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Love, Lies & Mistletoe

Page 2

by Jennifer Snow


  Yet every time she checked her bank account, she was reminded of how much she needed to get a job and get back to the city. She was volunteering her time at the B and B in exchange for a room, and the bar paid minimum wage and was never busy enough for her to make much in tips. “Victoria never expected you stay, and she’s a good friend—she’ll understand your decision. Just like you supported hers to move back to Brookview.”

  “Brookhollow.”

  “Sure, whatever. Call Mike Ainsley and secure this position before Christmas. We really want you to spend the holidays with us this year. Last year wasn’t the same without you.”

  Guilt washed over her. Without their parents, she and her sister had always spent the holidays together, but the year before she’d decided to stay in Brookhollow, knowing that Christmas in the city—her first one single and alone—might be too depressing. But the holiday hadn’t been the same for her, either. And the truth was, she wasn’t happy in the small town anymore. It was time to move on. “I’ll call him in the morning.”

  * * *

  JACOB UNLOCKED THE back door of the three-story house on Pine Street where he was renting the attic-turned-bachelor-suite from Mrs. Kelly, a retired schoolteacher. Despite the late hour, all of the lights were on. He suspected she waited up for him every evening, and he sighed when he heard the sound of her slippers shuffling down the hallway.

  “Jake, that you?” she called.

  So much for sneaking upstairs unnoticed. “Yeah, Mrs. Kelly, it’s just me.”

  “Hi, dear,” she said as she entered the back porch off of the kitchen. “I was hoping you’d be home sooner.”

  Home? Hardly. Home was a two-bedroom apartment in the city that he hadn’t seen in three years, first living undercover in a dive motel in Brooklyn, where he slept with his clothes on and his gun under his pillow, and then hiding out here in Brookhollow, where the only danger—for now—was this woman’s nosiness.

  Home was such a distant memory, he wasn’t sure he’d recognize it even if he ever did see it again.

  He sighed. “Why? What did you need help with?” In addition to paying three hundred dollars in rent for the twenty by twenty, six-foot high space that had given him a permanent neck cramp from stooping, he’d also become her jar opener, her sidewalk clearer and, most recently, her plumber.

  “Well, I wanted to start my holiday decorating...”

  “Isn’t it a little soon?” Heather could argue that businesses needed to get an early push on the season, but individuals? Was that really necessary?

  Mrs. Kelly’s expression revealed that she thought he was crazy for even making the suggestion. “Of course not.”

  “Right. Okay, so what do you need?” Because he knew that’s where this was headed.

  “Well, my nephew used to come and help me get my things out of the storage space...but he’s away at the police academy in Boston.”

  That’s right, her nephew was Cody Kelly, the young man who’d been counting on the sheriff’s position here in Brookhollow once he graduated in a few weeks. Well, the kid could have it...as soon as Jacob didn’t need it anymore.

  “He’ll be here during the holidays of course, so don’t worry, you’ll get a chance to meet him.”

  He wasn’t worrying, and he seriously doubted he’d be attending the family’s holiday festivities. The young man probably wasn’t thrilled that Jacob had taken his position and wouldn’t be excited about meeting him, either.

  “But in the meantime...”

  “You’d like me to get your decorations out for you.”

  She smiled. “You are such a sweet boy.”

  “First thing in the morning, I’ll get everything out before I go to work,” he said, turning the corner and starting to climb the stairs.

  She hurried after him. “I was kinda hoping to get started tonight.”

  Jacob poked his head around the corner, checking the time on the microwave. “It’s eleven-thirty. You want to start decorating now?”

  She nodded. “I’m a bit of a night owl.”

  He stifled a yawn. “Mrs. Kelly...” How did he tell the woman that, just because he was renting space in her home, she couldn’t expect him to be there to help her with every project? That he preferred his privacy and space. He should never have ignored his gut, which had told him moving into her attic apartment would be a mistake. The price had been right, and at the time, he’d hoped he wouldn’t need the place for more than a few weeks, a month at most. But a few weeks had quickly turned into four months and counting.

  Four long months hiding who he really was, avoiding meaningful contact with people in town, trying to get used to once again being a beat cop—handing out tickets and issuing fines—and desperately trying to convince Mrs. Kelly that he could do his own laundry and that she didn’t need to go into his apartment for any reason, especially not to put away his clothes. He’d learned quickly to keep anything personal in his locker at the station, away from curious old eyes.

  The only thing he kept close by was his gun...and he hoped his landlady wouldn’t be nosy enough to check inside the toilet tank in his bathroom.

  But just in case, better to stay in her good books... “Where is the storage space?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Well, since I turned the attic into an apartment, I’ve been storing everything in the crawl space,” she said, leading the way.

  He hesitated. Crawl space?

  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  He followed. “Mrs. Kelly, do you mean like underneath your house? That kind of crawl space?”

