5 Mischief in Christmas River Read online

  I glanced up at him, trying not to let on just how devastated I was to see those boots on the feet of somebody else.

  I hadn’t told Daniel about my infatuation with them. I knew that if I did, he’d do everything in his power to get them for me. And I couldn’t have that. All he knew was how much I liked this store.

  “Are you finished shopping?” I said.

  “Sure am,” he said. “Are you?”

  I nodded. We started heading for the car, crossing Main Street.

  But we didn’t get very far before I found myself stopping dead in my tracks.

  A large crowd was blocking the entire width of the sidewalk in front of us, spilling out into the street.

  If I didn’t know better, I would have thought someone had collapsed and the whole of downtown had gathered around them, waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

  But I did know better.

  I looked over across the street, at Cinnamon’s Pies.

  The lights were on, and through the window I could see Chrissy and Tiana at the front of the house.

  But the place was practically a ghost town.

  I looked over at Daniel, my eyes saying it all.

  He grabbed a hold of my hand as we turned back around, leaving the crowds of Pepper’s Pies behind.

  “Wanna get a drink before we go home?” he asked.

  At that moment, I couldn’t think of anything better.

  My throat had gone completely dry.

  Chapter 15

  There was something so pleasant about getting a glass of whiskey down at the Pine Needle Tavern with my husband.

  It seemed that between our busy schedules, we rarely had time to go out for dinner, let alone for a drink. But being here in the crowded bar, The Ronettes playing loud over the stereo, the smell of worn whiskey hanging in the air, the familiar cheerful holiday spirit that the place had this time of year… something about it all went a long ways to making me feel better.

  I think the atmosphere did the same for Daniel.

  We sat at the crowded bar, a couple of Wild Turkeys sitting pretty in front of us. Catching up on our busy lives like old friends who had been missing each other’s company for a while.

  “So you guys still have no leads on that chicken slaughter out on Mirth Road?” I asked.

  Daniel shook his head.

  “No fingerprints, no witnesses, no nothing,” he said.

  A week earlier, Rowena Parker, a Pohly County city hall secretary who kept a sizeable chicken coop on her property, had been the victim of a heinous crime. She awoke one morning to find all the chickens in her coop dead. Days had passed, but the Sheriff’s Office wasn’t any closer to finding out who did it.

  Daniel said he thought it might have been some kids, and that that worried him. As was a well-known fact, torturing animals usually led to other terrible things, which made Daniel want to find out who was behind the chicken slaying all the more.

  “I’ve got Owen and Trumbow on it,” he said. “They’ll come up with something.”

  He leaned back, crossing him arms.

  “So she’s entered in the gingerbread competition too?” he asked, changing the direction of the conversation unexpectedly.

  I nodded, knowing right away who he was referring to.

  Earlier, we’d been talking about Pepper Posey and her new bakery that everyone in this town couldn’t seem to get enough of.

  “Well, I for one look forward to seeing you beat her,” he said. “No one can hold a candle to your gingerbread house talent, and you know it.”

  I forced a smile, though I was having trouble keeping it.

  Daniel took a long sip of his whiskey, setting it back on the bar.

  “Aw, Cin, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” he said. “That’s how everybody is with new things. Especially in a small town. But give it a month, and people ‘round here will see what’s what.”

  “But have you tried one of her pastries?” I said. “She studied in France. How can I compete with that? No wonder they’re lining up around the block to get into that shop of hers.”

  “Cin, you know the people in this town just as good as I do,” he said. “These folks are basic, blue-collared types. They’re not going to go for all that fancy, hard-to-pronounce, over-the-top nonsense.”

  “You think so?”

  “‘Course,” he said. “You see, there are two types of people in the world, Cin. There’s them uppity folks who like to call things by fancy names and pretend like that knowledge makes them better than the rest of us. That’s one kind of people. Then there’s the other kind. You know who they are?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, they’re good old-fashioned black-coffee, pie folks. Folks who work hard, and want to eat the kind of food they grew up with. And you know which kind of people this town is chock full of?”

  I smiled, knowing the answer.

  “The second kind, Cin. So I say just let that Pepper have her moment in the sun, and see where you all are in a few months. Okay?”

  Daniel always had a way of putting things that made me feel better.

  I picked up my glass and clinked it against his.

  “To the second kind,” I said.

  He grinned back, returning the gesture. I downed the rest of the whiskey, letting the gold liquid warm me up nice.

  “You tired?” he said. “You want to go home?”

  I shook my head.

  “Naw,” I said, resting my hand on his arm. “Let’s stay a spell. I kind of like drinking with you, Daniel Brightman.”

  “Well, that’s lucky. Because I kind of like drinking with you, Cinnamon Peters.”

  I smiled as he signaled Harold for another round of whiskies.

  Chapter 16

  “I just don’t know what I’m going to do without her,” the man with the loosened tie said, leaning forward sloppily against the pine bar. “She was everything to me. Everything.”

  He rubbed his sweaty face, leaning his palms on his temples, keeping his eyes closed for a long while. As if he no longer had the strength to open them.

