Merry Christmas, Cowboy Read online

  He laughed. Paula’s mouth drew down in a frown of disgust.

  “I put on pointy ears and drew whiskers with eyebrow pencil and went as Tabby Cat. Do you want to know why I’m lapping up the milk in that cup?”

  She didn’t wait for Brandon to reply. Paula could guess the answer.

  “I put a ton of Captain Spike’s Coconutty Rum in it,” the girl bragged. “I swiped it from my parents’ liquor cabinet—they don’t ever lock it. I loooove coconut rum.”

  Spoiled and unsupervised. Paula knew the type.

  “Yeah? Cool. Me too.”

  “You’re just saying that,” the girl giggled.

  “No, I really do like rum.”

  Paula happened to know that anything stronger than beer made Brandon throw up. Another bit of information that Edith had insisted on sharing.

  “Can I call you Tabby? That’s a good nickname.”

  The girl heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I guess so.”

  “What’s your last name?” Brandon asked. “You never did tell me.”

  “Nyah, nyah. I don’t have to,” the girl answered. “Chat room rules.”

  So he didn’t know her well and they had met online. The girl did sound as young as he was, maybe even younger. Paula wanted to get a glimpse of Tabitha, but she stayed where she was. Listening was one thing. Peeking through doors was another.

  The two of them looked at more photos, alternately silly and serious. Paula was grateful she’d been a teenager before the Internet became a universal obsession. The photo of Tabby drinking and her snotty comments about her parents would live online forever.

  But Paula had no idea what Brandon posted on Facebook and had never looked at his page. No teenager would want a cop to friend him, even though he was always polite to her.

  “That’s me, here at the Christmas House,” Brandon said.

  The girl yawned. “Who’s the giant in the plaid shirt?”

  “That’s Zach Bennett. He’s nice. He’s teaching me some carpentry.”

  “Bang bang. Hammers and nails. Bor-ing.”

  Brandon dropped the subject. “Want to see my family?”

  “Okay,” she said with no real interest. “I don’t have anything else to do until I meet my mom on Sixteenth Street. She thinks I went shopping on my own. Did I tell you that?”

  “No. Okay, this is my grandma, Edith.”

  There was a pause. “Those earrings are weird. Looks like she got them at the dime store.”

  Paula waited for Brandon to say something in defense of his grandmother.

  “Maybe she did,” he finally replied. “But she’s pretty cool.”

  “So, like, do you live with her?” the girl asked in the same bored voice. “I don’t see any photos of parent-type people. Just you and that old lady.”

  “I haven’t seen my folks for a while.”

  “Oh. Why not?”

  “Their choice. Not mine,” he said evenly, his tone suddenly adult.

  “You mean they abandoned you? That’s really sad.” The girl’s sympathy sounded feigned.

  “Not exactly. They just left.”

  “Like, recently? Right before Christmas? That’s so mean.”

  Paula hated the way the girl was idly digging for information from a boy she didn’t know and wasn’t likely to see again.

  “Years ago.”

  “You’re lucky,” Tabby said. “I wish my mom and dad would take a fast walk off a cliff sometimes.”

  Brandon didn’t answer her. “But I have other family. Moving right along . . .” There was a clatter of keys. “This is my uncle’s page. He’s my father’s brother.”

  “You look like him a little,” Tabitha said.

  “I look more like my dad.”

  “How come there’s no photo of him?” she asked.

  “There just isn’t. Wait a sec. I want to read this.” Brandon paused. “He says he just saw my dad in Vegas. Says he looked okay.”

  There was an undercurrent of excitement in his voice.

  “Well, why didn’t your uncle tell you?”

  Brandon blew out a frustrated breath. “He doesn’t even know I look at his page. He doesn’t set controls. Anyone can view it.”

  The girl laughed. “What a dork. Wish we could add mustaches on everyone in his stupid photos. Then he’d know we were lurking. But not who we were.”

