4 Malice in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  I bit my lower lip, a feeling of bitter disappointment settling in at the back of my throat.

  I’d been a fool. And now it felt like the whole town could see it.

  I rubbed my face.

  I lost the positive-thinking battle. All my thoughts were just spiraling downward in a freefall of negativity.

  If it had been later in the day, I would have headed down to the Pine Needle Tavern and asked the bartender there to make me up a stiff whiskey-based drink.

  But it was too early for that. Especially for a woman married to the Sheriff of Pohly County.

  I sighed again into the smoky air.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  “Hey, what’s the deal with you standing here all by yourself?”

  My heart jumped up in my throat in surprise and I felt my nails dig into the bridge railing.

  The rushing of the river had drowned out the sound of his footsteps.

  When I saw his face, a wave of relief swept over me like a cool ocean breeze.

  He came up beside me, placing an arm around my shoulder, enveloping me in the fresh scent of his pressed Sheriff’s uniform.

  “How’d you find me?” I asked, my voice shaking a little.

  The disappointment that had settled in the back of my throat was starting to do strange things to it.

  “I stopped by the shop, but Tiana said you stepped out,” he said. “Wasn’t too hard to imagine where you’d gone to.”

  Daniel knew me so well.

  “Did you see the article this morning?” I said, keeping my eyes on the river below.

  He paused for a moment.

  “I did,” he said.

  His tone was serious with just a hint of anger below the surface.

  “I’ll go after him, if you want,” he said. “If I can’t get him fired, then I’ll make his life a living hell. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll do it.”

  He squeezed my shoulder. I looked up at him. He was dead serious.

  As much as I wanted to see Erik suffer, as much as he might have deserved it, and as much as I wanted to take Daniel up on his generous offer, I knew that I couldn’t.

  It would be wrong, asking him to use his power as sheriff to do something like that.

  I couldn’t ask it of him.

  Besides. I had to have faith. People like Erik always had their coming-ups in the world. He would get his. But Daniel wouldn’t have any part in it.

  I shook my head.

  “He’s not worth it,” I said, nestling into his arm. “But you offering that already makes me feel a lot better.”

  I thought about talking some more about it. About telling Daniel how I felt like such a fool. About how disappointed I was.

  But I realized talking would only make it harder to let it all go.

  And I needed to. There was nothing else I could do.

  I looked up at him and brushed away a strand of his hair that had come loose. I pushed it back in place, and then hugged him hard, sinking into his strong chest.

  I didn’t know what I had done to deserve Daniel Brightman.

  All I knew was that even when I had low moments, like today, I was still the luckiest woman in the world because I had him.

  “Let’s change the subject,” I said.

  I started walking, pulling him down the bridge and back into town. Huckleberry trotted out in front of us.

  “Do you want to take a day trip to Molokini during our honeymoon?” I asked. “We’ve never been there, and I’ve always wanted to go snorkeling with all those turtles.”

  He looked down at me, an expression of surprise on his face.

  The old me probably would have harped on the article for days.

  But lately, I’d been trying to pay more attention to the good in my life.

  And I had a lot of good to keep me occupied, I realized.

  “Molokini it is,” he said finally, smiling, and kissing the top of my head.

  Chapter 10

  When I returned to the pie shop, I felt that the walk with Daniel had done me good.

  I still felt a lingering disappointment, and a sense of injustice about Jo’s rude and misplaced accusations, but overall, I was feeling better. It might take a few days to feel 100 percent again, but for the time being, I was doing okay.

  I checked my phone, and saw that I missed a call from a number that I suspected probably belonged to The Redmond Register. There was a voicemail too.

  I scrolled down to it, about to hit play. But then I realized that whatever Erik Andersen had to say, I didn’t want to hear.

  Sometimes, you just had to swallow your pride and turn the other cheek. More for your own good than anybody else’s.

  I knew from experience that holding onto hurt was just asking for more of it.

  I deleted the message, put my phone on the counter, and got to doing the thing that I loved.

  The thing that I would love no matter if I got recognition for it or not.

  I started rolling crusts. I started mixing filling ingredients. I made a batch of the simplest and most popular pie in my repertoire: the Mountain Cherry.

  A few hours later, an entire batch of perfectly cooked pies went out into the dining room, and I felt like a new person.

  Until I heard Tiana’s voice calling for me from the front of the house, letting me know that a city councilor’s wife was here, wanting to see me.

  Then, all the good work I’d done to rid myself of the morning’s events went down the toilet.

  That Jo Pugmire was all I could think. She had some nerve.

  Chapter 11

  “I’m so sorry he dragged you into this, Cinnamon,” she said. “That was a real low-class move on his part. I just feel horrible he did this to you.”

  I poured a glass of pomegranate iced tea that I had made the day before, and placed it in front of her on the kitchen island. She nodded to me gratefully, and took a long elegant swig.

  Laurel looked the way she always did: like a model out of Cowboys and Indians. It was a magazine that often got delivered to me by accident because of my shop’s proximity to Christmas River Western Wear. I’d always see that it got to the proper address eventually, but not before I flipped through its glossy pages and read some of the articles about Robert Duvall, Sam Elliott and other Western movie heroes.

