Holiday in a Stetson: The Sheriff Who Found Christmas\A Rancho Diablo Christmas (5 page)

If asked, Garrett couldn’t have said exactly how it happened. One second the petite blonde dictator was tugging on his hand, attempting to drag him to the room she’d managed to cleverly convert into a bedroom for his niece. The next, he was yanking her back, silently taking a stand that he couldn’t be led around like some trained cougar on a leash.

Just how she wound up in his arms, or how his lips wound up being sealed to hers, Garrett didn’t have a clue. All he knew was that she was, and they were, and that what followed would probably remain with him for a very long time, if not the rest of his life.

He’d never touched a live wire before, never been half a breath away from what felt like a possible electrocution, but he was fairly certain this
had
to be what it felt like. There was no other way to describe the sensation that ripped through him when their lips met in what had to be the most electrifying kiss he had ever experienced.

Maybe it had something to do with the rug beneath their feet, the cold air and static electricity, but if he was honest with himself, he sincerely doubted that
was the real cause. That excuse was, at best, a desperate grasp at bent straws. What he
really
felt like grasping—God help him—was Lani. Grasping her and seeing just how far this kiss could go.

For one tiny glimmer of time, Garrett let go. Released the firm hold on his emotions and allowed himself to get completely, mindlessly lost in the kiss. He allowed himself to savor it, to absorb it. To revel in it.

And then the matter was suddenly out of his hands. He discovered that he really had no choice whatsoever. He’d lost the ability to choose when a wave of passion rose up within him, temporarily blocking even the smallest of coherent thoughts. Garrett couldn’t think at all, really. What he found himself doing instead was celebrating an experience that, looking back on it later, he would have hated like the devil to have missed.

He deepened the kiss. Its very flames singed him. He wanted more.

Lani’s body was soft and giving against his, and for just that instance in time, the consequences of what he was doing faded away. They evaporated without so much as a trace, leaving him free to enjoy the kiss. Free to enjoy her.

And then, suddenly, they were back, crashing over him like lightning leaping out of a bottle, shattering the glass and sending shards through the air so that they pierced his skin.

Reality was back with a vengeance.

What the hell was he doing? he silently demanded of himself in stunned amazement. He’d never lost control over himself before. And this was so much
beyond that point, he was nearly at a loss for a way to recover.

“I’m…I’m—” Even his tongue failed him. It felt much too thick in his mouth to maneuver properly.

It wasn’t in his nature to apologize, but then, neither was it in his nature to force himself on someone, and he felt that a meltdown had just occurred. There was no other explanation for why his emotions had gotten the better of him.

But the upshot of it all was that he’d wound up taking advantage of the woman who had been driving him crazy all these months.

A woman who had never been far from his mind since the first moment she’d marched into his domain, brimming with attitude that was evident with every step she took.

“Very, very good,” Lani said quietly, but with feeling, finishing his sentence for him.

It didn’t matter that Garrett probably hadn’t intended to say that. That was what she felt succinctly summarized what had just happened between them. The man’s mouth was nothing short of lethal.

Who knew?

She didn’t want him overthinking what had just occurred between them. A kiss like that was to be enjoyed, to be remembered and quietly taken out to be relived on cold winter nights when life felt its bleakest.

“Aunt Lan-ni!”

She’d almost forgotten about the little girl. A kiss like that could make you forget your name, rank and serial number, not to mention everything else.

Lani’s lips still tingled as she did her best to draw them into a smile. “Your niece is calling.” Taking his hand again, she nodded toward the hall. “Let’s go.”

“She’s calling you,” Garrett pointed out. Damn, how had he let things get so out of control like that? He felt incredibly awkward and at a loss as how to handle the situation. What could he possibly say to her to erase what had just happened?

And how did he get himself to stop wanting it to happen again? Frustration ate away at him, coming from both sides and threatening to meet in the middle.

“That’s only because she thinks you won’t come if she calls you,” Lani told him. “She doesn’t know how to read you yet.”

Garrett connected the dots from what his deputy had just said. His eyes narrowed, pinning her down. “And you do?”

Her impulse was to say yes, that she understood what he was feeling, what was going on in his head—for the most part. But she knew that saying that would only get his back up, so she fudged a little.

“I’m trying to learn. Come,” she coaxed, this time wrapping her fingers around his hand very gently rather than tugging hard. She looked up at him appealingly.

