A Kiss in the Snow (Kindle Single) (Fool's Gold) (4 page)

She bought the polar bear and a few minutes later found a beautiful handmade lap quilt for Gladys. They continued to walk around the event and found themselves at the animal adoption. A large fluffy cat with tiger stripes on his face caught her attention. For a second, her chest tightened. Without warning tears filled her eyes, and she had to look away.

“What’s wrong?” Shep asked.

She shook her head and walked quickly toward the exit. He followed.

“Nancee?”

“That cat looks like Calvin. I miss him so much.”

“The cat your boyfriend kept?”

“Ex-boyfriend and yes. Technically Sean is the one who adopted him.”

“So take him back.”

“I can’t walk into his house and take the cat.”

“That’s the lawyer in you talking. What’s Sean going to do? Physically stand in your way?”

“I don’t know. I’ve sent him a few emails. To be honest, I can’t force him to do anything. Not legally.” She looked back at the cats in the adoption area. “And before you ask, I don’t want a substitute. I want Calvin.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” She held her bags in one hand and lightly pressed her free hand to his chest. “I have to get back and start baking. Thank you for today. I had fun.”

“Me, too.”

He bent down and kissed her. Just a light brush of his mouth against hers, but it was enough to make her knees weak.

“I want to see you again,” he told her. “How do you feel about that?”

An interesting question. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “You scare me.”

His gaze was intense. “Is that a no?”

“It’s not a no.”

He smiled. “Good.” He kissed her again. “I’ll see you soon, Nancee.”

She nodded because she was afraid to speak. Not because her voice would shake or something but because of what she would say. Something along the lines of “Stay with me forever” seemed very likely. So she kept quiet and told herself that hope would be very, very foolish right now.

CHAPTER FIVE

N
ANCEE
CHECKED
HER
CALENDAR
. She had a two-day break in her baking schedule. An unexpected but nice thing to discover. She would use the time to make sure she had enough supplies to get her through the rest of the holiday season. Shelby had warned her there would then be a lull until Valentine’s Day.

The timing for that was perfect, Nancee thought as she dried her freshly washed cupcake pans. She would be able to figure what she wanted to do next with her life. Did she want to continue practicing law? Did she want to bake cupcakes? Did she want to try something else? And once she’d answered those questions, there was still the biggie of where all this was going to happen? Here? DC? Somewhere else entirely?

She hadn’t heard from Shep for a couple of days, which surprised her. He’d told her he would be in touch. Not that she was going to read anything into his actions. Or at least she would try not to. Maybe he was giving her space. Or was busy. If things got bad, she could ask her great-aunt. After all Gladys and Shep texted plenty.

But for now she was simply going to go with the flow and think about the next batch of baking she had to start.

The opening notes to “Bad to the Bone” played somewhere from the back of the house. As it was Gladys’s phone, Nancee didn’t pay attention. A minute or so later, her aunt hurried into the kitchen.

“We have to make chili,” Gladys announced. “A lot of it. I have a recipe. Do you think it would be faster to go buy ground beef or defrost what I have in the freezer?”

“Chili?”

“It’s hot and filling and easy to eat,” her aunt said. “For the search and rescue teams. There are two lost teenagers in the mountains. They went out on snowmobiles yesterday and didn’t come back. I can’t believe no one called me before now. I could have been helping.”

Nancee glanced out the window. There hadn’t been any new snow, but temperatures were well below freezing. A knot of worry formed in her stomach. Not just for the teens but for the people who were out looking. Shep would be one of them, she thought, feeling even more anxious.

“I hope they’re going to be all right,” she murmured, then shook her head. She couldn’t help with the actual searching, but she could cook. She turned on the larger oven.

“What ingredients do you have for chili?” she asked.

She and Gladys went over what was in the pantry and freezer. They decided to use fresh ground beef for one chili and rotisserie chicken for another. Gladys left for the grocery store. Nancee collected the ingredients they would need, then started a large pan of corn bread.

Less than two hours later, they were loading food into Nancee’s Outback. She drove slowly to the HERO offices and found that there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. More than one family was delivering food.

Eddie, Gladys’s BFF, joined them and helped carry everything inside. Nancee set down a large pot of chili and looked around. She was surprised to see how big the offices were. There were lots of computers, a huge screen with a map on it and what looked like dozens of dots moving in different directions.

“It’s all computerized,” Gladys told her. “They have GPS trackers and everything. Very high-tech. Eddie and I volunteer, but they wouldn’t let us go through the training.”

Eddie grimaced. “They said we were too old, if you can believe it. So we stay home with the womenfolk and bake cookies.”

