Mistake in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Enough. I might not know much, but I know when smoke’s being blown in my direction.”

  “No smoke about it. I wager you’ll go for the highest amount at this auction.”

  He let out a noise of disbelief, but I could tell that he appreciated my encouragement.

  It was nice of him to participate in the Puppy Love Bachelor Auction – that’s still what most people called it, and it’d become something of a running joke these days, considering that most of the men in it were married or at least seriously involved with someone. With Christmas River being such a small town, there weren’t enough available men to put up for sale. So the dates weren’t called dates anymore, but the rather benign “coffee lunch.”

  I disliked these types of events – even with the majority of the men being married, things usually ended up getting out of control. People often drank too much and shouted things they should have kept to themselves. And on top of that, I hated the idea of objectifying anybody based on their looks – men or women. It was shallow, petit, and these kinds of events seemed completely out of date to me.

  But one thing I couldn’t argue with was that the annual Puppy Love Bachelor Auction was for a good cause. And that it usually raked in a pretty penny for the Humane Society every year.

  Rex’s voice boomed through the brewery.

  “First up tonight, ladies, we’ve got a real looker. He’s tough, strong, and considered to be an up-and-comer in the Sheriff’s Department – Deputy Billy Jasper, everyone!”

  Billy, dressed in his freshly-ironed work uniform, nervously made his way to the back of the room. He stood on the makeshift stage, looking about as comfortable as a rabbit invited to a coyote’s potluck. He shot a few looks in the direction of his girlfriend, Liv. Then he tugged at his collar, his cheeks glowing red as a round of high-pitched hoots erupted from the ladies in the establishment.

  “Will you get me another beer?”

  I looked across the bar at Alana Lundy, a second grade teacher. She slid her lipstick-stained pint glass in my direction.

  Alana was all gussied up in a sheer blouse, a skirt, heels, and way, way too much makeup for little ol’ Christmas River standards.

  But then again, maybe I shouldn’t have judged her too harshly. I knew how hard it was being young and single in a small town like this – there weren’t too many available men, and maybe Alana was just out to try her luck tonight.

  “What are you drinking?” I asked, getting her a fresh glass.

  “Mmm… I don’t know. Give me something bold and strong. That’s the way I like my beer and my men.”

  She let out a hysterical giggle as I went over to the draft station and tried to figure out which beer that could possibly be.

  “Okay, who wants to start bidding on this fine law enforcement officer?” Rex’s voice boomed.

  “100 dollars!” Alana screeched so loud, I thought the pint glass in my hand would break.

  “200!” somebody else in the crowd yelled back equally as loud.

  “Not on my watch! 250!”

  Deputy Billy Jasper looked equal parts relieved and frightened as the bids climbed higher and higher.

  Chapter 5

  “Have you seen Daniel anywhere, Aileen?”

  “Is he up next?”

  “Yeah. And I don’t think this crowd’s going to be too happy if he stands them up. The Sheriff was supposed to be the big finale.”

  “No, I’m sorry – I haven’t seen him, dear. What I have seen are a lot of lasses who’ve gotten a little too carried away with the spirit of things. Did you see the one who won my Warren?”

  I nodded, glancing over at my grandfather, who had just been up on the meat market. As I’d predicted, a coffee lunch with him had gone for a hefty price – an all-out bidding war had taken place. Melanie Ritter, a young barmaid at the Pine Needle Tavern, had come out on top and won the date with Warren. But Melanie seemed to be under the impression that the date was beginning the moment she signed the check. She’d cornered poor Warren at a booth in the back, and my grandfather seemed to be having trouble getting back over to the bar.

  “Maybe you should go save him,” I said.

  “Aye, maybe I should.”

  Aileen patted her hands on her bar apron and headed over to the booth. Meanwhile, I started dealing with the long line of folks wanting more beer, stealing glances around the room every now and then, trying to find that cowboy hat.

