by Hillary Avis
“Ho, ho, ho,” Rusty laughed, patting his knee. J.W. ignored the invitation, instead standing on tiptoe to whisper in Santa’s ear. Then he stood stiffly beside Rusty at a cautious distance until the photographer snapped his picture.
“Your turn!” Andrea let go of Izzy’s hood and the little girl made a dash for Santa’s lap. She crawled up on his knee and proceeded to regale him with a long list of Christmas requests as J.W. wandered back over to us.
Peterson nudged me. “Do you have any makeup in your bag?”
I snorted in disbelief. “I’m fine with how I look, thanks anyway. You can keep your opinions to yourself. I stopped caring what you think about my appearance a while back.”
“Not for you—for me.” The note of desperation in his voice made me actually look at him. His shiner was darkening up and the swelling was still getting worse, not better. I almost felt bad for him.
“All I have is Chapstick, sorry. But honestly, Peterson, I don’t think slapping some concealer on your eye would improve it much, anyway.”
“It’s going to ruin the photo,” he fretted. “Maybe I should just stay out of it.”
I shrugged. “By all means, if you want to disappoint your daughter and grandchildren.”
“Come on, Dad, it’s a family photo!” Andrea said impatiently. “That means the whole family needs to be in it. When you look back on this, it’ll just be a funny memory.”
Joan came to gather the rest of us for the third photo, and I could sense Peterson’s growing dread as we made our way over to the throne. He was so hung up on superficialities that he didn’t realize this wasn’t about him.
Out of the corner of my mouth, I murmured, “Just turn your head to the side. It’ll cast a shadow so the bruise won’t be as noticeable. Nobody will even care about us in the picture, anyway. They’ll be too busy looking at the cute kids.”
“Thanks,” he said, blinking his good eye as moisture welled in it. “I just wanted it to be perfect.”
As I took my place on the opposite side of Santa, as far away from him as possible but still within the camera’s frame, I had to admit that, in his own way, Peterson Davis was trying. I actually felt a little bad for him now. He’d been punched in the face and he was doing his best to be cheerful and participate in a small-town celebration that, compared to a glamorous L.A. holiday, looked like something he’d prefer to scrape off the bottom of his shoe.
With that in mind, the rest of the afternoon was surprisingly bearable. We ambled around, checking out the decorated cars outside and Christmas crafts inside while the kids ran amuck with the rabble of other children who’d already had their Santa pictures taken. Maybe it was just the holiday magic at work, though, because the peace between Peterson and me only lasted until we got back to Lucky Cluck Farm.
When I pulled the Porsche in between my Suburban and his gold Rolls, he bolted out of the passenger seat and up onto the porch. He glanced at his watch as I got out of the car, tapping his foot impatiently. Irritation crawled up my back.
“Hurry,” he urged as I made my way up the stairs. What was he late for, the bus? I hoped it was a bus out of town.
“I told you, you can’t stay here. I’m sorry—I just don’t have the space.” I reached the porch and got out my phone as the crackle of gravel behind me told me that Andrea and the kids had arrived. “There are some nice hotels in Eugene. I’ll call around and find one with a vacancy. It’s an hour away, but it’s not—”
“Just unlock the door,” he pleaded, cutting me off. “I need a pit stop after all that punch.”
He shifted his weight back and forth as he stood on the doormat. Was Peterson—excuse me, I meant to say the prominent plastic surgeon, Dr. Peterson Davis—doing the potty dance on my front porch?
Smirking, I reached around him to turn the doorknob, then pushed the door open. He just stood there staring at me, so I gestured to the open doorway. “Go straight on through. Bathroom’s in the back.”
“It wasn’t locked?”
“Nope.” I grinned at his dumbfounded expression. It might be hard to believe if you didn’t grow up in a small town, but locking the door just wasn’t necessary around here. Anyone who let themselves in was a friend.
With a shake of his head, he dashed inside just as Andrea made it up the stairs with the kids, J.W. nodding in her arms and Izzy lagging behind. “He fell asleep in the car. I think they need a little nap. I hate to put them down because it means they’re going to be up late, but if we don’t”—she grimaced—“I fear for the dinner hour.”
