5 Mischief in Christmas River (20 page)

In the shed, Daniel had found Huckleberry and Anna Steven’s dog, Dog Holliday, meaning four of the six missing dogs were accounted for.

Chadwick and Julianne’s dog, Harley, were still missing.

After several hours of questioning Julianne Redding and her much younger half-sister Pepper Posey, Daniel found out why.

He heard the whole story, and why Julianne had done what she had done.

Hank, Julianne’s husband, had given Harley to Julianne five years earlier as an anniversary present. She loved the dog like a child, she had said. But the dog had discipline problems. He would jump the fence of the Redding’s BrightStar neighborhood home when the couple was at work, killing chickens that belonged to other homeowners in the area. Daniel had said Julianne didn’t seem to believe that Harley was behind the chicken massacres. She refused to believe that Harley had that kind of meanness in him, even though there were plenty of witnesses who saw Harley coming away from the coops. She claimed the neighbors were out to get her.

The Sheriff’s Office reports then went to the dog board, where the Reddings were given an ultimatum: either give up the dog to the shelter, or move.

Loving Harley the way they did, and having money problems anyway, Julianne and Hank decided to move. They found a small house off the highway, and moved in, ready to start a new life.

But then things began to fall apart. Business at their restaurant tanked, and they were forced to close it and file for bankruptcy. Hank was diagnosed with lung cancer a few months later, and didn’t live much longer after that. Julianne found herself broke, alone, and hopeless. All she had left was Harley and their small home by the highway.

Until earlier this month.

That’s when everything went to hell for Julianne.  

The way she told Daniel, she was outside in the tool shed when it happened. Harley jumped over the fence after seeing a flock of geese fly overhead. He busted loose, heading for the highway. Julianne said she chased after him, trying to stop the inevitable from happening.

But the train had already left the station by then.

A semi-truck slammed into Harley that day. Right there, in front of Julianne’s eyes.

And that’s when the woman, who for most of her life had been a normal, down-to-earth, law-abiding citizen, snapped.  

She buried Harley in the backyard, placing a white cross over his grave, and devised a plan to get revenge for the pooch. Maybe she’d been inspired by her little sister, Pepper, who she knew had once kidnapped dogs with her boyfriend for reward money in Portland. Julianne knew a lot about dogs: her and Pepper’s father had run a kennel when they were growing up.

Julianne told Daniel that she wanted everyone who was part of that dog board hearing to feel what she felt. The pain of losing her dog. Of losing her husband. Of losing her livelihood. Of losing everything.

She thought we all deserved to feel a little bit of what she was going through.

But somehow, Pepper had realized what her sister was doing. When she saw the police dog in the shed behind Julianne’s house, she’d been particularly worried, knowing that her sister would be in huge trouble if anybody found out that she’d stolen police property. That’s why Pepper had been trying to return the dogs, one at a time. Trying to save her sister from the inevitable. But just like Harley running out onto the highway, it had been no use. Julianne was already halfway down a road that she couldn’t come back from.

What Julianne Redding planned to eventually do with all those dogs, Daniel said she didn’t tell him. But she had taken good care of them while they were in her possession.

All of them, but one.

Chadwick had dug a large hole in the dirt floor of the shed a few days before Daniel cracked the case, and had squeezed out, running away. Julianne said she searched for him, but that the little Cocker Spaniel had just disappeared.

It didn’t take too much deductive reasoning to realize that Chadwick might have wandered out onto that busy highway. That he might have suffered the same terrible fate of Harley.  

I let out a sad sigh, stirring the cranberries on the stovetop some more.

It’d been four days since all of it happened, and there still had been no sign of Chadwick. And while I’d been grateful beyond words at having Huckleberry back safe and sound, I found that my happiness wasn’t complete.

Poor little Chadwick.

He wasn’t a very good dog. He was terrible at walks. He was foolish, barking at squirrels and other people for no good reason. He didn’t heel when you told him to. He didn’t fetch when you told him to. He didn’t stay when you told him to. In fact, he did just about the opposite of what you told him to just about all the time.