  “Thanks to everybody who came out tonight to the Puppy Love Auction – all those dogs and cats are grateful,” Rex said into the speaker. “Now, for our big finish – the one you’ve all been waiting for. He might seem tough on crime, but those who really know him know that he’s nothing but a big ol’ fluffy teddy bear…”

  I held in a sigh.

  “The big law dog of the county, the Steve McQueen of Christmas River, the cool cat of Central Oregon, ladies and gals, I give you the Sheriff of your county – Daniel Brightman!”

  A round of hoots never before heard in the confines of Geronimo Brewing Pub erupted from the audience. I nervously scanned the crowd, hoping I’d just somehow missed him.

  But as the hoots and clapping faded, and nobody came up to the stage, it became evident that I hadn’t.

  “Sherriff? You in here?” Rex said, the microphone sending out an ear-splitting wave of feedback. “Paging Sheriff Brightman…”

  The looks of excitement and anticipation on the ladies’ faces began to fade in the dim lights of the brewpub.

  I checked my phone again, hoping he’d gotten one of my many messages and had called back to tell me that he was on his way.

  But there was no call and no message.

  I felt the burning eyes of a few folks on me – as if I was responsible for him standing them up.

  I cleared my throat and was about to make an excuse of some sort, but Rex, ever the showman, jumped in.

  “I’m sure the Sheriff’s on his way – I mean, he’d be a fool to stand up so many beautiful, lovely young ladies. But in the meantime, I tell you what. We’ll turn a negative into a positive… Next up on the auction block, you might know him as the best-looking member of the News Channel 12 team, the man who comes into your home every morning with the most accurate weather predictions in the county – your very own Rex Dawson!”

  Rex’s enthusiastic self-promotion was met with an overwhelming silence.

  Then, it was followed by a few groans.

  Alana Lundy, who had been cut-off at the bar after consuming her third pint of beer and barely making it back to the table with her other teacher friends, let out the loudest, most dramatic groan of all.

  It wasn’t that Rex was necessarily a bad-looking man. But like me, it seemed that most of the people in the brewpub had grown weary of his cheesy, off-color jokes.

  “Let’s start the bidding,” Rex said. “Do I have a Mr. George Washington? One-hundred dollars, anyone?”

  For a long moment, it was quieter than after an avalanche in the brewpub.

  “One-hundred!” a woman finally shouted.

  At first, I felt relief. But then I noticed it was Rex’s personal assistant and sister-in-law, Roberta Finch, that had spoken up. And somehow, a bid of absolute pity from a family member was even worse than having nobody bid on him.

  I started calling Daniel again.

  Just where was he? He couldn’t have forgotten about this – he’d been dreading it for months now. And though he would have probably rather skipped it, I knew he wouldn’t do that. He had made a promise to the Humane Society Board that he’d participate, and he was a man of his word.

  “Two-hundred. Do I have two-hundred dollars?” Rex said.

  It was quiet as the grave.

  “C’mon, ladies,” he said, tugging at his collar. “Somebody out there must have the hots for ol’ Rex.”

  A few women stood up and started exiting the brew pub.

  I felt my stomach tighten, thinking about Daniel.

 
The roads weren’t supposed to be icy tonight, but maybe something had rolled in. Sometimes the fog carried hoarfrost with it, and without warning, it could leave behind a slick layer of ice all over the trees and the road.

  “You’ve reached Sheriff Daniel Brightman with the Pohly County Sheriff’s Office. I’m not available right now, but if you—”

  “Hey! What about you, Cinnamon Peters? I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at me from the bar all night. Batting those pretty eyes of yours when you thought I wasn’t looking.”

  I felt my eyes bulge as the attention of the entire room suddenly shifted in my direction. The phone slid down the palm of my hand.

  “Heck, if I didn’t know that you were a married woman, I’d say you’ve got a little crush on me,” Rex added.

  I felt bile shoot up the back of my throat.

  “Uh, that’s really not—”

  “Oh, c’mon. You don’t have to hide your feelings from ol’ Rex.”

