A Laramie, Texas Christmas

“And I’ll tell her you’ve agreed to help with the Blue Santa holiday drive this year. That will please her. She’s one of our biggest contributors.”

Except I didn’t quite agree, Noelle thought as Dash walked Kevin to the front door before returning to the kitchen. You just sort of volunteered me. And I was too distracted to say no….

“Nice guy,” Dash remarked, returning to her side.

Complicated. And Noelle had always had a thing for complicated men, even though she rarely acted on it.

“And dedicated,” Dash continued.

“Not to mention suspicious,” Noelle said out loud, meeting Dash’s eyes. Telling herself she had to work harder to keep her defenses in place, she got out the coffee and filters. She could not end up flirting with Kevin McCabe again. Never mind kissing!

“You’re worried he’ll find out about your stay in juvie?” Dash guessed.

Her spine stiffening at the memory of that awful time in her life, Noelle put beans in the grinder and turned it on. “As well as what happened after I got out.”

Dash shrugged. “You could just tell him.”

And have Kevin McCabe look at her the way others had when they’d found out she’d spent time in lockup? “No. I’m not going back there, Dash, not even in my thoughts.” She looked him straight in the eye. “Not ever again.”

“SO HOW ARE THINGS OUT at Blackberry Hill?” Rio asked when Kevin walked into the station.

As out of control as ever, Kevin thought. What had gotten into him, anyway? Seducing a woman he had yet to eliminate as a suspect? He had meant to catch her off guard and get her to open up a little bit this evening. Instead, he had ended up letting his guard down, flirting, allowing the simmering attraction between them to flare up. He had given in to impulse and actually kissed her. And there had been nothing official at all about that move. That had been pure desire on his part. Passion was not something that typically drove his actions. He had much more control over himself than that. And yet there was something about Noelle Kringle that drew him like a bee to nectar. Despite her made-up name.

He had to do better.

Rio elbowed him in the side. “Did you ride off again somewhere? ’Cause you sure look like you’re standing here.”

“Sorry.” Kevin set the stack of papers on his desk and powered up his computer.

Rio went back to his hunt-and-peck typing. “I should be making you write up this danged report,” he complained, “since you’re the one who caused the problem this afternoon.”

Everyone knew how much Rio hated paperwork. Although, in Kevin’s estimation, his colleague made the process much more painful than it had to be by procrastinating forever before getting down to business. Of course, Kevin admitted, that was probably due to the fact that, like him, Rio had no one to go home to after work. Sometimes being single in a two-by-two world really bit. Never more so than during the holidays, which was why Kevin had decided to stop feeling sorry about the lack of a wife and kids in his life and go off fishing for the first half of December. So he wouldn’t have to think about the glaring void in his existence.

“You look more unhappy than I do.” Rio stopped typing abruptly and got up. He went over to refill his coffee cup with a brew that was thick as molasses and had all the aromatic qualities of used motor oil.

“I see you made the coffee again,” Kevin noted.

Overhearing, several of the other deputies chuckled.

Rio perched on the edge of Kevin’s desk. He took a sip of coffee and somehow managed not to wince. “So how long are Miss Sadie’s nephew and that babe—what was her name again—?”

Like Rio didn’t know. “Noelle Kringle,” Kevin said, for the benefit of everyone else in the room.

“—going to be around?” Rio finished curiously.

Kevin checked his e-mail and found 228 messages waiting for him. After deciding to get caught up later on what had happened while he was on vacation, he moved his cursor to the Background Check function. “Dash Nelson was going to head back to Houston this evening.” Kevin couldn’t say he was sorry about that. It would be a heck of a lot easier to investigate Noelle without her protector around.

“And what about Noelle?”

Kevin pushed aside the memory of her incredibly soft lips…and how sweet they had tasted. He had a job to do that did not include kissing her—or even dreaming about doing so—again. “I’m not sure how long she’s going to be here.” He got up to get himself some awful coffee. “At least a few more days.” Until the side entry steps were finished, he guessed.

“Is she hooked up with Dash?” Rio asked when Kevin had sat back down again.

“Not sure.” He took a sip and found the coffee as hot and bitter as he had expected. “There’s definitely an intimacy between them.”

Rio’s eyes lit up curiously, along with every other deputy’s in the room. “Sexual?”

Kevin shook his head. “Not that I saw, anyway. Dash Nelson treats her more like a wife he’s had around for a while and sort of relies on to fetch and carry.”

“Hmm.” Rio studied him. “You calling dibs on this one?”

Guilt swept through Kevin, even as he denied the possibility. “Rio, I’m investigating her.”

“So?” He shrugged. “I assume you’ll clear her eventually.”

Kevin hoped so. Otherwise, he was headed down a road he had traveled before, hankering after a woman who was nothing more than a very accomplished criminal.

Rio’s eyes gleamed cynically. He knew why Kevin was so reluctant to get involved on a personal level. “Did you run a background check on her yet?”

“I’m about to.” Kevin typed in the appropriate commands and waited. No Prior Arrests flashed on the screen. There wasn’t so much as a single traffic ticket attached to her record.

“That ought to make you feel better,” Rio said, reading over his shoulder.

Kevin lifted a brow.

“I assume you would prefer—as would I—that whoever did this to Miss Sadie be a stranger, rather than a close and trusted acquaintance or family friend?”

Kevin knew what he meant. It felt less invasive if the perpetrator of a crime was someone who had selected a victim at random. If the injured party knew it was nothing personal. Because when the “mark” knew the perpetrator of the crime, and trusted or loved the person, it was pure torture.

Rio slapped Kevin on the shoulder. “So Merry Christmas, partner. You’re free to pursue her.”

Kevin thought about Noelle Kringle’s less than innocent reaction and then scoffed, his emotional armor back in place. “Are you kidding?” He wasn’t pursuing anything until he knew exactly who he was dealing with. “I’m just getting started.”

Chapter Four

“So what’d you find out?” Rio asked the following afternoon.

Kevin leaned back in his desk chair. “Noelle Kringle was born and reared in Houston. Her parents were Bert and Norma Smith. They died eight years ago in an automobile accident, when Noelle was just nineteen. Bert was an electrical engineer, employed with the same company for twenty years. Her mother was a homemaker. The family owned one modest home in Houston that has since been torn down to make way for a shopping mall.” Which made it impossible to go and talk to any of the Smiths’ former neighbors—easily, anyway. “There’s nothing to report on any of them. No traffic tickets, criminal records, legal disputes or credit problems. Nothing on her late husband, Michael Kringle, Sr., either.”

“How about Miss Sadie’s nephew?”

“Dash Nelson is a respected member of the Texas bar, an ace litigator who also does a lot of pro bono work for disadvantaged youths. He’s got plenty of money of his own, and a close relationship with his aunt, so there’s no motive there. If he wanted or needed money from Miss Sadie, all he would have to do is ask.”

Rio pulled up a chair. “What financial shape is Noelle Kringle in?”

“Not great.” Aware that Noelle had had a harder time than she let on, Kevin frowned. “Her parents left her only a few thousand dollars when they died, after their estate was settled. She worked minimum wage jobs—waitress, banquet server—before getting on with a catering firm as an event planner. She stopped working for that company when she married, and became self-employed, doing solo events for Miss Sadie and several other prominent families. She lives in a town home in a respectable neighborhood with her son. Her bank account shows no unusual activity. She seems to have enough to get by, but nothing that would indicate she’s involved in any kind of scam.”

“So she’s off your suspect list?” Rio asked.