Firefly Glen: Winter Baby (Harlequin Signature Select) (8 page)

Her only answer was the trademark Suzie Strick
land withering glare. She stalked into the holding cell and began her work. For the next hour or so, they heard only an occasional muffled curse and the now-familiar electronic lament, “Betsy needs a new diaper.”

Parker and Harry continued to work side by side, crunching department budget numbers, without saying a word. When a call came in from Theo Burke, it was almost a relief.

Parker asked a few questions, then hung up and turned to Harry. “That was Theo. She says she's got burglars in her basement.”

“No kidding.” Suzie stuck her head out of the cell and laughed sarcastically. “I knew she had bats in her belfry, but—”

Parker waved her back into the cell. Suzie's first job had been at the Candlelight Café, but her sarcastic tone had never quite met Theo's exacting standards, so she'd been fired. Apparently the rejection still rankled.

He turned to Harry. “Can you check it out?”

Harry closed the file he'd been working on and stood. “Sure. Fine.” He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

“Good riddance,” Suzie muttered as the door swung shut behind him. She peered around the barred cell door. “That man has some serious attitude going. What is
with
him, anyhow?”

Parker didn't look up. He wasn't going to discuss this with Suzie. There was a slim chance he might not have to discuss it with anyone. After the one
aborted attempt to put a campaign poster in Emma's shop window, Harry's campaign had seemed to stall. Almost three weeks had gone by, and he hadn't announced anything officially yet. Maybe he had changed his mind.

“Well, okay, fine.” Suzie's voice was huffy. “
Don't
answer me.”

“Don't worry. I won't.”

The peace didn't last long. Within twenty minutes, Harry was back. And he had Mike Frome and Justine Millner, the mayor's gorgeous eighteen-year-old daughter, with him.

Parker raised his eyebrows toward his deputy.

“The burglars,” Harry said succinctly. “I caught them wedged between rows of canned tomatoes. They apparently weren't expecting company. They weren't dressed for entertaining, if you know what I mean.”

Oh, good grief. Parker transferred his gaze to the teenagers. Mike met it bravely, but he was struggling, redfaced and miserable. Justine looked down at her hands, modestly weepy and winsome.

At that moment, Suzie rounded the cell corner again, awkwardly dragging two large mannequins behind her. “Could somebody please take Mary and Joseph back to Dickerson's for me? I promised I'd return them today, but I can't do the whole thing alone.”

She broke off, finally noticing the other kids. Parker could see that she read the nuances accurately. Suzie, for all her posturing, was actually smart as hell.

“Oh, brother,” she said, scanning Justine Millner's
graceful slump and disheveled hair. She snorted rudely. “I
swear,
Mike Frome. You are so
lame.
”

“Suzie, back to work.” Parker intervened quickly, taking pity on Mike, whose flush had deepened to a deep maroon. “Haul those mannequins over to Dickerson's for her, will you, Harry? I'll take care of our burglars.”

Harry agreed readily. Harry wasn't a fool, either. He knew that busting the mayor's daughter was not the kind of job that won you any medals. He was obviously happy to let Parker do the dirty work.

Finally Parker was alone with the terrified teens. He let them stew a minute, shuffling papers around on his desk and making notes on his calendar. Finally, as Justine began to fidget, he swiveled his chair and faced the guilty pair.

“So, you and Justine were down in Theo Burke's storeroom after hours.” He gave Mike a hard look. The kid worked for Theo, for God's sake. He knew that the old woman owned a dainty but perfectly lethal handgun. And she knew how to use it. “What kind of dumb pills have you been taking, Frome?”

“I know, sir,” Mike said, hanging his head. “I know. But I was just—I mean we were just—”

“I know what you were just,” Parker said. “You were just hunting for your retainer.”

Mike looked bewildered. He glanced over at Justine, but that was no help. She had decided to cry. Probably dissolving into charming weeping had been her strategy for every tough situation she'd ever en
countered. Mike looked back at Parker. “My retainer?”

