Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa (12 page)

He hauled the subdued bad guy up by the handcuffs, forced him to turn around, and shoved him toward the cop. “He’s all yours, Jimmy.”

Jimmy grabbed the guy—a kid really, maybe twenty or so years old. But not a very nice-looking one. There was nothing innocent about his dark, beady eyes or his pockmarked face. He was shaved and had what looked to be some type of tattoo wrapped around his neck. It was hard to tell under his dark, baggy clothes. “Now, why did you have to go assault that nice lady and take her purse?” the cowboy cop asked. Did he really expect an answer? The guy was no doubt an addict. “We don’t do that here in Evergreen. We haven’t had a problem in five years.”

Well, duh,
Kim thought.
That’s why he’s here. This place would be like shooting fish in a barrel
. Gangstah paradise. Sleeping with your doors unlocked? Indeed! She had triple dead bolts, surveillance cameras, and an internal, as well as external, alarm system. Nobody was getting into her place unless she wanted them there.

The punk yanked away from Jimmy but Ricco stepped up, grabbed him by the shoulder, and whirled him around. He pulled his beard down and got real close. “Mess with Chief Connor, Puke, and you mess with me.” Ricco yanked him hard against his chest. “And while he likes to play PC, I don’t.”

Kim watched Ricco morph from naughty Santa to badass Santa, and she wasn’t sure which turned her on more. She shook herself. Literally. What the hell was wrong with her? It occurred to her at that moment that at thirty-eight she was peaking sexually. It probably had something to do with her ovulating as well. Thank God they’d been safe last night. And that reminded her. Condoms. Must buy condoms. A girl could never be too careful.

She shook her head again to clear the cobwebs and watched Ricco shove the criminal back toward Chief Connor. “Do you need any help with him?” Ricco asked.

Jim smiled and shook his head. With a firm hand on the bad guy’s handcuffs, he tipped his hat with his right hand to the gathered throng. “Just a minor scuffle, folks, go on back to your fun.” He pushed the thug ahead of him and disappeared into the mass of people.

No sooner had the crowd let out a collective sigh of relief than another commotion drew their attention. A blacked-out black Suburban drove screeching at break-neck speed down the promenade, running up onto the overflowing sidewalks. Terrorized, pedestrians jumped out of the way; many fell to the ground, their packages flying into the snow. Ricco growled and took off after the vehicle as it sped out of town. As the SUV disappeared, he slowed to a jog, then stopped altogether. She watched him pull his cell phone from his pocket and dial.

Kim rushed to the elderly couple closest to her as they floundered in the snow. “My God, are you all right?” she asked, bending down to a sweet-looking blue-haired lady who must not have weighed more than one hundred pounds dripping wet. “Mar, are you all right?” the wiry older gentleman next to her asked. Before he could turn over and see that she was not hurt, his hand flailed as he tried to locate her. Kim helped him stand, then they both helped his wife up.

The little old lady’s face was pursed and pinched. Her dark blue eyes flashed in fury. She looked like hell on wheels. “Larry, if I were twenty years younger I’d go after the little bastards myself.” She flashed Kim a smile. Impulsively Kim flashed one back and wondered what the hell was going on in Christmastown.

“They
were
bastards. Driving like that. They could have killed someone,” Larry grumbled, brushing snow off his wife, then himself.

“Everyone okay?” Ricco’s deep voice asked from behind her. All three of them turned to face him. He was breathing heavily, perspiration flushed his face, and his Santa coat was open, revealing damp muscles under his white wife beater. He touched his hand to Kim’s shoulder. “You okay?” His dark eyes swept her from head to toe, and she assured him she was fine.

“I got a partial on that sonofabitch,” Larry said.

Ricco grinned. “Somehow, Larry, I knew you would.”

“Larry still thinks he’s walking a beat,” Mar offered to Kim.

“A beat?”

“He was a cop in Oakland for forty years. Can’t seem to get it out of his system.”

“What was it?” Ricco asked.

“California plate, One, Ida, Sam,” Larry said.

Ricco repeated it. “I’ll run it down. I’m sure there aren’t too many black Suburbans with that beginning sequence. We’ll find out who owns it.”

“Twenty bucks says it comes back stolen,” Larry said.

