by Bobbi Holmes
“I’m glad you’re going to be able to spend Christmas with your parents,” Danielle said.
When Danielle got into the Packard with Walt fifteen minutes later, she sat quietly in the passenger seat, thinking about her conversation with Elizabeth.
“What’s wrong?” Walt asked, noting her serious expression.
“I was just thinking about how I always feel sorry for myself at this time of year, because my parents are gone—I don’t have any siblings or cousins. But the fact is, even people who have a big family, it’s not a guarantee they’ll be with them for the holidays. I may not have any family beyond you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be surrounded by people—and spirits—I love this Christmas. And for that, I am sincerely blessed.”
Seven
Chris Johnson’s friend, neighbor and employee—Heather Donovan—called him stupidly good looking. When she said it, it never sounded like a compliment, and it wasn’t a lie. When Lily had first met him, she thought he looked like one of those models used on the covers of romance novels, with his vivid blue eyes, sandy-colored hair and hunky physique. When discussing his appearance with Danielle in the early stages of their friendship with Chris, Lily had also called him an underwear model. But to some—especially on those days Chris dressed down—he looked like a surfer bum.
Exhausted from that morning’s flight and the long drive from the Portland airport, Chris made no attempt to unpack the suitcase he had tossed on his bed along with his cellphone. When he had arrived back in Frederickport that afternoon, his first stop was to sign some real estate papers Adam had ready for him. The next stop was Heather’s house to pick up his dog, Hunny.
The moment he had walked in Heather’s front door and made some offhanded remark about being exhausted, she immediately reminded him it was entirely his own fault. Had he taken her suggestion—a suggestion she had made on countless occasions—he would have hired a driver and a private plane, and then the trip would have been less tiring. After all, he could easily afford it, considering the Glandon fortune.
However, he had already tried the private-plane route—with disastrous results; plus there was another reason for not chartering a plane or buying his own. Chris enjoyed meeting people, and he found it possible to meet the most interesting people on flights—each with their own story, often coming from faraway places or perhaps from his own town. He had initially met Melony Carmichael on a flight back from New York, and they had since become good friends. The reason for not buying a limousine and hiring a driver had more to do with the discomfort he felt when someone else was behind the wheel.
Glandon was his real surname, yet he chose to go by his adopted mother’s maiden name—Johnson—a more common name, making it easier for him to conceal his real identity. Most people believed he was simply an employee of the philanthropist Chris Glandon, founder of the Glandon Foundation.
Many people in Frederickport had already figured out Chris’s true identity, but they had chosen to keep that information to themselves and not share it with outsiders. They rather enjoyed having such a wealthy philanthropist living amongst them, especially when he frequently made generous donations to local causes.
Happy to have her human home, Hunny seemed unable to contain her energy. So instead of unpacking, Chris took the dog out the back door for a run along the beach. They were gone for almost an hour.
Chris hadn’t eaten anything since leaving the airport, and his stomach growled in protest. When he and Hunny returned from their walk, he went to the kitchen in search of food. Hunny sat quietly on the kitchen floor and watched as Chris searched his refrigerator for something edible. He pulled out a package of steak and gave it a sniff. Satisfied it was not going to kill him, he tossed it on the kitchen counter and then grabbed a cold beer. The dog plopped down on the floor, no longer sitting but now stretched out leisurely, watching Chris’s every move.
After opening the can of beer, Chris took a swig and set it on the counter. He picked up the package of meat and ripped it open, giving it another sniff just to be safe. He grabbed the bottle of olive oil sitting on the counter and poured a generous amount of it into the clean frying pan already sitting on his stove. He set the now open bottle of olive oil back on the counter and turned on the burner under the frying pan.
He watched the oil, waiting for it to heat up. When confident it was sufficiently hot, he tossed in the slab of steak, making the oil sizzle and pop. Hunny’s ears perked up at the sound. Chris absently tossed the now empty meat package on one of the unlit burners on the stove and grabbed a dishtowel off the counter and wiped off his hands.
The next moment, his cellphone began to ring from the bedroom. He tossed the dishcloth down and started to leave the kitchen to retrieve the phone and then remembered the sizzling pan. With a quick jaunt back to the stove, he hastily turned one of the control knobs before racing to his bedroom. When he got to the bedroom, Hunny was at his side. Chris picked up the phone and looked at the caller ID. It was Heather.
“Hey, Heather,” Chris answered, sitting on the edge of the bed. He reached down and stroked the top of Hunny’s head as the dog leaned against his legs.
“I forgot to ask you when you picked up Hunny, but when is your brother going to be here?” she asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon. I get to drive back to the airport to get him. Lucky me.”
“Do you need me to do anything for you? Help you get ready? Maybe run to the store and stock your fridge?”
Moving his cellphone away from his ear, he frowned at it briefly and then returned it to his ear. “That is a rather nice offer.”
“Oh, don’t take it personally. I just don’t want the poor guy to starve when he visits. I’ve seen what you keep in your refrigerator.”
