Mayhem in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy, Book 2) (7 page)

“Nobody wants it,” she said. “I already tried to get someone to take it over, but it’s… well, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s hell being Mrs. Claus in summer, Cin. And it was my fault for being duped by Moira into it. But not even Vivian Leigh would have the ego to go after this role. It’s too many lines and it’s just too damn hot for this time of year.”

“Well if Vivian Leigh wouldn’t stand for it, why should I?”

She sat forward in her recliner.

“Because you’re my friend,” she said. “And you’ve got a really good memory. And you’re more of a drama geek than you let on. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the way you recited those poems back in high school.”

I felt my cheeks suddenly go red with embarrassment.

I was closed up tighter than a tomb through much of high school, but something escaped during English class my sophomore year. I’d discovered what it was like to really feel a poem, and I became obsessed with poetry.

Sometimes we had to read the poems out loud in class. Everybody hated being called on. Everyone but me.

“I don’t see what Mr. Randles’ English class has anything to with—”

“I just think that my current situation aside, you’d make a good Mrs. Claus.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

“You’ve always been a lot stronger than me anyway,” she said.

She looked out the window. The bright light streaming through the cracks in the drapes settled on the lines and creases of her face. 

“That’s not true,” I said.

“Yes, yes it is.”

We sat in silence for a minute while I tried desperately to find a way out of all of this.

But in the end, there was no exit to be found in this maze.

“Well, aren’t you going to compliment my cheekbones, too?” I asked.

She glanced back over at me, her face brightening a little bit.

“Is that a yes? You’ll take my place?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

“This means a lot to me, Cin,” she said. “A little peace and quiet away from Sarah Reinhart is going to do me wonders.”

“Just don’t expect me to wear those heels you’ve got. Mrs. Claus is going to end up in the North Pole mass general if she has to go further than ten feet in those death traps.”

The edges of Kara’s mouth turned up a little at that.

“No,” she said. “Those aren’t mandatory. But I’m afraid the wig is.”

I let out a long sigh.

“Oh, Jesus,” I said.

“You really do have nice cheekbones too, you know,” she said.

Chapter 16

I knew that it just couldn’t go on the way that it had been.

It was torture. I couldn’t think about anything else. Even with my best friend’s store burning to the ground, I couldn’t focus on her loss.

I was wholly consumed with my own feelings about him.

And worse than that. 

I’d been consumed with what it would all mean for us.

I knew I had to make him understand. That was the only way for us to get through this.

I needed to make him see why I felt the way I did. Before it was too late to do anything more.

Most women would probably have gone home, taken a shower, dressed up and put some make-up on before a talk as big as this one. 

But when I left Kara’s house, I was gripped by a kind of wild desperation that didn’t allow for that kind of narcissism.

I needed to see him, and I needed to see him now. 

I ran, taking a trail that cut through the woods. The air already felt prickly with the heat of the day. I ran, as if it were possible to outrun my own doubts, my own shortcomings.

As if I could outrun these past few days.

But when I showed up at the station, all of it caught up with me again.

Sweat was pouring down my face, and I felt my cheeks burn. 

I must have been as red as a cherry tomato.

Real attractive.

But I didn’t care. And I just hoped Daniel wouldn’t care either.

After I caught my breath, I opened the heavy wooden doors and hobbled into the station, my legs feeling like jelly.

“Is Daniel in?” I asked Norma, the receptionist who had a steely attitude to everybody but the cops at the station, who she liked to call
my boys
.

No matter how many times I came into the station, she treated me like I was just another one of the floozy girls some of the younger deputies took out on the weekends.

“Deputy Brightman’s here, but he’s in a meeting right now,” she said. “When he’s finished, I’ll let him know you’re here.”

I sat down in one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs.

But that wasn’t going to do. 

After a few minutes of rocking back and forth nervously, I realized that this couldn’t wait.

I stood up, and hoping she wouldn’t notice, brushed past the front desk and through the station to the back where Daniel’s office was.

