Christmas Kisses with My Cowboy - Diana Palmer Page 0,59
someone to trade a few shifts with her at the hospital.
“The new schedule comes out on Tuesday. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s posted.”
“You’ve always been a good girl, Faith.” Ester pulled back and gave Faith’s cheeks a pinch. “Now, how about you wrap me up six of your cookies? One for each grandkid and one for Woodrow.” Shaking her head, Ester pulled a twenty out of her clutch. “Oh, let’s make that an even dozen.”
“I’ll add one of my Peppermint Barks for Mr. Rayborn. Tell him it’s for being patient.” Faith placed the cookies in the box and was reaching for a bow to tie it closed when something caught her eye outside the diner window. Her brain couldn’t exactly determine what it was that had an unsettling wave slithering down her spine, but when a black SUV drove through the parking lot, her heart jerked to a stop.
Perhaps it was the government plates or the official emblem on the door that sounded a rusty but all-too-familiar alarm. But something had gone terribly wrong.
Faith glanced around the diner, noting the people still eating their dinners and chatting with neighbors about holiday plans. The OPEN sign in the window was still flashing, Ester was still talking, and across the street Mr. Wilkins was helping a couple load a Christmas tree into a truck. Everyone was wrapped up in their daily business while Faith’s world went dim.
Her heart turned to lead, the box of cookies slipping from her fingers and landing on its side. A dozen iced gingerbread cookies tumbled onto the floor.
“Dear, are you okay?” Ester placed a hand on Faith’s shoulder.
No. She was most definitely not okay. Because there, sitting in the back seat of Noah Tucker’s Ranger-issued SUV, placing him on the other side of the law, was her kid brother. Her sweet and honest and oh so gentle-hearted brother, who was supposed to be safe and sound at Shelby’s house riding horses and doing normal boy things, was somehow imprisoned in the back seat of a government vehicle while being escorted through town for all the world to see, as if he was like his father—
A law-breaking criminal.
Chapter Three
A painful jolt of nausea churned in Faith’s gut, the same way it used to when the local police paid her family a weekly visit. Sometimes they had a warrant. Other times it was to question her mother’s man-of-the-hour about some crime he’d likely committed. But Faith hadn’t lived under the same roof with a convict since she was sixteen.
She worked hard to be honest and straightforward, always conscious of the decisions she made, choosing her circle of friends carefully. Her standards for men were so high that she rarely dated. When the planets actually did align, exposing a sliver of free time to go on an actual date, she never brought them around Pax.
Faith had sacrificed a lot, worked hard to be an upstanding citizen and role model in order to avoid this very situation.
“Can you watch the cash register?” she absently mumbled to Ester as she turned and hurriedly weaved through the diner and out the front door, jingle bells ringing in her wake.
Everything around her blurred together as her focus locked on the SUV, which had come to a stop right outside the diner’s entrance. She reached the car as the driver came around to open the back-passenger door—that only opened from the outside.
A dull roar filled her ears as Pax hopped out, his backpack slung over his shoulder, a bright orange and black laser tag gun in his hand. A toy gun that matched the one his best friend was carrying. Faith had a strict no gun rule in place. Not in the house. Not on his person. Not ever
“Dear God,” she whispered the moment his blue and white sneakers hit the asphalt. She moved quickly and, when the driver didn’t restrain Pax, Faith pulled him into her arms. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Pax said, squirming out of her embrace.
“What is this? You know the rules.” She plucked the plastic gun from Pax’s hand. “Where did you get this?”
“In the Tuckers’ basement,” Pax said, studying the cracks in the sidewalk. “Decalin got the new Battle Rifle Pro for his Countdown to Christmas present, and he and some of the other guys were playing commando at the park.”
And here Faith had been excited to find Pax a Superhero advent calendar. Behind each door was a superhero-shaped chocolate—not a 500-dollar laser gun. But Decalin was the