Christmas Eve Cowboy

by Diana Palmer, Delores Fossen, Kate Pearce

Genres: Holiday books; Romance Anthologies & Collections

Synopsis

Snow is falling, and when it comes to love, so are these rugged, gorgeous cowboys, in a romantic holiday collection from three bestselling authors …
ONCE THERE WAS A LAWMAN Diana Palmer
FBI agent Thomas Kincaid Jones has soured on love and Christmas, but Annalisa Davis could change all that. Except the lovely nurse isn’t looking to get involved
with someone whose job requires a gun on his hip. And Tom has a case to solve that has nothing to do with love. Yet the spirit of the holidays just might spark a lifetime connection …
CHRISTMAS CREEK COWBOY Delores Fossen
In Christmas Creek, Texas, folks go all out for the holidays, but Sheriff Calen Jameson is too busy commiserating about cheating exes with his best friend,
Emmy Kendrick. Calen always thought their bond was too precious to risk, yet maybe it’s time to start making some changes … by firing up the heat with Emmy.
COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS Kate Pearce
Lucy Smith thinks Santa has outdone himself when Caleb Erickson shows up at her BB. In high school, Caleb was oblivious to her crush. But while they wait out a
snowstorm, he’s discovering she may be the gift he never knew he wanted …

Release date: September 27, 2022

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 272

Reader says this book is...: entertaining story (1) happily ever after (1)

Sample

Thomas Kincaid Jones hated the little Colorado town of Raven Springs on sight. He was a city man, from Chicago. He liked the music of traffic, the horns, the eternal movement around him. Here, there was nothing to see, not much to do. Raven Springs, just a few miles out of Benton, Colorado, where he was temporarily assigned on a case, was the end of the world. It was a little town in northwestern Colorado, surrounded by majestic snow-covered mountains, with a small and tight-knit population that seemed to disdain any stranger. The holiday season had apparently been kicked off even before Thanksgiving, because the town was decked out in lights and Christmas decorations in the store windows. And Christmas was at least three weeks away.

He hated Christmas. It was a cold Christmas morning in Chicago when the woman he loved told him that she’d met somebody else and fallen in love, really in love, and that she was leaving him. He’d tried to talk her out of it. They’d been in an on-off relationship for months, and he’d been on the verge of proposing. He knew she dated other men, but he’d been fairly certain that there was no real competition. Well, not until that morning, when she’d hit him in the gut with her confession.

Maybe it hadn’t been love as much as physical attraction that held them together, but he’d felt lost when she left town. He’d decided then and there that he wouldn’t ever let another woman get that close to him. Six years ago, that had happened. And while he’d had infrequent liaisons, he’d never loved any of them. If a woman could think of men as disposable, surely it was fair play for a man to consider them disposable. He was still bitter about Angie taking off with another man. Especially when he’d considered marriage for the first time in his life.

Just before she left, there had been one last, parting shot. She didn’t really want to spend her life with a man in law enforcement who could be killed anytime he went out on a case. She hated guns. He’d thought she was just using that as an excuse. Probably she had. She’d never acted like she cared. He had a job, his service with the Chicago Police Department, and he’d been in Army Intelligence while he was in the service, in between law enforcement positions. Any man could be killed, by a car crash, a riot, a flaming meteor hitting the ground. Law enforcement had its risks, but so did life itself. He didn’t dwell on that, anyway. He was a good shot and he had a solid background, starting at his service with the Chicago Police Department right out of school. He’d wanted something more adventurous, though, so even before Angie left him, he’d applied for a job with the Bureau. After months of checking and rechecking, they’d hired him. He’d had physical encounters with criminals, of course. One memorable one was right outside the local FBI office: two guys trying to kill each other over a girl. He’d stepped in, without thinking about it, and separated them. His reward had been a knife slashing into his chest. He’d subdued the suspect and called for backup, bleeding all the while. One of the local police officers, a man he knew, insisted that he go to the emergency room for treatment. He still had the scar. It wasn’t too noticeable, in the thick hair that covered the solid muscle of his chest. But it was long and deep.

He was a big guy, over six feet, not fat but husky and broad-shouldered, like a wrestler. He had thick black hair and large hands. His eyes were dark and piercing, and he almost never smiled. They’d called him Stone Face back in Chicago. Not in front of him, though. Not ever.

