Skyler was going to miss the sex. She didn’t know where the relationship was going—they never talked about it—but whatever it was, the sex hadn’t tapered off since the start. That made her very happy.
And as usual, they had sex before falling asleep in front of the bedroom’s gas fireplace that night. The snow stopped falling sometime overnight, a warm front blew in, and Washington Reagan National Airport was open for business as usual the following morning, taking Leonard ‘Down East’ and away from Skyler.
* * *
The chartered Cessna Citation Sovereign touched down at Las Vegas’ McCarran International and taxied to Advanced Aviation, a fixed-based operator for private aircraft on the south-west corner of the airport. With a championship heavyweight bout between the evenly matched Serota and Felix scheduled to take place that evening at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, the tarmac was absolutely overflowing with aircraft of all shapes and sizes. Brenda Braxton peered out the window and wondered where the pilots would find room to park on the crowded ramp. She was pleased when they managed to squeeze in between two mid-size jets, the engines were powered down, and the cabin was depressurized.
Knowing that the desert winds do embarrassing things to women in dresses on runways, Brenda changed into a pair of pants for deplaning. With a large tote flung over her shoulder and a dog leash in each hand, she descended the stairs and climbed into a waiting minivan. Within minutes, she and her dogs were speeding toward the Golden Cactus Resort and Casino, the relatively new, four-star property on the northern section of Las Vegas Boulevard, otherwise known as The Strip. The Golden Cactus was in a part of Las Vegas presently undergoing a resurgence, with several new resort properties being constructed to the north and south. Similar to the Sin City-revitalizing building boom of the late 1980’s, this one was producing innovative casino projects designed for the 21st century. Heavily themed, family-focused projects were out. Opulence, high-energy, and adults-only concepts were very much in vogue.
Brenda was in love with the Golden Cactus and what the developers had created, and she felt very at home there.
For better or worse, she was on the move a lot, overseeing her ever-growing empire of restaurants, hotel projects, cookbooks, a television cooking show, and a line of sparkling wines that sold quite briskly every time she appeared on Q.V.C. to hawk them. Her celebrity chef cred was hotter than ever, but it was taking a serious toll on her body and mind. She was simply exhausted—despite a head office staff of seven full-timers—and more than ready for an honest to goodness, sit-and-do-nothing kind of a vacation.
But that would have to wait.
After being escorted to her usual suite, along with Mulder and Scully—her sibling Lemon Treeing Walker coonhounds, named after the two main characters in her beloved The X-Files television show—Brenda flopped down on the bed with her smartphone and tapped a few buttons to call her best friend.
“Hey there,” Skyler said when she picked up. “As usual, you have amazing timing. I’m between meetings and having my seventh cup of coffee.”
“Just today, I read an article on the plane about the benefits of eight cups of coffee a day,” Brenda said. “So, darling, you have one more to go. Hey, listen, I just flew to Vegas from Santa Fe. I feel like I never left; I was just here yesterday, for goodness sake. I should probably just move out west, huh? Anyway, I’m having a big dinner thing at my Golden Cactus restaurant tonight. We’re debuting the new menu for the casino suits. And Carissa is coming.”
“Right. She mentioned that to me yesterday. She’s very excited.”
“Me too. You know I haven’t seen her since all the craziness went down in Maine. I’m amazed she’s still talking to me.”
“Oh gosh, Brenda, you know nothing sticks to that girl. She probably forgot all about it on the plane ride home.”
Brenda was incredulous. “How do you forget getting held captive at gunpoint by a mad man?”
“He wasn’t a mad man!” Skyler said a bit more loudly than she intended. It was still a sore subject and she felt like she would always be unnerved by the memory of losing their mutual friend to mental illness. “He was our friend and he…just lost his way.” She paused for a moment, realizing how silly that sounded. “You know what I mean.”
“I do, honey, and I’m sorry. Let’s change the subject.” Brenda eased off the bed and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling plate glass window. She peered down at the street fifty-three stories below. “So, did he really leave?”
