Dating Bowie was easy. I’d already dedicated a large portion of my mental function over the years to him—Where was he? What was he doing? Why did he smell so good? Was he watching me walk away?—and he’d been such a strong physical presence, that all this felt…natural.

Well, besides the secret part. And the could lose my job part. We’d called a truce on the topic of the pictures because there wasn’t much else we could do. Neither one of us agreed with the other’s priorities, me and my job and him and his family. So we ignored it and hoped it would go away on its own.

We had dinner with Jonah every night, the three of us catching up on our days. Every night, Bowie would come into my bed and we’d live out the fantasies we’d each carried with us over the years.

In public, we played it cool as cucumbers.

Except for that time that Bernie O’Dell caught a glimpse of us making out in The Lookout parking lot. Bowie covered and said I was just checking his tire for nails. Or the time that Carolina Rae Carwell maybe might have seen us holding hands walking home in the dark from the Yee Haw Yarn and Coffee Christmas Carol Singalong.

The whole town was decked out for ol’ St. Nick in a few thousand strands of lights and a forest of handmade wreaths. The storefront windows were painted with holiday scenes. My cats were cuddly, entertaining roommates that only tried to kill Bowie once every few days. The only fights Bowie and I were having were over how to load the dishwasher properly and who was the better kisser.

Spoiler alert: my way and me.

Kidding. Bowie was a far superior kisser, but I was catching up quick with hours of dedicated practice.

Yeah, life was pretty damn perfect. My only problem was what did I get the man for Christmas? We’d only just started dating, and secretly at that. However, I’d known him my whole life. And our secret six weeks of dating would be wrapping up around then.

I was under pressure to find him something good. Really good.

My laptop signaled an incoming email from Connelly with another dozen item list of ridiculous administrative tasks that required my attention that afternoon when I came in for my shift.

Okay, so everything else was great. But work was still crap.

Since the pictures of Callie Kendall, Connelly had made one snide remark after another about me and my ability to do my job. I took pride in how well my blank cop face hid the creative and illegal ideas I had for revenge. I stood, or sat, stoically while he made barbed comments that bordered on harassment.

My dad was a go along to get along kind of guy and even his patience was wearing thin. But if he spoke up in my defense, it would only prove that I needed my daddy to help me muddle through my job.

If I stood up for myself, odds were Connelly would demand my gun and my badge.

I brought up a search engine and did a quick hunt to see if investigating state police detectives would have jurisdiction to fire employees of a municipal department. Hmm. The definitive answer appeared to be a confusing “maybe.” I wondered if I should talk to Devlin about it?

“Hey.” Bowie poked his unreasonably sexy head into my kitchen. The doors between our places now stayed open. Well, except at night so Jonah wouldn’t accidentally catch sight of naked shenanigans.

“Hey yourself,” I said, admiring the view. He was wearing those sweats that I personally took off of him with my teeth last night and a hoodie. “Jonah and I are putting the lights up on the front. Can you listen for the oven timer?”

Everything about him was so…cozy.

I got up and followed him into his kitchen. “What is that deliciousness I’m smelling?”

He snagged a coiled string of lights out of a plastic tote marked Christmas Shit. “Sugar cookies. My mom’s recipe.”

My heart did that funny little tumble thing. If I hadn’t loved him for my whole life before, that’s all it would have taken.

“Sugar cookies? You’re baking? From scratch?” Bowls and beaters were stacked neatly in the sink, evidence of the fact that my secret boyfriend was the best secret boyfriend in the history of secret boyfriends. And it was his mama’s recipe.

“Can’t decorate for Christmas and not have cookies. Eight minutes,” he said, dropping a kiss on my mouth and flashing that lopsided smile. “When they’re done, you can put the next trays in.”

I eyed up the four trays of cookies waiting for the oven. “What’s in it for me?” I asked.

“We’ll decorate your front porch and you can have as many cookies as you want.”

Sold. Someone bang the gavel because I was definitely hanging on to this man.

He gave me another kiss, one that involved a promise of things to come after my shift tonight, and then I admired the view as he headed out the front door. Those sweatpants should be illegal. Hmm. Maybe I could arrest him for public sexiness?

I ducked back to my side and grabbed my laptop. I’d set up shop closer to the oven so I could taste the product for quality control purposes.

I could hear the guys talking from the front porch, calling to someone. Nosiness was in my nature so I peered through the side light on the front door. Well, well, it was that nice-looking brunette from Jonah’s boot camp, looking cute as can be in a navy wool coat.

Shelby Something.

Hmm.

I was nosy and suspicious by nature. The fact that she’d made it a point to introduce herself after the class and just happened to be walking by on a cold as frozen over hell day made my nose twitch.

I went back over to my side and grabbed my phone.

When it came to Bootleg, I had my pick of gossipmongers. I picked Millie Waggle and fired off a text.

Approximately twenty seconds later, I had chapter and verse on Ms. Shelby Thompson who was currently in residence in the B&B part of the Bootleg Springs Spa. Apparently she was considering moving into a rental. She wore size seven shoes. And was often seen jogging in the early mornings like a crazy person. She preferred tea over coffee and “seemed genuinely interested in everyone and everything.”

My spidey senses were tingling. I did a nifty little search for Ms. Shelby Thompson, and when those results were too generic, I logged into the station’s database.

Well, well, well. Hello, Shelby Thompson, 28, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her record was squeaky clean. Not a parking ticket or traffic violation in the last five years. With the added information of her middle initial and hometown, I redid my regular search and found what I was looking for.

Little Miss Nice as Pie had graduated with a degree in journalism from West Virginia University. Oh, and lookie here. She was currently a freelance writer with credits in several newspapers, magazines, and blogs.

I thought of Jonah’s dopey “she’s so pretty” expression and felt a tiny bit bad that I was going to have to crush his crush. The oven timer zzz-ed to life. Both our kitchens could use a makeover, I thought, pulling the first two trays of hearts and trees out of the ancient oven and setting them on the scrap of table with cooling racks.

Imagine the space if we took the wall down and had one big kitchen.

The sizzling of my own flesh brought me back. I’d caught Bowie’s forever fever, I thought, sucking my abused thumb into my mouth. It was contagious. If it weren’t for my work situation, it would be real tempting to daydream a little about the future.

But what was the point with Connelly breathing down my neck and causing a ruckus? I needed a plan where that man was concerned. A way to change his mind about me.

Because the fact was, until the Callie Kendall case heated up or cooled off I didn’t have a future to plan. I popped the next two trays into the oven, reset the timer, and sat back down at my laptop, trying to ignore the sugary scents of awesome.

With Connelly still on my mind, I typed his name into the search engine.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I breathed.