Sugarplum Way

by Debbie Mason

  “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, but if I’ve been of some help, I’m glad.”

  “Hopefully we can wrap this up, and I’ll be back by—” He broke off at a banging on the door. He opened it to Ava, Sophie, and Lexi, the three women glaring at him in varying degrees of severity.

  “What are you doing here when Julia is in jail?”

  “How could you let them put her in jail?”

  “Why haven’t you apologized to her for being such a jerk and breaking up with her?”

  He wasn’t sure which of the jail questions came from Sophie or Ava, but the jerk question definitely came from Lexi. “First of all, Julia isn’t in jail. She refused to come in for questioning. And I got yelled at by her father. Secondly—” He felt a tug on his jacket.

  “Daddy, you didn’t break up with Julia, did you?”

  “Yes, pumpkin, I did. But it was a mistake. A really big mistake, and Daddy’s going to make it up to her.”

  His daughter wrinkled her nose like she didn’t think he was up for the task. “Maybe I should help you.”

  “I have a feeling he’s going to need all of our help, Ella Rose,” Sophie said.

  “I don’t know if we’re up for it, ladies. Sounds to me like this is a job for Santa Claus.” Lexi held up her phone. “Because according to my source at HHPD, one Julia Landon was brought in by Mr. Bradford, who made a citizen’s arrest when she was putting out her garbage at midnight.”

  As Aidan found out as soon as he arrived at HHPD, Lexi hadn’t been joking. He walked into the chief’s office without knocking. “Chief, what the hell’s going on? Why is Julia in lockup?”

  Focused as he was on Benson behind his desk, Aidan didn’t notice the man sitting on the two-seater couch right away. He looked like Jeff Bridges in Hell or High Water, except bigger, a lot bigger.

  Nodding an apology at the man, Aidan said to his boss, “Sorry. I didn’t know you had someone in with you.”

  Aidan didn’t understand why Benson appeared to be holding back a grin. “Detective Gallagher, this is Julia’s father, Sheriff Beauregard Landon.”

  Okay, so that explained the grin. Benson was probably glad he wasn’t in Aidan’s shoes. Aidan wished he wasn’t standing in them either when Julia’s father rose from the couch. He was even bigger than Aidan had first thought, and he didn’t look happy to see him.

  As though the sheriff read his thoughts, he said, “We grow ’em big in Texas. You should see my three boys, all bigger than me. Fierce sons of a gun, rip a man in two for just giving their baby sister the side-eye.” He hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans and rocked on his cowboy boots.

  Aidan prepared himself as he stepped toward the man with his hand extended. Julia’s father looked down, grinning as he took Aidan’s hand and then proceded to crush it in his bear-size paw.

  “Sir, Julia and I have had some problems…” Oh, Jesus, he forced himself to continue, his voice sounding like it did before it changed when he was twelve. “But I love your daughter. I’m going to make it up to her…”

  He nearly fell to his knees when the sheriff released him. “I’ll just, uh, take a seat here, I think,” Aidan said, rubbing his throbbing hand as he pulled the chair in front of the chief’s desk around.

  Benson covered a laugh with a cough.

  “Sheriff, I don’t know what Julia’s told you, but—”

  “Everything. She told me everything.” The man had taken a seat. Elbows resting on his knees, he leaned forward to skewer Aidan with a hard look. “My baby girl is just a bit of a thing, but me and my boys trained her well. She can shoot better than most men and take down someone even bigger than you.”

  “I’ve had personal experience with Julia’s self-defense moves. No, no…” He raised his hands when her father’s expression went nuclear. “It wasn’t like that. I was worried about her, and she wanted to prove to me that she could take care of herself.”

  Aidan glanced at his boss, who was pretending to be looking at his computer screen but was silently laughing his ass off.

  “My girl might be able to protect herself physically, but she’s never been good at protecting her heart. She has a tender heart, and it’s been broken twice already. Once when her mama died and next when Winters took his life.” His eyes narrowed at Aidan.

