“You saved my life,” Mallory said.

“I want to help save yours by helping you catch this guy. You know, return the favor.”

Shamus took Mallory’s elbow and moved her to a corner away from everyone else. “I have a couple of ways you can return the favor,” he said slowly. “They are really important to me.”

Her eyebrows raised in question. He continued, “Promise me you will not get involved in this bombing investigation. And that you won’t invite me to join the other probation officers at lunches and after work anymore. I don’t want to be a part of things.”

Her reaction was the same as if he’d taken a rose and crushed it under his heel. His heart thumped painfully. He had to be this way.

“You are such a hard man to like,” Mallory told him. “But I’m not giving up on you.”

FLORENCE CASE

is a New Jersey native who expected to stay in the Northeast to work, and so earned a bachelor of arts degree in German from Montclair State College (now University). Then she met and married her fantastic husband and moved to the Deep South, where she has run into only one person who spoke German. But her college education was not wasted—she had several novels published before coming to Steeple Hill to write; she homeschooled her beloved son, born with autism and developmental delays, for several years; and she’s trying hard to get another B.A. in speaking Southern. Because she loves to knit sweaters, crochet for babies in need, and teach adult Sunday School, most never suspect Florence dives right into danger—she once went after a really big snake in her front yard with her really little car. All kidding aside, the only danger she dives into is in the stories she makes up in her head and the ones she reads in other romantic suspense novels, which she loves. You can catch up with her latest news on www.shoutlife.com/FlorenceCase.

Mistletoe and Murder
Florence Case

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.

And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

—Ephesians 4:31–32

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

—James 1:2–3

To Jessica Miller and Jack Phillips, the kids of my heart, for keeping me laughing all the time, but especially in October. And thanks to Eric—any mistakes are mine.

Special thanks to Melissa Jeglinski and Tina Colombo, for their understanding and kindness.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

LETTER TO READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

Finished with her pre-sentence report, Mallory Larsen picked up a box wrapped in shiny red and silver Christmas paper and turned a speculative gaze on the only other probation officer left in the office past closing time on a Friday—Shamus Burke. She’d give making friends with him one last stab, and if a present given from the heart didn’t work, she was done trying.

Shamus rarely spoke unless he had to, and his stare was so intimidating their coworkers avoided him whenever possible. No one had minded when he’d skipped out on the Christmas party earlier that afternoon. No one except her. Because he hadn’t used to be so mean.

On the contrary. A couple years back, the former police detective had really enjoyed the Christmas season—at least from what she’d seen while he and his wife participated in the church’s Christmas cantata along with her. He’d always been friendly with other church members and happy to visit with residents at the nursing and assisted-living homes where they’d sung. His love for the Lord had radiated from him.

As had his love for his wife. They’d had the kind of relationship Mallory had always yearned for. She’d admired him from afar, and wished for a man like Shamus to come into her life.

But then he’d dropped out of church—and out of sight—to catch his wife’s murderer. When he’d resurfaced again as Mallory’s coworker at the Shepherd Falls County Probation Office a month ago, all traces of the old Shamus were gone. He’d acknowledged remembering her but then had been tense and uncommunicative and a royal pain to all of them, and she wanted to see the old Shamus back. This new one was just too hard to live with.

Gift in hand, she rose and walked right by the sparkly Christmas cards edging the desk of her best friend, Ginny Keane, but couldn’t resist stopping at Mosey Burnham’s workspace to press the top of his cherry-cheeked, tabletop Santa’s head.

“Ho, ho, ho!” the Santa called out, which made her grin and got Shamus’s bent, black-eyed gaze pointed in her direction, one eyebrow lifted.

Oops. So much for ambushing him so he wouldn’t have a chance to think of an excuse to refuse her gift. His eyes narrowed as she reached his desk, which was the only one in the room that didn’t have anything Christmasy on it. Sad, considering this was the same man who once sang in the cantata performance wearing a small Santa pin. Shamus needed help. Giving him her most cheerful smile, she held out the present.

“Merry Christmas,” she said.

He didn’t reach out or nod his head. He just stared. Which wasn’t a bad thing, necessarily. With his black, wavy hair, thick eyebrows and the crinkled corners of his black-velvet eyes, he was awfully easy to look at.

Too bad he wasn’t as easy to deal with.

No matter. He was getting the gift whether he wanted it or not. She could be stubborn, too, if it were for someone’s own good.

“You missed the Christmas party earlier. I brought a handmade gift for everyone, and this one’s yours.” The silver, scissor-curled ribbons on top bounced as she presented it again.

For a few seconds, his eyes flickered with some emotion she couldn’t quite catch, but then the intense stare was back. His shield.

“I didn’t stay for the party on purpose,” he said.

“I realized that when you came back after you thought everyone had gone home and scowled when you saw me.”

“I didn’t scowl,” he denied.

“You always scowl.” She wiggled the present in front of him, but he didn’t reach for it. “You do it to scare people off.”

The edges of his mouth almost turned up, but he caught himself. “How come it doesn’t work with you?”

“Because the only person who scares me is my mother and her plans to get me to move back home.” She flashed him another big grin. He merely continued to stare at her as if that hint of a smile had never happened.

Her grin faded.

“Your scowls don’t work on me,” she told him, “because I don’t give up on most people that easily. That amazing trait is why I’m in this line of work.”

She laid the box down at the side of his desk. “If you’re shy, you can take it home with you to open. I don’t mind. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t left out.”

He didn’t say anything. She wasn’t about to let his silence intimidate her, but she felt so awkward standing there. His total lack of response to her gift made her feel stupid for trying to be kind.

Turning, she walked back near her desk to get her coat from the rack. What she’d said was true—she didn’t give up on people easily. But in Shamus’s case, four weeks of invitations and being her usual sunny self hadn’t worked. It was time to quit. She knew from sad experience that there were some people who needed to wallow in their misery, and the last thing she was going to do was join him. Not her. She’d lived in a house of misery growing up, but she’d gotten out, discovered the Lord and joy in her life, and become happy.

She was determined to stay that way.

Great. Not only was he contented with being miserable, now he was dragging others into his pit. Shamus typed another sentence describing a probationer’s part-time job, but he was distracted. Mallory Larsen had a rep, at church and here, for doing good that came straight from her heart. Her eyes were practically begging him to be happy. She deserved a thank-you at the very least. The only thing holding him back was that he didn’t want to give her the impression her gift had made the least bit of difference in his life. It hadn’t.

But that wasn’t her fault. Nor was it the Christmas season making him like he was. It was just the total lack of joy in him since what felt like…forever, but had only been a year and six months, give or take.

He should have figured Mallory wouldn’t go home early. Not because she was a workaholic, but because she cared about her probationers and worked overtime for them. Him? He honestly had nothing else to do, and with each of the six probation officers in Shepherd County, Indiana, carrying almost two hundred cases, the department had an endless stream of work. He might as well get some of it done.

Sitting back in his chair, he watched Mallory shrug on a beige coat with a fur collar over her red sweater and white slacks. She pulled her long, chestnut-red hair free from her collar and let it fall over her shoulder. One lock fell near a sparkling Christmas-wreath pin to the right of the fur.

Funny how he’d stopped being able to concentrate on his work the second she’d pressed down on the Santa’s head and laughed, but he could focus just fine on her. Well enough to see every detail of her clothing, hair and face. And well enough to see how fast her cheerful smile had faded when he hadn’t laughed at her joke and refused to take her gift.

He asked God once more to help him change his attitude, right then and there. His faith made him keep praying, even though he didn’t think it would do any good. He’d come to believe after his wife’s murder that the Lord wanted him to suffer for a while.

God didn’t seem any more friendly, either, by the time Mallory left her desk, heading toward the front office door, which was kept locked to offer the officers some protection from the riffraff—uh, make that probationers—they served. The look on her delicate features was gloomy compared to her normal, smiling face, and he couldn’t stand it anymore. If God no longer cared about his life enough to answer his prayers and truly change his heart, then he would have to pretend.

“Mallory?” he said as she turned the dead bolt on their office door.

Her hand paused as she turned her head to look at him, hope lighting her eyes.

“Thanks,” he said with a nod. “For thinking of me.” He still didn’t care that she had, but acting was a valuable trait for a detective, and he’d learned it well.

Her lips curved upward, but her eyes dimmed with suspicion. She was seeing right through his insincerity, but at least he’d tried. It was the best he could do.

Opening the door, Mallory walked through and left it to shut on its own. Shamus barely had enough time to remind himself once again what a louse he was when he heard a startled shout and a grunt outside the door.