Chris laughed. “Thanks. I’m planning to go to the store in the morning and pick up a few things before I head out to the airport. But I appreciate the offer.”
“Not going to offer to clean your place, but please tell me you at least vacuumed?” Heather asked.
“Now you’re making me feel like some helpless guy who can’t take care of himself.”
“Did you vacuum?” she pressed.
“If you must know, I hired Joanne to come over and clean this place while I was gone.”
“And did you get that smoke detector fixed? You can’t have your brother staying there if the smoke detectors don’t work.”
“Yes, I had them fixed,” Chris lied. He silently reminded himself to call the electrician on Monday.
Hunny suddenly jumped up and raced from the room. She started barking.
“What’s with Hunny?” Heather asked.
Chris glanced to the doorway and sniffed the air. What is that I smell? Phone in hand, still talking to Heather, he went to find out what Hunny was barking at. The moment he stepped into the hallway, he saw it—smoke.
Still holding the phone, he raced down to the kitchen and found not only the package he had tossed on the stove had been engulfed in flames, fire raged from the now charred steak. Yet what he found most troubling, the flames were currently feeding on his overhead cabinets and quickly racing toward his living room.
“Call the fire department. My kitchen’s on fire!” Chris yelled into the phone.
Standing with Heather, Hunny by his side, Chris looked up hopelessly at his house as he watched the firemen put out the last of the flames. His first priority had been getting Hunny safely outside. He had tried to go back into the house and use a fire extinguisher on the kitchen before the flames spread and did more damage, but each time he tried to go back inside, his protective dog insisted on following him. While Hunny normally obeyed Chris’s command to stay, this time she refused to leave his side.
By the time one of his neighbors had arrived to hold onto Hunny’s collar so he could go back inside his house, the fire had taken on a life of its own. Angry flames engulfed his home.
“Reminds me of Presley House,” Heather said dully. She watched as the beach house collapsed i
nto itself while dark smoke billowed from its remains. Fortunately the fire had not touched any of the neighboring houses.
Presley House, located in a nearby neighborhood, had once belonged to Heather’s family. It had burned down three years earlier on Halloween night. Heather, Danielle and Lily had barely escaped that fire, and the house—like Chris’s now—had been destroyed.
Chris groaned. “I can’t believe this happened.”
“What did happen?” Heather asked. “We were talking on the phone one minute, and then next you’re yelling for me to call the fire department.”
“I thought I turned the burner off when I went to answer the phone. But I must have turned the wrong one.”
Chris’s next-door neighbors to the north, the Crawfords, stood some distance away with some of the other neighbors, talking amongst themselves, watching the commotion, and expressing relief that none of their houses had caught on fire. Lily and Ian hurried up the street to Chris and Heather, with baby Connor wrapped in a warm blanket, held securely in Lily’s arms.
Marcella and Forrest had checked into the Seahorse Motel and had returned to the pier to get something to eat at Pier Café. They had just parked their car and were starting to walk down the pier when they heard the sirens. Curious, they took a detour and started up Beach Drive.
One of the first things they noticed—aside from the house fire down the street—there was a black Packard parked in front of Marlow House. Noticing how the neighbors on this street seemed to be all rushing outside and heading north to see the fire, they decided it might be an opportunity to take a closer look at Marlow House while everyone else’s attention would be focused elsewhere.
Just as they were one door down from the woman they had talked to earlier, they noticed her rushing out her front gate and heading up the street to the gathering crowd. Before they reached the Packard, a man and woman walked out the front door of Marlow House and hurried down the front walk, their attention on the commotion up the street.
Marcella and Forrest stopped walking and watched the couple. “That must be Walt and Danielle Marlow,” Marcella whispered to her husband. They started walking again, and when they reached the Packard, Marcella peeked inside, hoping the Marlows had carelessly left their purchase in the car, but she didn’t see anything.
“Let’s try that side gate,” Marcella whispered.
“With all these people?” Forrest asked.
“They’re all down the street. No one is going to look up here while all that is going on.”
“Looks like they have the fire about out.”
“Then we need to hurry!” She walked to the side gate and found it unlocked. Looking over her shoulder, she waved for her husband to follow. A moment later they entered the side yard of Marlow House. To Marcella’s delight, she discovered the back door was unlocked, so there was no need for her to climb through the pet door.
Marcella opened her purse and pulled out a pair of gloves. She looked at her husband and said, “I put these in my purse when we unpacked at the motel. I thought I might need them. I don’t want to leave fingerprints.” She handed her husband her purse and slipped on the gloves.
“I don’t have any gloves,” he said.
“You don’t need any. I’ll go inside. Stand guard out here. Warn me if you see anyone coming.”
Eight
By the time Danielle and Walt reached Chris’s house—or what was left of it—they found Chris in a conversation with Officer Brian Henderson. Heather stood silently to his right, with Hunny standing between them. The dog panted heavily as if she had just finished running. On the other side of Chris stood Lily and Ian, with Ian now holding a sleeping Connor while they listened to what Brian had to say. Nearby stood many of the other neighbors, including Pearl Huckabee, who glared at Hunny while calling out, “That dog is off a leash! Officer Henderson! That dog should be on a leash!”