  The models in the magazine’s ads were the pinnacle of cowgirl chic. Leather skirts and expensive embroidered goat skin cowgirl boots. Delicately threaded scarves and enough silver and turquoise jewelry to sink a riverboat. I was enamored with the look, but lacked the wardrobe funds to pull off anything close to it. Which I guess wasn’t the end of the world. As a professional pie baker, I never needed more than a tank top and a pair of jeans to go to work in.

  Laurel always looked just like she was coming back from one of the magazine’s photo shoots. I envied her perfect sense of style. Aside from having plenty of money to spend on a cowgirl chic wardrobe, she had the ability to tie it all together in such a unique and elegant way.

  Today, she was wearing faded jeans tucked into smoky orange cowgirl boots, a simple white collared shirt and large red turquoise and silver earrings that made her brown eyes pop. Her hair was pushed back into an elegant up-do. The look did nothing but compliment her figure, which was still going strong despite the fact that she was nearing 50.

  “Did you know that Erik was writing a story about the two of you?” I asked, taking a seat across from her.

  Maybe some people in my situation would have been angry at her and Jo.

  But it probably took some courage for Laurel to show up here like this. And I appreciated the in-person apology, rather than the cowardly, accusatorial phone call Jo had opted for.

  “No, I didn’t know he was writing a story,” she said. “I mean, I knew someone at The Register was writing about Bernard and Harry and the election. But I had no idea that me and Jo were gonna get dragged into it.”

  I noticed her putting the word “me” before Jo’s name,
and to be honest, I kind of liked her improper grammar. There were plenty of people of her status who used words like “whom” and corrected other people who didn’t use them. I liked when people were down to earth and unpretentious when they spoke. It struck me as a sign of character.

  Laurel took another sip from her glass.

  “Cinnamon, you must give me the recipe for this tea before I leave,” she said. “It’s the most refreshing thing I’ve had all summer. Reminds me of my youth.”

  “I will,” I said, remembering that Laurel was from somewhere down south. Her accent was so faint, I almost forgot.

  “Laurel, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what’s the beef between you and Jo?”

  She finished the last of her tea and then dabbed her lips with the napkin I’d placed under the glass.

  “No, I don’t mind you asking,” she said. “But, well, there’s really nothing to tell. We just plain don’t get along.”

  She fidgeted with her earring.

  “Well, I guess that’s not entirely true,” she said. “You see, back in the day, Harry kind of, well, he kind of had a thing for me. Before him and Jo were married. But I never returned his sentiments, and whatever he felt for me passed once he caught sight of Jo, if you can believe that. He married her, but she must have caught wind of how he had felt at one time, because she’s always treated me poor. Like I was some piece of trailer trash that had blown into Christmas River for the sole reason of corrupting her husband.”

  Laurel was just about the farthest thing from trailer trash.

  I got up, taking her empty glass away and placing it in the sink.

  “But the truth is, Jo is really just a vindictive bitc… well, I’ll avoid saying the word and try being a lady for once. But honestly, that woman holds a grudge like you wouldn’t believe. She just plain don’t like me. If it were up to me, this would all be water under the bridge. But she’s never going to let it go. And this mayor race has just dragged it all back up again.”

  She stared out the window a moment, as if lost in some memory. Then she turned back toward me.

  “But that’s small town living right there, I guess,” she said. “What can you do? When somebody just hates you for no good reason like that?”

  I could identify with her. I knew a thing or two about small town living and the difficulty of always getting along with your neighbors. Especially when those neighbors treated you badly.

  I thought back to Bailey. Bailey was my friend and had been my bakery assistant at Cinnamon’s Pies. We got along great. Until I found out that my then-husband was cheating on me with her. Things just sort of fell apart for me after that. Bailey opened up her own pastry shop, and for a little while, I had to coexist with her.

  It wasn’t easy, to say the least. In a big city, if you had a problem with somebody, you could just pick up and move across town. You could probably spend your whole life there, never running into them.

  But in a small town, you had to live with them. There wasn’t an option unless you wanted to move away yourself.

  It must have been hard for Laurel all these years, having a long-standing feud with someone as bull-headed as Jo.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I said. “Sometimes it isn’t easy living in a small town.”

  She sighed, and pulled at her earring again.

  “You’re right at that, doll,” she said. “You’re right at that. Sometimes I can’t help but long for Atlanta. I moved here when I was just a teenager, but occasionally I miss the freedom that came with living in a big city.”

  She let out a little, lonesome, Southern Belle sigh. Then she glanced back at me.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love living in Christmas River. I wouldn’t want my child to have grown up anywhere else.”

  The oven timer beeped, signaling that a batch of fresh Mountain Cherry pies were ready to be pulled from the oven.

  That stopped Laurel from finishing her thought.

  I pulled on a pair of oven mitts and turned the timer off.

  “Well, that’s enough. I didn’t come here to go on about my life,” she said. “I just wanted to really apologize, Cinnamon. And I wanted to invite you over to the ranch Thursday for some wine and appetizers. Do you think we could do that?”

