by Score, Lucy
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Ryan said. “You’re going to lose this number and every other number in your database. You’re going to hang up, walk out of that call center, and quit trying to scam people out of their hard-earned money.”
Sammy looked on, enthralled. Mrs. McCafferty had hearts in her eyes.
“Or what? I’m so glad you asked,” he continued. “You messed with an unemployed accountant with a lot of time on his hands. I am the Liam Neeson of accounting. I am going to hunt you down, Smith. I’m going to find you and dedicate my life to destroying yours.”
He leaned an elbow on the counter casually as if he were asking for directions instead of doling out threats.
“I’ll hire investigators to follow you. They’ll show your wife pictures of your mistress. Your mistress pictures of your wife. I’ll get you fired from every job you land. I’ll ruin every scheme you attempt. I’ll sue you, your boss, your boss’s boss, your grandmother. Then I’ll turn the Justice Department on you. By the time I’m done with you, your entire family will wish you’d never been born. Now hang up the phone, get an actual job, and earn your own money, assface.”
Sammy was impressed… and maybe a little aroused.
He handed the receiver back to Mrs. McCafferty. “The IRS never calls you,” Ryan explained. “They’re understaffed, and with the tax code changes, they don’t have time to do anything besides send collection notices in the mail. If you run into something like this again, tell them to send all documentation to your attorney.”
Mrs. McCafferty looked up at him like he was Santa and Jesus. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much. I would have given him my credit card number, my Netflix password, whatever they asked for.”
“You can’t be too careful these days,” he cautioned. “The rest of the world isn’t as…” Ryan’s gaze met Sammy’s, “… friendly as Blue Moon.”
Mrs. McCafferty slapped his unswiped credit card down on the wood and shoved the bag of clothes at him. “On the house.”
“That’s not necessary,” he said, looking almost embarrassed.
“I insist,” she said, beaming at him. “Consider it the hero’s discount.”
He looked like he was going to argue so Sammy stepped on his foot.
“Oh, uh. Then thank you,” he said gruffly.
“Thank you.” Mrs. McCafferty giggled.
“We have to go,” Sammy said, before the “No, no. Thank you” game could continue. She dragged Ryan toward the door. “See you at the Solstice!”
“Yes, the Solstice,” Mrs. McCafferty said. “Don’t forget. I want a wreath with a red velvet bow and bells.”
“Red velvet bow and bells,” Sammy promised over her shoulder.
“Oh! One more thing,” the shopkeeper called after them. “If you two are looking for Rainbow, I heard she’s meeting the Solstice Recycling Committee at the cafe this morning.”
“Thank you,” Ryan called as he was dragged through the door.
“The Liam Neeson of accounting? That was impressive,” Sammy said, sliding behind the wheel.
“Felt pretty good,” he admitted, stabbing the seat warmer button. “I still don’t see why I needed new clothes or why that woman insisted on giving them to me.”
And just like that, Grumpy Ryan was back.
“Oh, you’ll see,” Sammy said as she backed out of the parking space and headed north. “Now put on your hat and gloves like a good boy.”
He crammed the hat on his head and frowned at his reflection in the visor mirror. “Don’t you people have normal, black ski hats?” He flopped the ear flaps up and then down again.
She bit back a laugh. “What’s the fun in that?”
“Not everything has to be fun,” he pointed out.
It was hard to take him seriously with ear flaps. “I bet you had fun once, and it was awful,” Sammy teased.
“As a matter of fact,” he harrumphed.
She laughed. “So, how do you feel about cows?”
“Cows? Why? Are we stopping for burgers?”
She smirked and cranked up the Christmas carols.
To: The esteemed members of the Beautification Committee
Subject: Calendar stand shifts
* * *
Dearest Committee Members,
As you know, in addition to our ongoing Operation Frolicking Condor, we will be selling our tasteful nude fundraiser calendars during the Winter Solstice and Multicultural Holiday Celebration. Due to the popularity of our calendar, we would like to have three committee members staffing the booth at all times.