I nodded. “If they stay up, we’ll watch a Christmas movie, maybe with some cocoa and cookies. It’ll be fun.”
“Just what they need, more sugar,” Andrea said, rolling her eyes as she carried J.W.—and half-dragged Izzy—into the house and upstairs to the bedroom. If I weren’t her mother, I wouldn’t have been able to tell that she liked the idea, but I knew she was reassured by my suggestion. She’d inherited more than her blonde hair from me—she had a little bit of my prickly disposition, too.
The twins must have been exhausted, because Andrea returned mere seconds later, their red fleece jackets and two pairs of shoes dangling from her hands, while I was still hanging up my own coat. She stowed the items and then sank into one of the chairs around my vintage kitchen table.
“Want some tea while I get dinner started?” I asked, moving to put the kettle on the stove. But before Andrea could answer, a crash from the back of the cottage startled us both.
“Is that the kids?” she asked, rising to her feet. Another crash, the sound of something breaking, and a string of blue curse words.
“Not the kids,” I croaked, as I tried to stifle a laugh. That was the sound of Peterson losing his mind in the bathroom, and I knew exactly why.
Boots.
Chapter 4
Peterson stormed into the kitchen. Now, in addition to his badly swollen eye, he also had a long scratch across his cheek that was oozing blood. Andrea stared at him from her seat, horrified.
“There is a chicken in your bathroom,” he announced, like it was breaking news. “I tried, but I couldn’t get it out. Did you know they have claws?”
“That’s Boots. She’s—well, she’s a pet. She lives in the house. I should have warned you that she was in there.” I’d honestly forgotten about her, with everything else going on. I ran a paper towel under some cold water and handed it to him, waiting while he dabbed the blood from his cheek. “Are you OK?”
“I was just sitting there, and—” he began, but Andrea held up her hand to stop him.
“Dad, TMI. We know what you were doing in the bathroom.”
Peterson pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. “As I was saying, I was just sitting there, minding my own business, and suddenly this head pops out of the hamper. The lid was wide open—you really should close it when you’re not using it, Leona.”
“I left it open on purpose. She likes to lay her eggs in there.”
He looked at me like I was speaking Latin. “Anyway, I yelled because I was surprised, and then the thing flew at my face. Did you know that chickens fly?”
“They’re birds, Peterson. They have wings.”
He rolled his eyes. “I was talking to Andrea. Did you know that? I thought they were, you know, like dodos. Ostriches. Flightless.”
Andrea shrugged. “I never thought about it.”
Peterson jabbed a finger at her meaningfully. “Well, watch out for them. They can fly, and they’re vicious. I don’t want J.W. and Izzy around them this week. It’s too dangerous.”
“Oh, come on,” I scoffed. “The kids played with them last Christmas when they were only three. The chickens are harmless, as long as you don’t let them peck you in the eye.”
Peterson clapped his hand protectively over the swollen side of his face. “Well, keep them away from me. I can’t spare another one.”
“Why don’t I call those hotels?” I said, keeping my voice syrupy-sweet. I stepped awa
y from the table to get my phone before I socked him in the good eye.
“What? Why can’t Dad stay here?” Andrea protested, rising to follow me.
“Where?” I asked, gesturing around my small cottage. I’d made up the guest room for Andrea and Steve and given up my attic bedroom for the twins. The only other sleeping space in the whole house—the vintage velvet sofa in the living room—was now my bed. And I wasn’t about to share it.
“He can take the recliner.”
The recliner, one of Boots’s favored nighttime perches, was right next to the sofa. If Andrea thought I was going to sleep six inches from my ex-husband for an entire week, she was sorely mistaken. I didn’t want to sleep in the same state as him, let alone the same room.
But Peterson was one step ahead of me. “It’s fine. I’m not up for sharing a bathroom with that...that...beast.”
“Da-aaad!” Andrea wailed. “You said you were going to try!”
“Anda-panda, some things can’t be borne,” he said grimly.
