4 Malice in Christmas River (7 page)

I thought back to Bailey. Bailey was my friend and had been my bakery assistant at
Cinnamon’s Pies
. We got along great. Until I found out that my then-husband was cheating on me with her. Things just sort of fell apart for me after that. Bailey opened up her own pastry shop, and for a little while, I had to coexist with her.

It wasn’t easy, to say the least. In a big city, if you had a problem with somebody, you could just pick up and move across town. You could probably spend your whole life there, never running into them.

But in a small town, you had to live with them. There wasn’t an option unless you wanted to move away yourself.

It must have been hard for Laurel all these years, having a long-standing feud with someone as bull-headed as Jo.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “Sometimes it isn’t easy living in a small town.”

She sighed, and pulled at her earring again.

“You’re right at that, doll,” she said. “You’re right at that. Sometimes I can’t help but long for Atlanta. I moved here when I was just a teenager, but occasionally I miss the freedom that came with living in a big city.”

She let out a little, lonesome, Southern Belle sigh. Then she glanced back at me.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love living in Christmas River. I wouldn’t want my child to have grown up anywhere else.”

The oven timer beeped, signaling that a batch of fresh Mountain Cherry pies were ready to be pulled from the oven.

That stopped Laurel from finishing her thought.  

I pulled on a pair of oven mitts and turned the timer off.

“Well, that’s enough. I didn’t come here to go on about my life,” she said. “I just wanted to really apologize, Cinnamon. And I wanted to invite you over to the ranch Thursday for some wine and appetizers. Do you think we could do that?”

I felt my eyebrows lift in an expression of surprise.

Not that Laurel wasn’t a nice person. But we always just kind of moved in different circles. I wasn’t classist, but it was hard to deny that people generally kept to their lot in life. I ran a small, somewhat successful business and was married to a sheriff. We were middle class all the way. Her husband was a city councilor and a high profile real estate developer. I’d heard too that she herself was independently wealthy, and came from old Southern money.

We traveled in different circles. That was for sure.

“I just… I just thought it would be nice,” she said, picking up on my hesitation. “You know? Just us girls.”

She smiled.

I found myself smiling back.

What the hell. Just because we traveled in different circles didn’t mean that those circles couldn’t overlap every once and a while.

Besides. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dying to see the much-talked-about McSween Ranch.  

Not to mention seeing that collection of cowgirl boots she must have had in her closet.

“Yeah,” I said, wiping my hands off on my apron. “I would really love that, Laurel.”

“Great,” she said.

I got the sense that I had just really made her day.  

Her cowgirl boots found the linoleum floor, and I swear, I could almost smell the rich leather wafting from them as she stood up and headed for the coat rack to retrieve her purse.

“I’m really glad we talked, Cinnamon. I feel a lot better.”

“Me too,” I said.

“See you about 5 Thursday? You know where the ranch is?”

I nodded.

“I look forward to it.”

She pushed her way through the dividing door, disappearing.

I felt the edges of my mouth turn up slightly as I removed the pies from the pan and set them on the cold marble of the kitchen island to cool.

Maybe this was another good thing to come out of what had been a bad situation.

Maybe I’d get a new friend out of all of this.

I spent the rest of the day in a good mood.

Everything I touched was practically gold.

Chapter 12

I got up early the next morning, stopped by the Christmas Coffee Hut, and grabbed two grande iced Mexican Chocolate Mochas and two Marionberry muffins.

Against my better judgment.

I’d put on a few pounds since getting married in December. I guessed that was natural. In my newlywed zeal, I’d filled our house with cookbooks and new cookware. I spent evenings, most of which I’d been spending alone waiting for Daniel to get off work, cooking rich and satisfying meals. Meals to warm his soul after a long day of keeping the streets of Christmas River safe.

He loved it. Couldn’t get enough of my cooking. But as was typical of a man, he didn’t gain so much as a pound from those meals. In the meantime, I’d been fighting off some serious love handles. I’d been working hard the last few weeks to shed some of those extra pounds for our honeymoon. I’d cut down on drinking, which was a lot easier to do now that Warren wasn’t around to lure me with one of his homebrews. Aside from that pumpkin cheesecake milkshake the other day, I’d kept to a diet that consisted of mostly salad and steak.

