His Mistletoe Bride

All she could think of was he had nearly brushed against the protest signs, and for the first time in her life she was completely unworthy of trust.

He clamped his hat back on his head, pulled it low, so his amazing eyes were once more shadowed. Then he whistled for his dog, and let himself out the front door.

She limped after him and locked it behind him, aware that even though Snow Mountain itself felt safer to her than it had half an hour ago, she herself did not feel as safe, as if she stood on the edge of something scary. And wonderful.

But that she of all people, she reminded herself with stern warning, should know how very scary a brief encounter with a strange man could become.

It was the reason she’d sworn off real life and chosen to embrace fantasy instead. Her beautiful store, this beautiful town, her literary adventures—those were going to be enough for her. It was going to fill every void, make her feel safe, fulfilled, in control.

A woman would never feel one hundred percent in control around a man like Taggert. Never.

Determined to make the creation of a perfect Christmas her life mission, she marched back to her computer.

Suddenly decorating a bathroom seemed like a terrible place to start How to Have A Perfect Christmas. Terrible.

“You have to start somewhere,” she told herself, aware of a panicky little edge in her voice as she said it. She’d accepted the advance, and worse, she’d spent it. She had a deadline!

Obviously the writer’s block was coming, at least in part, from her insomnia. But it wasn’t helping one little bit that the place on earth most likely to be chosen for a poster of the perfect Christmas town had practically canceled Christmas. Once she looked after that, everything else was going to fall into place.

With a new sense of verve, Lila picked up the phone, took a deep breath and did the thing she had been debating about and putting off since the meeting last night.

“CLEM TV, Spokane,” a voice on the other end answered.

“Could I speak to Jade Flynn, please?” She named the reporter who seemed to do the majority of the human interest stories for the station.

“Can I tell her what you’re calling about?”

“The cancellation of Christmas,” Lila said firmly.

Brody Taggert joined the other men at the window of the Snow Mountain Police Department, took a sip of his coffee and looked across Main Street at the fracas outside of Snow Mountain Town Hall.

The protesters had completely blocked the street, and were enthusiastically waving lovingly hand-painted signs.

Elves Have Rights, Too! Say Yes To Christmas. Save Our Snow Mountain. Save Santa. As they marched around in a circle, they chanted, “Heck no, the elves won’t go.”

It was an unlikely-looking group of protestors—not a dreadlock or pierced body part on any of them. Lots of gray hair out there, with one glaring exception, of course.

Her hair, where it showed beneath the brim of her fur-trimmed Santa hat, was catching the sun, and looked like it was spun through with gold.

It seemed to him Lila Grainger was as eye-catching in that hat, bundled up in a pink oversize parka that made her look like a marshmallow, as she would have been in a furtrimmed bikini.

The CLEM TV mobile van from Spokane was pulling up. Bruce Wilkes from the Snow Mountain News was already happily snapping pictures.

“What are you going to do, Chief?” Randy Mulligan asked uncertainly.

Tag slid Hutch a look. Have a heart attack, came to mind. The chief looked apoplectic.

Of course, his niece, looking positively radiant, was in the very middle of the mêlée. When she separated from the other protestors to go and talk to Jade Flynn, who was getting out of the news van, it was more than obvious who was in charge of the protest.

Tag, instead of making the professional assessment ringleader, noticed that aside from the fact she looked cute as a button, she was still limping.

“You didn’t even catch a whisper of this when you went to see her?” Hutch asked Tag accusingly.

“No, sir. She told me they were going to ask Jamison to play Santa—”

“Like hell I’m playing Santa,” Jamison muttered indignantly, putting enough curse words between playing and Santa to do his Marine corps heritage proud.

“—and that they’d come up with a new name. That’s it.” Well, that wasn’t it. Tag had known she was up to something naughty. He could now clearly remember the guilty blush when she’d mentioned getting city hall to change their minds. He felt he’d probably been distracted by naughty thoughts of his own, especially after he’d carried her down that endless hall to her bathroom, and then spent agonizing minutes administering first-aid to the cut on her foot.

You didn’t admit to your boss you’d had naughty thoughts about his niece, thoughts that might have prevented you from seeing certain things coming, he told himself.

Besides, the grim news about Boo had been pretty fresh that night; Tag knew it had clouded his thinking, and still did, though he wore the mask of functioning perfectly.

“Go arrest her,” Hutch said, thankfully to no one in particular.

Randy Mulligan obviously thought of some urgent work he had to do. He stampeded from the room as if the Hells Angels had arrived in town and he had to personally deal with them.

“Arrest her?” Pete Harper said. “Are you kidding? You know how that’s going to look on the evening news? This town has barely recovered from the elf on fire last year.”

“How’s it going to look if I don’t arrest her and she’s my niece?” Hutch snapped. “Like I’m playing favorites, that’s how. If I don’t do something decisive right now every special interest group in Snow Mountain from the Grannies for Justice to Pals for Pooches is going to think they can shut down the town anytime they don’t get what they want. Pals for Pooches has been trying to get an animal shelter for a lot longer than Lila’s been trying to save Christmas.”

