The Marshal's Prize (Harlequin American Romance)

by Winters, Rebecca

  How pathetic that Mitch was now thirty-four and he still hadn’t let the dream go. In his gut he knew he didn’t want to live in Florida. It had never felt like home. No place had ever called to him. The closest he’d ever come to such a feeling was right now as he turned into Heidi’s driveway. Her garden and window boxes were a riot of color. Everywhere he looked was evidence of her handiwork.

  Then he saw her standing on the front porch waiting for him.

  She fulfilled him.

  She thrilled him.

  Chapter Six

  “I can smell pizza,” Heidi said as they walked into the kitchen. She was too happy to see Mitch to focus on food, but she figured he was starving.

  “Before you try it, I want you to taste the dessert in this sack.” She turned around, smiling up at the most appealing man she’d ever met. “Close your eyes first and keep them closed until I tell you to open them.”

  Mitch’s mysterious behavior had aroused her curiosity. “What’s this? Dessert before dinner? I don’t do well on sugar before I eat.”

  “Neither do I, but I’m asking you to make an exception this once. Go on. Just one bite,” he urged in a solemn tone.

  Heidi decided she’d better close her eyes, sensing he wasn’t just playing with her. He put something right against her lips. It was sweet all right. “Why did you bring me donuts?”

  “Will you please stop asking questions and obey me?”

  “Obey you?” She laughed “That sounds serious. All right. Because you asked me so nicely, I’ll do it.” She bit into it and chewed it before swallowing. “Mitch, I could have brought donuts home from our No. 2 store if you’d asked me. You’re a tease, you know that?”

  He didn’t laugh back. “There’s no question in your mind this is a Bauer donut?”

  “None.” She kept smiling. “If you’re trying to trick me, it won’t work. I’ve probably eaten hundreds of them in my lifetime and know what our donuts taste like.” He was standing so close she could feel his warmth. A couple of inches more and she’d find his mouth. More than anything she wanted to taste it. She kept waiting for him to kiss her. “Do you still want me to keep my eyes closed?” The suspense was killing her.

  “No. You can open them.”

  Something was wrong. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to kiss her, after all. She felt like a fool and did his bidding.

  “This is what you bit into.”

  He held up the donut she’d just taken a bite out of, but her head was still reeling from errant thoughts that had nothing to do with donuts and everything to do with taking a delicious bite out of him. Or him out of her, whichever came first.

  Hadn’t he wanted to kiss her? It was all she’d been able to think about. In her confusion she blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  “Have you ever seen a Bauer donut that looked like this?”

  He reached into the sack and pulled out another one, holding both up. They were identical. Forcing herself to concentrate, she noticed they were larger than a normal-size donut, and they had a smaller hole at the center.

  She frowned. “I didn’t know we were trying out a new nozzle. The idea hasn’t come up in our board meetings. Whoever has been experimenting is going to be in trouble for this. Which one of our outlets sold this to you?”

  “This is where the donuts came from.” Mitch held up the donut sack so she could see the advertising on the front. She hadn’t paid any attention to it before. He’d been the only thing to fill her vision.

  Drop In Family Pub—featuring music, games, homemade pizza and donuts.

  Open to all ages seven days a week, 11 to 11

  Alpine, Utah

  He watched her, obviously waiting for a response. All the time since he’d arrived at the house, she’d thought he’d been setting her up for a kiss because he couldn’t hold back from kissing her any longer. Instead he’d been using her as a guinea pig in order to prove that the Drop In Family Pub was serving Bauer products to the public.

  Disappointment consumed her for being wrong about him. She fought to recover so he’d never know what was going on inside her. A tiny gasp escaped her throat.

  “You know what else I think?” His eyes bored into hers. “I think this pizza has been made with Bauer potato flour. Are you up for one more experiment?” He lifted the lid of the pizza box.

  Heidi took a piece and bit into it. The consistency of the dough was lighter than that of ordinary pizza. She took several more bites before putting it down. “I’ve never eaten anything like it before, but I’d have to make some pizza from scratch using the potato flour to prove this pizza was made with it.”

  Mitch put the donut sack on the counter. “I found out from the waitress that the pub opened six months ago. Quite an enterprise someone is running with your company’s products.”

  Her mind was trying to put all this together. “Mitch, our company doesn’t have an outlet or franchise in Alpine, Utah.”

  “I knew that from the information you gave me earlier. From the beginning I’ve wondered where the stolen mix bags had gone. Today I followed the truck I’d loaded in the afternoon. I called one of my crew to help provide backup. To my surprise, the truck driver turned off at Draper.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. He drove to a storage facility where a pickup truck was waiting to offload the stolen bags of mix and flour. You can bet a load of fifty bags of mix and flour are dropped off at that storage facility every time a Bauer truck heads south. Once the transfer is made, the driver continues on to make official deliveries in Utah and elsewhere. Someone’s got a perfect system in place.”

