A Lawman for Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

  And yet…

  “Need guarding?” he repeated. “I’ve got a feeling that I might.”

  The answer delighted her and she laughed. A deep, throaty laugh that he felt go right into the center of his gut, tightening it.

  “You don’t know the half of it, Officer Donnelly,” she said.

  That, he realized, was just what he was afraid of. Or should be afraid of if he had half a brain, Morgan corrected. But right now, heaven help him, he was intrigued. And so powerfully drawn to this petite, dynamite stick of a woman that he felt completely tied up in knots inside.

  “I’ve got this strong feeling,” he said, just before he gave in to the urge to kiss her again, “that you’re going to show me.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Maybe I’d better go,” Morgan heard himself saying eons later when he finally forced himself to end the kiss that geometrically grew in intensity with every moment that passed by.

  Had they been alone…

  But they hadn’t been alone and that was a very good thing. Otherwise, mistakes would have been made.

  More mistakes, he silently corrected, because this shouldn’t have happened, either. Despite the fact that the kiss had rattled him down to his very toes, it had opened a door that should have remained closed if he was to have any peace.

  Okay, what was going on here? Kelsey silently demanded. Why did she feel like some schoolgirl who’d just been introduced to her first grown-up kiss? She wasn’t exactly a novice at this kind of thing, and the fact that she hadn’t been dating recently had been of her own choosing, not because no one was asking.

  But goodness, she couldn’t recall anyone ever stirring up her soul like that. No one had ever completely sapped away her breath or made her pulse race in the same way.

  Stunned, trying to focus on a world that had suddenly gone utterly out of focus, she nodded in response to Morgan’s announcement that he should be leaving.

  “You’ll call me?” she asked, her voice low and husky. “About my mother’s car, you’ll call me?” she clarified after a beat, realizing that, left standing alone, her original question sounded as if she wanted him to call her for a date.

  “The minute it’s done,” he promised.

  It was difficult to sound distant when his breath kept cutting out on him. He hadn’t been close to winded when he chased down a perp last week. So why would he be so breathless from kissing Kelsey?

  Morgan cleared his throat. “Tell your mother thanks for dinner. Your father, too,” he added as an afterthought. “It was…nice.” Nice was a paltry word, but right now he didn’t trust his voice to say anything lengthier.

  “You can tell them yourself,” she suggested, gesturing toward the dining room. Judging from the noise, she’d guess that the table was still being cleared away.

  But Morgan already had the door open, eager to make his getaway. “Gotta go.”

  The next second, he was gone.

  Amusement curved her mouth as Kelsey stood staring at the closed door. Had she just frightened off the big, strong, strapping policeman? Certainly looked that way.

  Makes two of us, Donnelly.

  Travis looked in, glancing around the room. “Where’s Morgan?”

  “Gone,” she told him simply, then turned around to face her brother. “He went home.”

  The news surprised him. “God, Kelsey, what did you do to the man?” Travis asked. He jerked his thumb behind him. “He didn’t even come back into the dining room to get his jacket.”

  “I didn’t do anything to him,” she informed Travis, breezing passed him. “He kissed me.”

  “Well, that explains it,” Travis commented. “You can be pretty scary when your lips are moving.”

  She didn’t bother answering her brother. Instead, she walked into the dining room.

  Morgan’s jacket was hanging on the back of the chair just where he’d left it. She made straight for it and went through the pockets.

  Watching her, Travis and Trent, the only other occupants in the room at the moment, exchanged looks and grinned.

  “Usually you’re a little more subtle than that,” Trent observed.

  Kelsey glanced up for a moment, pulling her lips into a quick smile before continuing with her examination. “No, I’m not. You’re just not around that much anymore.” And then, so they wouldn’t start up about how snoopy she was, she explained, “I’m just making sure Morgan doesn’t have anything in his pockets that he might need.” She drew out the last word as her fingers came in contact with something she judged Officer Morgan Donnelly needed a great deal.

