He took a sip of brandy. “If you’re hoping Molly will attend the party, you should call her mom in the morning so she can put the date on her calendar.”
Amanda nodded. “What if there’s a glitch in getting some deputies to stand guard?”
He grinned and rubbed his fingertips together. “No glitch. I’ll make it worth their while. It won’t cost much, and after Molly leaves, we can tip them with dinner. I reserve the right to remove my party hat before I invite them in, however. I’ll act like a goof for the kids, but when men outside my family enter the house, all bets are off.”
“You plan to wear a cone hat with squiggly bits on top?”
He laughed. “Of course. For Chloe, I’m up for anything.”
Amanda believed he truly was.
“In future, though, let’s do a bigger party in May. Is that a deal? She’ll be happy, and so will I until she turns sixteen. Then I may have a coronary, worrying about boys.”
She cast him a curious look. “You talk as if we’ll all be together far into the future.”
He caught her hand and pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles. The silken brush of his lips over her skin made her heart skip a beat. “That’s my plan.”
* * *
The following evening, Jeb announced that tomorrow they’d go for a merry-go-round lunch and a visit with Santa. Chloe got so excited that Amanda had to read her four stories before getting her to sleep. The next morning, Chloe hit the floor and bounced around like a yo-yo. Amanda could barely manage to get her dressed.
“You need to calm down, sweetness.”
Her eyes as round as dimes, Chloe cried, “But, Mommy, today I get to meet Santa! And Mr. Jeb is buying us lunch on the merry-go-round!”
Amanda knew how thrilling that was for Chloe. She’d never gotten to sit on Santa’s knee, and she’d long wished to eat at Dizzy’s Roundtable Restaurant. Crouching to fuss with her daughter’s hair, Amanda said, “I know it’s very exciting, but if you don’t calm down, you’ll forget to tell Santa what you want for Christmas!”
Chloe shook her head. “Nope! I know exactly what I want most, and I won’t forget.”
“And what is that?”
Chloe made a face. “I can’t tell you, Mommy. I can only tell Santa.”
Amanda’s heart squeezed. If Chloe didn’t reveal her Christmas wish, she might not get what she wanted. “Sometimes,” she tried, “Santa needs a little help from mommies.”
She shook her head. “Mr. Jeb says Santa has heaps of helpers, elves making toys and Mrs. Claus keeping track of children’s wish lists so he doesn’t forget anybody.”
Amanda needed to have a talk with Mr. Jeb.
He had already started breakfast when they got downstairs. He prepared Amanda a coffee with cream and sugar, just the way she’d come to like it, and then he made Chloe hot chocolate with miniature marshmallows. Amanda sipped her java while she helped finish the meal. Chloe sat at the table, writing down her Christmas wishes. When Amanda sidled close, the child covered the list.
Under her breath, Amanda informed Jeb of her dilemma. He grinned and bent low to whisper, “You worry too much. I’ll take care of it. The secret is a tip.”
“A what?”
He grinned. “A tip, as in a gratuity. If I slip Santa a twenty, he’ll spill his guts.”
Amanda almost choked on an unexpected giggle.
It was gratifying for Amanda hours later when Jeb was the one in a panic. After tipping Santa to share Chloe’s Christmas wishes, Jeb gave Amanda and Chloe a tour of the menagerie, briefly visiting Treasure Adventure Antiques, Mystical Confections, a couple of travel agencies, Betty’s Hair Affair, and the Morning Grind, a coffee and pastry shop. Except for the hair salon and bookstore, the places of business were operated by enterprising young people ranging in ages from mid-twenties to early thirties.
The last stop before having lunch at the revolving round table was Old and Antiquarian Books, a cavernous place rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a man who’d been killed on that spot years ago when the sawmill was still running. As Chloe scampered ahead of them to see Pop, real name Paul Kutz, an old man who seemed to live his life between the pages of musty books, Jeb drew Amanda to a stop.
“We’ve got trouble. She wants a dollhouse, complete with furniture and residents.”
