by Meg Muldoon
“Your stomach any better?” I asked.
“It’s getting there,” he said.
We headed in the direction of downtown, walking slowly, leaving footprints in the frost that coated the sidewalk behind us.
I sighed, thinking about this weekend.
We hadn’t really talked about it yet. Perhaps as a way of delaying the inevitable.
“I wish you weren’t leaving so soon,” I said.
I’d been dreading it since Daniel received the call from him old captain back at the police precinct where he used to work in Fresno. They’d asked Daniel for his help in an unsolved murder case that he had worked when he was there. The case now had new evidence, and they had asked him to lend a hand.
Of course, I knew he would have to go. Any help he could give them to solve the murder would be worth it.
But I couldn’t help feeling, rather selfishly, that I just wanted him to stay home. With the wedding so very close, I didn’t like the idea of several snowy mountain passes between us.
Noticing my concerned expression, he placed his arm around my waist and pulled me close.
“Maybe it’ll be a good thing,” he said. “You know, what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder and all that? Might be a good time to test that theory out.”
“As Warren would say, pish-posh, Daniel Brightman,” I said. “Pish-posh.”
In my 35 years, I’d never found much truth in that old saying.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m not buying any of it either.”
He kissed the top of my head.
“I wouldn’t be going if I didn’t think it was important.”
“I know,” I said.
“I’ll miss you,” he said.
“I know that, too.”
He sighed.
“But maybe me leaving for a little while will be good,” he said. “Maybe when I come back, we’ll have sorted out this house business.”
I nodded my head, but didn’t say anything.
I didn’t much feel like getting into all of it now. Daniel and I had been through it at least a dozen times since he’d proposed back in the summer.
We hadn’t settled on where we were going to live once we were married. He wanted me to move into his current house, which was a pleasant, but small, cabin-style home that needed some renovations. I loved Daniel’s old home, which had been in his family for years, but I had Warren to think about too. Warren was coming with me, being at the ripe old age that he was. And while Daniel was more than happy to have the old man come along, he didn’t seem to understand that his house just wasn’t big enough for all three of us. There was nowhere for Warren to even brew his beer. Something that would be a serious problem for the old man.
And besides, it seemed a little unfair to me that I would have to be the one to sell my house. Mine was newer, had better appliances, and was big enough for all three of us.
But Daniel didn’t see it my way. And we’d been going in circles with it for months now without any kind of decision.
I guess we both had a little stubbornness in us.
Daniel didn’t push the conversation, taking my silence as an answer.
I was grateful not to get into any of it.
We walked a little farther in silence until we came up on Meadow Plaza in downtown Christmas River. We strolled over to the massive fir tree standing in the middle. The city had just raised it in the plaza, and volunteers had been decorating it with jumbo-sized ornaments, tinsel, and light strands in preparation for the annual tree-lighting ceremony that was set to take place the next evening.
Tonight, it was a giant black silhouette. Tomorrow, it’d be visible from the moon.
In the past, I’d had mixed reactions about the annual lighting of the Christmas tree. When you live in a town called Christmas River, you get a little tired of the whole Christmas thing. Or at least, I used to feel that way. Especially right around the time when my ex-husband left me.
But things were different now. I guess I was getting soft as the years passed. Or maybe I was just happy. I was actually looking forward to the tree-lighting ceremony this year. Who knew, I’d probably end up hanging a few ornaments if I had any energy left over from Black Friday at the pie shop.
We stopped for a moment, admiring the fir. A few flakes of snow began falling from the sky, settling in the tree’s long black branches.
People went completely overboard when it came to Christmas in this town. But it was easy to see why.
This time of year just seemed to be magical. Even a cynic like me understood that.
“Do you remember that snowy night when I drove you back home?” I asked.
Daniel’s face lit up with one of his million-dollar smiles.
“Every moment of the ride,” he said. “It was the night I found you again.”
I scoffed and punched him lightly in the arm.
“You didn’t even recognize me,” I said.
He blocked my punch.
“Well, not right away,” he said, still smiling. “But you can’t hold that against me. I’d had a few too many that night. But even then, I knew you were something special.”
“Remember what you said to me when you were getting out of the car?” I said. “You said, I don’t want you to be sad anymore.”
He nodded.
“I saw it in your eyes,” he said. “You had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. The most heartbreaking, country ballad-worthy eyes there ever were.”
Daniel always did have a way of describing things.
“What do you see in them now?”
I looked up at him, searching his face in the muted lights of the plaza’s streetlamps.
He rubbed my shoulders.
“Now I just see you, Cin,” he said. “As beautiful as the day I first saw you back when we were kids.”
My heart skipped a beat.
I held him tightly.
We stood there, looking up at the fir as its branches filled up with a dusting of late November snow.
And I wondered how I was going to make it a week without him.
After a few moments, we started walking away, back toward the house.
