4 Malice in Christmas River (3 page)

“Hell, yes,” Kara said, smiling. “We’re celebrating, aren’t we? You’ve worked hard for this, Cin. You deserve the recognition.”

We clinked the frosty cups together. I sucked on the straw until the shake finally came through, and then savored the creamy sweet flavors that danced on my taste buds. It tasted like pure autumn, and everything we had to look forward to.

I was lucky to have a best friend like Kara. Even if she was a little heavy handed with her blush brush.  

She took a seat at the kitchen island, and I sat next to her, kicking off my uncomfortable heels.

“Now, I want to hear how it went,” she said, taking a noisy slurp from the shake. “Every last detail.”

I told her about Jo and Laurel nearly coming to blows for no good reason, about Jo throwing pie filling at the class, and about how Jo had called Laurel a snake in the grass.

Her eyes grew wide at the part about Jo throwing pie.  

“No
way
,” she said.

I nodded.

“Yes way. It really happened. And a whole roomful of ladies witnessed it.” 

Kara smirked and shook her head silently.

“Those two are
too
much,” she said. “I can’t believe they did that in front of everybody in the middle of your class. Doesn’t it seem like the wives of our elected representatives should handle themselves a little better in public?”

“I know,” I said, after a long pull on the milkshake. The smooth ice cream was the best cure there was for the unusual 90-degree heatwave we’d been in. “This little incident is going to be the talk at everyone’s dinner table tonight. They should know better in a town this size.”

I paused and shook my head. 

“You should have seen the way the reporter was taking notes when they were throwing insults and pie at each other. It was the most interested he looked the whole class.”

“I wonder if we’ll ever know what really happened between those two,” Kara said. “For all their drama, they sure keep a tight lid on why they hate each other so much.”

“It is strange,” I said. “I mean, it’s hard keeping a secret in a town as small as Christmas River. But somehow they’ve managed to pull it off.”

“Well, my money’s on the affair,” Kara said.

“You mean between Laurel and Jo’s husband?” I asked.

Kara nodded.

I let out a scoff.

“You
would
think that.”

For as long as I’d known Kara, which had been for most of my life, she’d always loved a tale of romantic intrigue and forbidden lust. The bookshelves in her house were packed full of romantic mystery novels with steamy covers that made a gal like me blush profusely at the sight of them.

“True,” she said, smiling. “But seriously. Imagine being married to a loudmouth like Jo for twenty years. I have to think that would take a toll, sooner or later. And you know, that Harry isn’t such a bad-looking fellow for his age. I could see where someone like Laurel might go for him.”

I shrugged.

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe it’s that real estate deal that people said fell through.”

Kara finished the last of her shake, and started sucking air.

“Could be,” she said. “But that’s not anywhere near as juicy as an illicit affair between a rich rancher’s wife and a distinguished city councilor.”

I smirked.

“Sounds like you’ve got yourself a plot worthy of Nora Roberts,” I said. “You should write it.”

She laughed.

“Maybe I will,” she said, tossing the empty cup in the trash. “But my taste runs a little, well, a little racier than old Nora’s books, I’m afraid.”

She grinned devilishly.

“Jesus, Kara,” I said, shaking my head.

She cackled. I think she got a kick out of my disapproval of her romantic studies.

“Now, enough about those two old broads and my romance books. Let’s hear about the rest of the class and the interview.”

I told her about the reporter’s questions, and about when the article was scheduled to run. It’d come out just in time for the Christmas River Rodeo, where, for the first time ever, I was going to have a pie booth to sell my pies to the hordes of tourists who came to see our nearly 100-year old annual roundup.

“I gotta admit, though, I’m a little nervous about the article,” I said. “I hope I sounded as good as I thought I did.”

Kara waved her arms.

“I’m sure it’s going to be great,” she said. “And if nothing else, the photos will turn out nice. You were looking
gorgeous
before you scrubbed away my work of art.”

I finished the last of my milkshake, feeling sad that it was over. I tossed the cup in the garbage can.

