There’s no place like Haven Point for the holidays, where the snow conspires to bring two wary hearts together for a Christmas to remember

It’s been two rough years since Andrea Montgomery lost her husband, and all she wants is for her children to enjoy their first Christmas in Haven Point. But then Andie’s friend asks a favor—to keep an eye on her brother, Sheriff Marshall Bailey, who’s recovering from a hit and run. Andie will do anything for Wyn, even park her own misgivings to check on her grouchy, wounded bear of a brother.

Marshall hates feeling defenseless and resents the protective impulses that Andie brings out in him. But when a blizzard forces them together for the holidays, something in Marshall begins to thaw. Andie’s gentle nature is a salve, and her kids’ excitement for the holidays makes him forget why he never wanted a family. If only he and Andie can admit what they really want—each other—their Christmas wishes might come true after all.

Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne

“Romance, vivid characters and a wonderful story; really who could ask for more?”

—Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Blackberry Summer

“This quirky, funny, warmhearted romance will draw readers in and keep them enthralled to the last romantic page.”

—Library Journal on Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

“A sometimes heartbreaking tale of love and relationships in a small Colorado town... Poignant and sweet.”

—Publishers Weekly on Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

“Plenty of tenderness and Colorado sunshine flavor this pleasant escape.”

—Publishers Weekly on Woodrose Mountain

“Thayne, once again, delivers a heartfelt story of a caring community and a caring romance between adults who have triumphed over tragedies.”

—Booklist on Woodrose Mountain

“Thayne pens another winner... Her main characters are strong and three-dimensional, with enough heat between them to burn the pages.”

—RT Book Reviews on Currant Creek Valley

“RaeAnne has a knack for capturing those emotions that come from the heart.”

—RT Book Reviews

Snowfall on Haven Point

Raeanne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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When I’m writing a book, I spend a great deal of time in solitude, listening to the imaginary characters in my head all day (and sometimes long into the night, unfortunately!). It would be a mistake, however, to believe I labored alone in bringing Snowfall on Haven Point to life. Though my name is the one on the cover, in reality, many people play a vital role in the process, from the first tiny seeds of an idea germinating in my imagination to the final creation.

As always, I am deeply grateful to every single person at Harlequin—from the amazing art department for their stunning cover designs to the tireless marketing team to the fabulous HQN editors (especially the incomparable Gail Chasan, who has been with me through more than fifty books now!). Thank you also to my agent, Karen Solem, for guiding me through all the nitty-gritty details; to Sarah Burningham and Katie Olsen of Little Bird Publicity and everyone at Writerspace for helping spread the word; my assistant, Judie Bouldry; Tennis Watkins, my wonderful son-in-law who updates my website; my friend Jill Shalvis, who always has my back when I need plot help or just to talk; my dedicated review crew; and all the bloggers and booksellers who work so hard to help my books reach my wonderful readers.

I must also thank my husband and three children for their patience, tolerance and endless cheerleading. I love you dearly.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

SHE REALLY NEEDED to learn how to say no once in a while.

Andrea Montgomery stood on the doorstep of the small, charming stone house just down the street from hers on Riverbend Road, her arms loaded with a tray of food that was cooling by the minute in the icy December wind blowing off the Hell’s Fury River.

Her hands on the tray felt clammy and the flock of butterflies that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her stomach jumped around maniacally. She didn’t want to be here. Marshall Bailey, the man on the other side of that door, made her nervous under the best of circumstances.

This moment definitely did not fall into that category.

How could she turn down any request from Wynona Bailey, though? She owed Wynona whatever she wanted. The woman had taken a bullet for her, after all. If Wyn wanted her to march up and down the main drag in Haven Point wearing a tutu and combat boots, she would rush right out and try to find the perfect ensemble.

She would almost prefer that to Wyn’s actual request, but her friend had sounded desperate when she called earlier that day from Boise, where she was in graduate school to become a social worker.

“It’s only for a week or so, until I can wrap things up here with my practicum and Mom and Uncle Mike make it back from their honeymoon,” Wyn had said.

“It’s not a problem at all,” she had assured her. Apparently she was better at telling fibs than she thought because Wynona didn’t even question her.

“Trust my brother to break his leg the one week that his mother and both of his sisters are completely unavailable to help him. I think he did it on purpose.”

“Didn’t you tell me he was struck by a hit-and-run driver?”

“Yes, but the timing couldn’t be worse, with Katrina out of the country and Mom and Uncle Mike on their cruise until the end of the week. Marshall assures me he doesn’t need help, but the man has a compound fracture, for crying out loud. He’s not supposed to be weight-bearing at all. I would feel better the first few days he’s home from the hospital if I knew that someone who lived close by could keep an eye on him.”

Andie didn’t want to be that someone. But how could she say no to Wynona?

It was a good thing her friend had been a police officer until recently. If Wynona had wanted a partner in crime, Thelma & Louise style, Andie wasn’t sure she could have said no.

“Aren’t you going to ring the doorbell, Mama?” Chloe asked, eyes apprehensive and her voice wavering a little. Her daughter was picking up her own nerves, Andie knew, with that weird radar kids had, but she had also become much more timid and anxious since the terrifying incident that summer when Wyn and Cade Emmett had rescued them all.

“I can do it,” her four-year-old son, Will, offered. “My feet are freezing out here.”

Her heart filled with love for both of her funny, sweet, wonderful children. Will was the spitting image of Jason, while Chloe had his mouth and his eyes.

This would be their third Christmas without him and she had to hope she could make it much better than the previous two.

She repositioned the tray and forced herself to focus on the matter at hand. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else.”

She couldn’t very well tell her children that she hadn’t knocked yet because she was too busy thinking about how much she didn’t want to be here.

“I told you that Sheriff Bailey has a broken leg and can’t get around very well. He probably can’t make it to the door easily and I don’t want to make him get up. He should be expecting us. Wynona said she was calling him.”

She transferred the tray to one arm just long enough to knock a couple of times loudly and twist the doorknob, which gave way easily. The door was blessedly unlocked.

“Sheriff Bailey? Hello? It’s Andrea Montgomery.”

“And Will and Chloe Montgomery,” her son called helpfully, and Andie had to smile, despite the nerves jangling through her.

An instant later, she heard a crash, a thud and a muffled groan.

“Sheriff Bailey?”

“Not really...a good time.”

She couldn’t miss the pain in the voice of Wynona’s older brother. It made her realize how ridiculous she was being. The man had been through a terrible ordeal in the last twenty-four hours and all she could think about was how much he intimidated her.

Nice, Andie. Feeling small and ashamed, she set the tray down on the nearest flat service, a small table in the foyer still decorated in Wyn’s quirky fun style even though her brother had been living in the home since late August.

“Kids, wait right here for a moment,” she said.

Chloe immediately planted herself on the floor by the door, her features taking on the fearful look she had worn too frequently since Rob Warren burst back into their lives so violently. Will, on the other hand, looked bored already. How had her children’s roles reversed so abruptly? Chloe used to be the brave one, charging enthusiastically past any challenge, while Will had been the more tentative child.

“Do you need help?” Chloe asked tentatively.

“No. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

She was sure the sound had come from the room where Wyn had spent most of her time when she lived here, a space that served as den, family room and TV viewing room in one. Her gaze immediately went to Marshall Bailey, trying to heft himself back up to the sofa from the floor.

“Oh no!” she exclaimed. “What happened?”

“What do you think happened?” he growled. “You knocked on the door so I tried to get up to answer and the damn crutches slipped out from under me.”

“I’m so sorry. I only knocked to give you a little warning before we barged in. I didn’t mean for you to get up.”

He glowered. “Then you shouldn’t have come over and knocked on the door.”

She hated any conversation that came across as a confrontation. They always made her want to hide away in her room like she was a teenager again in her grandfather’s house. It was completely immature of her, she knew. Grown-ups couldn’t always walk away.

“Wyn asked me to check on you. Didn’t she tell you?”

“I haven’t talked to her since yesterday. My phone ran out of juice and I haven’t had a chance to charge it.”

By now, the county sheriff had pulled himself back onto the sofa and was trying to position pillows for his leg that sported a black orthopedic boot from his toes to just below his knee. His features contorted as he tried to reach the pillows, but he quickly smoothed them out again. The man was obviously in pain and doing his best to conceal it.

She couldn’t leave him to suffer, no matter how nervous his gruff demeanor made her.

She hurried forward and pulled the second pillow into place. “Is that how you wanted it?” she asked.

“For now.”

She had a sudden memory of seeing the sheriff the night Rob Warren had broken into her home, assaulted her, held her at gunpoint and ended up in a shoot-out with the Haven Point police chief, Cade Emmett. He had burst into her home after the situation had been largely defused, to find Cade on the ground trying to revive a bleeding Wynona.

The stark fear on Marshall’s face had haunted her, knowing that she might have unwittingly contributed to him losing another sibling after he had already lost his father and a younger brother in the line of duty.

Now Marshall’s features were a shade or two paler and his eyes had the glassy, distant look of someone in a great deal of pain.

“How long have you been out of the hospital?”

He shrugged. “A couple hours. Give or take.”

“And you’re here by yourself?” she exclaimed. “I thought you were supposed to be home earlier this morning and someone was going to stay with you for the first few hours. Wynona told me that was the plan.”

“One of my deputies drove me home from the hospital, but I told him Chief Emmett would probably keep an eye on me.”

The police chief lived across the street from Andie and just down the street from Marshall, which boded well for crime prevention in the neighborhood. Having the sheriff and the police chief on the same street should be any sane burglar’s worst nightmare—especially this particular sheriff and police chief.

“And has he been by?”

“Uh, no. I didn’t ask him to.” Marshall’s eyes looked unnaturally blue in his pain-tight features. “Did my sister send you to babysit me?”

“Babysit, no. She only asked me to periodically check on you. I also brought dinner for the next few nights.”

“Also unnecessary. If I get hungry, I’ll call Serrano’s for a pizza later.”

She gave him a bland look. “Would a pizza delivery driver know to come pick you up off the floor?”

“You didn’t pick me up,” he muttered. “You just moved a pillow around.”

He must find this completely intolerable, being dependent on others for the smallest thing. In her limited experience, most men made difficult patients. Tough, take-charge guys like Marshall Bailey probably hated every minute of it.

Sympathy and compassion had begun to replace some of her nervousness. She would probably never truly like the man—he was so big, so masculine, a cop through and through—but she could certainly empathize with what he was going through. For now, he was a victim and she certainly knew what that felt like.

“I brought dinner, so you might as well eat it,” she said. “You can order pizza tomorrow if you want. It’s not much, just beef stew and homemade rolls, with caramel apple pie for dessert.”

“Not much?” he said, eyebrow raised. A low rumble sounded in the room just then and it took her a moment to realize it was coming from his stomach.

“You don’t have to eat it, but if you’d like some, I can bring it in here.”

He opened his mouth, but before he could answer, she heard a voice from the doorway.

“What happened to you?” Will asked, gazing at Marshall’s assorted scrapes, bruises and bandages with wide-eyed fascination.

“Will, I thought I told you to wait for me by the door.”

“I know, but you were taking forever.” He walked into the room a little farther, not at all intimidated by the battered, dangerous-looking man it contained. “Hi. My name is Will. What’s yours?”

The sheriff gazed at her son. If anything, his features became even more remote, but he might have simply been in pain.

“This is Sheriff Bailey,” Andie said, when Marshall didn’t answer for a beat too long. “He’s Wynona’s brother.”

Will beamed at him as if Marshall was his new best friend. “Wynona is nice and she has a nice dog whose name is Young Pete. Only, Wynona said he’s not young anymore.”

“Yeah, I know Young Pete,” Marshall said after another pause. “He’s been in our family for a long time. He was our dad’s dog first.”

Andie gave him a careful look. From Wyn, she knew their father had been shot in the line of duty several years earlier and had suffered a severe brain injury that left him physically and cognitively impaired. John Bailey had died the previous winter from pneumonia, after spending his last years at a Shelter Springs care center.

Though she had never met the man, her heart ached to think of all the Baileys had suffered.

“Why is his name Young Pete?” Will asked. “I think that’s silly. He should be just Pete.”

“Couldn’t agree more, but you’ll have to take that up with my sister.”

Will accepted that with equanimity. He took another step closer and scrutinized the sheriff. “How did you get so hurt? Were you in a fight with some bad guys? Did you shoot them? A bad guy came to our house once and Chief Emmett shot him.”

