Barbara Daille - The Lawman's Christmas Proposal

“You cowboy?” her son asked.

The kid must have remembered Pete calling him a former cowboy. He shook his head. “No, I’m a cop.”

“What’s a cop?”

“A policeman. You know, like a sheriff. With a uniform and a badge.”

“A badge? Mine. ”

Andi took his hand. “You borrowed Robbie’s badge, Trey, remember?”

“Mine,” the kid repeated.

Mine , Mitch had once thought when it came to the kid’s mother.

Wishing something so didn’t make it happen. He’d first learned that years earlier with Andi’s abrupt departure. He’d had his latest lesson only a few weeks ago during an undercover op shot to hell.

Feeling he had failed in both instances didn’t sit well with him at all. He couldn’t save his partner, but he sure could try to find out what troubled Andi.

* * *

“JED IS OUT by the honeymoon cabins, I think,” Paz told them. “Tina wanted to show him something the workmen had done.”

Sagging in relief, Andi rested one hip against the kitchen table. With her son’s short legs, the walk back to the hotel had seemed to last forever. She and Mitch had discovered both the sitting room and Tina’s office empty. Now, thanks to Paz, she could send Mitch off on his own.

“Looks like you’re busy in here,” he said.

Paz nodded. Cooling racks filled with cakes and cookies had taken over almost every flat surface. The kitchen smelled of cinnamon and cloves. “It’s never too early to start my Christmas baking.”

“Cookie, Paz,” Trey demanded.

“What do you say?” Andi prompted him.

“Please.”

Smiling, Paz took a cookie from one of the racks.

“Let’s go track down Jed,” Mitch said.

Andi frowned. “You can do that on your own. I’ll stay here with Trey.”

“I think I’ve forgotten how to get to the cabins.”

She glanced at him, then away again. After what he had said about cops, she didn’t know which was worse from his perspective, locking gazes with him or refusing to look his way at all. She knew what was better for her. Looking. Staring. Getting her fill.

Better for her, but much too risky.

“That’s fine, Andi,” Paz said. “You leave Trey with me and go right along with Mitch.”

“Great,” he said, halfway across the room without waiting for her answer.

Grimly, she followed him out to the porch and down the steps. He took his time, favoring his bad leg. Despite her irritation with him, she had to bite her lip to keep from asking how much he hurt.

She was so wrapped up in concern for him, she hadn’t realized he’d reached the bottom step. He turned back, catching her off guard. Instinctively, she bit down harder, then winced from her own pain.

“It is that bad?” he asked. “Seeing how I hobble down steps like a two-year-old who’s just learned to walk?”

“You handled those steps quite a bit better than my two-year-old does,” she said matter-of-factly. Still, knowing how Mitch must feel made her eyes mist.

“Those tears for me?”

“Of course they’re not.” While she had stopped a couple of steps up, he stood on the ground, putting them at eye level. This time, she was determined not to look away, no matter how his cop’s training would interpret her stare. No matter how shaky her reaction to his blue eyes left her feeling. “I accidentally bit my lip and it hurts. Not as much as your knee must, though, I’m sure.”

“I don’t need your pity, Andi.”

“That wasn’t pity. It was a not-very-smooth attempt to find out what happened.”

“Why? So you can fix it?”

“I never said—”

“You didn’t have to. There’s nothing wrong with me a few weeks of rest won’t cure. And maybe this.”

Before she could blink, he had cupped the back of her head as gently as he had cupped her cheek, urging her toward him. Once his mouth met hers, she had nothing but the memories of another time and another place and all the feelings that came with them.

For this one long, heart-stopping, teenager-in-lust-again moment, she loved Mitch Weston as desperately as she had the last day they had been together. She kissed him as desperately, too, without a thought for her tender lip or her obligations or anything but how she’d always felt when Mitch held her. He was broader now, sturdier, more muscled...and an even better kisser.

Reluctantly, she pulled herself together, resting her hands on his wide shoulders to anchor herself. No, to prepare herself. Finally, she pushed away.

Her legs trembling, she went down the rest of the steps, fighting the urge to raise her hand to her mouth. To touch the warmth he had left against her lips. To hold back the words she would not and couldn’t afford to say.

With unsteady hands, she smoothed her hair as she attempted to catch her breath. “Are you crazy? It’s broad daylight and we’re out here in the open and anyone could have seen us. I told you I don’t want to fix you.” Liar. “So just what was that supposed to prove?”

“I thought it might help speed the healing.”

“Of my lip?”

“No, my knee.” His chest rose, as if he were struggling with his breathing, too. He gave her a crooked smile. “All right, that was also to prove you haven’t forgotten me any more than I’ve forgotten you.”

“Maybe I haven’t. They say you never forget your—” first love “—first kiss. But I’ve had other kisses since then.”

He whistled. “That’s cold, Andi.”

“That’s the truth.”

“All of it?”

She stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“C’mon, don’t play dumb with me.” His laugh sounded strained. “You kissed me back just now.”

“Like I had a choice?”

“We always have choices.” For a moment, his face hardened and his eyes looked bleak.

“I don’t think so. Not always.” He was remembering their past. Good. She wouldn’t have to lay things out for him. And hopefully, once she had finished here, she would never again have to face a sneak attack on her pitifully weak defenses. “When I left you that summer, it wasn’t my decision. But I am making the choice to walk away now.”

Chapter Five

So much for the shy little Andi he had once known. The girl he’d had to coax out of her shell had grown into a strong woman whose still-quiet manner hid one heck of a sucker punch. He could use her as the bad cop to his good cop during an interrogation. He could even admire her skill—if not for the fact that she’d used it against him...and then walked away.

He had changed from the day he first met her, too, in more ways than he wanted to deal with at the moment. But despite everything, he still had a few skills of his own, including his bulldog tenacity when it came to getting to the truth of a matter.

He glanced after Andi, whose hip-swaying departure just about wiped her words from his memory bank. It definitely overrode any annoyance he’d felt at getting sucker punched.

Besides, he’d faced a hell of a lot worse and was still standing. He wasn’t about to let her knock him down. Or to let her get away.

He followed her across the Hitching Post’s backyard toward the cabins a few hundred yards ahead. “Looks like Jed’s had the honeymoon havens fixed up, along with the rest of the place.”

“Yes,” she said shortly, not looking at him. “I’m surprised you noticed the improvements, considering you didn’t seem to recall much about the cabins.”

He laughed. She had seen through his ruse. No big deal. He’d never hoped to get away with claiming he didn’t know the location of the site—not when they’d once spent a rainy afternoon making out in one of those honeymoon havens.

In two strides, he caught up to her. “I recall plenty. But you want to help jog the rest of my memories?” When her cheeks turned pink, making her eyes look even more blue, he couldn’t hold back a smug smile. Yeah, she remembered that day, too.