by Bria Quinlan
The puppy gave a sharp, joyful bark, obviously enjoying all the excitement.
Lyra glanced back to where Skye and Vivian were leaning against the wall, laughing to themselves. What kind of serve and protect was that?
She was going to file a complaint about the deputy with the deputy.
“Lyra, everything okay here?”
Lyra glanced up to see Noah, former Army Ranger, standing with his arms crossed next to Spence. He gave her a wink. ”I was just coming over to get this afternoon's dessert cookie tray."
As they stood there, a car pulled up behind Miss Angie's. They had officially reached traffic jam capacity for Starlight Harbor.
The man opened his car door and got halfway out, leaning on the doorframe. ”Miss Angie, everything okay with your car?"
"Oh, Ralph, everything is great. I love my new car. I just brought her in to Vivian to make her do a little extra vroom vroom, if you know what I mean." The 82-year-old woman grinned as she gave Vivian a little wave.
Even Lyra was beginning to see the ridiculousness of the situation.
She glanced up at Spence, who she expected to have a mocking look of disdain on his face. Instead, he looked amused, perhaps even more at ease.
"All right, folks. That's enough. Show’s over." Skye finally stepped into the road, giving a quick clap of her hands. ”Don't worry, Miss Angie. I've got this.”
"Skye, thank goodness you're here. This man was trying to kidnap Lyra."
"Now don't you worry, Miss Angie. No one’s getting kidnapped. You just hop back into your car—which I will be sending you your ticket for driving on public roads later—and I'll take care of everything."
"I don't think you should give me a ticket, because it's very lucky I was here to stop the event."
With a ridiculous amount of dignity for the way she was dressed and the puppy running around chasing his tail following her, Miss Angie strode back to her car, got in, and peeled out, barely missing all the pedestrians by inches.
"That woman is going to kill someone.” Noah shook his head as he watched her pull away. ”I hope I'm as crazy as her when I'm that age."
"Oh, honey, we all know you're that crazy now.” Lyra patted him on the arm, giving it a squeeze for good measure. “No sane person jumps out of perfectly good airplanes."
The girls gave Noah, one of their town transplants, a rough time for a few minutes before someone cleared his throat.
“Excuse me. I don’t mean to interrupt all the flirting and complete lack of law and order.” Spence glanced between the women, seemingly more annoyed by being ignored than not. “But I’d like my bag back and to press charges for attempted robbery. And perhaps assault."
"Assault! No one assaulted you. You’re harassing and stalking me."
"Really?" Noah all but flexed his entire upper body as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Lyra was reluctantly impressed that Spence didn't cower at the obvious attempts at guy-on-guy intimidation.
"Okay, this has been amusing.” Skye’s tone said she was no longer joking. “But you’ve ruined my lunch. We're going to take this inside. Then I’ll decide if this meeting gets transferred to the police station after another cup of tea because I'm under-caffeinated and about to arrest all of you.”
With that, she strode back across the street to jerk the front door of The Sweetest Things open and gave a hard, empathetic point to the group and then pointed inside.
Vivian glanced at her cell and scowled. ”Well, darn it all. I'm going to miss all the fun. I have to go pick Tyler up.” She glanced at Skye and gave her a wicked smile. ”I don't suppose you'd be willing to Facebook Live this to my Messenger?"
"Tempting, but no."
Vivian leaned down and kissed Lyra on the cheek. "Fight the man, Lyra. Fight the man."
Skye shook her head, obviously exasperated with everyone at this point.
Lyra tugged the bag, but Spence didn't let go. They glared at each other until Skye finally had enough.
“That's it. Give me the bag. Everybody inside.”
She marched them both inside, Lyra in the lead because it was her shop and she deserved to be able to set the tone.
She’d just gained a second level of home turf advantage and was going to use it to overcome this mob boss and all he stood for.
8
Spence had been wrong. Absolutely wrong.
This town wasn’t tacky. It was crazy.
Every single one of these people was nuts.
He walked into the cool bakery, unsurprised this time by its complete charm and warmth, and headed over to where the sheriff was pulling two tables together.
He shouldn't have been surprised to see the muscle head had decided to tag along.
With his luck—and all the flirting that had been going on—that guy was dating Lyra and Spence wasn't going to make it out of there without some bones broken. Or, at the very least, broken glasses.
"Noah?" The sheriff gave him a look.
"Sorry. Cookie emergency. Can't leave until I get my cookies. You know how Mr. Cameron and Mr. Forsyth get. I don't come back with cookies and whoever loses today's game blames me… Or you."
The sheriff just groaned but gave Noah a nod. “Fine. Stay over there. Don't say anything. Not a peep, not a cough, not a growl.”
It wasn’t a good sign she was letting him stay. She didn’t look like a woman you wanted to mess with, and she was armed. But she must be leaning toward dealing with this in a way Spence wouldn’t like if she was letting backup stick around.
He took the chair closest to the door, an instinct that wouldn’t do him any good with the guy guarding it. Apparently, while he’d been doing that, Lyra had put together a guest tray. She put four iced teas and a collection of sugar cookies down in front of him.