Attached please find a shift sign-up sheet and digital photos from the calendar to share on your social media accounts.
Yours truly,
Bruce Oakleigh
11
Hershel Dairy sprawled out over 120 acres of rolling fields and pastures ten miles north of Blue Moon. Fifty pampered dairy cows called the acreage and huge green barn home.
“This does not look like a coffee shop,” Ryan observed.
“Good news. Your hangover hasn’t blinded you,” Sammy announced as she pulled up to the immaculate dairy barn. “This is a work stop. I’ve got a herd check on dairy cows. You can wait here or you’re welcome to join me,” she told him.
“Yeah. I’ll wait,” he drawled.
“I’ll be about an hour,” she told him with a sunny smile then exited the vehicle.
He swore under his breath and climbed out.
She waved a greeting to owner and operator Mavis Bilkie as the woman pulled up in a tractor going twice the speed it should have been. She was wearing coveralls and an elf ears headband over an orange ski cap.
“Why does she get a normal hat and I have to look like Cousin Eddie?” he groused.
“My guess is karma. That’s Mavis,” Sammy shouted over the chug of the engine.
“What are we doing with Mavis?” he yelled back.
“Herd check.”
“What the hell is a herd check?”
The engine cut off, and Mavis slid to the ground before Sammy could explain.
“Good to see you, doc. Ready for the Solstice?” the woman asked. “I’ve got my heart set on a nice, traditional wreath with one of them plaid bows.”
“You can count on it,” Sammy lied through her teeth. She’d woken up at her table with a glitter bow stuck to her face and a cat with the front page of The Monthly Moon glued to its tail. She was in no position to be promising anyone anything.
Thirty-nine wreaths in two days? Eeesh. Things weren’t looking good.
“You replace Demarcus?” Mavis asked, eyeing Ryan.
“No one can replace Demarcus,” Sammy assured her. “He’s in Buffalo for Hanukkah with his wife’s family. This is Ryan. Carson Shufflebottom’s great-nephew. He’s tagging along with me today.”
“Nice to meet ya, Ryan,” Mavis said, offering him a dirty hand.
“A pleasure,” he said. To the man’s credit, he shook the offered hand without flinching or sarcasm.
“Let me get my bag, and we’ll get started,” Sammy said.
Fifty-eight minutes later, she closed the cover on her iPad, the final herd stats recorded. “Ladies are looking good,” she reported to Mavis. “Tennessee’s gait is a lot better this week, and the wait and see with Vermont worked. No antibiotics needed.”
The farmer swiped a hand across her brow, miming sweat. “Thank God for that.”
“You’ve got a healthy herd here. Keep up the good work, and I’ll see you in two weeks.”
“Thanks, doc. I’ll see you at the Solstice,” Mavis called. “Ryan, it was a treat.”
“Thanks again for the tour, Mavis,” he said, sounding almost cheerful. “You’ve got a hell of an operation here.”
“Was it my imagination, or did you actually enjoy yourself?” Sammy asked when they climbed back into the SUV.
He’d asked a hundred questions about the dairy business. Animals as capital, day-to-day maintenance, streams of income. M
avis had been delighted with the interest in her livelihood from the rugged-looking accountant.
“Definitely your imagination,” he said, checking his phone. He let out a surly sigh and shoved his phone back in his pocket.
“Nothing from your firm?” she guessed.
“It’s stupid,” he said, staring out the window. “I feel like the guy who got dumped on prom night and sits on his front porch hoping she’ll change her mind and show up.”
“It’s not stupid if you love your job,” she told him, shifting into drive.
“I do. Did,” he corrected, picking up the to-go mug and sniffing the cold coffee. “Though, judging from how you stuck your entire arm inside that poor cow, not as much as you.”
“Every day, I feel like I’m doing what I was meant to do.”
He shot her a look like he was trying to tease apart the meaning of her words. “Really?”
“Didn’t you?” she asked.
He frowned, considering the question. “I thought being good at something and being well-compensated for it was as good as it got. But I suppose I never considered saving corporations millions of dollars a calling.”
