by Meg Muldoon
Her arms were at her sides, weighed down with a dozen or so bulging shopping bags. She was dressed in a wonderfully tacky Christmas sweater, a pair of tight-fitting jeans, and high-heeled boots that let everyone know within a mile that she had arrived. Her long blond hair was curled nicely, and it bounced as she walked.
“It’s already starting to come down out there,” she said, shaking off some stray snowflakes that had landed on her sweater.
“I’m so glad you came over,” I said, meeting her halfway in the dining room and giving her a hug. “How are you holding up?”
I’d gone over to see her and Laila the morning after the fiasco at the lodge to make sure they were doing okay, and I’d talked to her on the phone every day since. But it was good to see her now in person, looking so strong and back to her old self.
“Oh, you know me, Cin. I don’t stay down for long. But speaking of holding up, could you give me a hand here? I’m about to topple over like Pam Dallas’s career.”
I cracked a smile, reaching out for some of those bags and presents.
“It’s good to hear you joke about it.”
She shrugged.
“What else can you do? Bad things happen in life sometimes. And the only thing you can do is to try to laugh them off as best you can.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“I tell you, though, Cin. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so scared in all my life as I was that night. Having kids really changes everything. Things that wouldn’t normally shake you before completely wreck you when your child’s involved… I was prepared to die for her, Cin. I truly was. And I wouldn’t have had any regrets, either.”
She trailed off, shaking her head.
“This coming from me – the woman who used to absolutely detest children. What a long way I’ve come.”
I smiled.
“How’s Laila doing?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s just fine. She’s at her Grandma Edna’s now. Luckily, she’s too young to understand what happened. But one day, when she’s old enough, I’ll tell her all about it. That should make quite the playground story – the time my dolly and I had a playdate with a multiple murderer.”
I was glad to hear that Kara was taking such a light-hearted view of everything. A lot of mothers wouldn’t.
I set a few bags down on the floor, leaning them up against the counter. Kara handed me a foot-long pine board that had been tucked under her arm.
“Anyway, here’s that thing you asked me to make, Cin.”
I studied the slab of wood for a long, long moment, grazing my fingers over the smooth, blackened letters.
“Jeez, Kara. It’s beautiful. I hope it didn’t take you too long.”
“It was no time at all. I’m practically a master wood burner these days – owning an ornament shop will do that to a gal.”
She looked over my shoulder at the pine slab, reading the words out loud.
“‘When you know the truth of who you are, you realize that it’s enough just to BE. And when you understand that, there’s nothing left to prove – Brad Houston.’”
Kara clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
“Imagine, Cin – to have swept the competition like that, to have that prize money just there for the taking, and then… to turn your back on the whole thing and say something like that.”
Kara shook her head in disbelief.
“He’s plain crazy. That’s the only explanation. Plain, plain crazy.”
Kara was echoing what many people in the community thought after Brad abandoned his Junction win and the top prize ended up going to the second place contestant.
But what some saw as irrational, I’d come to see as brave, heartfelt, and even noble. And I wasn’t the only one who saw that, either. Brad and Will had gotten the ski lodge interior contract as a result. Apparently, Phil Reister and his wife were so impressed by Brad’s gingerbread house and subsequent act of defiance, they hired their interior design company that very evening.
In the days since all of it had happened, I’d come to realize that during this year’s competition, Brad had discovered something that most of us failed to ever figure out.
That it was never about praise, awards, or recognition.
The beauty of something existed in the work and in the journey itself.
And you couldn’t let what anybody thought or said take that enjoyment away from you.
“Maybe he is crazy,” I said, taking the wooden block with the quote over to the display case. “But you know? Maybe he’s onto something, too.”
I placed the wood-burned quote in front of Brad’s beautiful gingerbread chalet for the whole town to see.
Kara looked pensively at it.
“Yeah, maybe he is,” she said. “Maybe everyone puts too much importance on what other people think. Maybe you start running into problems when you do that.”
She looked like she was deep in thought. As if she was really taking the words to heart and thinking them through.
“You know, I’ve been thinking, Cin. Maybe I should self-publish my book. Just get it out there to the readers, you know? Forget about Pam and that whole writing workshop and waiting for someone to discover me. Maybe I just need to take my fate into my own hands.”
I smiled.
I had a feeling that no matter how Kara got her book published, it would end up being a bestseller.
“I think that sounds like a great idea.”
She nodded, a faint, content smile crossing her lips.
Then, after a long while, she cleared her throat.
“You know the reason I actually stopped by is that something strange just happened to me this morning and I wanted to tell you about it,” she said, setting her own bags down on the floor by the cash register. “I got a call from a lawyer.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Really? What’d they want?”
Kara rubbed her hands together awkwardly. She suddenly looked a little uncomfortable.
“Well, you know how Moira left her estate to that quilting heritage society?”
I nodded.
“Turns out that there was more to the will. It looks like…”
She drew in a deep breath.
“It looks like she actually left Laila a few things. A couple of antiques. An old grandfather clock that I complimented once when I was over at her house. And this mid-century side table. Both are worth a few thousand dollars. She said in the will that it was for Laila’s college fund.”
