4 Malice in Christmas River (5 page)

“C’mon, hubby,” I said, hooking my free arm in his as we started down the trail. “I’m going to make you a batch of gooey chocolate chip cookies when we get home to make up for that fish.”

He let out a happy groan before leaning down and kissing the top of my head.

“If one of your chocolate chip cookies doesn’t cure me, then nothing else will.”

He paused.

“Well,
almost
nothing,” he said.

I looked back at him mischievously.

“Don’t worry. One way or another, we’ll get you cured,” I said.

I let out a happy sigh, and we walked back through the woods, taking our time, enjoying the night air as the stars slowly popped out from the sky above.

Chapter 6

I watched as the brown sugar and whiskey bubbled up and snapped between the layers of sliced apples in the saucepan, filling the air in the pie shop with a homey smell that whispered of cold, crisp autumn days and colorful leaves scraping the ground.

And even though a few of the leaves had begun to change their colors, it wasn’t a cold crisp day. Far from it, in fact. It was early morning, but already I could tell it was going to be an Indian summer scorcher.

In all the years that I had lived in Christmas River, I’d never seen a longer, hotter summer up here in the mountains. It was unusual, to say the least. And according to the news station’s white-haired weatherman, the warm temperatures and smoky air weren’t going to loosen their grasp on the area anytime soon.

I stirred the apples, adjusting the burner higher. The fruit was still too tough and had a little more cooking to do before it would be soft enough to go into the pie crust and into the oven.

That was one of the secrets to making a good apple pie: sautéing the apples beforehand until they were just a few minutes away from being tender. So many home bakers often just cut up the apples and heaped them directly into the crust to bake in the oven, but that only ever made for a crunchy pie. No matter how long you left the pie in the oven for, the apples never seemed to get soft enough.

I let them stew some more and went back over to the counter where I had been flipping through a fall edition of a baking magazine. There were recipes for Halloween spice cakes, pumpkin brownies, and hazelnut fudge, but it all just felt a little soon to be thinking in those terms, what with summer still in full swing here in the mountains.

I let out a short yawn and rubbed my eyes. They felt a little swollen and puffy, the way they got when I didn’t get enough sleep.

I’d been thinking all morning that maybe having a pie stand at the Rodeo this year was just one thing too many on my plate right now.

I’d been thrilled at the idea back at the beginning of summer when the Rodeo committee had offered me a position in their
Grub Walkway
, the downhome name they used for their stretch of food vendors at the Rodeo. They usually only reserved the area for folks who sold barbecue or bison hotdogs, and the spots were highly sought after. But this year, the committee decided to expand their offerings to include a select number of desert-oriented stands, and my little ol’ pie shop was one of the few to be asked to join this year.    

But now that the Rodeo was just a few short days away, I was beginning to have second thoughts about setting up on the Walkway. Two days out in the hot sun, serving pie to imbibing locals and tourists out to see some cowboys get thrown off broncos seemed like a tall order right now. Yes, my baking assistant Tiana would be there to help man the stand. And yes, it would be good publicity for the pie shop, and I’d probably make a nice chunk of change when all was said and done. A real nice chunk. But sometimes, you had to know when you were spreading yourself too thin.

I thought about the night before. About how nice it had been just spending time with Daniel. It felt like it’d been a long time since we’d had a night like that. Both of us had been working so much lately to pay for the mortgage and for the impending honeymoon.

Maybe we both needed to slow down some. Go fishing more. Eat more chocolate chip cookies. Spend more time wrapped in each other’s arms, listening to the crickets chirp outside our bedroom window.

I went back over to the stove and tested the apples. They were soft enough now. I turned the burner off and moved the pot to the counter to cool.

I shook my head.

Who was I kidding? Having a stand at the Rodeo was something I’d wanted to do for years. And I was finally going to make it happen. Sure, I was tired and stretched thin. And sure, both Daniel and I had been working hard lately. But we were doing okay. We were both happy doing what we were doing.

