The Lawman's Christmas Wish. Линда Гуднайт

leaped into Amy’s pulse. She jumped and spun, hand flying to her throat.

      “Hey.” Nate rose, giving her a worried look. He tossed the sponge into the bucket and came to stand next to her. “You okay?”

      “Of course I am.” Amy forced a smile. “The knock was unexpected. That’s all.” Burglars didn’t knock. Did they?

      Casey flipped on the back porch light and yanked the door open. The tomboy guide feared nothing. “Reed. Hi. Come in.”

      Hat in hand, the tall officer stepped inside. His gaze swept the room before landing on Amy. He frowned.

      All her anxieties came rushing back and brought their friends along.

      Chapter Three

      Amy James was as slippery as a young salmon. No matter how hard he tried to keep an eye on her, Reed never quite felt in control of the situation. Even though he’d gone back to her house with the troubling news from Lizbet’s Diner that a couple of strangers had been asking about the treasure, Amy had insisted on staying right where she was. She’d looked worried, nervous and shaken, but she’d thrust out that stubborn little chin and refused to even let him bring up the subject of moving to his place. As if he would have in front of half the town.

      Short of camping on her doorstep in the frigid temperatures, all he could do was cruise past the cheerful blue dwelling every half hour after the unofficial cleanup committee gave up and went home. In a town as small as Treasure Creek, one deputy per shift was generally all the help a chief of police could afford, though during the busy seasons, Reed had a couple of part-time locals to call on. When exhaustion had overcome Reed, Deputy Ken Wallace had promised to keep an eye on Amy’s place.

      Eyes as gritty as sandpaper, he pulled his SUV into the garage attached to his ranch-style split-level. Dark was absolute at 2:00 a.m. in Alaska, but the dome light flared on when he opened the door and stepped out onto the concrete. Cy hopped down beside him and waited patiently at the locked entrance leading into the kitchen.

      Though the garage was refrigerator-cold and ripe with the familiar smells of oil and grease, Reed paused on the single step to remove his boots. Granny Crisp was touchy about her clean floors. He took an old towel from a nail and carefully dried Cy’s paws, too. No use getting Granny in a mood. He might own the house, but Granny was in charge of keeping things neat and tidy. For a little gnat of a woman, she could tear a strip off him with her black button eyes.

      In his socks, he keyed the door and entered the kitchen, the only light glowing red from the microwave and stove clock. Cy’s toenails clicked against Granny’s polished linoleum. Reed reached for the light over the stove just as the overhead light flicked on. Temporarily blinded, he blinked rapidly until vision returned.

      Granny Crisp stood in the doorway between the dining room and kitchen, a tiny twig of humanity. In gray thermal socks, a faded, red fleece robe that had seen too many washings, and sprouts of equally faded brown hair, she looked as harmless as a child. Reed knew better. The steel strength of her dark Russian ancestry ran through her veins.

      Her gaze went first to his feet. He smiled inwardly. When it came to keeping a clean house, Granny was as predictable as the sunrise.

      “Supper’s in the oven,” she said in her strong, blunt manner. Someone who didn’t know her well might think her rude, but beneath the hard shell and sharp tongue was a loving granny who’d always been there for him.

      “It’s 2:00 a.m.” With everything that went on today, Reed hadn’t considered dinner, but right now all he wanted was a bed.

      “I can tell time.” She went to the microwave and pushed three beeps worth of buttons. The whirring sound started. “Amy and her kids all right?”

      Reed accepted his fate. He would have to eat before he could sleep. Granny’s law. A working man needs to eat. He scraped a chair out and sat, leaning his forehead on the heel of his hand. “At the moment.”

      “You’re worried.”

      “Wouldn’t be up half the night if I wasn’t.”

      “You don’t worry about the rest of the town’s residents this much.”

      Reed squinted at her. Granny knew him too well. “Don’t start.”

      “Just saying.” She slid a plate in front of him, yanked a chair away from the table and perched. Cy collapsed on the floor between them with a sigh, rested his snout on crossed feet and closed his eyes.

      Reed filled a fork with a steaming cube of beef and brown gravy. “You can go back to sleep.”

      “Don’t want to talk about it?”

      “I’ll clean up my mess.”

      She chuffed. “Not what I meant and you know it. Trouble’s been brewing ever since word of old Mack Tanner’s treasure got out again.”

      “Yeah.”

      “Why doesn’t Amy give it up? Why not open the silly thing once and for all, so whoever wants it so badly will have to back off?”

      This was Granny. Do the practical thing. Do it now. Get it over with.

      “She has some notion that waiting until Christmas is good for the town. Says they need this for morale.”

      “Won’t do anyone any good if a lot of people get hurt.”

      “No argument from me.”

      Granny was silent for a few minutes while Reed chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed. Reed could practically see the wheels turning in her head.

      “I think I see her point.”

      “You would.”

      “Don’t sass.” The admonition was mild and brought a grunt from Reed. “When times are hard, folks need hope. That treasure represents something bigger than the fortune it may hold.”

      If he hadn’t been so tired, he would have rolled his eyes. “What it represents to me is trouble.”

      “In the form of a certain little redhead who doesn’t know what’s good for her?”

      “I tried to get her to move out here with us.”

      Granny cocked her head, one eyebrow rising. “That a fact?”

      “Temporarily.” Reed’s gaze slid away. He stabbed a piece of beef, not wanting to admit to Granny how distressed he was over Amy’s refusal.

      “Did you ever consider that a woman might want something more permanent in her life?”

      A knot formed in his gut, a familiar phenomenon of late, with the issue of Amy and her boys ever on his mind. Granny didn’t know about the ill-fated proposal. Make that proposals. What would she say if she did?

      “She had Ben,” he mumbled, and then shoved his mouth full.

      “Had.”

      As if he needed another reminder that Ben was past tense and Amy James was unattached.

      Two days after the break-in, Amy was starting to feel comfortable in her own home again. She regretted the loss of the lamp she and Ben had bought on their first anniversary, and she was furious that her photo albums had been ripped, but overall, she, Sammy and Dexter were okay.

      Now, if the chief of police would find someone else to worry about, she’d be perfect.

      Okay, maybe not perfect, but surviving.

      She plopped down on the foot of Dexter’s bed to pull on clean socks. Since the break-in, she’d slept in with the boys. Even though she claimed the move was for them, she felt safer in their room than hers. The thought of an unknown man—if it was a man—rifling through her underwear drawer gave her the creeps.

      “Mama?” Dexter jumped onto the bed next to her.

      “What,