as lawn and roof displays. That just wouldn’t do. Maybe a simple string of lights framing the entrance to the town hall was good enough for Mayor Cooper, but the same old icicle lights as last year for the Sheriff’s Department? Dani wasn’t having it.
On her way back through town last night, First Street had been abuzz with shop owners outside working tirelessly on what she knew would be fantastic decorations. Trudy Davis was turning the entire front window of her bookshop into a giant lighted book. The Meadow Valley fire station had lights strung from top to bottom, and there was talk of Santa in a lighted engine going up on the roof.
Everyone was making do with Mayor Cooper’s time restrictions as far as working on their decorations, but Dani was still at a loss for how to make the Sheriff’s Department stand out.
And then she found it.
She looked up from her laptop where she’d been frantically googling things like “Griswold Christmas decorations” and “holiday roof displays.”
“Look at this,” she said to Deputy Crawford.
She spun her computer to face him, a photo of a life-sized Christmas ornament made from white lights filling the screen.
“You can stand inside it,” she said. “This guy builds these amazing displays and then auctions them off. The last bid on this one is two hundred dollars, and the auction doesn’t close until the twenty-third.”
Teddy’s brows rose. “How would you even get it here if you won the auction? And where would you put it? That thing is huge.”
She bounced in her chair and grinned. “It collapses. And there are plenty of pickups in town for me to borrow. If it doesn’t weigh too much, the roof might be able to take it, and if it’s too heavy, then I’ll set it in the lawn next to the sign you forgot to string with lights. Don’t worry. I did that last night on my way back…”
She trailed off as something moved in her peripheral vision.
Through her window she saw Mayor Cooper striding down the town hall steps and toward the sheriff’s office.
Her first instinct was to bolt, like it had been earlier in the week. But then she remembered last night, kissing the man she’d wanted to kiss for fifteen years. Okay, so she still wanted to bolt, but now it was for a whole new reason. How were they supposed to act around each other after—after she had to convince herself to leave so Casey wouldn’t come home to what had looked like the scene of a bathtub kidnapping. And maybe she’d wanted some time to think, too, about what the hell she was getting herself into.
“Ahem,” Deputy Crawford said from across their shared space, the most exaggerated throat clearing she’d ever heard.
“What?” she said, snapping her head away from the window and fixing her narrowed gaze on her partner.
“Saw the emergency call came from the Cooper ranch,” Teddy replied with a knowing grin.
Dani shrugged it off. “It was a false alarm. Literally. He was installing a new system, tripped it, and I fixed it.”
Teddy glanced out the window, then over his shoulder toward the back exit to their small building.
“How come you’re not hightailing it out of here to see a man about a dog or something?” he asked.
Peyton was getting closer, and she noticed he was not in his usual suit and tie but in a thermal shirt and jeans, a down vest zipped over his torso and cowboy boots poking out the frayed ends of the denim.
Yep. She was staring again. And not answering Teddy’s logical questions since she had made herself scarce the other two times the mayor had approached their building.
Dani stood, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in her shirt and pants—her clean shirt and pants, since yesterday’s uniform was toast until she did laundry this weekend. She winced, realizing her closet consisted of mostly her work clothes and running clothes. That was her life—running and working.
“Deputy Garcia?” Teddy said, pulling her from her thoughts.
“Huh?” she said. “What?” But before he could toss any further questions her way, the front door opened, and Mayor Peyton Cooper walked in.
Coop.
Whom she had kissed Tuesday night. And last night. A lot last night. And oh, look, there were the lips she kissed, right there on his smiling face.
“Deputies,” he said with a nod. “Good—” He looked at his watch and then back at Dani and Teddy. “Good morning, for one more minute, at least. I’m just going to…” He pointed toward