Nancee did her best not to smile. The two friends were pushing eighty. She wasn’t surprised that they weren’t allowed out in subfreezing temperatures to trek through the mountains.

Large tables had been set up along the back wall. The food that could sit out at room temperature was set out. Other dishes were either put in the refrigerator or in a surprisingly large warming oven.

Her aunt introduced her to Kipling Gilmore, the head of HERO. He showed her how the various dots on the map represented different searchers. She located Shep’s tracker. He was moving east, higher into the mountains.

No wonder she hadn’t heard from him, she thought anxiously. He’d been out in the cold for close to twenty-four hours. So had the teenagers.

She and Gladys sat with the other volunteers. Various teams called in their locations. The map shifted, colors filling in to show areas that had already been searched. About an hour later, she heard a familiar voice over a speaker.

“I’ve got ’em,” Shep said, his voice low and strong. “They’re cold and hungry but conscious. There might be some minor frostbite. We’re bringing them in now.”

Everyone in the office cheered. Nancee inhaled as relief filled her.

“Let’s get this food heated up,” Gladys called. “Everyone’s going to be hungry.”

Within a half hour, the first of the search teams started to arrive back at headquarters. Nancee helped set up a buffet line. As each group arrived, she checked the door to see if Shep was back, but it was almost two hours until he walked in.

He looked tired, and his jacket was covered with snow. Kipling greeted him and the two men went into Kipling’s office to talk. Nancee’s gaze followed as she did her best to see if he was okay.

She heard people say that the teens were being taken to the hospital to be evaluated. That Shep had been the one to find them. That they probably wouldn’t have survived another night.

He’d always been someone who got the job done, she thought. Strong and brave—except when it came to staying in one place. Although she knew
why
he found it difficult to settle down, she’d always had trouble accepting that his past meant he would always leave her.

He’d told her that this time was different. That he’d made peace with his demons. She desperately wanted to believe him but wasn’t sure she could. Still, after nearly ten years of loving Shep, she didn’t know if she had a choice.

CHAPTER SIX

“A
RE
YOU
SURE
there wasn’t a bigger one?” Nancee asked, doing her best not to laugh as Shep wrestled a giant Christmas tree into her great-aunt’s living room. He and Gladys had gone shopping for the tree while Nancee had finished up a cupcake order. Now the three of them would decorate the tree together.

Nancee was, she had to admit, excited about the evening. She hadn’t spent any time with Shep since their day at the Christmas bazaar. He’d been out on the rescue, then had slept for nearly twenty-four hours straight. While they’d texted since then, something always kept them apart. But he was here now, and they would have a nice evening together.

She’d already helped Gladys get the lights and decorations out of a back bedroom closet. The totes were stacked by the fireplace. Christmas carols played on the small ancient stereo. She had a spicy chicken casserole in the oven, a pie cooling on the counter and a tree to decorate. What could be better?

Despite the size, the tree fit in the living room perfectly. Gladys wanted it set up in front of the big picture window. The 1940s craftsman-style house had high ceilings on the main level and lots of custom touches. It was a welcoming home, and the Christmas tree only added to the ambience.

The smell of pine quickly filled the living room, and, for a second, Nancee thought about her childhood Christmases—when her mom had still been alive. These days she saw her dad a couple of times a year. He’d remarried. While her stepmother was a pleasant enough woman, Nancee had never felt close to her.

“Lights first,” Gladys said firmly. “Then ornaments. No tinsel. I’ve never liked it, so I don’t keep it in the house.” She put her hands on her hips. “You’re going to have to deal with it if you find that upsetting.”

Nancee pressed a hand to her chest. “My Christmas heart is breaking,” she teased.

Gladys narrowed her gaze. “I’m ignoring your pain. No tinsel.” She picked up her handbag. “All right. Eddie and I are going to the Man Cave. There’s some ridiculous football game on, and while neither of us care about it, we heard a rumor that Jack, Sam and Kenny are going to be there.” She smiled sweetly. “Kenny always lets me pat his butt.”

The last statement was almost enough to distract Nancee from the main point of her great-aunt’s statement. “I thought we were decorating the tree tonight.”

“Not me,” Gladys told her. “You two. I won’t be back until late. You’re going to be here yourselves. Alone. I hope that’s clear. And I’ll make a lot of noise when I come back.”

Nancee felt herself blushing. “You don’t have to leave. We’re family. We should do this together.”

“I’ve put up plenty of Christmas trees in my day. It’s time for you young people to do a little work.”

Shep finished adjusting the tree in the stand. He winked at Gladys. “You can pat my butt anytime.”

“I’m going to take you up on that.”

She put on her coat and scarf, then waved and disappeared into the late afternoon.

Nancee raised and lowered her shoulders. “That wasn’t the least bit subtle.”

