The Christmas Target

Renewed anger at the robber surged through Ross. If he lived to be a thousand, he’d never understand people who felt that laws didn’t apply to them. As a young boy, Ross had been taught by his grandfather that law was the glue that held society together, and Ross’s reverence for the law had eventually led to his election as sheriff of Swenson County. He took his sworn duty seriously.

And he took the breaking of the law within the county’s borders personally.

Especially personal had been the murder of his wife, Kathy, last year….

With an effort, he shoved aside that pain and the unsolved mystery. One crime at a time, he reminded himself and moved swiftly through the lobby, speaking to each witness, consoling the distraught customers and easing them away from any possible forensic evidence.

The entire time, however, he found himself glancing into John Hayes’s office, unable to keep his eyes off the beautiful stranger who’d come so close to perishing from the shotgun’s blast. The floral fragrance of her shampoo, something tropical and exotic, still clung where his chin had brushed her sleek auburn hair when he’d yanked her from harm’s way. Her provocative scent stirred feelings he didn’t have time to deal with now.

Concentrating on the business at hand, he realized the attractive woman in Hayes’s office had been one of two strangers in the bank that morning. The robber had been the other. His shot at her could have been a ploy intended to terrorize the others into submission. The probability that this petite and elegant woman was Santa’s accomplice was a stretch, but Ross had to check out every angle.

“Everybody stay put till the Crime Scene Unit arrives,” he warned the others after a call to dispatch, who assured him the CSU was en route.

Then he returned to Hayes’s office.

At his approach, the woman leaped to her feet, all five foot three of her. She had seemed such a tiny submissive thing in his arms, but now she appeared ready to take on a wild grizzly five times her size. Her stylishly short coat and skirt revealed long, slender legs, and as he’d held her, he had registered the pleasant fact that she was deliciously rounded in all the right places. Her spunk as well as her appearance impressed him. No, spunk suggested too much heat. In spite of having come within inches of losing her life, the woman appeared cool and composed. Glacial was a better term.

“I’m Sheriff—”

“Where’s John Hayes?” she asked abruptly.

Ross shrugged. “Probably taking a late lunch, but he’ll be back soon if he’s heard the news. Mind if I ask what you’re doing here?”

She cocked her head and observed him with defiant blue eyes, dark and deep as a mountain lake. “You said ‘sheriff.’ Am I under arrest?”

“Should you be?”

“I may be crazy for coming here and for not hearing the robber’s warning,” she said in a rueful tone, “but I haven’t done anything illegal.”

“I’ll need your name and address.”

She slid the tiny strap of a fine leather handbag off her shoulder, snapped open the gold clasp and removed a business card. “Everything you need to know is right there.”

With interest, he scanned the card, printed on heavy, expensive stock. She was Jessica Landon with Rinehart and Associates, Financial Consultants, out of Miami. The card appeared authentic, but anyone with a computer and the right paper could print one. “You’re a long way from home.”

Comprehension appeared to dawn suddenly in her eyes. “You don’t think I had anything to do with—”

“Sheriff.” John Hayes, the bank’s manager, stepped into the office.

“You expecting this lady?” Ross asked. “Ms. Landon from Miami?”

John nodded. “We have an appointment.” He turned to Jessica. “Sorry, but I’ll have to postpone our meeting. Have you had lunch?”

The woman looked ready to protest the delay, then seemed to think better of it. “Is there a restaurant nearby?”

Ross nodded toward the opposite side of the street. “The café has great coffee. Good pies, too.”

“I’m free to go?”

Ross nodded again, irrationally wishing for an excuse to keep her around until his sense of duty kicked in.

“Come back in an hour,” John suggested with a glance at Ross. “I imagine the sheriff will be through by then.”

“That should do it,” Ross agreed, hoping the CSU would arrive promptly.

Jessica Landon straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin and strode out of the office and the bank as coolly as if someone almost killed her every day.

