Cole in My Stocking (7 page)

I capped the marker and got ready for bed. I would figure it out later.

* * * *

Did Mandy like donuts? Cole hoped so, since he was carrying a dozen up to her door to go with the coffee he hoped she made. He lifted his hand to knock on the storm door, but Mandy beat him to the punch. She opened the trailer door and bounded across the porch to unlock the storm door and let him in. She had a radiant smile on her face that shined a light into his heart.

Damn, but he had feelings for her. It was all kinds of wrong, but that didn’t make it untrue. He wanted his dead buddy’s daughter. He’d wanted her for years. He would probably always want her. Which sucked big time, because he couldn’t have her.

Not only was he too old for her, but she was going through a difficult time. She didn’t need some idiot drooling over her when her father wasn’t even in the ground yet.

He could be her friend, though. Considering she was stuck in a town she’d left in a hurry and hadn’t been back to since, she was probably dealing with more than just Gripper’s death. She could probably use a friend.

Being friends with her meant he couldn’t drag her into his arms and bury his nose in her hair and inhale that warm, vanilla scent wafting off her, no matter how badly he wanted to. “Morning,” he greeted.

She held the door so he could slide past her. She made an adorable show of inhaling over the box of donuts. “Thank God you brought breakfast. All I have is cereal and frozen omelets.”

“I aim to please,” he said as he strolled into the living room. Gripper’s shop had been an immaculate tribute to his passion for fixing guns. His house had been a pigsty. It was still cluttered, but much improved since yesterday. Mandy had done some cleaning.

He nodded at the eating nook. Who knew the thing had a faux-wood-grain finish? He’d never actually seen the surface before. “Looks good in here,” he said while Mandy poured him some coffee. She’d cleared the space so a person could actually use it for its intended purpose. She also had some brochures from the funeral home laid out, ready for them to look at together.

It gave him a thrill to know she’d prepared for his arrival, though he didn’t kid himself it meant anything other than she was ready to plan her father’s funeral.

“Thanks,” she said, setting a mug on the eating nook. She put down some paper plates and napkins and helped herself to a donut. “So, what did you do yesterday? Were you off duty?”

“Yeah,” he said, settling into a chair with a patterned cushion that harkened back to the autumn-toned seventies. He sipped the coffee. Heaven. Just as good as it had been yesterday. He had a sinking suspicion it wasn’t because of the beans or the run-of-the-mill coffee maker on Gripper’s counter, but because of the hands that had made and served it. Who would have ever thought something as simple as a cup of coffee could weaken his resolve?

Friends, dammit.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t go back until Monday. Get a long weekend every other. It’s pretty sweet.” One of the perks of being a statie. “Did some Christmas shopping and some other errands.” Including talking to an acquaintance who knew how to crack safes. But he didn’t mention that. “What did you do?”

She inclined her head toward the eating nook. “Cleaned. And made some calls to start on Dad’s estate stuff.” She took a bite out of a jelly donut and neatly licked a bit of filling that clung to the corner of her mouth. It was going to be a long frigging morning. “Thanks for offering to help with all this. I’ve never actually been to a funeral before. Well, not since Mom’s, but I don’t remember much about that one. I have no idea what’s expected.”

Cole had been to more than a few. “We’ll sort it out. Let’s start with the casket, yeah?” He picked up the brochure and they were off, planning Grip’s final farewell.

A couple hours in, they started on the form that recorded the deceased’s military honors, if any. Seeing as he and Grip had met in the National Guard before Grip’s wife had died, Cole knew first-hand his buddy had some military experience. From snippets of conversation they’d had, he knew Grip had been in the Army too. Served as an eighteen-year-old kid in the tail end of Vietnam. There were two kinds of soldiers who served in Vietnam: the ones who talked about it after and the ones who didn’t. Grip had never talked about it, which probably meant he’d seen some pretty intense action.

“I’ll make some phone calls on Monday and get these details for you,” he offered. “You got a copy of the death certificate I can take with me? Might need to fax it in before they’ll hand over the info.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.” He knew exactly who to call. He’d done this before. For his own father.