Ricco nodded. “I wouldn’t bet against you on this one, Larry.” He touched Mar on the shoulder and asked again, “Are you sure you’re all right, Mrs. Zubreck?”

“I’m fine. It’ll take more than a couple of asshole joyriders to mess up my day.”

Kim grinned, and so did Ricco. She liked the old lady’s spunk.

The sound of “Jingle Bells” jerked Kim out of her conversation. It was her cell phone. She hurried to dig it out of her purse and glanced at the LED. Nick. She smiled at the couple and at Ricco. “I have to take this call. Excuse me,” she said politely, then moved out of hearing distance and answered. “Hello.”

“Good morning, Kimberly,” Nick said. He sounded fat and sated. He and Gina had probably had a private party.

“Hello, Nick,” she answered coolly.

“Is the weather as cold up there as your greeting?”

“Oh,
sorry about that
, but this little town seems to be in the midst of a crime wave at the moment.”

“Crime wave? I thought they didn’t have any crime.”

Kim let out a long sigh. “Well, I guess the word got out to the crooks that Evergreen was ripe for the picking.”

“What are the cops doing about it?”

“What cops do.”

After a significant pause Nick said, “I miss you, Kimberly.” Kim went still. Okay, what had brought that on?

“I—ah, I miss you too.”

“I was hoping you would say that. I think it’s time we got to know each other a little better. I’m coming up.”

A
T THAT PRECISE MOMENT
K
IM KNEW EXACTLY HOW IT
felt to be on a plummeting elevator. The bottom just fell out of her stomach. She glanced over at Ricco, who was making quick rounds of the people who’d narrowly escaped becoming roadkill, compliments of the Suburban.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea right now. I’m making inroads here. I want to keep working my angle.”

“No one has to know we’re together.”

“
I’ll
know.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Kim was about to fill it in when Nick said, “I’m getting the impression you don’t want me up there, Kimberly. Why not?”

She shook her head and began to pace. “I told you, Nick. I work best alone. You’ll sidetrack me. I want to do what I need to do to close this deal and be back in L.A. next week. Your being here will delay that.”

“Why not take a few days for ourselves?”

Kim pulled the phone away and glared at it as if it had two heads. Who
was
this person? Not the Nick she knew. “Okay, Nick. Spill it.”

“Spill what? I want to see my fiancée. Is that so hard to believe?”

Oh, so now she was his fiancée? Yesterday morning she hadn’t been. “First of all, I am not your fiancée. Yet. And secondly, yes, it is hard to believe. Why your sudden interest in me?”

He laughed. She felt as if the walls of a small room were closing in around her. She glanced back toward Ricco, who was coming straight at her. Shit.

“Look, Nick, I have a meeting with the mayor in ten minutes. I’ll call you later and we’ll discuss. Okay?”

“All right, but I’ll expect to hear from you after your meeting.”

“Okay.” She flipped the phone closed and turned to smile up at Ricco just as he stepped beside her.

“Everything okay?”

Her smile stiffened. “Peachy.” And she felt like a rotten apple. Lying did not come naturally to her, and although she had to sometimes shade the truth when it came to business, she always did it with great hesitation. She might be in the business of hostile takeovers, but she did it aboveboard and honestly. Nevertheless, she told herself that while she had an honest physical addiction to the man standing beside her, he was also the key to her gleaning information she would not otherwise be able to access without him. Only so much was public record. She ignored the baby twinge of guilt poking at her conscience.

“I need to go down to city hall and give Jimmy the partial license plate and tell him what happened,” Ricco said as he looked down at her and brushed back the hair from her face. The instant his fingertips brushed her cheek, she warmed. And damn if she didn’t feel all weak at the knees. Ricco Maza did things to her she didn’t realize she was capable of. Her cheeks flushed and her gaze caught his, then held. The world seemed to pass them by at that moment. Sound quieted, the breeze halted, and there was no temperature. There was just him.

He moved into her. He gripped her chin and tilted her head back. Bringing her face up to him, he lowered his lips. “I stopped at the apothecary,” he whispered.

The earth beneath her feet shifted. “I hope you bought them out,” she whispered back.

His lips brushed across hers, and she went liquid. “All ten boxes.”

Kim laughed, melting against him. “Is that all they had?”

Ricco slid his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. “I told Jules to order more.”

