Mistletoe and Misdemeanors by Alison Henderson

Chapter Three

A tiny thrill rippled through Callie’s chest. Tommy Blackstone was taking her home with him! Too bad Susan was out of town. A sudden childish urge to stick her tongue out at her sister popped into her head before she quashed it. How ridiculous. She and Susan were both grown women. Susan was happily married and had two children, for Pete’s sake.

Tom held the door, and she stepped out of the cell. “Where’s my purse?”

He opened a battered brown file cabinet, removed her bag, and handed it to her.

“I’ll need some fresh clothes and my toiletries too.” She glanced down at her rumpled green sweater and grimaced. “I might have gotten a little sweaty loading the U-Haul. All I could think about was getting away from St. Louis as fast as possible and coming home.”

“Your car and the trailer are in the lot out back. You can pick up some things on the way.”

On the way to…? Unease slithered into her mind. Wild Man Tommy Blackstone might have morphed into Respectable Hard-ass Chief Tom Blackstone, but in truth she barely knew him. What had she gotten herself into?

As if he could read her thoughts, his dark blue eyes crinkled at the corners, and a smile teased his lips. “I’m taking you to my mom’s house.”

Callie remembered Helen Blackstone as a harried single mother who’d struggled to raise her son on the income from her small beauty shop after her husband abandoned them.  They used to live in a rundown trailer park on the edge of town.

“I moved her into a nice little house on Myrtle Street when I left the Marines.”

Triple Damn. On top of everything else, the man appeared to be a world-class mind reader.

Their footsteps echoed through the empty police station as Tom ushered her to his cruiser parked out back, next to her sporty blue hatchback. She bit the inside of her cheek. She loved her car, but without a job it was another luxury she could no longer afford.

He opened the cruiser door. “Get in and give me your keys. I’ll put your suitcase in the trunk.”

She complied, and in a couple of minutes they were on their way to Myrtle Street. Tom pulled to a stop in front of a modest white ranch house with a string of twinkling lights outlining the porch and a festive holly wreath on the front door. After retrieving her suitcase, he led the way up the walk and opened the door. A comforting, spicy aroma embraced her as she stepped into the front hall.

“Mom, I’ve brought you an unexpected holiday guest,” he called.

Helen Blackstone walked through the arched opening to the dining room, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. When she saw Callie, her lined face brightened. “Callie Rayburn, what a surprise!”

Nerves fluttered in Callie’s stomach. Despite the fact that everyone in Hawthorne Springs knew everyone else, at least by sight, she and Tom’s mother were virtual strangers. “Hi, Mrs. Blackstone.”

Tom set her suitcase on the braided rug and unzipped his jacket. “Callie’s folks are out of town, and she forgot her key.”

She held her breath. If he mentions the arrest, I’ll die on the spot. He turned his head away from his mom and gave her a slow wink that sent her pulse skipping.

Helen smiled. “Then you must stay here, dear. Tom, take her bag to the guest room. The chili’s ready, so we’ll eat as soon as you both wash up.” She turned and headed in the direction of the kitchen.

Callie followed Tom down the hall to a small, neat room with blue-and white striped wallpaper and an old cherry wood bedroom set. “I can’t stay here,” she whispered.

He raised one dark brow. “You’d rather spend the holiday in jail?”

“Your mother doesn’t even know me.”

His teasing smile did nothing to calm her jitters. “Then you’re in luck—she doesn’t know what a pain in the butt you can be. And if you manage to behave yourself for a couple of days, she might never find out.”

“Dinner’s on the table!” Helen’s muffled voice called from the dining room.

After Tom ladled the steaming chili into bright blue bowls, Helen passed a basket of soda crackers. “I hope this isn’t too spicy for you,” she said. “Chili is a Christmas Eve tradition at our house.”

Callie smiled and gave her bowl an appreciative sniff. “I love chili, and it smells great.”

Helen reached for a bowl of shredded cheese. “How long will you be in town, dear?”

Good question. “Um, my plans are kind of up in the air at the moment.”