“I’m okay with us hanging out together,” he told her. “If you are.”

Heat quickened in her belly before expanding to the rest of her body. Some quality alone time with Shep? When had that ever been a hardship? “Sure. It will be fun to put up a tree together.”

“I’m not that experienced. You’ll have to direct me.” He glanced at the fireplace. “Let me get a fire going.”

She nodded without speaking, but on the inside, there were a thousand words. Most of them he wouldn’t want to hear. Things like how badly she felt that he hadn’t had a normal childhood with loving parents and presents on Christmas Day. That once he’d gotten out on his own, there hadn’t been anyone to share the holidays with. She and Shep had only been together in the summer. This was the first Christmas they would spend together.

She briefly wondered if there had been other girlfriends over other holidays, but decided not to go there. Shep had plenty of flaws—the biggest of which was his inability to settle in one place. But when he was with her, he’d never been anything but faithful and attentive.
All in
, she thought with a smile.

While she had no way of knowing how many family Christmases he’d had in his life, she would make this one special. A holiday he would remember happily, whatever happened between them. She already had her present for him. She’d had it more than four years, to be honest. Despite everything, when she’d stumbled on a copy of the limited edition of
Birds of America
by John James Audubon, she’d immediately thought of him. The book had been published in the first half of the nineteenth century and had hundreds of full-color plates. As Shep loved all things from nature, she knew he would be excited to own the book. Funny how she’d kept it all this time, and now she could finally give it to him.

Once he’d lit a fire in the fireplace, they went to work on untangling lights. There were yards and yards of them—all clear lights that Nancee suspected would twinkle. Gladys struck her as the twinkle light kind of gal.

“What’s your dad doing for Christmas?” Shep asked as he stretched out yet another string of lights. They laid them on the floor to figure out how many strands they had. Once they were sure all of them worked, they would start stringing them.

“He and my stepmother are taking a cruise with her family. The Caribbean.”

“You didn’t want to go?”

“When they were making their arrangements, I was still under investigation by the FBI and I couldn’t leave town. I didn’t know how long that was going to last, so I didn’t want to make a reservation.”

She plugged in the first set of lights. They lit, and she unplugged them, then handed the string to Shep.

“You want to start at the top and work your way down,” she told him. “Leave that end plug accessible. There’s a big tree topper that will plug into it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

His voice was teasing. She laughed. “You did tell me to take charge.”

“I like it when you take charge.”

His words made her shiver. Because there had always been chemistry between them, she thought wistfully. And he was the kind of man comfortable with a woman telling him exactly what she wanted. Shep didn’t worry about things like convention. When they were in bed, he was into whatever felt good for both of them.

“Are you sorry you’re not on the cruise?” he asked, drawing her back to their conversation.

“No. When the FBI finally said I could leave town I could have tried to book a cabin, but to be honest I wasn’t excited about joining them. My stepmother has a big family, and there would have been a lot of questions.” About what had happened. About what she was going to do next. Talk about not having answers.

“Gladys and I have always been close. She immediately invited me to join her here. I knew I’d be safe with her.”
Safe?
She hadn’t meant to say that, but somehow the word had formed.

“Then I ambushed you.”

She handed him another string of lights. “That was a good ambush. I still can’t believe you’re here. I guess all those times I talked about Fool’s Gold made an impact. I can’t believe you remembered my silly stories.”

He frowned. “I remember everything about our time together,” he told her. “Everything you said. I didn’t come to Fool’s Gold because of what you said about the town. I moved here because I knew there was a good chance you would show up eventually. I came to Fool’s Gold for you, Nancee.”

Shep sure had a way of leaving her speechless, she thought as she stared at him. He had said “I love you” before, lots of times, but this was different. He had changed his whole life just in the hopes of
maybe
seeing her again. That was powerful. And scary and wonderful.

They looked at each other for several seconds. She didn’t know what to say. Maybe words weren’t required. Maybe she should just kiss him. Or rip off her shirt. Shep had always been good at picking up on clues like shirt removal.

He’d
moved here
for her? He’d
waited
for her?

“What if I hadn’t come back?”

“I would have kept on living my life. There’s nowhere else I want to be but here. I was hoping that would be with you, but if not, I’m still staying.”

Emotions bubbled inside her. A few rose to the surface, making her happy, sad, excited and scared. It was all too much. This man—he had always been a part of her. Always been someone she loved. But did they belong together? Could she trust that it would work out between them? What if he left her again?

Too many questions. Too many uncertainties.
Later
, she promised herself. Later she would take apart his words and figure out what they meant. For now, they would decorate a Christmas tree.

She handed him the next strand of lights. He took them and smiled.