But despite all his disciplinary shortcomings, I had loved that little dog. And I realized that had he been in the shed that day with Huckleberry, he would never have seen the inside of a shelter again.

But as it was, Chadwick hadn’t been in that shed that day.

Sometimes I found myself staring out the window, thinking about him. Remembering those hollow sad eyes of his. Wondering if I couldn’t hold onto the smallest hope that he was alive somewhere out there. Maybe someone had found him, wandering around the woods near the highway. Maybe somebody had taken him in and given him a good home. Maybe he was sitting by a fire right now with a full belly and somebody stroking his fur.

I hoped so.

But I’d come to terms with the fact that I would probably never know for sure what happened to the little dog.  

Sometimes, there weren’t any honest happy endings in life. Sometimes it was a give and take. I had gotten Huckleberry back, but Chadwick would never return. He was lost forever, the only thing left of him being the damp and faded missing flyers I’d put up around town.

I closed my eyes and let out a long breath, trying to shake off that thought.

I just had to be thankful for what I did have. Thankful that for the most part, it had ended okay. Thankful that nobody had been hurt. And that the woman behind it all was going to get the help that she so desperately needed.

And while it still hurt, I knew that I could live with that ending.

The cranberries began to pop and split, and I turned the burner off. I was about to start on the white chocolate portion of the filling when Tobias stuck his head in from the front.

“Uh, Miss Cinnamon, the pies out here are going faster than hot potatoes. I’m thinking you’re half an hour away from selling out completely.”

I smiled.

It was only noon.

I wasn’t sure whether it was the scandal of the gingerbread competition, or that Daniel had been right all along about the folks in this town being blue collared, black coffee and pie kind of folks, but all the business I had lost to
Pepper’s Pies
had come back to me, and had come back in full force. The lines had been even longer than they had been before she moved in across the street, snaking around out the front door sometimes. I’d been working almost nonstop this last week, churning out pies like there was no tomorrow. I was tired, but I didn’t mind it much. I was just happy to see the dining room full of happy customers once again.

“Thanks, Tobias,” I said, nodding at him and smiling.

He returned the nod and then disappeared out into the front again.

“Hey, Tiana, do you think you have time to make up another batch of the Chocolate Bourbon Pecan pies?” I said, not looking up from the stove. “That one’s been a crowd-pleaser all week.”

There was no answer.

“Tiana?”

I turned around to look at her, but she was somewhere else entirely.

She was staring at the spot where Tobias had been, a faraway, dreamy expression on her face.

A realization suddenly hit me like a freight train.

So
that
was why she’d gotten that sassy new haircut and had been coming to work all dressed up lately. It was like I thought, Tiana had a new man in her life.

I just hadn’t realized the man was working in the shop with us.

I wondered how long this had been going on for, and whether it had been in front of me the whole time and I’d been too blind to see it, so caught up in my own trials these past few weeks.

She suddenly realized I was staring at her. She looked over at me, her face turning redder than the color of Santa’s suit.

“Uh, what was that, Cinnamon?” she said, swallowing hard.

“It was nothing.”

I smiled quietly to myself, then cleared my throat.

“Tiana, I’ve been meaning to ask you something for the past week,” I said, grabbing a few bars of white chocolate from the cupboard and peeling the tinfoil off.

“Oh yeah?” she said, the bright color in her cheeks fading slightly at the change in subject.  

“Well, I don’t want to give you any extra work, especially since I know the holidays are crazy enough,” I said, chopping up the chocolate. “But being that the pie shop is so busy lately, I was thinking it might be helpful if we could move Tobias from the front of the house to back here. Now, he’s got some good experience in making pies, but he might need a little help getting to know the recipes. So I was wondering if instead of doing dishes this afternoon, you could teach him a thing or two about how things work here in the kitchen?”

I looked back at her.

She didn’t say anything, and I suddenly wondered if I had embarrassed her.