“So what have you been up to tonight?” I asked.  

She shrugged.

“Same ol’ same ol’,” she said. “John’s still at the office. So I’ve just been crafting at the shop most of the evening. Then I went out to Redmond for the shakes.”

She sighed loudly.

“So nothing too exciting, I’m afraid.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Anything the matter?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“No, not really,” she said. “I’m just… well, I guess you could say I’m kind of in the September doldrums.”

“Did something happen?” I said.

“No,” she said. “And that’s just it. Nothing’s been happening. John works at his practice all the time. I work at the shop all the time. Nothing changes. The brightest part of my day, I mean, aside from doing your makeup, was gossiping just now about Laurel and Jo. It’s just so…”

She sighed.

“
Mundane
.”

She rubbed her face.

“I don’t know. Maybe I just need a vacation.”

I patted her shoulder.

I knew how she felt. I was there too, in a way. Owning your own business could sometimes suck the life out of you. It was easy to get caught up in working long hours. It felt like I’d missed the entire summer slaving away in my pie shop.

Hell, I’d even stopped volunteering at the Humane Society, something that I loved doing, but just didn’t have the time for now.  

“Have you talked to John at all about how you feel?”

She shook her head.

“I just… I’m not sure he’d understand.”

She looked at me for a moment, and then her fallen expression changed into a phony smile.

“I shouldn’t whine so much,” she said. “I’ve got nothing to complain about. Let’s talk about something else.”

I scanned her face, suddenly realizing that things were worse than I had thought.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

She waved a hand at me.

“No, no,” she said. “I’m fine. Now, c’mon. Tell me what that reporter was like. Was he cute?”

I played along and went into a long description of Erik Andersen, not pressing the issue.

I told her about Erik’s sandy blond hair and hazelnut brown eyes. About the way his silver-framed glasses rested on his high cheekbones oh-so-properly. About his tall and lean frame. Her eyes grew big, and she said that maybe her romance novel instead should feature a love triangle between the distinguished city councilor, the rich rancher’s wife, and the hunky, brooding reporter.

But despite Kara’s joke, I could tell something was amiss.

Half an hour later, she left, saying she needed to go to the store to pick up some groceries for dinner.

I thanked her again for her help with my makeup and watched as she left through the kitchen’s back door.

I sighed.

It made me sad seeing Kara unhappy like this.

Late summer sometimes made for this kind of restlessness. Made you tire of the monotony of small town living. Made you think about doing wild, outlandish things.

Hell, half the town suffered from that kind of thing this time of year. People did crazy things when the smoke from the wildfires lingered in the air too long, the way it had these past few months. People backed their cars into trees. They fell in love with people they normally never would have and left their significant others. They’d leave burners on by accident and before they knew it, their kitchen would be up in flames.

But it was all temporary. Husbands would show up with flowers for their scorned wives, begging for forgiveness. Cars would get fixed, and kitchens would get renovated. Just as soon as the cooler temperatures returned and the wildfire season ended.

But I could see in Kara’s face that it was more than just a late summer malaise she was suffering from.

And what was worse was that I didn’t know what I could do to help.

Chapter 3

I rolled down the window and let the smoky night air run its fingers through my hair.

It was unusually warm for a September evening in Christmas River. Normally, even on the hottest of days, the nights were cool in the Central Oregon Cascades. But the smoke from the wildfires in nearby Bridger Valley had trapped all the heat from the day, the way it had for most of the summer. The air felt stagnant and warm, like the inside of a chimney right after the fire’s last embers die out.

Maybe it was the unpleasant atmosphere or how hard I’d been working the past few months, but this summer had felt like the longest one I’d ever known. And not in a good way.

I couldn’t wait to get to the cool trade winds of Maui next week.  

I glanced up at my face in the mirror. Some of the blush was still clinging to my cheeks, and I wondered if I didn’t look like a Barbie doll tossed in the oven: all melted and droopy.

Daniel was going to get a kick out of this look I had going.