Andie stepped in quickly. She was never sure how much Will understood about what happened that summer. “Will, I need your help fixing a tray with dinner for the sheriff.”

“I want to hear about the bad guys, though.”

“There were no bad guys. I was hit by a car,” Marshall said abruptly.

“You’re big! Don’t you know you’re supposed to look both ways and hold someone’s hand?”

Marshall Bailey’s expression barely twitched. “I guess nobody happened to be around at the time.”

Torn between amusement and mortification, Andie grabbed her son’s hand. “Come on, Will,” she said, her tone insistent. “I need your help.”

Her put-upon son sighed. “Okay.”

He let her hold his hand as they went back to the entry, where Chloe still sat on the floor, watching the hallway with anxious eyes.

“I told Will not to go in when you told us to wait here, but he wouldn’t listen to me,” Chloe said fretfully.

“You should see the police guy,” Will said with relish. “He has blood on him and everything.”

Andie hadn’t seen any blood, but maybe Will was more observant than she. Or maybe he had just become good at trying to get a rise out of his sister.

“Ew. Gross,” Chloe exclaimed, looking at the doorway with an expression that contained equal parts revulsion and fascination.

“He is Wyn’s brother and knows Young Pete, too,” Will informed her.

Easily distracted, as most six-year-old girls could be, Chloe sighed. “I miss Young Pete. I wonder if he and Sadie will be friends?”

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Will asked.

“Okay, kids, we can talk about Sadie and Young Pete another time. Right now, we need to get dinner for Wynona’s brother.”

“I need to use the bathroom,” Will informed her. He had that urgent look he sometimes wore when he had pushed things past the limit.

“There’s a bathroom just down the hall, second door down. See?”

“Okay.”

He raced for it—she hoped in time.

“We’ll be in the kitchen,” she told him, then carried the food to the bright and spacious room with its stainless appliances and white cabinets.

“See if you can find a small plate for the pie while I dish up the stew,” she instructed Chloe.

“Okay,” her daughter said.

The nervous note in her voice broke Andie’s heart, especially when she thought of the bold child who used to run out to confront the world.

“Do I have to carry it out there?” Chloe asked.

“Not if you don’t want to, honey. You can wait right here in the kitchen or in the entryway, if you want.”

While Chloe perched on one of the kitchen stools and watched, Andie prepared a tray for Marshall, trying to make it as tempting as possible. She had a feeling his appetite wouldn’t be back to normal for a few days because of the pain and the aftereffects of anesthesia, but at least the fault wouldn’t lie in her presentation.

It didn’t take long, but it still gave her time to make note of the few changes in the kitchen. In the few months Wynona had been gone, Marshall Bailey had left his mark. The kitchen was clean but not sparkling, and where Wyn had kept a cheery bowl of fruit on the counter, a pair of handcuffs and a stack of mail cluttered the space. Young Pete’s food and water bowls were presumably in Boise with Young Pete.

As she looked at the space on the floor where they usually rested, she suddenly remembered dogs weren’t the only creatures who needed beverages.

“I forgot to fill Sheriff Bailey’s water bottle,” she said to Chloe. “Could you do that for me?”

Chloe hopped down from her stool and picked up the water bottle. With her bottom lip pressed firmly between her teeth, she filled the water bottle with ice and water from the refrigerator before screwing the lid back on and held it out for Andie.

“Thanks, honey. Oh, the tray’s pretty full and I don’t have a free hand. I guess I’ll have to make another trip for it.”

As she had hoped, Chloe glanced at the tray and then at the doorway with trepidation on her features that eventually shifted to resolve.

“I guess I can maybe carry it for you,” she whispered.

Andie smiled and rubbed a hand over Chloe’s hair, heart bursting with pride at this brave little girl. “Thank you, Chloe. You’re always such a big help to me.”

Chloe mustered a smile, though it didn’t stick. “You’ll be right there?”

“The whole time. Where do you suppose that brother of yours is?”

She suspected the answer, even before she and Chloe walked back to the den and she heard Will chattering.

“And I want a new Lego set and a sled and some real walkie-talkies like my friend Ty has. He has his own pony and I want one of those, too. Only, my mama says I can’t have one because we don’t have a place for him to run. Ty lives on a ranch and we only have a little backyard and we don’t have a barn or any hay for a pony to eat. That’s what horses eat—did you know that?”

Rats. Had she actually been stupid enough to fall for that “I have to go to the bathroom” gag? She should have known better. Will probably raced right back in here the moment her back was turned.

“I did know that. And oats and barley, too,” Sheriff Bailey said. His voice, several octaves below Will’s, rippled down her spine. Did he sound annoyed? She couldn’t tell. Mostly, his voice sounded remote.

“We have oatmeal at our house and my mom puts barley in soup sometimes, so why couldn’t we have a pony?”

She should probably rescue the man. He just had one leg broken by a hit-and-run driver. He didn’t need the other one talked off by an almost-five-year-old. She moved into the room just in time to catch the tail end of the discussion.

“A pony is a pretty big responsibility,” Marshall said.

“So is a dog and a cat and we have one of each, a dog named Sadie and a cat named Mrs. Finnegan,” Will pointed out.

“But a pony is a lot more work than a dog or a cat. Anyway, how would one fit on Santa’s sleigh?”

Judging by his peal of laughter, Will apparently thought that was hilarious.

“He couldn’t! You’re silly.”

She had to wonder if anyone had ever called the serious sheriff silly before. She winced and carried the tray inside the room, judging it was past time to step in.

“Here you go. Dinner. Again, don’t get your hopes up. I’m an adequate cook, but that’s about it.”

She set the food down on the end table next to the sofa and found a folded wooden TV tray she didn’t remember from her frequent visits to the house when Wynona lived here. She set up the TV tray and transferred the food to it, then gestured for Chloe to bring the water bottle. Her daughter hurried over without meeting his gaze, set the bottle on the tray, then rushed back to the safety of the kitchen as soon as she could.

Marshall looked at the tray, then at her, leaving her feeling as if she were the silly one.

“Thanks. It looks good. I appreciate your kindness,” he said stiffly, as if the words were dragged out of him.

He had to know any kindness on her part was out of obligation toward Wynona. The thought made her feel rather guilty. He was her neighbor and she should be more enthusiastic about helping him, whether he made her nervous or not.

“Where is your cell phone?” she asked. “You need some way to contact the outside world.”

“Why?”

She frowned. “Because people are concerned about you! You just got out of the hospital a few hours ago. You need pain medicine at regular intervals and you’re probably supposed to have ice on that leg or something.”

“I’m fine, as long as I can get to the bathroom and the kitchen and I have the remote close at hand.”

Such a typical man. She huffed out a breath. “At least think of the people who care about you. Wyn is out of her head with worry, especially since your mother and Katrina aren’t in town.”

“Why do you think I didn’t charge my phone?” he muttered.

She crossed her arms across her chest. She didn’t like confrontation or big, dangerous men any more than her daughter did, but Wynona had asked her to watch out for him and she took the charge seriously.

“You’re being obstinate. What if you trip over your crutches and hit your head, only this time somebody isn’t at the door to make sure you can get up again?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You don’t know that. Where is your phone, Sheriff?”

He glowered at her but seemed to accept the inevitable. “Fine,” he said with a sigh. “It should be in the pocket of my jacket, which is in the bag they sent home with me from the hospital. I think my deputy said he left it in the bedroom. First door on the left.”

The deputy should have made sure his boss had some way to contact the outside world, but she had a feeling it was probably a big enough chore getting Sheriff Bailey home from the hospital without him trying to drive himself and she decided to give the poor guy some slack.

“I’m going to assume the charger is in there, too.”

“Yeah. By the bed.”

She walked down the hall to the room that had once been Wyn’s bedroom. The bedroom still held traces of Wynona in the solid Mission furniture set, but Sheriff Bailey had stamped his own personality on it in the last three months. A Stetson hung on one of the bedposts and instead of mounds of pillows and the beautiful log cabin quilt Wyn’s aunts had made her, a no-frills but soft-looking navy duvet covered the bed, made neatly as he had probably left it the morning before. A pile of books waited on the bedside table and a pair of battered cowboy boots stood toe-out next to the closet.

The room smelled masculine and entirely too sexy for her peace of mind, of sage-covered mountains with an undertone of leather and spice.

Except for that brief moment when she had helped him reposition the pillow, she had never been close enough to Marshall to see if that scent clung to his skin. The idea made her shiver a little before she managed to rein in the wholly inappropriate reaction.

She found the plastic hospital bag on the wide armchair near the windows overlooking the snow-covered pines along the river. Feeling strangely guilty at invading the man’s privacy, she opened it. At the top of the pile that appeared to contain mostly clothing, she found another large clear bag with a pair of ripped jeans inside covered in a dried dark substance she realized was blood.

Marshall Bailey’s blood.

The stark reminder of his close call sent a tremor through her. He could have been killed if that hit-and-run driver had struck him at a slightly higher rate of speed. The Baileys likely wouldn’t have recovered, especially since Wyn’s twin brother, Wyatt, had been struck and killed by an out-of-control vehicle while helping a stranded motorist during a winter storm.

The jeans weren’t ruined beyond repair. Maybe she could spray stain remover on them and try to mend the rips and tears.

Further searching through the bag finally unearthed the phone. She found the charger next to the bed and carried the phone, charger and bag containing the Levi’s back to the sheriff.

While she was gone from the room, he had pulled the tray close and was working on the dinner roll in a desultory way.

She plugged the charger into the same outlet as the lamp next to the sofa and inserted the other end into his phone. “Here you are. I’ll let you turn it on. Now you’ll have no excuse not to talk to your family when they call.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

Andie held out the bag containing the jeans. “Do you mind if I take these? I’d like to see if I can get the stains out and do a little repair work.”

“It’s not worth the effort. I don’t even know why they sent them home. The paramedics had to cut them away to get to my leg.”

“You never know. I might be able to fix them.”

He shrugged, his eyes wearing that distant look again. He was in pain, she realized, and trying very hard not to show it.

“If you power on your phone and unlock it, I can put my cell number in there so you can reach me in an emergency.”

“I won’t—” he started to say, but the sentence ended with a sigh as he reached for the phone.

As soon as he turned it on, the phone gave a cacophony of beeps, alerting him to missed texts and messages, but he paid them no attention.

“What’s your number?”

She gave it to him and in turn entered his into her own phone.

“Please don’t be stubborn. If you need help, call me. I’m just a few houses away and can be here in under two minutes—and that’s even if I have to take time to put on boots and a winter coat.”

He likely wouldn’t call and both of them knew it.

“Are we almost done?” Will asked from the doorway, clearly tired of having only his sister to talk to in the other room.

“In a moment,” she said, then turned back to Marshall. “Do you know Herm and Louise Jacobs, next door?”

Oddly, he gaped at her for a long, drawn-out moment. “Why do you ask?” His voice was tight with suspicion.

“If I’m not around and you need help for some reason, they or their grandson Christopher can be here even faster. I’ll put their number in your phone, too, just in case.”

“I doubt I’ll need it, but...thanks.”

“Christopher has a skateboard, a big one,” Will offered gleefully. “He rides it without even a helmet!”

Her son had a bad case of hero worship when it came to the Jacobses’ troubled grandson, who had come to live with Herm and Louise shortly after Andie and her children arrived in Haven Point. It worried her a little to see how fascinated Will was with the clearly rebellious teenager, but so far Christopher had been patient and even kind to her son.

“That’s not very safe, is it?” the sheriff said gruffly. “You should always wear a helmet when you’re riding a bike or skateboard to protect your head.”

“I don’t even have a skateboard,” Will said.

“If you get one,” Marshall answered. This time she couldn’t miss the clear strain in his voice. The man was at the end of his endurance and probably wanted nothing more than to be alone with his pain.

“We really do need to leave,” Andie said quickly. “Is there anything else I can do to help you before we leave?”

He shook his head, then winced a little as if the motion hurt. “You’ve done more than enough already.”

“Try to get some rest, if you can. I’ll check in with you tomorrow and also bring something for your lunch.”

He didn’t exactly look overjoyed at the prospect. “I don’t suppose I can say anything to persuade you otherwise, can I?”

“You’re a wise man, Sheriff Bailey.”

Will giggled. “Where’s your gold and Frankenstein?”