“The way I looked sticking my arm up a cow’s rectum is how you looked yelling at that IRS phone scammer,” she pointed out.
“I didn’t get to do much yelling at scammers in my job. It was more dealing with internal accounting departments, managing bookkeepers, interpreting volumes of tax code, and attending a lot of meetings that could have been emails.”
“But there was something you loved about it. Otherwise you wouldn’t care so much.”
“Maybe,” he hedged, brooding out the window.
“Let’s go find you a Rainbow Berkowicz,” she decided. “While Mavis gave you the tour of her financials, I called the coffee shop. Rainbow is there right now.”
“Oh, thank God. Coffee.”
Sammy smiled as she accelerated toward town while Trans-Siberian Orchestra poured from the speakers. She’d deliver Ryan to Rainbow, grab a fresh cup of coffee for the road, and be back almost on schedule.
“Text message from Mom,” the stereo reported. “The dates you suggested for Christmas won’t work for us. I have the third weekend in January open.”
She sighed and felt Ryan’s gaze on her.
“Your mother bailed on Christmas with you?” he asked.
“At this point, it’s kind of a family tradition. She’s one of those perpetually busy, over-scheduled people. She likes it that way.”
“What do you do for Christmas?”
“I sleep late. Have wine for breakfast and hang out in my pajamas all day. It’s kind of great.” It really was. But she had to admit that sometimes she wished she had someone to eat cookies with on the couch. “What about you?”
He blew out a breath. “I try to survive a Sosa-Shufflebottom Christmas. I fly to Philly and split my time between my dad’s place and my mom’s. It’s chaos with siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles. Everyone’s yelling just to be heard over everyone else’s yelling.”
“That doesn’t sound that terrible.”
“It’s always too hot because there’s thirty exhausted adults stuffed into a room. My cousin Margo’s kids run around biting each other and knocking over furniture. She’s got six of them and decided to raise them free range.”
“What does that mean? Do they live outside?”
“Worse. Their parents don’t use the word ‘no’.” He shuddered. “Do you know what it’s like trying to get through a meal with six kids who have never heard the word?”
“Okay, sounding slightly more awful,” Sammy conceded.
“My mom sneaks into the pantry to drink wine straight from the bottle. By the time I leave in the afternoon for my dad’s, she’s shit-faced and eating chocolate chips by the five-pound bag. For my dad’s side of the family, we go to his sister’s house. She breeds these tiny fluffy dogs that never stop barking. Her entire house smells like dog pee, and everything is covered in fur.”
“Fun.”
“It gets better. Last year, my cousin Albert showed up to surprise his mom and introduce her to his boyfriend. Aunt Maude ripped the wooden baby Jesus out of the nativity scene on her mantel and threw it at them. Apparently, she’d told everyone that Albert wasn’t coming home for the holidays because he was going into the priesthood in South Dakota.”
“Oh, no.”
“My dad flipped off Maude, and my siblings and I stole two apple pies on the way out. We took Albert and Ricardo to a bar, ate the pies, and drank until Christmas was over. They’re getting married next fall.”
She blinked. “Wow.”
“I’d already decided to skip the whole thing this year. So, yeah, your Christmas for one sounds far superior. As soon as I get this Carson crisis taken care of, I’m flying home and taking a page out of your book.”
Over Caffeinated was a colorful, cozy storefront on Main Street. Sammy and Ryan were welcomed at the door by a rush of heat and the smell of freshly ground coffee beans. The window display was a Christmas tree made entirely from gold, silver, and green to-go mugs, looped with tree lights.
“Which one is Rainbow?” Ryan asked, eyeing the cafe’s clientele as he stuffed the gloves in his pocket.
Sammy craned her neck and spotted Enid Macklemore and Mervin Lauter at a table in the corner. They were wearing tie-dye Solstice Recycling Committee sweatshirts. Enid had an advanced degree in something hard to pronounce from MIT and was the oldest dog walker in Blue Moon. Mervin was a bit of a YouTube sensation, posting Dad advice videos on everything from how to change your locks to how to edge your flowerbeds.