Garrett found it difficult to resist, but he managed to hesitate for a moment longer. Then, with a half shrug, he surrendered and followed her.

They walked together into what was now Ellie’s room. Though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, it felt right.

S
HE WAS RUNNING OUT OF
time.

They were getting closer and closer to Christmas and there was still no angel at the top of the tree. None, it seemed, was good enough in Ellie’s opinion to perch in the place of honor.

Determined to find a suitable substitute for the ornament that had been lost, Lani kept acquiring new angels, some purchased from neighboring towns, while others, secured through the internet, arrived via overnight shipping. She presented each to Ellie in turn, and each and every one of the angels was summarily rejected. None, it seemed, was able to live up to the original.

Down but not out, Lani decided to go back to the source one more time.

She talked to Garrett. “You’re just going to have to make one for Ellie.”

They were down to the wire. It was Christmas Eve and the sheriff’s office had closed early so that she, and presumably Garrett, could finish stringing popcorn with Ellie, and then hang the finished product like garlands around the gaily decorated spruce that stood in the center of the living room.

As it turned out, Ellie and she were doing the stringing and the hanging. Garrett, Lani had noticed, was being more uncommunicative than usual, reverting back to his old ways. He wasn’t even pretending to supervise the decorating the way he had been the last week, as each evening saw more and more decorations on the tree.

Mention of the missing angel—and her request for
him to make another one—seemed to put him off even more than she had anticipated.

Or, Lani silently speculated, maybe what was really bothering him was that he had allowed his guard to drop, had allowed her to slip in, however briefly, through a crack, and he had found himself reacting to her the way a regular man reacted to a woman. Though the idea thrilled her, she was doing her best not to let him see that. Knowing Garrett, he would take it as gloating on her part, and nothing could be further from the truth.

“No.” He all but snapped out the word, not even bothering to consider her request to make another angel.

Impatience zigzagged through her. Lani stepped away from the tree and, lowering her voice, asked incredulously, “How can you say that?” She just couldn’t understand how he could take that position. What would it take for him to make another one? A few hours? Some concentration? It wasn’t as if she was asking to him to donate one of his kidneys. “Seeing that angel would mean so much to her.”

“No,” he repeated, his face an impassive mask that nonetheless sent a chill through her heart. “And I’ll keep saying it until it finally gets through to you.”

Refusing to give up, Lani tried to reason with him. “Look, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just the effort would be enough for her. It would tie her to her mother.” Lani looked at him, willing him to understand. “Just the way that angel obviously tied her mother to you.”

Each word Lani uttered just made Garrett feel
guiltier. Not for refusing to carve the angel, but for not trying to find Ellen while he still could have. For turning his back on the situation and ignoring his sister.

Even when Ellen had called to tell him that her husband, along with two other marines, had been killed overseas by a roadside bomb, Garrett hadn’t instantly suggested she come back here to live. He’d been distant and cold, offended, he supposed, that Ellen had chosen someone who was cruel and abusive to her over him, her brother. She’d had to come out and ask him if he could put her up for a little while until she got on her feet again.

Now it was too late to make amends for that. And this woman wouldn’t stop harping on it, wouldn’t stop depositing salt into the open, gaping wound that refused to heal.

“Why don’t you just butt out and mind your own business?” he demanded angrily. “Don’t you have a father to go to?”

Lani felt as if Garrett had just punched her in the gut. Sensing that Ellie was watching them, she held it together and kept her voice down. “I told him I’d be by later. He understands what I’m trying to do here—”

“And just what is it you’re trying to do here—besides take over my life?” Garrett asked, his temper flaring more with each passing moment.

“Taking over your life?” Lani echoed, stunned. “Is that what you think?”

“Yeah, that’s what I think.”

She’d been ordering him around ever since Ellie had come into the picture. And even before that, she’d
acted as if she was the one with the experience, the know-how, and not him. She was the big city detective and he was just a small-town hick sheriff.

“And I’m sick of it,” he told her. “Sick of you acting as if you know what’s best not just for Ellie, but for me, too.” He glared at her, knowing he had to get out of the house before he said something they might both really regret. “But you don’t know what’s best for me. Only I do.” He was all but shouting now. Struggling to get a grip on his temper, he told her in a voice that was deadly calm, “I need you to stay with Ellie because I’m going out.”

And without waiting for her to agree, he grabbed his jacket from the back of the sofa where he had dropped it earlier, and stormed from the house.