  Withdrawing her hand from the jacket’s inside pocket, Kelsey held the prize triumphantly aloft. “He left his wallet.”

  “He’s going to need that,” Trent commented.

  Kelsey tucked the wallet back into the inside pocket and draped the jacket over her arm. “My thoughts exactly.”

  Travis put his hand out to her. “I could—” He never got to finish his statement.

  Anticipating what he was going to say, Kelsey cut him off. “So could I.”

  “You know, this isn’t like you, Kelse,” Trent observed. Travis nodded in agreement.

  “What?” she asked innocently. “Being thoughtful?” And then her eyebrows narrowed as she warned, “And, if I were either of you, I’d think very carefully before I answered that.”

  Travis held up his hands in a symbolic surrender. “Wasn’t going to say another word.”

  “Me neither,” Trent chimed in.

  Which was how Mike found them as he walked into the room with Miranda. He looked from one sibling to another. “What’s this all about?”

  Travis was quick to volunteer the information. “Kelsey ran Morgan off so fast, he forgot his jacket and his wallet.”

  Okay, enough was enough. “I did not run the man off,” Kelsey protested.

  Shifting over to stand beside her sister-in-law, Miranda draped her arm across Kelsey’s slender shoulders. “Stop picking on your sister, Mike.”

  “Me?” Mike cried incredulously. He pointed a finger at the triplet closest to him. “Travis was the one who said she ran Donnelly off.”

  “Okay, then all three of you,” Miranda amended, bringing Trent into it just in case he’d said something before she walked in. “Stop picking on your sister,” she said with the kind of feeling reserved for someone who was part of the family.

  Kelsey flashed her sister-in-law a grateful, conspiratorial grin. “Thanks, Miranda. Will you tell my mom that I had to run an errand but that I should be back in a little while?”

  Miranda turned so that her back was to the male members of the family. She mouthed, “Unless you get lucky” to Kelsey.

  “Not looking for that to happen,” Kelsey assured her with feeling.

  Grabbing her purse from the table by the front door, she was out of the house before anyone could say anything else to her.

  Donnelly was going to need this, she told herself, briskly walking down the driveway. She was only being responsible. Although, she could have just as easily called up and left a message on his machine, telling him that he’d forgotten his jacket.

  She was fairly certain that Morgan would have realized he’d left his wallet in his jacket pocket without her having to mention it. That way, he wouldn’t have known that she’d gone through the pockets.

  Reaching her car, she opened the driver’s side and tossed his jacket on the passenger seat before getting in. She started the car, then backed it out of the driveway.

  Traffic was light. She glanced at the jacket again. As a rule, men didn’t like having their pockets—especially their wallets—ransacked.

  Because that was where they kept their secrets, she thought, remembering. Her jawline hardened. Had she not absently browsed through Dan’s wallet, waiting for him to finish his shower, she would have never found the wedding photograph he kept stuffed between two credit cards.

  The pain of that discovery returned to her in spades, twisting her gut
.

  She recalled looking at the creased photograph for a long time, trying to come up with excuses for its existence. Excuses that explained why he stood beside a woman wearing a wedding gown. Excuses that explained why, if that woman was either his ex-wife or his late wife, he hadn’t gotten around to mentioning that little fact. Even after he’d started talking about marriage.

  The moment Dan had come out of the bathroom, a towel loosely wrapped around his hips and water still clinging to his hair, and seen her holding the photograph, he’d stumbled over his tongue. She’d never seen him so flustered.

  A man who had nothing to hide, who wasn’t guilty of abusing her heart, wouldn’t have stumbled over his own tongue, wouldn’t have alternated between anger and repentance, she thought.

  God, but she’d been such a trusting idiot, Kelsey upbraided herself.

  Amid a barrage of angry words, she’d thrown Dan out and then called Travis, asking him to have his firm’s investigator find out all he could about Dan.