Marshall blinked, obviously as baffled as she was, which only made Will giggle more.

“Like in the Baby Jesus story, you know. The wise men brought the gold, Frankenstein and mirth.”

She did her best to hide a smile. This year Will had become fascinated with the small carved Nativity set she bought at a thrift store the first year she moved out of her grandfather’s cheerless house.

“Oh. Frankincense and myrrh. They were perfumes and oils, I think. When I said Sheriff Bailey was a wise man, I just meant he was smart.”

She was a little biased, yes, but she couldn’t believe even the most hardened of hearts wouldn’t find her son adorable. The sheriff only studied them both with that dour expression.

He was in pain, she reminded herself. If she were in his position, she wouldn’t find a four-year-old’s chatter amusing, either.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” she said again. “Call me, even if it’s the middle of the night.”

“I will,” he said, which she knew was a blatant fib. He would never call her.

She had done all she could, short of moving into his house—kids, pets and all.

She gathered the children part of that equation and ushered them out of the house. Darkness came early this close to the winter solstice, but the Jacobs family’s Christmas lights next door gleamed through the snow.

In the short time she’d been inside his house, Andie had forgotten most of her nervousness around Marshall. Perhaps it was his injury that made him feel a little less threatening to her—though she had a feeling that even if he’d suffered two broken legs in that accident, the sheriff of Lake Haven County would never be anything less than dangerous.

CHAPTER TWO

MARSH WAITED UNTIL he heard the door close behind Andrea Montgomery and her children before he allowed himself to grimace and release the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

His entire body hurt like a mother trucker, as if somebody had been pummeling him for the last, oh, twenty-two hours. He couldn’t pinpoint a single portion of his anatomy that wasn’t throbbing right about now.

Though the surgery to set and pin the multiple fractures in his foot and ankle had taken place in the early hours of the morning, his head still felt foggy from the anesthesia and the pain meds they had thrust upon him afterward.

Oddly, the leg wasn’t as painful as the abrasions on his face and hands where he had scraped pavement on the way down. Some of his pain was probably the inevitable adrenaline crash that always hit after a critical incident.

He drew in a deep breath of air that still smelled like his neighbor, sweet as spring wildflowers on a rain-washed meadow.

He hated that he was now her pity project, thanks to her sense of obligation to his sister. He knew that was the only reason she had come by. Wyn must have blackmailed her into helping him. What other reason could she have for doing it?

Andrea Montgomery didn’t like him. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to her, but in their few previous interactions she had always seemed cold and unfriendly to him. He would have figured her for the last person to come to his rescue. Few people were strong enough to withstand pressure from Wyn when she was at her most persuasive, though.

He didn’t want his neighbor and her kids to come back the next day. Short of locking the door, how could he prevent it?

Less than a day ago, he had been under the wholly misguided impression that he had most facets of his life under control.

He had a family he loved, a widowed mother who had just found happiness again and remarried, a brother he admired and respected, a sister who was now engaged to his best friend, another one who was suddenly passionate about saving the world. He lived in the most beautiful place on earth and he had a position of great responsibility that he had worked very hard to earn.

Yeah, he had some in-house personnel problems in the sheriff’s department—the most urgent concern one that involved a significant amount of missing cash in a drug case—but he was dealing with them.

He certainly had a few enemies among the criminal element in his county. Who in law enforcement didn’t? Suspects he had investigated and arrested would probably top that list, followed by the people who loved them.

A few powerful people were on that list as well, including Bill Newbold, a wealthy rancher and county commissioner Marsh had had a run-in with a few weeks earlier over a neighbor’s claim he was overreaching his water rights.

Marsh could have handled that matter a little more delicately, but he’d never much liked Newbold and figured the man used his political position to line his own pockets. Attempted vehicular homicide, though? He couldn’t countenance it.

Maybe he was being too naive.

Marshall would never claim his life was perfect. He had made his share of mistakes—one huge one that was never far from his mind, especially lately. But he never expected to become a target of deadly force, until somebody in a snowy parking lot set out to show him how very wrong he was.

When he closed his eyes, he could still hear the sound of that engine gunning, the tires spinning on slush and gravel.

It wasn’t an accident caused by weather and nerves, despite what the investigator with the state police wanted to believe. How could it be? Someone had lured him to an abandoned gas station on the outskirts of Shelter Springs, baiting the trap with the promise of a lead in a long-cold missing persons case he worked when he first started at the Lake Haven Sheriff’s Department as a deputy fresh out of the military.

When he arrived, of course no one had been there. Marsh had walked around the dilapidated building to see if he was missing something and that was when he heard the engine gun from behind him. He turned just as the SUV headed straight for him and had barely been able to leap away at the last minute to avoid a direct hit.

He hadn’t been quite fast enough and the vehicle had struck his right leg. The combination of the impact and his own attempt to twist away had done a number on his leg. The X-ray looked like somebody had smashed his leg with a hammer, and the grim tally included a compound fracture of his ankle and multiple smaller fractures all the way up to below his knee.

He had been too busy trying not to pass out from the pain and hadn’t caught much that would identify the vehicle, except the color—white—and the general make—American-made late-model small SUV.

As for the driver, in the dark and the snow and from Marshall’s angle on the ground, he had seen nothing except a dark shape wearing a ski mask. He did have one small piece of evidence he hoped would lead in the right direction, but it was too early to tell.

The state police investigator seemed to think the anonymous tipster had chickened out at the last minute and tried to drive away but slid into Marshall because of the snowy conditions and had subsequently panicked and raced off into the night.

Marsh wasn’t buying it. Why insist on meeting there, in a relatively isolated spot without security cameras or witnesses?

No. Somebody had tried to take him out.

He sat back on the sofa, head pounding and his eyes gritty with exhaustion.

Why?

That was the question he couldn’t get out of his head. What the hell was all this about? Who hated him enough to want him gone?

He took a sip of water and shifted on the sofa, fruitlessly searching for a more comfortable spot.

He hated this, sitting here helpless instead of going after the son of a bitch who had done this to him. Worse, he was on mandatory leave for at least three weeks, since Newbold had pushed the other commissioners to insist he take sick leave until the New Year.

They couldn’t stop him from investigating on his own. He would make a list and start eliminating suspects, one by one. Cade would help him and so would Ruben Morales, his second in command.

Not right now. He was too damn tired and sore to do much more than sit here and try to find the energy to make it to his bedroom.

His cell phone rang before he could force himself to grab the crutches and get up.

He should have made Andie Montgomery leave it somewhere out of his reach. He thought about ignoring it, but she was right, there were about a hundred missed calls and texts on there. It seemed cowardly to continue ignoring all of them.

He glanced at the readout and saw it was Wynona. With a sigh, he picked it up.

“Hey, Wyn,” he said.

“About time you answered your phone! I was just about to pack Pete into the car and drive down there.”

“Glad you didn’t. We’ve got a storm moving in fast.”

“So do we, but what else am I supposed to do when you won’t call me back? For all I knew, you were lying on the floor unconscious somewhere.”

How humiliating, that Andrea Montgomery with the lovely eyes had found him after that little spill. Had she called Wyn the moment she left the house to tell her?

“My phone didn’t have a charge. Sorry to worry you. I’m not on the floor. I’m currently getting ready to eat what looks like some delicious stew made by your friend.”

“Andie stopped by to check on you? Oh, I’m so glad. I didn’t like the idea of you in that house alone, just hours after surgery.”

“It was totally unnecessary for you to hire a babysitter for me. I can take care of myself.”

“Extenuating circumstances. So tell me what happened. All I know is what I’ve heard from Cade, bits and pieces I’ve had to pry out of him.”

He would rather she didn’t know anything at all, but Wyn always seemed to have her ear to the ground. Until a few months earlier, she had been a police officer herself and had many connections in the local law enforcement community—not to mention that she was engaged to his best friend, who just happened to be the chief of police of Haven Point.

And, yeah, the two of them being together still freaked him out, though they seemed happy enough.

“What have you heard?”

“Something about you heading out to meet a CI and ending up on the wrong side of the CI’s grille.”

“Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”

“And the guy behind the wheel just sped off? You didn’t get any kind of a look at him that might help identify him?”

“Not really.”

He didn’t tell her he was able to get a partial plate, which was how Ruben, working under the radar, was able to ascertain the vehicle was reported stolen from a Boise box store parking lot two days earlier.

Wyn didn’t need to know all the details of the investigation—at least not until he had something concrete to go on.

“We’ve got a few leads we’re following, but it’s early days yet in the investigation.”

“You shouldn’t have any leads. You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

He glanced around his family room, where he had a feeling he would be spending entirely too much time for the immediate future.

“I couldn’t be taking it any more easy than I am right now, unless I were comatose.”

“Good. I’m sure that’s just what the doctor ordered.”

It was, but he also didn’t want to admit that to his bossy younger sister.

“What do you need? Gelato from Carmela’s? Barbara Serrano’s zuppa tuscano? I can have the Helping Hands hook you up with anything that would help you get through the next few days.”

More than anything, he wanted to be left alone. Knowing his sister, that was a wish that was doomed from the start.

“I don’t need anything. Thanks for worrying about me, but I’m fine, really. I’m managing okay on the crutches. At least I’ve only fallen once.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Wyn said. He could almost hear the frown in her voice. “I would still feel better if you would let Andrea check in on you, at least these first few days home from the hospital. I know you’re a tough guy, but sometimes even tough guys need a little TLC.”

“I appreciate your concern, but it’s not necessary, really. I’ll be just fine.”

“You’d say that even if you had two broken legs, wouldn’t you?”

“Can’t say. How about we don’t break the other one to test your theory, though?”

Wynona snorted. “Sometimes you’re so much like Dad, it’s freaky.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he answered. He could only try to be half the man John Bailey was. His father had been the best person Marshall knew. He had taught all his sons—and his daughters, come to that—everything they needed to know about being good cops and, more important, how to be decent people.

For a raw, unguarded moment, his heart ached for his father, for lost possibilities, for all the questions he could never ask John now about how to go forward with the rest of his life.

“It is a compliment, mostly. As bad as things were those last few years, the happiest I saw him was that day you won the election last year.”

He wasn’t sure if his father had even understood that Marshall had decided to run for sheriff after John’s good friend announced his retirement. He liked to think so, but his father hadn’t spoken a word since surviving a gunshot wound to the brain on the job.

“I’ll say this for you, though—you’re every bit as stubborn as our darling father. Seriously, what’s the harm in having Andie stop in a few times a day?”

He pictured Andrea with her auburn hair, her big green eyes, that air of fragile loveliness about her that called to a man’s deepest protective impulses. The same impulses that had never brought him anything but trouble.

“It was kind of her to bring dinner tonight, but I barely know the woman, Wynnie. She has enough on her plate with those kids of hers to have to worry about checking up on me.”

“She assured me she doesn’t mind.”

“What else is she going to say to you?” he pointed out. “You took a bullet for her.”

“Not really. It only grazed me.”

“Still. The woman obviously feels a great sense of obligation to you. It doesn’t seem fair to emotionally blackmail her into helping out your brother.”

“Oh, stop it. You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do, turning this around to make it seem like I did something wrong by asking her to help me out, since I can’t be there?”

“Not wrong. Just not necessary.”

“I get that you want to go into hermit mode and keep everyone away while you hunker down and lick your wounds. Cade would do the same thing.”

“What’s wrong with that?” he muttered.

She sighed. “Face it, my brother, you need help. You’ve got a badly broken leg that requires serious pain medication. You live alone and you can’t get around well or go to the store or shovel your own driveway. Since you were inconsiderate enough to get hurt when none of the members of your family can step up to help, having Andie stop by a few times a day is the next best thing, short of hiring a CNA to be with you around the clock.”

He didn’t answer, simply because he couldn’t come up with any words to counter her argument. He wanted to think it was the pain medication making his head feel like somebody had stuffed it full of steel wool, but he had a feeling it might have been more than that.

Maybe, just maybe, there was a slim chance his sister was right on this one.

“If the situation had been reversed,” she pressed, “you would have insisted on finding one of your friends to check on me.”

“Right. And who knows?” he said drily. “You might have ended up engaged to one of them.”

Laughter rippled through the phone. “Life is crazy, isn’t it?”

The last twenty-four hours had been the craziest he had endured in a long time.

“I know you don’t want Andie there, but it’s only for a few days and it would make me feel better, until I can finish things up here and come back to keep an eye on you. I’ll try to speak to my thesis adviser tomorrow and see if I can sneak away early.”

