by Meg Muldoon
“I’m sorry, darlin.’ I’m not laughing at Warren. Honest.”
He started busting up again.
I felt my cheeks flush.
“Sure as St. Nick seems like you’re laughing at him.”
“No, really. I mean, yes, technically I am. But mostly, I’m just laughing at the situation.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Sounds like I better just take those presents back to the stores tomorrow and get my money back—”
He put a hand on my arm and quieted down for a moment, his eyes still glassy.
“It’s just so funny, Cin. You see… there was a man up on the brewpub’s roof this morning.”
“Oh my gosh, did you see Santa?”
The question sounded even stupider out loud than it had in my head, but I said it anyway.
I guess Warren had me almost believing in the big man.
He paused, looking like he was barely holding in a laugh.
Then he regained enough composure to speak.
“No. But I did see a man who goes by the name of Lou Gunderson. From Gunderson’s Appliances, that is. I asked him to go up there and fix Lars Claus. Paid him a pretty penny, too.”
I felt my eyes grow wide.
“You…?”
“It was going to be a present to the old man. I know how much he loves that old plastic Santa. I figured if Warren couldn’t fix it, Lou probably couldn’t either, but I asked him to take a look this morning anyway. And to do it on the quiet, too, just in case he couldn’t get Lars Claus to work. But as the entire town now knows, it looks like he did.”
“So… it wasn’t really Santa?”
“Not unless Santa’s a Pink Floyd fan with long hair and a beer belly.”
A wave of disappointment hit me.
I guess deep down, there’s always a small part of you that’s still a child and wants to believe in Santa. Even though you know logically that he couldn’t possibly exist.
My disappointment, however, didn’t last long.
“That was really thoughtful of you, Daniel,” I said. “You made the old man so happy.”
“Glad to hear that. I’m just sorry about the misunderstanding. Now everyone in town will think he’s a loon.”
I leaned over.
“Only if you tell them what really happened.”
Daniel pursed his lips together.
“Hmm. You’re right. Apparently, I’m sitting on some top secret information here.”
He settled back against the bench, stretching his arms out.
“How much are you gonna pay me to keep this quiet? What kind of installment payment plan can I expect?”
I smiled.
“We’ll come to some kind of arrangement, Mr. Brightman.”
“Oh really? You sound pretty sure of that.”
I looked up into his green eyes, pushing a strand of loose hair off his forehead and tucking it under his hat.
“I am.”
I leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on his lips.
A moment later, the first luminous rays of a full Christmas moon reached over the mountains in the distance, spilling soft blue light onto the snow around us.
“I’m happy you took me here tonight,” I whispered.
“Does that mean you’re glad you finally agreed to be my wife here?”
I let out a content sigh.
“Best decision of my life, Sheriff Brightman. Hands down.”
He pulled me closer to him.
“I love you, Cin. I’ll always love you, too. No matter what. No matter how old we get or how successful you become or what the future might hold.”
I went weak in the knees.
“No matter how crazy your grandfather gets, either.”
“Daniel!”
I shook my head and then punched him playfully, but he just held me tightly to his chest, looking down at me.
I stopped moving.
Passionate feelings suddenly swept through me like a forest fire in August.
There was no complacency or boredom – the magic was still there between us.
The way it always was.
“Remember what you said to me that night – when you first proposed?” I asked.
“Every word, but remind me anyway.”
“You told me that staying together and not getting married wouldn’t be enough for you. Because you wanted it all. And because you wanted me to have it all, too. Remember that?”
“I remember,” he said softly.
I looked up at him – at my soulmate.
Everything I had ever wanted in my life I could find right there in those compassionate, caring eyes of his.
“Let’s not wait any longer,” I whispered. “Let’s have it all. The way you said. The sooner the better.”
I searched his face.
He knew what I meant by that.
He brushed a hand against my cheek.
“You’re sure? I mean, with our trip coming up and—”
I reached for his hand.
“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life, Daniel.”
He smiled.
“Never,” I whispered.
He gave me such a loving, fiery, passionate look then, I thought all the snow around us might just melt away into nothing.
Maybe Santa wasn’t real.
But I did know one thing for sure—
True love was.
Epilogue
The man in the gray coat walked through the sliding doors of the residential living facility, tucking the auto magazine under his arm. He stamped his shoes free of snow, and then took a wide path around the two old timers. Like always, they were pushing their walkers at about the same speed that traffic inched by on the I-676 during rush hour. He nodded at the old men, but didn’t stop to talk. He never did – even though he sensed the two would have liked nothing more than to strike up a conversation with him.