Kim’s cheeks flushed hotter. “Ricco! When he sees me with you, he’ll know!”

He grinned down at her. “He’d know just by the way I look at you.”

Kim looked up at Ricco and smiled. Yeah, she could fall in love with him. Hard and fast, just like every other woman who crossed his path. But she was smarter than that. Emotions screwed up everything. So why go down that road when she knew exactly where it would lead?

No, thank you.

“I’m going to rent a snowmobile and go down to the lake and into the surrounding forest,” she told him.

Ricco scowled. “There’s a lot of snow out there. It’s dangerous.”

“How about horses?”

“Worse.”

“Well, I’ll take my chances with the snowmobile. I won’t go far, and I have a locator on my cell phone if I get lost.”

Ricco shook his head, then pulled her along with him. “If you can wait a couple of hours, I’ll take you.”

She considered his offer but thought it would be better if she went alone. If she looked too nosy, he might get suspicious. “If you don’t mind, I’d like some time to myself.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, his voice clipped.

As they walked through the crowded Santa’s Workshop area, Kim saw another Santa in the sleigh. This town didn’t miss a beat. “Who’s that Santa?” she asked.

“That’s Peyton. His side job is mayor.”

“Oh, really? I’d love to talk to him.”

“Do you always talk to mayors when you vacation?”

“Well, I’ll admit I’m doing a wee bit more than vacationing while I’m here.”

Ricco chuckled, his humor restored. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

She had to hurry to keep up with his long strides. “Oh, really? What do you think I’m doing here?”

He glanced down at her and said, “Spying.”

She nearly stumbled. “Spying? What on earth for?”

“You tell me.”

“I-I’m not. I have a client who’s interested in purchasing some property here. I wanted to get away for the holidays, and it seemed like the perfect solution.”

As they weaved around the congested boardwalk Kim didn’t miss the turned heads that Ricco’s open Santa jacket caused. He’d stuffed his Santa cap in his pocket, and his beard hung down around his neck. And he hadn’t worn a padded belly. With the jacket open, revealing the thick black leather belt cinched around his narrow waist and his chest clearly defined under the white wife beater, his tousled hair and his sure stride, he was so worthy of a total neck crick.

“So, you’re a real estate agent?”

Kim grinned and looked up at him. “Yeah.”

Ricco nodded.

“So what should I tell my client? Is Evergreen in trouble?”

He scowled and glanced down at her. “Maybe.”

Evergreen City Hall was a monument to lumberjacks everywhere. It was an impressive two-story building that fit right in with the rest of the town. The only thing alerting anyone to its official status was the seal of Evergreen on the beveled glass of the wide double doors.

Ricco held one open for her. The inner sanctum bustled with activity. It appeared from the signs carved into wooden plaques that this building housed the town’s courthouse, police department, city officials’ offices, and anything else associated with the mechanics of running a town. Kim noticed a county recorder office annex just down the hall. There was a small courtroom to the immediate right of them, where a deputy stood by to screen for weapons.

“Detective Maza, how’s it hanging, man?” the big redheaded deputy said, stepping toward them. He grinned, and Ricco grinned back.

Detective Maza? As in a cop, Detective Maza? After the initial shock of the information, it made perfect sense. The way he’d gone after the purse snatcher, then the crazy driver. Apprehension spiked along her spine in a slow stomp. He could very easily run her name and find out more about her than she’d like him to know. Maybe he already had? She decided then and there it would be what it would be. She wasn’t doing anything illegal. Maybe unethical in some people’s eyes, but you couldn’t go to jail for that.

“Jethro,” Ricco said, extending his right hand, “it’s going to be ‘Sergeant Maza’ in a month, and since you asked, it’s hanging a little to the left.”

Kim rolled her eyes. Guys were so crude. “I didn’t know you were a cop,” she said.

Ricco continued to grin and shrugged his shoulders. “You didn’t ask.”

Feeling naughty, Kim raised up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, “Do you have handcuffs?”

Ricco’s grin nearly split his face. He turned slightly to face her, and his warm breath caressed her cheek. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do.”

Kim shivered. The man had a talent. The talent to make her itch for him. “How good are you with those handcuffs?”

“Pretty good. Wanna find out?”

Kim tilted her head back, locked gazes with him, and slowly nodded.