Mallory. No one should be in that hall. Muscles tightening, he drew his weapon and rose, just as Mallory was propelled through the almost closed door back into the room by a man who had a Smith & Wesson pointed at her head.

This couldn’t be happening. In less than three seconds, Mallory had gone from a tiny bit of progress with the icy Shamus Burke to being held hostage by…whom? She recovered enough to look sideways at the man who was holding her arm in his shaking fingers.

Her mouth dropped open. Bud Tripp? Meek, mild-mannered accountant Bud Tripp, who had stolen a thousand dollars from his employer to move so he could get his teenage daughter away from bad influences, and had even been paying it back when the theft was discovered? If the gun hadn’t been real, she would have thought someone was playing a really bad joke on her.

“Mr. Tripp, what on earth are you doing?” She yanked out of her probationer’s loose grasp and faced him. The man, in his early fifties, was flushed red, perspiring heavily and shaking with fear or maybe cold. His jacket was too thin for the icy air outside, and his awkwardly fitting ball cap didn’t look very warm, either. His dress slacks were soaked at the bottom, probably from snowdrifts. He had a backpack on his back that looked stuffed. If it contained his possessions, maybe he’d been evicted from his new rental home and was having a mental breakdown.

That would explain everything. Which would be nice, because she definitely had no clue what he was doing.

“Put down your weapon, Tripp!” Shamus ordered, moving out from behind his desk, his department-issued Glock pointed at the smaller man.

Mallory’s eyes darted to Shamus, whose hands were a whole lot steadier than Tripp’s. “The gun is unnecessary, Shamus. Mr. Tripp doesn’t want to hurt us.” Her voice was sharp, and she instantly regretted it. She wasn’t like that. She’d never be like that. Softening her tone, she added, “But you’re so sweet, trying to protect me.”

“I was a cop for ten years. It’s what I was trained to do,” Shamus told her between gritted teeth, his gaze never drifting from the gun Tripp held. “And I am not sweet.”

“Heroic, then,” Mallory said. She meant it. No man had ever tried to protect her like that. She liked it.

Shamus just scowled, and so she turned back to Tripp. She wasn’t afraid. She had a natural instinct about people—even a judge had told her that once—and Bud Tripp was not a killer. She had gotten to know him on her last home visit with him. Good thing it was just last week. With all the probationers she had to keep track of, she might not have remembered the man otherwise—that’s how safe and normal Tripp was. She didn’t have any idea why her probationer was doing this, but she honestly didn’t believe he would hurt her.

Shamus hurting Tripp, though, she wasn’t sure about. Her instincts were all out of whack when it came to the former detective.

“Mr. Tripp,” she said, keeping her tone as authoritative, yet low-key, as possible, “please put that gun down. I know you don’t want to harm anyone, and I would hate it if you accidentally hurt yourself.”

“I, on the other hand, wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”

Shamus’s intimidating words worked. Tripp swung his gun downward, and Mallory sighed with relief.

“Ms. Larsen is right about me,” Tripp said, his voice squeakier than Mallory remembered. He focused on her. “And she’s a really kind person—”

“Yeah,” Shamus broke in. “We’ll put that on her tombstone. She was a kind person, and it got her killed.”

Oh, this was so not the man she’d been acquainted with, and admired, two years ago. That man would never have put anyone down like that. Mallory pursed her lips. Apparently Shamus thought she was a fool for trusting Tripp…or for being nice in general—she wasn’t sure which. Either way, for some reason, his criticism hurt.

“That’s it, Shamus,” she said. “You’re officially off my Christmas gift list for next year.”

His stern gaze flickered with what looked like disappointment to her. She must be seeing things.

“Don’t criticize Ms. Larsen,” Tripp ordered Shamus, shifting his weapon back toward him.

Shamus didn’t respond, just kept his own weapon pointed straight at Tripp, his wide shoulders steady. No negotiations possible with Shamus Burke, it looked like. Okay. That just meant she’d have to defuse the situation before Shamus took action, so no one would get hurt.

She refocused on the former accountant.

“Let’s pretend he’s not here, Mr. Tripp,” Mallory said, doing away with authoritative and trying soothing. “Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me how I can help you.” She beckoned for his weapon, but Tripp raised his free hand.

“You two have to leave,” he said. “The building has to be empty.”

“Why?” she asked, drawing out the word. Her subdued manner seemed to be working, judging by the way some of the fear had left Tripp’s voice, and his shoulders had slumped. But then, to her right, she sensed Shamus stepping forward.

“Drop the weapon, Tripp!” he ordered again.

Shamus was definitely getting on her nerves. Mallory took a deep breath to keep herself from saying something not so nice. She was a Christian and needed to show Shamus some understanding. He didn’t know her at all. He had no idea she was capable of handling this on her own.

The first step was to make Shamus see Tripp as a human being. She said a quick prayer under her breath and then turned to him. “Shamus, please,” she said. “Can’t you see he’s scared to death?

“That makes two of us,” Shamus said.

“You?” she asked. “Frightened? I don’t believe it.”

“Yeah, I’m scared he’s going to end up killing you.” Shamus took another step forward. Tripp backed up to where he could see both of them at once, arcing the gun back and forth nervously.

“Please don’t try to stop me!” he said. “This man—he says he took my daughter, and if I don’t do this, he’ll kill her.”

“Somebody took Tara?” Mallory’s heartbeat revved up with her first real flush of fear. Tara Tripp was a sweet teenager who liked to read. She reminded Mallory of herself at that age. And now she was in the clutches of some nut who was sending another victim to do…whatever it was Tripp was supposed to do? Her fear started to turn to anger, and she quickly squashed that down.

Retreating, she stood next to Shamus, whose expression never lost one bit of its fierceness. In the light of the new information about the kidnapping, that fierceness now was comforting.

Not that she would admit it to him.

“Who has Tara, Mr. Tripp?” Mallory asked.

“Just leave so I can get on with it,” Tripp pleaded. “Please?”

“Get on with what?” she asked him, truly perplexed.

“He has a bomb in the backpack,” Shamus said matter-of-factly, as though he’d known it all along and it didn’t terrify him one bit. Her? Her eyes felt like saucers. She blinked, hard, as her gaze shot back to Shamus. He wasn’t joking. His eyes were narrowed and shadowed, his full lips in a thin line. He looked ready to pounce.

And she was almost ready to let him.

No denial sprang from Tripp about the bomb, so Shamus had to be correct. A thin sheen of sweat on her brow joined her thumping heart.

“You need to leave, Mallory,” Shamus said softly, in a different tone than she’d ever heard from him before.

She wanted to. The only thing stopping her was extreme doubt that the caustic Shamus would get any information out of Tripp at all. Her coworker might not like it, but he needed her there.

“Do you have any idea who this kidnapper is or where he might be holding your daughter?” she asked Tripp.

Tripp just stared at her.

She persevered. “Do you have a contact number? Do you know why he’s doing this?”

“No.” Tripp shook his head. “No to everything.”

“The police can help you, Mr. Tripp. We need to call them,” she said. With a trembling hand, she reached for Shamus’s phone, the nearest one.

“He says get away from the phone!” Tripp yelled.

Startled, Mallory dropped the receiver onto its base and took a quick step back, bumping into Shamus. His arm slipped around her waist, steadying her. A few seconds of his touch was reassuring, but it was probably good he withdrew his arm—since they were in the middle of maybe getting blown up and all.

“Who said get away from it, and how would anyone but us know what I was going to do?” she asked.

Shamus spoke. “Tripp sometimes delays answering you. I think he’s wired for sound and possibly has a video cam on his jacket or the backpack strap.” He paused. “Isn’t technology wonderful?” He sounded weary, almost as though none of this was surprising him, and he was sorry that it didn’t.

“We should leave, then,” she said.

“I think I just said that a minute ago.” He indicated the rear exit with a sweep of his head. “Go.”

She should leave. She wanted to. But she felt a strong tie to this man—the first person who had ever tried to protect her from harm. Why wasn’t he budging from his spot to save himself? Probably he wanted to stand guard over Tripp so she could get out of the building safely. No matter what his reason, Shamus was the bravest person she’d ever seen, and she couldn’t abandon him. She just couldn’t let him face this danger alone.

“I’m not leaving without you,” Mallory said. Of course, that made her officially insane.

The look Shamus shot her made her think he’d read her mind and agreed.

“Tell you what,” he said, his hands still holding his weapon. “If you go, you can take that present on my desk with you for safekeeping, and I’ll let you give it to me again later.”