  I glanced over at Daniel and raised an eyebrow. Hoping he’d pick up on my non-verbal cue that we should skedaddle before we got in too deep of a conversation with a plastered Pete Burgess about his wife, who had recently left him for another man.

  But Daniel, being the kind-hearted guy that he was, didn’t seem to pick up on my hints to ditch Pete Burgess before he started blubbering.

  “Aw, there’s plenty of fish out there in the pond, Pete,” Daniel said, leaning over me so Pete could hear him. “It just takes time.”

  Pete leaned back and groaned, keeping his eyes shut tight. Then he started shaking his head some more.

  Or maybe Daniel was indulging Pete Burgess out of respect. Pete had been on the Christmas River city council for eight years now, but had recently lost his seat during the election this November to a bright and perky thirty-something gal who worked at the community college. Rumor had it that the election result had been quite devastating to the councilman. A couple of days after the election, his wife left him for another man on the other side of the mountains, and ever since, town gossip had it that Pete had been spending most of his waking hours down here at the Pine Needle Tavern. When he did show up to the city council meetings, he was hardly coherent, going on about how much he’d given to the people of Christmas River, and how little he was appreciated by everyone. Blaming everybody else but himself for his wife leaving him. One of his rants made front page news in the Redmond Register, the big paper a few towns over. The article had been written by Erik Andersen, a reporter I’d come to know this past summer.

  “But what does Daisy have to do with fish?” Pete mumbled incoherently, taking a pull on the rum and coke in front of him.

  I furrowed my brow.

  I’d always thought his wife’s name was Barbara.

  Daniel appeared to be as confused as I was.

  “I’m afraid I’m not following you, Pete,
” Daniel said, leaning back.

  The councilman started chuckling.

  “Get in line, buddy boy,” he said. “More than half the town already came to that conclusion in November.”

  He took another sloppy swig of his rum and coke. I nudged Daniel’s arm, and started putting my coat and scarf on.

  It was best to get out of these kinds of things before they turned uglier than they already were.

  Pete looked over at me, his eyelids swollen with the liquor. He pushed his hand through the air, as if swatting an imaginary fly.

  “I’m not that drunk,” he said. “I’m just talking about my Shih Tzu, issall.”

  “Your dog?” Daniel asked.

  Pete nodded.

  “Lost her a week ago,” he said. “She wanted out in the middle of the night. Had to use the ladies’ room. So I let her out. But we don’t have a fence. It’s never been a problem before. ‘Cept this time, Daisy didn’t come back.”

  He rubbed his face.

  “That dog was all I had left,” he said. “A man’s best friend, my Daisy.”

  He sighed, large drunk tears welling up in his eyes.

  “Now I’ve got not a soul.”

  The man crumbled faster than a brittle gingerbread house hit by a snowstorm of frosting.

  Daniel puckered his lips as Pete Burgess started convulsing with sobs. A few folks around us hushed, their eyes wandering in our general direction. Watching as the train derailed and crashed head-first into a ditch of self-pity.

  Daniel placed a hand on the councilman’s back

  “C’mon, Pete,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  Chapter 17

  We stood outside the bar, watching the cab pull Pete Burgess away into the lonely frosty night.

  “Poor guy,” I muttered.

  “Yeah,” Daniel said. “The man’s whole life fell apart inside of a month. I wasn’t ever exactly a fan of his, but I tell you, I don’t like seeing him end up like this.”

  “Well, at least we got him out of the bar,” I said. “Saved him a few more regrets maybe.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he said, tilting his head back, looking up at the stars above that twinkled like a thousand tambourines in the black night.

  He breathed in deeply. The pine-scented air was so crisp and clean this time of year, it was almost surreal.

  “You feel like leaving the car here overnight and walking home, Mrs. Brightman?” he said.

  It was cold out, but nothing like it could be up here in the mountains this time of year. Home was only about a mile and a half away – hardly any distance really. The whiskey had warmed me up nice, and besides, I had good company for the duration of the walk.

  “I’m your gal,” I said.

  I took his arm, and we strolled along the snowy streets of downtown, dodging in and out of the light from the streetlamps. The snow was leftover from the Thanksgiving storm, and the chilly temperatures had kept the white stuff hard enough so that it was easy to walk in.

  “Seems like a lot of dogs have gone missing lately,” I said as we crossed Main Street and took a left on Ornament Road.

  “You mean with Billy losing Shasta?” he said.

  “Yeah.That, and I saw that Julianne Redding lost her dog too. There was a missing flyer for Harley on Tinsel Street.”

  He nearly stopped in his tracks.

  “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “Hmm,” he muttered, stroking his chin.

  “You think there’s a connection between all of them?”

  He stared off into the dark night, deep in thought for a moment. Then he glanced back down at me.

  “My little conspiracy theorist,” he said, grinning.

  I punched him in the shoulder playfully.

  “I’ll have you know that many a theory of mine has proven to be true,” I said. “I’m thinking that really, you ought to be paying me some commission on these cases of yours, Sheriff Brightman. You know, like you might pay one of them psychics who helps you find the bodies?”

  Daniel started chuckling.