Jethro coughed, then said, “My mama always taught me to introduce attractive women to single available men.”

Ricco pulled Kim forward. “Kimberly Michaels, meet Jethro Modine.”

Jethro extended his hand. “My name is Jeff. Glad to meet you. How long will you be in town?”

“About a week.” She looked up at Ricco and flashed a smile. “Maybe a little longer, depending…”

Ricco grinned down at her and squeezed her hand. “On what?”

She nudged into him. “Things.”

Jeff cleared his throat. Ricco and Kim looked at him, and Jeff looked down at Kim. “If you get tired of having to fend off every female that walks past this guy, I’m here every day until five. I might not have his looks, but I know how to treat a lady.”

Kim laughed and said, “I’ll keep that in mind, Jeff.”

Ricco laughed too, but his tone was not nearly so amused. “You must be getting old, Jethro. Cuz you’d remember I don’t share.”

The underlying possessive tone in Ricco’s voice caught Kim by surprise. She’d heard it in many men, but never in reference to her. And though she considered herself a modern woman, she kind of liked feeling as if he would fight another man for her.

“I remember.” Jeff looked down at Kim and winked. “I’m just saying…”

Ricco took Kim’s hand and drew her through the metal detector. “I’m just saying too.”

As Ricco pulled her along the short hallway to the police department offices, she made mental notes of each office and what she could glean from them. When they came to the PD offices, Ricco opened the door and held it open for her. She stepped through. A pretty, buxom blonde who was on the phone at the front desk looked up. She squealed and dropped the phone, nearly climbing over the desk to leap into Ricco’s arms. Kim stiffened and rolled her eyes. This was getting ridiculous.

“Ricco! When did you get into town?” the blonde squeaked like a Kewpie doll.

Ricco smiled and allowed the little bombshell to kiss him full on the lips, but when her lips lingered, he gently pushed her away. He grinned sheepishly at Kim and had the decency to blush. “Um, Brit, I’m here on official business.”

The perfectly proportioned and maintained blonde clung to Ricco like a lingering virus. She totally ignored Kim. She ran a red nail down Ricco’s chest to his belly, but when she went farther, he grabbed her hand and pleaded, “Brit.”

Kim had the overwhelming urge to dig her hands deep into the woman’s thick blond hair and rip it out in great clumps, but she resisted. She had never fought over a man, and she would not start now. Ricco reached out to draw Kim closer, but she stepped back and shook her head. “By all means, don’t let me interrupt.”

Brit turned around and narrowed her big green cat eyes. She kept her hand possessively on Ricco’s chest and cocked a perfectly arched brow. Kim smiled a saccharine smile in return.

Ricco extracted himself from Brit’s clutches and made a quick introduction. The women nodded to each other.

Moving past the awkwardness of the situation, Ricco said, “Is Jimmy in his office?”

“Yes, he just booked a purse snatcher! Can you believe that?”

“We were there.”

“Why is everyone so shocked about a little mugging?” Kim asked.

Ricco and Brit looked at her, surprised. “Evergreen has no crime,” Brit indignantly answered.

“None? Not even petty theft?”

Ricco shook his head. “Nada, zilch, never.”

Kim whistled and shook her head. “How is that?”

“Up until today, the only folks who visited were the kind who wanted to celebrate the reason for the season with their families and get away from crime and punishment,” Ricco explained.

“Well, between the purse snatcher and the jerk who tried to reduce the population by a few, I’d say you’re having a regular crime wave.” Kim almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Amazing the town would get so uptight about two incidents. And given the fact that no one had really been hurt, they’d been minor incidents at that.

Kim pursed her lips, and the baby pang of guilt was a little stronger this time. If they thought it was bad now, wait until the resort and casino came to town. Life would not even remotely resemble their current Norman Rockwell Stepford town. She looked up at Ricco. “As a cop, how can you be so naive?”

His face sharpened. “Hardly naive, Kim. I’ve seen things you would never dream of in your worst nightmare, but here? In Evergreen? We live and die on the honor system. The town gets in an uproar if one of the kids pinches a candy from Sadie’s Emporium. It just doesn’t happen.”

“Okay, I get it, but—”

“No buts. You have to drive to get to us—we’re between the sierras and the lake. One way in and one way out. We’re remote for a reason.”