  I felt my eyebrows lift in an expression of surprise.

  Not that Laurel wasn’t a nice person. But we always just kind of moved in different circles. I wasn’t classist, but it was hard to deny that people generally kept to their lot in life. I ran a small, somewhat successful business and was married to a sheriff. We were middle class all the way. Her husband was a city councilor and a high profile real estate developer. I’d heard too that she herself was independently wealthy, and came from old Southern money.

  We traveled in different circles. That was for sure.

  “I just… I just thought it would be nice,” she said, picking up on my hesitation. “You know? Just us girls.”

  She smiled.

  I found myself smiling back.

  What the hell. Just because we traveled in different circles didn’t mean that those circles couldn’t overlap every once and a while.

  Besides. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dying to see the much-talked-about McSween Ranch.

  Not to mention seeing that collection of cowgirl boots she must have had in her closet.

  “Yeah,” I said, wiping my hands off on my apron. “I would really love that, Laurel.”

  “Great,” she said.

  I got the sense that I had just really made her day.

  Her cowgirl boots found the linoleum floor, and I swear, I could almost smell the rich leather wafting from them as she stood up and headed for the coat rack to retrieve her purse.

  “I’m really glad we talked, Cinnamon. I feel a lot better.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “See you about 5 Thursday? You know where the ranch is?”

  I nodded.

  “I look forward to it.”

  She pushed her way through the dividing door, disappearing.

  I felt the edges of my mouth turn up slightly as I removed the pies from the pan and set them on the cold marble of the kitchen island to cool.

  Maybe this was another good thing to come out of what had been a bad situation.

  Maybe I’d get a new friend out of all of this.

  I spent the rest of the day in a good mood.

  Everything I touched was practically gold.

  Chapter 12

  I got up early the next morning, stopped by the Christmas Coffee Hut, and grabbed two grande iced Mexican Chocolate Mochas and two Marionberry muffins.

  Against my better judgment.

  I’d put on a few pounds since getting married in December. I guessed that was natural. In my newlywed zeal, I’d filled our house with cookbooks and new cookware. I spent evenings, most of which I’d been spending alone waiting for Daniel to get off work, cooking rich and satisfying meals. Meals to warm his soul after a long day of keeping the streets of Christmas River safe.

  He loved it. Couldn’t get enough of my cooking. But as was typical of a man, he didn’t gain so much as a pound from those meals. In the meantime, I’d been fighting off some serious love handles. I’d been working hard the last few weeks to shed some of those extra pounds for our honeymoon. I’d cut down on drinking, which was a lot easier to do now that Warren wasn’t around to lure me with one of his homebrews. Aside from that pumpkin cheesecake milkshake the other day, I’d kept to a diet that consisted of mostly salad and steak.

  But after a month of eating spinach round the clock, I hadn’t lost as much weight as I’d hoped. And after the emotional rollercoaster I’d been through the day before, I figured I could allow myself this one small indulgence.

  Well, maybe it wasn’t all that small, I realized.

  The owner of the Christmas Coffee Hut leaned over the window and handed me the two iced mochas and two massive muffins wrapped in plastic wrap.

  Those two muffi
ns could have kept a small country going for a week.

  “Thanks, Marianne,” I said, doing my best to balance what she’d given me.

  “Anytime, Cin,” she said in her trademark gruff, smoker’s voice.

  I walked across the street, doing my best juggling act for the whole town to see. I walked a little ways down the main drag before turning into Kara’s Ornate Ornaments. I backed into the glass door carefully, pushing it open with my elbows.

  I took a deep breath as I walked in.

  I always loved the feel of Kara’s shop. It had the same feel as her old shop, the one that went up in flames a year earlier, but it was even better. It had rustic pine floorboards that creaked when you walked, and the place always smelled just like Christmas morning. Being the crafty person she was, Kara made her own Christmas potpourri and sprinkled the shop with bowls of it. It smelled like orange and clove, and always made you feel warm and cozy and right at home.

  The shop was empty at this hour of the morning, but harpsichord Christmas music was playing from the speakers and the glittery lights of the plastic Christmas trees were on, showcasing all of Kara’s specialty, handmade ornaments.

  I set the mochas and muffins down on the cashier counter, and took a moment to marvel at a new display she had put together since the last time I stopped by.

  A rustic wood sign engraved with the words Rodeo Days in Christmas River hung from a glittery white Christmas tree draped in ribbon. Small round snow globes were suspended from the branches, depicting scenes from the Old West. In one snow globe, clay cowboys faced each other in an encircled corral, their guns drawn. In another, a stagecoach ran through a clay canyon. And in another, a cowboy on a horse herded a couple of stubborn clay cattle.

  And the snow globes were only part of the display. Kara had also made clay horseshoes, cows with Santa hats, and wooden engraved cowboy boot ornaments.

  I shook my head in wonder.

  Kara’s talent never failed to amaze me. Every time I stopped by her shop, I was reminded of how outrageously amazing her crafts were. She blew all the other handmade artisanal stores in Christmas River out of the water.