Christmas Rescue at Mustang Ridge. Delores Fossen

Maggie’s eyes were on Jake, she knew Herman was already putting his hand on the little Smith & Wesson he carried in the slide holster in the back of his jeans.

      And he’d draw it.

      Gene, too.

      Even though Jake looked, smelled and acted like a cowboy cop, his mute reaction, the outlaw stubble and narrowed bloodshot eyes would alarm everyone. It wouldn’t be long before Gene pulled the Saturday night special he kept by the cash register. He didn’t know how to use it, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying to protect her.

      Maggie had to do something to defuse the situation, or soon bullets might start flying.

      “I’m okay,” Maggie gutted out. She forced a smile. God, that was hard because her jaw muscles had frozen. “This is an old friend.”

      That was hard, too. And it lit a bad angry fire in Jake’s eyes. Because they weren’t friends any longer. And there was little chance of her ever making it happen again.

      Especially since he’d likely snapped and come here to kill her.

      She’d had nightmares about it, of course, but hadn’t thought it would actually come down to it. Jake wasn’t the sort to take the law into his own hands. He definitely wasn’t a killer, but after what’d happened to Anna—her sister—Maggie wasn’t sure what sort of man he was these days.

      Maggie peeled off her apron, hoping no one noticed that her hands were shaking like crazy, and she grabbed her coat from the wooden peg on the back wall. She tossed the apron on the hook, missed but didn’t pick it up. Too many steps to process and there were more important steps now.

      “I’m going on my break,” she called out to Gene, and didn’t wait for him to challenge that. “Let’s take this outside,” Maggie added in a whisper meant only for Jake’s ears.

      Since she wasn’t sure Jake would go for her suggestion, she risked hooking her arm through his. He wasn’t shaking like her, but he was cold, making her wonder how long he’d stood out there watching her.

      Plotting and planning what he wanted to do to her.

      The question was—would Maggie let him do those things?

      Possibly.

      Jake wasn’t the only wounded soul who was sick and tired of dealing with the aftermath of what had once been a life.

      A blast of icy air slammed into her when she opened the door, and the silver-colored bells on the tacky plastic holly wreath jangled and jumped. Maggie said a quick prayer that Jake would budge, and she cursed herself for not having prayed sooner. Because it worked.

      Jake budged.

      And he walked out into the bitter cold with her.

      “This way,” he growled, and he took the lead, heading toward the parking lot. No snow, but the steely clouds overhead looked threatening.

      “Thanks,” she mumbled. They passed Ted, who was heading into the diner for his usual late breakfast. “There are a lot of good people inside. I didn’t want them hurt.”

      “My fight’s not with them,” Jake mumbled back.

      Maggie would have had to be deaf or unconscious not to react to that. Or to Jake himself. Her former brother-in-law was a formidable man and had a way of taking over a room just by stepping into it. Tall, dark and intimidating.

      Once, she’d been crazy in love with him.

      Well, maybe not in love exactly.

      In lust with him for sure, as every Mustang Ridge female over the age of thirteen had been. Her sister had once said that Jake could stop a man’s heart in midbeat. Or send a woman’s heart racing.

      Maggie had experienced both at one time or another.

      She remembered their one and only kiss. She could still taste him, could still feel his rough cowboy hands and mouth on her.

      Something Jake had warned her to forget.

      Right.

      She hadn’t had much luck with that.

      And he’d dismissed the kiss and the body contact against the barn wall as part of the grief of recently losing his wife. Maggie had dismissed it, too. Then, they’d learned Anna’s death was Maggie’s fault, in part anyway, and the dismissing turned to rage for Jake.

      The rage was still there.

      She could feel it as strongly as she could feel the kiss that she was supposed to forget.

      “How’d you find me?” she asked.

      His arm tensed, and he slung off her grip as if she’d scalded him. Or maybe he just remembered how much it disgusted him to touch her.

      Or answer her.

      Because Jake ignored her question.

      He reached in his pocket and used his keypad to unlock the doors of a dark blue F-150 truck. He put her in first, practically shoving her into the passenger’s seat. Jake didn’t even glance at her as he walked in front of the truck so he could climb behind the wheel. He probably figured she wasn’t going to run, especially since she’d coaxed him out of the diner.

      “You’re going to shoot me in your truck?” she asked, glancing at the pristine exterior. “It’d be a heck of a mess to clean up.”

      She was pleased and surprised that it sounded smart-mouthed. Better than letting him know she was so scared that she was about to lose her breakfast.

      Something else that’d need cleaning.

      The image of that hit Maggie the wrong way, and a short burst of air left her mouth. Definitely not a laugh. All nerves. And then the stupid tears came, burning her eyes and forcing her to choke them back.

      “You couldn’t hate me any more than I hate myself,” Maggie said, and she swiped away a tear.

      Now, she got him looking at her. Jake turned those lethal cop’s eyes on her. “Don’t bet on that.”

      The answer was actually a relief. Old lingo kicked in. Old training, too. If she could get him talking, maybe she could...what?

      Talk him out of this?

      Calm him down?

      Make him see it was a mistake to come here?

      Maggie wasn’t sure that was the fair thing to do. Or if she could do it at all. Once upon a time she’d thought she could do anything.

      She’d been stupid.

      And now that stupidity was catching up with her. She could only shrug at that and concede that she was due. For two years, eight months and six days, she’d been living on borrowed time and mercy.

      Maggie looked at him. Looked outside. Waited. And felt the goose bumps riffle over her entire body. Sweet heaven. Her coat wasn’t thick enough, but she pulled the sides together, hunched her shoulders.

      “How’s Sunny?” she risked asking.

      And she braced herself for him to reach for his gun. Right before his father, Chet, had run her out of Mustang Ridge, Jake warned her never to say his daughter’s name. That was a McCall thing. If you crossed them—Jake’s siblings or Chet—your name was mud.

      Hers was something lower than mud.

      Of course, Jake didn’t answer her. He wouldn’t give her that much, and if their situations had been reversed, Maggie probably wouldn’t have, either.

      “So, what? We just sit here mute as monkeys and freeze to death?” she asked. Her voice was quivering now, and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep up this act of someone who wasn’t about to go nuts. “At least it wouldn’t require much cleanup.”

      That deepened his scowl. “I figured you’d be working as a cop.”

      “No.”