5 Mischief in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  I couldn’t pretend anymore.

  I wasn’t going to win the Junction this year anyway. Pepper had me beat. I knew it. She knew it. And the entire town knew it. Everyone already understood how today’s competition would end. There was no use in going through the motions.

  I had better things to do today than to fall to Pepper in front of the whole of Christmas River. Like lie on the sofa and watch an old movie marathon on Turner Classic.

  “So you’re not going?”

  I craned my neck over the back of the sofa. Daniel was standing by the door, dressed in his Sheriff’s uniform, a thermos of coffee in his hand.

  “There isn’t any point.”

  Daniel walked over to the sofa, staring for a moment at the television, and then back down at me.

  “Hmm,” he grunted. “You sure you want to spend the day with Robert Osborne here? Not that there’s anything wrong with Robert. It’s just that he might be a little old for you.”

  I shrugged.

  “He’s the best option I’ve got right now,” I said. “She’s going to win anyway. That house of hers is a work of art. The judges are going to lose their minds over it.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” he said. “Last I saw, that Dr. Zhivago house of yours was a work of art too.”

  “Not like hers,” I said. “You should see it, Daniel. If you did, you’d understand.”

  He shrugged.

  “If you want to be that way, then,” he said, leaning down and kissing the top of my head.

  I had expected him to fight me more on it, but instead, he just grabbed his Sheriff’s duffel bag from off the counter and then headed for the door.

  “I’ve gotta run, Cin,” he said. “I’m going to go talk to Deirdre Hamilton like you asked. Call me if you need anything, all right? I’ll be around.”

  “Okay,” I said, numbly.

  I listened to the creak of the front door. Then I heard the sliding of the lock behind him.

  Then there was nothing but an achingly hollow silence in the house.

  I closed my eyes, trying to push it all out of my mind.

  But it was like pushing a boulder uphill.

  It just all came rolling back at me, even stronger than before.

  Chapter 47

  It was movies-from-the-1960s marathon day on Turner Classic Movies.

  Robert Osborne was wrapping up a movie and talking about the era of revisionist Westerns, and I had just closed my eyes, starting to slip away into dreamland, when the jingle of my phone jarred me awake.

  I reached over without opening my eyes, grabbing it off the coffee table. I squinted at the caller ID.

  What was he doing calling me from his phone?

  He never called from his cell. If he did use a phone, he usually called from a landline over there. But most of the time, we talked on Skype as a way to save money and avoid hefty international call charges.

  Had something happened? Was there an emergency?

  I quickly answered, tightening my grip on the plastic and pressing the phone hard against my ear.

  “Grandpa?” I said.

  “Cinny Bee?” he said.

  “Is everything okay over there?”

  “No,” he said. “Something terrible has happened.”

  I felt my stomach drop the length of the Space Needle.

  This was it. This was the call that I’d been dreading since the old man boarded a plane to Scotland a year ago. The one telling me that he’d fallen down a narrow flight of Scottish stairs or been beaten up by hooligans in a Scottish pub or had a medical emergency and was now laid up in a Scottish hospital, clinging to his very life.

  “What… what happened?” I squeaked out, the strength draining from my voice.

  He didn’t answer right away.

  “Grandpa? What happened?” I asked again.

  “Well, I tell you what happened,” he said. “The queen of the Gingerbread Junction has gone and quit on herself. Now in my book, that’s about as terrible as it gets.”

  Chapter 48

  After I found my voice again, I let Warren have it.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack over here, old man,” I said, having trouble keeping the anger out of my tone. “I thought it was something serious.”

  “This is serious,” he said. “My granddaughter is letting some silly croissant maker get the best of her. And you know what the worst part of it is? My granddaughter’s not even going to give it a shot. She’s just holding up her hands saying ‘You win. I give up.”

  I bit my lower lip.

  “You don’t understand, Grandpa,” I said. “I just can’t do it. Not today…”

  I trailed off.

  “It’s all meaningless anyway.”

  “Cin,” he said, taking in a deep breath. “I know you’re hurting. I know that you think this fancy croissant maker has got the better of you. And I know what that little pooch means to you, too. But if you let them take away your dog and your passion for the things you love doing, then they’ve won. Don’t you see that?”

  I sighed.

  This was Daniel’s doing. Instead of talking to me, he’d gone behind my back and told Warren that I wasn’t going to compete, knowing that the old man would try to rally my spirits.

  Daniel was playing dirty.

  “I know,” I said. “But—”

  “Now you being my granddaughter, I know that you’ve already done one of them cookie houses up right,” Warren said, interrupting me. “It’s probably just sitting there at your shop now, all ready to go. Alls you have to do is go over there, pick it up, and go to the competition. As easy as one, two, three.”

  “Grandpa, it’s not that—”

  “Oh yes it is,” he said. “You’ve got rivers of that strength deep inside of you, Cinny Bee. I know because I raised you. Now’s the time to find ‘em and fish some of that strength out.”

  I shook my head.

