crews. Every camera, cell phone and video recorder within a hundred miles had accumulated in front of town hall. And every single one of them was pointed at him.
“Hello, Officer Taggert,” she said bravely, trying for, but missing, defiance. Hell, she was trembling slightly.
“Miss Grainger.”
Damn it. She looked adorable in the ridiculous hat. The oversize coat made her look even smaller than she was.
He leaned close to her, could smell that heady scent of wild strawberries, tried to avoid the mistake he had made last time of breathing in too much of it. He fought back a sudden impulse to ask her about her damned foot. “Miss Grainger, would you come with me?”
He said it quietly, for her ears only. She looked like the type that buckled under to authority, but of course the wild-strawberry scent should have warned him of, well, a wilder side.
She took a step back from him, fixed the incredible deep sea-blue of her eyes on him, and squared her shoulders. “Am I under arrest, Officer Taggert?”
Jeanie Harper gasped, which probably meant a life sentence of no more shortbread for Tag, her son or Jamison. This was not something he wanted to be held responsible for, but he was the new guy. The flak always landed on him.
The cameras were snapping, the film rolling. The news crew moved in closer, and Jade Flynn flipped her hair and moistened her lips, her timing for the story impeccable. Microphones shaped like huge foam hot dogs dangled over them.
“You need a permit to assemble,” he said quietly. “You’re obstructing traffic.”
“Am I under arrest?” she demanded again. She pointed her chin upward, stubbornly, but he could see she was shaking even more now.
And that she was all of five foot three and probably weighed about a hundred and ten pounds. He remembered that weight in his arms, struggled to keep his facial expression absolutely impassive.
Standing there in her Santa hat, she looked exactly like the girl who had probably not done one naughty thing in her whole life. She’d probably never even had a speeding ticket, never mind fur-trimmed bikinis.
She was just one of those people who became passionate about causes. Not that he wanted to be thinking about her and passion. What a waste. All that passion over a silly display in the park.
Though every time he drove by Bandstand Park, he had to admit he was aware of the black emptiness of it, instead of the lights, the little characters, Santa’s reverberating ho-ho-ho. Suddenly, without warning, he remembered Ethan coming home when he was about twelve with Santa’s hat, swiped from the park.
And he, the older brother, making him take it back, foreshadowing his career, which at this moment he hated.
“Are you arresting me, Officer Taggert?”
“Yeah,” he said reluctantly, “you’re under arrest.”
A discontented hum began in the crowd. Jeanie called out, “Shame on you, Brody Taggert.”
This was the problem with becoming a police officer in the small town where you had grown up. Jeanie Harper no doubt had memories of him raiding her garden, and knocking over her mailbox on Halloweens past.
He put a hand on Lila’s shoulder, intending to guide her out of the crowd, but she shrugged out from under his hand, and stubbornly presented her wrists to him.
He bit the inside of his cheek, whether to keep his temper or to keep from laughing he wasn’t quite sure. Miss L. Toe did look ludicrous, but since he had not laughed since Boo’s diagnosis, he figured it was his temper.
He heard Jade Flynn say to her cameraman, “Oh, boy. Be sure and get this.”
Everybody wanted a show to go with the storyline about the town that was canceling Christmas. And every show needed a villain. Jade Flynn didn’t care who looked bad. Lila looked like she might, but not enough to let go of this opportunity to get the publicity she wanted.
And he was the who that was going to look bad.
He stared her down, she was obviously frightened, but not enough to back down. She was willing to sacrifice herself to her cause. He noticed she still had little circles of fatigue under her eyes.
“Okay then,” he said, his voice deliberately flat, his expression hard. “Put your hands behind your back.”
She did and he took the cuffs off his belt, and snapped them around her wrists, which were so small he had to adjust the cuffs. He was nearly blinded by flashes, and he felt like an idiot. If she was humiliated it didn’t show one little bit in the proud tilt of her chin.
He told her she was being arrested for unlawful assembly and obstructing traffic, and told her her rights. She nodded that she understood, standing ramrod straight, her dignity intact while he felt his own was in tatters.
He spun her around, his hand on her elbow and marched her, her limp visible, through the crowd. He was aware of feeling as if he had to protect her from the crush of people, though it was him getting the looks. Several people clicked their heels and gave him straight-armed salutes.
Lila flinched more than he did from the insulting gestures.
As soon as he had his prisoner safely inside the police station, Hutch appeared.
“Was that really necessary?” he asked Tag of the cuffs.
Tag said nothing, but sighed inwardly. Who had ordered the arrest? Still, he was now aware this was something of a family dispute. No one ever wanted to be in the middle of that.
“Ask her,” Tag said, and unlocked her wrists.
“He was just doing his job, Uncle Paul.”
Tag shot her a look that clearly told her he didn’t need a one-hundred-pound waif in a Santa hat and a marshmallow coat to defend him.
“Get into my office,” Hutch said quietly to his niece. “Now.”
She sent Tag an imploring look, which he ignored. He’d done his bit, and he wasn’t the least bit proud of it, either.
“I’m not normally the kind of person who gets arrested,” Lila said to him, ignoring her uncle’s command, the only person Tag had ever seen do that.
“I kind of figured you for a virgin,” he said, their department’s lingo for a first-time offender.
It had slipped out, and it was a mistake. He knew it even before Hutch sent him a killing look and her blush went the color of a smashed raspberry.
Which of course made him entertain the extremely naughty thought that maybe she was every kind of virgin it was possible to be.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Of course not,” she said soothingly. “We’re all rattled.”
The thing was, he shouldn’t be. He was no virgin. Of any kind.
“I