  “How does anyone dare do something like this?” She was so upset she grasped his arms, acting on impulse. But when she felt a tremor pass through his powerful body, she realized what she’d done and quickly removed her hands.

  “Far too easily, I’m afraid,” he answered in a husky voice.

  Embarrassed by her impulsive gesture, she said, “Tell me everything that happened today. Don’t leave anything out.”

  “Why don’t we sit down?” he murmured. “I have some videos to show you. Perhaps you’ll be able to identify some of these people.”

  For the next half hour she watched the pictures on his iPhone, but didn’t recognize anyone except the driver of the Bauer truck, Matt Sayer, who’d been with the company at least three years. She listened while Mitch gave her a blow-by-blow account of his day at the plant, including the clandestine meeting of the two trucks at the storage facility.

  “This is the proof Bruno wants, Mitch. You’re a genius,” she said in awe. He’d uncovered things with such lightning speed, she could hardly take it in. At this rate he’d be gone out of her life in a flash. She sprang to her feet in turmoil. “Excuse me for a moment.”

  She hurried to the bathroom, not wanting him to see her tears. The realization had just started to sink in. She needed to get a grip. After washing her face and applying fresh lipstick, she started back to the kitchen, praying he wouldn’t know all the reasons she was torn up inside.

  Since last Monday she’d been living with the knowledge that someone in her family was stealing from the company. That was bad enough, but in a week’s time something else had transformed her personal world, shaking her to the roots.

  Mitch Garrett had happened to her. She was crazy about him!

  Her pulse raced when she saw him at the end of the hall waiting for her. “I know this has come as a blow,” he said with compassion, “particularly because we’re getting closer to fingering the suspects spearheading this. Naturally it pains you to think anyone in your family could be this treacherous. If you’d prefer that I deal solely with Bruno from here on out, I’ll understand.”

  No-o— Mitch hadn’t fully understood why she was so upset. She didn’t d
are tell him the truth. How could she? She knew he liked her, but she couldn’t be positive he was attracted to her romantically. He’d had an opportunity to kiss her in the kitchen, and it killed her that he’d let the moment go.

  When she’d grasped his arms a little while ago, she wasn’t sure if the tremor she’d felt was because he hadn’t liked the contact. Or maybe he had liked it, but didn’t feel he could act on his feelings while he was doing his job as a P.I.

  “I want to see this through,” she asserted, trying to present a calm exterior. “What’s the next move?”

  An unreadable expression crept over his features. “Tonight I’m headed for the office to go through the videos taken at the plant. One of the crew from the surveillance van is going to bring me the tape taken after I left today. Once I’ve viewed all of them, I’ll have a much better idea of who’s involved.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  She heard him take a deep breath. “Nothing at the moment. I’ll phone you in the morning and tell you what I’ve learned. We’ll go from there.” At the front door he paused and turned to her. “What would be the best time to call?”

  “Any time,” she replied, wishing he didn’t have to go. “I’m always up early.”

  Heidi thought she glimpsed a flash of desire in his eyes, but if she was right, he didn’t act on it. The next thing she knew he was out the door. When he’d driven away, she locked up and hurried to the kitchen, needing to do something to get rid of the ache that had attacked her body since his arrival.

  The first thing she thought of doing was to place the food in plastic bags and put them in the freezer. Her father and Bruno would want to see the evidence. She flattened the donut sack and slipped it in her purse for safekeeping.

  Unable to concentrate on the ten o’clock news, filled as always with terrible things that had happened to people, she turned it off and got ready for bed. She could just imagine the field day the media would have if bad news leaked about the Bauer company.

  But even that stayed in the background of her mind because all her thoughts were centered on Mitch. One day soon he’d be gone for good. The pain hit with full force.

  Heidi didn’t need to put a name to the reason for the pain. She’d fallen in love, totally, gut-wrenchingly in love. She knew it the way you knew the sun was going to come up in the morning.

  After a restless night, she showered and washed her hair. Whatever the day brought, she wanted to look her best in case she saw Mitch. No—there was no in case about it. She planned on seeing him before the day was out.

  Once she was dressed, she fixed breakfast for her and Zack. Together they put his bike and helmet in her car before driving to her parents’ home. While she was getting it out of the trunk, she heard her cell phone ring, but she couldn’t get to it. She’d left it on the front seat.

  “Here you go, honey. Wheel it up to the porch.”

  She closed the trunk and got back in the car, saw that the call she’d missed was Mitch’s and had to phone him. “Mitch?”

  “Good morning. You sound out of breath.”

  She was always out of breath around him. “I couldn’t reach my phone in time. Sorry.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In my parents’ driveway.”

  “You haven’t seen them yet?”

  “No. Why?”

  “There’s something I want you to look at and help me make sense of.”

  Her heart thudded. “Where are you?”

  “At my apartment.”

  “I’ll ask my folks to watch Zack for a little while and I’ll be right over.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. Dad’s as anxious as Bruno to stop what’s been going on. I should be there in about ten minutes.”

