Snowfall On Haven Point

He quickly found her number on his phone and Jackie answered on the first ring.

“You’re not supposed to be working, Sheriff. You should be resting.”

He didn’t bother reminding her she had been the one to text him about overtime.

“I’ve rested plenty. Just because my leg is broken doesn’t mean my brain is. How are things there?”

“Ken Kramer is walking around like he won the lottery since the commission named him acting sheriff. He tried to move into your office, but I wouldn’t let him. I told him you left the door locked and I didn’t have the key, and if he wanted it, he would have to go there and take it from you.”

“I believe I won’t hold my breath,” he said.

Both of them knew Ken would never do that. On the surface Ken Kramer pretended to be loyal and supportive after Marshall defeated him in the last election, while behind the scenes he whispered and spread rumors. He was the kind of man who was really good at sneaky, underhanded sabotage but didn’t have the stones for outright confrontation.

He was also a brother-in-law to County Commissioner Newbold. The joys of small-town politics.

“I’ve also got about a hundred things I need you to sign. I’ll try to swing by one day this week.”

“Sounds good.”

Jackie was hyperefficient, organized and the exact opposite of Ken Kramer. Taking over the job a year ago would have been a nightmare without her on his team to help the transition.

“You should know there are all kinds of rumors flying around about what happened to you. That young reporter from the newspaper called to ask if it was true that you had been airlifted to Boise and were in a coma.”

“You didn’t tell him the truth, did you? I wouldn’t mind sticking with that story, if it meant I didn’t have to talk to him for a while.”

“You’re not that lucky,” she answered.

He glanced down at his broken leg. He wouldn’t call himself lucky, by any stretch of the imagination.

He and Jackie talked for several more moments about his calendar and meetings he would need to reschedule until the New Year, business details of running a department that employed twenty deputies and ran a jail with up to two dozen inmates.

By the time they ended the call and he hung up, the rest of the stew was cold and the exhaustion pressing on his shoulders reminded him how little sleep he’d been able to find the night before.

He was amazed at how wiped this broken leg had left him.

This wasn’t his first major injury. He broke his arm twice during his wild younger days, once skateboarding and another time backcountry snowboarding with friends in the mountains east of Haven Point.

Considering all the crazy things he used to do with his brothers and Cade, it was a wonder he came out of childhood with only those few battle scars.

His mother would freak when she found out he’d been struck by a hit-and-run driver.

Charlene was a fretter, of the highest order. She had always been overprotective, wanting to keep all her children tucked safely under her wing like a hen with her chicks, but she had gone into overdrive after Wyatt’s tragic death and then his father’s life-altering injury.

The shooting at Andrea’s house earlier in the year had only made her worse.

That he was injured on the job as well, while trying to meet a confidential informant, would probably send her over the edge. Good thing Elliot worked in Denver with the FBI or she would be camped out on his doorstep every day, making sure he came home safely from work.

He took one more bite of shortbread from the tin Andrea had brought, which automatically sent his thoughts zooming back to his neighbors next door and the problem he didn’t know what to do about.

He was still mulling his options when he drifted to sleep and dreamed of headlights coming toward him in the silvery twilight of a Lake Haven December.

* * *

FURTIVE WHISPERS AND the sensation of being watched woke him out of tangled dreams.

“Is he dead?” Marsh heard a nervous little voice ask.

“I don’t know,” another one answered. “Maybe we should poke him to see.”

“You do it,” the first voice said.

“No, you.”

“Nobody’s poking anything,” a more mature voice interjected quietly. He opened his eyes a crack and saw Andrea Montgomery walk inside the room with a stack of mail that she set on the table beside him.

Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and she looked pretty and soft and more delicious than all the shortbread in Scotland.

He blinked, wondering where the hell he came up with that thought.

“Leave the poor man alone and let him finish his nap,” she said to her children in a low voice.

“I’m not napping,” he growled—though he had been doing exactly that. He must have slept all afternoon, like some old geezer in a nursing home with nothing better to do.

“If you weren’t napping, why were your eyes closed?” Will Montgomery said, his tone accusatory.

“Just checking for holes in my eyelids,” he answered, which had been his father’s standard answer when one of his kids caught him dozing off in church.

The little girl, whom he had seen only briefly the day before when she slipped in and out of the room like an afternoon shadow, gave a little giggle. The sound seemed to take her by surprise because she quickly clamped her lips together and looked down at the ground.

“Sorry we woke you,” Andrea said, her tone brisk. “I have your groceries. I also brought you some chicken casserole and a couple pieces of spice cake.”

“I thought you weren’t coming until later.”

“We have something tonight and I’m not sure how long it will go, so this time worked best.”

“It’s a party and my friend Ty is going to be there,” her son announced. “It’s at my mom’s friend McKenzie’s house. She has a dog who’s my friend, too, and her name is Paprika. Only, we call her Rika.”

With his mom’s auburn hair and a scattering of freckles, the kid was really cute, Marsh had to admit. Too bad he wasn’t very good with kids. His uniform had always seemed to make them nervous around him—like the boy’s sister was acting.

“I know that dog,” he admitted.

Will took a step closer to the recliner. “Rika is funny. She licks my hand and it tickles. Guess what? We have a dog, too. We’ve had her for two whole weeks and her name is Sadie and she’s the best dog in the whole world.”

“Is that right?”

“She hardly ever pees in the house. Do you have a dog?”

“No. Not right now. I did when I was a kid, though.”