Colt tried to smuggle a laugh but failed. The rich, vibrant sound rang through the room like music and unloosened a knot in her tummy she didn’t know she had.
“Well, someone stole some trees from me. Just came up in the middle night and took some of my finest Douglas Firs. I don’t grow them; I bring them in from the Carolinas. So that kind of pissed me off. Threw in some of the swags Filly made, too. That really got her goat. She’s madder than an old wet hen ‘bout it.”
“People suck,” Liza decided. “Sorry about that.”
“Yeah, well, I tried to tell myself that maybe their kids needed a tree and they couldn’t afford one.”
He looked so sincere that Liza decided right then and there that she needed to become more like the Bluevine.
“At any rate, I’m looking forward to dinner tonight,” she said with a smile.
And she really, really was.
“Listen,” he began, his face turning a slight shade of pink and his hands twisting in front of him. “I want to say something to you but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”
Great, Liza thought, I am going to be dis-invited to dinner because I killed a townsperson. Probably an uncle or cousin or grandpa or something.
“May as well go ahead and say it; I’m a big girl.”
But inside she was frantically searching out his mind, trying to probe whatever he was thinking. She failed. He moved too quickly for her to keep up.
“Well,” he drawled, removing the hat from his head and fiddling with it like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. “It’s my sister, Bridle. She’s sick. She’s had the cancer of the, er, female parts for a little while now. Had a rough time of it. Got divorced in the middle of the worst of it. If you could do anything to make things easier for her…”
He stopped then and his face turned an ashy white.
“I mean, you’ll have to meet her first of course. If when you meet her tonight. If you could decide then. And I swear that’s not the reason I invited you,” he said in a hurry, looking up at Liza. “I swear. I wanted you to come an awful lot. I just thought about this part last night.”
Liza felt a pang of remorse for Colt’s sister, someone he clearly loved. And as she closed her eyes she caught a momentary glimpse of Bridle now, a lithe blond wrapped up in a quilt on a front porch swing, rocking back and forth and watching the bluish mountains in the distance. Her cheeks were pale and sunken, dark shadows hollowing out under her eyes. Her hair was gone but, if anything, it made her beauty shine through even more.
“Colt, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I can’t do things like that. I’m not that…
(“Good” was what she wanted to say, but it didn’t feel like the right word.)
“I know, I figured,” he said hurriedly, humiliation staining his handsome cheeks. “And I surely didn’t want you to think I was using you because I’m not. I sure do like you a lot, Liza Jane. Probably more than I should, seeing as to how you’re still married and all. But Bridle? She’s staying with me and you’ll meet her at dinner. I was just hoping that when you meet her, maybe there’s something you could say or do. Even if it’s just to ease her pain a little. It’s–“
His voice dropped off then and he looked down at his feet, abashed at his forwardness. “It’s the last thing I could think of.”
“I’ll do the best I can,” Liza promised him. “I’ll talk to her.”
“And please, if you need anything else done to the business, I’m handy with a hammer and nail. I can do just about anything,” he said.
Liza smiled. “I think the whole town came in and helped. God forbid anything else should happen. I don’t think it will though, since…”
Neither one had to finish that sentence; they knew what she meant.
***
Liza was running late. She knew she couldn’t go to Colt’s house empty handed, not for her first dinner, but she highly doubted a bowl of Ramen noodles would be appropriate. And crackers and cheese, even on her grandmother’s fine china, would’ve been tacky.
Not that the discount grocery story had much to offer in the form of pre-made gourmet meals or party dishes. She finally settled on a cheese ball, crackers, and a bottle of wine.
And then she worried that his family was religious or something and didn’t drink so she went back and exchanged it for a bottle of sparkling apple cider. She didn’t want to walk into a dry house with alcohol and have everyone think she was a drunk. She’d have to save the drinking for home.
At first, as Liza pushed her cart up and down the aisles she was concerned that people were watching her and whispering about her behind her back.
“Girlfriend, you are super paranoid,” she told herself.
Then she convinced herself that they were just jealous of her long black wool skirt, heels, and soft red infinity scarf. She looked nice; it was okay for people to look at her. She could dig that.
But then she knew without a doubt that it wasn’t her fashion sense drawing their stares and gossip.
When a heavyset man in khakis and a Polo shirt approached her and called her by name, everyone on that side of the store turned and looked at her.
“Miss Merriweather?” he asked hesitantly.
Eh, close enough, she figured.
“Yes?”
His face paled a little but then he remembered what he was there for and jumped right into his speech. “Hi, nice to meetcha. I’m Tommy McIntosh, high school basketball coach. I don’t know what-all you know about our team, but we’ve had us some bad luck these past few seasons.”
The people who gathered around, pretending not to listen, nodded their heads in agreement.
“We got ourselves our first game right after Christmas. It would be real nice, for the morale of the team and the whole town really, if we could win that game. Now, you don’t have to do anything to hurt the other boys. We’re not into that. You don’t have to do what happened to Cotton…”
The rest of the crowd shook their heads vehemently. Liza dropped her head in defeat.
