CHAPTER 3

C HAPTER 3

So, Santa Claus hadn't turned out to be a serial bigamist after all, and Reese was thankful for that.

Homer Grange, aka Santa Claus, was a sweet, round-bellied man who donated much time, energy, and money to making kids happy by doing year-round Santa appearances. After spending ten minutes with him and Sunny, his wife of fifty-five years, Reese had ruled him out as a candidate for Happy Harry. It had helped, too, when Zack had posed the question of a possible birth defect of the genitals, that both a red-faced Sunny and Homer had whispered confirmations that he had "nothing strange going on down there."

Reese sipped her coffee in the small sitting area of her room at the inn and looked at her list again. The day before, Zack and she had managed to get through four names. All now eliminated and crossed out. The other two men hadn't been home, so the plan was for Zack and her to return today and finish up. It was possible those visits would be completed before lunch, which meant there'd be no reason for Reese to linger around Loveland.

Except there was. Sort of.

Sylvia and the other two wives had delayed their trip to Loveland because of icy roads and would be arriving sometime that morning. Reese wanted to be there to give them an in-person update about the search. And, darn it, Reese wanted to linger around for Zack, too. Even if that wasn't a smart thing to do.

She'd meant it when she had told Zack she had little to no baggage about her divorce. Of course, she'd always be ticked off at Paul for not keeping his jeans zipped. She'd always be a little riled at herself, too, for not seeing the truth about him sooner. But there was also some wariness in her now that hadn't been there before Paul.

Before she'd fake kidnapped Zack and kissed his lights out.

It was that wariness that was whispering to her to take things slow, to look for red flags that could turn into a lying, cheating, scummy situation.

Okay, so maybe she had more than a smidge of baggage.

Reese might have mulled that over more, but she was interrupted by two sounds. Her phone dinged with a text, and there was a knock on the door. While she went to the door, she glanced at the short message from Sylvia.

We'll be there soon.

She responded with a thumb's up emoji, opened the door, and felt a tsunami of lust when she saw that her visitor was Zack. He was carrying a silver tray with more coffee and some breakfast pastries.

"Patty said you hadn't eaten yet," Zack said, referring to Patty Muldoon, the owner of the inn.

The reason she hadn't eaten breakfast was because it was a meal she usually skipped, but Reese was ready to make an exception this morning. "Thanks," she managed once she got her mouth working. Mercy, the man had that hot cowboy cop deal down pat, and it was hard for her to remember those baggage smidges whenever she was around him.

She stepped back so he could come inside, and he set down the tray, the maneuver giving her a good view of his great-fitting jeans as they stretched and pulled over his equally great butt. Yeah, no trace of baggage while gawking at that.

He turned, and maybe in response to her expression, Zack flashed a grin that could be classified as foreplay. They stared at each other for several moments with the heat zinging between them, and Reese was well aware they were in a small room with a bed just a few yards away. She had to shake her head to clear it and then move away from him just so she could think.

Nope. That didn't help. She still couldn't think and wasn't sure she could even breathe. But she forced herself to tip her head to the list of Happy Harry candidates and muttered, "Two more to go."

"More," he provided, doling out another dose of that smile that only Zack and the Greek god of sex and hotness could have managed.

Because her brain was fuzzy, it took a moment for that to sink in, and she watched as he took her pen from the table and jotted down four more names.

She shook her head. There was a Buddy, Buck, Jinx and Butch. Reese sighed. "I take it all of those are nicknames."

Zack made a sound of agreement. "Four brothers. And none of them owns land or has done anything to land them in newspaper articles or internet searches."

"They didn't show up in school records either." Reese wondered how many more additions there might be.

He nodded. "They were born here, but when they were still little, their parents apparently moved them and their five sisters just outside of Loveland, to a ranch owned by a family member. The ranch was eventually left to all of them, but it's deeded to a family trust. The first two are still on the ranch, the third lives here in town with his daughter, and the fourth is at the retirement village about four blocks from here."

"So I'm back to six names," she muttered.

Zack grinned again. "Guess you're stuck with me for a while longer."

Yes. And suddenly that seemed wonderful and unnerving at the same time. "I spent two hours this morning doing internet searches on you," she confessed. Along with that, Patty had talked nonstop about him when Reese had gone downstairs to get some coffee.

No smile this time, but he studied her eyes. "I did the same on you."

She sighed again and voiced her concern. "Things are moving very fast, and after what happened at the masquerade party kidnapping, you probably think I'm a lot more adventurous than I am."

"Well, it was adventurous," he admitted, "but I definitely didn't get the sense that it was something you did on a regular basis."

"First and only," she confirmed. "I wasn't much of a risk taker before Paul, and I certainly haven't been since."

He made a sound to indicate he understood that.

"Added to that," she went on, "I'm only going to be here a very short period of time. Maybe only a day or two at most."

Zack made another of those got-that sounds. "I might have a fix for that."

