Crushed in Christmas River Read online

  “You’re right,” I said. “Another week and this will all be in the rearview mirror.”

  I inhaled another bite, washing it down with the iced tea.

  “And in the meantime, I’ll just have to focus on Riley Dugan’s beautiful eyes to get me through it,” I added.

  Cin put a hand on her hip, as she was wont to do whenever I talked like this.

  Cin was old school all the way – a one-man kind of woman who didn’t seem to know any other men outside of Daniel Brightman existed in the world.

  It was kind of cute. But kind of frustrating, too, when she made me out to be some sort of man-crazy heathen.

  “Oh, don’t give me that,” I said, pushing my cleaned plate out in front of me – I hadn’t left so much as a crumb and I wasn’t in the least bit ashamed. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed Riley when he drives down Main Street every day on the way to the station, blasting Garth Brooks and looking like a five-alarm fire in that old pickup truck of his.”

  “Of course, I’ve noticed,” Cin said wryly. “Anyone with two working ears has. Mayor Harry Pugmire most of all. I hear he’s trying to get the local police to issue Riley a ticket for disturbing the peace.”

  “Oh, he disturbs the peace all right,” I said. “But it’s got nothing to do with how loud he plays his music.”

  I couldn’t help myself. Cin had served it up so nicely, I just had to knock it down.

  Cin tried to keep a straight face, but a moment later, the laughter came tumbling out of her. I followed shortly after, busting up at my own joke.

  “What would John say to all of this?” she asked when she finally caught her breath.

  “Who?” I said humorously.

  Cinnamon’s mouth dropped and she shook her head.

  “You’re a hell-raiser, Kara Billings.”

  “Always have been and always will be,” I said, giving my best friend a wink.

  I realized that I was feeling a lot better.

  There was nothing like a delicious slice of pie and good conversation with my best friend to make me forget that I’d signed myself up for a week of hell.

  “Do you want another slice of Lemon Gingersnap?” she asked.

  “I’d love to, but I ought to get going,” I said, standing up. “I’ve got a feeling it’ll be a busy day at the ornament shop and I need to get ahead if I’m going to make it through this week.”

  I cleared my throat, remembering the reason I’d come over in the first place.

  “Say before I go, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Shoot,” Cin said.

  “Well, Laila has dance practice tomorrow night, and I’m going to be hung up in rehearsals all evening. John has work and Edna’s got her weekly bingo night she just refuses to miss, so I was wondering if—”

  “Of course I can take her to practice,” Cin said, reading my thoughts. “I’d love to.”

  I smiled, letting out a short sigh of relief.

  “Thanks a million, Cin.”

  “Sure I can’t interest you in another slice?”

  I wiggled my way back into my concrete heels, glancing past her shoulder into the woods out the window.

  It was already in the low nineties and I swear I could see heat waves coming off the trees. It was only a little ways across the street to my shop, but the thought of going out there in my velveteen get-up was almost too much to bear.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I was kicking the heels off again and taking a seat back on the barstool.

  “Maybe one teeny tiny little piece more,” I said, grinning.

  Chapter 3

  Riley Dugan’s coconut aftershave filled my nostrils as his muscular frame pummeled me to the ground, covering me like a flannel blanket on a chilly night.

  “What the...?”

  I sputtered like a broken coffee pot, struggling for words that weren’t there.

  My wig was on the other side of the auditorium and the wire frames were bent out of shape, resting in an awkward position a few feet away.

  Shattered glass covered the stage floor.

  Riley was on top of me, breathing heavily. Meanwhile, I wasn’t breathing at all.

  “Are you okay, Kara?” he said after a long moment, when the screams of our fellow cast members had died down.

  I knew I should have been more concerned with the fact that one of the auditorium lights had just fallen from the ceiling and nearly squashed me like a beetle, but I couldn’t help be a little star-struck by Riley Dugan — who had heroically pushed me out of the way just in time before the light fixture landed on me.

  “I, um, I can’t believe this just happened…” I mumbled.

  We’d been in the middle of a long rehearsal and Riley and I had been up on stage, acting out the scene where Eddie Claus tells his mother he’s leaving the North Pole to go have some adventure out in the world. It was an energetic number, where Mrs. Claus was supposed to be roving around the stage in a panic while Eddie was chasing after her, telling her leaving was something he had to do.

  I had just flubbed yet another line, and Doreen the director was scolding me when there was suddenly a strange noise from up above in the rafters. I’d looked up to see one of the lights burning out. Then, a moment later, I was screaming as it came loose and fell straight down toward me.

  That was when Riley reacted lightning fast.

  Now, amongst the shattered glass, I gazed at my hero. He looked around behind him, just to make sure everything was secure. Then he sat up, getting off me.

  I wouldn’t have minded if he’d taken another minute.

  Or two.

  He reached out, helping me to my feet. A crowd of other actors had gathered, all of them looking about as thunderstruck as I felt.

  “Holy moly,” Al Baker, the general store owner who was playing Santa in the play, said, scratching his head and looking up at the ceiling. “Why, that thing just came flying out of nowhere!”