“I mean, only if you have the time,” I said, shrugging it off. “You can say no. I just thought…”

“No, no,” she said. “I mean, yes. I can do that Cinnamon. No problem. No problem at all. I’d, uh, I’d love to.”

I grinned.

“I really do appreciate it,” I said.

She smiled bashfully.  

My heart filled up with that warm and cozy feeling I’d been missing so far this holiday season.

I wouldn’t have thought of putting Tiana and Tobias together, but thinking about it now, she might be just the kind of woman he would need. A special, good-natured, kind-hearted woman to believe in him and to help him get back on his feet.

And Tobias might be just what Tiana needed, too. A man who was a little rough around the edges, but who was also kind-hearted and special in his own right.  

I sighed happily, then looked out the window.  

Together, those two were going to be nicer than a warm Georgia breeze on a winter’s day.

Chapter 59

“Remember, Cin, how during your last dress fitting you said you thought that you looked like a sausage stuffed into a wedding dress?” she shouted from behind the curtain.

I smiled, recalling last year when my final wedding dress fitting went worse than a porcupine at an animal balloon party.

“How could I forget?” I said.

“Well you know what I look like right now?” she said.

“What?”

“I look like a Turducken stuffed into a wedding dress.”

“A what?”

“You know, one of them over-the-top Thanksgiving meals? A chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey. A Turducken.”

I laughed.

“Kara, I just don’t believe that.”

“Just you wait and see,” she said.

The curtains parted swiftly, and a bride stepped out of the dress shop’s changing room.

The dress had long, soft lace sleeves, a sweetheart neckline, a flowing bodice that curved just right about her belly bump, and a train that sparkled like icicles on a sunny day.

The bride herself had a rosy complexion, almost a glow about her, even if she did have a concerned look on her face. A lovely veil cascaded down around her shoulders and her back, nearly touching the ground.   

The bride was absolutely
stunning
.

My mouth fell open. I was quiet for a minute, unable to do anything but gawk.

“You see what I mean?” she finally said, looking down at herself and patting her gut. “Turducken.”

I shook my head vigorously.

“Kara, you’re the queen of exaggeration,” I said. “But that one about you being a duck turkey? That has to be the very worst exaggeration to ever come out of your mouth in all the years I’ve known you.”

I smiled.

“You’re the most beautiful New Year’s Day bride there ever was, and you know it.”

The edges of her lips curled up slightly.

She shooed me away.

“Aw, maybe for a shotgun wedding, I am,” she said.

“No,” I said. “Just the most beautiful bride, period.”

She looked down at her dress and then back up at me.

“You mean it, Cin?”

“I mean it, Kara,” I said. “You look like a dream. And more than that, you look happy. You’re glowing.”

She smiled brightly.

“Well, you’re right on one of those counts,” she said. “I am happy.”

She twirled once in her dress, the train twisting ever-so-gracefully.

“You don’t even look like you were up all night last night burning the rest of your vows into wood,” I said, grinning mischievously.

She started laughing.

“I know you think I’m a nut, Cin,” she said. “And you’d be right.”

“Yes, but you’re my favorite kind of nut,” I said again.

She stared back in the mirror smiling at me. Then she looked back at herself.

“Well, let’s just hope I don’t gain another ten pounds in this next week,” she said. “Otherwise, come New Year’s, I’ll look like a chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey stuffed into an ostrich.”

I shook my head.

Then I got up and gave my best friend a long hug.

“Kara, you’re the farthest thing from
fowl
there ever was,” I said. “And I couldn’t be happier for you, you beautiful, wood-burning lunatic.”

She laughed, a single tear of happiness rolling down her cheek.

Chapter 60

I tucked the trophy under my arm and pocketed the $500, then left through the back door of the pie shop.

I walked quickly down the street, weaving my way through shoppers carrying bulging bags filled with last-minute presents. A few flakes were falling from the sky, and I pulled the hood of my pea coat on over my head. I crossed the street, dodging a few slow moving cars. Then I stopped, taking in a deep breath before opening the front door to
Pepper’s Pies
.