“Leonard? Yes. First thing this morning. I think he’s looking at a few months as acting Sheriff. I don’t even know if we’ll be spending Christmas together.”
“I’m surprised that didn’t come up.”
“It won’t come as a surprise to you, Brenda, but we don’t really talk about important stuff all that much,” Skyler said.
“The sex still good?”
“Duh.”
Brenda laughed. “Listen, I have a proposition for you. I mentioned it a while ago, but now I want you to seriously consider it.”
“Here we go.”
“No, it’s a good thing, Skyler. I’m here in Vegas for a few nights and then I’m jetting back to Santa Fe for this thing called, The Winter Wine and Beer Fiesta, as a part of the Franklin-Lowery hotel project I’m doing. I’m working very closely with the guys who are developing the hotel chain and I’m not just doing the restaurants for them, I’m really involved in all aspects of the project now. I’m talking décor, the staff uniforms, marketing, even helping to pick out the perfect mattresses for the sleeping rooms. It’s quite an undertaking.”
“Geez, lady. I seriously don’t know how you have the time. Have you cloned yourself?”
Brenda chuckled. “I wish. But this is the slow season for me. I’ve already done all the television I’m doing for the year, we just put the new cook book to bed, and this is fun for me.”
“Alright, so, what’s the proposition?” Skyler asked.
“I very much want you to come spend a few weeks with me in New Mexico. We can be there for Christmas and New Year’s Eve and I promise that we’ll have all the fun. Santa Fe has some very good restaurants, more art galleries than almost anywhere else, and loads of cute little shops. Oh, and there is this very hard-to-describe, interactive art installation called Meow Wolf that you really do need to experience; it’s a trip and a half.” Brenda took a second to catch her breath, then asked, “So? Are you game?”
There was a long pause.
“Skyler Moore! Why are you hesitating?”
“Alright,” Skyler finally said. “I’ll come, even though I have no idea what this Meow Wolf thing is. I guess I can do whatever needs doing in Santa Fe just as easily as I can here. Plus, it’s one of the few states that I’ve never stepped foot in.”
“Yes! Alright! Happy day! I’m booking us in at the Four Seasons hotel for this Friday. Then we can move to a rented house, or something, so we’ll have more space.”
“You mean so the dogs will have more space.”
“That’s true, yes. They always come first. But I am very excited about this, Skyler. And you’ll just love Santa Fe. It’s a bit nippy this time of year, but the sun is very warming, even on the coldest of days. They call it the high-desert, you know. They’re at like six or seven thousand feet above sea level. You’ll just love it, I promise. It’s beautiful.”
“Okay, geez, I’m sold. I’ll book a flight. How do I get there from here?”
“Commercial to Santa Fe from D.C.? You’ll have to change in Denver or Dallas depending on who you fly. Shouldn’t be too bad,” Brenda said.
Skyler waited a few beats, then said, “Excuse me. You’re not sending a plane?”
The chef was caught off guard. “I totally will, honey. Do you want me to do that?”
“Of course not, silly. I was kidding. I have about a zillion frequent flyer miles. Plenty for a first-class upgrade. I’ll
be fine. You save your fractional jet hours and just buy me a few expensive dinners.”
“Okay, that’s a deal I can stomach. Whew. You just saved me about $20,000. I literally started sweating, but you do know that I’d do that for you, right, Skyler?” She laughed heartily, startling the snoozing dogs. “Or at least I’d offer. Alright, I can’t wait to see you, honey. It’s been, what? Months? Okay, bye, honey.”
Brenda hung up without waiting for Skyler to say goodbye. She spent a few minutes loving on the dogs, jumped in the shower, and then slipped into a sparkly black pant suit with a matching jacket. She arranged for a dog walker through the hotel’s concierge before taking the executive-level express elevator down to the ground floor. She enjoyed the long stroll from the lobby, through the casino—it was really hopping, with nearly every table game seat taken and thousands of people at the slot machines—finally ending up at Brenda’s Kitchen, her sixth and most recent eponymous restaurant.