Amanda smiled. “That’s doable. We can order everything online.” Now that she’d received her first bimonthly payment from Jeb, she felt borderline rich. No outlays for rent, utilities, or groceries! Amanda couldn’t say the sky was the limit for Chloe this Christmas, but she had enough money to make sure the child had lots of birthday presents and Santa gifts under the tree. “I’m sure you can get furniture and dolls online as well.”
He looked appalled. “My father built my sisters’ dollhouses and made all the furniture. My mom helped him decorate and got the dolls, complete with outfits.” He studied her face. “Don’t you get it? It needs a yard. It needs stuff on the porch. It needs landscaping. Hello, it has to look real, only in miniature.”
At that moment, Amanda completely lost her heart to this tall, wonderful man. “All right. We can make that happen.”
Jeb arched an eyebrow. “We don’t have much time, Mandy. It’ll be a lot of work.”
“I’ll help.”
“Deal.” Jeb’s brows drew together. “For Sarah, Dad got a dollhouse kit, but it took hours to assemble, and then he had to glue the precut furniture pieces together.”
Amanda glanced after Chloe, feeling uneasy. With all the precautions Jeb had taken, she had been able to forget Mark for large blocks of time, but being careless was foolish. “We’re letting our guard down,” she told Jeb.
“My guard isn’t down, Mandy. Three deputies in plain clothes are tailing us. They have Mark’s face memorized, and they’re watching for him.” He sprang into a long-legged trot and headed in Chloe’s direction. “I’ll go get her, though.”
Amanda looked around the cavernous building and immediately spotted Barney. He wore jeans, a ball cap, and a green parka, under which, she felt sure, was a police-issue gun. When he caught her studying him, he winked at her.
Amanda was about to race after Jeb when her cell phone rang. She drew the device from her pocket to see that it was Clyde Johnson calling. The conversation was short and to the point. The divorce hearing would take place on January 11. He had no doubt that Amanda would succeed in denying Mark unsupervised visitation, but this wouldn’t be a trial for his criminal offenses, only a dissolution of the marriage.
“What does that mean, exactly?” she asked.
Johnson answered, “It means that even if he loses, he’ll still be at large and royally pissed.”
Amanda’s shoulders slumped under a crushing dread.
“I got this on the court dockets three months early by calling in a favor from the judge,” Johnson continued. “If she rules that Mark isn’t allowed unsupervised visitations, he won’t be able to file for temporary visitation privileges with Chloe before the divorce is final.”
Amanda clung to those words. “Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Protecting Chloe is the most important thing.”
“You sound as if you’re pretty shaken up. Don’t get nervy. By the time you take the stand, you’ll be so well briefed you’ll slam-dunk your testimony.”
Amanda expressed her gratitude, but the moment they hung up, she went into a panic. The hearing date wasn’t that far away. Despite the restraining order, Mark could legally show up in court to argue his case, and she knew he wouldn’t miss a chance to torment her. That meant she’d have to testify with him in the room. He’d smirk when she told the truth. Then he’d lie through his teeth and put her through sheer hell.
The wonder of Christmas seemed to have slipped through her fingers and been lost to her. No. She wouldn’t let Mark ruin this holiday. She wouldn’t.
* * *
>
After bringing his ladies back from the Mystic Menagerie, Jeb took Bozo out for a quick potty run. He circled the house, looking for pink slips of paper. His search didn’t go unrewarded. Pressed against the south end of the concrete foundation, he found a message. Every day, I grow more attracted to him. At night while we talk, I almost tell him, and then I chicken out. I’m afraid he’ll interpret it as an invitation to make love to me, and as much as I want that, the thought still makes my insides go cold.