“No, I mean you don’t have to because I have all the info.” She pushed away from the table. “Dad kept records of all his military stuff. It’s all in the safe.”

At the mention of the safe, Cole’s ears perked up.

Mandy strode from the kitchen, and he followed, expecting her to slip into her coat to go up to the shop. Maybe she knew the real combination. He’d have to watch her carefully and figure out where he’d gone wrong.

But she didn’t get her coat. She headed down the hall and disappeared into a room halfway to the back of the trailer.

He followed and found her spinning the combination dial of a six-foot tall safe to clear it. He stepped up behind her, not too close but close enough to read the numbers as she worked the dial. Bam, bam, bam, she hit the numbers Gripper had told him on his deathbed.
This
was the safe he’d been talking about, not the one up in the shop.

Jesus.

If everything Gripper had told him was true, Mandy was about to open a safe that contained almost four hundred thousand dollars in cash. He debated distracting her from the search for Grip’s military records but couldn’t figure out how to do it tactfully. So he held his breath while she clocked in the final number and swung the door open.

The safe was crammed full of three rows of gorgeous rifles standing stock-down with their muzzles nestled in the velvety soft grooves of a custom shelf. In the front row, he recognized a twelve-gauge Winchester Gripper had let him fire once. That gun alone was worth a cool grand. Also in the first row was a World War II Beretta Model 1918 submachine gun with a bottom magazine and a bayonet, which made it a model 1918/30. His breath whooshed out. That was a nice gun. Very nice. And it looked in pristine condition. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. A quick count revealed twenty rifles, and about the same number of handguns supported by fabric-lined molds screwed into corkboard on the inside of the door. Each piece was special. Not a one would go for less than five hundred. Some, like the Beretta, would go for thousands.

“You got a small fortune in guns here,” he said. “You know that?”

Mandy stretched up onto her toes to pull an accordion file from an upper shelf that contained a bunch of specialty ammo boxes, some other accordion files and a blue duffel bag with white handles that looked about the right size to contain a great big wad of cash. His heart went into double time. He tried not to stare at the bag.

Mandy faced him, hugging the accordion file. “I know. I hate it, but it all has to go. Dad was in so much debt.” She made a sweeping motion to encompass the guns. “All this will maybe cover what he owed on his truck and Harley.”

Cole could tell it pained her to part with the things her father had held most dear. But he didn’t blame her one bit. What was she going to do with an arsenal of collectible guns? Maybe he’d help her out and buy that Beretta. He’d give her a good price for it too. It would be the centerpiece of his own collection.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “He would have wanted you to sell all this. He’s not going to appreciate them ever again. Might as well put them in the hands of collectors who will.”

She nodded and put on a brave smile. “Well, here’s his military stuff.” She closed the safe and spun the wheel then led the way back to the kitchen.

Cole was going to have to bide his time and hope for a few minutes alone where he could get into that safe and remove the bag. No doubt in his mind the money was in there. Dirty money, Grip had called it. He hadn’t wanted Mandy to have anything to do with it. He’d charged Cole with turning it over to the FBI.

“I had no choice,” Gripper had said in his thready voice scant hours before his body had quit. “I did what they wanted me to do, and they paid me for it. But I never spent a dime of that money. Never knew what to do with it, so I held onto it. Now I know, but it’s too late for me to do it. You’ll take care of it?”

“I will,” Cole had promised.

“And you’ll take care of Mandy?”

“I will.”

“Then I can go.” Those had been Gripper Holcomb’s last words.

Chapter 6

I didn’t own many dresses, and I hadn’t had time to buy a new one in the twenty-four hours between receiving Max’s letter and hitting the road back to Newburgh. Fortunately, I had a couple of go-to ensembles for weddings and wine and cheese functions at the college. Guess I’d be wearing them to work parties now that I was no longer hobnobbing with assistant profs and research assistants.

After my shower Wednesday morning, I returned to my old room and slipped into a cotton-blend sleeveless dress with conservative lines that hinted at my shape without clinging to it. It was black with a delicate white print that called to mind the wrought-iron railings of the French Quarter in New Orleans. The neckline was v-shaped and stopped a full inch above my cleavage. The hem fell to an inch below my knee. With sober Mary Janes and my hair up in a loose chignon, I faced the full-length mirror. It was the morning of my dad’s funeral, and all I could think about was whether the folks who came out to remember him would think I was a hussy for showing my upper arms in December.