“Don’t do that.” He knew how important Wynona considered this dream of taking her life in a new direction. He wouldn’t be able to stomach the guilt if she had trouble with her graduate studies because of him.

“So will you let Andie come back?”

He sighed. Apparently he was no more immune to emotional blackmail than his lovely neighbor. “Fine. She can come back.”

“Thanks. Seriously. That’s a huge relief to me. Cade says he’ll stop in when he can, but you know how crazy things are this time of year.”

The sheriff’s department was the same. He had a million things to do before the end of the year—and that wasn’t counting the investigation into the missing evidence.

Damn Bill Newbold anyway. How was Marsh supposed to endure three weeks of enforced medical leave?

As an elected position, the sheriff of Lake Haven County technically reported to the voting public. The county commission couldn’t legally stop him from reporting to work—but the county commission oversaw all county departments and had budgetary control over his department. Newbold was pissed enough right now that Marsh wouldn’t put it past the man to do all he could to block the badly needed deputy pay increase Marsh had been wrangling for since his election.

For the sake of his department, he could roll over for a few weeks, do as much work as possible from home.

“I’ve got to run,” Wynona said. “Pete apparently needs to go out. Are you sure you’re all right alone tonight?”

“Perfectly.”

“I’ll have to take your word on that. Be nice to Andie, okay? You know things haven’t been easy for her.”

Yeah, he knew. His gut twisted. Detective Robert Warren had sat in the county jail for months after his plea deal and had been transferred to the state penitentiary only a few weeks earlier. Marsh had purposely kept his interactions with the man to a minimum and had made sure Warren had no cause to claim his treatment at the Lake Haven County Jail was anything less than proper and humane, especially considering the sheriff’s own personal connection to one of his victims. Wynona.

It was one thing to know in the abstract what Warren had done to Andrea Montgomery. Facts on a report, testimony during his sentencing hearing. It was something else entirely when he thought about that soft, sweet-smelling woman and her cute kids having to live in fear for the better part of a year because she had once trusted the wrong man.

CHAPTER THREE

“THESE ARE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT,” Andie exclaimed the next day as she looked at the cheery watercolors laid out on her neighbor’s kitchen table, a garden of flowers blooming with soft, lovely color to take the edge off the wintry day.

She shook her head in amazement. “We had one short conversation about you designing something for me, that’s all, yet you came back with exactly the right concept for my clients.”

“Oh, I’m so happy you think something will work!” Louise Jacobs glowed with pleasure. “I’ve never done anything like this before. Ever. I’ve always just painted for my own enjoyment, really. It was such a challenge—but a wonderful one.”

“I knew you could do it. I have loved the watercolors you sell at Point Made Flowers and Gifts and I had a suspicion my clients in Boise would, too. It’s the perfect mood and tone for their natural remedy spa services, exactly what I wanted, and I am certain they’re going to love it.”

“I hope so.”

“Trust me. I’ve been trying for weeks to capture the right tone and mood for their website redesign and ad campaign, but nothing seemed to feel right. I couldn’t get to the heart of it, but you’ve managed it. You have a gift, my friend.”

Louise beamed. “I’m so happy you like them.”

Andie saw the possibility of a very successful partnership moving forward. “If you’re all right with it, I’ll buy each one for the price we talked about.”

“Oh, you don’t have to pay me anything. I was happy to do it. I should pay you, actually. I needed the distraction and it was so nice to be back in my studio. I haven’t been able to pick up my brushes in months. Not since...”

Her voice trailed off, eyes bleak with grief. Andie touched her hand. “I’m so sorry, my dear. How are you doing?”

Louise looked down at the bouquet of watercolors for a moment, then offered a strained smile. “I’ll be glad when the holidays are over. Everyone told me how hard all the firsts would be. It’s so true.”

“Yes. It is.”

Jason had died in November, the week before Thanksgiving. Andie had no clear idea how she’d made it through that first December. She had been in a fog of shock and disbelief that her perfect world had imploded so wildly.

Last December had been tough in its own way, for reasons she didn’t want to think about.

Louise and Herm’s only daughter had died just five months earlier. No doubt the wound still felt jagged and raw.

“I wish we didn’t have to celebrate the holidays this year, but Herm wants us to go ahead with all our usual traditions, even though none of us has much holiday spirit. He thinks we need to build new traditions with Christopher, now that he’s living with us.”

Andie looked around the comfortable open-plan house, artfully decorated with greenery, ribbons, candles in slim holders. “It’s so warm and cozy in here. I’m sure that’s helped him feel more at home.”

As if on cue, a thin, gangly boy with shoulder-length dark hair and a semipermanent scowl wandered into the kitchen. Louise’s thirteen-year-old grandson stopped short when he spotted the two of them.

“Oh. I didn’t know somebody was here.”

“Hi, Christopher.” Andie smiled at the boy, whose scowl seemed to deepen in response. “No classes at the middle school today?”

His blue-eyed gaze flashed to his grandmother for an instant before turning back to her. “Um, sick day. I think I’m coming down with something.”

Judging by his bloodshot eyes and his greenish features, she suspected his sickness might be morning-after regret. Once in a while after a bad day on the job, her husband used to go on a bender and his symptoms were remarkably similar.

“Oh dear. I hope it’s nothing serious.”

He gave a halfhearted shrug. “Guess we’ll see. Nana, what’s there to eat?”

Louise pursed her lips, her eyes worried. “I made Scottish shortbread this morning.”

He gave a revolted look. “Isn’t that like head cheese?”

“That’s sweetbread, dear. Shortbread is basically a bar cookie made with butter and sugar. They’re in the tin.”

“Right here?”

She nodded and he opened the tin. After a moment’s consideration, he picked up a couple of them and took a bite from one as he opened the refrigerator and stared inside.

“If you’re ready for lunch, I can make you a sandwich or there’s leftover chicken noodle soup from last night I could warm up,” Louise offered.

He closed the refrigerator door. “This is probably good,” he said around the mouthful of cookie. “I’m not that hungry.”

“You can’t just eat a cookie,” Louise exclaimed. “Especially if you’re coming down with something.”

“I said I wasn’t that hungry, okay?” he snapped and abruptly stalked out of the kitchen.

Louise watched him go, eyes glassy with unshed tears. All her pride and excitement about the watercolors and Andie’s approval of them seemed to have drained away during the short interaction with her grandson.

“How is he doing?” Andie asked gently.

One of those tears slipped out and slid down her friend’s cheek and she brushed it away with an impatient hand. “His mother’s dead and his father wants nothing to do with him. He’s stuck living in a new town he hates with his boring old grandparents who have never raised a boy and don’t know how to talk to him. He hates school, hates his teachers, hates doing homework. He’s made a few friends, but...” Her voice trailed off.

“But?”

“I’m not sure they’re the nicest young people. They seem to run wild at all hours of the day and night, with no parental supervision that I can see.”

Louise seemed so disheartened that Andie couldn’t help giving her a little hug.

“He’ll make it through this. Please don’t worry. Time is the great healer. It’s a truism because it’s just that—true. That’s all he needs. He’s got you and Herm, two of the very best people I know. That’s far more than many children have in similar circumstances.”

Certainly more than Andie had known. Oh, how she wished she could have had someone like Louise in her life, someone sweet and kind and welcoming.

“He’s a good boy,” Louise said, wiping away another tear. “He’s just so angry all the time.”

Andie remembered that anger after her own mother died, along with confusion and fear and overwhelming grief. Puberty was tough enough, all raging hormones and intensified emotions. The loss of a parent made that transitional time that much harder, even when the parent hadn’t been the best a kid could ask for.

“I’m sorry,” Louise said after a moment. “You didn’t come here to listen to my problems.”

“That’s what friends do.”

“How are you these days?”

She would much rather talk about Louise’s problems, any day of the week. She knew what was behind the question. Everyone in Haven Point knew about the incident over the summer when the situation she had tried to escape by moving here from Portland had caught up with her, when she had been held at gunpoint by the man who had raped her the previous year, then stalked her for months.

Andie was doing her best to move beyond her past so she could work toward building a new future with her children here. She knew Louise’s question was offered in kindness, but she really didn’t want to talk about Rob Warren and the hell he had put her through.

“Everything’s great,” she said, pinning on a bright smile. “I’m really looking forward to Christmas in Haven Point. I can’t imagine a prettier place to spend the holiday. It’s perfect.”

“It really is, isn’t it?” Louise smiled softly. “The lake seems to change colors every day with the shifting winter light.”

“It must be fun to paint it this time of year.”

“It is.” Distracted, Louise looked down at her watercolors and Andie hoped she was thinking about taking her paints out to the water’s edge to try capturing that stunning blue.

Andie had taken to carrying her camera on her morning snowshoe walks along the river, catching birds flitting through winter-bare branches, the delicate filigree of ice along the riverbanks, the play of sunlight reflecting on the snow and filtering through the fringy pine boughs.

She had found peace here over the last few months, a calm she had needed desperately.

“I saw in the paper that our neighbor next door had an accident of some kind,” Louise said.

Now, there was someone who didn’t give her peace. Marshall Bailey. “Yes. He was struck by a hit-and-run driver a few days ago and ended up with a badly broken leg.”

“Oh, the poor man! Charlene must be having fits!”

“I don’t think Marshall wants his mother to know until she and Mike return from their honeymoon.”

Louise gave an approving nod. “Good decision. Why give her needless worry?”

“I agree.”

“So who’s watching over him?”

Andie raised her hand. “Well, I don’t know that I’d go as far as to say I’m watching over him. Wyn just asked me to check on him a few times a day. I’m heading there after I pick Will up from preschool.”

She felt too foolish to add that she wanted her son to come along as a buffer. “It would be helpful if you and Herm would keep an eye on things, too.”

“Oh, of course. We would be glad to do that. His mother is one of my dearest friends, though she pulled away a little after poor John had his accident.” She paused. “Do you think Marshall would enjoy some of my shortbread? I made plenty.”

“I’m sure he would. I can take it to him, if you’d like.”

“Thank you! Let me find a container.”

She bustled around the kitchen for a moment and ended up producing two tins printed with smiling families of snowmen.

“Here you go. A box for him and one for you and your children, if you’d care for it.”

“Oh, thank you! They will love it.”

These kind little gestures neighbors did for each other here always warmed her heart. She had enjoyed living in Portland. It was a beautiful, vibrant town filled with interesting people, restaurants, shops. But in all the years she had lived there after striking out on her own, it had never really felt as much like home as Haven Point, even though she and the children had been here less than six months.

She glanced at the whimsical owl clock on the wall. “I should go. Will is going to be done soon from preschool. I don’t know where the time went!”

“I’m so glad we had the chance to visit a little. You made me feel a little better.”

“I’m glad.” She hugged Louise, then slid her friend’s lovely collection of watercolors into the portfolio she had provided. “And thank you so much for these. I can’t wait to show them to my clients.”

“I do hope they like them,” Louise said again, her expression anxious.

“How could they not? They’re stunning. You really need to have a show, more than just the few you’ve given Kenzie to hang in the shop. You should think about talking to the owner of that new art gallery that just opened up downtown.”

“Me? Oh, I could never do that! I only paint for fun.”

“Think about it, my dear.” She slid her arms in the sleeves of her coat and headed for the front door. As she neared the stairs, she heard loud, discordant rock music coming from upstairs, then a crash followed by a string of crude vulgarities.

Louise’s cheeks turned pink. “That boy! I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry on my account, Louise. He’s a teenage boy going through a rough time right now. A little creative expression is only to be expected.”

She hugged her friend one more time, then walked out of her house with the portfolio under one arm and the tins of cookies nestled in the crook of the other.

She took a few steps toward home, then paused and turned back to the house next to Louise’s. She could check on Marshall now. Will wouldn’t be out of preschool for another half hour.

Why couldn’t she stop now, drop off the cookies, check to make sure the man was doing all right and then be on her way?

Yes, he made her nervous and she didn’t really want to be alone with him. Or any man, really. Maybe that was all the more reason to push herself into it. While he was big and rough and intimidating, he was also relatively helpless at the moment. This would be a good test for her.

After what had happened the day before, she wasn’t in a big rush to surprise him, so she texted quickly as she headed next door.

Can I stop by now?

His answer was so succinct, she had to smile.

Why?

Homemade shortbread, she texted back.