  “Yeah. Too bad we can’t.”

  Brandon was pretending to be as bratty as Tabitha. Paula understood it, but she didn’t like him for it.

  The girl hummed. Paula imagined her looking around.

  “We could get a marker and do it to the elves,” she suggested.

  “No.”

  “I brought a whole set.” Paula heard the sound of scrabbling in some kind of bag. “Come on. What are you scared of? How would anyone know we did it?”

  “Don’t, Tabby.”

  The girl got to her feet. Paula heard Brandon do the same. The ring of an unfamiliar cell phone stopped them both.

  “Oh please,” said the girl. “It’s my mom. Be quiet. I have to make up a lie about where I am. Even though she let me cut class to go shopping.” The ringing stopped as Tabitha picked up. “Mom? Is that you? I can hardly hear you. I’m trying something on—what? Stop yelling. Are you there? God, I hate this crappy phone you bought me!”

  She ended the call. “How was that?” she asked Brandon.

  That was enough for Paula. She got up and went into the Elf Room. The two teenagers whirled in surprise.

  “Hello, Brandon,” Paula said. She looked at the girl, who was fair-haired and very thin, with heavily made-up eyes. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “You’re right. We haven’t. Who are you?” Tabitha began.

  Brandon hung his head. “That’s Paula Lewis. She’s a cop.”

  Tabitha glared at her. “What, undercover? She doesn’t have a uniform.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Brandon muttered.

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  Paula ignored the girl’s sneering hostility. “Can I see some ID, please?”

  “Were you listening to us?” Tabitha snapped out the question.

  “I heard some of what you said,” Paula replied calmly. “And I am a police officer. Do you have a school ID or a driver’s license?”

  “I don’t even have a permit,” the girl said crossly.

  “Let me guess. You’re under sixteen. I’ll settle for a school ID, then.”

  Angrily, Tabitha picked up an expensive leather backpack and searched through it. She pulled out a laminated ID and thrust it at Paula.

  “Thank you.” Paula noted the locale of the high school, an upscale suburb north of Denver, and the girl’s full name, Tabitha Emily Greene. “You’re a long way from home. How did you get here?”

  “My mom drove in and I walked over from Sixteenth Street.”

  “Got it. That matches up with the charade on the phone.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t talk back. You shouldn’t be here and I’m not going to let you waltz out. Your mother doesn’t know where you really are and you’re underage. Call her and ask her to pick you up,” Paula said firmly.

  “I don’t want to. You can’t make me.” Despite her bravado, Tabby suddenly sounded shaky.

  “The other alternative is a ride to the station in a squad car and a chat with a detective from the juvenile department. Call your mom.”

  The girl gave in, speed-dialing her mother with a sullen expression.

  Paula brought her and Brandon downstairs and asked Brandon to sit at the table. She waited with the girl in the entryway hall until she saw a luxury car pull up. The woman at the wheel rolled down her window and peered up at the sign for the Christmas House. Her anxious face brightened only a little when she saw her daughter push through the doors.

  Paula turned away. Brandon looked at her, his mouth set in a tight line.

  “Come with me,” she said to him.

  Chuck Barbera minded his
own business. He had been a cop; he knew the drill.

  The boy walked at her side as Paula headed to a small room off the kitchen. Its shelves were crammed with supplies, but the metal card table was stowed in there, along with a couple of chairs.

  “Sit down.”

  “I guess you’re going to tell my grandma.”

  Paula shook her head. “You get to do that. But make sure you tell her the truth.”

  Brandon nodded. He dug at a chip in the table’s enamel paint, then stopped with a sigh. “Sometimes I wish you two weren’t such good friends.”

  “That’s not the point,” Paula said. “Look, what just happened isn’t the end of the world. But she had to go. And you shouldn’t have brought her here in the first place.”

  “No. Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Do I have to tell you that online hookups can be dangerous?”

  Brandon’s expression turned stubborn. “She’s a girl. Not a homicidal maniac. Besides, I know someone at her school. He said she was fun.”