“But it’s—”
“I’ll be out on the porch, making some calls,” I interrupted. I let myself out the front door and plopped into one of the Adirondack chairs, welcoming the chill that washed over my skin and cleared my head. The thin layer of snow, which had mostly melted away over the course of the day, still dampened the normal sounds of the farm. Even the pleasant soft clucking of the hens in the coop sounded softer and further away. I quickly searched for the most expensive hotels within fifty miles and made a call to the one at the top.
“So sorry—we’re all booked up until after the new year,” the nice young man who answered the phone told me. “Would you like me to add your name to the waitlist in case we have a cancellation?”
“Sure.” I gave him my information and, with a sigh, called the next hotel on the list. Same story. By the time I got down to the seventh hotel—which I wasn’t even sure would surpass the roadside motel in quality—I was ready to scream.
Andrea stuck her head out the door. “Did you find one?”
“No. I’m still trying.”
“Who’s that?” Andrea squinted past me, out toward the chicken coop on the other side of the driveway. I followed her gaze and saw Eli walking over from his blueberry farm next door, his arms loaded down with who-knows-what. He used his foot to unlatch the gate we’d installed between our properties during this past harvest season, once we got sick of climbing through the barbed wire to visit each other.
“Eli. You met him this morning, remember?”
Recognition dawned on her face. “Oh yeah. I didn’t place him without his uniform on.”
Eli raised his right hand and its contents—I could now see he was carrying a six-pack of beer bottles—in greeting as he neared where we were standing. He was freshly showered after his shift; I could tell by the damp curl in his hair. He wore a plaid flannel shirt and jeans, a puffy vest open on top in lieu of a jacket, looking every bit like George Clooney playing the Brawny paper towel guy. I was into it.
“I came to apologize,” he said when he reached the porch. Now I was even more into it, though I wasn’t quite sure what he was apologizing for. At my quizzical expression, he clarified, “For disappearing on you this afternoon. I said I’d come back, but it all took longer than I anticipated. But hey! I brought some mistletoe, so I can at least fulfill that part of my promise.” He smiled crookedly and held up the bunch of greenery in his other hand—as high as he could without dropping the paper-wrapped package he had clamped under his arm.
“Did you find Homer?” I asked.
He nodded slowly. “I did. At the gas station. He was—” He broke off and glanced at Andrea and then back to me, seemingly unsure whether he could speak freely in front of her. I gave him a nod and he finished his sentence. “Dead.”
Andrea’s mouth dropped open.
“What are you guys up to?” Eli asked cheerily, moving toward the door. “Can you get the door? I should probably put the beer in the fridge. I didn’t know what kind Peterson drinks, so I brought a holiday ale and a stout.”
“Back up,” Andrea said. “Did you just say ‘dead’?”
“Unfortunately.” Eli’s expression turned serious, but he didn’t elaborate. I pushed open the door for him, and he headed for the kitchen.
“That’s the reality of being a law enforcement officer,” I explained to Andrea as we followed him in. “He’s there for all the worst stuff.”
Peterson scraped back his chair and stood up abruptly when he saw Eli enter, his face paling and setting his bruise and new scratch in high relief. “What’re you doing here?”
“Brought you a steak for that eye, Buddy,” Eli said, stepping around him and sliding the beer into the fridge next to a stack of three egg cartons. “I noticed that shiner—and extras for dinner, if you don’t already have something in the oven.” This last part was to me. He handed me the paper-wrapped package.
“Nope. We were busy trying to find Peterson a hotel. No luck, though.” I turned to the counter and unwrapped the steaks; they were beautiful—too nice to slap on someone’s black eye, I thought, but Eli reached around me and grabbed the smallest one. He held it out to Peterson, who made a face.
“I am not putting raw meat on my eye. That can’t be sanitary.”
“Suit yourself.” Eli shrugged and dropped it back on the paper. He nudged me playfully and held up the huge handful of mistletoe. It looked like he’d just grabbed a whole bush. The recent windstorms had blown many mistletoe plants out of the tops of oak trees in the area. It wasn’t hard to find a big bunch laying in a field or on the side of the road. “Where should I hang this? A sprig in every doorway?”