Parker shook his head. Had he been this dense when he was eighteen? Would he ever have chosen a spot like Theo Burke's storeroom to romance his girlfriend? Had he ever been horny enough to find industrial-sized cans of stewed tomatoes an aphrodisiac?

Oh, well, hell yes, he had. All teenage boys were exactly that horny.

But this one was about to be in big trouble, unless he started thinking a little faster. Justine had begun to cry noisily, which, if she didn't muffle it quick, was going to annoy Parker so much he'd change his mind about saving her spoiled and, to his mind, somewhat overrated ass.

“That's right. Your retainer.” Parker stood, walked over to the sink along the far wall and plucked a paper towel from the dispenser. He held it out toward Mike. “Sadly, you left your retainer in a paper towel in the café's break room. You were almost home before you realized you'd accidentally thrown it away with the night's trash. Right? You didn't want to bother Miss Burke, so you came back to look for it. I can call and explain that to her right now.”

Mike was finally catching on. He took the paper towel, retrieved his retainer from his pocket, and folded it up carefully. “But…” He put his arm manfully around Justine's shoulders, though he cast Parker a rather endearing, imploring look. “What about Justine?”

“Justine wasn't there. I think Justine was home doing her schoolwork, don't you?”

Justine, who apparently had been listening intently even through her tears, beamed a beauty queen smile Parker's way, the tears miraculously drying. “Oh, thank you, Sheriff! Thank you so much! I'm going to tell my dad he shouldn't vote for Deputy Dunbar! I don't know why anyone would vote for him anyhow. He's so strict about stuff. He was downright mean tonight.”

“Right. Okay, then, we've got that settled.” Parker had to work at staying professional. “I'll call Theo. Mike, you stay here in case she wants to talk to you. Justine, you have a car, right?”

“Yes, sir, I do. My dad's BMW is outside.” Justine was dabbing at her eyelashes, making sure the tears hadn't caused any makeup damage. “You're so sweet, Sheriff. I know my dad donated money to Deputy Dunbar's campaign, but I'm going to tell him he should vote for you instead.” Justine smiled radiantly toward Parker once more. “You
aren't
a lousy sheriff.”

Mike groaned under his breath. “Justine,” he begged.

“Well, he's not,” she insisted. She leaned over and kissed Mike, then checked her lipstick with her forefinger. “Bye-bye. See you tomorrow.”

Parker and Mike watched her go in silence, locked in their own thoughts. Mike, with the single-mindedness of a teenage boy, was undoubtedly la
menting his aborted seduction and wondering when he'd get his next chance.

Parker's thoughts were a little murkier. The mayor was aligned with Harry against him? Well, how about that.

This was what he got for being so moronically self-satisfied with his life recently, he thought. He'd been imagining himself the heroic town lawman, beloved by all, opposed by none—presiding over his idyllic little hamlet with even-handed justice.

Then, on Christmas Eve, the truth had hit him like a shovel. His own brother-in-law was running against him. And now the mayor—and God knows who else—was contributing to Harry's campaign.

Heck, with a war chest like that, Harry might even win.

“I'm really sorry about what Justine said, Sheriff,” Mike put in tentatively. “She doesn't think sometimes.” He breathed a lovelorn sigh. “But she sure is pretty, isn't she?”

Parker started to make a caustic comment, but who was he to criticize? He'd actually been fool enough to
marry
his mistake.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Very pretty. But maybe you two ought to slow down a little, huh? You wouldn't want to find yourself standing in front of a preacher with Mayor Millner's shotgun in your back.”

Mike frowned. “No,” he said slowly, as if he found it hard to process the mixed signals his hormones and his common sense were sending him at
the same time. He looked at Parker sadly. “But she's gorgeous, you know?”

Suzie made a rude sound from the cell. Both males looked over, surprised. Parker had forgotten she was still here. Clearly Mike had, too.

“Hey, Mike,” she called out. “Do you know what Vanity Gap is?”