But after a month of eating spinach round the clock, I hadn’t lost as much weight as I’d hoped. And after the emotional rollercoaster I’d been through the day before, I figured I could allow myself this one small indulgence.

Well, maybe it wasn’t all that small, I realized.

The owner of the Christmas Coffee Hut leaned over the window and handed me the two iced mochas and two massive muffins wrapped in plastic wrap.

Those two muffins could have kept a small country going for a week.

“Thanks, Marianne,” I said, doing my best to balance what she’d given me.

“Anytime, Cin,” she said in her trademark gruff, smoker’s voice.

I walked across the street, doing my best juggling act for the whole town to see. I walked a little ways down the main drag before turning into
Kara’s Ornate Ornaments
. I backed into the glass door carefully, pushing it open with my elbows.

I took a deep breath as I walked in.

I always loved the feel of Kara’s shop. It had the same feel as her old shop, the one that went up in flames a year earlier, but it was even better. It had rustic pine floorboards that creaked when you walked, and the place always smelled just like Christmas morning. Being the crafty person she was, Kara made her own Christmas potpourri and sprinkled the shop with bowls of it. It smelled like orange and clove, and always made you feel warm and cozy and right at home.

The shop was empty at this hour of the morning, but harpsichord Christmas music was playing from the speakers and the glittery lights of the plastic Christmas trees were on, showcasing all of Kara’s specialty, handmade ornaments.

I set the mochas and muffins down on the cashier counter, and took a moment to marvel at a new display she had put together since the last time I stopped by.

A rustic wood sign engraved with the words
Rodeo Days in Christmas River
hung from a glittery white Christmas tree draped in ribbon. Small round snow globes were suspended from the branches, depicting scenes from the Old West. In one snow globe, clay cowboys faced each other in an encircled corral, their guns drawn. In another, a stagecoach ran through a clay canyon. And in another, a cowboy on a horse herded a couple of stubborn clay cattle.

And the snow globes were only part of the display. Kara had also made clay horseshoes, cows with Santa hats, and wooden engraved cowboy boot ornaments.

I shook my head in wonder.

Kara’s talent never failed to amaze me. Every time I stopped by her shop, I was reminded of how outrageously amazing her crafts were. She blew all the other handmade artisanal stores in Christmas River out of the water.

Growing up, I always thought that Kara would be the next Martha Stewart. Maybe she would still be, one day.

But for now, I was glad, rather selfishly, that she was a small business owner in Christmas River. Just a stone’s throw away from my own shop.

“Son of a bitchin’ bronco!”

Glass shattered from somewhere in the backroom.

“Owwww…”

The noise sounded like it was coming from a dying animal.

I stopped marveling at Kara’s creations and quickly weaved my way through the displays and plastic tree branches to the back.

Kara sat hunched over at the large table in her craft studio, holding her thumb and making low groaning sounds.

“My God, are you okay?” I said, rushing over.

A small pile of broken glass lay on the floor, and there was a decidedly singed smell tainting the air.

“Water,” she mumbled through gritted teeth.  

I went over to the sink, grabbed a plastic cup, and filled it up quickly. I brought it back over. Kara dunked her forefinger in it, and I could have sworn I heard sizzling when she did. 

She let out a small grunt of relief.  

I noticed the glue gun on the table was bleeding a dribble of steaming glue. I went over and unplugged it.

“These damned industrial strength glue guns,” she said after a few more moments of pained silence. “I should really know better by now. You get some of that glue on your skin, and it hurts worse than the devil’s hot poker.”

“Is it really bad?” I said.

She shook her head.

“No, I’ll be okay,” she said. “Nothing I haven’t done before.”

I went over to one corner of the room and grabbed a broom leaning against the wall. I started sweeping up the broken glass into a dustpan, and dumped it in the trashcan under the sink.

