5 Mischief in Christmas River (10 page)

I quickly forced my eyes down.

“Uh, what?” I said.

“Oh,” she said, furrowing her brow. “I thought you were looking at the gingerbread house.”

I cleared my throat. I supposed it wasn’t going to do any good playing dumb.  

“Well, now that you mention it, I couldn’t help but notice how nicely it’s coming along,” I said.

I had to practically force the words out, them being as thick and sticky as cold maple syrup in my throat.  

“You know, that means so much coming from you, Cinnamon,” she said, her blue eyes brightening. “I know how good you are at making these.”  

Pepper got up and went over to the corner. She grabbed the cookie structure’s wooden base, and brought it over to the table so that I could see the house in all its infinite splendor.

Pepper hadn’t built a typical two-story, gum drop-laden gingerbread kit cabin, the way I thought she would.

I stared at it silently, trying not to let my jaw hit the ground in the process.

The house, which was still only half-done, was nothing short of
exquisite
.

Pepper had used a marbling technique to decorate the outside of the house. Pink and green pastel strips of icing danced and twirled across the exterior. The shape of the house too was original and unusual, flaring out artistically. Almost like a sculpture. Expertly-made sugar icicles dripped down from the rooftop. A dusting of silver glitter made the house sparkle: the shingles looked like they were encased in a layer of frost.   

And it wasn’t just a house, I realized.

It was a
dog
house.

I chewed at the inside of my bottom lip.

Son of a howling musher
, I thought to myself.

People in Christmas River loved their dogs. This was going to be
the
crowd favorite, hands down.

And probably a judge favorite too.

I swallowed back a glob of jealous spit.

“It’s not done yet,” she said. “But when it is, I’m calling it
Max’s House
. You know, after that cute pooch in
The Grinch
?”

She cleared her throat.

“I mean, I know I have some construction issues here and there that the judges won’t like,” she said. “But it’s my first competition. I figure I won’t win this time, but maybe I’ll get better at it and have a shot next year.”

I didn’t know if her modesty was honest or false, but either way, it didn’t matter.

The house was good.

It was damn good.

Where did this woman come from?

An awkward silence fell over the room. I knew I had to say something, but my throat had dried up like a mountain stream in August.

I scrambled for words, but just then, Cindy stuck her head behind the pink curtain that separated the kitchen and dining area.

“Pepper, there’s a lady up here who wanted to make a big order for a Christmas party, and she had a few question about whether we could do a large-scale batch of Maple Pumpkin Pies?”

Pepper smiled brightly.

“Thanks, Tiffany,” she said. “Tell her I’ll be right there.”

I took that as my chance. I stood up, forcing a phony smile.  

“Oh no, I didn’t mean that
you
should leave, Cinnamon,” Pepper said. “Please, it’ll only take a moment and we can talk some more.”

I shook my head.

“Uh, no, no,” I said. “I’ve already taken up too much of your time. You’re busy.”

“No, really, it’s not—”

“I better get back, too,” I said, pulling on my coat.

“Oh,” she said, a little sadly. “Okay. If you have to go.”

“Thanks for the latte,” I said, throwing my scarf on quickly.

I took one last glance at the immaculate gingerbread dog house on the table.

I felt my phony smile fade, like a flower wilting in the frost.  

I hurriedly walked out of the kitchen.

“Thanks for the pie!” she shouted after me.

But I hardly heard her.

Because all I could focus on was Meredith Drutman standing at the counter, drumming her fingers against the countertop impatiently, the same way she had done before when she ordered pies from me, in my pie shop.

Meredith shot me a smug smile as I brushed past her.

I practically ran out of Pepper’s bakery after that.

Chapter 24

I carried Chadwick through the doors of the Humane Society, the way I had been carrying him for the last three blocks of our walk.

The little dog had to be the most stubborn, hard-headed, stuck-in-his-ways pooch I had ever come across.