  “That’s not exactly a character reference.” Paula paused, trying to get a sense of what he was thinking. “You could do better,” she said at last. “I can’t say I liked her.”

  “Tabby seemed nice online. I didn’t know she was so bitchy in person.”

  He’d still gone out of his way to try and impress her. Paula sighed. “Okay, so you made a mistake. I just don’t want you making one that could come back to bite you.”

  He only shrugged.

  “Listen up, Brandon. The Christmas House is for everybody. But it’s not your house. You have an opportunity to help out, make some real friends, and maybe learn a few things.”

  He scowled. “What you’re really saying is don’t screw it up. Everybody keeps telling me that.”

  “I don’t think I ever have.”

  He got up suddenly, jarring the table.

  Paula pushed back her chair. “Where are you going?”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t run away,” he said sarcastically. “Zach needs help with the new display. He said he’d be here by three.”

  Paula looked at her watch. “That’s a half hour from now. Go call your grandmother. Explain what happened. She can talk to me if she thinks it’s necessary.”

  “What if I don’t want you to talk to her?” the boy challenged her.

  “Oh, come off it, Brandon. You did something dumb and it’s over. I think we understand each other.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” He took the few steps to the closed door and opened it, looking into the hall to see if anyone was there. Then he swung the door wide, banging it into the wall, and made himself scarce.

  Paula sat there, thinking for a few moments. He really hadn’t done anything that bad. What worried her was the excitement in his voice when he’d seen his dad’s name. She wondered if he would tell Edith that part.

  Vegas wasn’t that far away. All Brandon would have to do was hop on a long-distance bus to try and find him.

  The dusk-to-dawn shift was weirder and more dreary than it ever had been, even from the relative security of a patrol car. On nights like this, Paula was a whole hell of a lot less sure why she’d ever thought being a cop was the be-all and end-all.

  She was dedicated to doing her job right, and she gave it everything she had. But the thrill was kinda gone for Paula. For the last year or so, she’d had no time for her friends, who’d moved on with their lives anyway. That, and the ability to shut down emotionally—an occupational hazard for all cops—led her to expect the worst and see the bad in people too often.

  A happy-go-lucky guy like Zach could help her change that. Plus he kissed like he meant it.

  Still and all, a little caution was in order. It wasn’t like he was guaranteed to stick around. That came with the cowboy mentality.

  Though she liked the way he didn’t seem to be weighed down by anything, even envied him that. Maybe it was his outdoorsy upbringing. City streets could eat you alive. Among other things, Paula knew she couldn’t fix the people who called them home. These days, when she got back to her place at the end of a shift, she just wanted to curl up in a ball. That wasn’t good. That needed to change.

  She and her partner got out several times, scoping out different huddled groups on the sidewalks—homeless vets, the mentally ill, and older kids who she knew were runaways. They all had some version of a “family” on the streets and stuck with their own kind. The ones who wandered alone tended to be a lot worse off.

  She and her partner persuaded some of the loners to go to shelters. Temperatures were dropping fast and space on the heating grates was something that got fought over. They broke up a battle that was turning nasty and called for backup to get a few of the slower-moving participants jailed for the night. The others took off into the night.

  When the dust had settled and they filed their report, Paula slid into the passenger side and let her partner, Mike Samson, a chunky, middle-aged cop who’d seen it all, do the driving.

  “What a night. But it’s a job. Nothing more, nothing less,” he said philosophically. He looked over at her. “You all right?”

  “I’m just tired,” she said.

  “That’s because you try too hard. Do like me. I put in just enough effort so I don’t get fired before I can retire.”

  Paula didn’t answer.

  “Want to drive over to the pretty part of town? We could issue a few drunk-and-disorderlies and call it a night. The ones in fancy clothes usually cooperate.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I detect a noticeable lack of enthusiasm,” Mike said. “You used to be so gung ho.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Maybe that volunteer gig is too much for you. I keep seeing those Christmas House flyers in the break room. Your face is in half the photos.”