He wanted her gift. The pleasure she felt over that, unfortunately, was curbed by the danger they were in.

She picked up the wrapped box. “Come with me, Shamus, and you can open it outside.” How innocent that sounded. Like they would be going outside for a party instead of escaping a bombing. She swallowed down her terror.

He didn’t move.

“You have to come with me,” she told him, her voice grow ing unsteady. There was no real reason for him to stay…unless he didn’t care about his life. She gazed up at him. That couldn’t be it.

Panic joined her fear. Her heartbeat made her think of the hidden timer that could be on the bomb, and go off anytime. She didn’t fear dying—she just wasn’t ready. There were things she wanted to do first.

Like save Shamus from himself.

“Let’s go, Shamus,” she said, using her authoritative tone.

Shamus shook his head. “I can’t. You heard Tripp. The building is supposed to be empty. As long as there’s someone here, he can’t blow it up. I’ll stick around and save the taxpayers some money.”

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, her heart falling when he didn’t respond. “Or do you have a death wish?”

For a few long seconds, Shamus met her gaze. Not a death wish. Too much defiance was in the dark depths of his eyes. But she was getting the impression he just didn’t care about his life. She would ask him why, but he couldn’t tell her, not with some madman listening via Tripp.

“They won’t go!” Tripp said, apparently talking to whoever was at the other end of his microphone. “They’re crazy. Neither of them will go.”

“We’re crazy?” Mallory and Shamus asked together, and then glanced at each other, startled at the coincidence. Too quickly, Tripp started moving, a sharp reminder to Mallory to stop focusing so much on the office recluse.

“You both have to leave now,” Tripp ordered, backing up and over to the wall, allowing them plenty of room to leave without getting close to him via the front door. He brandished his weapon. “Now! He said you’d better hurry.”

“Mallory, get out of here,” Shamus said fiercely.

Mallory’s stomach clenched harder. But she couldn’t leave Shamus alone. She didn’t even know why, but she couldn’t.

Shamus’s arms never wavered as he kept his gun pointed at Tripp. Where did he get the strength? Her whole body was shaking.

“Ask the guy, Tripp,” Shamus said, “what happens if I don’t leave?”

“Please,” Tripp begged. “He says he’s going to kill my daughter. He says he’ll prove it.”

The phone chirped on Shamus’s desk, startling Mallory so badly she jumped right into the side of him. He lowered one arm long enough to grab her hand and squeeze it gently. His fingers were warm, his touch calming. She wanted to keep holding his hand and go into denial.

The phone rang again, but the idea of talking to someone who was threatening them by holding a teenage girl hostage overwhelmed her to the point she couldn’t move.

Go into denial? She was already there.

“Pick it up!” Tripp ordered. “It’s him.”

Stepping sideways to the phone, Shamus answered it, hit the speaker button and took his gun again in two hands. “Look, you—”

“Daddy!” The voice of Tripp’s daughter wailed over the speaker. “Come get me!”

They heard a slap that Mallory felt through her cheek and into her bone. She slammed her eyes shut, remembering another abduction, long ago. How helpless she’d felt not being able to do anything…

Tara’s scream cut through the air, and Mallory opened her eyes. This was not happening to her—it was happening to Tara. She couldn’t do anything then, but now she could get a grip and help this girl.

“Tara, it’s Mallory, your father’s probation officer,” she said toward the speaker. “Don’t be scared. I promise I will help you. No matter what.” Somehow. And she could only pray she’d be able to keep that promise.

The phone went dead.

Mallory’s eyes flew to Tripp. He was leaning against the wall, on the verge of collapse. His daughter was sixteen. Mallory figured he loved Tara tremendously—he’d risked everything to steal money to get her away from bad influences at her old school. He’d broken the law and needed to be punished and finish making restitution, yes, but a part of Mallory admired him and wished her mother had been brave enough to get her and her brother out of the situation they’d been in.

But she needed to stop thinking about her past before she had no future.

Tripp’s knees gave out, and he sank to the floor. “He’s going to hurt Tara! She’s all I have.”

Shamus started toward Tripp again, with Mallory right behind him. She didn’t get three steps before Shamus put up his arm as a barricade and forced her to stop.

Tripp was picking himself up, his weapon once again pointing outward. “Can’t sit,” he said, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. “Blocks the camera view. He has to see when Burke leaves.”

Shamus was specifically mentioned, but not her. This attack was about Shamus. She was obviously expendable.

But why? What was going on? If it was about Shamus, then why was her probationer involved?

“You’re not leaving?” Tripp asked, sounding desperate.

Mallory didn’t take her eyes off Shamus, who shook his head negatively.

“Then I have to. He says abort the mission. Please don’t follow me. My daughter won’t be safe if you do.” Still pointing his weapon at them, Tripp edged swiftly to the door, opened it and hurried through, leaving the two of them alone in the room.

“I need to go after him,” Mallory said, but Shamus beat her to the door and threw the deadbolt.

“Go out the back,” he whispered close to her ear.

“Why?” she asked, whispering back. “You heard him. The bomber told him not to go through with it.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the rear of the huge office. “I’m not sure I believe Tripp, and bomb or no bomb, whoever it is will be expecting us to come out the front. I don’t like that idea. Hopefully, it’s only one person, and there’s no one waiting in back. We’ll call the police outside.”

“You didn’t hit the alarm?”

“What alarm?” he asked, looking frustrated.

Yanking out of his grasp, she double-timed it to her desk and stuck her foot under it. “Under our desks. They probably didn’t install yours yet.”

Now someone tells him—after the emergency starts. Shamus grabbed his present from her so she would have her arms free to run and went to the door in the back that connected the receptionist’s office to theirs.

Opening it, he saw the adjoining office was clear. So was the bulletproof receiving window at the very front of the room that showed part of the hallway through which Tripp had exited. Shamus strode four feet to the exit door, yanked it open and surveyed the parking lot. No signs of anyone lurking in wait. He hoped he was right.

He turned to motion for Mallory.

She wasn’t there.

Shamus cursed and reached the inside door just as she got there, clasping the laughing Santa from Mosey Burnham’s desk. She paused in place when she saw the fury on his face. Did she have a death wish?

“The Santa belonged to Mosey’s daughter. She was killed in action,” she explained quickly. “It’s all he has left of her.”

“Items can be replaced—people can’t.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I guess my heart gets in the way of my thinking sometimes.”

She sounded so sincere that Shamus considered apologizing for his abruptness. No time. Turning without responding, he strode to the door and stepped out onto the welcome mat. He hoped he was wrong about Tripp’s leaving the bomb behind. Hoped they had all the time in the world to get out of the building. Hoped—

The air around him exploded.

TWO

The force slammed Shamus upward and away from the building, sucking the breath out of him. He hit the snowy asphalt a few feet away and lay there, stunned, as all the emotion he’d buried since his wife’s death tumbled back onto him along with the debris from the bomb. Emotion over another woman.

Mallory.

Did she make it? He pushed himself onto his knees. Swiveled around to face the building. His head spun. He made himself focus, but he didn’t see her. She had to still be inside.

Annoying, do-gooder Mallory, who just had to stay late to give him a present so he wouldn’t feel left out. Who couldn’t believe her client could actually hurt someone. Who wouldn’t leave him behind even though she’d had the chance…

He had to rescue her. He could not have another woman’s death on his conscience.

Finding his gun on the ice, he holstered it, then lunged toward the building. At least, his muddled mind thought he was lunging, but he was startled to find he was only limping slowly. No matter. He pushed onward, trying to move faster, his ears ringing and his head spinning when he tried to turn it.

Sucking in a deep breath of clean air, he plunged inside the doorway and found a dazed Mallory against the outer wall, clutching Mosey’s Santa. Fire licked at what was left of the wall near the receiving window. Smoke poured into the area. Get her out. He had to get her out.

Fighting the stars that threatened to push him into darkness, he lifted her into his arms and carried her outside into the parking lot and away from the swirling smoke and dust. She didn’t speak, not one word, and something inside him—he wasn’t going to call it his heart—clenched.

His wife hadn’t spoken when he’d found her, either. She was already dead.

When he was far enough from the building to be safe, he picked a dry spot on one of the cement parking blocks near an overhead light post and sank down on it, keeping her in his arms and ignoring the ache in his knee.

Sirens whined in the distance.

He looked down into her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were closed, but she still gripped the Christmas toy she’d considered worth her life.

“Mallory!” he called to urge her awake, loudly because he could hardly hear and figured she was at least as bad off. He had to make sure she’d be okay in case he passed out. “Mallory, open your eyes.”