He left Lani staring, dumbfounded, at the door that had just slammed in his wake.

Lani sat on the worn, tan sofa, staring into the flames that were flickering weakly in the fireplace. The fire was coming very close to dying out.

Just like her optimism.

She let another huge sigh escape. It didn’t help. Her heart ached.

Idiot!

The derogatory term was meant more for herself than for the still-missing sheriff.

She hadn’t meant for it to happen, but it had. Here, in the wee hours of the night, with no one else around, Lani had to be honest with herself and admit to what she’d done.

She’d gone and fallen in love with the remote Garrett Tanner.

Attracted though she was by his brooding, dark good looks, it was that wounded soul inside that had called out to her and captured her. And held her prisoner.

She had always been a sucker for wounded souls, trying to help them heal. Whether stray animals or a stray person, she wanted to fix them, to bring them
around so that they could stop hurting, eventfully fit in and ultimately be happy.

Looks like you failed your little errand of mercy this time.

Garrett had been a far harder challenge than a stray dog or abused cat, she thought ruefully. As she’d learned the hard way, he obviously didn’t want to be brought around or fixed. He had never made that clearer than when he’d stormed out of the house earlier this evening.

She’d been by turns stunned and then really hurt by that dark flash of temper he’d displayed. Walking out on her—in effect on
them,
her and Ellie—had been the final straw. Even so, she’d spent the first hour or so expecting Garrett to come back, to realize just how wrong he was to lose his temper like that, and apologize to her, in some manner if not outright.

But after a couple hours had gone by, it became painfully apparent that he wasn’t about to regain his senses and come back.

“Your timing stinks,” Lani murmured, talking to the man who wasn’t there. Tomorrow was Christmas.
Christmas,
for heaven’s sake. What was she going to tell Ellie when the little girl realized that her uncle wasn’t there, and asked about him? When she realized that her only living relative had made himself scarce on a day that was so very important to her?

Lani could feel her eyes stinging, and angrily brushed away the tears that fell. He wasn’t worth crying over, she told herself, gathering her anger around her like a shield.

Well, at least she could give Ellie the illusion that
Santa Claus had come, she thought, drawing in a lungful of air as she tried to focus on the little girl and nothing else.

Pulling herself together, Lani rose from the sofa and went out to her car. She popped open the trunk and took out what she’d packed up earlier—an entire sack filled with gifts. Gifts intended for Ellie, and a couple for the hardheaded sheriff, as well.

She brought the sack into the house. After listening carefully to make sure that Ellie hadn’t woken up, she got to work. Keeping one eye trained in the direction of the hallway, alert for any noise that would mean Ellie was up and making her way to the living room, Lani put out the gifts she had wrapped late last night.

Finished, she hid the sack under the sofa, then made her way over to the side table where Ellie had left a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for Santa Claus. The cookies, which Lani and Ellie had made yesterday, felt as if they were sticking to the roof of her mouth as she consumed them. It had nothing to do with the quality of baking and everything to do with the disheartened way she felt.

Damn him for making her fall in love with him, Lani thought unhappily. Draining the glass, she stopped to check for any telltale lipstick stains along the rim. There weren’t any.

Very carefully, she put the glass down next to the empty plate. Stepping back, Lani slowly surveyed the area. Everything was in place.

“At least someone will have a good Christmas,” she murmured under her breath.

Feeling incredibly empty, Lani took out her cell
phone. Perching on the arm of the sofa, she called her father. The phone on the other end rang three times and then she heard it pick up.

A deep male voice said, “Hello?”

Closing her eyes, she could visualize him. He was her haven. He always had been. “Hi, Gunny. Did I wake you?”

“No,” he told her, and then chuckled. “I was just sitting here, remembering the way your mother used to run around at the last minute, trying to get all her shopping done before they closed the stores. She always acted surprised that Christmas came around so fast. Like it didn’t fall on the same day every year.”

Her father’s soft laughter warmed her heart and took some of the chill from it.

“It’s really funny,” he went on, “how the things that drove me crazy back then don’t really seem that big a deal anymore. I’d give anything to see her rushing around just one more time.”

Despite his best efforts to curb it, Lani heard the sadness in his voice. “You miss Mom a lot, don’t you, Gunny?”

“Can’t even begin to tell you how much,” he admitted. “But at least I get to see her every time I look at you.” He paused for a moment, as if debating saying anything, and then asked, “Everything okay, kid?”