This was just the way it was right now. But that didn’t mean this was the way it always had to—

Huckleberry, who had been quietly snoozing in his doggy bed, suddenly jumped to his feet as a loud rap came from the back door window.

“You in there Cin?” a muffled and familiar voice sounded from outside.

I dusted my hands off on my apron, and went over to the door, opening it.

“Hey, you’re sure up early,” I said, surprised to see her at this hour. “What’s going on?”

Kara looked literally as though she’d just rolled out of bed. Her long blond hair was un-brushed and tangled. There wasn’t a stich of makeup on her face. Christ, I hadn’t seen Kara look that way since we were teenagers and had sleepovers. And even then, she sometimes slept in her makeup. She was wearing a pair of slippers and sheep-dotted pajama shorts that had seen better days.

I hadn’t ever known Kara to leave the house this way. It was wholly uncharacteristic of her. And given the rut she’d been in lately, I was fearful of what it could mean.

“You’re gonna want to see this,” she said, handing me a folded up newspaper.

A moment later, my jaw was on the floor in shock.

Chapter 7

“How could he have done this?” was all I could muster after several minutes of stunned silence. “I mean… How…?”

The words escaped me.

I stared at the front page of
The Redmond Register
again, rereading the headline for at least the twentieth time.

“Pie Class Feuding Ground for Housewives of Christmas River.” 

Below it was a photo of Laurel and Jo staring each other down like a couple of drunk bar patrons. The photographer had managed to capture the moment perfectly.

In the background of the photo, you could clearly make out the somewhat helpless-looking, frustrated, overly-blushed face of a certain pie shop owner.

Me
.

I clasped a hand over my mouth and looked back up at Kara.

She was turning a ferocious shade of scarlet.  

“That Erik Andersen has no idea what he just did,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, I’ll rip his head off, Cin. I swear. He can’t mess with a friend of mine like that. He can’t…”

“‘Wives take husbands’ mayoral spar to the kitchen,’” I said, reading the smaller print below the headline out loud.

“That little slimy reporter is not going to get away with this,” Kara said. “He can’t just…”

She trailed off, unable to find the words. Much as I wasn’t able to.

I bit my lip as everything suddenly became abundantly and painfully clear to me.

Erik Andersen hadn’t sat in during my class to write a story about my pies and my shop.

He’d been there because he’d seen the class roster.

And he knew that it would make for a juicy story. Writing an article with a headline like “Housewives of Christmas River” was just too good to pass up.  

I flashed back to Jo and Laurel fighting. To how furiously Erik had been scribbling in his notebook as the two of them slung insults at one another, and other things.

I should have known.

I should have known not to trust a reporter.

How could I have been so stupid?

I read through the story again, unable to stop myself. I cringed.

After several minutes of throwing verbal punches, Pugmire grabbed a handful of pie filling and chucked it in McSween’s direction. She then left the kitchen, but not before calling McSween a “snake in the grass.”

Peters, who also happens to be Sheriff Daniel Brightman’s wife, said she’s never had a fight like this in one of her classes.

“That was shocking,” Peters said. “She (Pugmire) was out of control.”

I placed my head in my hands and groaned.

I had said that to Laurel McSween in passing after class. I didn’t even know Erik had been listening, let alone writing what I said down.

This wasn’t the kind of publicity I was after.

I wanted to be known for making out-of-this-world pies that brought happiness to people’s lives.

Not for this kind of thing.

“I just can’t believe it,” I mumbled in disbelief.  

I’d been had.

Was the rest of the interview with Erik just a sham? A cover up for the real reason he was in my pie shop that evening?

A sudden rage surged up from the base of my chest, and my ears suddenly felt red hot.

I glanced over at Kara, who looked like she was a step away from strangling someone.

Then, with trembling hands, I reached for my phone and dialed the number to the tabloid rag they called
The Redmond Register
.