  “We could have been killed!” Valley Corson, a local florist who was playing Mrs. Claus’s sister in the play, shouted dramatically.

  “I was standing there only a second ago,” June McKinney, a teenager playing one of the North Pole elves, mumbled in disbelief.

  “Somebody should lose their job over this!” Porter Collins, one of the reindeer operators, said, looking down at the shattered glass.

  “Now everybody calm down,” Doreen said from her seat in the front row of the auditorium. “These things happen sometimes on the set of a professional theater company. Don’t make more of it than it is.”

  Something about the way she said that, and her utter lack of concern about the situation made my ears burn red.

  I let out a loud scoff, dusting my dress off.

  “Make more of it than it is? I was almost killed, Doreen!” I said.

  “Look — I don’t want to minimize what just happened here,” the director said, crossing her arms. “But we’ve only got a few days left to get this play down, and I must be honest: right now? This play looks like a hot mess, folks. We can’t afford any interruptions at this stage. And anyway, any real professional actor knows that no matter what happens, the show must go on.”

  I glanced around at the other actors, who all looked like beaten dogs with their tails between their legs.

  “Now, Kara — why don’t you go to the storage closet and get a few brooms to sweep the glass up with? Then we can start again from the top. And this time, I want you to show more emotion. Imagine what it would really feel like if your dear, beloved son just told you he was leaving on a dangerous and perilous journey.”

  My mouth was on the ground for a full minute as she spoke.

  She had to be certifiable.

  I knew my best friend Cin might have taken this kind of treatment with a grain of salt. John would have, too.

  But I wasn’t any Zen master. And Doreen had crossed a line with me that there was no getting back from.

  If I’d had my wig, I’d have used that instead. But since
it was on the other side of the auditorium, I tore off my hot, velveteen vest, rolled it up into a ball, and slammed it on the ground.

  “I am not a professional actor, Doreen!” I shouted. “And you are INSANE!”

  The other actors gaped at me like I was the crazy person in the room, but I didn’t care.

  I stomped all the way across the stage, down the steps, and past Doreen in my clunky heels.

  I almost made it to the auditorium door, too, at that speedy, hellfire clip.

  Almost being the operative word.

  Chapter 4

  “I can’t believe her, you know? What does she think this is? A Broadway production of Hamlet?”

  I hobbled across the hot parking lot in ungraceful movements. I’d fallen on my ankle funny during my unceremonious exit, and I could already feel it swelling up like a balloon.

  “She’s been giving us hell for weeks now,” Riley said, looping an arm through mine and helping me across the lot. “Everyone’s been too scared to stand up to her.”

  I felt his eyes on me suddenly.

  “Everybody but you just now. You’ve got some guts, you know that?”

  I met his eyes for a split second. They sparkled in the strong sunlight and made my heart do a little pitter-patter it really had no business doing.

  “No, not guts,” I said. “Just a short temper.”

  We got to my car, and he opened the driver’s side door for me. I sat down, feeling downright jubilant to get off my feet.

  “Let me take a look at that foot,” he said, kneeling down.

  “Oh, no, no. I’ll be fine,” I said, flustered. “I’m just going to go home now.”

  He didn’t listen though. A moment later, he was gingerly taking off my 8-pound heel and inspecting my ankle. His fingers on my skin caused me to break out in goosebumps.

  “It looks like you might have sprained it,” he said after a long moment. “I’d recommend elevating and icing it.”

  “Well, I’m glad it’s not broken at least,” I said, letting out a sigh.

  He smiled.

  “Hey — thanks for saving me back there,” I said, fishing the car keys out of my purse. “From the light fixture. And also after... after I fell trying to leave.”

  Only moments after I’d tripped over the carpet in front of the whole cast and crew, Riley had been right there by my side, helping me up.

  His smile turned into a full-fledged grin. He glanced out across the parking lot.

  “You were so close,” he said.

  “Close?”

  “To pulling off an exit for the ages,” he said. “You were only a few feet away from the door when you tripped. Such a shame...”

  Someone else saying that might have gotten my temper flaring again. But he said it in such a funny way, I couldn’t help but let out a ridiculous laugh reminiscent of a donkey hee-hawing.

  I stuck the keys in the ignition.

  “I was close, wasn’t I?”

  He nodded, gazing at me. I made a motion to close the door, but he didn’t get out of the way.

  “Say, can I buy you an ice cream or something?” he asked, flashing those dark eyes at me.

  I wasn’t often speechless, but there I was, a fish out of water.

  “Oh, I, uh… well…”

  I cleared my throat, feeling that hot burning stare of Riley Dugan’s on me.

  “I’m married,” I blurted out, holding up my left hand, just in case he didn’t believe me. “And while I’m really flattered, I—”

  “I just think we need to talk,” Riley said abruptly. “This accident with the light?”

  He paused, as if struggling to come up with the words.

  “What about it?” I said.

  He looked off into the distance.

  “It’s not the first accident we’ve had on the set.”

  For the second time in as many minutes, I was speechless.

  Chapter 5

  “Look, I’m not pointing any fingers. But something weird is going on with this production. And it’s starting to get dangerous.”