She pow-wowed with her head chef and the maître d’hôtel, then went to the cozy private dining room next to the wine cellar to check on the place cards. The president of the holding company that owned both the casino resort and the television network that produced and broadcasted her cooking show, was coming, along with his former-Olympian figure skater wife and a small army of casino executives.
Carissa Lamb, the hotel’s headlining entertainer, breezed in first, sporting a long, dark brown wig and oversized Jackie-O style sunglasses. The celebrity chef and the pop singer had become fast friends the previous summer and Brenda had introduced Carissa and Skyler to each other. The women air kissed, European-style, never making actual physical contact. Brenda learned that from the stylish singer and thought it very cosmopolitan, and she had started adding the greeting into her own interactions with cooler people.
“You look fabulous,” Carissa said.
“And you look like no one I know.”
Carissa spun around. “I’m in disguise, Brenda, darling. I mean, have you seen it out there? I’m told that the hotel is completely sold out all week. This city is just overflowing with people like I’ve never seen before. Thank goodness for strong economies, huh?”
“Better than the opposite,” Brenda said. “Miss Lamb, I miss your red hair.”
“Well, I still have it.” Carissa pulled off the wig and sunglasses and shook her head. She was stunning and somehow made it all look so effortless. “Is this better?”
“Much.”
“I’ve missed you terribly, Brenda,” Carissa said. “I watched the cooking show episode that I was on. I just wish we could have watched it together. It came out wonderfully, don’t you think?”
“Carissa, thanks to you, it was the highest rated episode we’ve ever aired. I really mean it…thank you.”
“It was my pleasure. And my idea, if you’ll recall. I had so much fun doing it.”
Brenda waved over a waiter and the women ordered drinks—a glass of ‘ice cold’ champagne for the singer and a classic Old Fashioned for the chef. When the waiter walked away, she turned back to Carissa. “I feel just horrible about what happened after the taping. I was seriously afraid when you left Wabanaki that Skyler and I would never see you again.”
“Oh, please,” Carissa said with a fluttering of her delicate hand. “It’s been totally forgotten. I choose to remember the fun parts of that day: cooking with you in Skyler’s cute little house and having the chance to become such good, true friends. Hey, we all survived, didn’t we? That’s the important thing.” She smiled and showed off her impossibly bright white, perfect teeth. “So, what’s for dinner tonight?”
“We’re starting with crab and cucumber rillettes as the amuse-bouche; you’ll love them. Then, we have a veal tongue with horseradish-cream as the appetizer course. We’ll follow that with a brie tortellini paired with roasted figs as the pasta course; I am obsessed with that dish. It’s brand new. Then, if people are still alive, we have a pistachio-crusted leg of lamb with gingered carrots. And, here’s the best part, Carissa—I’m not doing any of the actual cooking tonight. Hallelujah, praise the Lord.”
“Come on now. You left out the best part. Certainly you are serving dessert.”
“Of course. Duh. Individual apple tarts with salted caramel ice cream. The tarts are made with croissant dough instead of puff pastry. They are decidedly deadly. And my pastry chef makes the ice cream right here, by hand, every day. I could open a stand and make millions. It’s better than Häagen-Dazs, I swear to the Swedish Gods.”
“I believe you. But, exactly how am I supposed to fit into my costumes tomorrow night, I ask you that?”
Brenda smiled. “I guess you better hit up that home gym of yours…like you have anything to worry about.” She looked over the singer’s shoulder and watched as the head honcho strolled through the door. “Okay, here we go. The big guy has entered the building.”
CHAPTER TWO
On Thursday morning, Skyler called her troops together in the small basement conference room and announced her departure. She’d booked a flight for the next morning and left the return open-ended; she promised to be back in Washington by “…the twelfth day of Christmas.”
Her confused assistant asked, “What’s that? It’s a song, right?”
“It’s a song, yes,” Skyler explained, “but it’s also the fifth evening of January, on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany which takes place on January 6th.”
“Why couldn’t you just say that you’re going to be back on January 5th?”
“Because I’m trying not to be boring. I’ll be back on or before January 5th. Okay? Happy with that?” Skyler consulted her calendar. “Except that day just so happens to be a Friday, so I might not be back until January 7th or 8th. We’ll see.”
