Lori Wilde - Mistletoe & Mayhem

“I’ll fix you some tea….” Mindy Lou began.

“No,” Jodie said again as she managed the first few steps. “I’m having a cappuccino.”

“But…you never drink coffee,” Mindy Lou said.

“I’m changing.”

“AREN’T YOU GOING to say I told you so?” Dillon asked as Shane rose to close the door behind Jodie. “Rutherford bolted, just as you thought he would. And now he seems to be back in Castleton.”

“You think he was the prowler at Rutherford House last night?” Shane asked.

“His aunts have a prowler the same night that their nephew jumps bail. He’s my top suspect.”

“The question is, did he get what he came for?”

Quickly, Dillon filled Shane in on everything Jodie had told him. “She says the man wasn’t carrying anything. He needed both hands to climb down the tree.”

“So they ran him off with fireplace pokers,” Shane said with a grin. “He’s lucky she didn’t have a gun.”

“Well, let’s hope his luck has run out. I’d still like to know how you figured he’d show up here.”

“When you’ve been hunting men for as long as I have, you get to know how they think. Castleton’s a summer place he used to visit as a child. After a twenty-year absence, he suddenly pays a month-long visit to his aunts just before the sky falls on his head. It’s a pretty big clue.”

“This sure puts a hole in your theory that Jodie Freemont is helping him out.”

“How do you figure that?”

“He wouldn’t have to break in if she was.”

“Maybe not.” Shane glanced out the window just as Jodie came into view. When he found himself wanting to smile, he quickly stifled the urge. The truth was he hadn’t quite made up his mind about Jodie Freemont. She was…different than he’d expected. She had imagination and an unexpected sense of humor. And then there was that passion that simmered just beneath the surface. He’d caught glimpses of it twice now in her eyes.

He watched her pause to look in a store window, then suddenly turn and hurry to the corner. Perhaps it was all that cool reserve laced with the promise of heat. It was the kind of contrast that would draw a man. The thought of it tempting a piece of scum like Billy Rutherford made him frown.

“You’re wrong about Jodie helping him hide the money,” Dillon said.

Shane turned his attention back to the sheriff. “I’m not so sure. She’s smart enough to be putting on an act.”

Dillon smiled. “Oh, she’s smart all right, smart enough to come here to check you out. She doesn’t buy your cover. She’s curious as to why you’re wandering around without a home to go to for Christmas. And she wants to know why a corporate executive would want to try his hand at carpentry. I told her it’s a midlife crisis. Is it?”

“That’s what we agreed you’d say.”

“I’m asking for myself, now. You own a big investigative firm, and Billy Rutherford is small potatoes compared to some of the men you’ve hunted. Why not send one of your operatives?”

Shane studied the sheriff for a minute. Beneath the laid-back attitude there was a persistence and a shrewdness he admired. He decided to go with the truth. “I’ve been out of the field for a while, and I was feeling restless.” Empty was the word he’d come up with in the wee hours of the morning to describe the mix of emotions he’d been experiencing lately. But it was much less disturbing to define them as simple restlessness. “Don’t you ever miss it? Being in the field, I mean?”

Dillon shrugged. “In a town like this there’s not much to miss. Anything exciting happens, I’m right in the thick of it.”

The phone rang, and Dillon grinned. “And when my deputy is out, I get to double as my own receptionist during lunch hour. Never a dull moment.”

While Dillon handled the call, Shane glanced out the window again, but Jodie had disappeared. Whether she was cooperating with Rutherford or not, he had a gut feeling that Ms. Freemont was the key to finding both the money and the man. His plan was to get close to her, and his job was going to be a lot more interesting and pleasurable than he’d first thought.

“One more thing,” Dillon said as he hung up his phone. “I’ve known Jodie Freemont since she was a little girl. I promised her I’d tell you to keep your distance.”

Shane’s brows rose. “Does she think I have designs on her?”

“She’s more concerned about Sophie and Irene—being taken in by a smooth-talking charmer was the way she put it. But I don’t want her hurt again, especially by someone who’ll be leaving town once he gets his man. Am I making myself clear?”

“As crystal,” Shane said as he rose and walked to the door.

AT FIVE O’CLOCK on the dot, Jodie started her car. Two things were driving her as she shot it out of the parking lot: escaping from Mindy Lou’s overbearing concern and building her snare trap in the attic. Clyde Heffner, the student who had downloaded the diagram, was going to drop by and help her string it up around eight-thirty, not a minute too soon.

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, when her boss Angus Campbell had been droning on about the contributors who would be attending the Mistletoe Ball, that she’d realized the significance of what Sheriff Dillon had told her. If Billy had come back to town, he could have been the prowler in the attic last night. And if he came back tonight, she wanted to have the trap all set! Catching Billy and turning him over to the sheriff would change her image in Castleton once and for all.

When she had to stop for the light at the corner, she turned the jazz music station she favored up full blast. Her car, a five-year-old red hatchback, was her one luxury. True, it wasn’t the convertible she’d always dreamed of owning, but…

She lost her train of thought the moment she spotted Alicia Finnerty stepping off the curb with a group of women. Wasn’t that just her luck? It would be too much to hope that the woman wouldn’t recognize her car. Way too much, she thought, as Alicia glanced at her significantly, then turned to chatter to her companions.

One by one, the other women looked her way with varying expressions of concern and curiosity. Jodie was tempted to roll down her window, grab the rope lying on her passenger seat and wave it at them. Instead, she forced herself to smile as the light changed and she eased her car around the corner. Her impulsiveness had already gotten her into enough hot water today. And it hadn’t helped her one bit. It had only contributed to everyone’s notion that she was exactly like her mother, a woman who would never recover from the loss of a man.

No, if she wanted to change her image in the town, she was going to have to do something that destroyed the idea once and for all that she was the type of woman who would spend her whole life pining over a man who couldn’t be tied down.

The moment she reached the village limits, she floored the gas pedal and watched the speedometer climb to fifty-five. When she automatically eased the pressure, she suddenly frowned. Why in the world did she always follow all of the rules?

Go For It! The moment the motto popped into her mind, she watched as the needle climbed to five, then six, finally seven miles over the speed limit. Not enough to get a ticket. Maybe she’d go for that tomorrow.

Tonight, she had bigger plans: catching Billy Rutherford. What had yesterday’s motto been? Visualize Your Goal. Even as she smiled at the thought, she decided to give it a whirl. It couldn’t hurt, could it?

In her mind, she pictured herself on the front page of the Castleton Bulletin, delivering Billy Rutherford to Sheriff Dillon.

Yes! She nodded her head in satisfaction. That one photo would truly be worth a thousand words. It would change her image in one fell swoop. With a jazz rendition of “Jingle Bells” pouring out of the radio, Jodie kept the picture clear in her mind until Rutherford House came into view.