Page 9 of Christmas Creek Cowboy

That gave him a jolt of alarm. “Who?” And because he was a cop, his brain went straight to a worst-case scenario. Not logical. Because Christmas Creek wasn’t a haven for serial killers or stalkers.

“Any one of the three dozen people who’ve come to my house to ask about the blasted letters,” she snarled. “It’s been nonstop since you left yesterday, and it started again at eight this morning. You haven’t gotten anyone out here?”

“Calls, texts, and emails but no visitors.” That probably had something to do with folks not wanting to make the drive out to his ranch when they could just pester Emmy. After all, she was the one who’d found the letters, and some probably figured she’d be more likely to talk about them than he would be. “I’m sorry,” Calen added.

She waved his apology off, but she was clearly annoyed when she turned to face him. Well, temporarily annoyed, anyway. He saw her mood quickly morph to include something he didn’t want to see on his best friend’sface. Wariness.

Hell, this was about that blasted kiss.

Since he was feeling some wariness of his own, along with a whole crapload of guilt for having such dirty thoughts about Emmy, Calen decided to deflect and fill her in on the past hours since he’dleft her house.

“I worked my way through the hierarchy of the US Postal Service and reported the undelivered mail. They’ll investigate the situation right away and come up with a solution. The most obvious one is that the mail will simply be delivered to the addressees or returned to sender if the recipient is nolonger alive.”

Emmy stayed quiet a moment. “And will they press charges against your father?”

He shook his head. “No need since he’s not around to be arrested, but there’ll be an investigation to see if anyone else in the post office here was complicit in what happened. I don’t believe anyone else was involved, and that’s what I put in my official statement,” Calen added. “I think this was just Waylonbeing Waylon.”

Of course, the USPS probably wouldn’t just accept that nutshell explanation, but if they dug even a little, they’d learn that Waylon had loathed Christmas. That loathing went all the way back to childhood when Waylon was just six and his mother had run out on him and his father at Christmastime. After that, his father, Calen’s grandfather, had apparently turned into a mean drunk who’d banned all things Christmas so the holiday wouldn’t remind him of his wife’s exit.

Calen could understand Christmas stuff being a trigger for bad memories. After all, he was dealing with that himself, but if he’d had a six-year-old son, he would have tried hard to put his own baggage aside and give the kid some semblance of holiday joy. Waylon’s father hadn’t done that for him.

And Waylon hadn’t done it for Calen.

The result was that Calen had never had a Christmas tree until he’d moved out of Waylon’s house and bought a place of his own. That year, Calen had gone all out, tinseling and lighting just as folks did in town. The thought of having to do all that decorating now was just plain depressing, and since he didn’t have a kid around, he’d probably skip the whole holiday deal for a while.

“I’m sorry,” Emmy muttered, drawing his attention back to her. She wasn’t a mind reader, but she was a face reader. His face anyway. And she no doubt knew where his thoughts had gone.

He dismissed her apology as she’d done his. “Anyway, I should have an answer from the postal inspector soon. Maybe before Christmas. Maybe,”he emphasized.

It would be somewhat of a miracle if it happened, but Calen had proposed that the mail and packages could be handed out tomorrow night at the Mistletoe Ball, which was always held on December 23. A very short turnaround but doable in a holiday miracle sort of way. He really didn’t want to have to hang on to the stuff any longerthan necessary.

“I called Vanessa Bozeman before you got here,” Calen continued. “She didn’t answer so I left a message. FYI, shegoes by Nessa.”

That got Emmy studying his face again, no doubt to see how he was coping. “I don’t know how I feel about it,” he confessed. “It’s hard to believe Waylon cheated and kept a child secret, but then again, he kept all of this secret.” Calen motioned to the mail bags that were now sitting on his dining room table.

She made a sound of agreement. “But I wonder why he didn’t open the cards from Nessa. I mean, if she knew him well enough to call him Daddy, then why wouldn’t he wantto open them?”

“Unfortunately, that might fall under one of thosesecrets for the agesdeals. Well, unless Nessa can fill in some of the blanks. At this point, I don’t even know for sure if she is Waylon’s child. The Daddy label could have been just a termof endearment.”

Except that didn’t mesh with what Nessa had written in the first card he’d opened.

I hope one day me and my big brother, Calen, can be friends and that Mama and me can live with you and him.

The sentiment of a child who believed not only that Waylon was her father and Calen was her brother but that she had a mother she hoped one day wouldbe withDaddy.

Yeah, Calen was counting on Nessa having some answers. If she returned his call. It was entirely possible she’d washed her hands of Waylon and his son.

“Did Sasha pester you again about her letter?” Emmy asked.

“Not yet, but she probably will. Whatever’s in that letter must be very important to her.”

The interest sparked in Emmy’s eyes. “You found it?”

“I did. It was in the stash from two years ago.” He walked to the table and pointed to it. Easy to see since he’d set it in the center of the bags.

“Hmmm.” Emmy leaned in, studying it. “No name for the sender, just the address on Belmont Street. That’s been a rental house for years with tenants always moving in and out.”

Oh, yeah. Calen had noticed all of that and had wondered why the contents of that envelope would be so important to his ex. He’d also speculated about the identity of the person renting that house at the time the letter had been sent. It probably wouldn’t be hard to learn that if he asked around.

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