LITMIR.BIZ

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      In the sudden silence the music pouring out of the radio behind the counter seemed to grow louder. “All I want for Christmas is…”

      “That gun.” Jodie quickly pointed to the smallest pistol in the case before she could change her mind. “Could I hold it?”

      “I can’t sell you a gun.” As if to emphasize his point, Hank moved forward and planted his hands, palms down, on the glass-topped counter.

      Jodie peered between Hank’s thick fingers, trying to keep the gun she’d chosen in view. Visualize Your Goal. In her mind, she pictured yesterday’s motto of the day, one of many that her landlady Sophie Rutherford had been magnetizing to her refrigerator door over the past two months. She’d had plenty of time to practice her visualization skills last night while she’d listened to a prowler walk stealthily across the attic floor.

      For just a second, the memory flashed through her—the creak of a board, the tension curling cold and tight in her stomach, the icy shivers shooting through her veins while she waited for the next sound…and the next.

      Picturing a gun in her hand had helped her to keep the fear at bay.

      But the one she’d imagined had seemed smaller, less lethal-looking than the one in the display case. How would it feel in her hand, she wondered? If she could lift it, would she actually be able to point it at someone and shoot it?

      Raising her eyes to Hank’s, she said, “If you’re worried that I can’t afford it, I have cash.”

      Hank leaned closer, pitching his voice low. “You’ve got every reason to be feeling a little low, losing your fiancé and your house all in the space of a few months. But what you need is a new young man, not a gun. Billy Rutherford isn’t the only fish in the sea.” Moving around the counter, Hank took Jodie’s arm, patting it gently as he steered her up the aisle. “See that man at the cash register, the one with the fishing pole. He’s new in town.” Pausing, Hank winked at her. “And the Mistletoe Ball is less than a week away. Let me introduce you to—”

      Jodie stopped short. “I didn’t come here for an introduction.” Or a date! She barely kept herself from shouting the words. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the man with the fishing pole smile. He’d heard her whole life story and now he was laughing at her.

      Next to him Alicia Finnerty had her mouth open like a guppy, absorbing the whole scene.

      “My mother told me not to have anything to do with strangers,” Jodie said and immediately bit her tongue. She sounded like a prude. When the stranger’s grin widened, anger mixed with her embarrassment.

      “That was good advice when you were young,” Hank said, still keeping his voice low, “but you’re a grown woman now, and you don’t want to spend all your life pining away for a man who walked away.”

      Like your mother did. Hank didn’t say the words out loud, but Jodie could hear them hanging in the air before she said, “I won’t. I’m not. What I need right now is a gun.”

      “Well, I’m not going to sell you one.”

      “I can buy one somewhere else.”

      “I reckon you can, but whatever you might think right now, suicide is not the answer.”

      “Suicide? I don’t want that gun to…You can’t think that I…” Jodie stopped because the concerned, pitying look on Hank’s face revealed that was exactly what he was thinking. And one quick glance toward the front of the store told her that he wasn’t the only one thinking it. The stranger wasn’t grinning anymore. And Alicia Finnerty could hardly contain herself. Any minute now she would make a break for the door so she could pull out her cell phone and start blabbing the news.

      “It’s the holidays,” Hank said. “Lot’s of people get depressed around Christmas. What you need is something to look forward to—like a date for the Mistletoe Ball.”

      “Hank, I want that gun because last night there was a prowler in the attic.”

      “Did you call the sheriff?”

      “I tried, but the phone wasn’t working. Even if it had been, the Rutherford sisters and I are alone in that house, and we’re two miles from town. All we had to defend ourselves with was fireplace pokers.”

      “Well, you go on over and tell the sheriff right now,” Hank said. “Let him handle it.”

      Jodie opened her mouth and then shut it. She could try to explain to Hank that she and the Rutherford sisters might be dead in their beds before the sheriff or one of his men could even get to the house, but she wasn’t going to change his mind. He was not going to sell her a gun. And if she read Alicia Finnerty’s expression right, by tonight everyone in Castleton would know that poor Jodie Freemont was thinking of committing suicide.

      “Fine,” she said. “I’ll just take some strong rope. Give me some of the stuff that they string sails up with.”

      As Hank’s eyes narrowed, she hurried on. “I’m going to use it for…hauling a Christmas tree to the house.” It was a lie. If lightning was going to strike her, she might as well make it a good one. “Sophie and Irene are putting up a second tree in the dining room so we’re going to dig up a fresh one and replant it later.”

      “How much do you need?” Hank asked.

      Pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket, she glanced down at it. “Thirty yards.”

      As Hank ambled off to the back of the store, Alicia Finnerty cleared her throat. “That’s a lot of rope.”

      Turning to find the older woman at her elbow, Jodie couldn’t resist saying, “The better to hang myself with, my dear.”

      “Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my.” Her hand at her throat, Alicia Finnerty backed toward the door, pushed against it, and bolted out onto the sidewalk.

      “She thinks you really intend to do it.”

      It was the stranger who’d spoken, and when Jodie turned, she found herself looking into the darkest pair of eyes she’d ever seen. Black smoke, she thought. The kind that blinded you. Though her gaze never left his, she was aware of dark hair falling below the collar of his blue work shirt, strong cheekbones, a square jaw, and lines etched around his mouth. Tall, dark and tough, not pretty. This wasn’t a man you’d want to run into in a dark alley. Or an attic. She felt something curl in her stomach. Not the cold ball of fear she’d experienced last night when she was listening to those footsteps. No, this was something different, something warm…no, hot.

      Then she watched, fascinated, as his lips curved in a smile and his eyes lightened to gray. This time he wasn’t laughing at her, but with her, and the warmth inside of her grew. Quite suddenly, she felt as if she’d known him for a long time.

      But she hadn’t. Just as she hadn’t really known Billy. Taking a step back, she said, “Maybe I do intend to do it.”

      “No.” The man shook his head. “I don’t think so. You’re not the type.”

      “Not the type for what?” Hank asked, bagging the coil of rope and placing it on the counter.

      “Nothing,” Jodie said, grabbing the package.

      “Where’d Alicia go?” Hank asked.

      “She—” Jodie and the stranger spoke the word together. When she glanced at him, he was smiling again.

      “Ms. Finnerty had a pressing engagement,” he said.

      Hank grinned at them. “With her cell phone, I’ll bet. I take it you two have introduced yourselves.”

      “No.”

      Once again they spoke in unison. This time, Jodie kept her eyes on Hank and said, “I’ll have to take a rain check on that introduction.” She backed toward the door. “My lunch hour is nearly over. I’ve barely got time to meet Sophie and Irene before they head off to

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