“Now, what do you say when we get home, we make up some turkey cranberry sandwiches?” he said, draping his arm over my shoulder.
I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
“Daniel Brightman, you were just about hurling not more than half an hour ago. Now you’re going to make yourself sick all over again.”
“I can’t help it,” he said, shrugging. “I’m so hungry, I’d even eat Mrs. Billings’ green bean casserole.”
I started laughing and punched him lightly in the gut.
Now I was positive he was feeling better. I was pretty sure that if I were sick, so much as thinking about that flabby casserole would be enough to make me upchuck all of my turkey dinner, and then some.
Chapter 4
On hindsight, having a wedding on Christmas Eve was just about the stupidest thing I could have done.
But there was nothing I could do about it now.
Granted, it was only the Friday after Thanksgiving and I still had a month to plan for the big day. But I guess I was wound a little tight about all of it. Like any bride, I wanted the wedding to run perfectly. And that just wasn’t going to happen without flowers.
I had left a message for Penny the florist over a week earlier about getting the poinsettias and white roses that were supposed to decorate the church we were having the wedding in. I’d yet to hear back from her, even though I knew for a fact that she’d been in her florist shop all week.
And even though I had plenty to keep my mind busy with on this Black Friday, I couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that Penny was giving me the run-around.
I opened the oven and pulled out a pan of freshly baked Lemon Gingercrisp pies. The tops had turned a rich caramel color under the oven’s heat, and the entire shop smelled of buttery lemon, spices, and all the good things
in the world.
Torture for someone on a diet.
I removed my oven mitts and took a sip from my vegetable shake. I checked my phone again. Again, there was still no call from Penny.
I let out a long sigh, biting my lip.
“Remember, Cin, she needs you more than you need her,” Kara said, looking up from her holiday Martha Stewart magazine. “You can always go somewhere else.”
I wiped my brow free of sweat. The kitchen felt overheated and cramped, like it was closing in on me.
“Everything is going to be just fine,” Kara said, flipping through the last few pages of the magazine before slamming it shut. “If you came to the yoga studio with me in the mornings like you said you would, you’d know that by now and I wouldn’t have to keep telling you.”
I took a seat opposite her at the kitchen island.
Normally, I would be running around like a chicken with its head cut off on Black Friday. But I had actually been smart this year: I’d hired an extra seasonal employee in addition to Chrissy to man the front of the house, leaving me to my pie baking in peace.
I was glad to have Chrissy back in the shop. She’d had a real tough time of it after we figured out that her boyfriend was a serial arsonist this summer. She quit working for me for a while, but had come back in the fall.
She was looking a lot different these days. When I first hired her, she had enough piercings and spikes on her to rival a porcupine. But something had changed about her in the last six months. She took all her piercings out, let her hair grow, and her outfits no longer included rips and tears and safety pins.
I always liked Chrissy, but I was liking her even more these days. She hadn’t let what happened beat her down, even though I knew that it had torn her up inside. I admired her strength.
And I was sure glad to have her working for me this Christmas season.
Every year at this time, Christmas River was crawling with tourists—tourists, who, despite having stuffed themselves the day before, came into my pie shop starved and acting like they’d been trapped on a desert island for the past week, subsisting only on coconuts.
I couldn’t really blame them, though. My stomach had been growling all morning. But unlike them, I didn’t indulge in anything. I couldn’t really afford to at this stage. A $1,500 wedding dress was waiting for me at the end of the month, and I’d be damned if it wasn’t going to zip up all the way.
“Yoga would really do wonders for you, Cin,” Kara continued. “It just gives you a whole new outlook on things. I think I would have easily lost my mind opening up the new ornament store if I didn’t have my morning session.”
Kara had joined a yoga studio in the fall, and it seemed like every other thing out of her mouth was about the studio or the instructor. She’d been nagging me to go for weeks. I always told her I’d eventually get around to it, but it seemed like I never had time.
“Well, maybe I’ll join you when the madness lets up,” I said. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”
“Yoga Instructor Willow says you should always make time for yourself, no matter what.”
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think Yoga Instructor Willow has ever run a pie shop while trying to plan a wedding during the holiday season.”
Kara drummed her fingers against the tabletop.
“Suit yourself, then,” she said. “Live in the dark ages.”
I took a sip from the peppermint mocha she had brought for me in a paper cup from the Christmas Coffee Hut. It was minty and strong, and just the kind of kick I needed.
“So, do you have any more Mrs. Billings stories you can tell to take my mind of my little florist situation?” I said, removing the pies from the pan and placing them on the cold countertop to cool.
Kara rested her head in her hands.
“Jesus, what a nightmare that woman is,” she said. “I mean, I’m not crazy, right? You saw how she was yesterday at dinner. And let me tell you, she was on her best behavior there. She probably had plenty more to say about that fig pie of yours that she was holding back. I could see it in her beady little eyes. It was just eating away at her.”