Jeb smiled, sad and happy at once. It was good that she felt attracted to him, but it was a shame she was afraid to share her feelings. Two can play this game. Jeb folded her message and tucked it in his pocket. Later, when he found a moment alone in his office, he wrote on the back of her note. Be careful when you toss messages into the wind. Do it fast, get back in the house, and reset the alarm. He considered what to say next. Don’t stop writing the notes. I like finding them again. You can tell me things on paper that you aren’t yet ready to say to me in person. You’re beautiful. You’re special. I want you. But anything worth having is worth waiting for, and you are definitely worth waiting for.
Jeb sneaked upstairs to the bedroom Amanda shared with Chloe. He tucked his reply to her message under her pillow, where she’d find it that night when she turned in.
* * *
That evening after Chloe was asleep, Amanda found Jeb waiting for her at the table with their customary snifters of brandy. Instead of sitting across from him, she drew a chair around to sit beside him. Feeling the warmth of his body and smelling his cologne helped ease her anxiety as she told him about Johnson’s call and the hearing date.
“I’m going to have to face him in the courtroom.” Anger laced her mounting hysteria. “Even though he broke in here and meant to kill me, he’s still free as a bird! And in January, not even the restraining order will be able to keep him away. He has a legal right to present his side before a judge.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Jeb said, his voice husky and warm. “Come here.”
Amanda felt his hard arm slip around her, and she moved toward him without hesitation, needing to feel his strength. She’d struggled to hold her feelings for him in check, but as she moved onto his lap and clung to him, she knew that not only had she lost the battle, but she didn’t care. She’d fallen in love with this man, and she trusted him as she’d never trusted anyone. Jeb. He was everything she’d ever dreamed of, and more.
“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured against her hair.
“How? When he goes to trial in California, the judge may only slap his hand!” Amanda tried to control the shrill edge in her voice. “Chloe and I will never be safe.”
“Here, with me, in Mystic Creek, you’ll be safe.” He shifted her weight so he cradled her more comfortably against him, and then lifting her altogether, he carried her to the living room. After settling on the sofa, he continued. “Remember how, when we first met, you couldn’t understand our neighbor-helping-neighbor motto? Well, there’s another underlying creed. Here in Mystic, we protect each other.”
Amanda pressed her face against his neck, loving how the vibration of his voice thrummed through her as he informed her that the sheriff and all his deputies had spoken privately with Mark before he was released.
“I don’t know precisely what each man said,” he confessed, “but I do know Sheriff Adams told him never to enter the Mystic Creek city limits again. They’ll give him a pass for the hearing in Crystal Falls, but if he comes to our town, he’ll regret it.”
“Can someone be forbidden from entering a town?”
Jeb chuckled. “By the letter of the law, I doubt it, but Sheriff Adams considers Mark a threat to your safety, and he’ll fall back on the good-old-boy system. He’ll tell his deputies to arrest Mark, even if they have to fabricate a reason.”
“Fabricate?”
“I know it sounds bad, but if Mark comes here, he’ll have malicious intent. A deputy may arrest him for breaking the restraining order and swear he caught Mark near this house even if he was two miles away. Mark will have a hard time proving that an officer is lying.”
Amanda shuddered. “Mark will just have another forged letter from me, inviting him to come for visitation, and he’ll be free in a blink.”
“Nope. Adams submitted the original letter to a handwriting expert, and the guy sent back a document this morning declaring it a forgery. He says it was definitely not your writing.”
Amanda frowned against his shirt. “But I never submitted any of my own writing so he could compare the faked against the real.”
“I submitted a sample of your writing. It’s amazing how useful a grocery list can be sometimes.”
Amanda released a startled giggle. “You stole that grocery list? I looked for it all over.”
“Sorry, but it was a perfect sample, showing how you form all your lowercase letters and a lot of uppercase. Why you capitalize the first letter of every item is a mystery, but I was glad of it. I slipped it to Barney the night he helped change the locks. He took it to the sheriff. We now have documented proof that Mark forged the first letter, and he’ll never get away with that trick again. If he breaks the restraining order, Adams will be able to keep him in jail.”
“For how long?”
“Up to six months, I think,” Jeb replied. “Until the abuse trial, if we’re lucky, and if he’s found guilty then, he should do prison time.”