Fifteen minutes earlier, right in the middle of our walk, Chadwick had collapsed on the sidewalk, refusing to get back up on his little paws of his own free will. I’d tried everything to get him to walk again. I tried nudging him along. I tried tempting him with a dog biscuit. I even picked him up and placed him back down on all fours. But none of it got the little dog walking again. I finally had to lift the pooch up and carry him the rest of the way back.

“How’d it go?” said Deidre, the hardworking operations manager at the shelter, after I’d placed Chadwick in his designated holding area.

“Oh, okay, I guess,” I said. “He’s a stubborn one all right.”

“Well, we appreciate all the time you put in here, Cinnamon,” she said. “Especially with it being the holidays. We really need all the help we can get. So many dogs have been turning up on our doorstep lately. And we just don’t have the funds like we used to.”

“Any of them a bloodhound?” I asked, asking her the same question I had the day that Billy had come into my pie shop and told me that he’d lost Shasta.

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “We’ve had a lot, but none of them a bloodhound. The closest we’ve had in was a Basset. Why do you keep asking?”

I shrugged.

“Friend of mine lost their bloodhound,” I said.

She nodded.

“What about a yellow lab pit-bull mix?” I asked. “Or a Shih Tzu? Have you had any dogs like that turn up?”

She leaned back in her chair, scratching her chin.

“No. For sure on the Shih Tzu. And as for the yellow lab mix, we do have a few, but they’ve been here for over two weeks. I’d assume you’d already seen them.” 

My heart sank a little.

No luck across the board: strikes on all three missing pooches.

I let out a short sigh.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a lot of friends with missing dogs,” she said.

I dug my hands deep in my pockets and shrugged.

Deidre suddenly sprang forward in her chair.

“Oh, that reminds me, Cin, I had a question I wanted to ask you.”

“Sure,” I said.

She took off her glasses, letting them hang around her neck from a beaded chain. She rubbed her eyes, which were bloodshot and strained-looking.  

“Well, I’m sure you heard, but the shelter out in Redmond had its roof collapse yesterday,” she said. “That last few inches of snow just proved to be too much for it. But that means that our Humane Society will have to take in 10 more dogs later today while they fix the building out there. And, well, we just plain don’t have room for them.”

She sighed.

“So I’m asking all the volunteers if they can temporarily foster at least one of the dogs until we figure out our capacity issues.”

I bit my lower lip.

Not that I didn’t want to help the Humane Society, but I had Kara’s surprise wedding shower this weekend, and having an extra dog around the house on top of all those people just seemed like a lot to take on.

“Well, I’d love to but—”

“It’d only be for a few days,” Deidre said. “I promise. And it would really mean the world to the shelter. We’re struggling as is. The extra dogs are going to put us over, I’m afraid.”

She looked at me with hopeful, tired eyes.

Deidre cared so much about these dogs – it was hard not to become infected by that same spirit.

I let out a short little sigh, knowing that I was the ultimate sucker.

But I figured adding one stubborn little dog on top of my already busy weekend wasn’t going to make much of a difference one way or another.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” I finally said. “Give me Chadwick.”

Deidre smiled brightly, and then went into the back to collect him from his kennel.

Chapter 25

I stood back, scanning every inch of the gingerbread house with the same sharp intensity that a hawk scans a field for prey. Analyzing every nook, cranny, crevasse and slope of the cookie structure as if my next meal depended on it.  

I wiped away a bead of sweat that had trickled down my temple, then glanced over at the clock on the oven.

It was nearing two in the morning.

It was official: Cinnamon Peters had lost her Gingerbread Junction-obsessed mind.

My hands trembled with exhaustion. My legs felt like a pair of lead pipes. My muscles were tighter than a rope tied to an anchor.

But none of that seemed to matter, because the cookie structure sitting in front of me on the kitchen island of my pie shop was
opulent
.