His answer in reply made her smile turn into an actual laugh. Door’s open.

Apparently Wyn hadn’t been joking about his sweet tooth.

Despite the warning she had just given him, she didn’t feel right about just barging in, so she rapped a few times on the door before opening it. “Hello?”

“Back here,” he answered, with the same brevity of his texts.

This time she found him on the recliner, with a book open on the table beside him and a rugby match muted on the TV. The worst of the bruises on his face seemed to be fading, she was happy to see, and his color looked better than it had the day before.

“Did you get breakfast?”

He nodded. “I grabbed some toast and coffee, plus a yogurt and banana.”

He probably needed groceries and had no way to get to the store. She should have thought of that the night before and at least checked to make sure he had basics. Guilt pinched at her. She was doing a terrible job of filling Wyn’s small request to watch over her brother.

“I need to run to the store later today. If you can think of anything that sounds tasty, I’m happy to pick it up for you. Just make a list.”

“Homemade shortbread is a good start,” he said, a blatant reminder to turn over the goods.

She fought a laugh and set the tin on the table beside him. “Here you go. It might still be warm.”

Without hesitation, he opened it and popped one small square into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed with a look of clear appreciation. “Oh, wow. That’s delicious.”

“I wish I could take credit for making it, but it’s a gift from your neighbor next door. Louise Jacobs.”

He had just been about to pop a second piece in, but at her words he froze for just a second and returned the cookie to the tin. “You’ve been to see Louise and Herm?” he said, his tone oddly neutral.

“Only Louise. Herm volunteers once a week, stocking shelves at the library. Apparently retirement didn’t completely agree with him and he gets bored during cold weather when he can’t fish as much. Louise is a friend of mine and she’s doing a little work for me.”

“What kind of work?”

She held up the brown portfolio. “I’m a commercial graphic artist—computer graphics, mostly, but photography, sometimes oil on canvas. I needed a watercolor, which isn’t exactly my specialty, and Louise was kind enough to work up a few possibilities for me. They’re wonderful.”

“Oh. I guess I didn’t realize she was artistic.”

“She considers it more of a hobby, but she’s really talented. And not just in making shortbread.”

He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He looked distracted—whether from pain or something else, she couldn’t tell.

“Is there anything I can get you right now?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“I’ll refill your water bottle while you make a list of what you’d like me to pick up at the grocery store.”

“You don’t need to do my shopping.”

Good grief, trying to help the man was about as easy as climbing Mount Solace in a blizzard.

“You might as well tell me. If you don’t, I’ll just look through your kitchen cabinets and see what staples seem to be missing. Who knows what I might come back with?”

He gave a sigh that sounded more resigned than annoyed. “Fine. I’ll text you a list of a few things. Does that work?”

“Perfectly. See? You’re getting the hang of this whole accepting-help thing.”

“I don’t believe you’re giving me much choice, are you?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “I have just enough time to reheat a little more stew or I can probably throw together a sandwich if you would prefer.”

He didn’t sigh this time, but she could tell he wanted to. “Stew would be fine,” he finally said. “Thank you.”

“Give me a second.”

After dishing some into a bowl and popping it into the microwave, she spent a moment straightening up his mostly clean kitchen while it reheated. She added a couple of the rolls she had brought the evening before and cut up an apple she found in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator.

“Here you are. Soups and stews are always better the second day, if you ask me.”

“Agreed.”

“I wasn’t snooping—okay, I was snooping a little—and I noticed you didn’t have milk or bread and the only other banana looked pretty ripe. I can pick those up for you and whatever else is on your list. And if you think something sounds good for dinner, let me know.”

“Stew is fine by me, if there’s enough for one more go-round.”

She raised an eyebrow. “My stew is remarkable, I will admit, but you can’t have it for every meal.”

“You’re not running a short-order restaurant here. I’m fine with whatever. I’ve got frozen dinners in the freezer that will do.”

“Are you this stubborn with everyone or am I receiving special treatment?”

If she didn’t know better, she might have thought the stoic sheriff almost smiled, for a minute there. “My deputies would probably say the former,” he answered.

“That makes me feel a little better. I need to run, but make sure you text me your list. I probably won’t have a chance to go shopping until after Chloe gets home from school, but we’ll bring groceries and dinner around five thirty, if that works. Meanwhile, you’ve also got leftover pie and Louise Jacobs’s shortbread.”

“What else could a guy possibly need?”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SCENT OF flowers again lingered in the room after Andrea Montgomery blew out of his house as quickly as she’d come.

He couldn’t seem to escape it. He shifted in the recliner, wishing he could find a spot that was comfortable for more than five seconds.

It wasn’t only the general discomfort from his smashed-to-smithereens leg or his various other aches and pains that left him edgy and unsettled. Her mention of the Jacobs family next door was even more disconcerting.

He knew Herm and Louise from way back. Louise had been good friends with his mother—in a roundabout way, that friendship had been the catalyst for everything that came after.

When he first moved into Wyn’s house here on Riverbend Road in late summer, he had made it a point of going over to say hello to them. It had been the neighborly thing to do, hadn’t it?

Since then, he had spoken with them a few times in passing, but he worked long hours and their schedules didn’t seem to coincide, plus he didn’t really have an obvious excuse for stopping by.

They had bumped into each other a few times at the only grocery store in town—which was one of the main reasons he didn’t do his shopping in Shelter Springs, five miles away, even though the two grocery stores and the box store there were larger and had a far more extensive selection.

He had decided those rare encounters at the little store in Haven Point were worth the disadvantage of having a choice between only two brands of dishwashing detergent.

He needed to figure out a way to do more than say hello in passing. That was the entire reason he was living here in his sister’s house instead of his perfectly adequate—and certainly more conveniently located—apartment in Shelter Springs, after all.

In some vague corner of his mind, he had thought maybe he would wait until after the holidays before he burst in and shook their world completely. He glared down at the stupid cast. He could still go talk to Herm and Louise after the holidays, but some idiot in a stolen SUV had added a complication he never would have anticipated.

How could he show up now, in this completely useless state, when he couldn’t even go to the grocery store on his own?

Though he wasn’t really hungry, he forced himself to take another few bites of Andrea Montgomery’s delicious stew. His body needed fuel to heal, and the faster he healed, the faster he could return to work.

He was on his third bite of stew when his phone buzzed with an incoming text. He set down his spoon and checked the message from Jackie Scott, the assistant he had inherited from the previous sheriff, asking him a question about holiday overtime. He answered her question, which led to two more follow-up texts in quick succession.

Three texts in a row was his personal limit. More than that warranted an actual conversation instead of an endless string of thumbed communications via text or email.

He quickly found her number on his phone and Jackie answered on the first ring.

“You’re not supposed to be working, Sheriff. You should be resting.”

He didn’t bother reminding her she had been the one to text him about overtime.

“I’ve rested plenty. Just because my leg is broken doesn’t mean my brain is. How are things there?”

“Ken Kramer is walking around like he won the lottery since the commission named him acting sheriff. He tried to move into your office, but I wouldn’t let him. I told him you left the door locked and I didn’t have the key, and if he wanted it, he would have to go there and take it from you.”

“I believe I won’t hold my breath,” he said.

Both of them knew Ken would never do that. On the surface Ken Kramer pretended to be loyal and supportive after Marshall defeated him in the last election, while behind the scenes he whispered and spread rumors. He was the kind of man who was really good at sneaky, underhanded sabotage but didn’t have the stones for outright confrontation.

He was also a brother-in-law to County Commissioner Newbold. The joys of small-town politics.

“I’ve also got about a hundred things I need you to sign. I’ll try to swing by one day this week.”

“Sounds good.”

Jackie was hyperefficient, organized and the exact opposite of Ken Kramer. Taking over the job a year ago would have been a nightmare without her on his team to help the transition.

“You should know there are all kinds of rumors flying around about what happened to you. That young reporter from the newspaper called to ask if it was true that you had been airlifted to Boise and were in a coma.”

“You didn’t tell him the truth, did you? I wouldn’t mind sticking with that story, if it meant I didn’t have to talk to him for a while.”

“You’re not that lucky,” she answered.

He glanced down at his broken leg. He wouldn’t call himself lucky, by any stretch of the imagination.

He and Jackie talked for several more moments about his calendar and meetings he would need to reschedule until the New Year, business details of running a department that employed twenty deputies and ran a jail with up to two dozen inmates.

By the time they ended the call and he hung up, the rest of the stew was cold and the exhaustion pressing on his shoulders reminded him how little sleep he’d been able to find the night before.

He was amazed at how wiped this broken leg had left him.

This wasn’t his first major injury. He broke his arm twice during his wild younger days, once skateboarding and another time backcountry snowboarding with friends in the mountains east of Haven Point.

Considering all the crazy things he used to do with his brothers and Cade, it was a wonder he came out of childhood with only those few battle scars.

His mother would freak when she found out he’d been struck by a hit-and-run driver.

Charlene was a fretter, of the highest order. She had always been overprotective, wanting to keep all her children tucked safely under her wing like a hen with her chicks, but she had gone into overdrive after Wyatt’s tragic death and then his father’s life-altering injury.

The shooting at Andrea’s house earlier in the year had only made her worse.

That he was injured on the job as well, while trying to meet a confidential informant, would probably send her over the edge. Good thing Elliot worked in Denver with the FBI or she would be camped out on his doorstep every day, making sure he came home safely from work.

He took one more bite of shortbread from the tin Andrea had brought, which automatically sent his thoughts zooming back to his neighbors next door and the problem he didn’t know what to do about.

He was still mulling his options when he drifted to sleep and dreamed of headlights coming toward him in the silvery twilight of a Lake Haven December.

* * *

FURTIVE WHISPERS AND the sensation of being watched woke him out of tangled dreams.

“Is he dead?” Marsh heard a nervous little voice ask.

“I don’t know,” another one answered. “Maybe we should poke him to see.”

“You do it,” the first voice said.

“No, you.”

“Nobody’s poking anything,” a more mature voice interjected quietly. He opened his eyes a crack and saw Andrea Montgomery walk inside the room with a stack of mail that she set on the table beside him.

Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and she looked pretty and soft and more delicious than all the shortbread in Scotland.

He blinked, wondering where the hell he came up with that thought.

“Leave the poor man alone and let him finish his nap,” she said to her children in a low voice.

“I’m not napping,” he growled—though he had been doing exactly that. He must have slept all afternoon, like some old geezer in a nursing home with nothing better to do.

“If you weren’t napping, why were your eyes closed?” Will Montgomery said, his tone accusatory.

“Just checking for holes in my eyelids,” he answered, which had been his father’s standard answer when one of his kids caught him dozing off in church.

The little girl, whom he had seen only briefly the day before when she slipped in and out of the room like an afternoon shadow, gave a little giggle. The sound seemed to take her by surprise because she quickly clamped her lips together and looked down at the ground.

“Sorry we woke you,” Andrea said, her tone brisk. “I have your groceries. I also brought you some chicken casserole and a couple pieces of spice cake.”

“I thought you weren’t coming until later.”

“We have something tonight and I’m not sure how long it will go, so this time worked best.”

“It’s a party and my friend Ty is going to be there,” her son announced. “It’s at my mom’s friend McKenzie’s house. She has a dog who’s my friend, too, and her name is Paprika. Only, we call her Rika.”

With his mom’s auburn hair and a scattering of freckles, the kid was really cute, Marsh had to admit. Too bad he wasn’t very good with kids. His uniform had always seemed to make them nervous around him—like the boy’s sister was acting.

“I know that dog,” he admitted.

Will took a step closer to the recliner. “Rika is funny. She licks my hand and it tickles. Guess what? We have a dog, too. We’ve had her for two whole weeks and her name is Sadie and she’s the best dog in the whole world.”

“Is that right?”

“She hardly ever pees in the house. Do you have a dog?”

“No. Not right now. I did when I was a kid, though.”

One or two dogs were always running through the Bailey house when he was growing up, but he hadn’t had one since he left home. It was hard to justify it when he lived alone and worked long hours.

He was much better with dogs than he was with kids, actually.

“We can bring Sadie over if you want, to keep you company while your leg is broked,” the boy offered.

The tightness in his throat at the offer was caused by the pain, he told himself. “That’s very nice of you, but I should be okay.”

“Are you sure? She’s a really nice dog. Just as nice as Young Pete, only not as big. She likes to sit on your lap and watch TV.”

