Jingle all the Slay

by Dakota Cassidy

  When a reporter approached and asked him how he felt about taking homes from the elderly, he’d scowled harder at her and narrowed his small eyes. “I guess they should have worked harder instead of relying on the government for a paycheck,” he’d growled before pushing his way through the group of journalists.

  In other words, Hilroy was a real mothertrucker.

  Hobbs came back to the island and began to roll out another batch of dough, his strong hands using the rolling pin like a pro. “I think your grandparents would be proud ’cause it sure is real pretty out there.”

  “Thank you. That’s nice of you to say, Hobbs. I work hard to keep up with the traditions my family started, but it isn’t always easy because, as you can see, there are a lot of lights involved in this production.”

  Stiles snorted. “Tell me about it. Because you know what else, Hobbs? If a light’s out? I’m usually the one she cons into getting on a ladder and fixing it.”

  Hobbs laughed and bounced his head as he applied more flour to the rolling pin. “She’s pretty good at it, too. She conned me into getting up on the roof to reposition Santa the other day.”

  I poked Stiles in the arm with a smile. “Well, you are family. That means it’s your tradition, too. And you…” I pointed at Hobbs. “I made you a turkey and cranberry sandwich for your troubles. It wasn’t all for naught.”

  “Why do you always think food is going to make everything better if one of us falls off the roof and breaks a leg, Hal?” Stiles asked, spreading some red icing on a freshly baked cookie.

  Stiles had been a permanent fixture in our lives since we’d become friends. He’d been there when both of my grandparents died and when my mother passed. They’d all loved him probably as much as they’d loved me.

  “A turkey and cranberry sandwich could make a liver transplant better,” I defended. “Now, before we talk about anything else, are you okay, Hobbs? I saw you talking to the officers at the ice festival, but the scene was pretty grim from where I was standing. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like to see it up close.”

  Hobbs sighed as he set a cookie cutter on the dough and pressed down. “It sure wasn’t fun, I can tell you that much.”

  And? I wanted to ask, but felt as though it might sound like I was rubbernecking.

  “I heard there were reindeer hoofprints all over the guy,” Stiles commented. “I probably shouldn’t say that, seeing as I’m Marshmallow Hollow PD, but it’ll be all over the papers by tomorrow anyway, so I guess it won’t matter a whole worth a darn.”

  My stomach dove to the floor. Had the prints been from Nana?

  Of course they hadn’t. That didn’t make any sense at all. She wouldn’t stomp someone to death. She might run them ragged as they chased after her, but she’d never hurt anyone. Plus, Hilroy had been bleeding from the head. That, from all the shows I’d watched recently, was probably what killed him.

  Still, it didn’t hurt to verify. “Hoofprints?” I asked, fighting to keep my tone even.

  Stiles nudged me with his elbow and gave me the “stop freaking out” BFF eyeball signal. “Not like Karen-size hoofprints, Hal. She didn’t stomp the guy to death, if that’s what you’re worried about—even if he probably deserved it. She was just there, with her nose in the middle of everything, playing cute with the kids so they’d feed her candy canes. That’s all.”

  My stomach settled a bit. Phew.

  “Karen? Stomp a guy to death? How could you even think that, Hal? That’s plain nuts,” Hobbs said with a frown, holding up his Christmas tree cookie for inspection. “My Karen’s sweet as pecan pie. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  If only Hobbs knew his Karen the way I knew her. But he was mostly right. She was a curmudgeon, but she’d never purposely hurt someone.

  “So what do you mean by hoofprints then?”

  Hobbs paused a moment, his eyes squinting as he clearly thought about his explanation before offering it to us. “To me, a total true-crime novice as the crow flies, it looked like cookie-cutter-size hoofprints all over him. You know, like a stamp or something.”

  I looked at Hobbs, my heart speeding up because I wasn’t convinced Nana hadn’t been involved. “A stamp? I don’t understand.”

  ”Yes, ma’am. You know, like one of those handheld ink stamps you’d use to mimic reindeer hooves for kids—you can use it on paper, or skip the ink and make imprints in the snow. It must have had black ink on it. Because black hoofprints were all over Hilroy’s face and on his shirt, which happened to be white. I’m guessing someone whacked him with it several times. I wouldn’t think it could be the weapon they used to kill him, but it sure is a big clue. Then again, what do I know? I’m just speculatin’,” Hobbs said with a sheepish grin.