He was bored out of his mind. He was here on a case for the FBI. It was a federal crime, kidnapping, and he was partnering with local law enforcement to apprehend the perpetrator who’d left his heavily bound hostage—a young woman—to freeze to death in a lonely, unheated, mountain cabin.

Stuff of heroes, this assignment, he kept telling himself as he cleaned the .45 caliber automatic on a table in his motel room. Except he didn’t feel like a hero. He missed the city. All you could hear in this place were barking dogs and even damned singing crickets! There was one in the room right now, driving him nuts. Why was it here in the first place, in the dead of winter? He’d tried to find it, finally realizing it was just outside the room, not in it. And he couldn’t very well go to the room next to his, in the dark, trying to shoot a cricket. He imagined the occupant of the room would take offense if he asked to be let in on a search-and-destroy mission.

He knew his size could be intimidating. He’d played football in college, but he was a little past that now, at thirty-six. The job had become his life. He’d been with the Bureau going on six years now. He was comfortably settled, often applauded for his devotion to duty. Now, here he sat in this little dinky motel room in the back of beyond, listening to that damned cricket. It was absurd!

Before this came up in Raven Springs, Tom had been assigned another case in Denver. Since he was the closest agent to the small town, and the case he was on wasn’t urgent, he’d been requested to help Jeff Ralston, the local sheriff, find the perpetrator who’d collected ransom for a dead hostage. The case had twists and turns like a snake, and it was especially sad at this time of year.

He was out of humor already, being reminded, every step he took, of Christmas. He wasn’t looking forward to being stuck here for any lengthy period of time. Maybe the perp would feel guilty and present himself at the sheriff’s office, hands outstretched for the handcuffs. He chuckled to himself. Sure. That was how it worked.

He’d just finished cleaning his .45 automatic and was putting away his cleaning tools when there was a knock at his motel room door. He holstered the automatic on his hip, and went to the door, one hand on the butt of the weapon. He was always cautious.

He opened the door a crack and was met by pale, icy-silver eyes in a pretty face, surrounded by long, blond, wavy hair that she was quickly plaiting.

“Yes?” he asked coldly.

“Do you drive a black Crown Victoria?” she asked politely.

“Yes.”

“Did you park it in a driveway next to the motel?”

He blinked. “Yes.”

“Well, would you mind moving it?” she asked curtly. “I’d like to get my car out of my driveway so that I can go to work!”

He held up his arm and looked at his watch. His thick dark brows arched. “It’s almost eleven. What the hell kind of job do you have, pole dancing at a bar?”

Her eyes flashed pale lightning at him. “My job is none of your business. Will you please move your car?”

He shrugged. “If I must.”

He followed her out the door. She wasn’t tall. The top of her head came to his shoulder. She was slender and not bad looking at all. She had on a coat that had seen a lot of wear. There was a button missing on one sleeve. Her shoes were thick-soled and laced up. He wondered what sort of work she did. Maybe she cleaned offices. Didn’t they do that at night?

He got into his car, started it, and backed down the driveway. He pulled in next to the curb and got out, locking it back up.

“Just for future reference,” she said, “this is not part of the motel parking lot.”

He pursed his lips and studied her. Indignant. Young. Very young. He glanced past her at a house that needed more repairs than he could take in all at once.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he said.

For the first time, she noticed the pistol in its holster. “You’re wearing a gun.”

“Goes with the job.”

“You’re an assassin?” she asked with a snarky smile.

He glared at her. “FBI.”

“Oh. The horrible kidnapping,” she said. She nodded. “I knew her. Julie Crane. She was a sweet, kind person. She was standoffish if she didn’t know you, but people understood why she was like she was. I can’t imagine that anybody would hurt her. Of course, her stepfather has money, but they didn’t get along. He was crazy in love with his wife. When she got lung cancer and went in for treatment, he went with her. He even hired a nurse to do private duty with her when she got really bad.” She made a face. “Nobody liked the nurse. Julie certainly didn’t—she said the nurse took credit for what Julie did when she cared for her mother. May Strickland, that’s the nurse, wouldn’t even change the bed linen.”

“Well, aren’t you a buffet of news.”

“You look like you’d need to eat a buffet twice a day,” she returned, giving him a long look.

“I’m big-boned,” he said resentfully.

“Salads are very good for you. So is yoghurt.”

“I don’t need health advice from kids, thanks.”

She drew herself up to her full height. “I’m not a kid! I’m twenty-five.”