  It didn’t take long. All her worse fears were proved correct. He was married. With a baby on the way. Dan had still tried to explain his way out of it, but she refused to listen. Instead, she warned him that if he ever came near her again, she would call his wife and tell her everything.

  She never saw Dan again.

  Remembering that, remembering how she’d felt, knowing she’d been duped, Kelsey suddenly pulled over to the side of the road. Putting the car into Park and pulling up the emergency brake, she let the car idle as she took the wallet out of Morgan’s pocket.

  The mental tug-of-war went on for less than a minute. She needed to know she wasn’t setting herself up again. Needed to know that Donnelly was exactly what he seemed, a single man.

  There wasn’t much in his wallet beyond his license, his police ID, his insurance card and a few bills in a separate compartment that added up to thirty-three dollars.

  The last place she checked was inside the fold intended for credit cards. That was when she found it. A single incriminating photograph. The kind of professional photograph taken in a studio. Her heart hurt as she stared at the photograph of Morgan standing beside a slender woman with long, blond hair. In his arms he was holding a little towheaded girl between them. She looked to be younger than two years old.

  In a hazy, bizarre way, Kelsey was aware of cars whizzing by.

  Damn it. Kelsey closed her eyes. They stung. Donnelly wasn’t worth the tears that seeped out between her lashes, she thought angrily.

  “When are you going to learn?” she demanded angrily, her voice a hoarse whisper. “When the hell are you ever going to learn?”

  Furious with herself, with Morgan, Kelsey started the car again. She almost plowed into an SUV, slamming on her brakes at the last second and pulling back onto the shoulder of the road. Her heart pounding, she watched through tears to make sure that there was no other vehicle about to barrel into her before she pulled back onto the road.

  The bastard!

  The lousy bastard. Acting so reserved, so damn polite when all the time…

  Kelsey pushed down on the accelerator. For once, she drove without checking her rearview mirror every few minutes to make sure there was no police car behind her. She was far too angry for that.

  She got to Morgan’s single-story house in record time. Leaving her car parked askew in his driveway, she had to double back to shut her door. She’d left it hanging open.

  Her anger building with each passing second, Kelsey strode up to Morgan’s front door and rang the bell. When there was no instant reply, she started knocking, then pounding on his door with her fist.

  “Damn it, Donnelly, I know you’re in there. Open the damn door!”

  The door opened just as she was about to pound on it again. He appeared puzzled and more than a little surprised to see her.

  Guilty and worried, most likely, Kelsey thought hotly. His wife was probably around somewhere and he would have to explain what she was doing here if he couldn’t get rid of her.

  Good. He deserved to be skewered, she thought angrily.

  Kelsey threw his jacket at him. “You forgot your jacket,” she snapped, pushing her way past him and striding into the living room.

  “Thanks.” He glanced down at the crumpled jacket. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized he’d left it. Kissing Kelsey had played havoc with his mind. But at least he wasn’t playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the same time, like Kelsey was. “Are you all right?” he asked, closing the door again.

  “I’m just ginger peachy,” Kelsey ground out.

  He assumed that her anger was somehow connected to her bringing the jacket over. “You could have just called and I would have come back for the jacket. You didn’t have to go out of your way to drop it off.”

  Instead of calming her, his words had the exact opposite effect. “You would have preferred that, wouldn’t you? That way, you could be sure that I wouldn’t run into her.” Kelsey strode around the room, glancing toward the hall as she raised her voice so that it would carry to other parts of the house. “Been lucky so far, but luck only hangs on so long, right?”

  He draped his jacket over the arm of the sofa, staring at Kelsey. “What are you talking about?”

  She swung around to glare at him, her hands fisted at her waist. “Don’t play dumb. I’m talking about your wife.”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. Everything inside of him went eerily silent and dark. And then he asked, his voice hardly louder than a whisper, “What?”

  Oh, no, she wasn’t buying into that dumb act. She was through being a trusting idiot. To think she actually had been entertaining the idea of sleeping with him. God, but she was hopeless.