“Good thing she’s not as big as Pete, then. I don’t think I’d have room on this recliner.”

The boy giggled, which Marsh had to admit was kind of a sweet sound.

“We had another reason for stopping by,” Andrea said with a meaningful look down at the girl, who had moved back to the doorway to be closer to her mother, as if afraid he was going to reach out and whack her with his crutches.

“Chloe?” Andrea said when her daughter only looked at the carpet. “Chloe? Show Sheriff Bailey what you made.”

The little girl shook her head vigorously. “You do it,” she whispered.

“I’m not the one who made it, honey. You are. You did such a beautiful job on it, too.”

Chloe continued to look anywhere in the room but at him, and after a moment her mother sighed.

“Sorry. She’s become a little more nervous about people she doesn’t know the last few months.”

Though he had come onto the scene after the fact, Marshall had read the reports of what happened at Andie’s house over the summer. He knew Chloe was an eyewitness to the double shooting at her house, when Wyn and Rob Warren had both been injured.

When he showed up just moments after dispatch called him, Andie had been cradling her daughter close, trying to comfort her.

The tenderness of the image had stuck in his head for a long time—the bruised and bleeding Andrea, who must have been terrified herself, doing her best to calm her child.

He frowned, furious all over again at the man who had caused the whole situation.

Warren had put Andrea and her kids through hell, simply because he refused to accept a simple one-syllable word. No.

“Go ahead,” Andie encouraged.

“You show him,” Chloe said again, her voice whisper soft.

“I’ll do it.” Will, his tone exasperated, grabbed a paper out of his sister’s hand and thrust it at Marsh. “This is for you. It’s from Chloe.”

An odd mix of emotions tumbled through him as he looked at what was clearly an art project, a wreath cutout made from two pieces of green construction paper that had been sandwiched on either side of a glued-together mosaic of colorful tissue paper pieces.

“Did you make this?” he asked.

After a pause, Chloe nodded. She looked at him now, but her gaze didn’t rise above his chest.

“I asked my teacher if I could make two and she said I could,” she said, still nearly whispering. “I had to stay inside at recess so I could finish it before Miss Taylor had put away all the art supplies. I didn’t mind. Not really. It was snowy and cold out anyway.

Marshall wasn’t sure what to say. He almost felt like another SUV had just plowed into him.

Why would she do that for him, a virtual stranger who obviously frightened her?

He cleared his throat, telling himself the thickness there was only thirst. “Thank you. It’s beautiful,” he answered truthfully.

He considered it a small victory when she met his gaze for about half a second. “It’s really pretty when the sun comes through it,” she offered, her voice a little louder. “If you want, you can hang it in your window. That’s what we did with ours.”

“That’s a good idea. I think I’ll do that.”

She nibbled on her bottom lip, something he had seen her mother do the evening before. “Do you want me to hang it for you?” she asked after a minute. “That’s why I put a string on it and my mom gave me a hook thing.”

Not sure what to say, he glanced at Andie, who was watching the girl with a warm approval that touched him almost as much as the childish artwork. She met his gaze and gave a barely perceptible nod.

“Sure. That would be very kind of you. Thank you.”

“Which window should I put it in?” she asked. This time she didn’t look away as she waited for his answer.

“How about the middle one? Will that work?”

Her smile flashed like sunlight on snow, then she hurried to the appropriate window. She pulled a suction cup hook from her pocket.

“I want to stick it on! Can I?” her brother asked.

“I guess.” She handed the hook to him and Will licked the underside, then stood on tiptoe and reached over his head to push the hook against the window.

“That’s not high enough,” Chloe complained.

“It’s as high as I can go.”

“Mama, can you help him make it higher?”

Andrea moved to the window and repositioned the hook, then hung the wreath by the cheerful red yarn holder. “How’s that?”

“Good, I think.”

Marsh took it as another small victory when Chloe faced him head-on. “Sheriff Marshall? Is that okay?”

“Perfect,” he assured her. He tilted his head to admire the way the weak December sunlight slanted into the room just right, filtering through the tissue paper like real stained glass in a cathedral, scattering prisms of colored light around the room.

“It’s beautiful,” he told the girl again. “I can’t help but feel a bit of holiday spirit now.”

She smiled at him directly and didn’t immediately look away. Small steps, he supposed, though he had to wonder why he found such a grand sense of accomplishment in helping her lose her fear of him.

“Hey, you don’t have a Christmas tree!” Will said with the same aghast tone a person might use if his buddy’s head just rolled off his shoulders onto the floor.

“True enough.”

“Why not?”

Andrea sent Marshall an apologetic look before she turned back to her son.

“Honey, we talked about that. Everybody doesn’t celebrate Christmas like we do,” she said quickly, a sudden pink seeping across her cheeks that didn’t come from light rays bending through tissue paper.

“I don’t have anything against Christmas,” he was quick to assure them. “I’ve just been pretty busy this year and haven’t had time to decorate for the holidays.”

The last time he decorated for Christmas, he’d been deployed and he and a bunk mate had made ornaments out of spent cartridges to hang on a scraggly tree.

“And now you have a broken leg and can’t do it at all. That’s so sad.” Chloe’s big green eyes filled with compassion and she looked as if she wanted to cry.

“It’s fine, really,” he assured her. “I don’t need much. And now I have a pretty wreath in my window to remind me it’s the holidays.”

This resulted in a whispered conversation between the two children, with much gesturing, head-shaking and pointing.

Finally, Will nodded and turned back to Marshall. “If you want, Chloe and me can put up your Christmas tree.”

He blinked at the unexpected offer and cast a glance at Andie, who looked just as astonished as he felt.

“We put all the ornaments on ours all by ourselves. Only, our mom had to put the high ones on,” the boy added. “Then we had to move some ornaments up more because our cat, Mrs. Finnegan, tries to knock them off. She’s a rascal.”

“You don’t have a cat, do you?” Chloe asked, meeting his gaze despite the lingering nervousness that threaded through her voice.

“No. No pets here.”

“Okay. Then we can put the ornaments right on the bottom,” Will said.

“I can make snowflakes,” his sister offered. “And Willie is really good at paper chains.”

“I am,” the boy said with no trace of false modesty. “I can use scissors all by myself.”

Marshall didn’t know quite what to say to their magnanimous offer. He hadn’t particularly missed having a Christmas tree, though he had loved that ugly little thing in the desert years ago that had somehow made him more homesick than he would have believed.

Most years it had never seemed worth the energy and effort, especially when he always worked extra shifts over the holidays so the guys with families could have more time off with their kids. Anyway, his mother decorated her place like a glitter cannon exploded in there, and Wyn and Katrina always had, too. If he ever felt the need for a little infusion of Christmas spirit, he figured he only needed to stop in at one of their places.

It wasn’t worth the trouble now, really. A little holiday cheer wasn’t going to be enough to lift him out of the misery of sitting around on his ass for the next few weeks.

“Do you even have a Christmas tree? A fake one or a real one?” Will said. “We could go get one, if you don’t. I saw, like, a million of them by the store where we buy food for our dog.”

“Our mom might have to put it up, like she did ours,” Chloe said after a minute. “We don’t know how to plug in the lights and stuff.”

Andrea, who had been watching this interchange silently, finally spoke. “Kids, let’s not get carried away. Sheriff Bailey might not even want a Christmas tree.”

He was about to agree with her until he happened to glance at Chloe and Will and saw the eagerness on both of their faces.

They wanted to do something nice for him. It was a sweet and generous offer and it seemed rude to turn that away.

“My sister might have a tree out in the shed,” he said after a minute. “But I thought you all were heading to a party.”

“Oh yeah,” Will said. “I can’t believe we forgot the party!”

“Could we do it tomorrow?” Chloe asked.

They both looked at their mother. “I can text Wyn and ask if she’s got an artificial tree tucked away somewhere here or if she took it to Boise with her. If she doesn’t have one, I’m sure I can find somebody who has an extra they’re not using this year.”

At this particular juncture of his life, he couldn’t contemplate owning one Christmas tree, let alone having a spare sitting around.

“As long as Sheriff Bailey doesn’t mind.”

He had no choice, really, but to shrug. “I guess it would be okay.”

“Yay!” Will jumped up and down and Chloe beamed, as if he had just offered to take them to Disneyland instead of merely agreeing to let them do something nice for him.

“We can go home and work on the snowflakes and paper chains tonight before the party and bring them back here tomorrow,” the girl offered.

“Thanks.”

He supposed that meant he would have to have a couple little kids underfoot for a while the next day. The prospect wasn’t as unpleasant as it should have been.

He frowned. He had never much liked kids and couldn’t see that changing now, when he was thirty-four years old.

“Maybe you could make some snowflakes,” Chloe suggested. “You can’t do anything else while you have a broken leg.”

Andrea tried and failed to hide her wince. “I’m sure Sheriff Bailey has plenty to do without worrying about cutting out paper snowflakes, honey.”

Like what? See how many puzzles he could guess right on Wheel of Fortune or if he could win Final Jeopardy?

That sounded about as pathetic as he felt right about now, so he opted to keep his mouth shut.

“Your dinner just needs to be popped into the microwave when you’re ready,” Andrea informed him. “Is there anything else I can do for you before we leave?”

“I think I’m good. You’ve done more than enough already. I’m not sure the guilt trip Wynona laid on you really required you to decorate my house for the holidays.”

She opened her eyes a little wider. Hers were green like Chloe’s but the soft green of unfurled leaves in spring. “What guilt trip would that be?” she asked, trying to look innocent.

He was a hardened law enforcement officer and knew when someone was innocent and when they weren’t. “I grew up in the same house with Wyn. I know just how adept she can be at emotional blackmail.”

She chewed on her lip, watching her kids as they discussed their decorating plans between them. “If you would rather the children didn’t put up a Christmas tree, I can talk to them later and explain things to them. Don’t feel obligated, really. They’ll be fine. This time of year, they’re easily distracted.”

Marshall knew that’s exactly what he should do—just tell her he didn’t want a Christmas tree.

It had been really sweet of them to make the offer—especially Chloe, who was obviously still nervous around him. If the little girl was willing to do the work to get over her fear, he couldn’t refuse her the opportunity.

“It’s fine. I have to stare at these same walls for the next few weeks, so I guess a little holiday spirit would at least brighten the place up for me.”

Andrea’s relieved smile sent a weird little shaft of warmth through his chest. “That’s very kind of you. Thanks. I never want to discourage my children from doing nice things for others, especially when they come up with the idea on their own.”

“Glad I could be of service,” he said, unable to keep the dry note from his voice.

“Don’t worry about the tree,” she added. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Are you sure? I was planning to trudge up the Mount Solace trail in the snow later so I could cut one down.”

She made a face. “Ha-ha. I’m sure I can find one.”

Andrea glanced out the window, where big, fluffy flakes were beginning to fall like puffs from the cottonwoods along the creek. “Here comes more snow. I heard we’re supposed to get several more inches tonight before it warms up later in the week. I worry about you here all by yourself.”

He didn’t like being the object of anyone’s pity. For reasons he couldn’t have explained, it bothered him more, coming from her. “I’ve got a phone. I should be fine.”

“Have you arranged with anyone to shovel the walks for you?”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. “No. I’ll call around, see if I can find a service to take care of it for me.”

“Or you could ask a neighbor boy,” she suggested. “Louise and Herm Jacobs have a grandson who probably could use the cash, especially just before the holidays.”

He stiffened at the suggestion. “That might work,” he said slowly, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it himself.

“His name is Christopher. He’s got a...bit of an attitude, but he’s basically a good kid. He’s had a rough time of things lately. His mother died this summer, which is why he’s living with his grandparents. Oh, you probably know that already.”

“Why would I?” he asked.

She looked briefly confused at his tone, which he just realized sounded abrupt and almost angry. “You’re from Haven Point and I know Louise is friends with your mom. You probably knew Christopher’s mom, Nicole, their daughter.”

For a tense, weird moment, he didn’t know how to answer that. “Not well,” he finally said. “She was five or six years older than me.”

“It’s so sad, about her car accident.”

She’d had a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit and had driven head-on into oncoming traffic. The tragedy was the young couple who had died, as well.

“So do you want me to ask Louise about having Christopher keep your walks clear for the next few weeks?” she asked when he didn’t respond.

That might be easier. He couldn’t imagine picking up the phone and asking for Christopher. He just couldn’t do it.