Mike threw the cell a dirty look. “Yes, weirdo. I know what Vanity Gap is. It's just outside town. It's that road between the mountains.”

“Nope.” She poked her head out. Her glasses were crooked, and her dark, lanky hair was covered in straw. “It's that space between Justine Millner's ears.”

Mike growled and made a pretend lunge, but Suzie darted back into the cell, chuckling evilly.

Parker almost laughed himself, but he managed to turn it into a severe throat-clearing. “Well, maybe we'd better call Theo now.”

But Mike hadn't stopped feeling bad about the election. “You know, it's just a rumor,” he said. “About Deputy Dunbar running against you. Maybe it isn't even true. You know how rumors are.”

Though he knew Harry's campaign was far more than rumor—he'd seen the poster with his own eyes—Parker grinned. “Around here they're as reliable as sunrise. I don't think they've been wrong in two hundred years.”

“They're definitely not wrong about Justine,” Suzie's disembodied voice rang out.

Mike squinted, then set his jaw, determined to ig
nore her. “It's mostly about the ice festival, I think. You know, the way old man Winters is trying to get it canceled? Justine said her dad is really mad. He says the festival is super important to people around here. He says you should find a way to make Mr. Winters stop making trouble, like lock him up or something.”

Parker chuckled. “Mayor Millner always was a little fuzzy about how the Constitution works.”

Mike looked confused, which didn't surprise Parker. The day the teacher covered the Bill of Rights, Mike had probably been obsessing about Justine's tight red sweater.

But he also looked worried. Touched by the boy's sincere concern, Parker patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Hey, don't worry about it. Deputy Dunbar can run if he wants to. It's called democracy. Now come on, let's explain things to Theo before she comes down here and shoots us both.”

 

“A
ND TEN
. And hold it. Excellent, ladies. Excellent.
Hold it!
You can do it!”

Could she? Sarah realized her leg was shaking as she tried to keep it elevated in a donkey kick, the same donkey kick the aerobics instructor was somehow holding so effortlessly.

Amazing how out of shape you could get in just a month.

“And relax! Okay, ladies, very good. Let's take five.”

Sarah collapsed in a damp heap on the floor of the
gym. She had to be kidding. It was going to take a lot more than five minutes to get her jellied muscles under control again.

“She's tough, isn't she?” Heather Delaney, who had been right next to Sarah for the past half an hour, smiled sympathetically. It was some consolation to Sarah that the exquisitely toned Dr. Delaney was breathing rather fast herself.

Sarah closed her eyes and groaned. “If this is ‘low impact' aerobics, I'd hate to see the hard stuff.”

Heather shook her head. “As your doctor, I'd have to forbid it. Her advanced class is only for Amazons and eighteen-year-olds.”

The two of them wandered out into the anteroom, where chilled juices and warmed towels were available. For a community center exercise class, the setup was fairly ritzy—and these little niceties reminded Sarah that this definitely wasn't your average community.

As her uncle was always pointing out, though it had started out as a community of loggers and trappers, for more than a hundred years now Firefly Glen had been a favorite hideaway for millionaires. Apparently millionaires even
sweated
in splendor.

“
There
she is!” Heather pointed toward the door, which was just shutting behind two new arrivals. “Well, it's about time. Come with me, Sarah. I want to introduce you to Emma Tremaine. She's supposed to be my best friend, but somehow she always manages to leave me to face the donkey kicks alone.”

Sarah smiled and started to follow, but within a fraction of a second the name finally registered.

Tremaine.
And not one Tremaine, but two. The sheriff and his sister.

E
MMA LOOKED SO MUCH
like Parker it was startling. Where he was tall and uncompromisingly masculine, she was petite and feminine. But otherwise, they could have been twins. Same dark hair, same blue eyes, same charismatic vitality that could reach across the room, or across a snowy mountain, and
make
you notice them.

Good genes. But dangerous. You had to handle that much sex appeal carefully. You couldn't just let it loose in a crowded room.