The cookie domes were shaped perfectly. The sugar glass spires atop the domes reached high into the heavens, sparkling like they were made out of crystal. A layer of white frosting and silver glitter covered everything, simulating fresh snowfall. Sugar glass icicles lined the edge of the rooftop. The lights that I had placed inside the structure shone through the stained glass windows, which were made out of melted Jolly Ranchers.

And in one window pane, a small candle, which in reality was a birthday candle, shone through. As if Yuri was in there one cold and snowy night, quietly writing his poems.

On the grounds around the palace, I had made a stand of sugar glass snow-encrusted aspens and one drooping, sugar glass Rowan tree directly in front of the wrap-around porch entrance. Off to the side, a cookie sleigh held two marzipan figures embracing.

I let out a long exhausted breath.  

I had a chance, now. A chance to beat Pepper and take home that $500 at the Junction next week.

And not only that, but I was sure now that after almost 15 years of making gingerbread houses for the competition, this one, this elaborate ice palace, was my very best creation to date.

I had made gingerbread North Pole castles. I had made gingerbread western ranch mansions. I had made gingerbread English country cottages. I had made gingerbread cathedrals.

They had all been beautiful. Each and every one of them. Even the ones that hadn’t turned out as well as I had hoped.

But this gingerbread house… this one was more than beautiful.

It was inspired.  

I’d given it my all, infusing something that I’d been thinking about a lot lately into the cookie house.

Something I believed in with my entire heart and soul.

True love
. 

The house was my monument to it.

As I stood there, admiring the cookie palace, thinking of Daniel and me, I realized that my eyes had become damp.

I tilted my head back, keeping the tired tears from spilling over.

I had become such a sap since meeting Daniel Brightman.

But I didn’t mind being that way so much these days.

Chapter 26

I took a sip of coffee, watching from the bedroom window as Daniel’s truck backed down the long driveway, then headed west on Sugar Pine Road.

I pulled my robe tighter around my waist, wondering when I had started being one of those types who constantly worried.   

He was coming back later tonight, but the weather forecast had called for a rough winter storm to blow in tomorrow morning. I didn’t like to think of him driving up there on those mountain roads if the storm decided to blow in early. The local cherub-faced weatherman liked to convince folks that he was always correct about storm predictions, when the truth was, he was right only about half the time. On plenty of occasions, storms would come barreling in earlier than the weatherman at the TV station predicted.

I could only hope he was right this time around.

The brilliant blue morning sky seemed in agreement with his prediction, though. Looking at it, you wouldn’t think that we were in for a big one.

I stared out the window for a while, long after Daniel’s truck had pulled away. I looked out at the beautiful meadow, the frost on the dead grass shimmering brilliantly in the lazy winter sun. I took in a deep breath. The house smelled of coffee and sunlight and fresh Douglas Fir from the Christmas tree in the living room.

It was the kind of Saturday morning that made you feel good to be alive. The kind of morning that called for a long walk in the woods or a day spent riding a bike around town. The kind of day good for strolling down to Meadow Plaza and enjoying the Christmas decorations while sipping a strong cup of coffee.

But as much as I wanted to do those things, and enjoy this rare, blue, December day, I didn’t have the time.

I had to clean, organize, cook, and craft today in anticipation of Kara’s surprise wedding shower this evening.

A loud, shrill, bark from the living room jarred me out of my thoughts. I jumped, and a splash of coffee sloshed over the edge of my cup, landing on the wood floor by my slippers.

I let out a sigh as the first bark was joined by a second, more familiar bark.

“Dang it,” I mumbled.  

It had been like this
all
morning. Chadwick, perhaps out of sorts by being in unfamiliar surroundings, would just start barking at nothing. His barking would then incite Huckleberry to join in, starting an all-out dog riot for no good reason.

“Hey, you all stop that!” I shouted.

But either the two pooches didn’t hear me, or they were too caught up in barking at nothing to care.

I put down my coffee mug and went out to break up the commotion.

It was a loud beginning to what promised to be a busy, busy day.

Chapter 27