LITMIR.BIZ

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       CHAPTER ONE

      SHE REALLY NEEDED to learn how to say no once in a while.

      Andrea Montgomery stood on the doorstep of the small, charming stone house just down the street from hers on Riverbend Road, her arms loaded with a tray of food that was cooling by the minute in the icy December wind blowing off the Hell’s Fury River.

      Her hands on the tray felt clammy and the flock of butterflies that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her stomach jumped around maniacally. She didn’t want to be here. Marshall Bailey, the man on the other side of that door, made her nervous under the best of circumstances.

      This moment definitely did not fall into that category.

      How could she turn down any request from Wynona Bailey, though? She owed Wynona whatever she wanted. The woman had taken a bullet for her, after all. If Wyn wanted her to march up and down the main drag in Haven Point wearing a tutu and combat boots, she would rush right out and try to find the perfect ensemble.

      She would almost prefer that to Wyn’s actual request, but her friend had sounded desperate when she called earlier that day from Boise, where she was in graduate school to become a social worker.

      “It’s only for a week or so, until I can wrap things up here with my practicum and Mom and Uncle Mike make it back from their honeymoon,” Wyn had said.

      “It’s not a problem at all,” she had assured her. Apparently she was better at telling fibs than she thought because Wynona didn’t even question her.

      “Trust my brother to break his leg the one week that his mother and both of his sisters are completely unavailable to help him. I think he did it on purpose.”

      “Didn’t you tell me he was struck by a hit-and-run driver?”

      “Yes, but the timing couldn’t be worse, with Katrina out of the country and Mom and Uncle Mike on their cruise until the end of the week. Marshall assures me he doesn’t need help, but the man has a compound fracture, for crying out loud. He’s not supposed to be weight-bearing at all. I would feel better the first few days he’s home from the hospital if I knew that someone who lived close by could keep an eye on him.”

      Andie didn’t want to be that someone. But how could she say no to Wynona?

      It was a good thing her friend had been a police officer until recently. If Wynona had wanted a partner in crime, Thelma & Louise style, Andie wasn’t sure she could have said no.

      “Aren’t you going to ring the doorbell, Mama?” Chloe asked, eyes apprehensive and her voice wavering a little. Her daughter was picking up her own nerves, Andie knew, with that weird radar kids had, but she had also become much more timid and anxious since the terrifying incident that summer when Wyn and Cade Emmett had rescued them all.

      “I can do it,” her four-year-old son, Will, offered. “My feet are freezing out here.”

      Her heart filled with love for both of her funny, sweet, wonderful children. Will was the spitting image of Jason, while Chloe had his mouth and his eyes.

      This would be their third Christmas without him and she had to hope she could make it much better than the previous two.

      She repositioned the tray and forced herself to focus on the matter at hand. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else.”

      She couldn’t very well tell her children that she hadn’t knocked yet because she was too busy thinking about how much she didn’t want to be here.

      “I told you that Sheriff Bailey has a broken leg and can’t get around very well. He probably can’t make it to the door easily and I don’t want to make him get up. He should be expecting us. Wynona said she was calling him.”

      She transferred the tray to one arm just long enough to knock a couple of times loudly and twist the doorknob, which gave way easily. The door was blessedly unlocked.

      “Sheriff Bailey? Hello? It’s Andrea Montgomery.”

      “And Will and Chloe Montgomery,” her son called helpfully, and Andie had to smile, despite the nerves jangling through her.

      An instant later, she heard a crash, a thud and a muffled groan.

      “Sheriff Bailey?”

      “Not really...a good time.”

      She couldn’t miss the pain in the voice of Wynona’s older brother. It made her realize how ridiculous she was being. The man had been through a terrible ordeal in the last twenty-four hours and all she could think about was how much he intimidated her.

      Nice, Andie. Feeling small and ashamed, she set the tray down on the nearest flat service, a small table in the foyer still decorated in Wyn’s quirky fun style even though her brother had been living in the home since late August.

      “Kids, wait right here for a moment,” she said.

      Chloe immediately planted herself on the floor by the door, her features taking on the fearful look she had worn too frequently since Rob Warren burst back into their lives so violently. Will, on the other hand, looked bored already. How had her children’s roles reversed so abruptly? Chloe used to be the brave one, charging enthusiastically past any challenge, while Will had been the more tentative child.

      “Do you need help?” Chloe asked tentatively.

      “No. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

      She was sure the sound had come from the room where Wyn had spent most of her time when she lived here, a space that served as den, family room and TV viewing room in one. Her gaze immediately went to Marshall Bailey, trying to heft himself back up to the sofa from the floor.

      “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “What happened?”

      “What do you think happened?” he growled. “You knocked on the door so I tried to get up to answer and the damn crutches slipped out from under me.”

      “I’m so sorry. I only knocked to give you a little warning before we barged in. I didn’t mean for you to get up.”

      He glowered. “Then you shouldn’t have come over and knocked on the door.”

      She hated any conversation that came across as a confrontation. They always made her want to hide away in her room like she was a teenager again in her grandfather’s house. It was completely immature of her, she knew. Grown-ups couldn’t always walk away.

      “Wyn asked me to check on you. Didn’t she tell you?”

      “I haven’t talked to her since yesterday. My phone ran out of juice and I haven’t had a chance to charge it.”

      By now, the county sheriff had pulled himself back onto the sofa and was trying to position pillows for his leg that sported a black orthopedic boot from his toes to just below his knee. His features contorted as he tried to reach the pillows, but he quickly smoothed them out again. The man was obviously in pain and doing his best to conceal it.

      She couldn’t leave him to suffer, no matter how nervous his gruff demeanor made her.

      She hurried forward and pulled the second pillow into place. “Is that how you wanted it?” she asked.

      “For now.”

      She had a sudden memory of seeing the sheriff the night Rob Warren had broken into her home, assaulted her, held her at gunpoint and ended up in a shoot-out with the Haven Point police chief, Cade Emmett. He had burst into her home after the situation had been largely defused, to find Cade on the ground trying to revive a bleeding Wynona.

      The stark fear on Marshall’s face had haunted her, knowing that she might have unwittingly contributed to him losing another sibling after he had already lost his father and a younger brother in the line of duty.

      Now Marshall’s features were a

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