Like this one. Sarah noticed that several of the women milling around stopped talking and stared at Parker, who wore a marvelous blue muffler that was probably the exact color of his eyes and a black leather jacket, which fit like a supple second skin.

Sarah swallowed raggedly, suddenly miserably aware of her sweaty, tousled hair and her total absence of makeup. And her brand-new exercise clothes, which she'd let the salesclerk talk her into, and which she belatedly realized were
much
too green and
much
too tight.

But it was too late now. Heather was striding toward the Tremaines, and Sarah could only follow, praying that the warm towel she draped over her
shoulders covered the deep, ridiculous vee of her neckline. What had she been thinking? This shade of green looked positively radioactive. She looked like that shiny, feathery green thing her uncle attached to his fishing hook. What had he called it?
A lure.
Good God, she looked like a lure.

As they drew closer she could hear Emma talking. Or not
talking,
exactly. More like yelling very quietly.

“Damn it, Parker, I've told you a hundred times to stay out of this!”

Parker jammed his hands into his pockets. “Make sense, Em. What am I supposed to do? Just sit back and let him talk to you like that?”

“That's right.” Emma was scowling fiercely. “I told you—this is between Harry and me.”

“Em—”

But finally the Tremaines noticed they had company. Emma looked over sheepishly. “Heather.” She made a visible effort to compose herself, finally removing her heavy silver-wool coat and hanging it up. “Hi. Sorry I'm late. I had to stop by the department and see Harry for a minute.”

“No problem.” Heather smiled smugly. “I told Svetlana the Sadist that you'd be glad to do an extra fifty donkey kicks after class as makeup.” She ignored Emma's groan. “Meanwhile, I'd like you to meet Sarah Lennox. She's Ward's great-niece. Remember he told us she'd be visiting for a few weeks?”

Sarah sent the other woman a mental thank-you. She appreciated the smooth implication that they had
met through a common connection to Ward rather than across the obstetrician's examination table.

Emma seemed to have sloughed off her temper. She grinned broadly. “Of course! The damsel in distress!” She put out her hand enthusiastically. “I see you made it down the mountain.”

Sarah laughed. “And I see you escaped from the mental hospital.”

“What? Oh, that's right. He told you I was a nut-case that day, didn't he? Well, Parker's all talk,” she said, tossing her brother a narrowed glance. “He doesn't really want to lock me away behind bars. He'd rather bundle me up in bubble wrap, so I never get bumped or bruised. Isn't that right, Parker?”

“That's right, Em.” Parker seemed to be recovering from their tiff more slowly. His handsome face still looked tight and worried. But he gave Sarah a fairly dazzling smile anyhow. “Hi,” he said. “I've been meaning to call you, to thank you for the first-aid.”

“Oh, no. It was nothing,” Sarah said stiltedly, tugging on her towel. “I was glad to help.”

“Are you the one who taped up his hands?” Emma looked delighted. “I was
wondering
who did that. Usually Parker is way too macho for a bandage. He'd rather just bleed all over the furniture like a
real
man.”

“Emma.” Parker's voice was quiet iron. “Don't you need to go in there and get some ass-kicking?”

Emma scowled at him. “Donkey-kicking,” she
corrected icily. “I need to go
do
some
donkey-
kicking.”

“Well, don't let me stop you,” he said politely. He turned back to Sarah. “Actually, I really was hoping you'd be here.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Emma elbow Heather. “Told you,” Emma whispered loudly to her friend.

Sarah felt herself flushing, but she refused to speculate on what Emma might have meant. She dabbed at her face with the towel calmly. “Really? Did you need to talk to me?”

“Yeah.” He looked around, noticing as if for the first time the room full of damp, spandex-wrapped women, many of whom were watching him from behind their sparkling water bottles. “But not here. What about tomorrow? Maybe we could have lunch?”

“That would be fine,” she said, thinking it through hurriedly. “I could make sandwiches. Uncle Ward is having lunch with Madeline tomorrow, so we could have the house to ourselves.”

