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The Lawman's Christmas Wish
Linda Goodnight
Widow Amy James can't get through grocery shopping in Treasure Creek, Alaska, without a marriage proposal. And she's hardly flattered.Most of her "suitors" are after the treasure her great-grandfather had buried on her property. But only one man promised her late husband he'd take care of her and the boys: police chief Reed Truscott. True, Reed is handsome and honest and makes her feel safe. But his honorable marriage proposal is about obligation–not love. Unless he can convince her that his Christmas wish is to join her family forever.
“Sit still for two minutes, relax and drink that cider,” Reed said.
“Or what? You gonna arrest me?” Before Ben’s death, she and Reed had been good friends. The ill-begotten marriage proposal had raised a hedge between them and Amy missed the silly give-and-take they’d once shared.
At her cheekiness, Reed grinned. Breath clogged in Amy’s chest. He scowled and grumbled at her so much, she’d forgotten about his killer grin.
“Could be.”
“What’s the charge?” she asked.
“Resisting an officer. Disturbing the peace.”
“Whose peace am I disturbing?”
His eyes narrowed into slits, but the dark brown irises twinkled. “Mine.”
LINDA GOODNIGHT
Winner of a RITA
Award for excellence in inspirational fiction, Linda Goodnight has also won a Booksellers’ Best, ACFW Book of the Year and a Reviewers’ Choice Award from RT Book Reviews. Linda has appeared on the Christian bestseller list and her romance novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Active in orphan ministry, this former nurse and teacher enjoys writing fiction that carries a message of hope and light in a sometimes dark world. She and her husband, Gene, live in Oklahoma. Readers can write to her at linda@lindagoodnight.com, or c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.
The Lawman’s Christmas Wish
Linda Goodnight
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily,
as to the Lord, and not unto men.
—Colossians 3:23
For Maria Masha with love
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Letter to Reader
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
“You might as well give up and marry me, Miss Amy.”
Amy James, in the Treasure Creek General Store shopping for milk and bread—a never-ending need with her two sons—looked at the speaker, Myron Scroggins, without a bit of surprise. Lately, no matter where she went someone proposed marriage. The situation had become beyond ridiculous.
“Oh, Myron, you’re just after my money,” she said, trying to make light of the silly offer. Everyone in the tiny town of Treasure Creek, Alaska, knew her tour business was struggling. During the last few months, business had improved, but it would be another year before she was back on solid footing.
“Now, Miss Amy, you know better.”
She did. Myron was one of the good guys. The burly man was also forty years her senior, lived far outside town and was seriously set in his ways. His scraggly beard probably housed a family of mice. He rarely came to town, and then only to collect supplies and hightail it back to his ramshackle cabin.
Carl Branch, a sixtysomething farmer in brown duck coveralls and a feed-store ball cap, came around from behind a stack of horse feed and protested. “Hey, I asked her first!”
Myron’s weathered face fell. He looked from Carl to Amy and back. “You did?”
Amy laughed. She couldn’t help herself. In an Alaskan town with few women and plenty of men, she’d become a valuable commodity. Some wanted her tour business, and others simply wanted to take care of the young widow whose family had founded this town. This was the case with both Myron and Carl, two older men she’d known since she was born.
“Myron. Carl. Please. I’m honored by your kindness. Truly, I am, but the boys and I are getting along great. Don’t worry about us.”
Myron’s loose jowls jiggled insistently. “A woman needs a man to look after her.”
That notion didn’t set too well with Amy’s independent spirit, but she didn’t take offense.
“Leave Amy alone.” A scowling Harry Peterson, owner-operator of Treasure Creek’s General Store, slapped a pound of butter on the counter in front of Carl. The pot-bellied proprietor had been particularly grumpy lately. “Just because all those fancy women came flooding in here to find a man, doesn’t mean every woman in town is interested in marrying you slobs.”
“Ah, Harry,” Carl said. “You’re just mad ’cause Joleen’s been flirting with Neville Weeks and he’s flirting back.”
Harry made a harrumphing noise and rattled a paper bag, the furrows in his brow deepening by the second. Amy had a feeling the old farmer had hit too close to home. Joleen Jones was a fluffy, overblown blonde who tried too hard, but she was as good as gold. She’d been hot after Harry since her arrival from Tennessee, but after so many rebuffs, the Southern belle had apparently given up. Amy felt sorry for the woman, though she had to wonder what Joleen saw in Harry in the first place.
“You gotta marry somebody, Miss Amy,” Myron said as he scratched his wooly, gray beard. “Might as well be me. This town would dry up and die without you, and we want to help you out, now that Ben is gone.”
The too familiar pang of loss sliced through the open wound Amy called a heart. Her husband, Ben, had died nearly a year ago, and though the agonizing grief had diminished, she didn’t want to marry anyone.
Ben’s last letter flashed through her head, but she instantly blocked it. He’d loved her and wanted the best for her, and Amy was not about to settle for less than a God kind of marriage such as they’d had. No matter what his letter had asked her to do.
