Snowfall on Haven Point

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “You really must make my Christmas party one of them. It’s always great fun—though don’t ask Marshall here about it, since he’s missed the last dozen or so working double shifts. One might almost think he doesn’t like Christmas.”

  He shrugged. “Mom, you know how it goes in law enforcement. Somebody has to work during the holidays. If I’m working, that means one of my deputies can be home with his kids.”

  Oh, he was a hard man to resist. Every time she thought she had, he managed to sneak in and topple a few more barriers.

  He was a police officer, she reminded herself sternly. Yes, he might be a compassionate one to his fellow officers, but that didn’t make his job any less dangerous.

  He had been hit by a car less than a week ago because of his job. He could have died that night. She couldn’t afford to forget that.

  She had vowed she would never let herself care for another police officer. She couldn’t endure the agony of waiting by the door, wondering if this was the day he wouldn’t come home.

  “I need to go,” she said abruptly. “I’m sorry. I need to let my dog out and do a few more things before my kids are done with school.”

  She did need to leave, but she had also noticed those lines of pain had returned around his mouth. He would rather yank his fingernails out than admit to his mother he needed to sit down.

  “Oh, I’m parked behind you in the driveway,” Charlene said. “Let me move my SUV to the front, then I’ll come back in.”

  “Mom, you don’t need to stay, I promise. Right now, I just want to grab a beer and watch a basketball game. I’m sure Uncle Mike needs help packing up what he needs to take to the house. If you’re not there directing him, he might just load up that terrible tweed sofa he’s got in the living room.”

  Charlene looked torn between her maternal duty and the challenges of creating a new home with a longtime bachelor. She shuddered slightly, then sighed. “Fine. Since you obviously don’t want me around, I’ll go where I am wanted.”

  She gave a small, private smile that made Andie want to laugh—and made Marshall shudder this time, though it was barely perceptible.

  His mother deserved every bit of happiness she had found, this new chance at a happy ending. From what Wynona had told Andie, Charlene had spent more than two decades as a devoted police chief’s wife and then tirelessly visited him in the nursing home every day of his final two years.

  Andie, for one, was delighted to see her enjoying this new phase of her life.

  “I’ll call to check on you later tonight and stop by again tomorrow morning,” Charlene assured her son.

  “Again, not necessary. Andie has things covered.”

  “I’m so glad.” Charlene looked torn between her own need to step in and coddle her son and her obvious delight that someone else was allegedly doing it.

  “We’ll talk tonight,” she promised. She kissed her son’s cheek, then enfolded Andie in a warm hug that smelled of lavender and vanilla.

  “Thank you for watching over my boy. I hope he hasn’t been a terrible bear.”

  “Not terrible,” Andie temporized with a sidelong look at Marshall.

  “I’m sure I’ll see you both very soon,” she said, then hurried out of the room humming a Christmas song.

  Andie waited until she was certain the door closed behind his mother before she turned and faced him.

  “You just threw me under the bus,” she accused.

  He focused on a spot above her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh. Not true! You purposely gave your mother the idea there was something...romantic between us.”

  “We did just kiss,” he pointed out.

  She narrowed her gaze. “One kiss does not make a relationship.”

  “I love my mom. She’s wonderful, really she is, but she can be overwhelming. If you let her, she’ll sweep in and try to take over everything in your life. She has always fussed over us, but just typical mom stuff. Those maternal instincts seemed to go into overdrive after Wyatt died and then became even worse after Dad was shot. She thinks it’s her life’s work to worry and fret over us.”

  “Sounds like normal mom behavior.”

  Andie didn’t want to tell him how jealous she was over it. She couldn’t remember if her own mother had worried and fretted over her those few years she was sober. If she had, it hadn’t lasted long—and her grandmother had been too busy trying to keep Andie’s grandfather happy to have much room left for a sad little girl.

  “It might be normal,” he said, “but I could easily see her feeling like she has to abandon her husband of less than two weeks so she can move into my spare bedroom and make sure I don’t fall on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

  It wasn’t completely impossible, judging from what Wynona had told her about their mother’s tendency to go into overdrive.

  “You’re using me as a ploy to keep your mother at bay,” she said slowly. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been a mom-beard before.”

  He made a face. “If she thinks you’re here fussing over me, she’s less likely to feel inclined to do it herself.”

  In a weird, convoluted way, his logic made sense. She was even a little amused, despite the terrifying implications.

  “You forgot one tiny little detail in your deviousness.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Eventually she’s going to figure out you misled her. What are you going to do when she figures out there’s nothing between us but the few hundred feet that separate our houses?”

  He didn’t say anything for several breaths, only gazed at her with an odd expression that made her mind race with possibilities.

  “By then, I’ll be well on the road to recovery and won’t need anybody’s help.”

  He couldn’t wait to be free of all of them. She had a feeling she was only slightly less annoying than his mother.

  The realization shouldn’t have the power to sting.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HE WAS BECOMING really tired of his own company.