  Rex said the words confidently, but as he did, the stupid, hammy expression faded from his face, and for a second, I saw something else take its place.

  A sad kind of desperation – and a genuine expression of hurt.

  In his own way, I could see that he was begging me to help him. To save him from looking like a fool in front of the whole town.

  I supposed even someone like Rex could get his feelings hurt at one of these things.

  I drew in a breath, forcing a phony smile.

  “You got me, Rex,” I said, raising my voice.

  His lips turned up a little at that.

  “Two-hundred,” I said.

  He gave the audience a huge grin.

  “I knew it. Now who else wants to declare their love for me—”

  Just then, the front door of the pub opened, and a draft of cold, foggy air wound through the room.

  His cheeks were bright red and he looked like he’d run a 5K to get here.

  But he was here – and that was all that mattered.

  When other people in the pub noticed, there was a mass sigh of relief that rose up to the ceiling beams.

  The biggest, maybe, coming from Rex himself.

  “Coffee lunch with the weatherman SOLD to Cinnamon Peters for $200!” he said, jumping up.

  Daniel stopped, took off his hat, and looked over at me. He mouthed the word “sorry.”

  I crossed my arms.

  It was going to take a lot more than that for him to get out of this one. After all, it was his fault I would now have to go get lunch with the hammiest man in town.

  “Now, for the big event – the one you’ve all been waiting for, Sheriff Daniel Brightman himself!”

  There was a round of hoots again as Daniel made it up to the front, smiling big and apologizing for his tardiness.

  The crowd was more forgiving than I was.

  Chapter 6

  “Sorry it went down like that, darlin,’” Daniel said, a hint of a smart-ass smile still on his lips. “Really. I am.”

  “You can be sorry all you want, it’s not enough,” I said, kissing both Chadwick and Hucks on the head and walking down the hallway toward our bedroom. “I’m still the one who’s going to have to spend an hour alone with Rex Dawson.”

  “I’m sure it won’t be that bad, Cin.”

  “You want to go in my stead?” I said, taking out my earrings and placing them on the dresser in our room.

  “Wish I could, but I’ve got my own date.”

  Though I was still peeved at Daniel, I couldn’t help but crack a smile.

  Alana Lundy, the school teacher who had been three sheets to the wind by the end of the night, had bid half a month’s paycheck to win her lunch with Daniel.

  “Did you see the way she was pawing at me right up until I got into the truck?” Daniel said. “Compared to that, your lunch with Rex is going to be a cake walk.”

  I kicked off my shoes and changed into a pair of soft, fleece pajamas that, after the long day I’d had, felt like heaven.

  “The folks at the Humane Society really need to join the 21st century,” I said. “The whole thing is so outdated and demeaning to everybody involved. We shouldn’t encourage meat markets like that in our society. It’s just so—”

  “Medieval,” Daniel said, finishing my sentence. “Yeah, I agree with you there. But unfortunately, it pulls in a third of the year’s operating costs for the Humane Society. It might not be 21st century, but I don’t think those cats and dogs care much about that when they’re eating dinner.”

  I sat on the bed, my feet feeling instant relief as I did.

  The day had started with a busted oven and ended with my husband making plans to take a drunk school teacher out to lunch.

  I was glad it was finally coming to an end.

  “I guess you’ve got a point,” I said, letting out a sigh. “I’m just glad you finally made it – those ladies were seconds away from staging a riot.”

  Daniel smiled. He peeled off his buttoned-down shirt, then pulled on a long-sleeved baseball shirt over his head.

  Hypocritically, I did a little ogling of my own at him when he wasn’t looking.

  “It’s a miracle I made it at all,” he said. “When I got the call at six about that robbery out in Redmond, I thought for sure there was no way I was getting back in time.”

  Daniel had been tied up all evening at the 5th Street Pub in Redmond, which was why he’d been late to the event. The owners of the pub had been robbed by a man wearing a red t-shirt wrapped around his face that concealed his features.