She felt a responsibility to this historic little town, founded during the Yukon Gold Rush by her great-great-grandfather, Mack Tanner. She would fight with her last breath to keep it afloat, but that did not require marriage.
“Tell you what, Myron. I won’t marry you, but I’ll bake a batch of those cinnamon rolls you like. You, too, Carl.”
Both men perked up.
Myron spoke for both of them when he said, “That’s a better deal than getting hitched any day.”
Amy agreed. With a smile and a wave, she gathered her bag of groceries and exited the store, nearly bumping into Reed Truscott, the local chief of police.
“Oops, excuse me,” she said, sidestepping the tall, lean lawman.
He stepped in front of her, blocking the way. “How you doing, Amy?”
“Good. Yourself?”
He shifted in his boots, glanced across the quiet street and cleared his throat. The police chief obviously had something on his mind.
“Look, Amy, we need to talk. About this situation between us—”
She held up a hand, stop sign style. There was no “situation,” and if he asked her to marry him again—check that—if he demanded she marry him, she would stomp his toe. Of all the men who’d offered proposals, this was the one that bothered her most.
“Don’t even think it, Reed. And do not say it. Whatever it is.”
Whirling, she stalked off down the sidewalk. As she went, she heard him grumble, “Frustrating woman.”
Well, it was frustrating to her, too. After Reed’s first, arrogant, pushy proposal on the night of Ben’s death, of all the inappropriate times, Amy had avoided any hint of personal conversation. She liked Reed Truscott, but she didn’t pretend to understand his tight-lipped, overly macho attitude.
After picking up her two boys from the church preschool, Amy headed home, listening to their sweet chatter. As she pulled into the drive of her aging two-story clapboard and killed the SUV motor, an odd feeling came over her. She frowned at the blue house and then gazed around the yard, shrouded now in the hazy, dying light. Everything seemed all right. The red front door she’d painted herself beckoned cheerfully from its white, arched frame. Evergreens frosted with snow hugged the concrete steps swept clean this morning. And yet, her skin crawled in the oddest manner. Something didn’t feel right, and after having a gun held to her head a few weeks ago, she’d learned to listen to that little voice inside. God was trying to tell her something.
Slowly, she exited the SUV and glanced around before getting Dexter and Sammy out of their car seats. She’d pull into the detached garage later. First, she had to check things out.
Four-year-old Dexter hopped down from the vehicle and bounded for the back door.
“Dexter, wait. Let Mama go first.”
The dark-haired boy stopped and looked back at her, clearly puzzled by his mother’s tone. Hoisting three-year-old Sammy and his ever-present stuffed dog onto one hip, she grabbed the groceries and her purse, balancing everything as she crossed the yard to enter through the back way, directly into the kitchen.
Stepping upon the single-stepped porch, her heart bumped. The back door stood ajar.
Had she failed to close it well this morning? The house was old and out of square. Some of the doors, including the back one, needed to be replaced and didn’t fit properly—one more project that had ceased with Ben’s death.
Easing Sammy to the ground, she scanned the yard and house again but saw nothing. Last night’s snow revealed no footprints. Everything appeared normal except the open door.
Calling herself overcautious, she pushed the door wider and waited. After hearing or seeing nothing, she led the way into the kitchen.
“Oh, no!” The gasp tore from her throat.
Her house looked like a war had broken out and she’d been defeated.
Cabinet contents littered the floor. Jumbled drawers hung open like slack-jawed dogs. And the open refrigerator hummed incessantly, milk and juice spilling out in dripping puddles. Amy’s hands fisted at her sides. Whoever did this had been searching for something. And she knew exactly what.
“Mom?” Dexter tugged on her jeans. Dark gray eyes, so like his father’s, were as round as Frisbees. Above the tiny cleft in his chin, his bottom lip quivered. “Someone broke our stuff.”
“It’s okay, baby.” Though of course, it was not okay. “Sammy, get away from that shattered glass.”
The barely three-year-old, too small to comprehend the disaster, had dragged his stuffed pal, Puppy, straight into the broken, jumbled, sticky mess. She took his hand and tugged him back to her side. “Stay here by Mommy.”
Grappling in her jeans pocket for the cell phone, Amy punched in a number. Her fingers shook.
On the second brrr, a strong, male voice barked, “Police department. What is your emergency?”
“Reed?”
“Amy?”
Regardless of his inopportune marriage proposal, she trusted Reed Truscott with her life. “What’s wrong?”
She drew a shaky breath, struggling to keep the fear out of her voice. “Someone broke into my house.”
Reed hissed. She could practically see his lips drawn back and the tight expression on his face. “Are you okay?”
“We just walked in. This very minute.” In spite of her determination to stay calm in front of the boys, Amy’s voice began to shake along with her knees. “Everything’s a wreck.”
In the background, over the phone, she heard a drawer open and keys rattle. Chief Truscott was already moving. “Where are you?”
“In the kitchen.” The flip phone quivered against her ear.
“Whoever did this—”
Reed’s sharp tone interrupted. “Have you been in any of the other rooms?”
Goose bumps rose on her arms. Her house was a two-story. “No.”