No. This wasn’t something he wanted to leave to anyone else. “I’ll give her a call.”

“Fine. Well, we’ll be back tomorrow, bearing snowflakes and paper chains and enough Christmas spirit to power all the boats in the Lights on the Lake parade.”

“Can’t wait,” he answered. Much to his surprise, the words weren’t even a lie.

CHAPTER FIVE

“OH, I’M SO GLAD you could make it, Andie.” McKenzie Shaw Kilpatrick beamed at her as she opened the door to her beautiful lakeside house. “Hazel will be so thrilled.”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it. I’ve been looking forward to this all week long.”

“And hello, Mr. Will and Miss Chloe. Welcome to my home.”

Chloe giggled at the dramatic greeting and shook McKenzie’s hand solemnly while Will just craned his neck to look behind her.

“Where is Rika?” Will demanded. “I want to give her a great big hug.”

“Hey, no fair.” Kenzie gave a pretend pout as she bent down to his level. “Where’s mine first?”

Will beamed and threw his arms around her neck.

“You give the best hugs of any four-year-old boy I know, sir,” Kenzie said. “Let me take your coats, and then you can go find Rika and Hondo. They’re hanging out with the kids back in the den.”

“Yay! Hondo looks scary, but he’s not at all.”

“You’ve got his number, don’t you? That guy is nothing but a big old softy.”

Until that summer, Will had been terrified of big dogs after he’d been bitten by one in the neighborhood. Thanks to Wynona and her gentle dog, Young Pete, Will had been able to lose his fear and now he embraced all things canine—especially the little Havachon they had rescued from the shelter before Thanksgiving.

“Just head down that hall and you’ll find dogs and kids and toys. Maddie Hayward is here and so are Ty and Jazmyn Barrett. I do believe there might be a movie playing, if you want to watch it.”

“Can we, Mama?” Chloe asked. Though she wasn’t typically nervous around Kenzie, large groups could bring out her anxiety—at least until she found her friends and settled in.

“Sure. You guys have fun. I’ll be right here.”

Will raced down the hall and Chloe followed at a more subdued pace. She watched them, her heart pinching with worry for her sweet little girl.

“Don’t worry. You know Jenna, the high school girl who works for me at the shop after school? I asked her to come out and keep an eye on the kids so the moms can enjoy the party in exchange for my help decorating for her birthday party in January.”

McKenzie thought of everything. It was what made her a good businesswoman and a dedicated mayor of Haven Point. “Thank you. I’ll still worry, but probably a little less, knowing that. Call me when the birthday party comes around and I’ll help you decorate.”

“I just might take you up on that.”

“Not that you need my help.” She looked around at the entryway, decorated in glittering white, blue and silver. She particularly admired a trio of thick candles spearing up from an elaborate arrangement of twigs, berry picks and pinecones, all spray-painted to match the color theme. “Your house looks beautiful. It should be in a home decor magazine.”

“Ben calls it Christmas on crack,” she said with a smile.

“Hey. I only said that once.”

Both she and Kenzie looked up when Ben Kilpatrick spoke from the doorway. He wore a leather jacket and had car keys in his hand.

“You did,” Kenzie said. “But it was memorable.”

“I love our house. It’s my favorite place in the world,” he said. “Hi, Andrea.”

He leaned in to give her a quick kiss on the cheek, then stepped quickly away, making her face heat. Ben was always so careful with her, treating her like those delicate ornaments hanging in the front window. It was clear he didn’t want to crowd her or make her feel threatened—or maybe he was that way with everyone and she was looking for layered subtext where none existed.

She would have greatly preferred that no one in Haven Point had ever found out what happened to her, but Rob Warren had made that impossible.

“You look lovely tonight, as always,” he told her.

“Thank you. I hope we’re not chasing you away.”

“Not really—though I’d like to think I’m smart enough to duck and run when the Helping Hands are around.”

McKenzie gave him a mock scowl. “You love the Helping Hands.”

“I do. Everyone knows the Helping Hands are really the heart of Haven Point. Without you, this town would be a cold, sad, cheerless place.”

“Don’t you forget it.”

“You would never let me, darling,” he said with a laugh, then kissed her forehead.

“I’m actually heading over to Snow Angel Cove,” he told Andie, then pitched his voice lower and looked around as if checking for eavesdroppers. “I’m helping Aidan with a Christmas present. I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention anything to Eliza or Maddie. They think I’m heading over to watch a basketball game.”

She twisted her fingers as if locking her lips and tossed the pretend key over her shoulder, which earned her one of Ben’s rare but devastating smiles.

“Good luck to both of you, then,” she said.

“Thanks.” He waved at her, then leaned in once more to kiss his wife of only a few months. When he walked out the door, McKenzie’s lipstick was smeared and her hair a little rumpled, but that rather dazed smile indicated she didn’t really mind.

For one small, selfish moment, envy poked at Andie with sharp, merciless claws, leaving behind a trailing sadness. Oh, she missed that. Jason had been gone for two years and there were times she ached most of all at the loss of those casual little touches. His fingers brushing the back of her neck as he passed by, his arm draped across her while he slept, his hand on her knee as they sat together on the sofa watching a favorite television show.

All those small, tender physical reminders that oiled the sometimes creaky and contrary machinery of a marriage.

Her children gave her hugs and kisses all day, which she adored. She tried to tell herself it was enough. Deep in her heart, on those nights she couldn’t sleep because the bed felt too big, she knew it was a lie.

On those nights, she would wrap herself in a blanket, curl up in the window seat and read long into the night to push the loneliness away.

But this was a party and she wasn’t going to waste time feeling sorry for herself. “Is the guest of honor here yet?” she asked.

“Yes. Hazel and Eppie were the first ones here. You know how Ronald Brewer is. If they show up ten minutes early, he considers them all late. Everyone’s back in the family room.”

Andrea continued to look at the various unique holiday decorations throughout the house as McKenzie led the way, until they reached a sprawling room off the kitchen dominated by glass windows that overlooked the lake.

The room was filled with most of her favorite people in the world. Andie smiled and greeted friends as she headed straight for Hazel Brewer.

Hazel—still trim and fit and always fashionably dressed—beamed a welcome smile at her, which widened when Andie showed her the gift she and the children had made.

“For me? Oh, honey. You shouldn’t have. I don’t know what it is about all of you who can’t read your invitations. It clearly said to make a donation to the library instead of bringing a gift.”

Andie added the wrapped present to a small but growing pile on the table next to her. “I know. And I did that. But this is something the children and I made for you. They wanted to do it and I couldn’t tell them no, could I? Happy birthday, my dear.”

Andie leaned in to kiss Hazel’s wrinkled cheek.

“Thank you. Whoever would have thought a grumpy old cuss like me would live to such a ripe old age?”

“I can only say I hope the next eighty are just as amazing.”

Hazel made a face. “I’m not sure I have the energy for eight more decades. Maybe just four or five.”

“If that’s your plan, you better work on finding yourself another husband,” her sister Eppie said. “I don’t know if Ronald will be willing to drive you around for another fifty years.”

Andie laughed and hugged Eppie, as well. Eppie and Hazel were sisters fourteen months apart who had ended up marrying twin brothers. Andie had learned at her first Helping Hands meeting in McKenzie’s storeroom that Hazel’s husband had died of cancer two decades earlier. Since then, Eppie’s patient and long-suffering husband, Ronald, had taken his wife and her sister everywhere they needed to go.

Andie adored them all. Eppie and Hazel were kind and warm, always full of pithy observations and sly humor—exactly the kind of women she had always wished the grandmother who virtually raised her could have been. Instead, Damaris Packer had been a weak, self-effacing woman who would hardly say boo to a goose, forget about her loud, demanding, opinionated husband.

Andie was afraid she leaned more on her grandmother’s side of the personality scale, with a tendency to shrink away from any confrontation. Since coming to Haven Point, she wanted to think she’d learned a thing or two about being strong and capable—in no small measure because of the other women in this room.

“The caterer tells me they’ve just about finished setting dinner out. Let’s eat first and then we can open gifts.”

“What’s this we business?” Hazel said. “It’s my birthday, my gifts. I get to open them.”

“You mean the gifts you insisted you didn’t want?” Eppie said tartly.

“Just wait until you’re eighty, then you’ll see life is too short to waste it pretending you don’t like being the center of attention.”

Andie heard a muffled cough and looked over at Devin Shaw, who was fighting a grin.

With the skill of a consummate leader, McKenzie ushered the group into her elegant dining room, where a beautiful feast was laid out.

“Wow, this looks fantastic,” Julia Winston, the town librarian, exclaimed.

“I can’t believe you spent all this money to cater a meal,” Linda Fremont grumbled. “Why couldn’t we have just done potluck, like we always do?”

“An eightieth birthday requires something special, I believe,” McKenzie said. “And anyway, Ben insisted. This is our gift to Hazel but also our gift to the rest of you. And since he’s got more money than God, I try not to argue with him when he wants to do something special for my friends.”

“Why doesn’t Ben have any brothers?” Samantha Fremont complained. The normally effervescent Sam seemed subdued tonight, but then she had been down ever since her best friend—Marshall and Wynona’s sister, Katrina—had caught a wild hair after a breakup that summer and took off to see the world.

“Ben is one of a kind,” his mother, Lydia, said with a fond smile.

“He is, indeed,” McKenzie said. “Don’t think about it. Just sit back and enjoy the fabulous food. Serrano’s went above and beyond with this one.”

The food was, indeed, delicious. Andie was nibbling on a plate of fabulous spinach lasagna when Eliza Caine sank into the chair beside her.

“Hi, Andie. You’re just the person I need!”

Andie instantly set down her fork. “Please tell me you’re looking for somebody to hold that sweet little boy of yours!”

Eliza laughed. “Well, that wasn’t what I meant, but sure.”

She carefully handed over tiny Liam Dermot Caine, born just before Thanksgiving. Andie took the bundle-wrapped infant and nestled him in her arms, falling in love all over again with his shock of dark hair like his father’s and the big blue eyes she hoped would stay that color.

“Oh, he’s precious,” she murmured.

“Isn’t he?” Eliza beamed.

Liam made a little squawk of a sound and managed to tug his fist out of the bundling so he could suck on the edge of it.

“He loves that fist. I don’t know what it is,” Eliza said. “It’s funny—Maddie did the very same thing.”

“When my kids were little, I never wanted to do anything but sit and hold them.”

“It’s the best part of being a new mom, isn’t it? I’m with you on that, but when Aidan’s anywhere around, I usually have to arm wrestle him for the chance. He’s completely enamored with being a father.”

She was charmed to the core at the idea of the sexy genius CEO behind Caine Tech losing his heart to his infant son.

“Aidan and Liam aren’t exactly what I wanted to talk to you about, though.”

“Oh?”

“I need a favor.”

“Sure,” Andie said. She was feeling so warm and content right about now with adorable Liam in her arms, she would have agreed to just about anything.

She had the random stray brainstorm that warring parties ought to take note and consider passing around sleepy, cuddly babies during complicated negotiation sessions. It would make the world a much more gentle place.

“It’s not a huge favor. You might actually enjoy it. From what I hear, most women would.”

“What is it?”

Eliza let out a breath. “Aidan has this younger brother who’s coming to town for the holidays,” she began.

Cute baby notwithstanding, Andie’s stomach did a crazy somersault, as if she’d just jumped off a ski lift without her skis. She knew what was coming and she didn’t want Eliza to go on. Why couldn’t she just sit here and hold the baby?

“How nice for Aidan to have family here,” she said cautiously. “He comes from a large one, doesn’t he?”

“An understatement. He’s the third of seven and they’re all wonderful. Truly wonderful, though a little overwhelming. It’s our year for hosting everyone, but Aidan was worried it would be too much this year, with a new baby and all. It worked out because he’s got a sister and a sister-in-law who are both expecting and due next month, so they all decided to stay in Hope’s Crossing and will come out this summer.”

“Where does the brother fit in?”

“Oh. Jamie. He called last week and asked if he could spend a few days with us, and of course we were thrilled.”

“I thought Aidan didn’t want his family to overwhelm you.”

“This is just Jamie. He and Aidan have always been close and we haven’t seen him in a year, since he’s been deployed overseas. Jamie is a pilot and he’s thinking about getting out of the military and maybe taking a job flying Caine Tech execs around.”