  “You have a picture of your wife and daughter in your wallet.” She threw the accusation at him. “Don’t bother denying it.”

  “That I’ve got a picture of them? Why should I?”

  “No, that you’ve got a wife and daughter.”

  His eyes narrowed as the first part of what she’d said suddenly replayed itself in his head. “You went through my wallet.” His voice was flat.

  “No, I’m clairvoyant,” she retorted flippantly. “How else would I know about them? Of course I went through your wallet.”

  “Why?” The single word shimmered between them, lethal. Loaded.

  Throwing up her hands, Kelsey began to pace around the room, something she did when she was very angry or very agitated. Right now, she was both.

  “Because, like an idiot, I was hoping I wouldn’t find anything. But I did.” And it broke my heart. “I thought you were different, but you’re just like the rest of them,” she accused.

  He was doing his best to control his temper and understand. “‘Them?’”

  Was he trying to play dumb, or was he just dense? “Yes, them. Men. Policemen,” she amended because none of her brothers or her father belonged to this hateful brotherhood of lecherous creatures who blissfully lied their way into a woman’s bed. She stopped pacing and hurdled another accusation at him. “You kissed me.”

  How could he have done that? How could he have kissed her while he was married to such a beautiful, trusting woman? She could literally see the love, the trust in the woman’s eyes.

  To rein in his anger, Morgan started to grow distant. “I rather thought it was mutual. We kissed each other.”

  “Okay, maybe,” she granted. “Only difference is, I’m not married.”

  This tirade of hers finally made sense. “You think I’m married?”

  “Aren’t you?” The second she said it, Kelsey secretly prayed that Morgan could convince her that he was single. That the woman in the photograph was a relative. A sister maybe. Even an ex-wife. Anyone but his present wife.

  If he wanted this strange connection to end, all he had to do was tell her yes, he was married. Yes, that woman in the photograph was his wife, Beth, and the little girl he was holding was his daughter, Amy. Once that was established, Kelsey Marlowe would curse him and stomp out
of his life, leaving it just as empty as it had been before she’d come on the scene.

  So why wasn’t he telling her that? Why wasn’t he gratefully grabbing at the excuse Kelsey and fate had just presented him on a silver platter? It was the only sensible course of action. Telling her made sense in so many ways. And yet, here he stood, mutely watching her all but burn up like a meteor barreling into the earth’s atmosphere. Why?

  The answer was painfully obvious. Because he wanted her, wanted Kelsey, far-reaching complications and all.

  “Well?” she finally demanded, breaking the silence. “Don’t you have anything to say? Are you or aren’t you married?” Her hands were back on her hips. She stood a scant few inches away from Morgan, pugnaciously challenging him. “Lie to me. I dare you.”

  “If I was going to lie to you,” Morgan finally said, his voice dangerously low. “I’d tell you that I was married.”

  It took her a second to digest that. “Then you’re not married?”

  “No.”

  Damn it, she knew how easy it was for someone to lie to her. Why was there this sudden burst of hope exploding in her chest, radiating out to all corners of her?

  Stay on point, Kelsey. You don’t want to be taken for another ride. Not again.

  She didn’t want to walk away from him, either. What did that make her?

  The answer was easy. Crazy.

  She needed a push in the right direction, Kelsey reminded herself fiercely. “That isn’t your wife in the photograph?”

  He looked down at it again. It still hurt to see Beth and Amy. Hurt because they were no longer in his life. Was it always going to be that way? Would he ever be numbed to the pain?

  “I didn’t say that.”

  What was he trying to do, confuse her with fancy footwork and rhetoric? “So she is your wife,” Kelsey pressed.

  Morgan paused for a long moment, as he waited for the pain in his gut to subside. “You have your tenses wrong,” he finally told her.

  Chapter Ten

  “My tenses?” Kelsey repeated, confused. “What are you talking about?”