She did. They were deep, sea-green eyes, he saw in the lamplight. He’d seen them before, of course, but he had purposely not noticed their color. Not noticed anything but how they smiled when she smiled. Didn’t want to notice now.

But he did.

“You saved me,” she said. She covered one ear and frowned. “I can’t hear.”

“What?” he asked her.

“You saved me,” she said again, louder, and coughed with the effort. Her lips lifted in a gentle smile that gifted him more than any present she could give him. She took a breath and said loudly, “I owe you.”

“No, you don’t,” he said just as loudly. He didn’t want anyone to owe him, especially not a woman like Mallory. “I saved you for a purely selfish reason. So you don’t owe me anything.”

“What reason?”

Oh, great. Now he had to hurt her again, because he wasn’t lying. Everything he did lately was for selfish reasons.

“I would have to take a bunch of your cases over if you ended up in the hospital, and I’m overworked as it is.”

The smile left her lips, and she shut her eyes again. Wonderful. That was why he didn’t get involved with people anymore. He just hurt them, and he couldn’t seem to stop.

The regret that he’d tried his best to bury burned once more in him. But if he made amends, she might get the idea he wanted to be friends. He didn’t. All he wanted was to be left alone.

Stop thinking, he told himself. Shut down. Observe. Watch for anyone who looked familiar, who might be behind the bombing. Protect Mallory from him. Since he’d spent years in the Shepherd Falls Police Department, being on guard was easy to do, and much better than actually feeling anything.

People gawked from the parking lot across the street, probably too afraid of another explosion to come closer and offer help. He searched their faces, hoping to see someone he’d arrested in the past who might want to kill him. But the growing darkness made it difficult to see into the shadows. Actually, he and Mallory were the ones in the light—from the overhead safety lamps the city had installed to keep the probation officers safe.

The irony of that didn’t escape him. He was a sitting duck.

Fire and rescue screeched around the corner as Shamus watched, followed by police cars, their flashing red-and-blue lights adding to the red-and-green Christmas ones decorating the Shepherd Falls business district.

“Help me stand up, Shamus,” Mallory said, jolting him. He’d thought she’d passed out. With some relief that she had survived the blast better off than he’d thought, he helped her to her feet. She was wobbly, but remained upright as the paramedics pulled up nearby.

“I’ll fill in the police. You go to the hospital,” he told her, hoping she didn’t try to argue with him.

She didn’t. Instead, she held Mosey’s Santa out with both her trembling hands. “I’m trusting you to keep this safe for Mosey. It was—”

“His daughter’s. Yeah.” He didn’t want to touch it. He couldn’t believe he’d criticized her for saving it, and she still wanted him to take it.

“I trust you to get it safely back to Mosey.”

It was too much, her looking at him like he’d hung the moon. Unable to refuse, he took it into his hands and debated smashing it into a million pieces because it had almost cost Mallory her life. But he couldn’t, not with her sea-green gaze fastened on to him.

After she was tucked into an ambulance, he refused to have his leg checked. It wasn’t bleeding, so he’d survive. He always did.

The ambulance rolled away. Shamus started limping in the direction of an officer to see who was lead investigator on the bombing, and that’s when he spotted the present Mallory had given him. Its silver ribbons and shiny red wrapping paper were wet from the snow, torn up and blackened some from the blast, but the box was still in one piece.

He picked it up but refused to open it, pretending his knee didn’t hurt, pretending he wasn’t angry he didn’t stop the bombing somehow…and pretending he wasn’t worried about Mallory.

Bowing his head, he thanked God for saving him and Mallory both, and promised that he would not get attached to her, no matter what.

It should be easy enough not to. They had nothing in common. From what he’d observed in the last month, Mallory Larsen always had a kind word about and for everyone. He didn’t like to talk at all. She thought she could really help her probationers. He was under no such delusions about his. She was always concerned and wanted everyone to be happy. He had no desire to be happy.

She was sunshine, and he was a thundercloud. Judging by that, when she came to her senses, she wouldn’t want a thing to do with him.

And that suited him just fine.

Wondering if she should try calling Shamus again, Mallory nestled into the soft cushions of her best friend’s plush white sofa, which was like a balm to her aches and bruises. Ginny had rescued Mallory on Friday night from having to go to her parents’ house to recuperate by insisting she’d be more comfortable in Ginny’s penthouse. Her mother couldn’t even argue with the truth.

Thank goodness.

She watched Ginny gazing out her huge picture window overlooking a major part of Shepherd Falls. Her friend had been pacing for almost an hour and, despite her anxiety over the bombing, still looked every bit like the highly paid fashion model she’d once been, blond hair and makeup perfect. How did she do that?

“Please don’t worry, Ginny,” Mallory told her. “They’re looking for Tripp, and when they find him, they’ll get to the bottom of whoever is behind the bombing.”

“I know,” Ginny agreed. “But until then, whoever was behind this is out there somewhere, and he might set off more explosions.” She moved from the window to her ceiling-high, white-branched Christmas tree to fiddle with the silver-and-blue decorations. “We’ll still be in danger.”

“But we’ll be guarded, since they’re moving us to the courthouse, remember?” The basement, anyway, but it was still good. She’d found out about the move when Bess, the chief probation officer, had phoned them to check on her. “We’ll have little to nothing to worry about.”

Ginny didn’t respond, so Mallory went back to the romance novel on her lap. Her mind, however, was on Shamus. Why wasn’t he calling back? She’d left three messages on Saturday, and one earlier that afternoon.

She’d call him one final time, she decided. And in this message, she would use gentle persuasion.

“Maybe I ought to hire a bodyguard for you.”

Her gaze flew to meet Ginny’s. Her friend had more money than she could ever spend from a trust fund and investments made while she’d been a model, but Mallory couldn’t let her do that. She did not want to be that far in debt to anyone.

“I don’t want a bodyguard. God will watch over me.” Even though Ginny wasn’t a believer, Mallory reminded her anyway, hoping to be a witness of her faith.

Ginny just stared at her.

“Not only that,” Mallory continued, “you’ve done plenty as it is, letting me stay here so I wouldn’t have to go to Mom and Dad’s. Mom was sweet in the hospital, but she kept begging me to move back home where I’d be safe. You were a lifesaver. I was close to buckling under the pressure.”

“Sure you were.” Ginny, who knew better, grinned. She stepped away from the tree to join Mallory at the other end of the sofa.

“Your dad was there when I arrived to get you. How did it go?”

“He told Mom if I came home I needed to pay room and board.”

Ginny winced, her brown eyes filling with sympathy. “You almost got blown up, and that’s all your father said?”

Mallory shrugged. After years of that kind of thing out of Gideon Larsen, she’d come to expect it. That didn’t mean the words didn’t hurt, but there was nothing she could do. No one could change the past, or her part in it.

But it wasn’t important now. She had her own life, and her parents had theirs. She picked up her cell from beside her. “It’s time for me to try Shamus again. He’s going to talk to me whether he wants to or not.”

“Since he hasn’t answered all your other messages, I’m thinking that’s a definite ‘not,’” Ginny said, tucking her feet underneath her. “Why on earth would you want to talk to him that badly? He’s a jerk.”

Mallory held up her hand for Ginny to wait a couple seconds, then answered the other woman’s question in the message she left for Shamus.

“Hi, Mallory again. I know you’re probably busy trying to help the police find Bud Tripp, and I’m sorry for bothering you so much. It’s just, now that I’m well, I have to get started on my promise to help Tara, and I’ve decided the fastest way to do that would be to find Mr. Tripp myself. I just really wanted to talk to you before I start looking. Thanks.”

Mallory tapped the disconnect button triumphantly. “That ought to get a response.”

It did. Ginny’s feet hit the floor, her long, blond hair swinging. She stood up, her eyes filled with concern.

“Tell me you were going for shock value to get Shamus to call back,” she said. “Tell me you’re not truly planning on…” Her voice drifted off as her gaze turned horrified at the sight of Mallory’s resolute one.

“Oh, Mallory. You are going to look for Tripp.”

“Of course I am.” Mallory put the phone back down beside her. “If I find Mr. Tripp and persuade him to turn himself in, it solves three problems. The police and the FBI will be that much closer to the person behind the bombing and Tara’s kidnapping. I won’t have to revoke Mr. Tripp’s probation, and Tara will have her father home when they find her, not sitting in some jail cell.” The teenager would have someone with her who really cared, unlike what had happened to her after…

Ginny shook her head and sat back down. “It’s too dangerous for you to get in the middle of this. Whoever is behind the bombing might be just playing games right now while he gets ready to kill someone. Why be a target?”

