Fear, icy cold, rushed through Casey’s veins.

  Was Naomi injured?

  He moved silently toward the sound. Gasp...whoosh...gasp.

  The sound grew more frantic and louder as he neared a patch of thick undergrowth between two trees.

  His weapon at the ready, he rounded the first of the two trees.

  Lawton sat on the ground, leaning against the tree, service weapon in his hand. Red painted the front of his shirt, originating at a hole mid chest.

  His shuddered with the violent gasps sawing in and out of his sagging mouth.

  “Where is she?” Casey demanded as he took a step closer, his bead on the man’s head.

  Lawton stared wordlessly at him while attempting to raise his weapon.

  Casey tensed. His finger curled around the trigger.

  The hand grasping the weapon fell back to his thigh. The weapon slipped free of his grasp.

  Casey collected the weapon and pitched it aside.

  The officer who’d come with Casey rounded the clump of trees and underbrush.

  “Call Tanner,” Casey ordered. “Then, if this bastard tells us where Naomi is, call an ambulance. If he doesn’t, just leave him here to die.”

  While the officer called Tanner, Casey started walking away.

  A frantic attempt at a howl echoed behind him. He turned around and Lawton managed to raise his left arm and point into the woods on his right.

  Casey nodded at the officer to call for an ambulance, then he lunged in the direction Lawton had pointed. He called Naomi’s name. He raced through the woods, dodging trees, shouting her name at the top of his lungs.

  His own name echoed back to him. It was a distant cry. An anguished cry. But it was her and she was alive.

  He rushed toward her voice.

  She raced right up to him and threw her arms around him. “He was going to kill me.”

  “You’re okay now.” He set her back. “Are you injured?”

  She shook her head. “I’m okay.” She glanced beyond him. “Is he still alive?”

  “Barely.”

  “We struggled. The gun went off, he staggered back and I ran.” She blinked repeatedly to staunch the flow of tears, her words coming in a rush. “I just kept running even after I realized he wasn’t chasing me anymore. I was so hysterical I couldn’t remember the way to the road. I think I’ve been running in circles.”

  He hugged her close to his chest. “It’s over now.”

  She drew back, stared up at him. “His sister. She poisoned my mom and caused my dad’s heart attack.” The tears turned to a river now.

  “Come on.” He pulled her close and started back toward the house. “We’ll make sure they don’t get away with what they’ve done.”

  “My parents never knew,” she said. “They didn’t do anything wrong.”

  He tightened his arm around her shoulders. “I don’t think anyone ever believed they did.”

  “I know where the bones are now,” she mumbled against his chest. “There’s a bone room. Under my dad’s workshop.”

  This was going to take a long time to sort out.

  Casey wasn’t leaving until it was done.

  * * *

  “NAOMI.”

  She was pretty sure she was dreaming. In this dream she could hear his voice. Casey’s voice. It was about the sexiest voice she’d ever heard.

  “Naomi.”

  A hand touched her shoulder, gave it a little shake.

  Her eyes opened and she sat straight up.

  It took a moment for her mind to orient itself. Sheriff Tanner’s office. Sofa. She’d fallen asleep in the sheriff’s office.

  Casey smiled and sat down beside her. “Hey.”

  She leaned into his warm body. “Hey.”

  The case was solved, and he would be leaving. Maybe tonight. She wasn’t ready. At all.

  She looked around the room for a clock. “What time is it?”

  Where was her cell phone? Oh, yeah, in that underground bunker bone room. She shivered.

  “Midnight,” he told her. “I came to tell you it’s okay to leave now.”

  She could leave? It really was done. She could not go back to the farm. Not right now. Maybe not ever. The idea of what those people had done to her family...the reality that if she had been there instead of chasing a dream in California...

  “I can’t go to the farm.” She barely got the words out without bursting into tears again. She’d cried so much already her eyes were raw from it.

  “I was thinking about a place where you’d feel more comfortable and where the reporters won’t think to look.”

  She stared up at him then. Even as exhausted as she knew he was—not to mention his near-death experience in that pit—he looked amazing. “Where?”

  “I’ll be able to confirm that any minute now.”

  “Okay.” God, she was confused. “This is way too crazy for a movie or a book. No one would ever believe it.”

  “I think you might be right.” His arm went around her.

  She snuggled into his side. Arlene—Anna, whatever—killed her own mother. Of course she hadn’t thought twice about killing Naomi’s parents.

  Sarah Holland—aka Juanita Tripp—claimed in her statement that Arlene had bragged about learning everything her mother knew and then getting rid of her. Her only mistake, she’d said later, was in not killing her little brother at the time. He’d only been a kid. She hadn’t expected him to remember that Nazi hunters hadn’t been the ones to kill their mother. She certainly hadn’t expected that he would one day find her again and try to get close. Once he confirmed that she was doing the same heinous things their mother had done, he’d killed her and then himself.

  If that wasn’t weird enough, there was Deputy Lawton and his sister—who was really his wife. The people in the pit—the ones whose identities Lawton and Holland had stolen—were just innocent victims who fit the profile of what the depraved couple were looking for.