She saw no reason to put on an act. She and Gunny had no secrets from one another. Part of the reason she’d called was to get strength from his comfort and support. “Tanner and I had an argument.”

“I see.” There was another pause, and when he spoke, he didn’t say what she’d expected him to. “It’s
what keeps life interesting, honey. Especially when you get to make up,” he added with a chuckle.

Lani pressed her lips together, recalling the one fiery kiss she and Garrett had shared. Since that time, she’d been aching for another. Aching for the two of them to come together the way a man and a woman were intended to.

Damn him, anyway.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any making up in my future, Gunny,” she confessed sadly.

“Oh?”

More than curiosity, she heard concern in her father’s deep voice. “Tanner said he was sick of me acting like I knew what was best for him. He said a lot of other things, too. I think I’m driving him crazy,” she admitted, banking down a wave of frustration.

“Your mother drove me crazy, too,” her father confessed, telling Lani something she hadn’t been aware of. “And right now, I miss it like hell. What Tanner said to you, kid, they’re only words,” he assured her. “The bottom line is how does he actually feel about you—and how do you feel about him? That’s all that counts, Lani.” And then, to spare her any further grief, her father changed the subject. “I take it you’re not coming over tonight.”

It was late, but that wouldn’t have stopped her normally. However, her sense of obligation did. “Tanner walked out in a huff, told me to stay with Ellie. He’s still not back….”

“I get the picture.” Her father was quick to absolve her from any residual guilt she might be entertaining. “You just take care of that little girl. I’ll see you
tomorrow. If he turns up, bring Mr. Personality over with you and Ellie. Otherwise, let it be just the two of you. I’ve got enough here to feed half the town. No sense in wasting it.”

“Ellie and I will be there,” she assured him. “I really don’t know about the sheriff.”

“I do,” her father said, sounding a great deal more certain than she was at this point. “Get some rest. Now. That’s an order from your old man.”

“Yes, Gunny,” she answered dutifully, her heart brimming with affection.

However, despite the promise, she seriously doubted that she’d be able to sleep a wink, feeling tense as she was.

Hanging up, Lani put away her cell phone and slid onto the sofa cushion. The fire was all but out, but she made no effort to feed it and get it going again. Instead, taking the decorative blanket from the back of the sofa, she wrapped it around herself like a brilliantly colored cocoon.

Lani leaned back, willing her mind to stop racing. It didn’t help. She resigned herself to being up all night.

S
HE DIDN’T REMEMBER
her eyes closing.

But they must have, because the next thing she knew, along with the sunlight, Ellie was in the room, all but bouncing up and down and excitedly declaring, “He came, Lani, he came! Santa Claus came! I didn’t think Santa would find me because I’m not in California anymore, but he did! He tracked me down and found me. Santa came!” She clapped her hands together in glee.

Lani stretched, quickly trying to focus her thoughts. The ache in her heart dissipated somewhat in the face of the little girl’s excitement.

At least you made Ellie happy. That’s all that counts,
she told herself.

Lani smiled at her. “Santa Claus can always find children no matter where they go. It’s his job. He wants to make sure that they all get their presents.”

Ellie’s head bobbed up and down, her eyes shining. “And did you see? Santa found the angel, too!” she cried happily.

Maybe she was still asleep, Lani thought. She could have sworn she’d heard Ellie talking about the angel she’d lost. “What?”

Ellie was pointing to the top of the tree. “He found it. He found Mama’s angel. Look!” she said breathlessly, hopping from foot to foot.

Bracing herself, Lani raised her eyes to see what the girl was pointing at.

Her mouth fell open.

There, on top of the tree, was a wooden angel dressed in a resplendent gown. The figure had been painted, so that its hair was gold and its gown the light blue color Ellie had talked about.

How…?

“Lucky thing this is December and there’re no flies around, or an entire swarm would have gotten into your mouth by now.”

Startled, Lani swung around and saw Garrett coming in from the kitchen, carrying an overloaded tray in his hands. There were three plates, each with
a stack of waffles, complete with syrup, and pats of butter in the center, vying for space on the tray.

The man was bringing them breakfast. He was bringing
her
breakfast. Now she
knew
she had to be dreaming. The Sheriff Garrett Tanner she knew wouldn’t have been caught dead making breakfast—or letting anyone find out that he had made it not just for himself and his niece, but for her as well.