“If the man was a killer, he wouldn’t have told Mr. Tripp to get Shamus and me out.” She’d had plenty of time to leave before the bomb went off. Getting trapped had been her own fault. “But you agree Tripp couldn’t have been behind this?”

“Sure. It’s not logical. Why would he want to blow up the building? You said he was basically honest, with a conscience. Plus, you said he was scared to death.”

“He was.” It felt really good knowing Ginny agreed with her, when the detective in charge had not ruled out Tripp’s involvement. Kidnappings, he’d said, had been faked in the past for all sorts of reasons.

“But don’t change the subject,” Ginny told her. “You might not think Tripp is dangerous, but sometimes you’re a little too trusting of people. What if Tripp is ordered to kill you if you try to take him to the police department to be questioned? If the mastermind threatens his daughter’s life, who do you think Tripp is going to choose?”

Mallory had to admit she was right about the danger. But she had promised Tara Tripp she would help her, and she couldn’t back down. To make Ginny feel better, Mallory compromised. “How about if I just gave my ideas on where to find Tripp to the police?”

Ginny’s face filled with relief. “That would be wonderful. And you’ll stop talking to Burke, too, right?”

“Uh, no.” She wasn’t giving in on that. “Why should I stop talking to Shamus?”

“Because he’s got to be the one the bomber is targeting, and you could get caught in the middle.”

“We don’t know Shamus is the target yet.” The police weren’t telling her a thing.

“Of course we do,” Ginny corrected. “You said the man talking to Tripp through the microphone mentioned Burke? I’m betting someone wants to get revenge on him again, the way that man did when he killed Burke’s wife.

“Think about it, Mal. In the five years I’ve been at the probation department, no probationer has attacked us in our building—until Shamus came to work there. Very few people take offense at being monitored by a kind probation officer, but I’ll bet a lot did when Mr. Personality was arresting people. He’s probably a maniac magnet.”

“He hasn’t always been like he is now. I told you that when he started working with us.” Mallory’s face flushed. Keeping calm was an effort, but she was determined to do it. “He was happy. Interested in everyone, and always trying to do things for others.”

“I didn’t mean to get you upset—you’re supposed to be recuperating.” Ginny looked genuinely sorry as she picked up a pillow and cradled it in her arms. “I remember when you told me about already knowing him. I never said anything then, but I need to now. You said Shamus was that way at church, and you didn’t know him otherwise socially. He could have been putting on a front for all of you there to fit in, maybe to please his wife. Who knows? For certain, there have been no signs of the man you’re describing in our office. Not one.”

Mallory took a deep breath. “I don’t think he’s a hypocrite, Ginny.” Her voice was so calm. God was helping her.

Ginny stared at her for a long moment. “You might want to consider if your heart isn’t getting in the way of your common sense where Shamus is concerned.”

“I don’t have romantic feelings for him.” She didn’t. Shamus might never change back to the man he once was, and the man he was now was too much like her father. “I was just trying to live my faith and be kind to him.”

“Faith.” Ginny brushed the idea away with her manicured fingertips. “All month he’s ignored you, scowled at you and turned down every offer of friendship, no matter how hurt you looked. What kind of Christian would do that?”

“One who is suffering a great deal of pain,” Mallory said firmly.

Ginny put down her pillow and stood. “Sometimes I think you carry Christianity too far, Mal. I don’t get how you can let someone walk all over you like Shamus did, and still defend him. I can’t. I hope he continues to ignore your calls, because I’d hate it if you got caught right in the middle of his battle with a demon from his past.”

Mallory watched her walk down the hall to her kitchen, then stared down at the cell phone by her side. Was she being naïve about Shamus? Was he a hypocrite, putting on a show at church when he was another way at home?

She put that question aside and considered what she knew for certain about him.

He’d saved her life by going back into a burning building for her.

He’d shown true concern for her in his unguarded moments in the parking lot afterward, when he’d held her in his arms.

He’d taken charge of Mosey’s Santa so it wouldn’t get lost or broken, despite the fact that he was furious she’d gone back for it. For a second she’d thought he would smash it down on the asphalt, but he hadn’t.

All that meant Shamus had integrity and feelings—he was just keeping them buried now. Ginny’s defenses were up when it came to Shamus for some reason, so she would just keep all of this to herself, along with her plans to find Tripp.

When Ginny returned with a soda and a box of expensive chocolates to share, she didn’t mention Shamus or the bombing again, and Mallory was relieved. She loved Ginny like a sister and didn’t want anything coming between them. So when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, she told Ginny she was going to her room for a nap, waited until she got far enough down the hall so Ginny couldn’t see and checked the number.

It was Shamus.

THREE

In a moment of insanity, Shamus had agreed to meet Mallory the next day on Holiday Avenue, named on purpose because its shopkeepers had persisted in decorating for every holiday for so many years it had become a tourist attraction in the state. From his table in the rear of the coffee shop where they’d chosen to meet, he had a good view through the windows.

He saw bright lights on Christmas trees in shop windows, a couple of people with charity buckets ringing golden bells and a tall Santa with a thick white beard that looked pretty realistic. He also saw trouble—Mallory, who was parallel-parking her SUV in a space not too far from where he was sitting.

He had hoped his lack of response to her calls would annoy her enough to give up on him, but really, what was he thinking? This was Mallory. For some strange reason, she seemed willing to take all he had to dish out—and cheerfully, too.

When she’d called to say she was going to look for Bud Tripp, Shamus’s blood had run cold. Whether Tripp was a victim or the bomber, searching for him would be dangerous. He had to dissuade her from helping Tripp and his daughter, no matter what she’d promised Tara Tripp on the phone.

If Mallory refused to listen, he’d feel obligated to watch out for her, and he wanted no part of that. None. On the other hand, he couldn’t take it if something happened to someone else he—no, not liked. Admitting to himself he liked Mallory would create a bond they didn’t have. He just didn’t want something to happen to someone else he knew because of him. Nothing more, nothing less.

He held back a sigh. Why was God doing this to him? Why couldn’t He let him just live out the rest of his life paying for not being there for his wife when she died? That’s what he wanted. Instead, God had given him—Mallory.

Compared to dealing with her, misery was easy.

Poor Shamus looked absolutely miserable, so Mallory stopped at the sales counter long enough to get some plain coffee for herself and two large sugar cookies with green and red sprinkles, which the clerk bagged along with napkins. The very sight of the decorated cookies made her happy. It didn’t get any better than Christmas—and surviving a bomb blast. She would convince Shamus of that, too.

Carrying her snack to his table, she put it down and gave him her most cheerful smile that made most people light up like a Christmas tree.

Shamus’s bulbs, apparently, were all burned out.

“Merry Christmas!” she said. “Before I forget again, thank you for saving my life.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. His black-velvet eyes were still guarded, but at least his tone wasn’t as frosty as usual. “I take it you’re okay?”

“Fine.” Bruised and sore, but she was alive, so who cared? “How about you? I heard you were limping after the blast.”

“Muscle pull. It worked itself out.”

“You’re a real hero. Carrying me while you were hurt.”

He shrugged. “I was happy to do it, Mallory.”

“I hope you still feel that way after we talk.”

“Yeah, so do I.” He sipped some of his coffee while she slipped out of her jacket and put it on the chair to his right, which she chose so she could have a view of the place. Despite what she’d said to Ginny yesterday about not being afraid, she wasn’t stupid. She planned on being careful, just not paranoid.

She needed to forget all Ginny’s worries about Shamus. He’d saved her life. His little jab about only doing so for selfish reasons had stung for a few minutes, but he had saved her life. That was all that mattered.

Sitting down, she faced him and rubbed the arms of the Victorian red pullover sweater she had knitted herself for warmth, glad she wore it. His silence felt chilly.

She’d just have to be the one to break the ice.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to be here talking to me, Shamus,” she said. “I’m used to it. My probationers are never happy to see me, either.”

“I can’t imagine why not.”

There was a hint of teasing in his voice. Teasing was good. “They’re usually not happy because I get information out of them they don’t want to give.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You’ll be happy to know I’ve changed my mind about going after Tripp myself.”

He remained silent, his expression guarded, as always.

“Aren’t you going to say ‘I’m glad’ or ‘That’s good’ or something?” she asked.

“I’m waiting for your punch line. You’ve changed your mind about going after Tripp yourself, but…” He flexed his wrist outward, expecting her to fill in his verbal blank.