  By the next evening, he fully understood the definition of cabin fever. He wasn’t quite at the point where he was going to start writing Redrum on the walls of Wynona’s house like something out of a Stephen King novel, but the strain was beginning to weigh on him.

  He was even beginning to have a little sympathy for the inmates at the county jail. He had never really understood how much he valued the ability to come and go as he pleased—to just hop in the car and go visit a friend or simply grab a beer if he wanted at the Mad Dog Brewery or one of the taverns in Shelter Springs.

  He stood at the window watching a few fluffy flakes gleam in the porch light as they fluttered down. Nothing moved out there except the snowflakes and he was grimly aware that he hadn’t actually seen another human being all day, barring the two-dimensional kind on TV.

  Cade had called that afternoon and promised to come over after his shift to play cards and shoot the breeze, but the Haven Point police chief—and his best friend and prospective brother-in-law—had called an hour ago to beg off, with the excuse that a long-haul truck driver trying to take a shortcut had jackknifed in the light snowfall on the outskirts of town, spilling his entire load of live turkeys.

  Only in Haven Point.

  This kind of snowfall could be misleading. The clouds had dropped only an inch or so of snow on the ground that was supposed to melt the next day. Some people didn’t bother shoveling until more covered the ground, but Marsh knew the light snow could be treacherous, hiding spots of black ice to tangle up unsuspecting drivers.

  Christopher hadn’t been by to take care of it, but there was no reason Marsh couldn’t do it. Why not? The snow was light and fluffy. Even on crutches, he ought to be able to slide the shovel down the w
alk, just in case anybody happened to drop by.

  Maybe that would help ease the restlessness that seemed to have been on a low boil inside him since the day before, ready to explode.

  His gaze drifted toward the house down the street, where he had a clear view of her Christmas tree gleaming in the window, the merry twinkling lights around her porch and windows she must have hung herself.

  Yeah. He had become a freaking Peeping Tom—except he couldn’t see anything except the occasional shadow moving past the windows.

  He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him. A week ago, she had been a virtual stranger to him—his sister’s friend, yes, but otherwise an abstract name on a crime report.

  So how could he possibly be missing the noise and laughter and chaos of her and her children in his home?

  It didn’t make sense and it certainly couldn’t be right.

  The memory of that kiss hadn’t stopped bouncing around his head, try as he might to push it away. Those delicious moments spent kissing her had been the first time in a week he had truly forgotten all about his damn broken leg. With her in his arms, how could he think about anything else?

  He had completely lost track of time. Now, reliving it, he couldn’t believe how consumed he had been by the sweetness of her mouth, the softness of her skin. He had wanted it to go on and on and on.

  He didn’t know what had distracted him. A sound, perhaps, or a pain signal from his leg that managed to pierce the cloud of desire. Something had yanked him back to awareness of just whom he had been kissing. He had suddenly remembered that the delicious-tasting woman in his arms had endured a terrible ordeal with courage and strength.

  She deserved gentleness, courtesy, respect.

  She certainly deserved more than to be pawed in the front seat of her SUV by a man who would never be able to offer her anything.

  Yes, he definitely needed something to distract himself from the restlessness. Shoveling that walk out there would perfectly fit the bill—with the bonus of helping him feel at least halfway useful.

  Ten minutes later, he slipped on his jacket and double-checked the plastic bag he’d shoved his boot into to keep it dry and a little warmer, then headed out onto the porch.

  The cold felt invigorating, blowing away the cobwebs that came from spending entirely too much time in a small room in front of a big television set.

  He managed to make it down the stairs without falling—even with the plastic bag providing no traction. The hardest part was balancing on the stair railing and using one of his crutches to pull the shovel down to him.

  Not the easiest task he had ever undertaken, balancing on the crutches with his armpits and pushing the shovel a few inches at a time, but he was making slow progress when he heard the door slam next door.

  “I thought you were supposed to be paying me to do that,” an annoyed-sounding voice called out through the darkness.

  He looked over at the house next door, and for one terrible moment, he couldn’t seem to make his brain work to come up with an answer.

  His son.

  That was all he could manage to think as Christopher shuffled down the steps wearing only skinny jeans, thin skateboarder Vans with skulls on them and a black Nirvana T-shirt.

  He had been a big Nirvana fan himself, during his own dark and angry-over-nothing phase. At least they had that much in common.

  “Did you decide you don’t need my help?” The boy’s shaggy ink-black hair hung over his forehead and he had on that same perpetual scowl. “You trying to back out of paying me?”

  His son was speaking with him. They were having a conversation.

  Marshall cleared his throat. “Not at all. I’ve been cooped up inside all day—all week, really—and was feeling claustrophobic. The little bit of snow needed clearing, so I figured, two birds.”

  “Gramp said I have to do it, since you’re paying me, so hand over the shovel.”

  He wanted to tell the kid he could take care of it, that it felt good to actually do something instead of sitting on his ass all day, but realized that was stupid. His son was here to help him. How could he turn down the opportunity to let him, especially if it meant they could spend a few minutes actually communicating?