“You mustn’t think I was trying to get rid of you. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I just figured you’d have to get back to work. Your mom will be so disappointed she missed you. She talks about you every time she comes in to get her hair done.”

Callie’s stomach sank. She’d been too upset about losing her job to consider her parents’ reaction to the disintegration of her career.

“Callie’s looking for a new employment opportunity, Mom.” Tom sent her another wink, causing her to fidget in her chair. That must be how he’d charmed the pants off half the girls in high school. The man was a menace.

Helen’s spoon clattered into her bowl. “Here in Hawthorne Springs? Oh, that’s wonderful! Your mother will be thrilled!”

“I don’t know.”

Helen reached for Callie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Trust me, she’ll run through the streets shouting the news. She’s proud of your success in the city, but she’s said many times how much she misses you and wishes she could see more of you.”

Callie hoped Tom’s mother was right.

Helen monopolized the rest of the dinner conversation offering ideas about local businesses that could use help with marketing. By the time Callie and Tom finished drying the dishes, her tired brain was dizzy with possibilities. A huge yawn slipped out before she could stifle it.

Tom glanced at his watch. “I should go. Walk me to the door.”

When he reached for her hand, she was too surprised to resist. He stopped just inside the foyer, took her other hand, and turned her to face him. A single masculine dimple appeared in one cheek. “So, are you going to stay?”

She tilted her head. “I’d thought I would just come home until I got my bearings. I hadn’t considered staying in Hawthorne Springs for good.”

He tugged on her hands until she stepped closer, and his arms slid around her. “Maybe I can help you make up your mind.” He glanced above their heads to a bundle of mistletoe dangling from the light fixture. With a slow, sexy smile, he lowered his head until their lips met in a kiss filled with promise.

     When he drew back, Callie smiled. “I have to admit the idea is growing on me.”

Mistletoe and Misdemeanors by Alison Henderson

Chapter Two

Callie Rayburn was cute when she scowled. Hell, she was cute anytime with her soft, shoulder-length brown curls and snapping green eyes. She’d grown up to be quite a looker. He could barely see a hint of Susie’s gangly, gawky fourteen-year-old sister in the furious woman before him.

Tom glanced at his watch. He was due at his mom’s house for supper after she got off work. He hadn’t expected to be stuck at the station. Why did Callie Rayburn have to go and get herself arrested on Christmas Eve?

Grabbing the back of a heavy oak side chair, he dragged it across the speckled green linoleum floor to the cell and sat facing her with his forearms resting on his knees. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

She crossed her arms. “Let’s start by you letting me out of this cell.”

“Sorry, can’t do that.”

With a huff of frustration, she sank down on the gray metal cot and sent him an imploring look. “Can’t you let me out on bail or something?”

“I don’t set bail. That’s Judge Cameron’s bailiwick, and he’s playing the lead wise man in the Christmas pageant at Springside Baptist Church this evening. I’m not about to risk divine retribution by interrupting the performance.”

She lifted her chin.  “I’m sure my parents will be home soon, and we can clear this whole thing up.”

He sat back and regarded her. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Your parents left yesterday afternoon for a Christmas cruise to Mexico with your sister and her family.”

Her mouth sagged open, and her shoulders slumped as the fight drained from her body. Tears welled in her lovely green eyes, drowning the fire that had burned just a moment earlier. “H-how could they?” She blinked and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks.

Her pain hit him like a fist to the solar plexus. It had been much easier to see her locked in a jail cell when she’d been all prickly and defiant. Now he felt like he’d kicked a kitten. He softened his voice. “Callie, why are you here? Your mom said you weren’t coming home this year, that you couldn’t get away from work.”

“I wasn’t going to.” Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat.

“So what happened?”

She turned away and dabbed her tears with the back of her hand. “My plans changed.”

“In what way?”

“It’s none of your business.” She sniffed loudly. “You need to keep tissues in these cells.”

“Callie, look at me and tell me what happened. Maybe I can help.”

She snapped around, eyes blazing again through her tears. “I got fired, all right? There’s not much you can do about that.”