  “I know I hurt your daughter, and I will do whatever I have to to make it right between us. I should have handled it better, but Julia kept something from me.” He could tell by her father’s expression he was just making things worse by dancing around the issue, so he told him everything.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, son. Things might have gone better between you and my daughter if you’d taken a day or two to think things through before you talked to her. I don’t know if this helps, but Julia has had a thing about telling someone else’s secret since she was twelve.”

  “When her mom died,” Aidan said.

  Her father nodded, looking at him differently now. “She told you about her mama, did she?”

  “A little. I got the feeling she was holding something back though.”

  “My wife was bipolar. Up until Julia was twelve, we’d gotten by okay. Medication managed the mania…” The sheriff looked down at his big hands and twisted the gold band on his finger. “I was away. My oldest was staying with his mama and sister. He got called out, didn’t think he’d be long. My wife decided to have a party. Julia saw things she shouldn’t, and then Emmie decided they needed to go to the bar. Julia wouldn’t let her go. Emmie lost it on Julia when she hid the keys to the truck, pretty much destroying the house looking for them. She’d worked herself into a frenzy and hit Julia.” He gave his head a slight shake as though trying to clear the memory. “We’d kept my wife’s illness from her. So you can imagine how terrified she’d been…” He cleared his throat. “Julia tried to hide it from us. But about a week later, she came to me and told me her secret. I loved my wife, but things were spiraling out of control. I’d heard about a facility a couple hundred miles from where we live and brought Emmie there. My wife never came home. She had a reaction to a new medication they tried and died.”

  Aidan rubbed his hand over his mouth, releasing a heavy breath. He understood why her dad had told him. It made perfect sense that the long-ago event had played a role in Julia keeping Josh’s secret. She’d told her father her mother’s secret and as a result of that Emmeline Landon had been sent away and then had tragically died. Julia might not have even realized that the past event had played a role in her need to keep Josh’s secret. But you don’t go through something like that without it leaving a mark. What she’d suffered as a little girl… Well, that just slayed him. He cleared the emotion from his voice. “I’m sorry for your loss, sir. Unbelievably sorry that Julia had to go through that, that you all did. I’m glad you told me though. I needed to know.”

  “I have a feeling she’ll talk to you about it one day. She adored her mama. Everyone did. There was something special about Emmeline She was extraordinary, magical almost.”

  “Like her daughter.”

  The sheriff smiled and nodded. “We worried sometimes, me and her brothers, that she was too much like her mother. Probably stepped in it a time or two, making her feel bad about being a little different. But she just kept dancing to the beat of her own drum. She got only the best of her mama.”

  The chief, who’d been talking quietly on the phone throughout the rest of their conversation, disconnected. “It looks like we might have a problem getting Julia out of jail. Mr. Bradford has gotten Hazel, the mayor,” Benson said for the sheriff’s benefit, “and Judge Monahan on his side.”

  “What they don’t have is evidence. I know for a fact my daughter isn’t involved.”

  Aidan narrowed his eyes at Julia’s father. “Because you know who is, don’t you?”

  “No, sorry, can’t help you there,” the sheriff said, rubbing his earlobe between his thumb and forefinger.

  Aidan snorted. “Now I know
who she got it from. And I know why your daughter is lying, but I don’t know why you are unless… One of your sons came with you, didn’t they? He’s looking for Lenny right now while you’re stalling us.”

  Julia’s father let loose a loud, rumbling laugh and slapped his own thigh. “You might just keep one step ahead of my baby girl after all.” The sheriff looked over at Benson. “He’s sharp. You probably shouldn’t fire him.”

  There was a knock, and the office door opened. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need Aidan, Chief.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Your grandmother and sisters-in-law are here demanding we release Julia. They’re getting a little rowdy. And, um”—he glanced at the chief, his cheeks flushing—“Mrs. DiRossi brought cupcakes for the prisoner, I mean Julia, and we found a knife in one of them. Am I supposed to arrest Mrs. DiRossi for that? If I am, could someone else please do it?”

  The sheriff chuckled. “I’m starting to see what my girl likes about this town.”

