A Laramie, Texas Christmas. Cathy Gillen Thacker

She looked him straight in the eye. “Not ever again.”

      “SO HOW ARE THINGS OUT at Blackberry Hill?” Rio asked when Kevin walked into the station.

      As out of control as ever, Kevin thought. What had gotten into him, anyway? Seducing a woman he had yet to eliminate as a suspect? He had meant to catch her off guard and get her to open up a little bit this evening. Instead, he had ended up letting his guard down, flirting, allowing the simmering attraction between them to flare up. He had given in to impulse and actually kissed her. And there had been nothing official at all about that move. That had been pure desire on his part. Passion was not something that typically drove his actions. He had much more control over himself than that. And yet there was something about Noelle Kringle that drew him like a bee to nectar. Despite her made-up name.

      He had to do better.

      Rio elbowed him in the side. “Did you ride off again somewhere? ’Cause you sure look like you’re standing here.”

      “Sorry.” Kevin set the stack of papers on his desk and powered up his computer.

      Rio went back to his hunt-and-peck typing. “I should be making you write up this danged report,” he complained, “since you’re the one who caused the problem this afternoon.”

      Everyone knew how much Rio hated paperwork. Although, in Kevin’s estimation, his colleague made the process much more painful than it had to be by procrastinating forever before getting down to business. Of course, Kevin admitted, that was probably due to the fact that, like him, Rio had no one to go home to after work. Sometimes being single in a two-by-two world really bit. Never more so than during the holidays, which was why Kevin had decided to stop feeling sorry about the lack of a wife and kids in his life and go off fishing for the first half of December. So he wouldn’t have to think about the glaring void in his existence.

      “You look more unhappy than I do.” Rio stopped typing abruptly and got up. He went over to refill his coffee cup with a brew that was thick as molasses and had all the aromatic qualities of used motor oil.

      “I see you made the coffee again,” Kevin noted.

      Overhearing, several of the other deputies chuckled.

      Rio perched on the edge of Kevin’s desk. He took a sip of coffee and somehow managed not to wince. “So how long are Miss Sadie’s nephew and that babe—what was her name again—?”

      Like Rio didn’t know. “Noelle Kringle,” Kevin said, for the benefit of everyone else in the room.

      “—going to be around?” Rio finished curiously.

      Kevin checked his e-mail and found 228 messages waiting for him. After deciding to get caught up later on what had happened while he was on vacation, he moved his cursor to the Background Check function. “Dash Nelson was going to head back to Houston this evening.” Kevin couldn’t say he was sorry about that. It would be a heck of a lot easier to investigate Noelle without her protector around.

      “And what about Noelle?”

      Kevin pushed aside the memory of her incredibly soft lips…and how sweet they had tasted. He had a job to do that did not include kissing her—or even dreaming about doing so—again. “I’m not sure how long she’s going to be here.” He got up to get himself some awful coffee. “At least a few more days.” Until the side entry steps were finished, he guessed.

      “Is she hooked up with Dash?” Rio asked when Kevin had sat back down again.

      “Not sure.” He took a sip and found the coffee as hot and bitter as he had expected. “There’s definitely an intimacy between them.”

      Rio’s eyes lit up curiously, along with every other deputy’s in the room. “Sexual?”

      Kevin shook his head. “Not that I saw, anyway. Dash Nelson treats her more like a wife he’s had around for a while and sort of relies on to fetch and carry.”

      “Hmm.” Rio studied him. “You calling dibs on this one?”

      Guilt swept through Kevin, even as he denied the possibility. “Rio, I’m investigating her.”

      “So?” He shrugged. “I assume you’ll clear her eventually.”

      Kevin hoped so. Otherwise, he was headed down a road he had traveled before, hankering after a woman who was nothing more than a very accomplished criminal.

      Rio’s eyes gleamed cynically. He knew why Kevin was so reluctant to get involved on a personal level. “Did you run a background check on her yet?”

      “I’m about to.” Kevin typed in the appropriate commands and waited. No Prior Arrests flashed on the screen. There wasn’t so much as a single traffic ticket attached to her record.

      “That ought to make you feel better,” Rio said, reading over his shoulder.

      Kevin lifted a brow.

      “I assume you would prefer—as would I—that whoever did this to Miss Sadie be a stranger, rather than a close and trusted acquaintance or family friend?”

      Kevin knew what he meant. It felt less invasive if the perpetrator of a crime was someone who had selected a victim at random. If the injured party knew it was nothing personal. Because when the “mark” knew the perpetrator of the crime, and trusted or loved the person, it was pure torture.

      Rio slapped Kevin on the shoulder. “So Merry Christmas, partner. You’re free to pursue her.”

      Kevin thought about Noelle Kringle’s less than innocent reaction and then scoffed, his emotional armor back in place. “Are you kidding?” He wasn’t pursuing anything until he knew exactly who he was dealing with. “I’m just getting started.”