“We just want our boys to feel good again. You know, to boost their confidence.”
“Well, I understand what you mean,” Liza said slowly. “But I don’t know much about basketball so it would be hard to–“
“Oh, just some good luck’s all we need. Just a little luck,” Tommy winked.
After he had walked off, Liza was left scratching her head. They weren’t going to ride her out of town on a rail because they’d thought she killed Cotton Hashagen–they were using it as proof that she might be of use to the rest of them.
She’d have to think about that.
***
Colt’s house looked like Santa’s workshop, all wooden logs and glossy windows, and winding wooden decks, and puffs of smoke coming from the two chimneys.
If only there had been snow on the ground, it would’ve been perfect.
The house, concealed from the road by the long meandering driveway, was all but suspended at the top of a mountain, surrounded by trees of all shapes and sizes. From the porch, it had a gorgeous view of all the valleys below. Liza thought it looked like a doll’s house. She could see the tree farm below, acres and acres of Christmas trees, all planted in straight little rows, just waiting to be decorated and loved.
Liza had barely knocked on the door when it was flung open by a pixie of a girl who immediately threw her arms around Liza and kept hold of her in a vise, so tight Liza lost her breath. “It’s so nice to meet you Liza!” she squealed.
Liza’s muffled reply was something comparable in her captor’s shoulder before she slowly detangled herself. “You must be Filly,” she said at last.
“You ARE a witch!” she squealed again, clapping her hands together.
“Um, Colt showed me your picture, and I’ve seen the others so…”
Filly, undeterred, grabbed Liza by the arm and dragged her inside where the rest of the family waited in the living room.
Enamored of the stunn
ing woodwork at once, Liza couldn't stop staring. With the exposed beams, elaborately carved mantle over a roaring fire, polished hardwood floors, exquisite crown molding–Liza could have looked for hours.
“My son did all of that,” Whinny’s voice came from the other side of the room. “Took him years. Did most of it himself.”
Colt was nowhere in sight.
“It’s a gorgeous place,” Liza replied in appreciation, “But is Christmas tree farming really so…?”
“It’s not from the trees,” came a quiet voice from behind her.
Liza turned and saw the one sister she’d yet to meet yet, Bridle.
The beautiful, red silk Christmas scarf adorned with tiny candy canes wrapped snuggly around her head did little to hide the pale face and hollows under her eyes. She was thin, so thin that her bones in her cheeks and jawline were pronounced so that the skin stretched across them resembled tissue paper. Liza could see the tiny broken blood vessels and the purplish blood pumping below.
Still, she was beautiful.
Her eyes might have held shadows and bruises, but they were wide and alive, and she still held her full, pink lips and thick lashes.
“The tree farm is his passion,” Bridle explained in a soft, brittle voice as she weakly made her way with tottering baby steps to an overstuffed chair. Liza immediately held out her arm and the other woman accepted it with gratitude. When their eyes met, Liza looked deep into the other woman and saw such goodness and joy there that Liza thought she’d do just about anything to help her. Anything at all. She understood Colt's near panic in her store.
“It’s his music that pays for most everything,” Bridle said, once she’d settled into the chair, and Liza had wrapped a blanket over her bony knees.
“His music?” Liza asked in surprise.
“He’s a songwriter,” Filly piped up. “He writes all kinds of country music songs for big artists. You’ve probably heard of them.” She then proceeded to rattle off some hits that even Mode and Mabel’s husband Gene (who didn’t know anyone outside of Patsy Cline) would’ve recognized.
Liza was shocked.
“But why is he not living in Nashville or someplace else? Someplace with a music industry?”
“He was,” Mare replied as she entered the room with a plate of Liza’s cheeseball and crackers, taken from Filly when Liza first entered the house. “He lived there for seven years. Moved back here when Dad died.”
“And when I first got sick,” Bridle added.
“Not my kind of town,” Colt smiled.
Liza turned and saw him standing in the door. He wore a silly-looking apron with a big smiling snowman surrounded by snowflakes and silver glitter. Flour coated his arms all the way up to his rolled-up shirtsleeves. Some had managed to get on his nose. He had a big grin on his face, though, and Liza watched as every female in the room, including her, regarded him with adoration. Without hesitation, he walked over to Bridle, bent down, kissed her forehead, and then lovingly straightened her scarf.
“Y’all hungry? Because I am starving,” he announced.
She didn’t think any man had ever looked more attractive.
***
Liza didn’t think she could eat another single bite. Lamb. She’d eaten lamb for the first time since she’d moved out on her own.
And then there had been pie. So. Much. Pie.
Liza thought she might burst.
Not one moment of awkwardness, either, had passed amongst them. Well, okay, maybe one moment. It had come when Filly had declared, “So we hear you killed Cotton Hashagen for destroying your business!”
Liza’s mouth had been full of mashed potatoes at the moment, and she’d almost spit them across the table at Colt’s mother.
Not a great impression.
But she’d managed to swallow before answering, “Not exactly. I don’t know what happened to Cotton, but it wasn’t me.”