That was met with blank stares.
“Listen guys, I don’t expect you to work the whole time I’m gone. The office will be closed from December 22nd through January 5th. So, you’ll have two whole glorious weeks off. Deal?”
They all nodded in agreement.
“But next week I’ll need you here to attend to a half a dozen things that we still have in the pipeline. I’ll be working remotely from Santa Fe, and you’ll need to remember that I’ll be two hours behind you. New Mexico is on Mountain Time.”
The team was capable enough and Skyler knew that most of her clients wouldn’t need hand holding during the holidays anyway. She sent the staff back to their respective desks and snuck upstairs to her bedroom to pack her luggage. Brenda had explained that Santa Fe was upscale, yet casual, so she skipped the fancy stuff and instead focused on jeans, corduroy slacks, cashmere sweaters, a puffy down jacket, hiking boots, and one long, semi-fancy dress, just in case. All the sexy and skimpy undergarments stayed in her closet drawers; without Leonard there, she decided she might as well be as comfortable as possible.
For the first time in decades, Skyler and her best friend hadn’t put a Christmas plan into place months in advance—it had been a frenetic year and everything was out of whack—so she was happy Brenda had finally come to the rescue. With her parents long gone, and her brother and his wife and kids planning to spend Christmas on the beaches of Hawaii, Skyler didn’t feel at all guilty about decamping to the southwestern desert for the holidays. She almost always celebrated the holidays with Brenda and it usually involved improvised decorations, a lot of wine, and some pretty spectacular meals, the benefit of having a world-class chef on hand. Brenda would whip up her buttery Christmas cookies and prepare a roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings on Christmas Day; they’d typically invite a combination of both new and old friends to join them, too. The previous year, they were in Manhattan for the festivities and when Skyler found out that Brenda didn’t have a tree or ornaments stored in her large loft, Skyler went out and bought a dozen boxes of colorful glass bulbs, spending close to $1,000 at an upscale second-hand store in Chelsea in order to create the most perfect, vintage Christmas
tree. And when they were in Rome a few years before that, Skyler decorated their hotel suite with construction paper snowflakes and they wandered down to St. Peter’s Square to listen to the Pope address the crowds and to marvel at a full nativity scene complete with live actors, a few donkeys, and a camel. It was quite magical.
Skyler didn’t know what to expect in Santa Fe, but she was up for the adventure. She made it a point to pack a half-dozen red velvet stockings to hang by the fireplace—she held out hope that there would be a fireplace on Christmas Eve—and she even stuffed a Santa hat into her suitcase for good measure. Her late, Christmas-loving mother would be so proud that she took the time to root around in the attic to find the decades-old inherited items. Even when the saint of a woman had given up on her battle with breast cancer, she climbed up the attic stairs that last winter to fetch and hang her most beloved decorations throughout her house; Skyler’s mother let absolutely nothing stop Christmas from being the most special time of the year and her daughter intended to make it as enchanted as she could, too, even if the circumstances weren’t ideal.
* * *
Georgia Reece sat by herself at a table set for three, in a back corner of The Compound restaurant, an upscale hot-spot just off of the storied Canyon Road, a few blocks from downtown Santa Fe. It was the first time she’d left her house since the place had been broken into and she was more than just a little bit nervous about being out in public. At home, she was surrounded by the newly installed, high-tech security perimeter that she’d spared no expense on, opting for every possible devise they offered: motion detectors, glass break sensors, door and window contacts, night vision security cameras inside and out, and panic buttons strategically placed throughout the large house. She had pressure sensors installed at the end of the long driveway, too, so she’d know the moment someone entered the property in a vehicle. A motorized driveway gate had been ordered, but it would be some days before it could be installed. She had a landscape lighting designer scheduled to come the next day; she planned to tastefully light every inch of the yard, with the added emergency option of blazing it up like the inside of a sports arena at a moment’s notice, if necessary. She was certain that she’d royally piss off the neighbors with that, but she didn’t care…and she hadn’t met them yet anyway.
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