The Sheriff’s Christmas Surprise

by Marie Ferrarella

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Dr. Baker—if you were good enough to attend Johns Hopkins, what are you doing here?”

  The look on his face told her that this wasn’t the first time he’d been asked the question. But there was no irritation in his voice as he said, “Because small towns need good doctors, too. Besides, Pine Ridge is my hometown. It feels good to give back a little something.” His tone told her the subject was officially closed. “Now, your sister’s doing fine. She has a remarkable constitution so, despite my being guardedly optimistic, I can honestly tell you that she’s coming along like gangbusters.”

  She wanted to believe that, but she had always been the cautious type. It was better to be braced than devastated. “But she was in that coma for so long.”

  “Sometimes, the body knows best. Being in a coma allowed her body to focus exclusively on healing her wounds. And it obviously worked,” he pronounced, pleased. Baker fished a card out of his other pocket and handed that to her as well. “If you think of any other questions, call me.”

  She looked down at the card in her hand, focusing on the phone number printed in black against the stark white background. “Is that the number of your service?”

  “No,” Baker told her, “that’s the number to my cell. I find the personal touch works better in Pine Ridge. And it works better for me, too,” he added.

  She thanked him again with feeling, thinking how lucky Tina was that this man decided to “give something back” to the town where he’d been born. And then she, Rick and the baby left the hospital to go home.

  She thought how good that phrase sounded, and then pushed back the thought and the feeling that the phrase generated before she started to get carried away. She knew the feeling had nowhere to go.

  “THANK YOU FOR STAYING—at the hospital,” she clarified when Rick glanced in her direction. For most of the trip home, she’d been quiet, pensive. He did his part and had left her alone. The radio droned on inaudibly in the background. “I was afraid you might leave, as usual.” It just seemed right, having him there with her when she spoke to Tina.

  “Special occasion.” He then added in a neutral tone, “Seemed like the right thing to do.”

  He was constantly downplaying his actions. Didn’t he know how unique he was? How good? “You’ve been really wonderful about all this. I don’t know where to begin to thank you.”

  “You just did,” he told her. Being on the receiving end of gratitude embarrassed him. He rolled her words over in his head a second time. “Actually, that sounded pretty final. You’re not thinking of leaving just yet, are you?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t without Tina. I was going to have her transferred to a hospital in Dallas, but she really does seem to be getting excellent care here and the last thing I want to do is risk upsetting her progress. That means I’ll stay in Forever until Dr. Baker releases Tina. I guess you’re still stuck with me.” It suddenly occurred to her that although she found the nights wonderful, Rick might feel he hadn’t signed on for this length of time. Her eyes shifted to him. “Unless—”

  He could see where this was going. Olivia was a beautiful, sharp woman, but not nearly as confident as she wanted the world to believe. Beneath the expensive suits and the aristocratic, classy lines was a small, somewhat insecure young girl who had never had the chance to lean on anyone for support. He found himself wanting to be the one whose shoulder she sought out.

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘stuck,’ Livy,” he told her.

  She desperately wanted to ask him what he would call it, but was afraid of pushing her luck. This little gem he’d just dropped would have to be enough.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Besides,” he continued, “I was thinking of putting you to work tonight.”

  “Oh?” This time, the single word was far more alert and cautious.

  He nodded as he watched his high beams cut through the darkness on the road. “I’ve got a box of Christmas decorations that I’ve been meaning to put up. My sister’s planning on coming home Christmas Day. She claims that the house looks happier when it’s decorated for Christmas. So, if you don’t mind joining me…”

  Last year, she’d been too busy to do Christmas, and Tina was out of the house more than she was in, so there didn’t seem to be a point. She hadn’t even put up a tree—not even the small artificial kind. The upshot was that she felt as if Christmas had bypassed her.

  Which meant she was clearly overdue.

  The corners of her mouth curved deeply. “I don’t mind,” she assured him.

  “Good.”

  The sight of his grin warmed her the rest of the way back to Forever.

  INSTEAD OF GOING straight to his house, Rick surprised her by pulling up at the diner first.

  Olivia eyed him quizzically.

  “I thought since Miss Joan has been taking care of Bobby, she deserves an update about Bobby’s mother.”

  She should have thought of that, Olivia berated herself. “Sure,” she agreed cheerfully.

  Rick stepped back, allowing her to enter first.

  It was only when she was inside the diner that Olivia realized he had let her go in first on purpose rather than just being polite.

  Miss Joan, Lupe, Rick’s deputies, Mick the mechanic and several people she had come to know in town were inside the diner and they all shouted “Surprise!” the minute she walked in.

  Dumbfounded, Olivia looked from the face of one person to the next, people who had been virtual strangers to her less than two weeks ago.

  “What is this?” she asked Miss Joan.

  Miss Joan came around the counter to stand beside her. As if she’d been doing it since he was born, she took Bobby into her arms.

  “It’s your party, honey. We’re celebrating your good news—your sister coming out of her coma,” the older woman explained in case the theme of the celebration still eluded her.