They reminded him of Grace’s old man in that way. He’d liked conversation, too.
The man said hello to the husky woman at the nurse’s station. She nodded back, but as was her custom, she didn’t look too hard at him. Like most nurses in the home, she had too much on her plate to question him or why he sat there every Sunday afternoon at this hour.
The man in the gray coat took his usual seat and flipped open the magazine. His interest in cars had waned significantly in the last few months, and he found his mind wandering as he sat there, waiting.
His thoughts went back to Grace’s old man.
He wondered if he was still alive. He hadn’t bothered looking him up – he knew the old man wouldn’t see him. Grace’s father didn’t want anything to do with him. He’d said as much in that letter all those years ago, covered in his jagged, angry scrawl. The one that came back after he’d sent that birthday card.
“Don’t you ever think about coming back, either. No one wants you here. Don’t you know by now that you poison everything you touch?”
The man had burned the letter in his fireplace. Burning it didn’t help that much, though. The words were etched in his mind long after the letter was nothing more than ash.
The front doors of the assisted living facility opened. The man lifted his eyes from his magazine, glancing at it expectantly.
It wasn’t her.
She was a little late today.
He looked back down at his magazine.
He probably should have listened to Grace’s old man. He’d planned to. All these years, he’d stayed far, far away from Christmas River. He’d carried on with his new life. Pretending it had been some other man with that family. Some other man who had worked in those mills for lousy pay. Some other man who’d been so unhappy that in a moment of wild desperation, he woke up one morning, packed a suitcase, and skipped town on everything and everyone.
The man in the gray coat had done a good job forgetting.
But late at night, when the world was asleep and the steady rhythmic breathing of his wife filled their bedroom,
he’d lie awake, remembering.
He’d think about her small face. Bright eyes with such innocence and vulnerability, the slightest mean word could turn them into wells of tears. He remembered playing catch with her on warm summer days in their backyard. The way she beamed when he said “nice catch, champ.”
If he thought about her too long during those dark, dark nights, his ulcer would start flaring up.
He closed the magazine, unable to read anything more. He squinted out the window at the snow-covered mountains in the distance.
He had no intention of ever seeing those mountains again.
But then October happened. The incident in the stairwell at work and all that later came of it. And suddenly, he felt the need to do something.
He heard the familiar click of the front door slide open. He looked over again.
She wore a plaid jacket and sensible boots, and her hair was arranged in a high, carefree ponytail. She gracefully balanced the boxes in her arms as she entered, the way she always did.
She seemed smart and confident.
He supposed he had Grace’s old man to thank for that.
The man in the gray wool coat liked to think he’d had a hand in helping her recently. He’d been the one to call 9-1-1 after seeing her pull away from the parking lot with that man sitting in the seat behind her. When he called the police, he hadn’t given his name to the operator.
He didn’t want her finding out about him that way.
She smiled at the two old timers with their walkers, pausing to talk with them.
She was kind.
It gave him hope to see that.
She left the two old timers cackling and walked over to the nurse’s station. She set the boxes down and bantered with the large woman.
“After what happened last time, I thought that maybe you’d stop coming here.”
“Well, I thought about it, but then I figured that Jessup and Ike might stage a riot if they didn’t get their weekly slice of Marionberry pie. I figured it’d be easier on everyone just to swing by and drop these off.”
The ladies exchanged pleasantries some more. She promised to return next week, this time with the dog.
She turned and started heading away from the nurse’s station.
But to his surprise, right before leaving, she stopped.
He looked down suddenly at his magazine, pretending to be engrossed, feeling her eyes on him.
“What kind of pie do you like, mister?”
He felt his throat tighten, the same way it had done the last time that she’d spoken to him.
“Excuse… excuse me?”
“Pie. What kind do you like?”
He gazed into her dark brown eyes, and for a second, he feared she recognized him.
“I… I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t really like pie.”
“Oh, don’t give me that. Everyone likes pie. How about Marionberry? That’s usually a hit.”
His heart began pounding so fast, he thought it was going to burst out of his chest.
He didn’t answer.
Couldn’t answer.
“Next time, I’ll bring you a slice,” she said finally.
“Su… Sure,” he choked out.
There was a lump the size of a baseball in his throat.
She smiled, oblivious to the turmoil churning inside of him. Then, she turned around and left.
He watched her walk away.
One day soon, he’d have the courage to say more.
One day soon, he’d stop coming here and go to her pie shop instead.
One day soon, he’d tell his daughter about the things that had kept him up all of those sleepless nights.
Just not today.
He waited ten minutes. Then he folded his magazine, stood up, and headed out to his car.