“He’s in a meeting, Cindy!” she yelled after me, getting my name wrong like she always did.

I didn’t respond to her attempts to stop me. 

I had an answer for him. A real answer. And he needed to know, right away.

It was an answer that scared me, that made my insides tremble. An answer that made my stomach twist into a web of knots.

It was an answer that had come to me in the past few seconds of sitting there waiting for him.

A definitive answer with definitive consequences.

Norma was going to have to get used to calling me something else soon.

The office door was closed. I thought about knocking, but that crazy desperation didn’t allow for such timidity.

I grabbed the door knob, twisted it, and opened the door.

I walked in.

“Daniel, I…”

I trailed off, my words giving out.

Daniel was standing there in the middle of the room, his arms around someone.

He looked at me.

His eyes widened with surprise.

All I could see was the long red hair and the high heels.

She turned around, and looked at me.

And I was speechless as my heart stopped dead inside my chest.

Chapter 17

“Cin,” Daniel said, dropping his arms. “This is… what are you doing here? Is everything all right?”

I nodded slowly. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from her.

I didn’t recognize the woman he’d had his arms around. She wasn’t anybody that I knew, which meant she probably didn’t live here. 

She was pretty. Very, very pretty. With a kind of style that just wasn’t native to Christmas River.

I mean, she was wearing high heels for chrissake. And she wasn’t even in any Christmas play.

Even though I hadn’t had anything for breakfast, something was trying to crawl its way up my esophagus.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Daniel said, clearing his throat. “Cin, This is Stephanie Calder, an old friend from my days back in California. Steph, this is Cinnamon Peters. My girlfriend.”

Maybe that should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.

She smiled, revealing a pair of bright, white, perfect teeth to go with her tan, perfectly proportioned face and fiery red tresses. 

What kind of old friend?

She stuck her hand out to me.

“Dan’s been telling me all about you.”

Dan?
I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Uh, really?” I said, finally finding my voice. It came out scratchy and shaky. 

“I heard you have a bakery,” she said. “He’s been going on about your pies all morning.”

She smiled. 

I glanced over at him. I couldn’t figure the expression on his face.

Was this really as innocent as they wanted me to believe?

I didn’t want to be that kind of girlfriend. The jealous, possessive, can’t-stand-to-see-her-man-so-much-as-look-in-the-direction-of-another-woman type. Despite my history with a cheating husband, being jealous and suspicious wasn’t who I was, or ever wanted to be.

I believed in trust. And that complete trust was the only way anybody could ever truly love someone else.

But… still. Instinct, or something that wanted me to believe it was instinct, overcame me. I couldn’t dismiss a lingering suspicion. It felt like I’d walked in on something. And I didn’t like that feeling. Not one bit.

And with so much unresolved still between Daniel and me, I didn’t like seeing a pretty woman from his past suddenly appear in his office. Today of all days. 

I suddenly realized that I was still holding onto her hand in a limp handshake. She was smiling, but I could tell she was waiting for me to let go.

“Oh, goodness, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head and releasing her hand. “I’m a mess. I ran all the way here from across town.”

“You look fine,” Daniel said.   

I cleared my throat.

“So Stephanie, what brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“Well… I,” she started stammering, looking over at Daniel. “There’s something I was hoping Dan could help me with. A case.”

“Oh, are you a cop too?” I asked.

If she was, she wasn’t going to be running suspects down anytime soon in those Prada high heels she was wearing.

“No, but you see I—”

“Hey, Cin, what about I finish up here and meet you back at the shop for lunch?” Daniel said.

He rubbed my shoulder, but there was a strain in his voice that wasn’t normally there.

I didn’t like being shooed away like that. But there was no reason I could think of to stay.

After a moment of hesitation, I finally nodded.

“Okay, sure,” I said.

I backed away from them.

Something was just off about all of this. I could feel it in my gut.

“Nice meeting you Stephanie,” I said. “I hope I’ll get to meet you properly sometime soon.”

I forced my best smile, stretching my cheeks as far as they would go. But it only came out lukewarm. 

