A Texas Christmas: True Blue / A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel

“I’d keep my nose out of it for the time being,” Rogers cautioned, foreseeing trouble ahead if Rick tried to interfere at this stage of the game. “We’ll know soon enough.”

“I guess so.” He glanced at her and asked, “Hear about what happened on the firing range this morning?”

Her eyes brightened. “Did I ever! The whole department’s talking about it. Our rookie detective outshot the lieutenant.”

“By a whole point.” Rick grinned. “Imagine that. She falls into potted plants and trips over crime evidence, but she can shoot like an Old West gunslinger.” He shook his head. “I thought I’d pass out when she started firing that automatic. It was beautiful. She never even seemed to aim. Just snapped off the shots and hit in the center every single time.”

“The lieutenant’s a good loser, though,” Rogers commented. “He bought a single pink rose and laid it on her desk after lunch.”

Rick’s eyes narrowed and his expression grew cold. “Did he, now?”

The lieutenant was a widower. Nobody knew how he lost his wife, he never spoke of her. He didn’t even date, as far as anyone knew. And here he was giving flowers to Gwen, who was young and innocent and impressionable …

“I said, do you think that could be construed as sexual harassment?” Rogers repeated.

“He gave her a flower!”

“Well, yes, but he wouldn’t have given a man a flower, would he?”

“I’d have given Kilraven a flower after he nabbed the perp who blindsided me in the alley and left me for dead,” he said, tongue in cheek.

She sighed. She felt in her pocket for the unopened pack of cigarettes she kept there, pulled it out and looked at it with sad eyes. “I miss smoking. The kids made me quit.”

“You’re still carrying around cigarettes?” he exclaimed.

“Well, it’s comforting. Having them in my pocket, I mean. I wouldn’t actually smoke one, of course. Unless we have a nuclear attack, or something. Then it would be okay.”

He burst out laughing. “You’re incorrigible, Rogers.”

“Only on Mondays,” she said after a minute. She glanced at her watch. “I have to get back to work.”

“Let me know if you find out anything else, okay?”

“Of course I will.” She smiled.

She felt a twinge of guilt as she walked out of his office. She wished she could tell him the truth, or at least prepare him for what she knew was coming. He had a surprise in store. Probably not a very nice one.

“But I made corned beef and cabbage,” Barbara groaned when Rick phoned her Friday afternoon to say he wasn’t coming home that night.

“I know, it’s my favorite, and I’m sorry,” he said. “But we’ve got a stakeout. I have to go. It’s my squad.” He sighed. “Gwen’s on it, and she’ll probably knock over a trash can and we’ll get burned.”

“You have to think positively.” She hesitated. “You could bring her home with you tomorrow. The corned beef will still be good and I’ll cook more cabbage.”

“She’s a colleague,” he repeated. “I don’t date colleagues.”

“Does your lieutenant date colleagues?” she asked with glee. “Because I heard he left her a single rose on her desk. What a lovely, romantic man!”

He gnashed his teeth and hoped the sound didn’t carry. He was tired of hearing that story. It had gone the rounds at work all week.

“You could put a rose on her desk …”

“If I did, it would be attached to a pink slip!” he snapped.

She gasped, hesitated and turned off the phone. It was the first time he’d ever snapped at her.

Rick groaned and dialed her number back. It rang and rang. “Come on. Please?” he spoke into the busy signal. “I’m sorry. Come on, let me apologize …”

“Yes?” Barbara answered stiffly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I really didn’t. I’ll come home for lunch tomorrow and eat corned beef and cabbage. I’ll even eat crow. Raw.” There was silence on the end of the line. “I’ll bring a rose?”

She laughed. “Okay, you’re forgiven.”

“I’m really sorry. Things have been hectic at work. But that’s no excuse for being rude to you.”

“No, it’s not. But I’m not mad.”

“You’re a nice mother.”

She laughed. “You’re a nice son. I love you. I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow.”

“Have a good night.”

“You have a careful one,” she said solemnly. “Even rude sons are hard to come by these days,” she added.

“I’ll change my ways. Honest. See you.”

“See you.”

He hung up and sighed heavily. He couldn’t imagine why he’d been so short with his own mother. Perhaps he needed a vacation. He only took time off when he was threatened. He loved his job. Being sergeant of an eight-detective squad in the Homicide Unit, in the Murder/Attempted Murder detail, was heady and satisfying. He assigned lead detectives to cases, reviewed cases to make sure everything necessary was done and kept up with what seemed like tons of paperwork, as well as reporting to the lieutenant on caseloads. But maybe a little time off would improve his temper. He’d talk to the lieutenant about it next week, he resolved. For now, he had work to do.

Gwen had been assigned as lead detective on the college student’s murder case downtown. It was an odd sort of case. The woman had been stabbed by person or persons unknown, in her own apartment, with all the doors locked and the windows shut. There were no signs of a struggle. She was a pretty young woman with no current boyfriend, no apparent enemies, who led a quiet life and didn’t party.

Gwen wanted very much to solve the case. She’d told Rick that Alice Fowler had found prints on a digital camera that featured an out-of-place man in the background. Gwen was checking that out. She was really working hard on the mystery.

But in the meantime, she’d been pressed into service to help Rick with a stakeout of a man wanted for shooting a police officer in a traffic stop. The officer lived, but he’d be in rehab for months. They had intel that the shooter was hiding out in a low class apartment building downtown with some help from an associate. But they couldn’t find him there. So Rick decided to stake out the place and try to catch him. The fact that it was a Friday night meant that the younger, single detectives were trying to find ways not to get involved. Even the night detectives had excuses, pending cases that they simply couldn’t spare time away from. So Rick ended up with Gwen and one young and eager patrol officer, Ted Sims, from the Patrol South Division who’d volunteered, hoping to find favor with Rick and maybe get a chance at climbing the ladder, and working as a detective one day.

They were set up in a ratty apartment downtown, observing a suspect across the alley in another run-down apartment building. They had all the lights off, a telescope, a video camera, listening devices, warrants to allow the listening devices, and as much black coffee as three detectives could drink in an evening. Which was quite a lot.

“I wish we had a pizza.” Officer Sims sighed.

Rick sighed, too. “So do I, but the smell would carry and the perp would know we were watching him.”

“Maybe we could put the pizza outside his door and he’d go nuts smelling it and rush out to grab it and we could grab him,” Sims mused.

“What do you have in that bottle besides water?” Gwen asked, with twinkling green eyes.

Sims made a face. “Just water, sadly. I could really use a cold beer.”