To be continued…
Please continue to the next page for a special note to my readers.
Look for Mistake in Christmas River (Book 11) in 2018!
Did you enjoy this book? Please let others know by leaving a review on Amazon. Reviews are greatly appreciated by the author. Thank you in advance, dear reader!
For cozy contests, giveaways, and recipes, join Meg Muldoon on Facebook or visit her Blog.
To sign up for the Meg Muldoon new book alert mailing list, and to get Meg’s Cozy Corner newsletters, click here.
A Note to My Readers
Christmas River first began in December of 2010 when I was a reporter for a newspaper in my hometown of Bend, Oregon.
I was assigned a story about an unwanted Labrador/pit-bull shelter dog named Nala who saved the life of another dog during a big snowstorm (if you’d like to read about this backstory, click here.) The story was one that not many others in the newsroom wanted to take because of its inherently “fluffy” nature – it wasn’t hard-hitting or the kind of thing that most of us got into journalism to cover.
But despite that, the story ended up touching something in me. A sentimental side that, until that day, I didn’t know existed.
The article that came out of my reporting was picked up by the Associated Press. I ended up getting calls and emails from people across the country wanting to adopt Nala the hero dog. And for the first time in my career, I learned what it felt like to make a difference in the world through my writing.
A couple of years later, I wrote the first Christmas River book. And though the characters and pooches featured in the book were different than in the 2010 article, the feeling behind it was the same. It was a story about overcoming rough patches in life, about finding redemption, and most of all, about seeing the good that exists in everything and everyone.
In the years since, I’ve received many kind notes and letters from readers telling me about how much The Christmas River Series has meant to them. These notes in turn always mean so much to me – especially the ones from readers who tell me that the books have helped them get through a particularly difficult time in their lives. I can think of no better work to do in this world than that.
Since this is Book 10 of the series and seems like a landmark of some sort, I would like to say a special thanks to my family – M & P, TF, J, L, L, B, and G. They have helped me with so much over the past five years of writing – from teaching me how to use self-publishing programs to designing beautiful covers for my books to being beta readers to encouraging me during the many ups and downs that come with being a writer. I’m so incredibly lucky to have you guys in my life. I love all of you so very, very much.
I would also like to thank Phyllis May and Mary Brown – some of Christmas River’s biggest supporters! I appreciate all that you’ve done to promote my series over the years, and more than that, I feel glad to call you friends. I would also like to thank my advance readers’ group – thanks so much for your encouragement and for all the wonderful reviews!
And finally, I’m so grateful to all of you readers who have come on this journey with me. Your support has meant more than you could ever know. You’ve allowed me to live out my dream – not to mention live part time in the coziest place in the world. I can only hope that my stories have reciprocated somehow. Thank you, readers.
I will continue to write books in The Christmas River Series for as long as I can still do the characters justice, and/or until I run out of “M” words for the titles. And who knows – maybe I’ll start on a new letter after that!
So in a sense, I think that we’ve really only just begun ;)
With gratitude, love, and best wishes for a joyous holiday season,
Meg Muldoon
Dec. 1, 2017
Christmas River, Oregon
Look for these exciting books coming soon from Meg Muldoon!
Mistake in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 11)
Malarkey in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 12)
Elf Confidential: A Holly Hopewell Cozy Mystery (Book 2)
Ginger Snaps: A Broomfield Bay Cozy Mystery (Book 2)
The Meg Muldoon Collection
The Christmas River Cozy Mystery Series
Murder in Christmas River: Book 1
Mayhem in Christmas River: Book 2
Madness in Christmas River: Book 3
Malice in Christmas River: Book 4
Mischief in Christmas River: Book 5
Manic in Christmas River: Book 6
Magic in Christmas River: Book 7
Menace in Christmas River: Book 8
Missing in Christmas River: Book 9
Meltdown in Christmas River: Book 10
The Christmas River Cozy Mystery Box Set: Books 1-3
The Christmas River Cozy Mystery Box Set Books 4-6
The Holly Hopewell Cozy Mystery Series
The Silence of the Elves: Book 1
The Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series
Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: Book 1
Busted in Broken Hearts Junction: Book 2
The Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery Series
Mutts & Murder: Book 1
Bulldogs & Bullets: Book 2
The Broomfield Bay Mystery Series (with Jools Sinclair)
Ginger of the West: Book 1
Fall in love with another Meg Muldoon series!
The Silence of the Elves: A Holly Hopewell Cozy Mystery (Book 1)
Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Book 1)
Busted in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Book 2)
Mutts & Murder: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery (Book 1)
Bulldogs & Bullets: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery (Book 2)