  “That’s right,” she said, opening a half-size door beneath the staircase at the end of the hall. She reached inside and pulled a string attached to the lightbulb in the low ceiling. “Everything is in here.”

  Yeah, everything like spiders, mice, enough dust to induce an asthma attack in the healthiest of lungs...

  “I can no longer bend enough to get in there,” she said.

  Jacob glanced at her. Mrs. Kelly was barely five feet tall; if she couldn’t bend low enough, how could he? “Huh, Mrs. Kelly... I’m not sure I’m the guy for this job. Why don’t you hire a junior high kid to come over after school and help you? Pay them twenty bucks, and I’m sure they’ll be eager to help any way they can.”

  “Pay someone?” She looked at him as though he’d suggested burning it all. She shook her head. “No need. You’re here. There’s only four or five boxes.” She peered inside the space and waved him closer.

  Sighing, he got down on his knees and crawled beneath the stairs. The cold draft coming from the large, uninsulated space made him shiver. He hoped she didn’t have any snow globes among her decorations; they were probably frozen solid.

  “They are all over in that far corner.”

  Of course they were.

  “Most of them are labeled.”

  Most?

  “If you’re not sure, open the top flaps. It should be easy to tell what’s Christmas stuff and what’s not.” She moved past him and straightened. “Thanks, dear. I’ll leave you to it.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head, not for the first time wondering if maybe staying in the city and putting his life at risk was such a bad option after all.

  Of course the department hadn’t left him much choice. It was either get out of town while the gun smoke settled on the bust that had gone wrong or be permanently removed from the force.

  Heading farther into the space, he grabbed several nearby boxes
and propped open the door.

  “Oh, Jake, please close that while you’re in there. That draft is really cold.”

  Right. “Okay, Mrs. Kelly,” he mumbled, moving the boxes aside and letting the door close behind him.

  He was grateful for his jacket and gloves as he moved toward the corner where she said the boxes would be. Dishes... Clothing... Christmas decorations—in a far back corner behind dozens of other boxes. He sighed. It had been a long time since he’d needed to dig out holiday decorations...and he’d been hoping to avoid any reminder of better, happier times. He reached for the boxes and tried to simply focus on the task ahead of him. He just needed to get through the season.

  * * *

  HEATHER DESCENDED THE refinished hardwood staircase at the Brookhollow Inn the next morning, skipping the third from the bottom step that always creaked, despite Victoria’s husband’s many attempts to fix it.

  The inn had been Heather’s home for a year and a half, but when she’d moved in, she’d had nowhere else to be. Visiting the quiet, laid-back small town had seemed like a great break from her stressful life in the city, but the desire to move on was increasing each day, especially as her bank account balance dipped lower.

  She scanned the dining room, but it was empty. The B and B’s occupancy rate had dwindled in recent months, since the weather turned colder and the roads were less than ideal to travel on. And they wouldn’t be filling up again until the week before Christmas, when the inn would be full with guests visiting local family for the holidays.

  She turned the daily calendar at the check-in desk. Almost another year wasted, without figuring out a plan for her future.

  Well, it was time.

  She reached into her jeans pocket and retrieved the piece of register tape from the bar. Mike Ainsley and the position at Highstone Acquisitions might be the answer to that. Tucking it in her hand, she poked her head into the kitchen.

  Empty.

  She headed toward the back of the house, listening carefully for Victoria’s voice. Her friend habitually sat in the back sunroom, feeding her baby girl, Harper, around this time every day. Usually, her off-key singing voice could be heard torturing a lullaby, but today it was quiet. Maybe she hadn’t arrived yet.

  One glance through the glass walls of the sunroom revealed that it was snowing heavily, big fluffy white flakes collecting quickly on the already-covered ground.

  The grandfather clock in the front sitting room chimed. Nine o’clock. Cameron had texted to say Rob had reluctantly agreed to give his boss a heads-up that she would be calling and that Mike Ainsley was expecting her call at nine. Heading back to the front desk, Heather pulled her cell phone from her purse.

  Crap! She had to start remembering to plug in her phone at night. The dead battery light flickered a second longer, then the phone shut off completely. Wonderful. She’d have to make the long distance call at the desk. Luckily, she’d recently taken over paying the B and B’s invoices, so she would know how much to reimburse Victoria for the call.

  She wondered if her friend would accept a payment plan schedule.

  But what if her friend noticed the acquisition firm’s number on the bill? She bit her lip.

  Two minutes past nine.

  Picking up the receiver, she heard nothing. No dial tone. The line was dead.

  What the...?

  Glancing at the display screen on the phone revealed the connection with the server was down. Fantastic. She jiggled the mouse for the computer and waited for the reservation screen to appear. Great, the internet was down, too.

