inside anyway?”

      “This is Treasure Creek. I never used to lock my doors at all. You know how out of square this old house is. I thought maybe I’d forgotten to shut the door hard enough this morning before I went to the office.”

      A reasonable explanation, but he still didn’t like the idea that she’d gone inside. If something happened to her—well, he felt guilty enough about the way Ben died without letting him down again.

      “Let me go in first. You and the boys stay close until I check all the rooms.”

      Amy scooped Sammy onto her hip and held Dexter’s hand, doing as Reed asked without comment. The break-in had shaken her more than she wanted to admit.

      It had shaken him, too.

      Together they made the rounds downstairs. Amy remained tight-lipped, but her pallor told how upset she was. They bumped in a doorway and it was all he could do to keep from pulling her close for a moment, to tell her everything would be all right, to erase the lines of worry around her beautiful eyes.

      Reed slapped the impulse away. This was Ben’s wife. She was his responsibility, not his woman.

      “What a mess,” he grumbled, mostly to break his troubling train of thought, but furious, too, at whoever had done this.

      “Upstairs next. Me first.”

      Whoever had been here was gone now. His gut instinct told him as much, but he was taking no chances.

      As they started up, he reached out and took Sammy into his arms. The kid was barely three, but Amy wasn’t as big as a house cat.

      “I carry him all the time, Reed.”

      He just grunted and started climbing, his boots ringing hollow on the wooden steps. Lugging Sammy up the stairs was too much for her, whether she wanted to admit it or not. At the top, he returned the boy to his mother, needing to be alert and prepared in case of a nasty surprise.

      “My room is here,” she said, pointing to a green-paneled door. “I dread looking in there.”

      Reed bit down on his back teeth. He dreaded looking in there, too, but for more reasons than the break-in. Something about entering the bedroom that Amy and Ben had shared made him uncomfortable.

      But he was a police officer. This was his job.

      “Stay put. I’ll look.”

      With the flat of his hand, he eased the door open and glanced inside. Anger bubbled up like a hot fountain. Ben had worked his tail off on this house. Reed knew, because he’d helped him. And now, like the rest of the house, the beige-and-blue bedroom was in shambles. Papers, books, clothes and toiletries were strewn everywhere. A lamp lay on the bed, the bulb broken and the shade crumpled. The room was as cold as the outside.

      With a frown, he stepped inside. “Better come in here, Amy.”

      She did. “Oh, my.”

      The words were barely a breath, but they were filled with distress. Again, the need to hold and comfort assailed the chief of police.

      Jaw tight, he pointed to the window. “Escape route. Your visitors were likely in the house when you arrived.”

      “I thought I heard something.”

      Frustration and worry and responsibility warred in his belly. This wasn’t the first threat to Amy’s safety. She was going to get hurt if he didn’t do something and do it fast.

      His inner voice demanded that he do the right thing—at least the right thing in his book—no matter how much personal turmoil it caused.

      And so he did.

      “That’s it,” he said. “You’re moving in with me.” He planted one hand on his hip and faced her, ready for the inevitable argument. “Today.”

      Chapter Two

      Hair rose on the back of Amy’s neck. Of all the arrogant, overreactive statements! She bit back a sharp retort while trying hard to see Reed’s point. Ten seconds later she gave up. His point was ridiculous. Besides, the idea of moving in with Reed, for any reason, made her feel…funny.

      “Don’t be silly.” She spun away and stalked out of the bedroom. Sammy and Dexter followed, little legs sprinting to keep up. They knew from experience that when Mommy moved, she moved fast.

      She was already down the wooden staircase and making the turn toward the ransacked kitchen when Reed caught up with her. He grabbed her elbow. Amy stopped, not that she had much choice with fingers of steel and nearly two hundred pounds of muscle latched on to her.

      “Come on, Amy, be reasonable. You have to.”

      Keeping her tone even, she said, “No, Reed. I don’t. Now, kindly let go of my arm.”

      Reed glanced down at the place where he gripped and dropped her arm like a hot potato. He took half a step back, swallowed hard and looked about as comfortable as a grizzly in a tutu. If she wasn’t so annoyed, Amy would have felt sorry for him.

      “You’re not safe here.” Reed’s words were ground out with all the gentle persuasion of a pencil sharpener. “You need protection.”

      “I can take care of myself.” When the police chief looked as if he would argue, she held up one finger—and discovered the thing was still trembling. She yanked it down to her side.

      “The subject is closed. I am not leaving my home.”

      Especially to move in with Reed. The idea of being in the same house day after day with him was—well—strange. Uncomfortable for some reason—though they’d been friends forever. Maybe that was the point. Reed and Ben had been friends, and Ben’s final letter to her niggled at the back of her mind constantly. He’d written the usual things at first—his love for her and the boys, his faith, the business—but then, as if he’d known he would never return, Ben had asked the unthinkable. If anything happened to him, he wanted her to find someone else. And he wanted her to do it before Christmas.

      Now Christmas wasn’t that far away. Neither was Reed Truscott.

      Fact of the matter, he and the boys dogged her footsteps all the way into the kitchen. Reed stalked her like a grizzly—and growled like one, too. Her sons had the deer-in-the-headlights look as their eyes volleyed between her and the police chief. Neither said a word. Dexter, she noticed, edged up against Reed’s leg. The police officer dropped a wide hand on her son’s small shoulder. Emotion curled in Amy’s belly, but was