Unfortunately Tag could see his point.

“Well, I’m not arresting her,” Pete said. “My mother would kill me.”

His mother was out there right beside Lila, carrying a sign that showed a tombstone with Santa on it, RIP, and then Killed By Snow Mountain Town Council. Jeanie Harper was also dispensing cookies to the news crews, practically guaranteeing all stories would be slanted in favor of the protestors.

As if they wouldn’t be anyway.

“I ain’t arresting nobody, either,” Jamison said. He jerked his thumb at Pete. “His mother wouldn’t bake me cookies anymore.”

Pete shot him a look. “My mother bakes you cookies?”

“Go arrest her, Tag,” Hutch said wearily.

It fell neatly into that category of a job no one else wanted to do, and besides, he was the one who had missed the signs that this was going to happen. Now that he thought about it, hadn’t there been something stuffed in that dark corner of the hallway by her bathroom?

Oh, yeah, signs.

“You mean arrest her?” Tag hedged uncomfortably, “Or just take her aside, and try to talk some sense into her?”

Her uncle sighed. “She’s just like her mother. Talking sense to her is like trying to explain algebra to a chimp. Impossible. Besides, you think she’s going to give in quietly? What kind of news story would that make?”

Unfortunately Tag could see his point. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, turned and lifted his jacket off the back of his chair, pulled on his hat. Boo, who had been snoozing under his desk, lifted her head and thumped her tail on the floor, hopeful for an invitation.

“Fat chance,” he told her sourly, while silently searching for signs of the dog’s deterioration. “I count on you to warn me about who I have to keep an eye on. You failed me on this one, Boo. You loved Lila Grainger.”

He realized he did not want to be using the word love in any sentence addressed to Boo, especially one that also included the name Lila Grainger. She was just that kind of woman, the kind who could storm a man’s defenses before he even knew he was under attack.

The kind of woman where you noticed the fact she was limping, rather than the fact she was leading an insurrection.

The kind of woman with a foot so enchanting, you overlooked the signs of revolt brewing all around you.

The dog sighed, put her head back down and closed her eyes. Almost easier to go out there and deal with that than the dog’s easy surrender to being left behind.

Moments later, he was shouldering his way through a crowd worthy of a big-city Santa Claus parade, with the same attitude of excited anticipation in the air. There hadn’t been this much excitement in Snow Mountain since the Snow Leopards, the high school football team, had made state finals three years ago.

Over the chanting, Tag could hear a tinny loudspeaker wailing out a sentimental rendition of the song, “You Light up My Life.”

It seemed as if the entire population of Snow Mountain—plus most of the surrounding area—had known about the demonstration. This was a town that could not keep secrets, so how it had stayed below the police radar was something of a miracle.

The air of celebration toned down a bit as he shoved his way through to the center of activity. He tried to tell himself he had probably been in worse positions, but he could not remember when.

By the time he arrived in front of Lila Grainger, he was very aware of the hostility the crowd had toward him.

She saw him coming. So did the news crews. Every camera, cell phone and video recorder within a hundred miles had accumulated in front of town hall. And every single one of them was pointed at him.

“Hello, Officer Taggert,” she said bravely, trying for, but missing, defiance. Hell, she was trembling slightly.

“Miss Grainger.”

Damn it. She looked adorable in the ridiculous hat. The oversize coat made her look even smaller than she was.

He leaned close to her, could smell that heady scent of wild strawberries, tried to avoid the mistake he had made last time of breathing in too much of it. He fought back a sudden impulse to ask her about her damned foot. “Miss Grainger, would you come with me?”

He said it quietly, for her ears only. She looked like the type that buckled under to authority, but of course the wild-strawberry scent should have warned him of, well, a wilder side.

She took a step back from him, fixed the incredible deep sea-blue of her eyes on him, and squared her shoulders. “Am I under arrest, Officer Taggert?”

Jeanie Harper gasped, which probably meant a life sentence of no more shortbread for Tag, her son or Jamison. This was not something he wanted to be held responsible for, but he was the new guy. The flak always landed on him.

The cameras were snapping, the film rolling. The news crew moved in closer, and Jade Flynn flipped her hair and moistened her lips, her timing for the story impeccable. Microphones shaped like huge foam hot dogs dangled over them.

“You need a permit to assemble,” he said quietly. “You’re obstructing traffic.”

“Am I under arrest?” she demanded again. She pointed her chin upward, stubbornly, but he could see she was shaking even more now.

And that she was all of five foot three and probably weighed about a hundred and ten pounds. He remembered that weight in his arms, struggled to keep his facial expression absolutely impassive.

Standing there in her Santa hat, she looked exactly like the girl who had probably not done one naughty thing in her whole life. She’d probably never even had a speeding ticket, never mind fur-trimmed bikinis.

She was just one of those people who became passionate about causes. Not that he wanted to be thinking about her and passion. What a waste. All that passion over a silly display in the park.