“You’re a kid. Drive carefully.”

She made a face at him. “I always drive carefully.”

He stood on the sidewalk and watched her back out. She went over the curb, almost hit his car, got into gear on the second try and putted down the street. The vehicle she was driving was pouring black smoke and it looked to be at least twenty years old. He shook his head. Talk about town characters, he told himself.

The next morning, he was sitting in Jeff Ralston’s office, drinking coffee and going over witness statements.

“There was a kid last night who mentioned some things about the victim,” he began.

“Who?”

“No idea. I was parked in her driveway next to the motel. Blonde, silver eyes, comes up to my shoulder. And twenty-five years old.”

“Oh, yes. Annalisa Davis,” Jeff replied with a warm smile. “She lost her dad last year.” He didn’t say how. That was Anna’s business. “Her mother died a couple of years before that. She insisted on staying in the house, although it’s falling apart around her ears. Proud as the devil. She won’t let anybody help her.”

Annalisa. It suited her somehow. “She’s got a mouth on her,” he remarked.

Jeff chuckled. “Just like her late mother. But she’s a sucker for lost pets, small animals, and little children.”

Something stirred deep inside him. He smothered it. The kid was years too young, and he didn’t even know her. Best not to get involved.

“About the victim—” he began.

“Julie Crane,” Jeff interrupted. “Her stepdad’s filthy rich; he inherited all the money Julie’s mother had, and it was a lot. He’s kept the nurse who took care of his late wife. Her name is May Strickland. She and Julie didn’t get along at all. I guess May wasn’t mourning the loss. She acts like she owns the place, the maid, Alice, told my cousin at the grocery store. She convinced Granger Downing that he needed constant monitoring of his blood pressure.”

Tom was taking notes on a phone app. “Did Julie get along with her stepfather?”

“Not really. She was autistic, but high-functioning. She could drive a car, cook, things like that, but she was hard to get along with if she didn’t know you. Her mother loved her and took care of her. When she got sick, Julie took care of her. Her mother died of lung cancer, and Julie was left with her mother’s husband and the nurse. She didn’t like either one of them.”

“Her stepfather, how did he feel about his stepdaughter?” he asked, looking up.

“He’s an abrasive man when you first meet him, but he’s got a soft heart. He liked Julie, but she made his life a misery,” Jeff explained.

“Well, that dots a few I’s,” Tom mused. “I’ll do a background check on him and the nurse.”

“There’s also a handyman, a friend of the nurse’s, named Billy Turner,” Jeff said. “Two more unpleasant people you’ll never meet.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Tom said imperturbably. “I’m used to unpleasant people.”

Jeff just smiled.

His background check didn’t turn up anything out of the ordinary. Granger Downing, Julie’s stepfather, was a big noise among the country club set. He was loaded, although it seemed to be Julie’s late mother who’d had all the money and he’d just inherited it.

He’d checked out the victim as well. Most people spoke kindly of her. She hadn’t been a social person, but she had no real enemies that he could ascertain. Follow the money was a tenet that all law enforcement people tuned into. It was usually a good idea to do that. So Tom started checking into the victim’s stepfather’s bank account.

He was just coming back to the motel after a long and tiring morning when the smoke-pouring car-thing pulled into the driveway next to the motel. He got out of his vehicle and walked up to the young woman just getting out of hers.

“Rings and valves,” he said.

She gave him a blank look.

“Rings and valves. Your car’s pouring smoke.”

She cocked her head and stared at him. She looked young and worn-out. “It thinks it’s an old-time locomotive,” she replied. “Don’t pay attention to it, or you’ll encourage it.”

One eyebrow arched and his dark eyes twinkled.

“You’re out early,” she pointed out.

“So are you. Is pole dancing very lucrative?”

She glared at him. “I am not a pole dancer.”

He smiled at her. “You’re very young,” he said quietly.

“Thanks, gramps,” she tossed back.

He chuckled. She was a firecracker “What do you do, really?”

“I feed and water helpless things.”

“That’s a strange answer.”

“It’s the only kind you’re getting, too,” she said. “Why are you out so early?”

“Detecting.”

“Oh, Julie Crane’s murder,” she said, and nodded.

“Yes. You knew her.”

“She went to school with me.”

“Care to enlarge on that a bit?”

“I would, but I’m asleep on my feet.”

“How about coffee and breakfast?”

She hesitated.