  Olivia found herself without words again. Not a good thing for a trial lawyer, but what she couldn’t find in words she more than made up for in feelings. Everything inside of her felt warmed as she basked in the thoughtfulness of these people who had seen fit to cross her path.

  She enjoyed herself a great deal.

  “HOW DID THEY FIND OUT?” Olivia asked Rick as, hours later, she stood up on tiptoe on the stepladder he’d provided to hang yet another ornament on the tree in his living room.

  The tree was fragrant and the scent of pine was everywhere, nudging memories of Christmases gone by from the depths of her mind. She couldn’t stop smiling.

  “I called to tell them,” Rick answered matter-of-factly as he attached a particularly delicate looking angel to a high branch.

  But he’d been with her at the hospital the entire time, she thought. “When?”

  Rick attached another ornament. “When I was in the hall with Bobby, giving you a few minutes alone with Tina.”

  Olivia climbed down to retrieve more ornaments. “You are sneaky, Sheriff.”

  “I prefer the word clever myself,” he said with a grin.

  Noting where she stood, Rick stopped what he was doing, caught her eye and pointed up toward the ceiling.

  When she looked, Olivia saw that he had somehow managed to put up a mistletoe without her realizing it. The sheriff of Forever was just chock-full of surprises, she thought warmly.

  “More of your cleverness?” she asked as he came closer.

  “Absolutely,” Rick said, enfolding her into his arms. “One of my better moments, actually.”

  She could already taste his lips on hers. “You’ll get no argument from me.”

  His grin grew wider. “I really wasn’t counting on one,” Rick said just before he brought his mouth down on hers.

  Olivia sighed with contentment, even as the passion began to build almost instantly, made that much more fierce because she knew her supply of moments like this was limited.

  Tina was conscious, meaning she was getting better, and they would be
on their way soon, back to Dallas. Back to the ninety-mile-an-hour life that she’d led.

  And things would go back to normal for Rick as well. Without her.

  Olivia wondered if, in a year’s time, he would even remember her name or who she was.

  The thought brought an ache into her heart. It wasn’t supposed to be there. She’d told herself that she’d accepted these terms the first time she’d made love with Rick. She’d known that this didn’t have the earmarks of “forever” about it. She lived in Dallas and he lived in “Dogpatch,” or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.

  And never the twain shall meet.

  Except that it had and he, as the saying went, had rocked her world. Rocked it each and every time they made love. She would never be the same.

  “What do you say we finish working on the tree tomorrow?” Rick suggested. The wicked twinkle in his eye utterly fascinated her. Everything about the man fascinated her. She was hopeless. But she might as well enjoy what she had while she had it. Before it faded away.

  She was more than willing to go along with his suggestion and nodded. “I always did like the minimalist look,” she told him. She did her best to appear serious as she asked, “What do you have in mind?”

  Rick surprised her by scooping her into his arms. “Guess.”

  Olivia laughed, lacing her arms around his neck. Glorying in the feel of his arms around her.

  “You’d better do it fast,” she coaxed. “Bobby’s been asleep for a couple of hours already. He’s due to wake up soon.”

  “Fast it is,” Rick said agreeably, brushing his lips against hers just to tease her. “And then, if we have any more time, how do you feel about slow?”

  He was kissing the side of her neck in between words, sending her body temperature soaring along with her pulse. Clouding her mind.

  “Slow?”

  “Uh-huh. Bone-melting, body-achingly slow,” he elaborated.

  His breath was hot along her skin and her core quickened. It was becoming a familiar response to him, to his very touch. What she was feeling was as close to yearning as she figured she had ever come.

  Or ever would.

  Her sigh came out ragged as anticipation raced rampantly all through her.

  “Slow sounds wonderful. Maybe you should do that first,” she managed to get out, each word emerging in slow motion, in direct contrast to the way her heart pounded.

  “I am nothing if not a servant of the people,” he told her dutifully, the words dancing along her breath-warmed flesh. “Your wish is my command.”

  “I’ll remember that,” she breathed with effort. “And I intend to hold you to it.”

  His eyes were already making love to her face, promising her things that had her whole body tingling with anticipation and excitement.

  “See that you do,” he deadpanned.

  They’d reached his bedroom. Shifting, Rick closed the door with his elbow and then set her down on the comforter as gently as a snowflake.

  Olivia held out her arms to him. “Shut up and kiss me.”

  “More good commands,” Rick acknowledged with an approving nod of his head. He slid in next to her to obey this order first.

  The kiss was passionate and only built from there.

  Bobby did his part by sleeping for another full hour. The hour didn’t go to waste.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After much waiting for delinquent parts that seemed to take their own sweet time arriving from a dealer close to a hundred miles away, Mick announced with a bit of pleased fanfare that her freshly reupholstered—thanks to Miss Joan—car was finally ready to go.

  The same could be said of Tina. Dr. Baker had released her sister from the hospital the night before, saying, oddly enough with the same sort of pleasure that Mick had displayed over the repaired vehicle, that Tina had made wonderful progress and that a full recovery was absolutely in her future.

  Everything, it seemed to Olivia, was ready to go. Except for her.