“This is me you’re talking to. There are no ‘buts,’ I promise. Ginny convinced me it would be too dangerous to go after him alone.”

“So she’s going with you?”

“Shamus,” she chided gently. “I’m not going to search for him. But I would like an update from you on what’s going on with my probationer. All Detective Sullivan said when he questioned me Saturday was that Tripp had escaped the blast after dropping a knapsack in the building, and whether it was the one he was wearing when we saw him or a different one is unknown. Are the police any closer to finding him or his daughter yet?”

Shamus started to say something, but shook his head instead. “What makes you think I would know that?”

“What? You don’t?” She twisted her mouth into a smirk. “They do let me supervise lawbreakers, Shamus. I might be cheerful and caring, but I’m not stupid.”

He grinned. Full-out and natural. She sucked in a breath at the sudden pull on her heart.

“So there is cynicism under all that sweetness,” Shamus said.

She shook her head resolutely. “No cynicism in me. I believe in staying positive no matter what. I’m not letting life take away my happiness.”

She didn’t add “like you did,” but she might as well have. His grin disappeared, and his eyes hardened.

“I hope you never have to eat those words, princess. Because I don’t think you realize just how bad life can get.”

“I’m not a princess,” she told him. “I grew up working-class poor with a distant father who started drinking and became emotionally and physically abusive when I was eleven. And—does this sound familiar?—he focused on the bad in life and nothing anyone ever did made him happy to this day, even though he’s stopped drinking.”

Shamus’s eyes narrowed at the sides. Before he had seemed guarded. Now he had that intensity back she’d seen right after the bomb had exploded and she’d opened her eyes while in his arms.

Oh boy, she didn’t need to be thinking about that intensity.

“What changed your father when you were eleven?” he asked.

“You promise not to think less of me if I tell you?”

His lips parted as if he was surprised by the question, but his gaze never changed. “I don’t think there’s anything you could say that would change my opinion of you, Mallory.”

She didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to think about what had happened that had made her aloof-but-otherwise-okay father into a moody, verbally abusive man who couldn’t succeed in drowning his sorrow. But if she told him, maybe he would understand he didn’t have to end up being another Gideon Larsen, minus the booze.

It was one way she could pay Shamus back for saving her life.

The story was sad, and she focused on the two children talking to the street Santa outside, hoping the happiness she saw there would get her through it.

She lowered her voice and leaned closer to him so he could hear. “I was eleven, and my older brother was fourteen. My parents both worked, so during the summer vacation, the two of us were responsible for watching our little sister, who was six.”

She wanted to stop there, to tell him how pretty and sassy Kelly had been, but if she did, she’d never finish. Just like always when she got to this part in the story, she wanted to cry. Watching the children outside wasn’t helping at all, so she transferred her gaze to her coffee cup.

“My brother, Ethan, had a ball game, and he told me to watch Kelly. We walked two blocks to the school playground so she could go on the swings, and then we walked back home and into the house, and I locked the back door. Before our parents got home, I was supposed to put clothes in the dryer and fold a couple of piles of clean laundry in the cellar, but Kelly was afraid of going down there, because sometimes there were mice. So I let her stay upstairs in the kitchen and went downstairs to turn on the dryer. When I finished the work, I went upstairs. The back door was open, and Kelly was gone.”

“They didn’t find a…her?” he asked quietly.

“No.” She met his gaze. His eyes had softened. She had reached him. But there was more. “My father blamed my brother and me both. I didn’t think my mother did, but she didn’t protect us from his yelling, so maybe subconsciously she did and wanted us to be punished. I don’t know. Anyway, Ethan was my best friend after that. Life was rough, and he kept promising me when he was eighteen, he would get an apartment and get me out of there as soon as he could. He said if need be, we’d move to another state.”

“It didn’t happen?”

“Oh, he got the apartment in another state, I guess. I don’t know for certain because he broke all ties with me and didn’t leave a forwarding address. Just a note saying he was very, very sorry, but he had to leave. That I would be all right. Haven’t heard from him since.”

“How long?” Shamus asked, frowning.

“About thirteen years, give or take.” She gave him a sad, closed-lipped smile. “It’s over and done, all of it. I just wanted to tell you this so you can see I know what misery is. I just choose to follow what the Bible says, that no matter what our circumstances are, we should be content.

“So if I’m happy and try to look at everything in a positive light, Shamus, it’s not because I’m stupid or naive. It’s because I don’t want to lose the life God wants for me.”

Like her father had. Like, maybe, Shamus would. She didn’t have to say that. Shamus understood. She could tell by the way his features changed to a pensive look.

“You know you weren’t responsible for whatever happened to your sister, don’t you?” he asked.

“I know it in my head, Shamus. But in here—” she tapped her finger against her chest “—I’m not so sure.”

“I know what you mean,” he admitted.

He was talking to her about something personal? Her eyes went big, but Shamus shook his head. “That’s all I’m saying on that, so don’t even try to get me to share.”

He was closing off to her again, so she had to get back to the reason why she’d come. “So what’s the latest on Tripp?”

“As of this morning,” he said, “he’s still just a person of interest in the bombing, and his daughter is still missing.”

Normally, with Tripp being involved in a felony, Mallory would need to revoke his probation. But in this case, where someone could be holding her probationer hostage by now, and his daughter’s life was threatened, it was a gray area, her boss had said. Tripp wasn’t supposed to be avoiding the law, but she didn’t know for certain that he was.

“Was the backpack they found at the scene the one we saw Tripp wearing, or a different one?”

“I wasn’t told,” Shamus said.

“But you asked.”

One side of his mouth quirked upward, but he didn’t reply. That meant he’d asked. Amazing how well she could read him. The very thought of that distracted her for a few seconds while she wondered if it meant anything about him and her. She decided it didn’t. She didn’t like him well enough for a “him and her” anyway. Her instincts were still sharp, that was all, despite the bomb blast knocking her silly.

“When was his daughter last seen?” she continued.

“Getting off her school bus at three-thirty Friday at the end of her street, by a neighbor. The man blackmailing Tripp—if there is such a man—may have been waiting for her at her house.” Shamus glanced at his watch and looked up at her with his eyebrow raised. “Any more questions?”

“Yep.” Sliding her chair away from him enough to give herself some elbow room, she opened her bag and took out the two cookies inside. “Want Santa or the reindeer?”

She expected him to be above the obvious bribe to keep him at their meeting, but he grabbed Santa right out of her fingertips. She hid her smile. “You have a weak spot for sweets.”

He stopped munching on the cookie abruptly, and swallowed, staring at her. “I guess you could say that.”

All of a sudden she felt like a warm sugar cookie.

“And you have brothers,” she added quickly to get her mind on where it should be—trying to figure out how best to pay him back. Because baring her soul earlier to make him see he needed to change wasn’t enough, she supposed. “Brothers, or a lot of friends.”

“Three brothers.” He bit Santa’s head off. That didn’t surprise her at all. “How did you know?” he asked a minute later.

“The way you grabbed Santa. Cookie survival. Before everything went south at home, my brother’s friends would come over at Christmas time, and if you weren’t fast when cookies came out of the oven, you were out of luck.”

A wave of emotion over the loss of her sister and her brother’s broken promises threatened her happiness for a few seconds until she shoved back the hurt. Grieving forever wouldn’t help a thing—her father had shown her that. She couldn’t bring Kelly back and win her father’s love or relieve her father’s grief. This was all God’s plan. Her only responsibility was to look to God and have joy in her heart, not misery.

She pulled out the reindeer with the green sprinkles, broke off a piece and ate, enjoying the taste of the butter and sugar flavors blended together and feeling her tense shoulders relax.

The pure delight in Mallory’s eyes teased Shamus’s weary heart, and he tried not to let himself warm to her. She’d lived through tragedy and hurt, and kept going. He admired that. Watching her happy was almost better than eating the cookie she’d bought for him. Definitely better than sitting in his house alone, waiting for the makeshift probation office to reopen tomorrow morning. Infinitely better than waiting for Christmas to pass so he could forget how bleak he felt inside.

He wished he knew how she did the happiness thing. It couldn’t only be God, because he’d turned to God over and over and gotten only silence, not joy.

Mallory polished off her cookie, wiped her fingertips and leaned over way too close to him again. He almost bolted away. He could handle Mallory being close. He could. He was just edgy because someone had tried to blow him up.

“Any more questions?” he asked her.

“Sure. Lots,” she said brightly. “Why do you suppose someone would force Tripp to bring a bomb into the probation building?”

“If you use someone else to do your dirty work, the police have a harder time finding you. The only problem is if the guy talks.”