“I have a testimonial from my district supervisor that I’m dependable and safe to be let loose around young women.”

She laughed.

“Have you had breakfast?” he asked.

She shook her head. “We had a last-minute emergency, so I got off late. I’m starved.”

“So am I. Who serves a good breakfast?”

“The new waffle place on the corner.”

He led her to his car, pausing to put his computer and paperwork on the back seat.

“You’re messy,” she pointed out.

“I said you could have breakfast, not point out my bad habits.”

“Sorry. I’ll save it for after breakfast. And I buy my own, in case you need to know.”

His eyebrows arched. “Why?”

“So I won’t be accused of letting an FBI agent bribe me.”

“I never bribe women with food,” he said curtly.

“Oh, I see. You don’t like women.”

“Got it.” He got in under the wheel and drove them to the fast food joint. They walked in together.

“Why don’t you like women?” she asked.

“Because I used to be involved with one. She took off with another guy.”

“Sorry.”

He glanced at her. “You married?”

“Not on your life.”

“Did you used to be involved with somebody too?” he asked.

She went quiet. “I want a waffle and bacon and black coffee, Sadie,” she told the woman at the counter.

“I heard there was a flap on last night. You get it worked out?”

She smiled at the woman. “Just about.”

“And what will you have, sir?” Sadie asked Tom.

“Same as her,” he replied.

“How easy to please you both are,” Sadie mused, used to people studying the menu for ten minutes only to decide they’d just have coffee.

“Only when it comes to food,” Tom replied.

“I thought you were that sort of man,” Annalisa mused.

“Oh, and separate checks, Sadie,” Annalisa called back over her shoulder.

“Got it.”

They found a booth at the back of the waffle house and sat down. She pushed back a wisp of blond hair that had escaped the braid she’d pinned around the top of her head.

“Don’t you wear it down?” he asked, studying her.

“It gets in my way when I’m working,” she said. She sighed, leaning forward with her chin in her propped-up hands. “I’m so tired.”

She looked it. He wondered what sort of job she had. She was wearing a colorful shirt under her coat, with plain colored slacks. Must be a cleaning job, he told himself. She wasn’t old enough to have a profession.

“Tell me all you know about Julie Crane.”

“I covered most of it last night,” she said. “She had some issues, but she was pretty good in school, especially with math. She was a whiz. She could do calculus and trig in the fourth grade. I couldn’t even manage it in high school. She loved numbers.”

“Did you know her well?”

“We were friends, sort of.” She smiled sadly. “She gave me a necklace before she died. Real gold. I wear it on special occasions and think of her. I liked her a lot. I think she liked me, too. She certainly trusted me.”

“Any evidence that the stepfather was doing things to her?”

“You mean . . . ? Oh, I see. No. He wasn’t that sort. He tried to make friends with her, because he truly loved her mother, but she was jealous of him with her mother, and she wouldn’t let him get to know her. Her mother was an invalid after the lung cancer started to work on her. She could barely get out of bed. Julie took good care of her, right up until the end; in spite of the so-called nurse who never did a thing she wasn’t ordered to do! The cancer shouldn’t have killed her that quickly, but I guess every case is different. I helped, until her mother’s nurse thought I was trying to take over her job and complained to Mr. Downing. So I got handed my walking papers. That was sort of odd, you know, that the nurse objected to anybody helping her patient; as if she had something to hide.”

“Julie sounds like a fine person.”

“She really was, and what happened to her was so, so sad.” He was taking notes. Any tidbit might be the key to unlock a case. He overlooked nothing. He said that to Annalisa, his dark eyes steady on her face.

“You never know when a tiny clue will blow open a case.” She nodded, and when he went back to making notes on his cell phone, she studied him. In his thirties, she surmised, probably on the wrong side of thirty-five. He was very good-looking. But she’d had her problems with men who thought the same thing about her. She’d been pursued by several, but she had no interest in them. She’d never felt anything at all with the boys she’d dated. She still felt very little. Men just didn’t affect her.

