Christmas Kidnapping

“You don’t act like two people who just met.” Chelsea grinned.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You can’t take your eyes off him. And he feels the same way.”

Andrea glanced at Jack, something she realized now she had been doing every few seconds since she had returned to the porch. He was kneeling beside the trike, listening while Ian gave some long explanation about something. Just then Jack looked up and his eyes met hers, and she felt a jolt of pleasure course through her.

Jack stood and patted Ian’s shoulder. Then the two rejoined the women on the porch. “Ian was telling me about the pedals sticking on his ride,” he said. “I’ll bring some oil over sometime and fix the problem for him.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she protested. Jack was a client. They were supposed to have one casual lunch and some conversation. Now he was getting involved in her personal life.

“I’m going to help Jack fix my bike,” Ian said.

“Mr. Prescott.” Her voice sounded faint, even to her, as she made the automatic correction.

“It’s no trouble,” Jack said.

Arguing about it, especially in front of Ian and Chelsea, seemed a waste of breath. “All right.” She knelt and hugged her son. “I have to give a speech tonight for a police-officer spouse group, so I won’t be home until late,” she said. “But Chelsea has a special treat for you.”

“Pizza and a movie.” Chelsea put a hand on the boy’s head.

“And root beer?” Ian asked.

Chelsea looked to Andrea. “All right. You may have one glass of root beer with your pizza,” Andrea said.

“A big glass,” Ian said.

Jack laughed. “You’re quite the negotiator, pal,” he said.

Ian beamed at the praise. Butterflies battered at Andrea’s chest. This wasn’t good. She didn’t want Ian so focused on a man she hardly knew. Especially a man like Jack, with a dangerous job and a reckless attitude. “We’d better go,” she said. “I have clients to see this afternoon.”

“I like your truck,” Ian said to Jack.

“Maybe I’ll give you a ride sometime,” Jack said.

Andrea waited until they were in the vehicle and driving away before she spoke, choosing her words carefully. “You shouldn’t have said that, about giving him a ride in your truck,” she said.

“I would want you to come along, too,” he said.

“Saying you’ll take him for a ride promises some kind of ongoing relationship.”

His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, the only sign of any emotion. “Would that be so bad?”

She turned toward him, her hands fisted in her lap. “You’re my client. I hardly know you.”

“I had a good time today,” he said. “I’d like to see you again. You and Ian.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“It just...wouldn’t.”

“Because of the client thing? What if I decided not to see you in a professional capacity anymore?”

“It wouldn’t matter.” She looked out the window, at the passing lines of shops crowded along the highway in Durango’s downtown area. Evergreen garlands, wreaths and hundreds of tiny white lights decorated the Victorian buildings, making the scene look right out of a Christmas card. People filled the sidewalks, hands full of shopping bags, or carrying skis or snowboards, fresh from a day at Durango Mountain Resort.

“Is there someone else?” he asked. “Do you have a boyfriend? I didn’t get that vibe from you.”

What kind of vibe would that be? But she wasn’t going to go there. “I’m busy with my job and raising my son,” she said. “I don’t have time to date.”

“You don’t have time to date a cop.”

His perceptiveness momentarily silenced her. She stared at him.

“I’m not a trained therapist, but if your husband was killed in the line of duty, it doesn’t take a degree to figure out you might not want to repeat the experience.” He glanced at her, then back at traffic. “But even civilians can get hit by buses or fall off of mountains or have a heart attack while mowing the lawn.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to date you, Jack.”

“Fine. But I will have to see you again.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m going to try to find out more about the guy who snatched your purse. I’m going to try to find him.”

“Don’t worry about it. Everything in there can be replaced.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think he was in that café this afternoon for the sole purpose of stealing a random stranger’s purse. He was watching us—watching me—for a while before he made his move. I want to find out why.”

“I doubt you’ll get my purse back,” she said.

“Maybe not. But I have to see you again anyway.”

“Why?”

“I promised Ian I’d fix the stiff pedal on his tricycle. And I always keep my promises.”

Yes, Jack Prescott would keep his promises. He would do his duty and live by his pledge, whether that pledge was to a friend or a woman or a little boy like Ian. But he would also keep his promise to give all he had for his country. Even if that meant his life. That last promise was one she wasn’t sure she could live with.

* * *

AFTER JACK DROPPED Andrea at her office, he called Special Agent Cameron Hsung, one of his fellow Search Team Seven members. “Hey, Jack, how are you doing?” Cameron’s cheerful voice greeted him. The half-Asian twentysomething was one of the younger members of the team, an IT specialist who had been recruited, like the other members of Search Team Seven, because of his super-recognizer skills.

“I’m doing great.” Jack rubbed his thigh, which burned with pain as a result of his pursuit of the thief and squatting to put himself at eye level with Ian McNeil. “There’s no reason I couldn’t come back to work right now.”

“I’m guessing your doctor has a different idea,” Cameron said.

“He says at least two more weeks of leave. But what does he know. How’s the case going?” The case—the sole focus of the team at the moment—involved a terrorist cell headquartered here in western Colorado. The suspected leader of the cell, a man named Duane Braeswood, had jumped from the Durango and Silverton tourist railroad two months ago, but a subsequent search hadn’t turned up his body.