Jack's Christmas Mission

“There’s a federal statute that prohibits sending physical threats through the U.S. mail.” Jack pulled out a chair and sat down beside her. “Ms. Lennard faxed the Dundee Agency several of the letters your admirer sent to you. I think both of the ones I read would qualify as physical threats. Regardless of what they suspected, the police should have already called the FBI.”

“And what can the FBI do that the police and you can’t do?”

“We each serve a different purpose. The local police are duty bound to investigate any criminal activities that fall under their jurisdiction. The Dundee Agency provides you constant protection—” he thumped himself on the chest “—in the form of yours truly. And our firm can do private investigative work that the police either can’t do or won’t do. Then the Feds add another element. Just knowing that the FBI is involved might deter the stalker.”

“I see.”

“And getting a psychological profile on our stalker could help us unearth his identity. Dundee has a psycholinguistics expert, and we can compare his finding with the Bureau’s expert. The bottom line is that the more people we have working on this case, the better our odds of finding this person and keeping you safe.”

“My life was so simple, so uncomplicated, until six months ago.” Peggy Jo stared down into her mug. “I just don’t understand why anyone would be doing this to me.”

“Believe me, he has his reasons. They may be illogical and totally insane, but to him they’re reason enough to come after you, to torment you. It could be as simple as your having said something on one of your shows that he took offense at, or something in your book.” Jack eyed the box resting on the table. “Or it could be someone you know. A rejected suitor. A guy with a sick crush on you who has grown to hate you because you haven’t responded to his advances. The list goes on and on.”

“Chet Compton. Ross Brewster. Buck Forbes,” she said. “Each one of them might have reason to hate me.”

“And it could be a woman behind the threats, so don’t rule out your TV rival, Tia Tuesday. Or a female admirer with a loose screw.” Jack gestured by tapping his head. “Your assistant, Kayla. Or if you have a fan club, someone in that club.”

“My fan club? Surely, not someone who— The president of my fan club lives here in Chattanooga. Donel Elmore. But she’s a sweetheart of a person. She sends me Christmas gifts and birthday gifts. And I trust Kayla completely. I just can’t suspect everyone I know.”

“You can’t afford not to suspect everyone—with the possible exceptions of Hetty and Wendy. And me.”

That damn don’t-you-just-find-me-irresistible grin of Jack’s all but curled Peggy Jo’s toes. This is getting ridiculous, she told herself. She didn’t even like this man and yet when he smiled at her, her knees turned to Jell-O. The last thing she needed right now, at this time in her life, was some man that made her feel like a woman. A silly, fluttering female in heat!

She cleared her throat. “Does that include everyone at the station? Are you really asking me to suspect people I trust implicitly? People like Kayla and Leda and Burt?”

“I’m not asking you to suspect them. Not exactly. All I want you to do is be careful not to trust anyone too easily. If anyone you know has done or said anything that is suspect, then I want you to tell me. I’ve begun compiling a suspects list and once we get the profile done on your stalker, we can see if that profile fits anyone on our list.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Finally Peggy Jo lifted the mug to her lips and drank the lukewarm cocoa. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t hot. It was sweet and it was chocolate. What else did a woman need during a stressful time like this?

The doorbell rang. Peggy Jo gasped and trembled. Jack reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder. She stared at him for a brief moment and suddenly wanted to throw herself into his arms and cry. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the strain was getting to her. Her nerves were shot.

“You stay here, and I’ll go to the door,” Jack told her. “It’s probably the police. I told them I’d be timing how long it took them to get here.”

“You didn’t.” Peggy Jo smiled.

“Oh, yes, ma’am, I did.”

An hour later, after the police questioned Peggy Jo and Jack as well as Hetty, who’d gotten up and come downstairs shortly after the doorbell rang, quiet descended on the Riverview house. Jack waited until Hetty and Peggy Jo had gone upstairs before he did a final check and armed the security system. As he turned off the last light downstairs, he hesitated a moment. He heard the soft, distant tinkling of music. Something sweet. An old-fashioned tune playing so quietly that at first he’d thought he was imagining the sound. What was it? Where was it coming from? As he climbed the stairs and walked down the hall toward his room, the music grew slightly louder, yet was still hushed and delicate. It sounded like a music box.