“Me too,” she said.

I closed the door behind me without looking at Daniel. 

And then I was running again, even before I was outside the building. I blew past Norma at reception, who gave me a nasty look. I burst through the front doors and out into the blistering hot sunshine.

One thought played over and over in my mind.

Was I too late?

Chapter 18

When I got to the pie shop, there was a long line that snaked to the front door.

It made me happy to see. You couldn’t always count on a summer crowd in a pie shop. Some people came in for the cool, refreshing creaminess of a scoop of ice cream alongside a slice of marionberry, lemon cream, or Key Lime pie on a hot summer’s day. But most would just as easily go to the frozen yogurt shop down the street, which judging from the constant clamber of customers outside the hole-in-the-wall establishment, made a monetary killing from May to September.

But, I had a nice group of regulars who made me a pretty good living. Plus, there’s a charm to pie shop that you just don’t get at a frozen yogurt place. Sometimes, even in the dead of summer, you want something cozy and nostalgic.

I weaved my way through the line of people, suddenly feeling a tap on the shoulder.

“Hey, being that I’m your favorite principal, is there any chance I could cut to the front of the line?”

I turned around and found Principal Ronald Reinhart staring back at me.

I grinned and then laughed nervously.

Even though it had been many, many years since I’d attended Christmas River High, that same old anxious feeling kicked in when I saw that face.

It wasn’t like I got into trouble or anything. I hardly ever spoke three words to the man when I was a student. He seemed nice enough, but even after all this time, it was a little awkward when he’d stop in for some pie.

But I guess I should have gotten used to seeing him. He’d played Santa Claus in the Christmas River in July festivities for years now.

Which meant come play rehearsal time this evening, I would be playing his Mrs. Claus.

“You know I’d love to help you disregard the rules of civilized society, Principal Reinhart, but I think we might have a riot on our hands if I let you cut to the front.”

He laughed heartily, his large gut bouncing up and down. 

“But we do have a lot of that Sour Lemon Cream Pie you love so much,” I said. “I’ll make sure there’s a slice with your name on it when you get to the counter.”

“Well, I guess that’ll have to do,” he said.

I smiled politely and then made my way to the front.

“It’s been like this all morning,” Chrissy said after I’d come around to the back of the counter.

She reached under the glass case and pulled out a slice of the Moundful Marionberry, and lopped it onto a plate before handing it to a sun-burnt tourist in a wide brimmed straw hat.

The woman stared at Chrissy’s black nails and wrist tattoo of a crow for a moment before taking her pie to one of the few empty booths.

“Do you want to go on a break?” I asked. “I’ll take over up here for a bit.”

“Naw,” she said. “My shift’s over pretty soon anyway.”

She had a determined look on her face. Like she wasn’t going to let that long line get the best of her.                           

“You’re a Rockstar,” I said, going into the kitchen.

I put my purse on the coat rack and pulled my trusty cowgirl apron down. It was stiff and faded after being in the wash hundreds of times, but I’d grown attached to it. Even with pieces of dough melted onto some parts, I wouldn’t use any of the new ones that Kara had made me.

It still had at least 100 more washes in it.

“Hey Cinnamon.”

I must have jumped up three feet in the air, startled after hearing my name called in what I thought was an empty kitchen. 

“Jesus,” I said once I regained my breath.

It was just Carson, Chrissy’s boyfriend, who washed dishes two days a week.

I had forgotten that he was scheduled to work today. 

Carson was a tall, thin character that had a fun energy about him. He was about Chrissy’s age, in his mid-twenties, but he seemed younger than that. He had a youthful spirit that sometimes popped up around the kitchen in the form of practical jokes. He liked to wear one of the frilly cowgirl aprons I had lying around the shop when he was working. Kara had made me a few new ones last Christmas that said “Cinnamon’s Pie Shop” across the front. I loved them, but I found it hard to break out of my old routine of wearing my original, very-well-loved cowgirl apron. And Carson seemed to take a liking to the frill and tassels of the new one.