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Cin,” he said. “You’ll regret it if you don’t. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday soon, you’ll regret…”

  I suddenly found that I was no longer listening to Warren’s pep talk.

  Something had caught my attention on TV, and my eyes drifted over toward the flat screen.

  A familiar scene played out. A still life painting of aspen trees with the word “Overture” appeared on the screen.

  A moment later, the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up, as if a lightning storm was passing overhead.

  A beautiful, haunting song played over the speakers. That sweeping, passion-filled melody that spoke of love and poetry and all the things that made life worth living.

  I almost gasped.

  What were the odds?

  “Cin, you still there?” Warren said.

  I swallowed hard, struggling to find the words.

  “So are you gonna go or what?”

  I watched as the overture faded and the opening scene of Dr. Zhivago danced across the screen.

  I wasn’t sure if it was a sign, or divine intervention, or some cosmic coincidence.

  But whatever it was, I knew that if I didn’t listen to what it was telling me, I’d regret it.

  Warren was right.

  I would regret letting them have that kind of power over me.

  I’d regret letting them take my passion away from me.

  I took in a deep breath.

  “Yes,” I finally said, my voice growing strong. “You’re right, Grandpa. I don’t have a choice anymore. I’m going.”

  I couldn’t see him, but I was almost certain that his old weathered face stretched into a bright smile just then.

  “That’s the Cinny Bee I know,” he said.

  Chapter 49

  I fought my way through the drifts of fresh snow in the high school parking lot, trying to go as fast as I could while balancing a 30-pound, three-story gingerbread ice palace in my arms.

  When I had screeched into the lot five minutes earli
er, every single parking space was taken. I had been forced to park my Escape a few streets down and hike it in, slipping and sliding on the slushy snow while cradling the cookie house like it was a child.

  But for all the cars in the lot, the place was as abandoned as an old junkyard.

  Everybody was already inside.

  From the auditorium, the deep voice of this year’s host boomed over the intercom. He was introducing the judges. Loud cheering echoed across the parking lot.

  “And lastly, we have Julianne Redding on the panel. A retired chef, Julianne has a decade of experience judging gingerbread houses. She’s a lady who’s seen it all. This woman practically dreams in licorice, gumdrops, and peppermint candies. When Julianne’s not judging gingerbread artistry, she’s…”

  I picked up the pace, my snow boots digging hard into the melting snow. Usually I dressed up for the competition, opting for fancy boots, a skirt and a nice sweater most years. But less than twenty minutes ago I’d been lying on the couch, having boarded the train to dreamland. Given that, I figured I’d done pretty decently for myself.

  I could hone sweats tucked into snow boots in public, just so long as my sloppy style hadn’t all been for nothing.

  I ran up to the front entrance. The metal doors were closed shut, and nobody appeared to be inside to help.

  I tried backing up into the door, hooking the handle with my elbow and prying it open that way. But that didn’t work. I tried balancing the gingerbread house with one hand to free up my other one, but it started tipping back and forth like a seesaw. I placed my hand back just at the last second before losing my grip, saving the ice palace from shattering all over the concrete.

  Another round of loud cheering erupted from inside, and my heart started fluttering like pine needles in the wind.

  As stated on the registration form I had turned in, if I didn’t get inside the auditorium before the judging commenced, then I would be disqualified.

  I started banging on the doors with my elbows, shouting like a nut in a looney bin.

  “Anybody there?!” I cried.

  There was nothing. Just the MC’s voice drifting out.

  “And now, the five judges will go house by house, critiquing each creation based on originality, difficulty, and execution.”

  “Let me in!” I shouted, my throat thick with emotion.

  But nobody came.

  I looked around quickly, searching for any place to set the gingerbread house down while I opened the heavy metal doors.

  But I quickly surmised that my only option would be the ground.

  I began slowly lowering the heavy cookie house. I let out a sharp gasp as one of the spires on the cookie dome began leaning off to one side.

  I stopped lowering it, afraid if I went any farther, the whole dome might be brought down.

  Was this where it ended for me? Out here, pounding on a metal door in my sweats? Having no one to blame but myself for missing out on the judging?

  In that moment, I realized just how badly I really wanted to win the competition this year.

  I wanted it more badly than I wanted those red Lucchese boots from the Cowgirl Depot.

  I wanted to show the town just what I was made of.

  To prove to them that I still had it. No matter who else was competing.

  But it was all over. I’d sabotaged myself. The judging had started, and I was—

  There was a noise on the other side of the door. Then, it began to open, its heavy metal hinges squeaking loudly.

  I looked up, a flicker of hope in my heart.

  I could have kissed him then.

  “We were starting to get worried,” he said, the hint of a smile on his face.

  I let out a sigh.

  “You’re a lifesaver, Brad,” I said. “A lifesaver.”

  He grabbed one side of the cookie house base, and helped me carry it through the door. We picked up the pace, my snow boots slapping hard against the linoleum floor.

  A moment later, we had made it to the auditorium.

  Morgan Brenneke sat at the check-in table, eyeing me up and down.