“Just another day in paradise,” she mumbled.

“Can I get you anything?” I said.

She shook her head again and didn’t speak.

I nodded, and then quickly jaunted back into the front of the store, grabbing the muffins and mochas.

I thought the sight of decadently rich sugary treats would cheer her up, but as I looked into her face, I realized that it did almost the opposite.

“That’s nice of you Cin,” she said, her finger still plunged in the water. “But I just started this juice cleanse. I can’t have any processed sugar for a month.”

I furrowed my brow.

For as long as I’d known Kara, she’d been like an evil Keebler Elf. I’d always been the one to go on diets, and she’d always been the one trying to tempt me with tasty food that was bad for me. Kara had a lightning-fast metabolism and had always been able to maintain her wire-thin frame while eating all sorts of junk food.

Now here we were, our roles reversed. I was the evil Keebler Elf. And here she was talking about cleanses.  

She sighed, noticing my confusion.

“It’s just, this weather’s been making me feel grumpy,” she said. “Hell, I don’t know. I guess it’s my life that’s been making me feel grumpy. I thought going on a cleanse might put me in a better frame of mind, you know? Those celebrities are always going on and on about it in those entertainment magazines I read. Maybe they’re onto something.”

I nodded, pulling the mocha and muffin back to my side of the counter.

“Sure,” I said, slightly disappointed.  

“But you go ahead and have yours. Don’t let me ruin it for you.”

I shook my head.

“It’s not as fun being bad alone,” I said.  

She smiled, but it faded quickly, and then an awkward silence settled over the conversation.

I took a deep breath, gathering up enough courage to address the elephant in the room.

“What’s going on, Kara?” I asked. “I mean, what’s really going on with you? It seems like more than just the weather.”

Her eyes dropped, and she pulled her finger out of the cup of water and stared at it.

She shrugged, then sighed.

“Do you ever stop and look at your life, Cin, and think that maybe you shortchanged yourself?”

I studied her face. Her eyes were still downcast, and the edges of her lips were turned downward into a depressed expression. 

“Are you feeling that way?” I asked.

She bit her lip.

“I just wonder if staying here in Christmas River wasn’t a mistake all these years,” she said. “Like maybe I should have gone to college and given myself a chance at something bigger.”

“But, Kara, look at all you’ve done,” I said. “You’re a successful business woman. And you’re doing what you love, right? Your work is phenomenal. I mean it. I’ve never seen anything quite like your ornaments.”

“But that’s what I mean,” she said. “Why am I here in Christmas River if I’m so good at what I do?”

She sighed. Her eyes began to get glassy. I got up and grabbed a Kleenex from a box on one of the counters and handed it to her.

“Hon, you can do anything you put your mind to,” I said. “But when I look at your life, shortchange just isn’t a word that comes up. You work for yourself, you have a beautiful home, and you’ve got a guy who’s crazy about you.”

She made a strange little noise at that last part.

I raised an eyebrow.

I thought the storms between Kara and John had subsided for good last summer, but maybe I was wrong.

“Sometimes I think he might love his work more,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with the Kleenex. 

I placed a hand on her shoulder again.

She let out a big old emotion-laden sigh.

“I guess it’s just that I’ve had this vision of myself,” she said. “When I got to this age, I just expected more, you know? I thought I might be more successful than I am. Like that I might work for some fancy New York house and home magazine. Or maybe I’d even have…”  

Big fat tears came spilling out over the rims of her eyes.

“I just think sometimes, it’s not enough. You know, Cin? The way I’m going, the life I’m leading, it’s just not enough.”

I put my arm around her shoulder and hugged her.

I didn’t really know what to say.

Living in a small town like Christmas River for a while could make a person feel stir crazy. Warren had his own case of that last year and took off to Scotland.

Maybe Kara needed something big like that too.

Which, if I was being honest, scared me.

I knew it was selfish. But Kara was my best friend. And it would be tough not having both Warren and her around.

“It’s all okay, Kara,” I said. “I promise it’s all going to be okay.”