Well, not until now. She studied that strong face with its chiseled mouth and high cheekbones and felt herself tingling all over. Odd reaction, especially to a man she didn’t really know. He was everything she didn’t like in a man. Big. Authoritative. Overbearing. He was also in law enforcement. That brought back really hard memories of her late father, who’d been all those things. Her father had dominated her completely, ordered her life, told her what to do, nitpicked everything. He’d run off any boys she might have become interested in. They couldn’t get past him. He liked having Annalisa at home to do the housework and cook and take care of him. He wasn’t losing that for some overheated boy who’d never stay with her anyway. He also wanted Annalisa to look after her mother and do all the housework when her mother’s heart started to fail. Poor Julie had the same problems at her home, too. It was why Annalisa and Julie had been friends. Neither of them saw a way out that didn’t involve tragedy. There had been no escape for Annalisa even after her mother died suddenly late one night of a major heart attack. Her father was too important in the community. He drank, a lot, but everybody protected him. Not that he was ever abusive to his daughter. He never lifted his hand to her. He was just overbearing and belligerent. And, at least, Annalisa was still alive. But poor Julie had died.

She threw off the memory. Everyone thought she missed her dad. She didn’t. She wasn’t certain that she’d ever loved him. He’d been verbally, although never physically, abusive to her late mother. Despite the misery of her marriage, her mother was deeply in love with her father. She never stopped loving him, no matter what he said when he drank. She once told Annalisa that she didn’t know why her father was the way he was, but that he’d been a good, kind man when she married him.

Annalisa’s training had been a blessing. At least her father had agreed to that, and it was a good thing, because she had a job that she loved, that paid her expenses. Well, except for the house. It was falling apart over her head. She really didn’t have the capital to fix anything. If it fell in one day, she’d have no place to live. She’d have to rent a room or something. Probably a good idea not to think too hard about that.

“Do you always brood over things?” her companion asked suddenly.

She looked up, startled. “How did you know?”

“Understanding body language is part of my job. I have all sorts of skills.”

“I hope one of them isn’t breaking and entering,” she said calmly.

“I have not broken and entered anything,” he huffed.

“Not ever?” she probed, eyes twinkling.

“I broke a door in once, where a woman was being assaulted.”

“What about the man who assaulted her?”

“Oh, he ran into a wall and got a black eye. They suspected I’d done it to him, but the perp backed up my story very quickly.” He smiled angelically.

“Good for you,” she said curtly. “Men like that should be put in stocks in the middle of towns.”

“There you go, getting medieval again.”

“It wasn’t me, it was you getting medieval,” she shot back.

He grinned at her. His dark eyes twinkled. It impressed her. He seemed very different when he smiled. She smiled back involuntarily.

“Maybe we both should be living back in the dark ages,” she suggested.

“Good luck finding a time machine, especially in my hotel. It has a cricket,” he muttered. “A cricket! In the middle of winter, for God’s sake!”

“The cricket is in a cricket box. The man staying in the motel takes it everywhere with him. It’s a pet.” She didn’t tell him how she knew. The man was from out of town, but he was visiting a friend where she worked.

He gaped at her. “A cricket? He keeps a cricket for a pet? Why not a dog or a cat?”

“He said he had a dog. It tore up the floor in his kitchen, twice, and the cat he got to replace it ripped his furniture to shreds. He says a cricket can’t do either of those things.”

He just shook his head. “It takes all kinds, I guess. Maybe I can get used to it.”

She smiled. “Earplugs,” she suggested. “It’s how I sleep late. My neighbor on the other side is in a band. He has drums. He practices early in the morning.” She sighed. “It’s a wonder that I’m not mentally disarranged.”

“Except for wanting to put people in stocks.”

“Even you must agree that some people would benefit from it,” she pointed out.

He chuckled. “I guess so.”

She finished her coffee, and stood up. “Thanks for the company,” she said, and the tiredness showed on her pretty face now. “I’m going home to bed.”

“Remember to put in the earplugs,” he suggested. He got up too, and they both headed for the exit.

“I may need to double them.” She laughed. “See you, Chicago,” she added, giving him a nickname.

“See you, Raven girl.”

“Actually, I feed ravens,” she said, a little hesitantly. “They come every day to the back deck. My father hated them. He shot one. I buried it myself.” She felt uneasy that she’d said what she did. “Forget I said that, please, people in town revered my father. They thought he was a great cop.”

“Your dad was a cop?” he asked, surprised, as they reached his car and he opened the door for her.

She nodded. “He was chief of police here, in fact.”

“How did he die?”

She bit her lip.

He moved a step closer. Just a step, but she tensed. “How?” he repeated softly.

“One of the local stores was robbed by an escaped fugitive. He ran and my father ran after him, into an alley. The perp spun around and put a bullet right through my father’s head.” She turned . . .