  “It’s Cinnamon Peters,” I choked out, taking in shallow breaths. “And I’m here with my entry.”

  “I know who you are,” Morgan said.

  She crossed her arms, giving me a sharp look, as if I had just spoken back to her in her history class.

  “You’re very, very late, Ms. Peters,” she said. “You should have been listening better to the rules on registration day.”

  My stomach dropped.

  She paused, her attention now on my gingerbread house.

  She looked back at me.

  “But you’re lucky,” she said. “You made it by just a hair.”

  I looked at Brad, and then let out a long sigh of relief.

  I had made it.

  “You’re on the south side of the auditorium,” she said, pointing behind me. “Spot number 73.”

  I nodded quickly, then Brad and I carried the cookie house down the steps, weaving our way through the throngs of people.

  A few moments later, we set the Dr. Zhivago cookie ice palace down on spot number 73.

  I gave Brad a big, grateful hug. He looked a little taken aback by it, but I didn’t care.

  He’d saved my neck just now.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Pepper was standing just a few feet away from me in spot number 74, her eyes glued to my gingerbread house.

  And for the first time since I’d met her, Pepper wasn’t smiling.

  No.

  Pepper Posey looked like she’d just been punched in the gut.

  Chapter 50

  “Listen, Cin,” he said, just barely above a whisper. “As much as I like being here to support you, cookie houses aren’t exactly my cup of tea. I’m here because I really need to talk to you.”

  Brad shot a paranoid glance over my shoulder, as if he was afraid someone was listening.

  I looked over at Kara.

  “You’re really going to want to hear this,” she said in a dead serious tone.

  I furrowed my brow.

  “Can we go out in the hall?” Brad asked.

  The judges had just come by, all five of them doing a very thorough inspection of my Dr. Zhivago ice palace. They had taken copious notes while asking me difficult questions on the concept behind the house. Their stoic expressions had been hard to read. Julianne Redding in particular had a cold and empty expression on her face that surprised me a little bit. In years past, she’d always been the nicest of the judges. Yet she’d hardly acknowledged I was there. But I tried not to take it personally: with Harley’s disappearance, I knew that she hadn’t been herself lately.

  Besides, the judges had treated all the contestants distantly this year, including Pepper.

  A wave of relief had coursed through my tired muscles when the judges had finished looking at my gingerbread house, moving on down the line. I realized that no matter what happened: whether or not I won, and whether or not Pepper Posey proved that she was better than me, at least I could take pride in the fact that I hadn’t given up. I hadn’t been beaten, even if I didn’t end up taking home the $500.

  Pepper’s house was, hands down, the most beautiful gingerbread house I had ever seen. Shimmering with silvery pastels, sugar ice sculptures, and lit up with colorful lights from the inside, her gingerbread dog house was nothing short of magic. It was more than gingerbread: it was a work of art. I couldn’t deny it, and neither could the crowds. Out of all the gingerbread houses on display this year, hers drew in the biggest throng of spectators. People were ogling her cookie dog house like it was made out of 24 karat gold.

  And Pepper deserved all that attention. Just like she deserved the attention from folks for her delicious pies and pastries. Quality was quality, and if anything, her talent should have been an inspiration for me to step up my own game.

  From here on out, I wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity, afraid that Pepper Posey was a better
baker and business woman than me. I wasn’t going to lie on the couch, feeling defeated, anymore. Instead, I was going to do everything I could to do better, to set higher standards for myself. To do the best that I could, no matter what new pie shop sprang up in Christmas River.

  And I most certainly wasn’t going to lie down and let Pepper take all my customers. That just wasn’t the kind of gal Cinnamon Peters was, contrary to the way she’d been acting recently.

  I was going to fight. Even if it meant standing out on the sidewalk in the cold wearing elf shoes myself, offering free samples of pie.

  I was thinking about all of this when Brad and Kara had come up to me, both of them with serious and dour expressions on their face.

  Brad led me up the steps and out into the hallway, which was mostly deserted. The hustle and bustle coming from the auditorium echoed down the corridor.

  He started pacing nervously.

  “First off, I just want to say that I detest finger-pointing,” he said. “I’m not the type to accuse a person of something without having all the facts. I think people are too quick to jump to conclusions in this day and age. That’s what I think, anyway.”

  I nodded slowly, unable to guess at what this could possibly be in relation to.

  He rubbed his beard, and then let out a short sigh.

  “But having said that…”

  He lowered his voice.

  “Cin, there’s something important I’ve got to tell you about. Something that you need to know.”

  He paused, and I waited for him to continue.

  He let out an unsteady breath, and dug his hands deep into the pockets of his tapered jeans.

  He was as uneasy as I’d ever seen him.

  “What is it, Brad?” I finally said.

  “It has to do with those missing dogs,” he said, his eyes reaching for the ceiling. “I think… I think Pepper Posey might be the one behind the disappearances.”

  Chapter 51

  I’d been to over twenty Gingerbread Junction competitions in my time as a gingerbread artist, and never before had there been so much disagreement amongst the judges.