Fired? The last he’d heard her career in St. Louis was on the fast track. According to her mom, Callie was slated to become the youngest vice president in the history of her firm.  When she snuffled again, he grabbed a box of tissues off a nearby desk and poked them through the bars.

She blew her nose then wiped it. “Thanks.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“It was last night, at the office Christmas party.”

“You got fired at a Christmas party?” It took a pretty cold-hearted bastard to fire someone at a Christmas party.

She blew her nose again and glared at him. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Sorry, go on.”

She hiccupped and blotted the corners of her eyes. “By the time the party started, Mr. Van Pelt Junior had already warmed up pretty well with the bottle of vodka he keeps in his lower left desk drawer. After a rousing speech about what a good year we’d had, he called us into his office one by one to hand out the Christmas bonuses.”

“And you didn’t get a bonus?”

A bitter laugh broke from her lips. “Oh, he had a special bonus in mind for me. The problem was, I wasn’t interested.”

Slow-burning rage consumed the remnants of his guilt. “Did he put his hands on you?”

“He tried.”

His hands balled into fists. The bastard.  He flexed his hands to relax his fists and drew a deep breath. “And…?”

She glanced down at the floor, apparently fascinated by the random black dots on the linoleum tiles. “I discouraged him.”

“The whole story, Callie.”

Her chin came up, and her rueful gaze caught his. “All right. I may have discouraged him with a brass lamp…over the head.”

“Hmph. He deserved that and worse.”

“I’m not sure the police would have seen it that way. Junior told me to get out or he would call the cops. At the time I considered myself lucky not to be arrested.” She gave him a tight half-smile. “Little did I know that pleasure was yet to come.”

“It really hasn’t been your day, has it?”

“Oh, it gets worse.”

Assaulted, fired, and arrested—all in less than twenty-four hours. How much worse could it get?

“I was shaking so hard I barely made it back to my apartment, and when I got there I found an eviction notice taped to my door. Apparently the owner sold the building, and the new owner plans to turn it into condos.”

“You could buy one of the condos.”

She looked at him as if he’d sprouted horns. “With what? I just lost my job. I couldn’t even afford the rent.”

“What are you going to do?”

She shrugged. “Beats me. I loaded everything I could fit into a U-Haul and drove here, hoping to find comfort in the bosom of my family. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a U-Haul on Christmas Eve?”

Tom pushed to his feet and reached for his keys, his decision made. “I don’t think it will jeopardize the safety of the good citizens of Hawthorne Springs to let you out until you can appear before Judge Cameron on the twenty-sixth.”

She popped up. “I’m glad you finally see reason.”

“Don’t get so excited. I’m going out on a limb and remanding you into my custody.”

Her brows drew together, and her eyes narrowed. “What exactly does that mean?”

He sighed and thrust the key into the lock. “It means I’m taking you with me.”

Mistletoe and Misdemeanors by Alison Henderson

Chapter One

This was the last place she expected to spend Christmas. Callie Rayburn glanced around the puke-green, cinder block cell in the basement of the Hawthorne Springs, Missouri police station. In jail for Christmas. It figured, given the downward spiral her life had taken during the past twenty-four hours. 

A tear slid down the side of her nose. She dashed it away with the back of her hand and snuffled. She didn’t even have a tissue because that jerk Billy Freeman had taken her purse. What kind of town let a pubescent little snot like Billy wear a badge and carry a gun? It seemed like just last week she’d babysat him and his obnoxious younger brother to earn enough money to buy her dream dress for the senior prom.

Another tear followed the track of the first. If Billy Freeman was old enough to be a police officer, what did that make her? Ancient. Over the hill. Thirty years old, and with nothing to show for it. Two days ago she’d been living the high life in St. Louis with a job, a cute apartment she couldn’t afford, and a future. Today—zip, nada, bupkis. And now, to tie the whole thing up with a big, fluffy bow, she’d been arrested by Billy Freeman for breaking and entering. Un-freaking-believable.

Disgusted, she pulled out of her slouch and straightened her spine. If Officer Billy thought she was going to take this lying down, he had a lot to learn. She might have temporarily sunk to the level of pathetic loser, but heaven help her, she would sleep in her car before she spent Christmas Eve in a jail cell.