“So you kidnap his daughter to keep him quiet,” she said softly. “But how long can that work?”

“Not long. A hostage is a lot of trouble. So is blackmail. Something usually gives in both cases.” Shamus’s focused stare told Mallory that Tripp and his daughter could already be dead. She worked her teeth along her lower lip. That would be horrible.

She had promised Tara she would help her.

“Why pick Tripp to do the dirty work?” she asked.

“Don’t know. I’m sure the police and the FBI are looking into Tripp’s associates,” Shamus told her. “Maybe it will turn out this isn’t about me at all.” He didn’t believe that, but hopefully she would and stop asking questions.

As she shook her head back and forth, doubt in her eyes, Shamus caught an odor of apples and spice, the scent of Christmas. Maybe from her hair. Maybe her cologne.

Maybe he was losing his focus. The cheerful, sweet woman next to him was cutting into his misery like the sugar into the butter used for the cookie he’d just eaten. When she’d been telling her story, he’d almost pulled her into his arms.

He had to get away from Mallory Larsen. He had to forget that she’d awakened an emotion in him that he thought he’d buried—anger. Anger at the sick creep who had abducted her sister, and anger that Mallory had been partially blamed by her father for something she had no control over. He didn’t want to feel anger again. It had almost destroyed him while he’d searched for his wife’s killer.

He’d rather feel nothing at all.

“We done?” he asked abruptly.

“Not yet, Shamus.” She flipped a few long chestnut locks over her shoulder, which drew his gaze to her hair. It was swept upward at both sides with red velvet barrettes, the old-fashioned, Victorian Christmas red his mother was fond of and which matched Mallory’s sweater. Miniature green ribbons hung from the ends of the barrettes and cascaded through the silky strands.

He watched her lips move, but he didn’t hear a word she said.

“Shamus?” She tapped his arm, and he almost jumped. “So you don’t think I’m a target?”

Did he? According to the detective handling the case, there was a lot the police didn’t know for certain yet. Probably wouldn’t know until they found Bud Tripp or his daughter. But if Shamus told her that, she would worry. He didn’t want that on his conscience.

“For now, I’m assuming you weren’t the target. The bomber was willing to let you leave. He mentioned my name, but not yours. And besides, you couldn’t make an enemy if you tried.” All of which were true.

The corners of her mouth lifted briefly. “I need to know for certain. I have to reassure my mother I’m not walking around with a big ‘Kill Me’ sign on my back. Otherwise, she’ll worry to the point of exhaustion.”

He shot her a concerned look. “Maybe she needs to take something for that.”

“Not her exhaustion. Mine.” She pointed her thumb at herself. “I need to reassure her before she worries me to death.”

She looked so serious, he didn’t smile at her joke. That was Mallory, always worried about someone else, never about herself. But now he understood why. She needed to take care of everyone because she felt she’d failed at watching over her sister.

“All right,” he grudgingly said. “The police don’t think anyone’s after you. But that’s all I’m telling you.”

She looked like she’d won the lottery. “If Tripp wasn’t after me, there has to be someone else involved. Because why would Tripp try to blow you up on his own? You weren’t in on his arrest, were you?”

For her safety, he needed to get her off this fixation she had with the case. “Look, any target in this bombing would more likely be me, not you. Logic says there’s more than one person running around loose who’d like to see me dead. So tell your mother you’re going back to a secure office in a heavily guarded courthouse basement tomorrow morning, and you’ll be fine. That’ll take care of her worries.”

“Okay.” She nodded. “One more question—”

He held up his hand. He’d had enough. Enough of the way her hair flowed over her shoulder whenever she moved her head, enough of her apples and spice, enough of the way she could get him to talk and relax his guard.

“Too many people here. Save the rest of your questions for the detective in charge of the case, okay?” Shamus wasn’t just making an excuse. The coffee shop had filled up fast with Christmas shoppers and teenagers out on Christmas break. He didn’t want anyone accidentally or purposely hearing what they were saying.

Standing, he slipped on his jacket, picked up his paper cup and walked a couple of feet over to the nearby trash receptacle to toss it in.

When he turned toward the door, Mallory was in front of him with her waves cascading over the fur collar on her jacket, making him want to reach out and touch the beckoning softness. But he couldn’t. He didn’t want to get involved with her that way. She might make him forget that happiness never stuck around for too long.

“I had one more comment,” she said softly, her green eyes begging him to hear her out. He couldn’t move. “I need to tell you some things about Tripp’s background so you can get proactive about finding him.”

He glanced around them—no one seemed to be paying attention. He’d give her one more minute of conversation. “Who said I’m going after anyone?”

“You’re not?”

“At this point, I’m letting the police do their own work.” That was true. He’d lost his heart for detective work over the agonizing months he’d spent searching for Ruth’s murderer and making sure he went to prison. He’d been forced to keep away from his brothers, their families and his mother, partly to make the killer think he didn’t care about them so he would leave them alone, and partly because Shamus didn’t want his own anger to touch his family. The same hour the man who’d murdered his wife had been sentenced, he’d quit the force and become numb. He wouldn’t go after anyone else unless he absolutely had to.

Mallory stared up at him. “You have to search for the bomber. You can’t let him just try over and over again to hurt you.”

“Excuse me,” a patron said, wanting to throw away her trash. Shamus took Mallory’s elbow and moved her back to their table, which still held her coffee and paper bag.

“Remember how you said you owed me for saving your life? I have a couple of ways you can pay me back.”

She gave him a short, expectant nod, her eyebrows raised in question.

“Leave all the investigating to the police. Do not get involved in any part of it and make yourself a target. And that includes speculating on Tripp with other people. And don’t invite me to join the other probation officers at lunches and after work anymore. I don’t want any friends, Mallory.”

Her dejected look made him feel as though he’d crushed a rose under his heel. His heart thumped painfully. He had to be this way. He had to. Trying to be friends with him would only darken the light Mallory had in her eyes every day. He couldn’t take that. He couldn’t allow her to become him.

He could hardly stand what he had just done.

“You are such a hard man to like,” Mallory told him. “But I’m not giving up on you. You saved my life.”

His cell phone played a familiar tune, but Mallory was still standing there, keeping his attention. How could she be so warm and sweet and caring, and still be the most obstinate woman he’d ever run across?

The tune kept playing. He had to answer it. “Excuse me a second,” he said, whipping it out and pressing On.

“Hi, Mom. How are you?”

As Mallory watched, the tension drained from Shamus’s shoulders and face, and he looked like he used to when he and his wife and she had all sung in the annual Christmas cantata at the homes for the elderly. Relaxed. Happy.

Her mouth dropped open. What Shamus wanted her to do to repay him—stay out of his life—wasn’t really going to help him. But she’d just gotten an idea of what might.

She just wasn’t certain it would work.

Shamus started scowling as he continued to listen to his mother, and Mallory stayed put, eavesdropping unashamedly.

“No, Mom, don’t open the door to him. No one is supposed to be doing an article on me. I’ll be right there. What does he look like?”

He muttered “Uh-huh” a couple of times, and then his eyes, filled with alarm, shot up and locked on her. He moved the phone backward and mouthed, “Tripp.”

Tripp was at Mrs. Burke’s house? Why?

Bringing the phone back to his ear, Shamus gestured for Mallory to follow him. Leaving her coffee behind, she did, darting around a small group of people chatting in the aisle and listening to what he was telling his mother. It was easy enough with his commanding voice.

“Does he have a knapsack or any kind of parcel in his hands? No? Okay. Put as many walls between you and the front door as possible. Do not go outside. I’m only a few blocks away.”

On the sidewalk, Shamus broke into a run toward his nondescript sedan. Mallory followed just as quickly and slid into the passenger seat, her heart pounding. Why, oh why, would Tripp bother Shamus’s mother? Surely not to hurt her. Not another bomb. Shamus had lost his wife—he couldn’t lose another family member.

She didn’t think he could take it.

FOUR

Mallory spent the next few minutes getting Shamus’s handcuffs out of his glove compartment, calling 911 and remembering to brace herself whenever Shamus rounded corners, tires squealing. His eyes were set on deadly to mess with, and she wouldn’t want to be in Tripp’s position right now for anything in the world.

“If this is Tripp, he’s violating his probation for not reporting in after being involved in a major crime. I should call the boss.”

“No time. We’re here.”

She braced, and Shamus made a turn onto a driveway that led up a hill to a lovely, three-story home. An older, foreign-model car that obviously didn’t belong with the house was parked to one side at the bottom of the drive, and Mallory scanned the yard for Tripp.