  At odds with her usual logical self, Olivia wanted to stay in Forever a little while longer. Stay, even though it wasn’t practical or really possible. Her life, her work, her apartment, they were all back in Dallas. Harris Norvil had called her and said, because of the season, all was forgiven if she would return. He was giving her a last chance and she would be a fool not to snap it up.

  There was nothing here in Forever for her. Nothing except for a sheriff with hypnotic eyes and a mouth that drove her absolutely wild.

  But that same mouth was not uttering words she needed to hear now. Packed and seemingly ready to depart, she was stalling, thanking Rick for his hospitality and for being so supportive during this whole ordeal. She was giving him every opportunity to say something, to “talk” her into staying even a week longer.

  But Rick wasn’t saying anything of the kind. He’d been silent throughout her entire little speech, as if he couldn’t wait for her to be finished so he could get on with his day. Get on with his life.

  And it was killing her.

  Say something, damn it, she pleaded silently. Tell me you want me to stay. Miss Joan told me you need a lawyer in Forever, but you never said anything about that, about my filling that slot. Or filling a place in your life. You didn’t even say anything about my coming back for Christmas. Was everything just in my head?

  They stood there, almost like two strangers, with her making inept, awkward small talk. Two strangers instead of two lovers who had come to life in each other’s arms, born again in each other’s kisses.

  Maybe it hadn’t meant to him what it did to her. Olivia tried to shut out the ache and be philosophical about the way life turned out.

  With a final, precise movement, she snapped the locks shut and put the suitcase on the floor beside the bed. She couldn’t stall any longer.

  “Listen,” she said with forced brightness, “if you’re ever in Dallas, just look me up. You’ll have a place to stay.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied stiffly.

  He’d decided to turn down the interview for the position on the police force, but now he was having second thoughts about his second thoughts. Making up his mind one way or another required calm, quiet reflection, which he wasn’t up to right now. His mind felt as if it was the center of a class-five hurricane, the antithesis of calm and quiet.

  There was nothing left to do but walk her out. Picking up Olivia’s suitcase, he carried it to the car for her. His gut was so utterly tied up in a knot, he felt like throwing up.

  Rick turned from the car to see Olivia come out with Bobby in her arms and her sister walking slowly beside her.

  He crossed to Tina and took her arm, threading it through his in order to give her the support she needed. Tina smiled her gratitude. In the few short days she’d spent here, she had come to like this tall, dark, handsome and somewhat stoic sheriff a great deal.

  “Thank you for everything,” Tina said as he opened the passenger door for her. She sank down on the seat, weary from the short trip she’d just taken. “And thank you for being so understanding about Bobby.”

  She knew without being told specifics that some other law enforcement officer might have turned the baby over to child services. That was still better by far than what Don had had in mind for the boy, but getting Bobby back would have meant going through hell.

  “Just doing my job,” Rick murmured, then realized how often he’d heard himself saying that these last couple of weeks or so.

  He glanced over the roof of the vehicle. Olivia had just finished securing the baby in his infant seat and was turning toward the front of the car. Their eyes met and held. He felt his insides twisting again.

  Damn it, stay woman. I can’t ask you to give up everything for me. I don’t have the right. But if you just said you wanted to stay, or at least that you didn’t want to leave just yet, then I could tell you what I’m feeling. That I want you here with me.

  But he remained silent.

  Olivia saw the expressi
on in his eyes, one she couldn’t quite fathom. “Do you want to say something?” she asked, mentally crossing her fingers.

  He wasn’t conscious of the careless shrug that he gave, but she was.

  “Just that I hope you have a safe trip.” He held the door open for her and she got in, sitting behind the steering wheel. “You’ve got my number in case you run into trouble between here and Dallas.”

  She slid the seat belt tongue into the slot. “And what, you’ll come riding to the rescue?”

  He laughed shortly. There was no humor in the sound. “More like driving to the rescue and hey, it’s the Texas way.”

  She nodded. This was pure torture. “We’ll be fine.” If I don’t break down and cry. She looked at Tina, who was already strapped in. “Let’s get you home, Tina.”

  Her sister breathed a sigh of relief. A look of tranquility seemed to come over her features. “Sounds good to me.”

  Olivia forced herself to smile as she started up the vehicle. “Yes, me, too.”

  Those were the last words he heard the woman who had his heart packed up in her suitcase say as he stepped back to let her leave.

  He watched her drive away until the car was nothing more than a speck against the horizon, then remained there a little longer.

  “HOW LONG WILL YOU go on being a jackass?”

  The question came from Miss Joan as she poured a particularly inky cup of coffee for him. Rick had come in on his evening break, as he had been doing almost every evening ever since he’d become sheriff of this town. But, unlike all those other times, there was a heaviness to his step, a preoccupation about the expression on his face. Just as there had been for the past five days. Ever since that girl and her sister had left.

  About to take a sip of the piping hot brew, he gazed up at the older woman. “What?”

  Penciled-in dark brown eyebrows furrowed as she regarded Rick. She’d known him, man and boy, and prided herself on being able to read him better than he read himself. “You heard me. How much longer are you going to go on being a jackass?”