  Tripp had needed a nurse identity in order to get close to Naomi’s mom so she picked Sarah Holland. Holland had no children. No husband and no close family. She was easy to become. Lawton was a little more complicated. He was a cop in Mobile, Alabama. But like Holland, he had no close family or friends. A loner. Easy for Richard Tripp to become him. Claim he had to suddenly move up to Tennessee for a sick relative, eventually getting a position with the sheriff’s department. His background checked out. It was easier back then to change personnel files. Not like now in this electronic-driven world.

  “But this is your story to tell,” he offered. “You might be surprised and end up with a book deal and a movie deal.”

  Could she? “This is Winchester, Tennessee,” she argued. “How does something like this happen in such a small town?”

  “It’s the perfect place to disappear,” Casey said. “It’s small, quiet. Not much happens in the way of crime. So, nobody looks too closely.”

  He reached into his pocket and retrieved his cell. “We are confirmed.”

  “Confirmed?”

  He stood and offered his hand. “We are the guests of Sheriff Tanner and Chief Brannigan at the Falls Mill Bed and Breakfast.”

  “Really?” She’d only been there once on a tour. Years ago. But she remembered that it was charming and tucked away from the world.

  “You game?”

  She accepted his hand and moved up beside him. “Are you my bodyguard for the night?” She really, really wanted to believe this part was not about work. The investigation was done for the most part. But that only meant that he would be going back to Nashville. Her chest hurt just thinking about it.

  “I was considering making an offer to guard your body for the foreseeable future.” He shrugged. “As long as you need or want me. Especially if you end up starring in your movie.”

  A smile stretched across her mouth. “I guess that kiss sealed our fate. The one the other night, I mean.”

  He cupped her cheek and smiled back at her. “I’m fairly certain the one from when we were kids did the trick. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

  “Well, Agent Duncan—” she tucked her arm in his and turned him toward the door “—I think we should explore these wanton desires you have and see where they take us.” She paused at the door and looked straight into his eyes. “All we have to do is be brave enough to jump.”

  * * *

  When her estranged father dies and leaves her his sprawling Texas ranch, Janessa Parkman must come to terms with the stipulations in his will and her past. This includes confronting what happened between her and rancher Brody Harrell all those years ago...and figuring out if the magic of the Christmas season can help them pick up where they left off...

  Read on for a sneak preview of

  Christmas at Colts Creek by USA TODAY bestselling author Delores Fossen.

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  Christmas at Colts Creek

  by Delores Fossen

  CHAPTER ONE

  “THIS IS LIKE one of those stupid posts that people put on social media,” the woman snarled. “You know the ones I’m talking about. For a million dollars, would you stay in this really amazing house for a year with no internet, no phone and some panty-sniffing poltergeists?”

  Frowning at that, Janessa Parkman blinked away the raindrops that’d blown onto her eyelashes and glanced at the grumbler, Margo Tolley, who was standing on her right. Margo had hurled some profanity and that weird comment at the black granite headstone that stretched five feet across and five feet high. A huge etched image of Margo’s ex, Abraham Lincoln Parkman IV, was in the center, and it was flanked by a pair of gold-leaf etchings of the ornate Parkman family crest.

  “Abe was a miserable coot, and this proves it,” Margo added, spitting out the words the way the chilly late October rain was spitting at them. She kicked the side of the headstone.

  Janessa really wanted to disagree with that insult, and the kick, especially since Margo had aimed both of them at Janessa’s father. Or rather her father because he had that particular title in name only. However, it was hard to disagree or be insulted after what she’d just heard from Abe’s lawyer. Hard not to feel the bubbling anger over what her father had done, either.

  Good grief. Talk about a goat rope the man had set up.

  “Do you understand the conditions of Abe’s will?” Asher Parkman, the lawyer, asked, directing the question at Janessa.

  “Yeah, do you understand that the miserable coot is trying to ruin our lives?” Margo blurted out before she could answer.

  Yes, Janessa got that, and unlike the stupid social media posts, there was nothing amusing about this. The miserable coot had just screwed them all six ways to Sunday.

  Twenty Minutes Earlier

  “SOMEBODY OUGHT TO put a Texas-sized warning label on Abe Parkman’s tombstone,” Margo Tolley grumbled. “A warning label,” she repeated. “Because Abe’s meanness will surely make everything within thirty feet toxic for years to come. He could beat out Ebenezer Scrooge for meanness. The man was a flamin’ bunghole.”

  Janessa figured the woman had a right to voice an opinion, even if the voicing was happening at Abe Parkman’s graveside funeral service. Janessa’s father clearly hadn’t left behind a legacy of affection and kindness.

  Margo, who’d been Abe’s second wife, probably had a right to be bitter. So did plenty of others, and Janessa suspected most people in Abe’s hometown of Last Ride, Texas, had come to this funeral just so they could make sure he was truly dead.

  Or to glean any tidbits about Abe’s will.

  Rich people usually left lots of money and property when they died. Mean rich people could do mean, unexpected things with that money and property. It was the juiciest kind of gossip fodder for a small town.