“Oh. That would be nice for Aidan, to have his brother working with him.” If Andie could keep Eliza talking, maybe her friend would forget to ask the favor Andie was very much afraid she didn’t want to hear.

“It would be great. The thing is, Jamie doesn’t know anybody in Haven Point except us and he’s used to a pretty active social life.”

By that, Andie inferred Aidan’s brother was a player. This just kept getting better and better. She wanted to get up and walk to the other side of the room, but she had a feeling Eliza might protest if she kidnapped cute little Liam.

“So here’s the thing,” Eliza finally said slowly, “I was wondering if you might be interested in showing Jamie around town a little, maybe go to the movies with him or up to the dinner theater in Shelter Springs.”

She let out a breath as her somersaulting stomach started rolling with wild abandon. “I, um...” she began, then stopped, not sure what to say.

“If you’re worried about the kids, Aidan and I would be happy to have Will and Chloe hang out with Maddie at Snow Angel Cove anytime and I know she would love having friends over.”

Oh, this was awkward. She treasured her friendship with Aidan and Eliza—and his company was her biggest client. How could she possibly refuse in a graceful way?

Yet how could she possibly agree?

“Why me?” she finally said.

Eliza gave a sheepish sort of smile. “I thought it might be good for both of you. Jamie is charming and sweet and very kindhearted. He might seem a little on the shallow side, but he’s really not. He’s been through a rough time lately and could use a friend, someone different from the kind of girls he usually dates.”

He definitely sounded like a player—exactly the sort of guy she had always tried to avoid.

“You, on the other hand, can be entirely too serious and you don’t take nearly enough time for yourself,” Eliza went on. “We thought maybe a few dates with someone sweet and funny and gorgeous like Jamie might be good for you.”

“Who is we?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine Aidan had anything to do with this. If it wasn’t a computer screen or his beloved family, Aidan had a hard time focusing.

Eliza’s smile was more than sheepish this time. “A few of us. Wyn and McKenzie and Meg,” she said, confirming Andie’s worst suspicions. “When I mentioned that Jamie was coming to stay for a while and I wanted to set him up with exactly the right person, your name was the first one that came to mind.”

“How could I be the right person for anyone?” she murmured, unable to meet her friend’s gaze. “You know I’m a hot mess.”

“Oh, honey,” Eliza exclaimed. “You are not. You’re not.”

She squeezed Andie’s shoulder. “You’ve had a terrible time of things, a truly terrible time, none of which was your fault. You deserve to be happy, and I thought—we thought—that after everything you’ve been through, you could use a little fun in your life.”

Oh, how she wished she could have come to Haven Point and left her past completely behind her. She drew in a breath, wishing also that she could find a corner somewhere and just hug this sweet, innocent baby until all the ugliness of the world faded into insignificance.

She couldn’t. This summer, she had learned that when a person tried to run and hide from her problems, they eventually grew out of control and tried to swallow her whole.

“It’s really kind of you to think of me, but...I’m not ready yet, you know?”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Eliza studied her for a long moment and finally nodded. “Okay. I get it. Honestly, I do. I completely understand. The last thing I want to do is push you into something. I just love Jamie so much. He’s a great guy and I want him to have someone like you in his life. And vice versa, honey. You deserve to be happy.”

“I’m happy,” she protested. “If you want the truth, I’m in a better place right now than I’ve been since Jason died.”

Things weren’t perfect, but she was doing her best to put the past behind her. With Rob Warren now serving prison time, she felt safe for the first time in a year. She and the children were building a new life here, with new friends and activities and challenges.

“That’s good to hear,” Eliza said. “When you think you’re ready to enter the dating world again, you need to let the Helping Hands know.”

“Don’t you think having everyone try to find me eligible dates is taking the group’s name a little too literally? I didn’t realize matchmaking services were offered by the Helping Hands.”

“Why not? We know just about everybody in town and plenty in Shelter Springs, too. We can tell about the guy who might still be getting over a bad breakup, the one who is a little too comfortable still living with his mother, the whack job you should avoid categorically.”

“Wow. You certainly know how to make dating again sound delightful.”

Eliza gave a rueful smile. “I’m sorry. That’s not my intention. There are some great guys out there, too. Guys like Jamie, who are just waiting for the right woman. I know it’s tough to think about. Believe me, I know. After my first husband died, I told myself Maddie and I were fine, just the two of us. We were, for a long time, but that baby in your arms is proof that sometimes life has other plans for us.”

The baby in question mewed a little and turned his head to nuzzle at Andie. “I’m afraid he’s looking for something I can’t deliver right now,” she said, aware of a little pang of loss that her days of holding babies of her own were likely over.

“What a little piglet. If I let him, he would nurse twenty-four hours a day. I suppose he is due for some dinner, though.”

With regret, Andie pressed a kiss on Liam’s forehead, then handed him back to his mother. “Can I get you anything? One of those fabulous-looking desserts Barbara is setting out?”

“A piece of caramel apple pie would be fantastic right about now.”

“You got it.”

She took Eliza’s nearly empty water glass to refill from the fruit-infused supply. She picked out a slice of crumb-topped pie for Eliza and a fork and carried them to her, then returned to the table for herself, studying the other desserts as she tried to decide which indulgence would be most worth the calories.

“You can’t lose with Barbara’s stacked chocolate cake.”

She turned at the voice. “Louise! I didn’t know you were coming. I should have thought to ask when I was at your house earlier, and then we could have ridden together.”

Now her neighbor mustered a weak smile. “To be honest, I didn’t know whether I would be able to make it until the last minute.”

Louise hadn’t been to many of the social gatherings for the Helping Hands and the women who participated in the group, at least not in the six months Andie had lived in Haven Point. Andie assumed her life was too chaotic for now, with her daughter’s death and the stress and turmoil of her grandson moving in.

“I’m very glad you did. How is Christopher feeling?”

Louise released a heavy sigh. “Right now he’s home sulking. I wouldn’t let him go hang out with his friends. I told him, if he’s too sick for school, he’s too sick for friends. That’s what my mother always said to me and what I, in turn, always said to Christopher’s mother. He doesn’t agree. We had a huge fight. Slamming doors, swearing, telling me how much he hates it here and hates me most of all. That’s why I’m late.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, giving Louise an impulsive hug. “That must be so difficult for you.”

“I’m fine, really. It’s all part of the joy of raising a teenager, right?”

Andie could remember plenty of times when she strongly disagreed with the strict rules at her grandparents’ house, but she never would have dared slam doors or talk back. She didn’t advocate her grandfather’s way of handling things, but there had to be a difference between harsh discipline and making sure a child understood there were lovingly considered consequences for misbehavior.

She didn’t feel it was her right to give advice to Louise about how to deal with her grandchild, though.

“I need to tell you, your shortbread was a huge hit next door,” she said to change the subject. “Sheriff Bailey loved it.”

Some of the tightness eased from Louise’s features. “Oh, I’m so glad.”

“Oh, you’ve been to see Marshall?” Megan Hamilton turned from picking out a piece of powder-dusted lemon cake. “I heard about his accident. How is he?”

She pictured the sheriff as she had found him earlier that day, rumpled and sleepy and gorgeous. Those dratted butterflies sashayed through her stomach again and she scowled. When would she stop having this ridiculous reaction to him?

“Oh no. Are things that bad?” Megan asked, obviously misinterpreting Andie’s expression.

“No. At least I don’t think so. He’s in pain, but he’s doing his best not to show it. Mostly, he’s frustrated and annoyed at the inconvenience of having a broken leg, I think.”

“That sounds like Marshall,” Megan said.

“I don’t really know him, so I don’t have a baseline to compare to. Wyn just asked me to keep an eye on him, since I live so close. I’ve stopped in a few times since he came home from the hospital and he seems to be feeling better each time.”

“Good. I can’t believe someone would just hit him with their car and leave him lying in the snow like that. Who knows how long he would have been there if he hadn’t had a cell phone on him?”

An involuntary shiver rippled down her spine, picturing him broken and bleeding in the cold and snow and wind that could be brutal coming off the lake.

“Knowing Marshall, he probably would have patched himself up, dragged himself to the nearest busy road and hitchhiked to the hospital,” McKenzie said with a laugh.

Considering the man had a compound fracture, that would have been quite a Herculean feat, though she wouldn’t put it past him. Something told her when Marshall put his mind to something, he didn’t let too many things stand in his way.

“Marsh is a few years older than me, but he was kind of a legend at HPHS,” Megan said, confirming Andie’s suspicion. “He played the entire last ten minutes of a state championship football game without telling the coach his shoulder had been dislocated by a bad hit.”

“I remember that,” Louise said. “Charlene was livid!”

“Marshall was always the strong silent brother,” Megan said. “Funny how different they were. Elliot always had his head in a book and didn’t have time for most of us, while Wyatt was a big flirt who could talk his way into anything.”

At the mention of Wynona’s twin brother, Andie felt a twinge of sadness for a man she had never known. When Andie first came to Haven Point, she and Wynona had first bonded over their shared loss. Like Jason, Wyatt Bailey had died helping other people. In Wyatt’s case, he had been hit by an out-of-control car during a snowstorm while coming to the aid of other stranded motorists. Andie’s husband had drowned while trying to help a man who was trying to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge in Portland. When the man had resisted his efforts and tried to jump anyway, Jason had reached to grab him and had lost his balance and tumbled in, as well.

In another layer of commonality, Wynona’s father had also died as the result of injuries sustained on the job, though his injuries hadn’t truly claimed his life until two years after a shoot-out with a robbery suspect. John Bailey had suffered a severe brain injury, however, and spent the last two years of his life in a nursing home.

Marshall had endured those losses, too, she suddenly realized. Like Wynona, he had lost his brother and his father, both in the line of duty. It was a connecting thread between them and she couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her until now.

Now he joined the ranks of lawmen injured on the job. She didn’t like thinking about it.

“Who do you think ran him down?” Louise asked. “Herm and I think it must have been tourists who didn’t know the area and maybe thought they hit a dog or something. No one from around here would do such a thing, would they?”

“I could think of a few miscreants from Sulfur Hollow who would probably love to get even with a Bailey. They likely wouldn’t even care which one,” Megan said, her expression dark. “Any of the Lairds would top the list.”

“There are all those newcomers in town, too, that we don’t know a thing about,” Linda Fremont put in from her side of the table. “Not to mention all the people in Shelter Springs. It makes my blood run cold.”

Andie didn’t want to think about it. Picturing him injured and alone in a snowy parking lot made her stomach hurt. It was entirely too similar to the dark days before Jason’s body was eventually found downriver from Portland.

“Knowing Marsh Bailey, he won’t rest until he finds who did this to him,” Megan said.

“Whoever did it, our Andie is very sweet to watch over him,” Louise said.

She wanted to tell them Wynona hadn’t given her much choice, but she didn’t want to sound resentful. She wasn’t. She was happy to help, she just wished the man didn’t make her so nervous.

“I haven’t done much, only brought dinner a few times.” She paused, remembering her conversation with him before she left earlier. “I don’t want to speak out of turn,” she said to Louise, “but there’s a chance Marshall might be calling to see if Christopher would be interested in earning a few bucks by shoveling his snow while he’s laid up.”

“That’s out of the question,” Louise said firmly.

Her vehemence took Andie by surprise and for a moment she didn’t know what to say. “All right,” she finally said. “I’ll tell him. I’m sure he won’t have trouble finding someone else.”

“Oh, Christopher will be happy to shovel the walks, I’ll make sure of it, but he certainly won’t let Marshall pay him for it. He’ll do it for free, as a favor to a neighbor,” Louise said firmly.

Megan snorted. “Good luck convincing any teenager to be so magnanimous.”

“He’ll do it if he wants to eat at my table,” Louise said. “Christopher needs to learn that thinking about others is necessary and important to grow up as a decent adult. I’m afraid the boy hasn’t had the greatest examples in this department. I loved my daughter, but she could be very self-absorbed. His father is ten times worse—the man can’t even be bothered to visit his own son!”

“I’m sorry. That must be very painful for Christopher,” Andie said, her voice soft with compassion.

“Being in pain doesn’t give him a free pass in this world,” Louise said. “He still needs to learn how to care for others. From now until spring, I’ll make sure he shovels Sheriff Bailey’s walks when he’s doing ours and he won’t need a dime for it.”

She had a feeling Marshall would insist on paying Christopher anyway, but the two of them could hash it out between them.

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