  “So you’re a true-crime buff?” Stiles asked the question I wanted to ask.

  He shrugged nonchalantly with another sheepish grin. “I like a good mystery.”

  Stiles, ever the matchmaker, smiled his handsome smile and said, “Then you share something in common with Hal. She likes a good mystery, too. She’s always gabbing with her sister in Washington about one murder or another. She even joined a Facebook group for crime lovers.”

  Hobbs set down his cookie cutter and looked at me, his green eyes almost aglow. “Really? What about podcasts or TV shows? True crime or fiction? Or all of the aforementioned?”

  My cheeks burned bright red, so I looked down at the cookies I was decorating. “Both, I suppose. Like Stiles said, my sister’s a murder-mystery buff. She kind of got me hooked this past year.”

  “I think it’s in their DNA,” Stiles commented, rolling up the sleeves of his heavy cable-knit sweater. “They Skype all the time, compare notes, swap theories. They’re more cop-ish than even I am, and I’m the real thing.”

  I licked some icing off my fingers and snickered. “Not true. And it’s not like I’m very good at it anyhow. My sister’s the expert. Though I admit it’s a new hobby of sorts, I only dabble.”

  “So what’s your take on what you saw and heard tonight,” Hobbs asked, cupping his chin in his hand.

  I gave him a look. “My take? Well…a really creepy guy is dead. Lance Hilroy was mean, and apparently, he didn’t just talk to me about selling the factory. He talked to Honey Crowley, Judy Minch, and Cyril Chatham about selling their stores. And Bitty said he wanted to turn Marshmallow Hollow into a theme park.”

  Cyril’s wife, Aggie, worked for me at Just Claus, in the Christmas tree department. She was a quiet woman, but I’d never sensed any distress on her part. But then, I did have quite a few employees. It was hard to keep up.

  And Judy Minch’s cousin, Cora Seaton, worked in the lights department. It would be easy enough for me to ask about them…

  Stiles pulled his phone from his back pocket and texted someone before saying, “A theme park? Shut the oven door! Why didn’t they say anything to anyone?”

  I set down my cookie and looked at him. “You know how everyone in town is, Stiles. There’s more pride in Marshmallow Hollow than there are Christmas lights, so if anyone’s business was failing, they’d def not want anyone else to know. But maybe bigger than their pride is their loyalty, so they wouldn’t want anyone to think they were betraying the town by selling out to some big corporation who wants to turn a profit by paving everything over and putting up a roller coaster called Death-a-lator or something along those lines. I get the impression they didn’t tell anyone because it had to do with guilt. Like they thought everyone would think they were selling out.”

  “So this Lance Hilroy was a corporate guy,” Hobbs said, his glance almost distant for a moment before he took a big gulp of milk.

  I bristled. Lance Hilroy seriously gave me the creeps. Just remembering our conversation gave me the creeps. “I don’t know much about who or what he represented because, like I said, he tried talking to me and I shut him down the second he asked to speak to the man in charge.”

  Hobbs grinned, the hairs on his beard brushing against the col
lar of his flannel shirt. “You’re a spitfire. I like that.”

  Stiles clucked his tongue. “You don’t know the half of it. Spitfire is tame.”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes at Stiles, giving his ear a tweak. “I’m not a spitfire. I’m loyal. Not a chance in ten lifetimes would I ever sell the factory, especially not when so many people here in town work there. It’s their livelihood. I’d have to be on my last leg to do that, and even then, I’d try and find another way.”

  “A spitfire and loyal,” Hobbs praised, his green eyes pinning mine. “Liking you even more than I did yesterday, Hal.”

  I fought a preening grin and the rush of warmth along my cheeks. “For positive, I wouldn’t sell to someone like him. But with the economy the way it is, and aging being a factor, I could see why some folks might consider it if the price was right. But I don’t know how he planned to pull off something like a theme park. We’d all have to agree to sell. So it’s not making perfect sense right now. Though, I get the impression, his money does the talking and he’d have kept trying to find a way—even if it meant cheating. I don’t know how he’d cheat, but he feels like the kind of guy who sells you a bill of goods.”