“He’s in the bushes by the front door,” she said. As soon as Shamus screeched to a stop near the right side of the house, Mallory swung out of the passenger seat onto her feet.

“Mr. Tripp!” she called over the top of the car to her probationer. “Don’t move!”

Rounding the car and heading toward him, she noted that Tripp wore the same thin, close-fitting jacket he’d had on the last time they’d seen him, with no backpack, and no other obvious signs of a bomb.

Thank you for that, Lord.

Tripp bolted down the snow-covered lawn toward his car. She ran after him. Shamus easily passed her to tackle the other man. Snow packed beneath their body weight as the two of them rolled, but Shamus’s size and strength stopped Tripp from putting up a fight. Good thing, too, judging from the fury on Shamus’s face.

Shamus maneuvered himself upward, leaving one knee in Tripp’s back, and yanked on Tripp’s shoulders. “Did you plant a bomb here? Did you?”

Worried, Mallory’s gaze flew to the front of the house, checking every foot, then back to Tripp.

“You’d better tell him,” she warned. “If a bomb goes off, I can’t be responsible for what he does to you.”

Tripp shook his head furiously, fear pulsating from him. “I swear I didn’t plant a bomb,” he said, looking more miserable than he had the day of the bombing, if that were possible. “I wouldn’t have hidden in the bushes if I had. I have to stay alive to get my daughter back.”

Mallory believed him. She also understood the desperation he felt. She would have done anything to rescue her sister, if she’d just had the chance. But that didn’t mean she was going to put up with him ignoring the conditions of his probation.

Watching Shamus let Tripp fall back into the snow as he cuffed him, she moved around to kneel in front of them.

“Congratulations, Mr. Tripp. It takes a lot to irritate me, but you’ve officially done it.”

“I’m impressed,” Shamus told him. “I’ve been trying to irritate her for almost a month, and it still hasn’t worked.”

“You’re losing focus,” Mallory said, lifting her head to look up at him.

He winked, just to keep her off balance, and then patted their captive down for weapons. Nothing. Shamus gave their surroundings another glance. No backpacks that he could see. He jerked Tripp up by the back of his collar. “So why are you here?”

“I was ordered to come! My daughter’s kidnapper—he told me to pretend I was a reporter, to try to get information about you. That was all I was supposed to do.”

“How do you get in contact with him?” Shamus asked.

“I can’t tell you. He says he’ll kill me if I talk to anyone.”

Mallory pursed her lips. Tripp had just admitted he was holding back information about who was using him to threaten Shamus. She needed to get it out of him.

“What about your daughter, Mr. Tripp?” she asked. “Don’t you want to tell us what you know so we can save her?”

“I came here and did what the man said. He’s going to let her go. He promised.”

“You’re either incredibly naive or unfortunately stupid,” Shamus told him, rising and hauling Tripp to his feet.

As much as Tripp was irritating her, Mallory thought as she also got to her feet, she understood him. Tripp was merely hoping for the best. She understood hope, even if Shamus didn’t. For two days, she had hoped Kelly was merely lost somewhere and would come back home. There was hope—but there was also reality. Some people didn’t come back home, and right now, Tripp didn’t have the luxury of remaining silent, not when a life was at stake.

“You can’t count on the word of a kidnapper, Mr. Tripp,” she said, keeping her tone firm.

Her probationer’s face melted like a chocolate Santa held too long in a child’s hand. “I talked to Tara before I came here. She even said he promised to let her go if I just did what he asked.”

Mallory’s irritation grew. She wasn’t getting through to him. She had to. “Stop living in your fantasy world and tell me who has her, now,” she said, her voice intentionally sharp. She tried to rein in her anger, but couldn’t. “If you don’t do something, the kidnapper could kill her. You’re a father. Act like one.”

She caught sight of Shamus’s eyebrows rising in surprise, but she ignored him, focusing her gaze on Tripp.

Tripp shook his head miserably. “If I do and he finds out, he will kill her. And then he’ll kill me.”

“Fine.” She was done babying Tripp. “This other guy you’re so frightened of can kill you, but I can revoke your probation and spread the word in jail you didn’t give a hoot about your daughter’s life. Take your chances. Who are you more afraid of?”

She walked away, prepared to go immediately to her boss and put everything in motion to put Tripp back in jail. Taking deep breaths, she tried to calm down, but her heart squeezed in fear for Tara. Children should be protected, whether six or sixteen. Tripp needed to be scared. She’d done the right thing.

She hated this job right now.

“Wait!” Tripp called from behind her. She returned to where the two men stood, her back stiffened.

The words poured out of Tripp. “Friday, the kidnapper called me at my new job using my daughter’s cell phone. Didn’t give a name. He had Tara, and if I wanted her back, all I had to do was get the knapsack, gun and hat he left on my back porch, and pretend I was going to bomb the probation department building. I was to leave the knapsack, which was full of papers. I checked. I was supposed to just scare Mr. Burke. If I did that, he would let Tara go.”

Tripp shifted his gaze back and forth over the snow. “But he lied. He must have left another knapsack somewhere in the building and set it off.”

Mallory turned to Shamus. His black eyes communicated he wasn’t buying one word of it. Her? She wasn’t sure what to think.

They could hear sirens in the distance, and Tripp’s eyes widened as he looked at Mallory. “Are you going to revoke my probation? Who will take care of my daughter?”

“I’m not certain about the revocation yet.” She was inclined to believe Tripp, but she’d have to see what happened with the police first. “The detectives and the FBI will need to question you, so you’ll have to go downtown.”

Tripp’s lips tightened together and his eyes squinted. “My cell phone is in my car on the seat,” he said suddenly. “Please get it, Ms. Larsen. I don’t know if the kidnapper will let Tara go for sure, but if she gets free, she’ll try to call me, not the police. If I’m in jail I can’t help her, but you can.”

“Why wouldn’t she call the police?” Shamus asked.

“She just won’t,” Tripp said. “I know her.”

“I’ll help her. I promised.” Mallory turned and headed to Tripp’s car, purposely not looking at Shamus because he’d say the phone was evidence. Do not touch. But it was also the only number Tara Tripp knew to call, her lifeline to her father, and she needed it more than the police.

She found the phone and stashed it in her deep jacket pocket. Seconds later she headed back toward the two men and was about five feet away, when she heard a loud noise crack through the air.

She whipped around, saw nothing. Wondered if it was a car backfiring. Turned back, saw Tripp folded over in the snow, blood soaking through his jacket in the back.

Her mouth opened, and she breathed shallow, short breaths, unable to move. She didn’t understand why. She was in danger of being shot next. Tripp was in danger of being shot again. She should help him get to safety.

But the kidnapper was here….

Shamus grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward his vehicle.

“We’ve got to help Tripp,” she breathed out.

“Do you want to get shot, too?” he growled, pulling hard on her arm. “C’mon!”

Still Mallory hesitated, trying to get to Tripp. Then another shot split the air, so close she could feel it. Gathering her wits, she ran with Shamus for cover. Snow crunched under their feet, and she almost slipped, but Shamus’s strong arm went around her waist and caught her. They ducked in front of his sedan just as the police siren got louder. They’d warn the gunman off. No, wait—she’d heard the sirens before he’d shot Tripp.

The bomber wasn’t afraid of being caught.

As Shamus pulled his Glock and his cell phone out, she sucked in the cold air right down to the bottom of her lungs, praying for God to stop her fear. In four days, she could have died twice. The first time by being in denial that something terrible like a bombing could happen in the peaceful world she’d created for herself, and the second time by letting fear overcome her. She had to get a grip.

The trouble was, she didn’t want to have to. She wanted her serene life back.

She could hear Shamus talking to someone, reporting the shot fired and asking for an ambulance, and then he was off his cell phone and picking up his gun from the ground right by them.

“The police should be here any second. You watch behind us. I’ll watch in front.” He waited until she had changed position and added, “Are you all right?”

She glanced at him. “Of course I’m all right,” she said softly. “There were only two shots fired, and we know where they went. What makes you think I’m not all right?”

“You stopped talking. I figured you must be near death.”

She blinked. He wasn’t grinning, and no twinkle lit his eyes. “You made a joke.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did. It must be the shock from the explosion finally setting in.”

“Couldn’t be. I’m too busy saving your life to go into shock.”

“You did,” she said, finding it once again hard to breathe, staring into his eyes. She’d just stood there watching Tripp bleed, and Shamus had pulled her to safety. If he hadn’t, she could have been the next victim. “You saved my life again. Now I really owe you.”

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