  I readjusted my leg on the vinyl booth across from me. I had a pack of ice the waitress at the Marionberry Diner was kind enough to lend me from one of their freezers, and I was resting my busted ankle on the seat next to Riley. I’d been a little uncomfortable doing that, considering the way it looked, and considering how people in a small town were susceptible to idle gossip. But Riley had insisted I keep it there with the ice pack to minimize the injury.

  He said he’d been quarterback of his high school’s football team back in Salem, and that he played a year in college. He said he knew a thing or two about injuries.

  So I kept my leg right where it was, listening to Riley while sipping on an icy cold Marionberry milkshake. Already, I could feel my temper cooling and the swelling in my ankle going down.

  “First, there was the thing with Gertrude breaking her leg,” Riley said. “Next, Valley came this close to impaling herself on a pair of scissors that one of the set designers must have left out on the floor.”

  Riley brought his two fingers together for added emphasis when he said “this.”

  “Then yesterday, when I was walking through the parking lot to my car? This black SUV came out of nowhere and almost clipped me.”

  I felt my eyebrows knit together.

  “Really?”

  Riley nodded.

  “Did you get the license plate number?”

  Riley shook his head. He spooned a big helping of the Marionberry shake into his mouth.

  “No. It was an SUV. That’s all I got because it was so dark out. And then it sped away.”

  “Did you report it to the police?”

  He shook his head again.

  “I thought maybe it was just some drunk who pulled into the lot and got lost. But after the lighting incident today, I… well… I’ve been wondering if it’s not all connected.”

  He shifted his eyes around the diner as if afraid someone might overhear him.

  “If somebody maybe is… I don’t know. After the cast for some reason.”

  I clamped a hand over my head.

  “Oh, my gosh. Not this again,” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  I let out a long sigh, thinking back to four years earlier during the rehearsals for the last Christmas in July play I’d been part of.

  That one had turned into a flat-out fiasco. My shop had gone up in flames. So had Valley’s floral shop.

  It had been another incident when somebody was after the actors of the Christmas in July Parade and Play.

  And frankly, I’d had enough of all of that for a lifetime.

  This stupid play just wasn’t worth it.

  “Listen, Riley. I’m quitting. Whether there’s some larger conspiracy going on or not, I’m out. It’s not worth getting hurt over. And anyway, Doreen is now permanently on my bad list.”

  I eyed him, noticing his face had fallen a little flat.

  “I think you ought to quit, too. You’re a fireman, aren’t you? You can’t afford to get hurt.”

  I tried not to eye the muscles bulging out of the sleeves of his T-shirt when I said that, but I didn’t think I was all that successful. I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away.

  “You’re right,” he said. “But I…”

  He trailed off and paused for a long moment.

  “It’s stupid, but I really wanted to do this play. There aren’t a lot of opportunities here in Christmas River to act. I’ve been taking classes with Doreen’s theater now for six months, and this is the first real production they’ve had.”

  “Oh… I didn’t know you were part of the play voluntarily,” I said, taking another sip of the delicious, creamy shake. “I figured you got roped into it like the rest of us.”

  Riley shrugged one of his muscular shoulders, his cheeks darkening.

  “I’ve always loved acting,” he said. “I haven’t shared this with too many people, but I’ve always dreamed of making it in Holly
wood one day. You know, being a big feature film star or something?”

  He took a slurp of his own shake.

  “But I never tried acting until I moved to Christmas River from Salem last year. I was always afraid what my friends back home would think of me if they knew I was taking acting classes. I know that sounds dumb, but most of them played football with me in high school. And most football players aren’t exactly open-minded about that kind of stuff.”

  “Doesn’t sound dumb at all, Riley. You know, there’s nothing harder to do in this world than to be yourself.”

  I’d read that on a lavender honey-flavored tea bag label at Cin’s shop once, and it had always stuck with me.

  Now it was making me sound wiser than I was. Riley nodded his head emphatically in agreement.

  “Yeah. That’s it exactly. So when I got hired by the fire department and moved out here, I decided I was going to give the local theater a try. Be myself, you know? I was really excited when Doreen gave me the part of Eddie Claus. You know, he’s a much more complicated character than all the other roles. I think she gave it to me because she knew I wanted a challenge.”

  I stifled a smile. Something about listening to a hunky fireman talk so seriously about a silly little Christmas in July play tickled me to no end.

  But after a moment, I shook off the humorous thought. I was no better than his friends back in Salem if I laughed at him for it.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Well, if it matters to you that much, I suppose you ought to stay in the play,” I said. “But I’m not changing my mind. This just isn’t worth it to me.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said, sadness running through his voice as he spoke. “I was looking forward to working with you.”

  I got that tickling feeling again when he said that.

  “You’re the only one who’ll stand up to Doreen,” he continued. “And I was hoping you might want to stick around and help me figure out what’s going on.”

  I got lost in his dark eyes for a moment.

  “What if someone else gets hurt between now and the day of the play?” he added. “Wouldn’t you want to help prevent that if you could?”