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He laughed out loud, took a long sip of punch, and turned to the woman. He wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her so hungrily that Meadow turned away, sick to her stomach. The mistletoe was getting a workout.
She could still taste him on her mouth. It made her ache in odd places, the sensations she’d felt when he kissed her. She’d dreamed of it, hoped for it, since she was sixteen. Now she knew. But the way it had happened crushed her. He made it obvious that it meant nothing to him. He pulled his companion close to his side and didn’t look at Meadow for the rest of the night.
She danced with a few other men, but her heart wasn’t in it. That led to the drunk cattleman and the spilled punch and her utter humiliation when Dal Blake stood there laughing his head off as she tried to cope with another embarrassment. Her father had noticed her depression long before the drunk cattleman’s attentions. She’d asked him to take her home.
“Let me tell you something about Dal,” he said when they were inside the house and she was toweling off her beautiful, ruined dress. “He’s a rounder. He doesn’t believe in picket fences and kids, and he likely never will. His mother ran away with his father’s best friend when he was twelve. His first real girlfriend threw him over for a real estate agent and laughed at him for thinking he was more important to her than any other man. He’ll never settle down.”
“I know that,” she said, disconcerted. Her father hadn’t spoken to her like this before.
“You’ve got a crush on him,” her father continued gently, nodding at her shocked expression. “Nothing wrong with that. You have to cut your teeth on somebody. Just don’t get too close to him. He’d break your heart and walk away. He doesn’t really like women, Meda. He thrives on broken hearts.”
“I noticed that,” she said. She forced a smile. “Don’t worry, Dad, I know he’s not my type. Besides, his date was beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful inside, honey, where it really counts,” he said solemnly. “I’d do anything to keep you away from Dal Blake. You deserve someone better.”
“Aw, that’s sweet,” she murmured and laughed as she hugged him. “Thanks, Dad.”
He hugged her back and let her go. “Now, change your clothes and come have coffee in the kitchen like we used to when your mother was alive,” he added, alluding to the sudden, sad passing of her mother the year she started college, “and tell me about that history class you like so much!”
* * *
That had been years ago, but Meadow never got over the hurt. She knew that Dal Blake would never give her the time of day romantically, but it was painful to see how opposed her father was to anything developing between them.
She knew he was right. As the years passed, Dal’s reputation with women became even more notorious. To say that he played the field was an understatement. He was handsome and rich, and he could get almost any woman he wanted. He dated movie stars, politicians, physicians, even a psychologist. But he never bought any of them a ring, and they didn’t last long. He pushed them out of his life if they tried to get serious.
Meadow wasn’t disposable. She wanted a man who could settle down and raise kids with her. Of course, that presupposed that a man would actually want to have kids with her one day. So far, her few dates had been mostly disastrous.
She’d gone out with a fellow FBI agent who spent the entire date talking about his favorite makes and models of cars and described painstakingly how he’d rebuilt the engine in a classic sports car.
Then there was the businessman who dealt in securities. He was good for two hours on the benefits of diversity in a portfolio. As if Meadow, even on her good salary, was ever going to be able to build the sort of portfolio he was talking about.
The last man she’d dated had been an electrician. She’d met him when the refrigerator and the stove both stopped working at the same time in her apartment. A faulty electrical line was the culprit. He’d fixed it and they’d talked, and he’d asked her out. His wife had phoned her the following night to ask if Meadow would like to come over and meet her and his children. Horrified, she’d almost been in tears. She honestly had no idea that he was married. The woman had relented. She was sorry. Her husband made a habit of this. She was pregnant with their third child and he was roaming. Again. Meadow apologized. She blocked the man’s calls and never saw him after that.
She pretty much gave up on dating after that. It had been over a year since anyone had asked her out. She wasn’t a social animal anyway, much preferring a good book to a booze-soaked party. She had no close friends. Her college roommate had married and moved to England. Her high school friends were all married and scattered to the four winds. Her mother had died soon after she moved into the dorm at college her first semester there. Her father had died weeks ago. So now it was just Meadow and her dog.
She remembered that warm, hungry kiss that Dal had given her under the mistletoe so long ago. She’d given him her heart and he never knew. It wouldn’t have mattered. Her father had made sure that he wouldn’t want her. He knew Meadow had no resistance to Dal, considering her feelings for him. He was protecting her, making Dal see her as a somber federal agent who didn’t really like men and wanted only to compete with them and best them in her chosen profession.
It was sweet of her father to care so much. Probably he’d saved her, in case Dal had developed any feelings for her. Not that it was likely, considering how angry he got when he had to bring Snow back home or come to collect Jarvis. The only emotion she seemed to provoke in him was extreme irritation.
It would have been nice if her feelings for him had vanished. He gave her no encouragement at all. Her only memories of him were hedged in by humiliation and ridicule. But love was as hardy as a weed and just as hard to eradicate. Her heart fed on just the sight of him, as it had for so many long years.
She’d have a better chance of lassoing the moon and bringing it home. She knew that. It didn’t help.
* * *
She wore a neat dark green pantsuit to work the following Monday, with soft-soled shoes. She wore her old service pistol as well, the .40 caliber Glock, in a holster at her waist.
The Juniper County Sheriff’s Department had an office in the hundred-year-old county courthouse in downtown Raven Springs. In addition, there was the detention center a mile out of town, where prisoners were housed and which was under the care of Captain Rick Sanders.
Jeff was happy to see her. He introduced her to the clerk at the desk, to his two patrol officers and his chief deputy, or undersheriff, Gil Barnes, who barely had time to say hello because he was rushing out to answer a call from the local 911 center.
“It’s a small operation,” Jeff explained sheepishly. “We have our office here at the courthouse, where it’s been for almost a hundred years. The detention center is newer, but we’re mostly here in town. Not much has changed since my granddad was sheriff.”
She remembered talk about his grandfather, who had been one heck of a lawman. She just nodded.
He glanced at the weapon on her belt. “A Glock?”
“I like them,” she said. “They’re not heavy, they’re easy to use, and if you drop them in mud, they still fire.”
