Head over Heels for the Holidays - Jennifer Bernard Page 0,3

hadn’t seen each other in so long. He could be married for all she knew. Her Jay-Jay—married. Such a strange thought.

Considering the possibility, she found she didn’t like it much. She pushed down the door handle. “Whoever you’re traveling with,” she explained.

Just as the door swung open, he said, “Oh, you mean my sister.”

Which meant that the entire department got a good look at her suddenly delighted grin.

Chapter 2

Rune tried to ignore the gawking onlookers as he followed Maya through the police station. They must not be used to strangers around here. He sure wasn’t doing anything to draw special attention. That was the last thing he wanted, as a matter of fact.

Maybe it was Maya who was sparking all this interest. Maybe she didn’t have people from her past showing up very often.

“You’re in charge, Hollister,” she called to the roly-poly white-haired sergeant. “But don’t put out that flyer until I see it again.”

“Cross my heart.”

Obviously her staff respected her, but that was no surprise. Even at age nine, Maya had commanded respect. She didn’t get into scrapes like he did. In fact, he could always count on her to explain to the adults that they hadn’t intended to get lost in the lava tube, or to forget to pay for the shave ice, or to lose his brand-new deep-water fins.

His mother—a flighty, surf-mad teenage mom raising him on her own—had loved Maya because she was twice as level-headed as either of them. If she knew Maya was going to be with him, Mom didn’t worry. They’d get together after school and hang out at the beach, or play cards, or sometimes do art together. They both liked to read. They laughed a lot. She’d complained about the weird Hawaiian food—poi and loco moco. Maya liked to dance, he remembered that. They used to make campfires on the beach and dance around them to music from her iPod.

Then she’d moved back to Alaska and that had been the end of that.

Now…wow.

He didn’t quite have the words for how she looked now. In his memory, she’d had some baby fat and clear braces. Awkward wasn’t really the right word, but shy might be. She was generally pretty reserved, until she let down her guard while dancing around a bonfire or something.

Twenty years later, that quiet manner of hers had transformed into something much more magnetic. She came across as the kind of person that you automatically looked toward in a crisis—the person you knew would think fast and be able to handle anything.

Also, she was stunningly beautiful, in his biased old-friend opinion. Her rich brown skin glowed with an extra sheen of dark gold. Her eyes were a few shades lighter, warm and sparkling. She moved with confident grace through the station—it was her domain, after all, and it showed.

Outside, she gestured toward a patch of birch woods behind the station. A signpost marked the start of a walking trail. “We can walk for a bit if you need some time to tell this story of yours before we see my dad.”

He checked his watch. Cara was waiting back at the hotel they’d checked into—the Eagle’s Nest Resort. He’d splurged so she could have some fun before school started up in a few days.

“Sounds good,” he agreed. She tucked her hands into the pockets of the jacket she’d pulled on over her police uniform. Even though it was late August, the chill of fall added a bite to the air, especially on an overcast day like today.

“So, your sister…” Maya screwed up her face, obviously searching for a name.

“Cara. She wasn’t born yet when you were in Hawaii.”

“Oh. Good.” She smiled at him. “I can skip feeling guilty for not remembering her name. So she travels with you for your job?”

“Sort of. She’s going to start at Lost Harbor High in a few days.”

“Oh yeah? Junior, senior?”

“Senior.”

Maya’s eyebrows lifted. “Usually kids like to finish high school with their friends.”

The trail wound through a stand of birch forest that stretched between two neighborhoods. On either side, he could see houses through the dappled woodlands. Nice backyard for a police station.

“Yes, but that’s not an option.” He hesitated, then decided there was no need to delay this explanation any longer. “The past five years or so, I’ve been working on the mainland as an EMT and paramedic. Two years ago, Cara came to visit me. I was living in Montana at the time, and she wanted to see the snow. The only