can that work?”
“Not long. A hostage is a lot of trouble. So is blackmail. Something usually gives in both cases.” Shamus’s focused stare told Mallory that Tripp and his daughter could already be dead. She worked her teeth along her lower lip. That would be horrible.
She had promised Tara she would help her.
“Why pick Tripp to do the dirty work?” she asked.
“Don’t know. I’m sure the police and the FBI are looking into Tripp’s associates,” Shamus told her. “Maybe it will turn out this isn’t about me at all.” He didn’t believe that, but hopefully she would and stop asking questions.
As she shook her head back and forth, doubt in her eyes, Shamus caught an odor of apples and spice, the scent of Christmas. Maybe from her hair. Maybe her cologne.
Maybe he was losing his focus. The cheerful, sweet woman next to him was cutting into his misery like the sugar into the butter used for the cookie he’d just eaten. When she’d been telling her story, he’d almost pulled her into his arms.
He had to get away from Mallory Larsen. He had to forget that she’d awakened an emotion in him that he thought he’d buried—anger. Anger at the sick creep who had abducted her sister, and anger that Mallory had been partially blamed by her father for something she had no control over. He didn’t want to feel anger again. It had almost destroyed him while he’d searched for his wife’s killer.
He’d rather feel nothing at all.
“We done?” he asked abruptly.
“Not yet, Shamus.” She flipped a few long chestnut locks over her shoulder, which drew his gaze to her hair. It was swept upward at both sides with red velvet barrettes, the old-fashioned, Victorian Christmas red his mother was fond of and which matched Mallory’s sweater. Miniature green ribbons hung from the ends of the barrettes and cascaded through the silky strands.
He watched her lips move, but he didn’t hear a word she said.
“Shamus?” She tapped his arm, and he almost jumped. “So you don’t think I’m a target?”
Did he? According to the detective handling the case, there was a lot the police didn’t know for certain yet. Probably wouldn’t know until they found Bud Tripp or his daughter. But if Shamus told her that, she would worry. He didn’t want that on his conscience.
“For now, I’m assuming you weren’t the target. The bomber was willing to let you leave. He mentioned my name, but not yours. And besides, you couldn’t make an enemy if you tried.” All of which were true.
The corners of her mouth lifted briefly. “I need to know for certain. I have to reassure my mother I’m not walking around with a big ‘Kill Me’ sign on my back. Otherwise, she’ll worry to the point of exhaustion.”
He shot her a concerned look. “Maybe she needs to take something for that.”
“Not her exhaustion. Mine.” She pointed her thumb at herself. “I need to reassure her before she worries me to death.”
She looked so serious, he didn’t smile at her joke. That was Mallory, always worried about someone else, never about herself. But now he understood why. She needed to take care of everyone because she felt she’d failed at watching over her sister.
“All right,” he grudgingly said. “The police don’t think anyone’s after you. But that’s all I’m telling you.”
She looked like she’d won the lottery. “If Tripp wasn’t after me, there has to be someone else involved. Because why would Tripp try to blow you up on his own? You weren’t in on his arrest, were you?”
For her safety, he needed to get her off this fixation she had with the case. “Look, any target in this bombing would more likely be me, not you. Logic says there’s more than one person running around loose who’d like to see me dead. So tell your mother you’re going back to a secure office in a heavily guarded courthouse basement tomorrow morning, and you’ll be fine. That’ll take care of her worries.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “One more question—”
He held up his hand. He’d had enough. Enough of the way her hair flowed over her shoulder whenever she moved her head, enough of her apples and spice, enough of the way she could get him to talk and relax his guard.
“Too many people here. Save the rest of your questions for the detective in charge of the case, okay?” Shamus wasn’t just making an excuse. The coffee shop had filled up fast with Christmas shoppers and teenagers out on Christmas break. He didn’t want anyone accidentally or purposely hearing what they were saying.
Standing, he slipped on his jacket, picked up his paper cup and walked a couple of feet over to the nearby trash receptacle to toss it in.
When he turned toward the door, Mallory was in front of him with her waves cascading over the fur collar on her jacket, making him want to reach out and touch the beckoning softness. But he couldn’t. He didn’t want to get involved with her that way. She might make him forget that happiness never stuck around for too long.
“I had one more comment,” she said softly, her green eyes begging him to hear her out. He couldn’t move. “I need to tell you some things about Tripp’s background so you can get proactive about finding him.”
He glanced around them—no one seemed to be paying attention. He’d give her one more minute of conversation. “Who said I’m going after anyone?”
“You’re not?”
“At this point, I’m letting the police do their own work.” That was true. He’d lost his heart for detective work over the agonizing months he’d spent searching for Ruth’s murderer and making sure he went to prison. He’d been forced to keep away from his brothers, their families and his mother, partly to make the killer think he didn’t care about them so he would leave them alone, and partly because Shamus didn’t want his own anger to touch his family. The same hour the man who’d murdered his wife had been sentenced, he’d quit the force and become numb. He wouldn’t go after anyone else unless he absolutely had to.
Mallory stared up at him. “You have to search for the bomber. You can’t let him just try over and over again to hurt you.”
“Excuse me,” a patron said, wanting to throw away her trash. Shamus took Mallory’s elbow and moved her back to their table, which still held her coffee and paper bag.
“Remember how you said you owed me for saving your life? I have a couple of ways you can pay me back.”
She gave him a short, expectant nod, her eyebrows raised in question.
“Leave all the investigating to the police. Do not get involved in any part of it and make yourself a target. And that includes speculating on Tripp with other people. And don’t invite me to join the other probation officers at lunches and after work anymore. I don’t want any friends, Mallory.”
Her dejected look made him feel as though he’d crushed a rose under his heel. His heart thumped painfully. He had to be this way. He had to. Trying to be friends with him would only darken the light Mallory had in her eyes every day. He couldn’t take that. He couldn’t allow her to become him.
He could hardly stand what he had just done.
“You are such a hard man to like,” Mallory told him. “But I’m not giving up on you. You saved my life.”
His cell phone played a familiar tune, but Mallory was still standing there, keeping his attention. How could she be so warm and sweet and caring, and still be the most obstinate woman he’d ever run across?
The tune kept playing. He had to answer it. “Excuse me a second,” he said, whipping it out and pressing On.
“Hi, Mom. How are you?”
As Mallory watched, the tension drained from Shamus’s shoulders and face,