Emma choked, and Sarah sensed that even Heather was smiling curiously.

Damn.
She felt ridiculous. This was like junior high school, when a cute boy stopped by your locker, and every word became a double entendre, and your friends giggled mercilessly, till you wanted to crawl right into that narrow metal compartment with your books and slam the door behind you.

But she wasn't in junior high school. She was a
grown woman. A very grown-up, very
pregnant
woman. However much Emma or Ward or
anyone
would enjoy playing matchmaker here, she was not looking for a boyfriend. As the little pink
x
proved, she had already had one boyfriend too many.

“I meant, I thought perhaps you'd rather he weren't around. I'm sure you want to talk to me about him.” She hoped she didn't sound too defensive. “About the problems with the ice festival?”

“Sure,” Parker said easily. “Among other things. See you around noon, then.”

As the three women walked slowly back toward Madame Svetlana's torture chamber, Emma was practically humming with excitement. “Did you see his face, Heather? Absolutely amazing. I haven't seen Parker this revved up about anyone since the divorce, have you?”

Heather shrugged. “I haven't been monitoring his heart rate, Em,” she said. “And neither should you. Stop meddling.”

“I'm not meddling.” She turned toward Sarah earnestly. “I'm really not. I'm just thrilled that he's finally interested in somebody.”

Sarah couldn't help smiling at the openhearted eagerness she saw in the other woman's face. Obviously there was a lot of love running deeply between brother and sister.

“I'm afraid you're misreading Parker's interest, Emma. He's only interested in finding an ally to help rein in my uncle. That's it. Honestly, it's nothing personal.”

Emma shook her head. “I
never
misread Parker. I know him too well. It's personal, all right. And I'm delighted. He's been alone too long. A whole year. But his divorce was tough on him. She was such a—”

Emma caught Heather's eye and swallowed the word she'd been going to say. “Anyhow, ever since Tina, Parker's decided he's got to have the perfect woman, the perfect marriage, the perfect life. I keep telling him, there's no such thing. But he won't gamble. He says it's the perfect woman or nothing.”

She dropped her towel on the floor, turned and eyed Sarah with a friendly speculation. “And apparently, Miss Sarah Lennox,
you're it.
”

 

I
T WAS EASY
, when living at Winter House, to settle into a lazy, luxurious rhythm, to pretend you were one of those earliest millionaires to settle in Firefly Glen.

No problems your money couldn't solve. No worries, no responsibilities, no tomorrow. Just the sweet smell of wood smoke in the fireplace, the warm cinnamon taste of morning tea in a Sevres cup, the smooth spill of your satin robe against your arms. And, in a couple of hours, lunch with a handsome man whose sister thought he liked you.

Sarah leaned back against the headrest of the silk chaise and stared at the ceiling. It was her favorite feature, out of the hundreds of interesting quirks in Winter House's eccentric design. The beautiful ceiling was only half painted. The left half was crowded
with floating cherubs and simpering angels. The other half was as blankly white as new snow.

During her first visit, Sarah had asked her uncle about the ceiling, and he had said it was a grown-up story. He had promised he'd tell her when she was older.

Well, she was older now. She'd have to remember to ask him this time.

Sarah's lunch with Parker was set for noon, so when someone rang the doorbell at ten o'clock, she assumed it must be for her uncle. She stayed where she was, sipping tea and watching the snowflakes, until the rapping became a pounding, and she realized her uncle wasn't going to answer it.

Tightening the sash of her long robe, she hurried to the door, a little embarrassed to be caught lounging this late in the morning. But this deep, silent snow was like a blanket wrapped around the house, lulling her into a slower pace, the same way it urged the wild animals into hibernation.

It was Parker. And he didn't look lulled by the snow, or anything else. He looked crisp and official. And out of sorts. He was in full uniform, his badge gleaming in the sunlight. And why was he so stilted? Gone was the languid ease of the friendly small-town sheriff. Instead his lanky body was ramrod alert, the official posture of any ticked-off big-city cop.