  “Do you mind if I ask who gave you this information about Judy and Honey?” Hobbs asked, putting another cutout cookie on the sheet, eyeing it, then repositioning it to align perfectly with the others.

  “Your number one fan. Wait, maybe she’s number two if we count Karen. Either way, she’s neck and neck with my reindeer. It was Bitty. She told me she had lunch with May Sheffield the other day, and she spilled the beans.”

  Stiles ran a hand over his jaw. “I hope you don’t mind, but I texted that to the sheriff. Pretty sure he’d want to know.”

  Shrugging, I grabbed another cookie sheet and went to drop it in the wall oven. “She didn’t say to keep it a secret, and even if she did, the police will find out anyway.” I leaned back against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest in thought. “I’d sure like to know why Honey and Judy were thinking of selling. Cyril, I get. His son Jared’s not exactly motivated to do much more than smoke some weed and skateboard at the ripe old age of thirty. Cyril’s tired. He wants to relax and the garage is a lot of work. But Honey and Judy?”

  Stiles pushed his stool out from the island and nodded as he reached for his knit hat, dragging it over his close-cropped hair. “Yeah, Jared’s a lazy SOB, but Judy never gave me the impression she’d ever want to give up selling craft supplies. She loves that store.”

  Hobbs looked confused.

  “Judy owns All That Glitters, the craft store on Main, and Honey owns the secondhand store,” I explained.

  Hobbs’s finger shot up in the air as he appeared to realize who I meant. “Oh, right. Second Time Around, isn’t it?”

  I nodded and smiled. “Yep. That’s the place. Maybe she’s tired of selling everyone’s old clothes,” I joked as I opened the oven to check on the cookies.

  “And who wouldn’t be tired? Everything in there smells like mothballs and arthritis cream.” Stiles chuckled at his own joke, pulling on his jacket.

  “But tired enough to sell?” I asked, reaching into the oven to poke a cookie with a toothpick. As I pulled my hand out, I managed to graze the top of the oven, snatching my hand back. “Ow! Son of a—”

  Atticus was up and off his perch in a half-second flat, buzzing angrily in my face, right before Stiles said with an amused warning, “Now, now. Temper, temper, Little Miss Profane. Let me see.”

  I was about to show him my hand, the burn turning red and angry, but Hobbs was suddenly there, flipping on the tap at the wide farmhouse sink and taking my fingers in his.

  “Come run it under the cold water. It’ll take the sting out,” he said in his warm Southern accent

  As he held my hand under the water, I winced and almost swore again. “Ah! Mother—”

  “Trucker!” Stiles provided as he dropped a kiss on my forehead with a chuckle. “And on that note, I have to go. I have an early shift tomorrow. But I think you’re in good hands.” He slapped Hobbs on the back. “Thanks for looking out for my girl, Hobbs. See you tomorrow, Kitten, and don’t forget about our book swap. I need that last Jayne Ann Krentz to finish up the series, and you still have my Darynda Jones. Are you ever gonna finish so we can discuss?”

  Hobbs gave us both a strange look as he tended to my hand, making me laugh. “Romance novels.” I confessed. “That’s one of my other addictions. Love ’em.”

  “And you read ’em, too?” Hobbs asked Stiles, but he didn’t sound judgmental at all. Merely curious.

  Stiles tipped an imaginary hat and grinned. “I do. I love them, too. Blame Hal’s mother, Keeva. She hooked us up as teenagers with the tamer ones and we’ve been swapping ever since. Let me tell you what I’ve learned from a good romance novel…” he said before he guffawed.

  My mother had loved love, and it had showed up in her reading material. I began reading them to connect with her at an age where we were at odds. I kept reading them because I’d fallen in love with different places. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I’d gone to school and lived in New York, because I’d read about the glamour of the city lights in a book.

  Also, I have to admit, it’s hilarious to read an author’s take on the world of the paranormal. If they only knew what I knew, I could make a killing as a consultant.