  “You’ve been watching too much TV, Cin,” he said.

  “Naw, I think I know what I oughta be paid,” I said. “And thus far, your department has been getting me for a steal. But that’s all changing in the New Year, let me tell you, Sheriff. Prices are going up everywhere, including the private investigator business.”

  “Then I guess I better get in on the deal while I can,” he said.

  “I guess you better,” I said.

  Suddenly, as we came up upon one of the streetlamps, Daniel stopped. He grabbed me, picking me up off my feet, and throwing me over his shoulder.

  “Daniel Brightman!” I shouted. “What are you doing!?”

  “Getting in on the deal while I still can,” he said, picking up the pace.

  I swung at his arms, trying in vain to get him to put me down, but it was no use. We both started laughing uncontrollably. A few moments later, he had collapsed onto a patch of snow next to the sidewalk. We were both on the ground, the sound of our mad laughter echoing around the empty street.

  “Too much whiskey, Daniel Brightman,” I said, tackling him after the laughing had died down.

  “Naw,” he said, pulling me closer. “I think it was just the right amount.”

  I rested on his chest and he kissed me tenderly on the lips. I pulled away a moment, glancing around, wondering if we were actually alone, or if we were on display for the whole neighborhood to see.

  “Let them talk, Cin,” he said, kissing me again, those whiskey kisses of his lighting up a roaring fire in me so that I didn’t feel the cold, the snow, or the flakes that had started falling from the sky around us.

  After a moment, he wrapped his arm around me and I rested my head on his shoulder. We just lay there like that on the patch of snow, watching the soft flakes drift down.

  In the pale light of the streetlamp, I could see that he still had just the faintest of tans from our Maui honeymoon the month before. And when I leaned in close, it was almost as if I could smell just a trace of coconut and saltwater on his skin.

  He rubbed my shoulder, letting out a long frosty breath up into the night.

  “So how’s Kara doing with all the wedding stuff?” he asked.

  I smiled.

  “The woman’s out of her mind,” I said. “Do you know what she told me the other day? She said she’s planning to wood burn the entirety of her vows onto a slab of juniper, which she’s going to hold up there at the altar. Do you know how long it took her to burn just one name the other day when she was doing the place cards? Eight minutes.”

  “How long are her vows?”

  “Last I saw, they were ten pages long.”

  Daniel chuckled, his chest reverberating beneath me.

  “I’d expect nothing less from Kara,” he said.

  “Me neither,” I said. “The wedding’s going to be beautiful, there’s no doubt about that. But I’m just worried that she won’t have much of her mind left when all is said and done.”

  “How’s she doing with all the baby stuff in the meantime?”

  “Good, I think,” I said. “I think she’s a little nervous, but I can tell that she’s really excited to be a mom.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded.

  “I guess those two are in for some big changes ahead,” he said.

  “That they are,” I said, pulling him closer and breathing in deeply.

  He looked down at me then.

  “A lot of diapers and headaches, probably,” he said.

  “Probably,” I agreed, looking up at him.

  “A lot of bedtime stories and sleepless nights.”

  “Most likely.”

  “But maybe something else too,” he said.

  He searched my eyes. I felt my heart skip a few beats, then flutter wildly.

  “Something on your mind?” I whispered.

  He held me tight, pausing for a few moments.

  �
�Something for another time,” he said, kissing me lightly on the nose. “Something for when the whiskey wears off.”

  I smiled.

  After a few moments like that, we finally got back up on our feet. We strolled the rest of the way home through the feather-light snowflakes, swirling around.

  The wind blew cold, and the air bit at my cheeks with a chilly ferocity, but I didn’t feel any of it.

  Because inside, my heart was glowing brighter than a warm summer sun.

  Chapter 18

  It had been a long, long time since I’d come to work with a hangover.

  It wasn’t as if I even had a lot to drink the night before. But the truth of it was that I wasn’t as young as I used to be. And sometimes even just one whiskey after 7 p.m. would just hit wrong, making for a sluggish morning that involved knocking back Advil and sipping on soda.

  Still, I didn’t mind suffering the after effects of too much drinking all that much. Very rarely were hangovers worth the nights that caused them, but in the case of last night, the headache and shaky stomach were every bit worth the magical evening I’d had with Daniel.

  It was still like that, even after being together for almost three years. When I was with him, it was as if the rest of the world, its problems, difficulties, and competing pie shops… all of it just fell away. And it was just the two of us. Just us and our hopes and dreams for the future.

  I spent the morning in a bit of a daze, making a couple batches of Whiskey Apple pies, and Cranberry Pear Walnuts. The front of the house was once again less crowded than usual, the way it had been since Pepper’s Pies had opened across the street. But I tried not to let it bother me too much. I tried to remember what Daniel had said. About the town being full of the second kind of folks: the downhome, blue-collared, black coffee and pie folks. And that those people would eventually find their way back home to my shop.

  Just after lunch, I took my usual break. I headed over to the shelter to pick up Chadwick.

  I figured that today, though, instead of our usual route down Tinsel Street, we’d change it up and go somewhere else for our daily walk.