"Only one of these is poisoned,” she said with a saccharine sweet smile. “You get to pick first.”
Over by the door, Noah snorted.
Spence picked up the tea, looked her dead in the eye, and drank three gulps.
There was no way he was going to be threatened by a small woman handing out iced beverages and cookies. It would take a lot more than that.
Éclairs, maybe.
"Let's just figure out what's what. I’m Deputy Mackay,” she introduced herself as she pulled out a notebook and set it in front of her before she took a sip of the iced tea. ”Oh, nice. What happened to the peach?”
“You finished it off at lunch."
Sure, this was definitely going to be fair.
"So, Spence. Tell me about the cyber attacks on Lyra that occurred yesterday until she was forced to shut down her website, her phone, and her business."
Yep. Totally fair.
Spence thought about not taking the situation seriously because, let's be honest, this was ludicrous. But that wasn't going to get him any further, and by the looks of it, might get his butt thrown in the local pokey. Or whatever they call jail here in tiny town.
"At no time did I encourage, suggest, or direct people to attack Miss Grigor’s business or person."
And, he continued in his head, she brought this upon herself by engaging. Everyone knows not to engage.
He glanced across the table at the small woman, her hands in little fists he was betting she thought carried all the power in the world.
When she’d poked him out in the park, he’d nearly laughed. That small hand trying to physically force him to do something had been so adorable. That, and the color raised in her cheeks making her freckles stand out and eyes look an even brighter green.
She was like sunshine and summer.
“And yet the harassment got so bad that I had to shut down everything last night. I may have even canceled orders that were valid, which will affect my Yelp reviews. Oh, wait.” Lyra made a big impression of remembering something. “My Yelp page is now under one star… Which I didn't even think was possible.”
Neither did he, come to think of it. ”I'm working to take care of the Yelp
situation."
Her brows went up, a bit of shock on her face. “So you admit that the situation is your fault?"
"I admit nothing."
"Yet you're here to, and I quote, fix it. And now you’re taking care of the Yelp situation?”
That was enough of that. All the warm, protective feelings he’d been having just a moment ago rushed out of him. He had to remember why he was here. He basically had to save her to save himself.
"You got yourself into a situation by engaging in a community you're unfamiliar with. Because nothing like that has ever happened on my site before—" He ignored the pfft and kept going. ”I felt, not a responsibility, but a desire to calm things down. To assist you in taking yourself out of this hole. By doing this, I also wanted to make sure that anyone else who visits my community doesn't end up in the same precarious situation."
They stared at one another over the table. He couldn’t read her, but he glanced at the sheriff, who seemed a mixture of amused and committed.
"Translation: you're here because I threatened to sue you."
Spence hoped his face didn't telegraph the truth. That was absolutely why he was here.
He couldn't very well tell her he was here because he was so far in debt he couldn't see the top of the hole. That he lost sight of his dream and every day was another step further away from the life he wanted.
And he certainly couldn't tell her that one lawsuit from her could change everything he was working toward to put it all behind him and get his life back on track.
Instead, he said, "I certainly don't want to be sued. But I don't think there's anything weird about that."
They went back to their stare-off. From behind them, a deep sigh echoed. He wanted to turn around to be like Sorry, Mr. Muscles. Nerd boy and bakery girl can't just have a brawl and settle it that way.
The sheriff scribbled a couple notes, and he wasn't the only one trying to stretch a little to see what she was writing. When she caught them both doing it, she snapped her notebook shut and speared them both with a glare.
“I want this fixed. And I want it fixed now.” She turned to Lyra and continued, “You know the town does not have time for this, especially being a Christmas weekend. Figure out what’s going to make this work for you.”
“Well…” Lyra drew the word out, obviously not sure what she wanted.
“Wait a second.” Spence waved a hand to get the attention back to him. “I already shut the post down and closed the comments. I’m taking care of the Yelp situation, and I came to apologize in person.”
“Stalker,” Lyra said under her breath.
The sheriff gave her a look and Lyra subsided, sitting back and crossing her arms. He wasn’t fooled into thinking she was done fighting him though.
“You put Lyra at risk, and you insulted the town. I think you can do a little more than apologize.” The sheriff gave him a look, and he realized that was not a suggestion.
"So what were you thinking?" Might as well hear the high bid right off the bat.
"You know, you mentioned exposés…"
Of course she’d remember that.
"I'm not really sure what we’d be doing an exposé on. I have done specials on small towns with long histories that were losing their ability to keep people." He shrugged. ”Sometimes it helps to revitalize them, get things back on track for at least a segment of the population."
The two women looked at each other and burst out laughing. He wasn't sure what was so funny about his suggestion. He just offered them prime real estate in his magazine.
He even glanced over his shoulder at the Noah guy, who lowered his head and was swiping his fist across his jaw, apparently attempting to hide the smile.
"What's so funny?"
Both women did one of those silent conversations as only girls can do. He waited them out, knowing there was no point rushing them. When they were done, apparently Lyra had been nominated to give him whatever it was that they thought was so funny.