Whinny had shot her daughter a look at that moment and then Colt changed the subject.
There had been no other talk of magic.
Once they’d all helped clear the table, they’d gathered in the living room where Colt had brought out his guitar. He'd sang country songs from people she’d never heard of, songs like “I’m No Stranger to the Rain” and “On the Other Hand” which made her realize that, indeed, her country music education was sorely lacking.
Bridle had excused herself after that, claiming exhaustion, and her sisters had helped her up the stairs.
“Does she stay here sometimes?” Liza asked.
Whinny shot a look at her son and let Colt answer. “She lives here,” he said at last. “I couldn’t have her home by herself. She needed to be with someone, and I can take care of her. I have more space than Mama does now.”
“It’s true,” Whinny laughed. “I blocked the upstairs off at home. Too cold in the winter and I can’t afford the heating bill.”
Before Liza left, she asked if she could peek in on Bridle, to whisper goodbye if nothing else.
“Sure,” Filly answered. “Her lamp’s still on. She’s probably just watching TV.”
Bridle, in an old-fashioned white cotton nightgown, was indeed watching TV when Liza arrived–some black and white 1950’s show. Maybe “Donna Reed.”
“Liza,” she smiled thinly. “Sorry to leave the party so soon. I swear it wasn’t your company. Or maybe it was. Maybe you bored the pants off of me once you admitted you didn’t kill Cotton.”
Liza laughed. “I was just on my way out and wanted to say goodbye,” she said, not leaving the doorframe.
“It’s okay; you can come in.”
Liza entered the room and sat in the rocking chair by the bed. Someone had built a fire in the fireplace, and it was cozy sitting there with the television on low and the warmth of the room seeping into the bones.
“I don’t always feel so poorly,” Bridle explained. “I had chemo today. It takes a lot out of me. But today was my last go around. So maybe things will get better now.”
The look of hopefulness on her face was so optimistic that Liza smiled back, touched. Maybe Bridle was right.
“Where were you before Colt brought you here?” she asked, knowing she was prying but unable to help herself.
“At home,” Bridle said thinly. “With my husband. He stuck around for a while but then he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t watch me be sick. He had to do everything around the house, work and take care of me. It was too much. He couldn’t take what I was. What I am.”
Liza looked down at the pale woman, surrounded by love and warmth, and lightness. And she was jealous. “My husband couldn’t take what I was either. So he cheated. And then he left me for good.”
“Men are pricks,” Bridle laughed before going into a coughing fit that made her forehead shiny with sweat.
Liza leaned over, placed her hand on Bridle’s forehead, and murmured a few words. The coughing stopped, her face cooled, and her head fell softly to the side. Soon, her chest was rising and falling in a deep, peaceful sleep.
It wasn’t much, but Liza could, at least, offer her rest.
Chapter Sixteen
LIZA DROPPED off her holiday open house flyer at the Chamber of Commerce and then walked back to her building, astonished at how cold it was.
She’d been vastly unprepared for the bi-polar weather of Kentucky. Having lived in Massachusetts for so long, she was used to the cold and snow and figured that with Kentucky’s obvious geographic location she’d be enjoying a much milder climate.
She was wrong.
That morning she’d woken up to an outside temperature of thirty-five degrees and, according to the weather forecast, it was meant to get colder over the next few days. When she’d visited over the summer, she’d all but melted in her rental car, driving around in the upper 90s.
Liza thought that dropping off her materials would just be a matter of paperwork, a small errand of little importance. She’d applied for her business license with little fanfare and didn’t expect t
he handing over of a flyer to be any different.
But Effie Trilby had been in the office and had introduced Liza around to several other people who were there for whatever reason and then she’d been invited to stay for breakfast because someone had apparently decided just to wake up that morning and feed everyone in the office. Someone had led her to a table full of biscuits, gravy, bacon, what someone called “breakfast potatoes,” and several jars of homemade jams and jellies.
When she’d left, one of the women had handed her a plate stacked with biscuits. “You need some meat on those bones,” she’d told Liza. “Take those for later.”
Everyone had been extraordinarily friendly and seemed to be genuinely excited about her business. They’d all had nice things to say about her grandparents and promised to stop in and visit her soon.
For at least a few minutes, Liza had felt like she was part of a something.
***
And then, just like that, her mood plummeted.
She was a wash-up. Her business was a failure. That was all there was to it. Two people had canceled–the only two appointments she’d had on the schedule. Then the damn detective had returned, questioning her about Cotton.
Word had to be all over town by now: She was a witch with real powers, and if you double-crossed her she’d hurt you or worse.
People thought she’d killed one of their own, and now they wanted nothing to do with her.
After not a single client had entered her business all day, Liza did the only thing she could do–she stopped by the grocery store, bought two gallons of Rocky Road ice cream, and went home and ate them both.
But then, once she was full and had cried a few dozen times and was starting to suffer a tummy ache, Liza realized she was going to have to go about it a different way.
People canceled appointments. It happened. It was all part of running a business.
People would believe bad things about her. That was bound to happen, too. She couldn’t stop that from happening, either.
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