I felt my mouth drop a little in disbelief at hearing that.
“Well, I’ll be… Moira really did that?”
Kara nodded.
“I mean, I’m sure she just forgot to update her will, considering the falling out we had. But still, I was…
She let out a short sigh.
“I don’t know. I was really moved by the gesture. It made me think back to when we were friends. And how sometimes we used to laugh over tea and those tasty shortbread cookies she made.”
Her eyes glazed over slightly and she looked away out the window.
“You know, Cin, Moira wasn’t all bad. Mostly – but not all.”
“Hold on just a sec,” I said.
I walked past Kara through the dim dining room and into the kitchen.
A few moments later, I came back with two glasses and that bottle of bourbon I kept up in the pantry.
“I wasn’t a fan of Moira Stewart,” I said, going over to the counter. “I didn’t like the way she gossiped and I didn’t like the way she hurt people in this town. I didn’t like the way she manipulated others to get what she wanted. I didn’t much care for her weak coffee, either.”
I set the glasses down on the wooden counter and began pouring.
“But hell – Moira was who she was, and she lived life her way. You have to admire her for that, if nothing else.”
Kara’s lips turned up a little at the edges as I handed her a large glass of Wild Turkey.
I wasn�
�t the type to have bourbon in the morning. But I figured I could get away with it this time.
It was, after all, the holidays.
“To Moira,” I said, holding up my own glass. “And to the good in everyone – no matter how small.”
Kara nodded.
“To the good in everyone,” she echoed.
And as the snow fell softly outside on Main Street, Kara and I commemorated Moira Stewart in a way that would have pleased her—
Two respectable Christmas River gals drinking hard liquor well before 5 p.m. would have been just the kind of gossip the old lady lived for.
Chapter 74
It was the morning of Christmas Eve when I got the call telling me that after years of speculations, doubts, and naysaying, Santa Claus did indeed really exist.
“Cinny Bee! Cinny Bee!”
My hands went rigid at the hoarse desperation in his voice cracking through the speaker, and I stopped rolling out the hazelnut butter pie dough.
“What is it old man? Are you okay?”
“You’ll never believe it, Cinny Bee. Santa’s real! You have to get down to the pub this instant. Hurry!”
I was all alone in the pie shop – having given Tiana, Tobias, and Ian their Christmas bonuses plus the day off. That, however, didn’t mean there wasn’t work that needed to be done. Because come December 26, I knew that the pie shop would be flooded with hungry shoppers suffering from holiday hangovers and hitting the streets to use their shiny new Christmas gift cards. And if I didn’t want to spend that day buried up to my neck in flour, sugar, and cranberries, then I needed to get a head start.
I didn’t really mind working on this Christmas Eve. Despite trying his hardest to get the time off, it looked like Daniel would be putting in a double shift tonight and I was going to be alone for Christmas Eve and for our anniversary. Though Billy had been rehired, the Sheriff’s Office was still shorthanded for the number of calls they were expecting. Additionally, Liv was on leave, serving a month-long suspension following the “fund mishandling” incident.
“Fund mishandling.” That was what Daniel had officially called Liv’s theft of $7,000 from the Victim’s Assistance Fund. Because even though theft was the real name for what happened, Daniel, unlike some in his position of power, had a heart. After talking to Liv about what happened and why she stole the money, he’d made a deal with her. She had to pay the money back – there’d be no ifs, ands, or buts about that. But she could do it in installments. In the meantime, Daniel was putting up his own money to replace the missing funds.
He’d also made a promise to Liv – that he and Billy would scare those loan sharks off and get them to leave her and her son alone forever.
Daniel had stuck his neck out for Liv big time. But he must have seen something in the young woman to do that – the way I had, too. He must have realized that she’d just been trying to give her son a better life.
“Cinny Bee? Are you coming down to the pub?” Warren shouted into the phone.
I glanced at the oven.
I had a batch of Sour Cream Apple pies in there that still had 20 minutes of baking left, and I didn’t want them to burn in my absence.
“Does it have to be right now?”
“Yes. Right this very minute, Cinny Bee! No stalling!”
I supposed I didn’t have a choice.
I went over and turned the oven off.
“Okay, old man,” I said, holding in a sigh. “I’m just getting my coat and I’ll be right there.”
Before he hung up, I thought I heard the sound of a car honking in the background and some people shouting.
I wondered just what he’d gotten himself into this time.
Chapter 75
“Well I’ll be a son of a snowman…”
I stopped just short of the small crowd huddled on the sidewalk directly across the street from Geronimo Brewing Company. Some of them I recognized as being employees of the small brewpub, while others just appeared to be random shoppers who had been on their way somewhere, but had become distracted by the man on the brewery’s roof.
A little boy was in the crowd, no older than 10. He was holding onto his mom’s hand while sucking on a candy cane and staring up with wide eyes.
I followed his gaze to the man dancing on the roof.
He had no jacket.
No hat.
No mittens.
