The Sheriff's Christmas Surprise

Secure in his manhood and comfortable in his own skin, it would take a great deal more than a petite blonde in expensive high heels and a designer suit to rattle his confidence. Her apology, however, did surprise him. He would have put money on her never actually apologizing for anything she did. Maybe you couldn’t always tell a book by its cover. “No offense taken,” he answered. “I was just being curious.”

Shifting the baby to his other arm, Rick peered over Olivia’s shoulder into her vehicle. He was about to ask if she wasn’t worried that the formula might have spoiled in the car, but he had his answer before he got to ask the question. She’d brought along a large cooler filled with ice and baby formula. He noticed that she’d also brought along several packages of disposable diapers. They were piled up on one side.

Rick laughed to himself. Olivia Blayne struck him as the kind of person others gravitated to during a natural disaster. She obviously knew how to think on her feet and was prepared for anything.

Except a runaway sister.

But then, if he was being honest with himself, he still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that her sister hadn’t opted to run off rather than have every moment of her life planned out by a well-intentioned but highly dictatorial older sister.

Or at least that was what he would have surmised Tina’s feelings to be on the matter.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the baby had been left on his doorstep, Rick had to admit that he would have been inclined to just let the whole matter go, even if the woman making the charge was, hands down, the most gut-tightening attractive woman he’d laid eyes on in a very long time.

Beauty-contest-winner pretty or not, though, that still didn’t make Olivia Blayne right, he thought.

Bottle in hand, Olivia straightened up, hit the lock on the rear door and closed it.

“Do you have a microwave or a stove where I could warm this up?” she asked, indicating the chilled bottle in her hand.

“We have a microwave,” he assured her. There was one in the small room where he and the others took their lunch and occasionally, when he had someone sleeping it off in their only cell, their dinner. “We got it just after we learned how to make fire by rubbing two sticks together,” he couldn’t resist adding.

Olivia opened her mouth to respond, then shut it again. She would have to be more careful how she phrased things around this small-town sheriff, she chided herself. There was obviously a vein of sensitivity beneath the rock-solid pectorals.

Taking her nephew back from his arms, she flushed slightly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound as if I thought you were backward in Forever.”

“But you do, don’t you?” he asked knowingly. There was no indication that he took offense at that, or even that he found it irritating. “Think it,” he added when she looked at him quizzically.

“No,” Olivia denied with feeling, then, as he continued to look at her knowingly, she relented. “Well, maybe just a little. This is a small town,” she said by way of what she hoped he’d accept as an explanation.

“Little or not, progress finds us all,” he assured her, then confided in a conspiratorial whisper, “We’ve even got one of them there newfangled com-pew-ters. Now if we could only figure out how to make it work.”

“All right, all right,” she surrendered, “point taken. I’m sorry. I’m really not trying to be condescending. Having to track down my sister and Bobby has thrown me off track. I’m usually a lot better than this.”

“Looking forward to seeing that,” he told her with a wide smile that somehow found its way into her belly a moment before it unfurled.

The next moment, she quickly blocked the feeling that flowed out through her. Olivia deliberately shifted her eyes away from him and wound up looking at the single-story building that housed Forever’s police department.

The only thing that mattered, she told herself as she followed the sheriff inside, was finding Tina and taking her home.

She didn’t have time to think about anything else.

At least, not now.

Chapter Four

Humming a bastardized version of “Here Comes Santa Claus,” Alma emerged from the back storage closet carrying a huge, somewhat worn cardboard box that looked to be almost half as big as she was. Written across the side in big, block letters, were the words Christmas decorations. With a dramatic sigh, the female deputy set the box down on the small table against the wall that functioned as the catchall for everything that didn’t have an assigned place within the office. During the holidays, it housed the pint-size Christmas tree as well as any baked goods that generous citizens—or Alma—wanted to send the sheriff’s department’s way.

Only when she set her burden down did Alma see the sheriff and the person and a half who were with him in the office.

Olivia felt a definite chill as the woman regarded her.

“I see you found the baby’s mother.” The expression on the deputy’s face was far from friendly. It wasn’t hard to see what she thought of a woman who left her baby on someone’s doorstep.

“No, this is his aunt, Olivia Blayne,” Rick told Alma. Alma’s expression softened a degree. “She’s been looking for the baby. And for her sister.”

“Her sister, the mother?” Alma asked, still eyeing Olivia.

“Got it on the second try,” Rick congratulated the woman drily. He glanced at the teeming box the deputy had set down. Once Alma got caught up decorating, there was no stopping her. “Look, I need you to stop decorating the office for a minute and put out an APB for me.”

“Haven’t started decorating yet,” Alma informed him. Resigned that the decorating would have to wait, she held her hand out. “Give me the information.” Rick gave her both the paper he’d written on and the photograph of the missing duo. Alma glanced at the photograph first, then looked at the description of the car. Raising her eyes to her boss, she shook her head. “You should’ve been a doctor, Sheriff. Medical people appreciate handwriting that looks like a chicken did a war dance after stumbling over a bottle of ink.”

Joe glanced up from the book he was studying. He’d been taking classes online, intent on eventually getting a degree in criminology. His face remained expressionless as he told her, “You can’t say that,” in his low, rumbling voice.

They’d been together so long, they were like siblings, she, Joe and Larry, with a sibling’s penchant for squabbling.

“Say what?” Alma asked.

“‘War dance,’” Joe told her.

Alma pressed her lips together, annoyed. “Why not? You say things like that all the time.”

Joe went back to reading. “I’m a full-blood Apache, I can make any reference to Indians I want to. One of the few pleasures that your government forgot to take away from us,” he deadpanned.

Alma’s eyes shifted toward the sheriff.

Rick raised his hand before she could speak, waving away anything that might have risen to her lips. Friendly squabble or not, he was not about to get pulled into this.

“Just get that APB out for me,” he told Alma. “Now.”

She sat down at her desk and looked at the paper again. Her brow furrowed as she turned the paper upside down, pretending to try to make sense of what was on the page. But she really couldn’t decipher what Rick had written down.

“What kind of a car are we talking about?” she finally asked.

“It’s a red Mustang, 2004,” Olivia filled in, moving over toward the woman’s desk.

“Red Mustang, huh? Shouldn’t be too hard to spot,” she commented. She moved the keyboard closer and began to type. “How long have they been gone?” she asked conversationally.

“They took off several days ago. This is the closest I’ve gotten to finding them.” Despite the fact that she was swaying slightly in an attempt to soothe her nephew, Bobby was becoming more audible about his displeasure. Olivia turned toward the sheriff and held up the bottle she had in her other hand. “You said there was a microwave around here?”

About to point her in the direction of the back room, Rick decided he might as well take her there himself. Alma, who was far better at the computer than he, was taking care of putting out the APB. So right now, nothing was on tap except some annoying paperwork that required his attention. The paperwork wasn’t going anywhere.

“This way,” Rick said, walking in front of the woman and her fussing nephew.

The room that did double duty as a kitchen/break area and storage facility was only slightly larger than a walk-in closet. The window on the opposite wall gave it the illusion of being larger than it was.

Rick pointed out the microwave. It sat in the middle of a table that looked only a fraction more sturdy than a folding card table. The microwave itself had seen better days. It had come to them, a second-hand donation from Miss Joan, who had upgraded the one in her diner.

Olivia shifted the baby to her other side, trying to prop him up on her hip. The boy was still too small for that and she didn’t want to have to juggle him while testing the milk. Putting the bottle inside the microwave, she selected a time, then pressed Start. When the oven dinged, she turned to the sheriff and held the baby out to him.