  Janessa didn’t care one wet eyelash what Abe did with whatever he’d accumulated during his misery-causing life. Her reason for coming had nothing to do with wills or assets. No. She needed the answer to two very big questions.

  Why had Abe wanted her here?

  And what had he wanted her to help him fix?

  Janessa gave that plenty of thought while she listened to the minister, Vernon Kerr, giving the eulogy. He chirped on about Abe’s achievements, peppering in things like pillar of the community, astute businessman and a legacy that will live on for generations. But there were also phrases like his sometimes rigid approach to life and an often firm hand in dealing with others.

  Perhaps those were the polite ways of saying flamin’ bunghole.

  The sound of the minister’s voice blended with the drizzle that pinged on the sea of mourners’ umbrellas. Gripes and mutters rippled through the group of about a hundred people who’d braved the unpredictable October 30th weather to come to Parkmans’ Cemetery.

  Or Snooty Hill as Janessa had heard some call it.

  The Parkmans might be the most prominent and richest family in Last Ride, and their ancestor might have founded the town, but obviously some in her gene pool weren’t revered.

  Margo continued to gripe and mutter as well, but her comments were harsher than the rest of the onlookers because she’d likely gotten plenty of fallout from Abe’s firm hand. It was possibly true of anyone whose life Abe had touched. Janessa certainly hadn’t been spared from it.

  Still, Abe had managed to attract and convince two women to marry him, including Janessa’s own mother—who’d been his first wife. Janessa figured the convincing was in large part because he’d been remarkably good-looking along with having mountains of money. But it puzzled her as to why the women would tie themselves, even temporarily, to a man with a mile-wide mean streak.

  A jagged vein of lightning streaked out from a fast approaching cloud that was the color of a nasty bruise. It sent some of the mourners gasping, squealing and scurrying toward their vehicles. They parted like the proverbial sea, giving Janessa a clear line of sight of someone else.

  Brody Harrell.

  Oh, for so many reasons, it was impossible for Janessa not to notice him. For an equal number of reasons, it was impossible not to remember him.

  Long and lean, Brody stood out in plenty of ways. No umbrella, for one. The rain was splatting onto his gray Stetson and shoulders. No funeral clothes for him, either. He was wearing boots, jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt that was already clinging to his body because of the drizzle.

  Once, years ago on a hot July night, she’d run her tongue over some of the very places where that shirt was now clinging.

  Yes, impossible not to remember that.

  Brody was standing back from the grave. Far back. Ironic since according to the snippets Janessa had heard over the years about her father, Brody was the person who’d been closest to Abe, along with also running Abe’s sprawling ranch, Colts Creek.

  If those updates—aka gossip through social media and the occasional letter from Abe’s head housekeeper—were right, then Brody was the son that Abe had always wanted but never had. It was highly likely that he was the only one here who was truly mourning Abe’s death.

  Though he wasn’t especially showing any signs of grief.

  It probably wasn’t the best time for her to notice that Brody’s looks had only gotten a whole boatload better since her days of tongue-kissing his chest. They’d been seventeen, and while he’d been go-ahead-drown-in-me hot even back then, he was a ten-ton avalanche of hotness now with his black hair and dreamy brown eyes.

  His body had filled out in all the right places, and his face, that face, had a nice edge to it. A mix of reckless rock star and a really naughty fallen angel who knew how to do many, many naughty things.

  A loud burst of thunder sent even more people hurrying off. “Sorry for your loss,” one of them shouted to Brody. Several more added pats on his back. Two women hugged him, and one of the men tried to give Brody his umbrella, which Brody refused. You didn’t have to be a lip-reader to know that one of those women, an attractive busty brunette, whispered, “Call me,” in his ear.

  Brody didn’t acknowledge that obvious and poorly timed booty-call offer. He just stood there, his gaze sliding from Abe’s tombstone to Janessa. Unlike her, he definitely didn’t appear to be admiring anything about her or remembering that he’d been the one to rid her of her virginity.

  Just the opposite.

  His expression seemed to be questioning why she was there. That was understandable. It’d been fifteen years since Janessa had been to Last Ride. Fifteen years since her de-virgining. That’d happened at the tail end of her one and only visit to Colts Creek when she’d spent that summer trying, and failing, to figure Abe out. She was still trying, still failing.

  Brody was likely thinking that since she hadn’t recently come to see the man who’d fathered her when he was alive, then there was no good reason to see him now that he was dead.

  Heck, Brody might be right.

  So what if Abe had sent her that letter? So what if he’d said please? That didn’t undo the past. She’d spent plenty of time and tears trying to work out what place in her mind and heart to put Abe. As for her mind—she reserved Abe a space in a tiny mental back corner that only surfaced when she saw Father’s Day cards in the store. And as for her heart—she’d given him no space whatsoever.

  Well, not until that blasted letter anyway.

  She silently cursed herself, mentally repeating some of Margo’s mutters. She’d thought she had buried her daddy issues years ago. It turned out, though, that some things just didn’t stay buried. They just lurked and lingered, waiting for a chance to resurface and bite you in the butt. Which wasn’t a comforting thought, considering she was standing next to a grave.