  I nodded my consent at Stiles. “I won’t forget the Jayne Ann Krentz if you don’t forget my Nalini Singh.”

  “Done,” Stiles said as he gave Stephen King and grumpy Phil a quick pat on their heads before I heard the front door close.

  When Stiles took his leave, everything became very quiet with the exception of the jazzy Christmas tune playing from the house speakers.

  As Hobbs dried my hand, wiping away the droplets of cold water, his fingers gentle against the angry red slash, he asked, “So you’re a swearer?”

  I sighed, allowing him to wrap my hand in the towel, my breathing suspiciously uneven. “It’s a horrible habit I’m trying like the dickens to break, and it’s gotten me into more trouble than I care to admit.”

  Hobbs held my hand for a long moment as he stared into my eyes, making me feel insanely self-conscious and flustered.

  “What?” I all but demanded, though without stomping a foot, feeling fidgety and defensive for no reason.

  But he chuckled softly, the deep timbre of it tickling my senses before he tucked my hand against my body.

  “Nothing. I was just thinkin’, I s’pose.”

  I think I swallowed hard—hard enough to hear. In fact, I know I did.

  “About?”

  “About how I’m liking you more and more, Halliday Valentine.”

  Was it suddenly hot in the kitchen? I’m pretty sure it was hot in the kitchen.

  Chapter 6

  Let It Snow

  Written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, 1945

  As I climbed into bed, still feeling a little, oh, I dunno, girlish and silly- breathless after my encounter with Hobbs, my phone signaled a text.

  I couldn’t help but feel my insides warm as I looked out the French doors from my bedroom to see the snow coming down in buckets. There was nothing I loved more than a raging snowstorm, my amazing king-size sleigh bed with its red and white velvet duvet comforter, and a fire in the fireplace.

  How’s the hand?

  I smiled, that crazy feeling in my belly returning full force when I saw it was from Hobbs.

  Feels like maybe I overreacted.

  Hobbs had slathered it up with some antibiotic cream and put a bandage on it as though he were a surgeon.

  It was pretty red. We might need a total hand transplant.

  I giggled, snuggling down under my warm comforter and staring at the fire in my fireplace that Atticus had so kindly started before I was due for bed. I gazed at the flames, dancing in purple and orange, and sighed. It was good to be in bed. It had been a long day.

  I think I’d rather have one of
those cool bionic hands, thank you very much. A hand transplant is so pedestrian.

  He sent me a laughing emoji just as I pictured his handsome face smiling, and then he texted, Will you marry me?

  Blinking, my mouth went dry for a second before I realized he was joking. Only if there’s a big diamond ring (and I mean Hope Diamond big) and a honeymoon in Bali. I won’t be shortchanged, Hobbs Dainty. Why do you ask?

  He sent another laughing emoji. How many women do you know who want a bionic hand? As a red-blooded male, who’s still mentally around twelve on a good day, I think you’re kooky cool.

  Grinning, I fluffed the pillows behind me and leaned back, sinking into them. Kooky cool? Is that like crazy cool?

  Better.

  Thanks for taking on the challenge of something as intricate and taxing as a minor burn, Dr. Dainty. I’m forever in your debt. How will I ever make it up to you?

  Have coffee with me tomorrow? We can put that toward your bill.

  I stilled momentarily, my feet stopped their twitching, and so did my skipping pulse. Was he asking me out on a date?

  Hobbs had never given me any indication he was interested in me in that way. Or had he, and I’d missed it? I could definitely be accused of being deaf and blind to a flirtation. This wouldn’t be the first time.

  I decided to take it for what it was worth and not overthink. I liked Hobbs, he clearly liked me, we had good conversations and he was a true-crime buff. The worst that could happen was we had a bad time, and I had to live with him as my tenant for another year while we awkwardly avoided one another.

  Totally doable.

  I gripped the phone harder, weirdly indecisive—which isn’t like me at all.

  Stop, Halliday. It’s only coffee, not a blood oath to sacrifice virgins on the altar of relationships.

  Atticus voiced my thoughts from his tiny red silk pillow parked right next to mine. “Say yes, Halliday. Stop hedging. It’s merely a cup of coffee. Not the blood of a virgin.”