TWO HOURS LATER, Jessica sat in the booth at the front of the café watching the controlled pandemonium at the bank across the street. Except for three rugged cowboy types, their weathered faces making their ages impossible to guess, one at the booth beside hers, the others at the counter, the restaurant was empty.

During her vigil, she’d watched the arrival of the Crime Scene Unit van, the departure of the customers, the removal of the glass from the front walk and the covering of the window with plywood. Throughout all the activity, the tall, handsome sheriff had been a constant presence, supervising, observing, instructing, and obviously completely in charge.

What struck Jessica most about the man, besides his distinctive good looks, was his apparent calm throughout the chaos. Nothing seemed to rattle him as he moved smoothly from task to task, person to person. He took the term laid-back to a whole new level. She could understand why the people of Swenson had elected him. He was without a doubt a good man to have around in a crisis. She just hoped he handled things quickly so she could meet with Hayes and get out of Dodge—or Swenson, as the case may be.

“Change your mind, hon?” The waitress with a name tag identifying her as Madge reappeared at her elbow, shoved the mint she’d been sucking into the pouch of her cheek and refilled Jessica’s cup. “Want to order now?”

Jessica had been nursing several mugs of decaf while she waited for Hayes to become available, obviously longer than he’d anticipated. At first, her close call had robbed her of her appetite, but she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and at three in the afternoon, hunger made her empty stomach ache.

“I’ll try some pie. The sheriff recommended it.”

The middle-aged waitress grinned and winked, exposing a lid caked with blue eye shadow. “You a friend of the sheriff?”

“We met at the bank.” How else could Jessica describe her intimate encounter with the man who had saved her life and set her senses tingling?

Madge made a clucking sound with her tongue. “What a hunk. He can park his boots under my bunk any day.”

The bedroom image made Jessica flush with heat in the already stuffy room, but she wasn’t about to discuss one stranger’s attributes with another. “What kind of pie do you have?”

Madge rattled off an impressive list, and Jessica selected chocolate cream. In moments, the waitress placed a huge wedge of pie topped with several inches of meringue in front of her and nodded toward the window. “Looks like they caught the crook.”

Another cruiser had pulled up with a man in the back seat, apparently handcuffed, judging from his posture. The Santa suit was gone, but even from across the street, Jessica could recognize those cold, deadly eyes. The sheriff climbed into the passenger seat of the car, the deputy drove away and the Crime Scene Unit van followed.

Within minutes, an Open sign appeared on the bank’s front door. Deserting her hardly touched pie, Jessica grabbed her coat, paid her bill and headed across the street.

ANOTHER HOUR LATER, Jessica left the bank in an even fouler mood than when she’d first arrived. In spite of what Max had hinted, she’d hoped this assignment would be quick, a day or two at most auditing accounts, perusing records and then writing up her assessment of the ranch’s viability in the dubious comfort of her spartan hotel room.

Max and Hayes had made other plans.

All the paperwork she needed to complete her assignment was in the office of the Shooting Star Ranch, thirty-five miles outside of town. And Hayes had insisted that the trustees wanted a thorough inspection of the ranch, acreage, stock and buildings.

“The family’s invited you to be their guest while you work,” Hayes had said. “That way you won’t have that long commute back and forth to the hotel and restaurants every day. The less you’re on the road this time of year, the better. Driving can be treacherous.”

“Then I should see you in a few days,” Jessica said.

Hayes looked surprised. “Oh, I doubt that. You should take your time, observe for yourself the assets of the ranch and how it works. Plus you have over a decade’s worth of accounts to evaluate. The trust insists on a complete evaluation of the property’s productivity. Only when the trustees are satisfied that all is as it should be will ownership be transferred.”

“Rinehart and Associates are never anything but thorough,” Jessica said, wishing in this instance it wasn’t so. She’d never been so homesick for Miami.

“Of course,” Hayes said soothingly. “That’s why the trustees selected you.”