  It had been the second time in the last month the robber had struck a small business. The time before had been a liquor store.

  The local news was already calling the robber “The Booze Bandit,” despite the fact that he wasn’t stealing booze.

  “Are you guys any closer to catching him?” I asked.

  “We’re working on it,” Daniel said, taking a seat on the bed next to me. “But it’s only a matter of time before we do. It’s not easy being a robber these days with so many security cameras everywhere. And most guys aren’t smart enough to avoid getting caught.”

  He put an arm around me and pulled me close.

  “Tell me about your day.”

  I shrugged, staring out the window.

  Though no moon or stars could be seen, the fog held a reddish translucence, washing everything out there in its odd, cold glow.

  “Not much to tell. I’ve got a broken oven at the shop, but Frank Longworth is letting me use his bakery kitchen at night until it gets fixed. Other than that, my day was pretty standard.”

  Daniel nodded.

  For a split second, I felt as though he might have been waiting to hear more – to see if I might have had any other news.

  But I didn’t.

  Nothing at all to speak of.

  He kissed the top of my head gently.

  “Can I get you anything, Cin? A foot rub or tea or maybe a nightcap?”

  I wrapped my arms around his familiar frame, burying my head in his shoulder.

  “Just hold me and tell me that this fog is going to lift one of these days.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, repeating the words so well, I almost believed him.

  “I’m here for you, Cin,” he said. “We’re in this together. Okay?”

  I held him back, listening to the comforting sound of his breathing.

  Chapter 7

  I lay in bed in the early morning dawn, rubbing my feet together, trying to warm them.

  The house smelled of charred wood and old smoke and it made my stomach ache. Outside, a bitter February wind howled. The boards of the house groaned and creaked in the brutal, unrelenting wintry gusts.

  The tip of my nose was cold. So were my hands. And my legs.

  Our heater had given out the first week of winter and we’d been reliant on the woodstove since. Some nights, the fire in the stove heated the house up too much, and the nights were sweaty and uncomfortable. Other nights, we fell aslee
p and the fire wouldn’t last long enough. I’d wake up in the pre-dawn hours. Half frozen, feeling as though I’d never be warm again.

  I shook under the covers, hoping that some warmth would return to my body soon.

  The boards of the small house creaked.

  I clamped my teeth together to keep from chattering as a faint voice echoed from the other room, wavering in over the wind.

  “Hi, Laurie? I’m so sorry to be calling at this hour, but was my husband at the tavern last night?”

  She paused.

  “He didn’t come home. No. No. I’m starting to get really worried.”

  Another pause.

  “He stays out late sometimes with the boys from the mill – but he always comes home, Laurie. And this storm’s got me concerned. I’m afraid he might have tried to walk home and passed out somewhere or—”

  Lights flashed against my bedroom walls, followed by the sound of squeaking brakes.

  I knew the sound of his truck by heart.

  Just like my mom did.

  “Oh, Thank God. I think he just got home. Sorry to bother you again, Laurie. I’ll see you at church tomorrow.”

  A car door creaked open then shut with more force than was necessary. Heavy, sluggish footsteps echoed on hollow wood. The sound of the keys jangling in the door, missing the key hole a few times. The door knob twisting, the door blowing open. Cold air circulating through the paper-thin walls of the house.

  The sound of those heavy boots stumbling in.

  I closed my eyes, squeezing them hard, knowing that things were about to get bad.

  At only 6 years old, I’d already seen this play out enough times to know where it was headed.

  “You’ve got some nerve showing up at this hour.” Her voice trembled with anger. “You don’t call to let me know where you are or what you’re doing. You make me think you’re dead in a ditch somewhere. You make me call half the town looking for you. Your poor daughter has to hear her father come home drunk at five in the morning. What kind of man are you? What kind of man—”

  “I’ve got a headache and I don’t need to hear your bullcrap now!”