“Starlight Harbor isn’t a dying town. Quite the contrary. We specifically limit how many weeks a year we’re available for our guests."
He was really hoping this was not one of those weeks, then.
Either way, that seemed extremely shortsighted. Wouldn't they rather use that time to make additional income?
And who were these custom guests?
“You know what? Maybe we should back up.” The sheriff shook her head and glanced at Lyra in another one of those conversations. There really should be a second-language course for men. “Do you even know what we do here?"
"Sure. You're one of those places that picks a holiday and does it year-round."
Lyra rolled her eyes. “Ignoring the condescension, the simplification of the theme, and you stacking us in with places that do kitsch instead of service, you're not really that close. I mean you got the word Christmas in there, so eight points out of the hundred. But other than that, you're pretty far off."
“Okay.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Explain it to me.”
He all but saw her open her mouth to say she’d use small words but shut it, obviously trying to meet him in the middle.
He was big enough to appreciate that.
“From your time driving in and then hanging outside stalking me, you really don’t have any better guesses?”
She sounded…disappointed. As if she expected more from him. As if he hadn’t completely sunk her opinion of him just because his readers were idiots. He felt himself sitting up a little straighter and hoped muscle guy hadn’t noticed.
Of course, he probably evened out that guy-move when he pushed his glasses back up his nose.
“I’m guessing you focus on little shops, maybe some whale watching.” He nodded, warming up to the theme. It was cute. People did love seaside towns. “I bet there’s some kick butt lobster rolls to be had. I’m assuming it isn’t just the summer tourists. But, beyond that? I don’t know. It looks like Christmas left dust everywhere.”
He made sure to keep his voice light. No need to criticize the town for having a niche they claimed worked for them. The lights and decor had been tasteful, pretty even. Like a Hallmark movie, but way more understated.
“Yes, to all that. But that’s not really the point,” she continued on, starting what he knew was a history lesson he’d better listen to for the clues he needed to fix this mess and get back to New York. “We’ve been doing it since World War II. It started as a small thing, but—”
“He doesn’t need the entire history,” the sheriff stepped in, obviously trying to move things along.
Lyra scowled at her. “Of course he does, if he’s going to understand what he’s done.”
“Right.” The sarcasm was obvious.
“Fine. We can backtrack after we’ve let him know the entire town isn’t insane.”
Deputy Mackay gave a hand motion, as if to say carry on. “Just the pertinent facts. I think he can fill in the ‘generations since World War II’ stuff.”
Again with the crazy.
“So.” Lyra was obviously a bit thrown off having to skip decades. It was cute watching her regroup. She’d been excited to give him the whole history. “We basically have a rotating schedule of weekends where we celebrate Christmas.”
Spence glanced between them, wondering if he was supposed to be able to keep up with her jump from “everything and the kitchen sink” to basically nothing.
“Okay.” The sheriff sighed. “A little more than that. And when did you get so obstinate?”
“Yesterday at 10:37.” After taking a long sip of tea, she turned back to Spence. “Once upon a time, many generations ago, Starlight Harbor was a town stripped of all its young men who were sent to The Great War.”
“Dramatic much?” Noah asked from the doorway.
“Shush. And when Christmas came about, the town realized that nearly every family was left not only struggling because all the young men who worked the lobster boats were gone, but had a
bsent loved ones. And so the Great Early Fathers of the town—”
“Okay, now you’re just milking your ridiculousness.”
“Gathered together,” Lyra went on, undeterred, “and declared there would be no Christmas until the men came home to warm the hearts and homes of their loved ones.”
Noah snorted. “Not sure it went down quite like that, but okay.”
“And so the first Christmas went by, and the town treated it quietly as if it were any other day. But then, something they hadn’t considered happened.”
The sheriff all but rolled her eyes. “I’m sure mothers considered it.”
Spence tried to keep up with the storyline while the barbs bounced around, but he found his attention just kept coming back to Lyra no matter what.
“They got horrible news. It had taken the Administration nearly a year to let them know of the deaths of several of their boys, because Starlight Harbor wasn’t listed as an incorporated town. They’d fallen through the cracks in the worst possible way. It was only when someone was being sent home injured that the darn bureaucrats”—She shot a glare at the sheriff as she snorted again—“put two and two together and came up with… seven.”
The two fell silent for a moment, and Spence considered what it would be like to find out such devastating news all in one blow. And to be part of a history so deep you still felt the sting of it generations later.
“Can you imagine?”
He shook his head. He absolutely could not. When they’d nearly lost his brother… Well, he didn’t think about it, if at all avoidable. But to get hit with that much death at once...
It was unthinkable.
“The Great Town Fathers—”
“Seriously, the Selectmen.”
“—gathered around the table—”
“Technically accurate.”
“—and suggested that perhaps the town shouldn’t wait for Christmas until everyone was home. Perhaps they should celebrate it whenever anyone came home for all the boys who missed the time to indulge in family and to remember the true spirit of the season.”