Reese frowned, not at all certain she wanted a fix. Part of her just wanted to get swept up in this scalding hotness while the logical part of her muttered cautions. In the end, she'd want to heed those cautions but have the memories and pleasure of the swept-away part.

"Accelerated dating," Zack said, causing Reese to give him what she was certain was a puzzled look. "Those kidnap kisses created a heat that isn't going away, so let's use it to move forward. Today, we can cram multiple dates into one." He motioned toward the pastries. "Breakfast together is our first date. The second date could be lunch. Third could be a stroll through town this afternoon to take in the Christmas decorations. Tonight could be the fourth date for dinner."

His gaze locked with hers, and oh, the heat came and added to the sizzle that was already there.

"I'd think after the first date, we'd kiss, don't you?" he asked in that dreamy voice that made her melt.

The melting, however, came to a halt when there was another knock at the door. Talk about lousy timing. "It's probably Aunt Sylvia," she grumbled, going to the door and opening it.

But it was not Sylvia. This was a slim fifty-something-year-old woman wearing a red coat and a Santa hat. She smiled at Reese, but then her attention zoomed in on Zack. "Patty said you were up here," the woman said, and then extended her hand in greeting to Reese. "I'm Naomi Caldwell, Zack's mother and the current mayor of Loveland."

"Uh, I'm Reese Darnell," she managed. She definitely hadn't expected a visit from his mom.

"Reese?" she repeated, a light coming into her blue eyes that Reese could now see were a genetic copy of Zack's. "The woman who fake kidnapped you?"

Reese groaned, her gaze cutting to Zack. "Exactly how many people know about that?"

"Too many," he muttered just as his mom volunteered, "He talked about you a lot. Well, what a wonderful coincidence you're here in Loveland, the romance capitol of the state."

"Stop matchmaking, Mom," Zack warned, but then he went to her and brushed a kiss on her cheek. "Why are you here?"

"Oh," the woman murmured as if she'd just now recalled the reason for her visit. She extracted a yellow sticky note from her purse. "Dad told me about your search for Happy Harry, and he came up with these names to add to your list of possible candidates. Most moved out of Loveland but are still in the county."

Reese took the note, looked at the five names, and didn't bother to groan when she saw there weren't any duplicates. She'd started the morning with two possibilities, and now she was up to eleven. This search was moving in the wrong direction.

Naomi tapped the first name on the list. "Hank Byers."

"The Easter Bunny," Zack grumbled. He looked at Reese. "He dresses up like a big rabbit for the town's annual egg hunt."

Great. What was next? The Tooth Fairy?

"Gotta go," Naomi said, turning to leave. She added a final parting remark from over her shoulder as she strolled away. "You two should definitely do the Christmas Eve Kiss Ball."

"No," Zack was quick to say, but when he looked down at Reese, she thought he might indeed have some kissing on his mind. Just not the public kind. Or one brought on by mistaken identity or a fake kidnapping.

"On the accelerated plan, this is probably the tail end of our first date," he said, his voice unleashing all that hotness again. "So, are you up for a first date kiss?"

Reese figured it was a good idea to think this through. But she didn't. Nope. Apparently, she was ready to ditch the whole notion of moving too fast because she didn't give Zack a verbal answer.

Her answer was a kiss.

She slid her hand around the back of his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers. Of course, she didn't have to pull hard because he was already heading in her direction.

At the touch of his mouth to hers, the slam of heat was instant. And the pleasure. Like all the best things possible rolled into one. He tasted like wonderful, high caloric things. Like her deepest fantasies.

Like Zack.

No, she hadn't forgotten this. Hadn't forgotten the taste of him. She had no idea how this cowboy managed to stir all of her senses at once, but he did. Stirred and sent them flying.

One touch, and she wanted more. He gave her more, all right. Zack slipped his arm around her waist and eased her to him so that along with being mouth to mouth, they were body to body. All that delicious pressure mixed with the other delicious things, and it occurred to her that this kiss was accelerated, too. It was racing forward, urging her to escalate the heck out of this moment.

But that didn't happen.

"Well, well," Reese heard someone say. Not just any ol' someone though. Her eyes snapped open to see her great-aunt Sylvia standing next to Happy Harry's other two wives. All three women were looking amused.

Reese moved away from Zack as if he'd scalded her. Which that kiss just might have done. She cleared her throat to make introductions so she could then consider finding a hole to stick her head in.

"Uh, this is my great-aunt Sylvia, Maeve Hopkins and Arabella Simon," she managed. "Ladies, this is Sheriff Zack Caldwell."

Reese silently groaned when she saw the spark of recognition in her aunt's eyes. The kiss had dulled her thoughts so that she'd forgotten something very important.

That she hadn't kept her mouth shut about a specific incident in her past either.

"Zack?" Sylvia repeated. She turned to the other women. "This is the guy I was telling you about. The one Reese faked kidnapped and kissed. Well, well," Sylvia repeated, turning back to Zack and Reese. "Are you two picking up where you left off?"