I yanked a light-weight black cardigan from a hanger and put it on over the dress. There. The look said “Bookish Republican headed to a very boring fund raiser,” not “Trailer trash one bad decision away from turning tricks in Boston.”

It shouldn’t matter that my dad’s friends, half of whom made up the Newburgh PD, had dubbed me Gripper’s wild child or that the kids in school had given me some pretty unflattering nicknames. Six years had passed, and even if they hadn’t, I knew I shouldn’t let other people’s opinions bother me.

But they did bother me. Head knowledge and practical application; between lay a gulf of incomprehensible proportions.

I’d always thirsted for acceptance. Maybe because I’d lived a lonely childhood. Maybe it was just how I was wired. If people didn’t like me, it hurt me deep down in places only a precious few should have access to. I needed to guard those private places with a fireproof safe. Instead, I had a flimsy storm door.

One day I hoped I’d get over those hang-ups. But not today. Today I promised to give myself permission to be who I was and accept what I felt. Needy, people-pleasing, confused, grieving Mandy Holcomb. Gripper’s daughter. Non-whore. Respectable, hard-working young woman with a couple of college degrees as proof to my would-be detractors. Most importantly, I had an out-of-state address, so if I let anyone make me feel bad, I could forget about it soon enough. Running away had worked the first time, after all.

A horn honked outside. The sound was muffled since my room was at the back of the trailer. Snagging my purse and pea coat, I headed out to find my ride peering at me from the driver’s seat of a white pick-up truck, expression unreadable behind a pair of reflective Oakleys.

My heart smiled. I was in so much trouble.

While I locked up, I heard him get out of the truck. As I approached, I realized why. Looked like Cole was the kind of guy that opened the car door for a girl.

No way was I going to read too much into that. He was just a friend.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, yourself,” he said, holding the passenger door for me.

I frowned at the height of the seat. Cole’s truck was big. There was no way I was going to climb into the cab without hiking up my skirt. I so did not need to be hiking up my skirt with Cole six inches away.

Before I could decide what to do, Cole’s hands encircled my waist. “Hold on,” he said, and just like that, my feet left the ground.

I grabbed his shoulder for balance as he hefted me into the bucket seat as easily as he’d load in a bag of groceries
.

After situating himself behind the wheel again, he said, “You look good.”

I couldn’t see his eyes through those lenses, but I could feel his gaze on me.

A warm flush made the skin over my breastbone tingle. I’d take the compliment, even though I knew he was just being polite. I looked professional. Or conservative. Or prim. Not good. And that was by design.

“Thanks. Um, so do you.” He had on a tan suit that fit nice. I wondered if Men’s Wearhouse charged more for suits that had to cover that much height and muscle. Or maybe they gave a discount, because when a suit looked that good, it functioned like a walking, talking ad campaign. The yellow tie was a good shade for him. It brought out the blond in his buzz cut.

I waited for him to throw the truck into reverse.

He just sat there watching me from behind those mirrored lenses. Making my skin tingle some more.

The cab of Cole’s truck should have felt huge, but with him taking up as much space as he did, it felt kind of intimate. And it smelled amazing, like ocean-breeze body wash and fresh coffee. A glance at the cup holder showed the travel mug I’d sent him home with the other morning, steam curling from the opening. Cole had the seat so far back there would have been no leg room for a rear-seat passenger, and still, his knees practically hugged the steering wheel. Head and shoulders canted in my direction, he sat with his legs spread. One hand rested on the top of the steering wheel, white shirt cuff peeking from the tailored jacket. The other loosely cupped the gear shift near my knee. His middle finger tapped the smooth surface.

I cleared my throat and tried not to think about how good it was to see him after three days. The only Cole-contact I’d had since our Saturday morning powwow was a phone call from him last night, when he’d said he would pick me up at nine this morning. He’d hung up before I could remind him the funeral wasn’t until ten, and it was only a fifteen minute drive to the funeral home.