  “Pull into the carport and park behind my car. I’ll leave the door open.”

  Her body pulsated with excitement. “See you soon.” She hung up.

  “Are you going to go to Mitch’s apartment?” Zack asked. He must’ve overheard her when he’d come around her side to wait for her.

  “Yes,” she answered honestly, “but I won’t be long.”

  “I want to come with you.”

  “You can’t, honey. Your grandparents are waiting for you.”

  “But I want to see Mitch.”

  Don’t we all. “Maybe later.”

  “How come you’re so mean?”

  “Zack Norris—” she used her parental tone “—that was not a nice thing to say to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “But can we do something with Mitch later?”

  “I don’t know what his plans are. Look! There are Grandma and Grandpa on the porch waiting for you. Show them how well you can ride your bike.”

  * * *

  MITCH DRANK COFFEE on his veranda while he waited for Heidi. The air was unusually muggy this morning. After a full week of blue skies, fast-moving clouds had started massing. There’d be a thunderstorm before long, the kind he loved.

  After coming home from the office late, he’d lain awake afterward tortured by longings for Heidi that were growing stronger by the second. Once she’d touched him, grasped him the way she had, that was it.

  Though she’d done it blindly in reaction to the news, his gut told him it was a move totally out of character for her. A watershed moment, as far as he was concerned. If she had any idea how much he’d wanted to devour that gorgeous mouth of hers last night—

  “Mitch?”

  At the sound of her voice, he turned and went back to the kitchen. His breath caught at the sight of her. She wore a sensational-looking sundress of a rich plum color she filled out to perfection. It had, short pleated sleeves. That color with her golden hair made a miraculous combination. She was bare-legged and wore bone-colored sandals. He groaned inwardly. A man could only take so much.

  He set his empty cup on the counter. “You look beautiful.” Even that was an understatement.

  She came back with “You’re nice, but it’s the dress.”

  Mitch saw a pulse throbbing at the base of her throat. Did she really not know how she affected a man? Her bad marriage had done even more damage than he’d thought.

  “I get so sick of wearing pants every day,” she said next.

  “If you wore that at my mostly male office, you’d start a stampede.”

  She blushed. “Hardly.”

  Oh, lady. If you only knew.

  He reached for a stack of photos he’d printed out at the office. “Let’s go out on the veranda. With the cloud cover, the temperature is actually pleasant.”

  “I noticed that driving over. I noticed something else, too. Your car has Michigan license plates.”

  “I have my reasons.” He followed her out the sliding door, getting the benefit of the subtle lemon scent he associated with her. After they sat down, he put the photos in front of her. Mitch was so on fire for her, he had to force himself not to pick her up and carry her to the bedroom.

  “I viewed the tapes last night and enlarged certain segments into eight-by-ten photos for you,” he said. “According to the organizational chart you drew for me, Nadine Owens oversees the entire mix process.”

  “Yes. She’s Frieda’s granddaughter and runs the show in there. Bruno gave her that job when I was put in as head of human resources.”

  “That explains why she’s the one who inserts the yellow stock cards with the numbers and destinations.”

  Heidi nodded. “The count is so important, Bruno prefers a family member to be entrusted with that responsibility.”

  “I need to know more about Nadine. What’s she like?”

  Heidi averted her eyes. “If you want to know the truth, she intimidates me.”

 
“You?”

  “Just a little. She’s pretty perfect in everything she does. As long as I can remember, she’s worked for the company and still manages to have a happy marriage.”

  One of the many things Mitch loved about Heidi was her honesty. The divorce had really brought her down. “How old is she?”

  “I think she’s thirty-nine, maybe forty.”

  “Does she have a big family?”

  “Two children, one in high school, the other in college. She’s as dependable as a Swiss clock. That’s how Bruno describes her. Hale and hearty. It’s the reason he put her in that position. Her work ethic is amazing, a model for everyone else. As far as I know, she’s never taken a sick day.”

  Mitch winced at her comments, hating even more what he had to do. “Take a look at this first picture, caught by the camera in the flour storage room at 2:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon. Isn’t that person Nadine who appears to be instructing two of the men to load the motorized cart with flour?”

  Heidi studied it for a minute. “Yes. The mix room must be low on inventory, so she’s having more flour sent in.”

  Mitch didn’t respond. Instead he put another picture in front of her. “This picture was taken at the same time by the camera in the mix room. If you’ll notice, the shelving is full of flour bags and everyone is busy.”

  He watched her study the picture and noticed how quiet she’d suddenly gone. She didn’t move a muscle.

  “Here’s a third picture. We’re back to the flour room. Twenty-five bags of flour have now been loaded. Nadine is inserting the yellow stock cards between the last two bags.”

  “But those are flour bags….”

  “That’s right.” Mitch handed her another picture. “This is the mix room again. Two men are loading the sealed bags of mix on top of the flour bags already placed on the cart. Now study this series of pictures.”