Amanda sighed, amazed that he’d somehow managed to wipe away her mounting anxiety.
“What if he slips past our guard again without anyone in the sheriff’s department realizing he’s in town?”
Jeb pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Amanda realized that she wished those lips weren’t being wasted on her hair. “I won’t be unprepared for him again. Next time, Bozo will kill him if I don’t get to him first.”
“I hope Bozo isn’t first. They might euthanize him.”
Jeb chuckled. “Over my dead body. If a dog bites the mailman, that’s one thing. But if he goes after a killer, that’s different. Sheriff Adams would probably award Bozo a medal and make him an honorary canine cop.”
Amanda felt as if her bones had melted. “Have I told you that I love you?”
A brief silence followed. “Not in so many words.”
“Well, I do, Jeb. I used to write my dreams on slips of paper and send them flying away on the wind. Now I have you, and all my dreams have come true.”
His mouth curved in a smile. “I never sent my wishes flying away on the wind, but I did cling to what my mom always told me, that I’d find the woman of my dreams when I least expected it. And in a tumbledown house, I finally stumbled across her.”
Amanda made fists on his flannel shirt, thinking that the cloth, sturdy and durable, was also soft and soothing against her skin, just like its owner. Now that declarations had been made, she expected and accepted that Jeb might want to seal the bargain with sex. But, no. He’d surprised her at every turn since she’d met him, and he didn’t change tactics on her now.
“Have you called your mom yet?”
She squeezed her eyes closed. “I’ve tried, but I can’t do it. It will be so hard to tell her everything over the phone. I won’t see her face. She won’t see mine. I lied to her, you know. Repeatedly. I wanted to keep her safely out of Mark’s world. Before Dad died, I lied to him, too. My parents loved me. They adored Chloe. Daddy would have tried to take Mark on, and after he was gone, my mom would have done the same.”
Jeb ran a big hand along her side, carefully avoiding her breast. That didn’t lessen the fiery sensation that raced over her skin or prevent her nipples from pebbling. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for protecting your parents. It was the right thing to do.”
The guilt of having lied and covered for Mark had long eaten at her. “Do you really think so?”
“I know so.” She hung there, waiting to
hear the rest. “You tried the cops. That backfired. Way I see it, you got shanghaied. All you could do was wait for a port of call to jump ship. When you saw your chance, you got away.”
Amanda needed to hear him say the words that she’d recently said to him. “I told you I love you, but you didn’t say it back.”
This time his chuckle was a deeper rumble. “I love you, Mandy, with my whole heart. And for me, your daughter is a part of the package.”
“Chloe will be so upset.”
She felt him go tense. “She will?”
“Oh, yes. Since moving to Mystic Creek, she firmly believes that true love can occur only when two people meet on the natural bridge.”
His lips grazed her temple. “That’s a twist on the actual legend. In truth, the story goes that any lonely stranger who stands along the stream or on the bridge will find true love. I’ll be sure to set her straight. Or, once Mark is neutralized, we can meet on the bridge so she’s convinced we’ve got the real deal.”
Amanda absorbed those words. “Do you think we’ve found the real deal?”
She felt his muscles tighten around her. “Sweetheart, I’m willing to bet the rest of my life on it.”
In Amanda’s mind, this was when a man lifted a woman into his arms and carried her to bed. She felt nervous to the point of nausea, and yet another part of her was crestfallen when he only held her. In romances, this wasn’t how it went.
Almost as if Jeb sensed her thoughts, he murmured, “You’re not quite ready yet, Mandy. For now, let’s get back to your mom. You need to call her.”
“I dread it.”
“I doubt you’ll tell her anything she hasn’t already suspected. Was she a loving mom?”
“The very best.”
“Do you have her number on your phone?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you bite the bullet and call her?”
Amanda knew he was right; it was time. She drew away from his embrace and stood. “Do you mind if I use your office? For this conversation, I’ll need some privacy.”