Something was wrong. She checked the grandfather clock in the foyer, wondering if she'd mistaken the time. But the clock was ticking steadily, and it really was only ten in the morning.

“Parker,” she said, confused. “I wasn't expecting you—”

“I'm not here for lunch,” he said tersely, glancing past her into the hall. “In fact, thanks to your Uncle Ward, I probably won't be having lunch at all today. Where is the bullheaded son of a—”

“I don't know,” she said quickly. “Maybe getting ready for his date. I haven't seen him—”

“I'm right here, Tremaine.” Her uncle's voice thundered out from the staircase behind her. Sarah swiveled, her hand still on the doorknob. Ward was coming down the stairs, fully dressed in a thick black fisherman's sweater and gray corduroy slacks.

He was smiling. The expression had a disturbingly smug quality, Sarah thought, watching him uneasily.

“Well, let the man in, Sarah, and for God's sake shut the door. The sheriff has something to say, and I'm not going to let it snow all over my hallway while he says it.” Ward moved toward the gold parlor. “Want a cup of tea, Sheriff? We've got some herbal nonsense that is supposed to calm your nerves. Looks like you could use it.”

“What do you think you're doing, Winters?” Parker had come in, but he wasn't moving toward the parlor. He was standing in the hall, just over the threshold, his feet planted squarely on the checkered marble tiles as if he were a piece in a chess game. His shoulders were stiff, snow dusting them like epaulets. “What are you trying to accomplish by this foolishness?”

Ward stopped and gave Parker a sly grin. “What
foolishness? Oh. Could you possibly be referring to the small issue of the sleighs?”

“The sleighs?” Parker looked surprised, and not pleasantly so. “Damn it, Winters. Have you done something to the sleighs, too?”

“Not really. I rented them, that's all.” Ward sauntered into the gold parlor, apparently confident that Parker would follow.

Which the sheriff did, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set into hard right angles. “You
rented
them? What do you mean?
All
of them?”

“Every last one.” The older man grinned. “It took a while, but I tracked down every sleigh in a hundred-mile radius, and I rented the darn things. Just for one week in February, of course.”

“The week of the ice festival.”

“The man's quick.” Ward turned to Sarah with a rakish tilt of one eyebrow. “He may look like the half-wit sheriff of a pokey little town, but he's always thinking.
Of course
the week of the festival, Tremaine. It's the only week that matters.”

Parker ran his hand through his dark hair and let out a deep, exasperated exhale. “It won't stop anything, you know,” he said in a tired voice. “They'll bring some in from
two
hundred miles away, if necessary. Or they'll dig them out of people's barns. They'll build new ones. Believe me, they'll manage.”

“Maybe.”

“And even if you stopped the sleigh rides completely, so what? It's stupid, Ward. The rides are just icing. The festival can go on fine without them.”

Ward shrugged. “Maybe,” he repeated. “But it'll annoy the hell out of Bourke Waitely, which is reason enough for me.”

Parker cursed under his breath, and Sarah felt compelled to intervene. “Wait,” she said, moving into the room to stand between the two men. “I don't really understand. You seemed upset from the moment you arrived, Parker. If you didn't know my uncle had rented all the sleighs, why are you here?”

Ward was busily pouring himself a cup of tea. With his back to the others, he said, “Probably because of the billboard. Right, Tremaine?”

Parker just nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

Ward chuckled. “Tell her, Tremaine. Tell her about the billboard.”

Parker looked up, his blue eyes weary. “Why don't you tell her yourself?”

“Well, modesty wouldn't allow me to do it justice.” Ward arranged himself comfortably in one of the biggest satin armchairs and smiled up at Sarah. “It was quite an inspiration, if I do say so myself.”

Parker growled under his breath. “Your uncle, who may just be the biggest fool in the Western Hemisphere, has put up a billboard at the edge of town, on an empty but rather conspicuous lot.”