I grinned at his eager expression, but there was no way I could handle that much mistletoe, not when my ex-husband was hanging around like flies on manure. “Let’s keep the mistletoe to one zone so we don’t get ourselves into too much trouble.”
“A single mistletoe zone, you got it.” Eli dragged the stepstool out of the pantry and positioned it in the center of the doorway between the kitchen and the entryway.
Andrea let out a screech. “Why isn’t anyone talking about the dead guy at the gas station? What happened to him?”
Peterson made a strangled sound, and his legs gave out. Eli reached out and caught his elbow just in time to keep him from falling to the floor.
“You OK, Buddy?” Eli asked as he helped Peterson back to his seat at the table.
Peterson shook his head no. Andrea, frozen where she stood, made silent movements with her mouth, like she was saying a prayer or rehearsing her lines for a play.
Finally, she asked, “What happened to him?”
“Not sure. He was beat up pretty good, and the cash drawer only had a couple bucks in it, so we’re thinking a robbery gone wrong, maybe? We’ll have a better handle on cause of death when the autopsy comes back.” Eli hung a bunch of the mistletoe from the doorway and then dipped into the pantry to put the stepstool away. He returned with a bag of russets and held them up. “What do you think, baked or mashed?”
“Mashed.” I pulled out my favorite cast-iron skillet and set it on the stove. Eli took the bag of potatoes over to the sink and rinsed the mistletoe dust off his hands before he started peeling them. I got out the fixings for a green salad. We often cooked dinner together, alternating between our houses, and we’d found a pleasant rhythm in the kitchen.
“Dad?” Andrea pulled a chair close to Peterson and peered at his face. He was so gray that his round face, with its deepening bruise, looked like a full moon. “What happened after he hit you? Did you hit him back?”
Eli and I both froze.
“Wait. Which gas station did you stop at this morning?” I’d assumed the one near I5. It was the closest one to my farm, the one he’d pass on the way here.
“Wilds Gas and Go,” Peterson mumbled, staring at the worn surface of my kitchen table, his long, pale fingers laced together.
“You went all the way to Remembrance
for gas? That’s so far out of the way. Why didn’t you stop at—”
“I took the wrong exit, OK?” Peterson’s voice took on a hard edge. “Get off my case, Leona.”
“She’s not the one on your case now,” Eli growled. He plopped down opposite Peterson and stared across the table at him. “I am.”
Chapter 5
“Let me get this story straight. Homer Wilds gave you that black eye?” Eli studied Peterson’s face across the table.
Peterson nodded, his expression sickly. I handed him the salad bowl I’d intended to fill with greens in case he upchucked. He gripped it close to his body like it was a teddy bear. “I stopped to get gas. He was falling-down drunk, as far as I could tell. He accidentally banged the Rolls with the gas nozzle, so I got out to check the damage. The paint had a huge ding. We had some...words,” he finished lamely.
“You lost your temper.” Eli made it a statement, not a question. “Understandable.”
I frowned. “It shouldn’t have been a big deal, Peterson. You have insurance.”
“I don’t want to drive around here in a scratched-up car!” Peterson’s good eye blazed. “What’ll people think?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “So you punched a guy? That’s a surefire way to improve people’s opinion of you.”
“Judging by what I saw, it was a lot more than one punch,” Eli said quietly.
Andrea stiffened. “How bad?”
“Bad.”
“He was stumbling all over.” The color was returning to Peterson’s cheeks now that his shock had worn off. “He kept crashing into stuff. Half of it, he did to himself.”
Eli raised an eyebrow. “And the other half?”
“He was alive when I left. That’s all I know.” Peterson set the salad bowl on the table and crossed his arms defensively.
Andrea reached out to rub Peterson’s back like she was comforting one of the twins. “It’s OK, Dad. This is all going to be fine.” She raised her head to look directly at Eli. “My dad didn’t kill anyone—look at his hands.”