I laughed.
“Yeah, she seems like a real pain, all right,” I said. “I don’t envy you.”
“It’s just not fair,” she said. “John and I aren’t even married yet, and I’m having to deal with this—”
I raised my eyebrow.
“Yet?” I said. “Does that mean…?”
She waved her hands at me.
“No, no, nothing of the kind,” she said. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure if that were the case, that witch of a woman would do everything she could to keep us apart. She hates me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I said.
“No, it is true. You know how I know?” she said. “Because she hates everyone. Everyone but John.”
“Well, at least she has that going for her. She believes in equal opportunity.”
“Yeah, she’s practically a saint,” she said sarcastically. “But seriously, I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I’m at my limit with that woman, Cin. And I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, what about a vacation?” I said. “Why don’t you and John take off to somewhere sunny and tropical?”
She shook her head.
“Too much going on. I just reopened the ornament shop. I can’t leave now during the busiest season of the year. Plus, John’s swamped with referrals before the beginning of the New Year.”
“What about sending her on a vacation?” I said. “Call it a Christmas present. To yourself.”
Kara’s face brightened.
“Now there’s a thought,” she said.
“Send her some place far for a while,” I said.
“Like Singapore.”
“South America.,” I said.
“Better yet, Siberia.”
We both started laughing.
“I’ll suggest it to John when I see him later,” she said.
Her phone on the table lit up and started vibrating. She grabbed it, glanced at it, and then set it back down.
“So are you guys coming out to the tree lighting later?” she said.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said. “Warren and Marie are coming too. Plus, Daniel will be there.”
“So… uh, how’re you feeling about Daniel taking off for a week with the wedding so soon?”
I shrugged.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” I said, echoing what he had said earlier that morning, like if I said it, it would make it true.
She raised her eyebrows in a doubtful expression.
She could always tell when I was lying.
“All right, fine,” I said, giving in. “To tell you the truth, it’s not ideal. But it’s necessary. They need his help. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it has to be.”
“I don’t blame you,” Kara said. “A week is a whole lotta time for thinking.”
“Well, it’s not like I won’t have plenty to do,” I said. “I’ve got the planning and work, and we’ve got gingerbread to make, remember? Are we still on for starting this weekend on the house?”
“I’m your man,” she said, nodding.
Usually at this time of year, Kara and I entered in the annual Gingerbread Junction, the gingerbread house competition known throughout the Northwest for its fierce competitiveness. But this year, given everything that was going on in my life, I thought it would be a good idea to sit this one out.
But Kara and I were still planning on putting a house together. I thought it would only be fitting, given how the gingerbread competition had brought Daniel and me together, that we have a little memento of it at the wedding.
Kara’s phone buzzed again. She stood up, grabbed her puffy down coat and pulled it on. She wrapped her elegant, golden-threaded scarf around her neck, running her hand under her long blond hair and bringing it outside of the jacket.
“I bett
er get back,” she said, grabbing her purse. “But listen, don’t let the little stuff get to you. Keep that pretty head of yours on straight.”
“Too late for that,” I said, sighing, and checking my phone again, in case I missed a call from Penny.
I hadn’t.
“Think about sitting beside a quiet stream on a breezy summer morning,” she said. “Meditate on the inner peace you feel, and carry that feeling with you throughout the rest of your day.”
“You sure are all in on this yoga thing, huh?” I said.
She shrugged.
“My boyfriend’s mother is the Antichrist,” she said. “I need something to keep me sane.”
She walked through the dividing door, and I heard her say goodbye to Chrissy and Tiana up at the counter before leaving.
I may not have had an insane future mother-in-law to contend with, but I had enough problems of my own to test my sanity.
Maybe Kara was right. Maybe I really should join her at the yoga studio in the mornings.
“We might need a few extra chocolate hazelnut pies,” Chrissy said, sticking her head in the back. “It’s going quick out here.”
“Okay, I’ll have some for you in about an hour,” I said.
I should really have been pleased that the shop was so crowded. The season was starting off on a great foot.
But rather than feel grateful, all I wanted to do was go home, kick off my shoes, and sit on the sofa in front of the fire with Daniel’s arms around me.
In fact, if it were up to me, that was all I’d do this winter.
Chapter 5
The Pine Needle Tavern was teeming with locals and tourists alike when I wandered in around 6.
It had been a long, long day, and walking into the packed tavern, full of loud, inebriated voices felt overwhelming. But the atmosphere was toasty and jubilant. Darlene Love’s Baby, Please Come Home blasted from the stereo, and the spirit of the holidays was in full swing inside the crowded pub.
Even though it was packed, it wasn’t hard to find Marie.
She was sitting at the bar, her long red hair hanging in curls down her back. She had a red leopard-print leather jacket on that was borderline tacky, but something that she managed to pull off because she’d been pulling off those kinds of outfits all her life.