Though every time he drove by Bandstand Park, he had to admit he was aware of the black emptiness of it, instead of the lights, the little characters, Santa’s reverberating ho-ho-ho. Suddenly, without warning, he remembered Ethan coming home when he was about twelve with Santa’s hat, swiped from the park.

And he, the older brother, making him take it back, foreshadowing his career, which at this moment he hated.

“Are you arresting me, Officer Taggert?”

“Yeah,” he said reluctantly, “you’re under arrest.”

A discontented hum began in the crowd. Jeanie called out, “Shame on you, Brody Taggert.”

This was the problem with becoming a police officer in the small town where you had grown up. Jeanie Harper no doubt had memories of him raiding her garden, and knocking over her mailbox on Halloweens past.

He put a hand on Lila’s shoulder, intending to guide her out of the crowd, but she shrugged out from under his hand, and stubbornly presented her wrists to him.

He bit the inside of his cheek, whether to keep his temper or to keep from laughing he wasn’t quite sure. Miss L. Toe did look ludicrous, but since he had not laughed since Boo’s diagnosis, he figured it was his temper.

He heard Jade Flynn say to her cameraman, “Oh, boy. Be sure and get this.”

Everybody wanted a show to go with the storyline about the town that was canceling Christmas. And every show needed a villain. Jade Flynn didn’t care who looked bad. Lila looked like she might, but not enough to let go of this opportunity to get the publicity she wanted.

And he was the who that was going to look bad.

He stared her down, she was obviously frightened, but not enough to back down. She was willing to sacrifice herself to her cause. He noticed she still had little circles of fatigue under her eyes.

“Okay then,” he said, his voice deliberately flat, his expression hard. “Put your hands behind your back.”

She did and he took the cuffs off his belt, and snapped them around her wrists, which were so small he had to adjust the cuffs. He was nearly blinded by flashes, and he felt like an idiot. If she was humiliated it didn’t show one little bit in the proud tilt of her chin.

He told her she was being arrested for unlawful assembly and obstructing traffic, and told her her rights. She nodded that she understood, standing ramrod straight, her dignity intact while he felt his own was in tatters.

He spun her around, his hand on her elbow and marched her, her limp visible, through the crowd. He was aware of feeling as if he had to protect her from the crush of people, though it was him getting the looks. Several people clicked their heels and gave him straight-armed salutes.

Lila flinched more than he did from the insulting gestures.

As soon as he had his prisoner safely inside the police station, Hutch appeared.

“Was that really necessary?” he asked Tag of the cuffs.

Tag said nothing, but sighed inwardly. Who had ordered the arrest? Still, he was now aware this was something of a family dispute. No one ever wanted to be in the middle of that.

“Ask her,” Tag said, and unlocked her wrists.

“He was just doing his job, Uncle Paul.”

Tag shot her a look that clearly told her he didn’t need a one-hundred-pound waif in a Santa hat and a marshmallow coat to defend him.

“Get into my office,” Hutch said quietly to his niece. “Now.”

She sent Tag an imploring look, which he ignored. He’d done his bit, and he wasn’t the least bit proud of it, either.

“I’m not normally the kind of person who gets arrested,” Lila said to him, ignoring her uncle’s command, the only person Tag had ever seen do that.

“I kind of figured you for a virgin,” he said, their department’s lingo for a first-time offender.

It had slipped out, and it was a mistake. He knew it even before Hutch sent him a killing look and her blush went the color of a smashed raspberry.

Which of course made him entertain the extremely naughty thought that maybe she was every kind of virgin it was possible to be.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“Of course not,” she said soothingly. “We’re all rattled.”

The thing was, he shouldn’t be. He was no virgin. Of any kind.

“I hope we meet again,” she said formally, “under better circumstances.”

“Really? I was hoping the exact opposite.” He knew as soon as he said it, it was way too harsh, a defense against everything she was making him feel. Rattled. Off-kilter. Guilty. Worried about her foot.

Boo chose that moment to waddle out from under his desk. She plopped down at Lila’s feet and began humming.

Lila sat down on the floor beside the dog, wrapped her puffy pink marshmallow arms around Boo’s neck and burst into tears.

She’s exhausted, Tag thought, noticing the fatigue around her eyes again. And then, annoyed that he felt sympathy toward her, he told himself it was probably planning the little extravaganza outside that had exhausted her.

Then he noticed Hutch and Boo glaring at him with identical expressions of accusation. He threw up his hands in exasperation and went and found a cell to clean. Hopefully it would keep him busy until the crowd outside had dispersed, Lila had gone home, her uncle had cooled off and his dog had been returned to her senses.

Hopefully it would keep him busy long enough to forget the way he felt when he saw she was still limping.

CHAPTER THREE

“…DONATIONS are pouring in,” Lila told her aunt Marla, tossing a raft of envelopes she’d been sorting through into the air. “And the best? A man, Henry, who retired in Spokane, but used to work in maintenance at a big California theme park, thinks he can fix the elves and the reindeer. He’s sure he can save the Santa’s workshop display!”

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