  She wanted to scream. Stupid weather caused this to happen often around here. How many times had she told Victoria’s husband, Luke, that the internet phone system may be cheap, but it wasn’t reliable? And now was not the day to have her point proven. 9:04. What had her sister said about Mike Ainsley? He was old-school and didn’t appreciate lateness.

  This wasn’t exactly her fault, but unless the other man had ever lived in a middle-of-nowhere town, he was probably not going to accept her excuses. Sitting in the chair, she noticed the old rotary phone on the corner of the desk. The phone lines should still work, just not the computerized system. Diving for it, she held her breath as she picked up the receiver.

  Dial tone. Success. Thank God they’d kept the landline as a backup.

  Man, this thing was heavy, she thought, retrieving the number and slowly dialing it. Good thing this wasn’t a real emergency. Finally, when the phone started ringing, she sat straighter, mentally rehearsing her pitch.

  “Happy holidays. Thank you for calling Highstone Acquisitions, how may I help you?” a chirpy receptionist’s voice said.

  “Hi, this is Heather Corbett. I’m calling for Mr. Ainsley.”

  “Mr. Ainsley, Junior or Senior?” she asked.

  Great, there were two of them. Thanks for the heads up, Cam. “Senior, I believe. Mike.”

  “Mike is Junior. Michael is Senior. Which is it?”

  Oh, come on. “The one in charge of hiring?”

  “I’ll put you through to HR,” the young woman said in a tone that made it possible to imagine her rolling her eyes.

  “Oh, no, actually Mr. Ainsley, Senior, I think, was expecting my call at nine,” Heather said.

  “It’s ten after.”

  It is now! “I know, I apologize. I was having technical difficulties this morning.” With a phone. Wow—could she sound any less competent?

  “Hold the line,” the receptionist said.

  A second later, the sound of voices outside the B and B caught her attention, followed by the scrape of a metal shovel clearing the steps. Victoria and her husband, Luke, were there. Heather’s eyes widened.

  “This is Michael Ainsley,” a deep voice said on the other end of the line.

  She swallowed hard, watching the front door, hoping her friends would remain outside long enough to get this man to agree to review her résumé. “Hi, Mr. Ainsley, this is Heather Corbett, Rob Ashley’s sister-in-law.”

  “Yes, he said to expect your call.”

  “Right, yes, so I’m interested in the opening for an acquisition agent that you have for the new year,” she said quickly.

  Outside, slamming of the car door and more scraping.

  “Well, we are hoping to fill the position in the next few weeks, preferably before the office shuts down for the holidays. We are closed from...hmm, let me find my calendar...”

  Oh, my God! “Right, for the holidays, I understand. Anyway, I’d love to send you my résumé.”

  “Well, before we get to that, I have a couple of questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “The most obvious one, of course, is why should we consider you for the position?” he asked, before erupting in a terrible fit of coughing.

  “Um...” Still coughing.

  “Sorry...give me...just a sec...” he said between coughs, and she could hear him set the phone down.

  She closed her eyes and rested her head against her hand. Come on.

  “Sorry about that. Terrible cold...it seems to have migrated to my lungs.”

  “Terrible...just awful. To answer your question, though, I think I would be a great candidate for the position based on my years of experience in a similar role with Clarke and Johnston Acquisitions in New York City...”

  “We do things a little differently around here, I’ll warn you.”

  “That’s okay. I’m a quick learner, and I’m loyal
,” she said and cringed. Sure she was; that’s why she was desperate to get this job and bail on one of her best friends.

  The outside porch door opened, and her heart raced.

  “We do appreciate long-term employees. Your brother-in-law has been with us probably the least amount of time and he’s been here...”

  “Ten years, I know,” she said quickly, hearing the stomping of boots in the entryway. “Anyway, sir, I really would love to send you my résumé, and I’m available for a face-to-face interview anytime.” Not exactly true, but she would make time.

  Any second now, Vic would enter, and she really wasn’t ready to tell her friend that she hoped to move back to the city. She’d rather wait to tell her once she knew for sure about the job...maybe by phone. She shook her head. Victoria deserved better after all their years of friendship. She would tell her...soon.

  The door opened, and Victoria came in, carrying a wailing Harper in her car seat. Weighed down with the baby, a diaper bag and several grocery bags, she struggled to close the door.

  “Do you have children?” Mike asked.

  “Some help, please?” Victoria said at the same time.

  “No!” Heather answered Mike’s question.

  “Seriously?” Victoria shot her a look before noticing she was on the phone. “Oh, sorry,” she said, setting the crying baby girl on the floor and shutting the door against the cold breeze.

  “Okay...because we expect our employees to travel quite a bit,” Mike said.

  Heather plugged her other ear against the earth-shattering wails. “I understand. That’s not a problem.”

  Victoria unharnessed Harper from her car seat, and the crying stopped immediately.

  Finally.

  “Who are you talking to?” she mouthed.

  Nosy much? Heather shook her head, hoping Vic would move on.

 

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