There was a third mug sitting in front of an empty chair.
“I don’t see her. She might be in the restroom or maybe she stepped out for a phone call.”
“I guess I can buy you that cup of coffee before she comes back,” he offered.
She studied the menu behind the counter. “Ooh! Christmas cookie latte. Yes, please.”
Ryan snorted. “Why don’t you just eat an entire bowl of sugar instead?”
She gave him a long look then shook her head. “Nope. I can’t do it,” she said.
“Can’t do what?” he demanded.
“I can’t take you seriously with those ear flaps.”
He whipped off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “Now can I be judgmental?”
“You can be whatever you want as long as you’re buying me a Christmas cookie latte.” She nudged him toward the counter. “I’ll keep an eye on the Recycling Committee.”
Grudgingly, he headed to the register to order.
Sammy unwound her scarf and unzipped her vest. She had just started for the table in front of the window when a redheaded blur appeared in front of her.
“Is that Sheep Guy?” demanded Eva Cardona, the sheriff’s bride, baby-mama-to-be, and Sammy’s newest friend. She wore a white winter coat over rumpled rainbow pajama pants. Her cheeks were a dewy pink from either the cold or the pregnancy. Judging by the curls escaping her messy top knot, it had been several days since she’d washed her hair.
“Shh!” Sammy hissed, looking around to make sure Ryan wasn’t within earshot. “Yes, that’s him. What are you doing here? I thought you had words to write today?”
“I was procrastinating, of course, by visiting my incredibly handsome husband at the station when Minnie Murkle told us you and Sheep Guy were going to be here.” She peered around Sammy. “Wow. He’s really good-looking. I mean like really.”
“I’m aware,” Sammy said in exasperation. “How did Minnie know we were coming here?”
Eva was still ogling Ryan. “The gossip group. How else? Wow. I’m digging the broody, stubble look,” she said with approval.
Sammy closed her eyes. Ugh. The damn gossip group. Blue Moon was so committed to keeping up on the latest gossip they had created a group on Facebook to spread news and rumors faster.
“His car wouldn’t start this morning. I gave him a ride into town to help hi
m track down Rainbow.”
“Oh, she already left,” Eva said, oblivious to the fact that she’d just peed all over Sammy’s get-back-on-track parade. “Said she had an important errand to run before lunch at Dad’s restaurant.”
Eva’s father, Franklin, ran the Italian place in town. His bread was to die for, and his hugs were as legendary as his Hawaiian shirt collection.
“Damn it,” Sammy grumbled. “Do you know what time she’s heading there?”
“Twelve thirty. It’s a business ladies’ lunch. They usually linger over wine and cannoli for at least an hour after they’re done with their meals,” Eva said. “Ooh! Incoming.”
“Here’s your Instant Diabetes,” Ryan said, handing Sammy a pretty gold to-go mug.
Touched, she accepted the mug. “You got upsold.”
“I get ten percent off every order when I bring this in,” he said, holding up his own green mug.
“Isn’t your departure imminent? You’re not going to be around to collect the discount,” she reminded him.
He shrugged. “Yeah, well. They got me with the whole ‘proceeds benefit the Quiet Hour’ thing.”
Sammy and Eva both grinned up at him.
The Quiet Hour was a committee of adults and kids that organized early admission to town events for families with sensory issues. Aurora and her brother Evan had come up with the idea after befriending new Mooners Rubin and Claudia, who were both on the autism spectrum.
“It’s a great cause,” Sammy agreed.
“I thought it was a decent idea,” Ryan admitted. “My sister has autism. She loved Christmas lights when she was a kid, but had a hard time with the crowds.”
“Have sex with him now,” Eva coughed into her hand.
“This is my friend Eva,” Sammy said glaring daggers at the woman who was sizing Ryan up like he was the hero in one of her novels. “She’d stay and introduce herself but she has to go away right now.”
“Oh, no. I have all the time in the world,” Eva said, grinning evilly. “It’s so nice to meet you, Ryan.”