  “Is it? Those must be the new ones.”

  “You look happy, though,” Mike said.

  Paula smiled slightly. “It’s a happy place. I like it there.”

  “What do you do exactly?”

  “I cover basic security. And I try to keep the peace. You know how it is. Always something.”

  “Yeah? Can’t be that bad,” Mike said. “Bet you wish you were there right now.”

  Paula looked ahead, getting her bearings. “We’re not far away.” Three rights on side streets and they would be at the Christmas House. “Turn here,” she said. “I can show you what it looks like.”

  “Okay.”

  In a few minutes they were driving past the old mansion. A lamp somewhere on the first floor made the windows glow faintly from inside. The motion-sensor lights that illuminated the parking lot flashed on when they stopped for a moment.

  “Looks nice,” Mike said with approval. “I like the wreaths in the windows. Maybe I’ll stop by with my wife and grandkids.”

  “Do that.”

  Paula settled back on the final go-around, watching the mansion in her side view mirror. She almost felt that she didn’t want to let it out of her sight. For a fraction of a second, she saw the topmost window light up, as if someone had switched the lamp on and off quickly.

  She turned around to look. The window was dark. It stayed dark.

  “Something the matter?” Mike asked.

  “I don’t think so. Just thought I saw something. Could have been a reflection.”

  “Want to go back?”

  Paula looked harder. Still nothing. “No. Maybe it was my imagination.”

  A cold dawn was breaking by the time she got home. Paula barely noticed the pink-and-gray sky as she went up the stairs to her apartment building and let herself in, collapsing in the armchair with her heavy uniform jacket and hat still on.

  She rubbed her eyes, knocking off the hat. Paula picked it up and sailed it across the room. The equipment belt pressed uncomfortably into her middle. She unbuckled it and sat up to remove it, dropping pounds of gear and her gun onto the floor.

  She sat back. Something was still poking her. Paula felt behind her and pulled
out the TV remote. She clicked it on and closed her eyes. It was noon when she awoke.

  Her cell phone was chiming. She looked blearily at the screen. Zach. Texting.

  “Thank you for not expecting me to talk,” she said aloud. She read the text.

  Truck conked out. I bunked down at Christmas House. Fun but lonely. Miss you. Coming in today?

  Paula raised her eyebrows. So she hadn’t been imagining things last night. She texted back.

  Yes. Where are you now?

  The reply came quickly.

  About to knock on your door.

  Chapter 7

  Paula rushed over to the mirror and yanked the elastic from her tight but frizzled braid. Her hair had been under a police hat for eight hours and slept on for eight more. Rippled auburn strands fell around her pale face. She fluffed them up with both hands, then dashed on lip gloss and rubbed her cheeks for color.

  The ugly uniform was staying on. There was no time to change. She could hear Zach in the hall.

  There was the knock. “It’s me,” he called.

  Paula went to open it, stumbling over her equipment belt and the items she’d removed from it. She picked up the belt and draped it over a chair.

  “Hi,” she said when she opened the door. “I look like hell. I slept in my clothes.”

  Zach laughed. “So did I. The boiler finally died around midnight.”

  “Again?”

  “It was a challenge to keep warm.” He walked in, looking around without sitting down.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t freeze,” Paula said. “Want some coffee?”

  “I can’t stay long. But okay.” He kept on his denim jacket, as if he were still cold.

  “How’d you get here?”

  “Chuck Barbera gave me a ride. I heard him opening up and I ran downstairs. Scared the daylights out of him.”

  “I bet you did.”

  He looked around her place with interest. “So this is where you live.”

  “All I do is work. This is where I sleep,” Paula said. “Is the pickup still in the lot?”

  “The tow truck came this morning. The guy at the garage just called, said it looks like a distributor wire shorted out. Should be ready by afternoon.”