The Lawman's Christmas Proposal. Barbara Daille White

her feelings for Mitch.

       Chapter Three

      “Did living in LA turn you off your mom’s good cooking?”

      At his dad’s question, Mitch started. He looked up to find everyone at the table sitting with their eyes trained on him. The combined stares of his parents, two brothers and two sisters added up to way more attention than he needed.

      “Are you kidding?” He forked up a chunk of onion, chewed and swallowed it. “I’m just trying to draw out the pleasure. You always did tell me I ate too fast.”

      “You both do that,” Nancy said.

      “Hazard of the profession,” his dad agreed.

      Mitch nodded and tried to ignore the elephant in the room. Since he’d been home, he’d had plenty of hugs and kisses from the girls and lots of slaps on the back from the boys. He couldn’t deny his family’s happiness at having him here again. He just hated to see them all suffering on his behalf.

      Everybody wanted to comfort him for his loss, he knew, but no one wanted to be the first to bring it up. His dad insisted on acting as though nothing much had happened. Even his mom hadn’t cornered him yet, as he’d expected.

      And he didn’t want to think about recent events at all.

      He glanced down at his plate. The roast Nancy had made for supper, always his favorite, tasted dry as dust. It wasn’t Mom’s good cooking that had him distracted, though. It was the vision of a slim woman with long blond hair and sad eyes.

      “Your mom said you were out to Jed’s place this afternoon.” His dad passed him the meat platter. “How’s everything at Garland Ranch?”

      “And how’s Daffodil?” his younger sister Laurie asked. Daffodil was an old mare living out her days at the ranch.

      “I didn’t go near the corral,” he had to confess.

      Like the typical teen she was, Laurie rolled her eyes. She loved anything that walked on four legs, but especially horses.

      “You need to drop by the office,” his dad said, “and say hello to the boys.”

      He nodded. He knew most of the men in Cowboy Creek’s sheriff’s department. Heck, he’d grown up with them. Considering what had happened, seeing them didn’t rank high on his list. Then again, stopping by the office gave him something to do.

      It might help keep his mind off Andi and his decision not to visit the ranch again.

      “Oh, Mitch,” Nancy said. “I forgot to tell you. You hadn’t made it home yet when Jed called. He wants you to go back out to the ranch tomorrow. He seems to have something important on his mind.”

      Again, he had to appreciate the work that had trained him to keep his reactions hidden. He also suddenly found a lot more to like in his dad’s idea. “Thanks for passing the message along. I’ll probably be a while at the department tomorrow. But I’ll get out there again one of these days.” On another trip back home. When Andi wasn’t there.

      “From what your mom says, maybe you ought to make the trip a priority,” his dad suggested.

      “I can go with you after school,” Laurie offered. “I can see Daffodil and then go for a ride.”

      “And,” his mother said, “I told Jed I’d send along some more vegetables for Paz.”

      His brothers volunteered to help her box up the canning jars.

      As he considered the conversation, Mitch sat back in his chair and shifted his leg to make himself more comfortable.

      Nothing had been mentioned about what had brought him home. No furtive looks had been exchanged between anyone at the table. Yet somehow, he felt certain every member of his family had given the elephant in the room a strong, steady push in the right direction.

      At least, from their perspective.

      * * *

      LATE THE NEXT AFTERNOON, accompanied by nonstop chatter from Laurie, Mitch drove up the road to Garland Ranch for the second time in two days.

      She went on about her classes and friends and riding and the holiday open house Jed held every year at the hotel. He hadn’t made it back for one of those parties since he’d left town to go to school. Maybe he’d be gone for this one.

      He thought again about his family ganging up on him over today’s trip. Something had made them all suddenly think the return to Garland Ranch would do him good.

      Sure, they wanted him to relax and unwind and go back to being the son and brother they’d always known. That wasn’t going to happen, no matter how much they tried. He would never be the man he was before the incident. The incident...

      He’d trained himself to use that cop-speak every time he thought about the day. To put a professional spin on an event leaving more than one man dead. To keep from obsessing over the knowledge his partner’s death was personal and a memory he would always carry with him.

      He ran his hand over his face, then opened the window all the way, hoping the fresh air would chase away the images filling his mind.

      “Hey,” Laurie yelped. “It’s December. You want me to catch pneumonia and miss the party?”

      “You’d go to that open house if you had both legs and one arm in a cast.”

      “Sure would.” She laughed.

      He thought again of his family’s efforts to get him out to the ranch. Their methods had sent up a red flag. Something wasn’t right about their determination.

      “You do much riding out at Jed’s?” he asked.

      “Not as much anymore,” she admitted.

      “Mom says you spend weekends there, though.”

      To his surprise, her cheeks turned red. “Well, I go to see Daffodil. She’s old, you know.”

      “Yeah. She had been getting up there even when I worked the ranch. She always thought she should be treated like a queen.”

      “Jed said she earned that right. And Eddie... I mean, Pete thinks she likes when I visit.”

      “Sounds like Eddie-I-mean-Pete knows a thing or two about horses.”

      Laughing, she smacked his arm, the way she had done a hundred times before. It surprised him to realize he’d missed that, along with roughhousing with the boys.

      “All right,” she said, “I meant Eddie. He takes care of the stables.”

      Just the job he’d had the first time he’d seen Andi. The luckiest day of his life till then.

      It looked as though his little sister might have the same kind of good fortune. Maybe hers would last. “Am I going to have to play biggest brother and give the guy a warning about being good to my sister?”

      “Show him your gun. That’ll work even better.”

      His hands clamped onto the steering wheel so tightly, he could barely make the turn into the drive. The flash of memory that hit made him wince.

      PTSD, the psychiatrist assigned to him after the shooting had labeled it, the body giving way as remembered trauma took control. According to the shrink, the stress showed up in different ways.

      Yeah, he’d dealt with that, right after the...incident. It had eased up a lot since then. He was fine. Fine, except for those nights he woke up in a sweat. And those times he paced his apartment to outrun the demons chasing him.

      And, so it seemed, when he heard his baby sister joke about his weapon.

      He parked near the corral on Garland Ranch and shot a glance at the woman who stood outside the fence, her back to them. Andi. He thought of all the drugs