I just hoped that he was home, and that he didn’t have to pull another long shift tonight.

But I should have known better than to complain about Daniel’s long hours. That’s what you get when you marry a sheriff.

I sighed happily, thinking about our lives.

We’d been married for just over eight months now. And in some ways, it felt like a lot had changed in that time. I sold my house and moved into the beautiful new one Daniel had bought us on Sugar Pine Road. For the first time, we were living together. And while that inevitably brought up its share of issues, overall, being Mrs. Daniel Brightman had been a slice of pure heaven.

It felt like I was falling more in love with Daniel each day, if that was even possible. Like the more I found out about him, the more I realized just how lucky I had been that he’d wandered into my shop that cold and snowy night two and a half years ago.   

The only thing was that it sometimes felt like I didn’t see him as much as I wanted to. Sometimes he wouldn’t get home until 8 or 9 at night. And given my early hours at the pie shop, I was practically dead to the world by then.

Other times when he was at home, his mind would be elsewhere. He was always on call, always ready to drive out to an incident if need be. 

We’d squeeze in lunches here and there during the day, but summer had been rough on the Sheriff’s Office. Lots of vandals and hikers needing help in the area kept Daniel busy pretty much all the time.

But I’d been busy too, what with the pie shop being as popular as it was with the tourists and the locals. And once the weather cooled off and we got to autumn, I knew that we’d both have more time to spend together.

Plus, we had a little thing called a honeymoon we were going on next week. Like a lot of working couples these days, we’d delayed it several months after the wedding. At the time I’d been a little disappointed about that. But it had given me something to look forward to the entire summer.  

I pulled down our gravel driveway and parked in front of the house.

The swollen sun sat low in the smoke-curtained sky and bathed the meadow in front of our home in a rich orange hue. The evening calls of meadow larks echoed across the grassy expanse.

I stood for a moment against my car, admiring the peaceful scene.

I never had a view like this at my old house.  

The beauty of it almost distracted me enough to make me not notice that Daniel’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

Again.

I sighed, fishing my keys out of my pocket.

I opened the door and a hurricane of black and brown fur hit me full force.

I laughed and rubbed Huckleberry’s sweet little head.

Daniel may not have been home yet, but at least I wasn’t all alone.

I walked in, kicked off my shoes, and headed for the kitchen to cook us up some steaks.

I still got goose bumps when I walked into our beautiful new home.

Hell, I still got goose bumps calling it
our
beautiful new home.  

Chapter 4

“Damned, blasted technology,” he muttered.

The sound of wrinkled fingers hitting plastic in vain broke across the speaker.

“I don’t even know what the point of it is if it’s only going to work 25 percent of the time. I mean, is it really worth the aggravation for that 25 percent? I say we throw this technology back to where it came from and bring back the old fashioned telephone. Say what you will but the telephone never let you down the way this piece of cr…”

Though I couldn’t see his face, I knew that his cheeks were starting to turn rosy with frustration, the way they tended to when technology got the better of him.

Though my grandpa was young at heart in many ways, in other ways, he was your average old man. Especially when it came to him trying to get Skype to work.

He ranted a little more as I tried on my end to fix the stream.

The sharp rays of an early morning summer sun filtered through the blinds of the pie shop kitchen. I’d come in early to talk to Warren and to get a head start on my day: something I definitely needed with all the tourists in town. Chrissy was on vacation and Tiana, my other baking assistant, wasn’t in yet. I was all alone in the shop, save for my grandfather, who was keeping me company 4,600 miles away.

“You could depend on a telephone in my day,” he went on. “We may not have had them everywhere we went like you youngin’s today, but by golly, at least they wor—oh, hey! There you are, Cinny Bee. I can see your pretty face now clear as day.” 

I smiled as Warren’s old wrinkled face illuminated my laptop screen. Just as I thought, his cheeks had turned a shade of strawberry from his frustrations with technology, but the color was fading now. He was looking healthy, and he was smiling a great big old signature Warren grin.