He glanced into Wendy’s room. She was sound asleep. The music wasn’t coming from there. Hetty, wrapped up in her flannel housecoat, stood in the doorway to her room. Her gaze locked with Jack’s. She nodded in the direction of Peggy Jo’s room. He understood that her gesture was to let him know exactly where the music was coming from. When he knocked on Peggy Jo’s door, he glanced back at Hetty. She smiled at him, then turned around and went into her room.

Peggy Jo opened the door just a crack and peered at Jack. “Yes, what is it?”

He grasped the side of the door and forced it open a few more inches. When he got a good look at her face, he saw that Peggy Jo had been crying. He glanced beyond her, inside her room. There in the center of her bed lay a large musical snow globe.

“I heard the music,” he said.

“Oh. It’s just that.” She pointed to the glass globe. “I didn’t realize anyone else could hear it, not with my door closed.”

“Are you all right?” he asked. Of course, she wasn’t all right, he realized. She’d been crying. And in his experience he found that when a strong, in-control woman like Peggy Jo cried, it meant something.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “Perfectly fine.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” He could tell she wasn’t fine, but she also wasn’t going to admit any momentary weakness to him.

“Mr. Parker, I didn’t hire you to be my psychiatrist or my counselor. Your job is to protect me, not comfort me.”

Acting purely on instinct, Jack shoved the door fully open and then brushed the back of his hand across Peggy Jo’s flushed cheek. “My job is to take care of you. And that includes giving you a shoulder to cry on, if you need it.”

“I don’t need—”

He placed his index finger over her lips, adeptly silencing her rejection. “If you’re feeling a little shaky right now, a little out of control, that’s to be expected. And if you don’t want Hetty or Wendy or any of your friends to see you being just the least bit weak, then turn to me, Miss Peggy Jo. I’m your man.”

When she stared at him and for a couple of seconds, he thought she was going to succumb, that she was going to let down her defenses just enough to seek his comfort. But suddenly the barriers came back up, the defensive mechanisms snapped back into place. “You’re mistaken, Mr. Parker. You’re my bodyguard. Nothing more.” She glared at him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go to bed.”

“All right.” He backed off, but when she started to close the door, he said, “Leave the door open, please.”

“I’d prefer it closed.”

“I insist that it stays open.”

“But—”

“Your choice…either the door stays open or I sleep in your room.”

She left the door open.

She wouldn’t cry anymore. Not tonight. Not unless she hid in the bathroom so no one could possibly hear her. As she lay in bed, the musical snow globe resting on her stomach, Peggy Jo wondered why she’d obeyed Jack Parker’s orders. When he’d given her a choice of either keeping the door open or him sleeping in her room, why hadn’t she reminded him that she was his boss, not the other way around? Answer that! she demanded of herself. Because you knew the man wasn’t bluffing. And you knew he was right.

She lifted the snow globe, turned it over and wound the musical mechanism. The theme from the old movie, Love Story, played softly, sweetly, reminding her of her mother. It had been her mother’s favorite song. When Peggy Jo had left home at seventeen, fleeing from her angry, jealous stepmother and her weak-willed father, she had taken only a suitcase of clothes and this one precious item—Marjorie Riley McNair’s treasured snow globe. Over the years this one possession of her mother’s had become a symbol of security and love, just as taking her mother’s maiden name had been a tribute to her mother’s memory. If only her mother hadn’t died when Peggy Jo was seven. If only her father hadn’t married Agnes when Peggy Jo was fourteen. If only her father hadn’t allowed his new wife to make life a living hell for the teenage Peggy Jo. If only Vernon McNair had given his own daughter half the love and attention he’d given his new wife and stepson. But years ago Peggy Jo had realized the uselessness of wasting too much time thinking if only. She seldom allowed herself to look back, to think about what might have been. Only on rare occasions when she wallowed in self-pity. She had so many regrets that she could spend a week just naming all of them. Of course, the biggest mistake she’d ever made was marrying Buck Forbes.

Don’t think about Buck! You have enough to worry about without reliving the three and a half miserable years you were married to that bastard!

She set the globe on the nightstand to her right, turned off the lamp and pulled the covers up to her neck. As she tossed and turned, adjusting and readjusting to find the most comfortable position for sleep, she started thinking about Jack Parker. And no matter how hard she tried to dismiss the man from her mind, she couldn’t. She shut her eyes tight and started silently chanting the words to the theme song of her TV show. Suddenly an image of Jack flashed through her mind. His wide, sexy smile. His broad shoulders. His big hands. His big feet. His big gun!