  “Great shirt,” he said, then felt awkward for not coming up with a better topic of conversation.

  The kid looked down. “It was my mom’s. She had a thing for Kurt Cobain.”

  “I remember,” he said without thinking.

  That caught Christopher’s attention. “Did you know my mom?”

  In the biblical sense, yeah. Otherwise? Not really.

  “A little. She was, uh, older than me by a few years, so our paths didn’t really cross in school. Different crowds, you know? But I bumped into her a few years later in California, when I was in the military.”

  “Weird, you both being from a Podunk Idaho town and bumping into each other a thousand miles away.”

  “True enough. But I was glad to see a friendly face to remind me of home. We had dinner together a few times.” And breakfast, but he wasn’t ready to tell the kid that. “I believe Nirvana came up. We were both fans.”

  He paused. Because it seemed warranted—and was nothing less than the truth—he added, “I was sorry to hear she died.”

  The only light came from their respective houses, aided by a pale slice of moonlight breaking through the clouds, but Marshall still could clearly see the pain that twisted the boy’s features for only a moment before he ducked his head.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled and seemed to shovel a little harder.

  It was clear he didn’t want to talk about his mother and Marshall would honor that.

  He leaned on the crutches and watched him work. He wanted to tell him it was less strain on the back and arms to lift with the shovel closer to him, but he didn’t want to come off sounding like a know-it-all ass. “What other kind of music do you like?” he asked instead after a moment.

  Christopher leaned on the shovel handle. “Dude, you don’t have to make conversation and pretend to be all interested. All you gotta do is pay me for the time.”

  His attitude was so patently contrived that Marshall had to smile. “Humor your crazy neighbor who has been trapped inside his house for a week.”

  The teen didn’t seem in a big hurry to return to shoveling. “Nice bag,” he said, pointing to the plastic garbage bag Marshall had wrapped around his cast. “So what happened to you? You get popped in the leg or something?”

  He didn’t really want to talk about it, but he couldn’t avoid a direct question. “Nothing so exciting, I’m afraid. I got hit by a car. Hit-and-run driver, actually.”

  “No shit? Have they caught the guy?”

  “Not yet,” Marshall said grimly.

  The lack of progress in the investigation just might be making him crazier than the cabin fever.

  “That blows.”

  “Definitely.”

  It had been a really rough week, but he was glad at least he’d had the chance to talk to his son.

  “How long you been a cop?”

  “Longer than you’ve been alive,” he said truthfully. “I started as a military police officer—an MP—in the Marines, then became a civilian when I left the military. My dad was the chief of police in Haven Point and his dad before him.”

  “Weird.”

  That was one word for it. He wanted to tell Christopher he came from a long legacy of men and women who had chosen to protect and serve. He longed to tell the boy he was the spitting image of his uncle who had died one wintry night while helping people in need and about his grandfather who was still much beloved and greatly missed by the people of this community, a year after his death, and about his aunt Wyn, who had been shot in the line of duty while trying to rescue Andrea and her children fr
om a sociopath.

  Of course, he couldn’t mention any of that.

  The list of topics he had to avoid left him very little to talk about, so he settled on the most boring thing an adult could ask a young person. School.

  “I guess you don’t have many more days left before Christmas vacation.”

  “Yeah. We get out next week. Can’t come a minute too soon for me.”

  They talked about his classes for a moment, though it was obvious Christopher didn’t have much interest in the topic. After a moment the boy made one more swipe with the shovel and Marshall had to regret his driveway wasn’t longer.

  “There you go. Next time call me, cop. No sense paying me if you’re only gonna come out and do it yourself.”

  “I’ll do that. Thank you.”

  The boy shrugged and set the shovel back up on the porch before he headed back to his house, his fleeting interest in further conversation apparently dying a quick death.

  “’Night,” he mumbled.

  “Good night,” Marshall answered. He watched him until he was inside, then turned and hobbled back along the now-cleared sidewalk to his porch and up the few steps.

  By the time he made it into the house, everything felt like one big solid ache, but he didn’t care. He had just enjoyed a halfway civil conversation with his son. Perhaps there was some reason for optimism that he might actually be able to build a genuine relationship with the boy.

  You should tell him.

  Amid the heated memories of that stunning kiss he had shared with Andrea, he hadn’t forgotten her insistence that he needed to step up and tell the boy’s grandparents and Christopher himself that Marshall believed he was his father.

  He wasn’t ready. Not yet. Better to carefully insert himself in his son’s life a tiny step at a time, give them a chance to get to know each other.

  His cell phone rang just as he settled back into the recliner with a beer and the remote.

  He thought about ignoring it, since he really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, but when he saw the caller ID, he sighed and knew he had to answer. He had already ignored three calls from his mother that day, responding instead with a brief text that he was okay but couldn’t talk. One more and she would probably be banging on his door to find out for herself why not.