Brian stopped talking to Chris for a moment and turned a frown to Pearl while Danielle greeted Chris with a comforting hug, and Walt patted his shoulder reassuringly.
“Mrs. Huckabee, your neighbor just lost his home,” Brian reminded her.
“Well, I am sorry about that. But there are laws, you know, and a dog like that should be restrained at all times before someone gets hurt!”
“I’m afraid Hunny’s leash was burned up in the fire,” Chris snapped.
“Then lock him up in your car until you can properly restrain him!” she shouted back.
Brian walked over to Hunny, leaned down, and said in a loud voice, “Do you intend to attack anyone?”
The next moment the dog jumped up and licked Brian’s face repeatedly, her butt wagging with what little tail she possessed. Brian laughed and scratched the dog under her ears, telling her to sit. She sat. Without a word Brian walked to his squad car, retrieved a small piece of rope, and handed it to Chris.
“You can use this for now to restrain that vicious dog of yours,” Brian told him.
Pearl glared at Brian but relaxed slightly when Chris looped one end of the rope under the collar, securing it by holding both ends in his hand. Hunny, unfazed by the rope, sat down by Chris’s feet.
“You and Hunny can stay with us tonight,” Danielle told him.
“There is no reason for that!” Pearl called out.
Chris’s friends turned to face Pearl.
“Excuse me?” Danielle said.
“He works for that foundation, doesn’t he?” Pearl answered. “I don’t see why he can’t just stay there. That place must have a hundred rooms, it’s so big. It used to be a house; surely there is a bedroom he can use.”
“For one thing, there are no beds in the building,” Heather snapped. “And for another, it really is none of your business.”
“It certainly is. Marlow House is no longer a boardinghouse,” Pearl reminded her. “They can’t be taking in boarders,” Pearl insisted.
“It was never a boardinghouse,” Lily corrected.
“Then Chris can stay with me,” Heather said stubbornly.
“That would be totally improper!” Pearl sputtered. “Do you really wish to have your reputation in shreds? You, as a single woman, living with your boss? You don’t want to do that.”
“I have a reputation?” Heather smirked.
“Okay, then Chris can stay in a motel, and Hunny can stay with us, since I doubt the hotel would allow the dog,” Danielle suggested. Walt flashed her a questioning look and then realized she was baiting their neighbor.
“No!” Pearl shouted. “Absolutely not. I do not want that pit bull next door to me! It is bad enough I’ve had to put up with it being down the street!”
Danielle chuckled and said, “Yes, I rather thought that was the real issue.”
“Mrs. Huckabee, we have had this conversation before; there is nothing illegal about the Marlows taking in a houseguest,” Brian reminded her. “And there are no regulations against pit bulls in Frederickport. Plus, Hunny is an extremely well-behaved dog, and I have never witnessed her displaying any aggression.”
They were interrupted when one of the firemen came out of the house and walked up to Chris with news on what they had found inside.
“It looks like the fire started at the stove, as you suspected,” the fireman told Chris. “There were two burners all the way on. When you left the room, it must have overheated and—”
“You walked out of your kitchen with the stove on!” Pearl shrieked.
The fireman stopped talking and with the others turned to face Pearl.
“You could have burned down the entire neighborhood! You could have killed someone! You careless man! I don’t want you living next door to me!” Pearl ranted.
Brian rolled his eyes and walked to Pearl, taking her by an elbow and ushering her away from the other neighbors. He began whispering to her, but what he was saying, Chris and his friends could not hear.
“I’m sorry about that,” the fireman said. “Considering all that you’ve been through today, you certainl
y don’t need someone screaming at you right now. I need to go back inside and finish up. We can talk later.”
When the fireman walked away, Lily whispered, “Who would have thought Brian Henderson would end up being Chris’s champion?”
Danielle chuckled. “Yeah, I like him a lot better these days now that he’s no longer trying to throw one of us in jail.”
Heather looked over at Pearl, who now looked as if she had just eaten a lemon as Brian continued to talk to her.
“Times like this I wish I had Walt’s gift,” Heather told her friends in a whisper. “I’d give her a good swift kick in the butt about now.”
“I can’t be manhandling women—especially an older woman,” Walt told her. “It simply is not very gentlemanly.”
“Well, I am no gentleman,” Heather reminded him.
“Sometimes your violent tendencies are endearing,” Chris told Heather. “As long as you aren’t punching me in the arm.”
“I told you,” Heather said primly, “I am not going to do that anymore. I realized that if I were a guy and you were a woman, and I punched you in the arm when you irritated me, well, I would probably get arrested. So, if it is not right for a man to hit a woman, then I suppose it is just as wrong for a woman to punch a man.”
“I thought you just said you wanted me to kick Pearl?” Walt asked with a laugh.
Heather shrugged. “You can’t expect me to change overnight, can you? I am a work in progress.”
They all laughed and Lily said, “I have to say, I sort of agree with Heather. Wish I could give that woman a good smack. She is annoying.”