  He stopped laughing when another officer poked his head in the door. “The mayor just reported Delaney Davis missing. And, sir, a man by the name of Wyatt Landon has been taken to the hospital with a concussion and superficial injuries. You might want to talk to him. He says the man responsible for his injuries is the man we’re looking for.”

  * * *

  Her father, who sat in the passenger side of Aidan’s black sedan, turned to look at Julia. She’d refused to sit in the front seat. “Now, little bit, Aidan is just trying to keep you safe.”

  “Lenny wouldn’t hurt me.”

  Aidan looked at her in the rearview. “You don’t know that. He hurt your brother.”

  She briefly closed her eyes, thankful that her brother’s injuries weren’t worse. She wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself if something terrible had happened to him. Her father and brother had gotten on a plane almost the minute after her dad had spoken to Aidan yesterday. She was the one who’d told her brother all the places Lenny could be.

  “Aidan’s right. Your friend Lenny isn’t just a homeless man with mental health issues. He’s a former Ranger. He’s dangerous.”

  “Don’t talk about him like that. He’s not just a homeless man with mental health issues. He’s an amazingly talented artist who was wounded, maybe not physically, but here”—she touched her head—“fighting for us. He’s my friend, and he’s a good person. The men out looking for him need to know that. You should let me help. I—”

  “No,” her father and Aidan said at almost the same time, and then smiled at each other.

  She groaned at the evidence that the two men had bonded. “I’m beginning to think you shouldn’t have come, Daddy.”

  He grinned over his shoulder, knowing exactly why. “I like this one, Little Bit. He’ll take good care of you. Keep you from disappearing into your fairy-tale world.”

  “I make a living disappearing into my fairy-tale world, thank you very much.”

  He reached back and patted her knee. “We know you do. Me and your brothers are proud of you.”

  “Thank you. That’s nice to hear. Now, does someone want to tell me where we’re going?” She didn’t ask Aidan directly because she wasn’t speaking to him. He’d hurt her. Deeply. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk being hurt by him again.

  Aidan raised an eyebrow at her in the rearview mirror before saying, “Yes, someone would be happy to tell you if you asked them directly.”

  She pursed her lips and met his gaze.

  Her father chuckled and looked out the window as they drove past clusters of snow-covered trees.

  “We’re meeting up with everyone at the old O’Hurley place.”

  Julia gasped. “I’m not staying there. That’s where Paige died and…” She trailed off, leaving unsaid the woman you shot.

  “We’re not. We’re meeting up with everyone there, and then my brothers will drive the vehicles back to the manor. Grams suggested an old house on the estate. It’s about a mile in the woods. No one knows about it, so it’s unlikely Lenny is aware of it.”

  Ten days ago, the thought of spending Christmas Eve in a house in the woods with Aidan would have had her dancing in the street. Now she wasn’t sure how she felt. “You keep saying everyone. Who are you talking about?”

  “We made a list of potential targets. People Lenny might go after because he believes that in some way they’ve hurt you.”

  “Aidan’s grandmother and her friend Rosa were very helpful.” Her father grinned. He was a bit of a flirt, and Julia had felt the need to warn him away from the two older women back at the station. She wasn’t sure if her admonishment had worked.

  She smiled at Aidan and asked him sweetly, “Are you on the top of the list?”

  “Yeah, so that means I’m not taking any chances with Ella Rose’s safety. Harper’s coming too. Hazel refused. There’s a detail on the town hall and her house. The chief is coming along for added backup. And for the same reason you’re going into protection, so is Maggie. And my dad.”

  If she hadn’t been sure how she felt about spending Christmas Eve in the woods before, she did now. “This is going to be the worst Christmas Eve ever.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The only sound in the old, abandoned house was the wind whistling down the chimney and the fire crackling in the grate. William Gallagher, Aidan’s great-grandfather many times over, had gifted the gray wooden two-story to his best friend and fellow mariner Francis Kavanagh. The house had remained in the Kavanagh family until a decade ago, when Aidan’s grandfather Ronan reappropriated it.

