Christmas In Snowflake Canyon Read Free

frustration.
    At one point, he found himself on the ground, just a few feet from the conveniently located jukebox power cord. He did everybody a favor and yanked it out before leaping to his feet again, just in time to see his brother wading into the middle of the fray, along with Pat and the three-hundred-fifty-pound Speckled Lizard cook, Frankie Beltran, wielding a frying pan over her head.
    “I can’t leave you alone for a minute.” Jamie grabbed him by the shirt and threw him away from the fight that was already abating.
    His own adrenaline surge had spiked, apparently, leaving him achy and a little nauseous from the residual pain. He wiped at his mouth where one of the tourists— a big dude with dreads and a couple of tattoos—had thrown a punch that landed hard.
    There was another new discovery that sucked. A guy had a tough time blocking with his left when he didn’t have one.
    “If you’d been here on time, you could have joined in,” he answered.
    “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, hitting a wounded war hero!” The woman who had started the whole thing had apparently turned her ire to the tourist who had punched him. Even though Pat tried to restrain Genevieve, she leveraged her weight back against the bartender to kick out at the dreadlocked snowboarder.
    He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about Genevieve Beaumont trying to protect him.
    “How the hell was I supposed to know he was a wounded hero?” the snowboarder complained. “All I saw was some asshole throwing punches at my friends.”
    A commotion by the door to the tavern announced the arrival of two of Hope’s Crossing’s finest. The crowd parted for the uniformed officers, and Dylan’s alreadyqueasy stomach took another turn.
    Two people he did not need to see. Oh, this wasn’t going to end well.
    He had dated Officer Rachel Olivarez in high school a few times. If he remembered the details correctly, he’d broken up with her to date her sister. Not one of his finer moments.
    If that wasn’t enough, her partner, Pete Redmond, had lost his girlfriend to Dylan’s older brother Drew. He doubted either one of them had a soft spot for the Caines.
    He should have remembered that particular joy of small-town life before he moved back. Everywhere a guy turned, he stumbled over hot, steaming piles of history.
    Rachel spoke first. “What’s our problem here, folks?”
    “Just a little misunderstanding.” Jamie gave his most charming smile, still holding tight to Dylan. Predictably, like anything without a Y chromosome, her lips parted and she seemed to melt a little in the face of all of Jamie’s helicopter-pilot mojo for just a moment before she went all stern cop again.
    “They always are,” she answered. “Genevieve. Didn’t expect to see you here. You’re bleeding.”
    She said the last without a trace of sympathy, which didn’t really surprise Dylan. Genevieve didn’t have many friends in Hope’s Crossing.
    “Oh.” For all her bravado earlier, her voice came out small, breathless. Rachel handed her a napkin off a nearby table and Genevieve dabbed at her cheek, and her delicate skin seemed to turn as pale as the snowflakes he could see drifting past the open doorway.
    Rachel turned to him. “You’re bleeding, too,” she said, with no more sympathy.
    “Oh, I think I’ve had worse,” he said, unable to keep the dry note from his voice.
    “This is all just a misunderstanding, right?” Jamie aimed a hopeful charmer of a grin at Rachel. “No harm done, right?”
    “No harm done?” The woman holding a wad of napkins to her still-streaming nose practically screamed the words. She held up a hank of red hair Genevieve had pulled out from the roots, and for some strange reason, Dylan found that the most hilarious thing he’d seen in a long time.
    “What do you mean, no harm done? I’ve got a court date Monday. How am I supposed to prosecute a case with a broken nose and half my hair missing?”
    “Why don’t you shave