noticing. She had a soft mouth with tiny smile lines in the corners, as if she laughed often. Her chin, dainty and finely cut, complemented her face to perfection.
No, she wasn’t beautiful, she was more than that. Striking, that’s what she was. Classic. She was a real impressive lady, and she dressed the part in a tailored jacket, blouse and skirt. Lovely.
Not that he was noticing. Merely an observation.
He had a hard time being civil to a woman who had wrongly accused his little girl. Or to the teenager who had actually done the stealing.
“I’m going home. Later, Hayden,” Jan said, then marched right back the way she came.
Not his problem, he thought as the door swung shut behind her. He’d delivered the true culprit. It was up to the local boys to deal with Jan. He shot a hard look at that woman, who was glaring up at him as if he were personally responsible.
“I’m taking my daughter home.” He laid one hand on Hayden’s shoulder to steer her back through the detectors.
“Excuse me, Mr. Munroe?”
“You’re testing my patience, lady.” He turned on his heel. Behind her the two officers looked less than certain. What was their problem? “Look, I’ve been on shift since six o’clock last night. It’s now 3:56 p.m.”
“I’m aware of the time, Mr. Munroe.”
“There was a semi jackknifed on the interstate just out of the city limits, and I spent most of the night and half the day seeing to the clean-up and the investigation. I’m dead on my feet.” He looked past the unhappy woman to the uniforms standing beside her. “I’d appreciate it if you boys would wait to give me a call if you need a statement.”
Sheer exhaustion had him steering his Hayden back toward the door.
“Uh, Mr. Munroe?” That woman—that extraordinarily annoying woman—called after him. “Wait—”
He kept going. Maybe by tomorrow he would have cooled down enough to offer that woman the apology he probably owed her for his snarky mood. Even if she had wrongly accused his daughter.
A deafening claxon squealed right in his ear. He saw the guilty look sneak across his little girl’s face and still his denial remained. Not his Hayden. Maybe Jan had put the stolen items in Hayden’s bag. Maybe they had accidentally fallen off the shelf and into her bag.
He was desperate and he knew it, but it simply couldn’t be true. His daughter? His Hayden had said she didn’t do it. She’d lied, too. Anger began to huff up with each strangled breath.
“Daddy, I can explain. I didn’t know.” She looked at him desperately with a helpless gesture and those wide innocent eyes.
He wanted to believe her. Except his common sense had kicked in and, fueled with the rage, he was trembling with temper. Careful, controlled, he gritted his teeth to hold back the overwhelming urge to shout, a natural reaction to a teenager’s misbehavior. “Take what you stole out of your bag and give it back.”
“But, Daddy, I—”
“You heard me. Do it.”
Hayden gave a put-upon sigh but bowed her head and started digging through her things. It took all his effort and a quick prayer for self-control to stand there and not explode like a lit keg of ten-year-old dynamite.
One look at that woman had him praying for an extra dose of control. Overwhelming irritation jabbed deep into his chest. Probably from lack of sleep, sure, but the bookstore lady agitated him. To make matters worse she held out her slender hand, palm up, to receive a very expensive-looking cut-crystal figurine.
“Thank you,” she said in that prim voice of hers. “Now I want the other one.”
“There’s only one.” Hayden attempted the wide-eyed look again.
Katherine shook her head, her gaze locking on the teenage girl’s. “The lamb figurine has a security strip, too. What do you think is going to happen when you turn around and head back out the door?”
“Oh. Okay.”
The big man’s jaw dropped as his daughter’s innocent expression faded. She dug out a second figurine.
It was a sad thing to see a man lose belief in his child’s innocence, Katherine thought. The big hulk of a state trooper puffed up like a weightlifter getting ready to set an Olympic record. His hands fisted and his hard, masculine mouth drew downward in a heartbreaking frown. The tarnished glint of shock in his handsome brown eyes ought to have made a sensible teenager feel shame and vow never to disappoint her dad like that again.
But not this girl. She tossed her hair as she handed back the figurine. “Have it. I didn’t want it anyway.”
“Well, you took it,” Katherine said with care. “And giving these things back doesn’t change the fact that you stole them in the first place.”
“Miss McKaslin,” one of the local officers shouldered in. “We can handle it from here.”
“You’re pressing charges?” Jack Munroe raised his fists to his forehead as if his skull was about to blow.
Poor man. She felt sorry for him, but it didn’t change the facts. “You know the consequences of shoplifting. Does your daughter?”
“Does it need to come to that?” His hands dropped away, revealing stark sadness etched into the planes of his face. He radiated responsibility. “Believe me, I’ll set her straight. There’s no need to take this any further. Please.”
She didn’t know what to do with his obvious sincerity. He seemed invincible iron, and his gaze meeting hers shone with hard honesty. She could sense his hurt like cold in a winter wind. He was a good man, she could see it.
It was the girl she had to consider, who glared through her thick, spiky mascara-coated lashes with a ha-ha attitude.
Katherine quietly placed the crystal lamb in her blazer pocket along with the shepherd and considered her options. She didn’t doubt that Jack Munroe had been up all night working, just as he’d said. Dark exhaustion bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and she wagered that this mighty mountain of a man never did anything that was short of upright and honest his entire life. Pressing charges would hurt him more than the girl.
“She returned the items.” He managed to unclench his jaw enough to speak.
“Only when she was caught. If you hadn’t brought her back here, she never would have returned the figurines. She’s not truly sorry, and that’s my concern. This could happen again in another store.”
“Lady, I’m gonna ask you.” He swiped a hand over his eyes, a gesture of holding back his temper or one of fatigue, or both. “Please. Let me handle this.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“I don’t know.” He swung around to glare hard at his daughter, who shrank at his look and finally hung her head in shame.
Maybe not such a tough girl—yet. Katherine folded her arms over her chest, already caring about the girl’s welfare.