Chapter 8

I ruined just about everything I touched that morning.

Crusts were burnt. Fillings were overly thick and stiff. The chocolate I tried to melt tempered incorrectly and became a chunky glob. The pudding I made for a batch of vanilla berry pies curdled, and I was left stirring scrambled eggs.

And the worst thing was that we were slammed with customers. Slices of pie were disappearing like nobody’s business from the pie case in the front of the house, and I had hardly any pies to replace them with.

I half-wondered if it was so crowded this morning because of the article. That old saying about all publicity being good publicity rattled around in my head. My shop had certainly become crowded a few winters ago when it came out that I’d found a body in the woods behind the building. In fact, morbid curiosity had increased my income almost double that month, setting a pace for the shop that hadn’t subsided in the years since. 

Maybe in the long run, this was a good thing.

I thought back to the messages I’d left on Erik Andersen’s voicemail and his editor’s voicemail earlier that morning. I had been livid, to say the least. I thought about calling him back, actually getting the little rat on the phone and giving him another piece of my mind.

Maybe the article would be good for the shop. But he’d lied to me. And he’d used me.

But yelling at him for the second time that day wasn’t going to change that.

Still, maybe it would make me feel bet—

Just then, the phone started ringing.

I cleared my throat, ready to give whoever was calling me back hell.

I didn’t recognize the number. It had to be Erik or his editor.

“Hello?” I said in a voice that was as cold as a mid-winter ice storm.

“Is that you Cinnamon?”

It was a woman’s voice.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“I’ll tell you who this is. This is Jo Pugmire. You know, the one you set up?”

My mouth dropped open.

I didn’t know why, but Jo was the last person I had expected to call.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“How
could
you do that, Cinnamon?”

Her tone was close to what it had been when she’d been speaking to Laurel.

I furrowed my brow.

“What is it you think I did?”

“Like I need to tell you,” she said sharply.

“I think you do,” I said in the strongest voice I could muster.  

“You brought that good-for-nothing, low-down-dirty, nothing-but-a-TMZ reporter Erik Andersen to the class after seeing my name and that snake Laurel on the class roster, didn’t you?” she ranted, her voice full of rage. “What did you get out of the deal? A story about your pie shop? A couple of free ads in the paper? You know, you’re a public figure too, Mrs. Sheriff Brightman. I’m sure if I did a little digging in your past, I could find some ugly things. Wasn’t it your cousin and her boyfriend who murdered that poor boy on the lake that night all those years ago? I think a fact like that might entice a dirty reporter like Eri—”

“I didn’t set you up, Jo,” I said in a strained voice. “You’re the one who decided to throw pie. And if that was a threat, it’d do you good to remember that I
am
married to the Sheriff. You threaten me again, and you’ll have a lot more than a story in the paper to worry about.”     

I’d been willing to be civil to her up until that thing she’d said about my cousin, Marie.

That was a low blow, and she shouldn’t have gone there.

“Well, my husband’s gonna be mayor,” she said, not missing a beat. “He’s got a lot of influence, you know. Come next sheriff’s election, your husband might find he has a lot fewer friends in city government than he used to. And the opponent might have a few too many – you understand what I’m saying to you, Cinnamon? Could be Trumbow makes a comeback.”

I gripped the phone so hard I thought the plastic might bend and twist.

That was the final straw.

“I’d like to see you try, you—”

The phone went dead just as I launched into an ugly tirade aimed at Jo’s hideous perm.  

She’d hung up on me.

I let out a frustrated grunt and tossed the phone onto the kitchen island.        

I suddenly felt the strong need to get outside.

I threw the dirty dishes of scrambled curd into the sink and let Tiana know that I was taking a lunch break. I told her that if we ran out of pie, not to sweat it, and to just put a “Back in 30 minutes” sign out front.

Then I took off my apron, grabbed Huckleberry’s leash, and attached it to his collar. I took him for a long walk down to the footbridge that overlooked the Christmas River.