Callie shot another glance at her barren surroundings. Where was a tin cup when you needed one? Wasn’t that what prisoners used in the old movies? She’d have to settle for her shoe. She was lucky this pair didn’t have laces—Billy probably would have taken them to keep her from hanging herself.

She slipped off one sleek black ankle boot and thumped it against the metal bars, wincing at the resulting scuff that marred the smooth surface. Damn. She loved those boots. She hadn’t even paid the credit card charge for them yet.

“Billy Freeman, you little weasel, let me out of here!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Nothing.

“Billy, if you don’t unlock this door right now I’m going to tell your mother!”

Still no answer.

Her righteous indignation slipped a notch. Surely he hadn’t locked her up and abandoned her to spend the whole miserable holiday alone. She was starving. Even the condemned got a last meal, didn’t they?

“Billeeeeeee!”

The big metal door from the stairwell clanged open, and a man stepped through. But it wasn’t Billy Freeman. This man was taller, broader, and darker. His brows drew together in a fierce “V”.

“Stop that caterwauling. I sent Officer Freeman home to spend Christmas Eve with his family.”

Double damn. It was the man himself, Chief Thomas H. Blackstone, AKA Tommy Blackstone, the hottest, baddest boy in the Hawthorne Springs High School class of ’98. A devil in worn denim. The kind of boy girls yearned to regret. Callie and her older sister had been no exception.

During the fall of her freshman year, she had watched Susan sneak out their bedroom window every Saturday night for six weeks to ride off into the night on the back of Tommy Blackstone’s magic motorcycle. Her jealous fourteen-year-old imagination had concocted a whole array of shocking and titillating scenarios which Susan refused to confirm or deny. Each time, her sister had slipped back through the window an hour before dawn with a dreamy smile on her face and a finger pressed to her lips.

The infatuation had burned itself out quickly, and since Susan hadn’t nursed a grudge or broken heart, Callie had never squealed to their parents. Over the past fifteen years, Tommy Blackstone had drifted off her radar screen. At some point Susan had mentioned he’d joined the Marines right after graduation then returned to Hawthorne Springs and become a police officer. But by that time Callie was in St. Louis, clawing her way up the ladder in the marketing department at Van Pelt and Van Pelt Advertising. She’d never crossed paths with Tommy on her brief visits home. Then again, she’d never managed to get arrested before either.

She gritted her teeth in a facsimile of a smile. “Since Officer Freeman is gone, you can let me out. I’m sure you’ve got the key there on your super-duper police utility belt.”

He nodded. “I do, but you’re not going anywhere.”

“Tommy Blackstone, you let me out of here!”

He turned his attention to the clipboard in his hands. “My friends call me Tom. You can call me Chief Blackstone, but I still can’t let you out. You were caught breaking into an unoccupied residence—”

She threw her hands in the air and rolled her eyes. “My parents’ house! I forgot my key. ”

His stern expression didn’t falter. “Tell it to the judge. You also resisted arrest. You bit Officer Freeman—I saw the teeth marks. I ought to charge you with assaulting an officer.”

“He put his hand across my mouth!”

“To shut you up. You were creating a disturbance.”

Callie gave an unladylike snort. “I remember when you used to create plenty of disturbances. When did you become such a hard-ass?”

“You don’t want to know.”

His tone stopped her cold, and a flippant response died on her lips. She regarded him critically for the first time. He still bore a passing resemblance to the rebellious hell-raiser she’d secretly pined for in high school, but he’d changed. He stood taller and straighter now. His lean jawline could have been carved from granite, and his dark blue eyes held a new gravity. Devil-may-care Tommy Blackstone might have left Hawthorne Springs, but tough, serious Tom had returned in his place.

He flipped the papers on his clipboard back into place. “Besides, based on your behavior, I’m not convinced you’re not a danger to yourself or others.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never been a danger to anyone.”

His fine, firm lips tilted up in a slow smile. “I don’t know about that.”