Love and Mistletoe by Zara Keane Page A

was up in court. That man’s more of an animal than the ones he breeds.”
    “Agreed. I’ve nothing concrete about Colm and the dogs, but I could have sworn I heard one bark earlier. Did you hear it?”
    “Can’t say I did, but it’s hard to hear anything over this wind.”
    Brian hunkered down in the shadows and peered through his binoculars. Shapes moved against lit windows, but he couldn’t identify who they were. “Vicious dog or no, we need to get closer to the house. I can’t see anything from this distance.”
    “Me neither. Pity the station’s budget can’t cover more powerful binoculars.”
    “The station’s budget doesn’t cover roof repairs, never mind binoculars,” Brian said dryly. “I can’t move in my office without tripping over a bucket. It’s been like that since I was first sent to Ballybeg. We’re always being promised more men, better equipment, and a new station building. It’ll never happen.”
    Seán hung his binoculars around his neck and turned up the collar of his coat. “Come on, then. Let’s go.”
    They crept through the field as silently as they could manage, the house and farm buildings looming closer with each step.
    “Wait!” Seán grabbed Brian’s arm. “Do they have motion-detector lighting over the yard?”
    He considered before answering. “I don’t think so. No lights came on while they were unloading the car. Either they’d deliberately switched them off, or they don’t exist.”
    “All right. Go on.”
    Moving stealthily, they covered the last few meters of the field and took up their position behind an ancient water trough.
    Seán rubbed his hands together to keep them warm. “I’m frozen. I’d kill for a cup of coffee right now.”
    “I’ve a thermos in my pack.” Brian slid his rucksack off his back and extracted a metal can. “It’s tea, not coffee.”
    His partner gave an exaggerated shudder. “How did you make it through training college without having the shite beaten out of you? Everyone knows cops drink coffee.”
    “Everyone knows cops drink
bad
coffee.” Brian unscrewed the top of his thermos and poured piping-hot tea into the lid. It burned his tongue when he took a sip, but he relished the warmth wending its way from his mouth to his stomach. He held the cup out to his partner. “Sure you won’t take a swig?”
    Brian couldn’t see Seán’s face clearly in the dark, but he could sense the indecision flickering over his features. “Ah, go on, then. I’m desperate.” The other man had the cup halfway to his lips when a sharp bark hacked through the silence. The cup of the thermos shot out of his hand and ricocheted off the metal trough, knocking against a rusty bucket in the process. “Feck.” Seán cradled his hand. “I’m after scalding myself.”
    “That was definitely a dog.” Brian craned his neck to see over the trough. Lights went on in the room nearest the back door. A human-shaped shadow flitted across the window. “Someone’s coming. Duck.”
    Voices floated out the open door, the occasional word decipherable. Voices from a house that was likely to be a lot drier and warmer than Brian and Seán’s current location. The dog barked again followed by a high-pitched whine. Footsteps rang over the cobblestones, and light from a flashlight bobbed in a drunken dance. A woman wearing high heels.
Sharon.
Brian would bet his police badge he was right.
    He pictured her in his mind: medium height, medium build, generous bust, and a high, tight arse that begged to be pinched.
Jaysus.
Where had that notion sprung from? He couldn’t stand Sharon MacCarthy. She unnerved him, seemed to take a devilish delight in taunting him at every opportunity. She was no beauty—not in the classical sense—but there was something about her that caused men to look twice. He crouched down and waited for her and the dog to go back inside.
    Minutes dragged by. Finally, right at the point Brian was ready to scream from holding still for so