And no ear muffs.
Just a thin flannel shirt and a heck of a lot to say.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Santa is real! I heard him with my own two ears stomping on the rooftop this very morning! I heard the big man himself!”
I wrestled my way to the front of the crowd.
This was beginning to get ridiculous.
The old man had spent half of December tempting fate up on that rooftop.
“Dammit!” I shouted. “How many times do I have to tell you not to go up there! How many times—”
“I know Cinny Bee, but—”
“Get down from there right now or so help me, I’m going to come up there and—”
“But Cinny Bee, look—”
“No, I’m not going to—”
The old man pointed a finger, gesturing toward something.
I stopped talking suddenly.
His lips were moving.
His hips were shaking.
He was glowing.
And from his plastic mouth, a familiar holiday jingle drifted out across the snowy rooftops.
“Santa himself came down from the skies this morning and fixed Lars Claus, Cinny Bee! I was in a deep sleep, and then I heard a bunch of racket up on this rooftop. I heard Santa! With my very own ears, mind you. Santa lives! Santa lives!”
“See, Jason?” the mom gripping her young son’s hand, whispered. “I told you he was real.”
Young Jason’s mouth popped open in pure, child-like astonishment as my grandfather shouted some more about the kindness and generosity of Old St. Nick.
I found that the only thing I could do was stand there and watch with a big, fat, ridiculous smile on my face.
Chapter 76
The sun was sinking low and the woods behind the pie shop had just started taking on an icy pink glow when I heard the front door let out a sluggish jingle.
I dusted my hands free of flour and went to see just what poor soul had stumbled in at such a late hour on Christmas Eve.
I’d had a few people stop by that afternoon. Mostly, frazzled, desperate-looking folks who had failed at making their Christmas desserts and were looking for a little help in the form of a ready-to-go pie. I gladly helped these customers, knowing just how hard the holidays could be – especially when things went wrong in the kitchen.
But the person who had just walked in didn’t look anything like the panic-stricken type who usually frequented the shop on Christmas Eve.
“Uh, oh,” I said, jokingly. “Who let you out?”
I ran over, holding the door so that he could wheel his walker in more easily.
He looked a little gray in the face and his aged eyes were bright from the exertion. A light layer of snow had taken up residence on his beige jacket.
“Oh my goodness, Jessup – did you walk all the way from Alpenglow?”
He let out a dry cough and I helped him into one of the dining booths. I poured him a cup of water from the coffee cart and quickly brought it over to him. He took the glass from me, taking several small sips while coughing some more.
“I knew you liked pie, Jessup, but I didn’t know you liked it that much.”
He smiled wryly. He waited a little bit for his breathing to steady before responding.
“I’m a sucker for your pie,” he finally said. “But I’m afraid I’ve got a bigger reason for this visit.”
He cleared some phlegm from his throat.
“Though as long as I’m here, I would take you up on a slice. The nurse has been trying to make me eat only health food lately. I keep telling her – what for? I’m not gonna be running
no marathon anytime soon. I’ll be lucky this time next year if I can still walk. But she keeps on giving me those spinach green drinks like she’s expecting me to turn into Popeye any day now.”
I let out a laugh.
“What flavor would you like?”
“Surprise me.”
I went over to the case, slicing a big hunk of Christmas Flynn Pie, wondering just what would inspire a dying man to walk six blocks through a snowstorm on Christmas Eve to talk to me.
Chapter 77
“I don’t expect you to understand, but times were different back then,” Jessup said, taking another slow bite of the pie, the fork trembling as he brought it to his mouth. “Today, a girl gets in trouble, the parents deal with it out in the open. Hell, something like that happened to my granddaughter and nobody seemed to think it was much of a big deal. But back then, a family’s name and reputation were important. Especially in a town as small as Christmas River.”
I studied the elderly man as he spoke. His face reminded me of the cracked mud flats in the deserts of Eastern Oregon.
“My kid brother Leon wasn’t that much different from a lot of other fellas in high school back then,” Jessup continued. “He played football and was handsome and the girls at school liked him plenty. Moira Stewart, in particular. Boy, did she love my brother. But he always kind of treated her like an annoying fly hovering over the honey jar – never liked her very much. Because Leon only had eyes for…”
Jessup looked down at his plate.
“You see, Moira had a sister. Ellie.”
My ears perked up at that.
It was still the big unanswered question in all of the Moira business. Why had her nephew – Kent Utley – hated her so much? And just where had Moira’s sister disappeared to all those years ago?
Kent hadn’t shed much light on any of it. And since Moira had actually been murdered by Syd Brooks, the police had no reason to look any further into Utley’s past.
“Ellie was a couple of years younger than Moira and Leon,” Jessup continued. “But a girl that lovely hasn’t been seen in Christmas River since. She had these big doe eyes and beautiful dark hair, and she looked just like a young Gene Tierney. Every boy that age within 50 miles was in love with her. It wasn’t just her looks, though, that attracted the boys. She was kind. A real Christian girl. Never judged a soul and had a heart as pure and true as they came.”