  The four-bedroom home was a simple box style. Its wide pine floors and fireplaces and mantels dated back to the seventeen hundreds. According to his Grams, no one had been out to the place in years, which was obvious from the amount of dust that had collected on the sheets that had been covering the overstuffed furniture in the living room. The old-fashioned harvest gold appliances in the good-sized kitchen were in working order. And after airing out the place for twenty minutes when they first arrived, the smell of dust and disuse had lifted.

  Now it smelled like the wood smoke emitting from the stone fireplace Aidan sat beside in the rocking chair with Ella Rose in his lap. She had on her pajamas, but he doubted she was going to bed anytime soon.

  “It doesn’t feel like Christmas, Daddy. We’re missing all the fun at the manor.”

  “I know, pumpkin. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, okay?” He felt the weight of someone’s stare and looked to where Julia had curled up on the end of the couch. She was watching him and Ella Rose.

  He could almost see her brain clicking, her imagination kicking in as she looked around. She glanced at their housemates. Everyone, other than Benson and Julia’s dad, who were playing chess at the kitchen table, was sitting in their own corner. No one talking, no one exchanging glances. They were either on their phones or reading a book.

  Julia rose from the couch and walked over. “You’re right, Ella Rose. It doesn’t feel like Christmas. But if you help me, I think we can fix that. What do you say?”

  Ella Rose nodded enthusiastically. “Can my daddy help too?”

  “Of course, and so can your mommy and your grandpa. In fact, everyone’s going to help. Do you hear that, people? We have a Christmas to plan.”

  Harper groaned as loud as the men, but that didn’t stop her from pitching in. Julia gave everyone a task. She broke them into groups. She put Aidan with Harper, but he took it upon himself to reorganize so that he ended up with his daughter and Julia instead. They were on the hunt for anything that resembled a Christmas decoration or could be made to look like one. A tree had been at the top of the list. His dad and Maggie were to look for anything that could be fashioned into Christmas gifts, specifically gifts that would appeal to a seven-year-old little girl. The chief, Harper, and the sheriff were in charge of food.

  Aidan tried everything he could think of to win over Julia. He went out in the bitter cold with the wi
nd whistling through the trees and chopped down an evergreen. He made decorations with paper and tinfoil plates. He complimented Julia on everything she did, and he was being sincere. She really did see magic in the little things, and if you looked long enough, she could make you believe that you saw it too. But she no longer believed or trusted him, and he was beginning to think she no longer loved him either.

  Ella Rose did her best to help him. She praised everything he did, insisting that Julia do the same. When that didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere, his daughter pulled a twig off the tree and held it over their heads, claiming it was mistletoe. Julia laughed and gave Ella Rose a kiss instead. At least that was something: He didn’t have to worry about the woman he loved and his daughter getting along. He felt like a third wheel.

  His dad, on the other hand, was batting a thousand. He and Maggie were supposedly in one of the bedrooms upstairs wrapping their presents. The squeak of bedsprings seemed to suggest otherwise.

  At the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen, he looked over to see the chief gazing at Harper like he’d been given the best present ever. Harper was drinking in the attention, sparkling with laughter. Julia’s dad looked at them like he’d been given a couple of duds as partners and went back to searching the cupboards. Aidan was beginning to think he should have partnered with the sheriff.

  The ringing of the chief’s cell broke up Benson and Harper’s flirting session. The older man was grim-faced when he disconnected and motioned for Aidan.

  “Mr. Bradford’s missing. One of the officers who was watching his house is gone too. The other one is on the way to the hospital. Similar injuries to Wyatt Landon,” the chief told Aidan.

  “You two are needed in town. I can handle things here,” Julia’s dad said.

  Aidan’s father joined them, holding up his phone. “Just got word winds have brought down a couple of power lines. Station’s overrun with calls. I have to get back. Liam’s coming to get me on the snowmobile. Do you need a ride out?”

  “Yeah.” Aidan glanced at Ella Rose sitting between Harper and Julia, who were making up a Christmas story for his daughter. Julia caught his eye and rolled hers. Apparently, she didn’t think Harper was holding up her end. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this. It’s just you and three women and my little girl.”