4 Malice in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

“That’s nice of you to say,” I said. “I’m Cinnamon.”

  “Ashley,” she said. “The Apple Whiskey one’s my absolute favorite. But that Blueberry Cinnamon’s a close second.”

  I smiled. A girl after my own heart.

  “Sweetie, do you think you could pick up some laundry detergent at Ray’s while you’re in town?” Laurel said, cutting us off. “We’re fresh out.”

  Ashley sent a sideways glance at her mother before nodding reluctantly.

  “You better get a move on,” Laurel said. “If you’re going to get home before curfew.”

  “Well, it was nice meeting you,” she said, backing away.

  She had disappeared inside the house. A few moments after sitting back down, the rumble of Laurel’s BMW echoed across the fields.

  “That’s my one and only,” she said, smiling. “She’s going to Stanford later this month, if you can believe it.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s impressive. From what I’ve heard that’s a tough school to get into.”

  “Damn straight it is,” she said. “I don’t like boasting, but I don’t think there’s another kid who’s worked as hard as Ash for this. It’s been four years of blood, sweat and tears.”

  Laurel sighed.

  “Poor girl can’t catch a break. She had her heart broken this summer too,” she said.

  “That’s terrible. What happened?”

  Laurel sighed and stubbed out the remnants of her cigarette in a glass ash tray on the table.

  “Well, I’ve got to tell you Cinnamon, I wasn’t straight with you the other day,” she said. “You know, when you were asking about what the issue is between Jo and me? Well, there’s another, more recent chapter in the story I didn’t tell you about.”

  She took a long swig of her wine while I waited in anticipation. Then she cleared her throat.

  “You see, earlier this summer, Ashley, against me and my husband’s wishes, took up with the eldest Pugmire boy. We warned her against it, Cin, but you know teenagers. They don’t listen. She fell head over heels for the boy. Madly in love. There wasn’t anything me or her father could do about it. And surprise, surprise, the boy ended up breaking her heart. Just last week, he—”

  My phone started buzzing in my pocket. I was going to try and ignore it, letting Laurel finish her story, but she stopped.

  “You can check that if you want,” she said.

  I nodded, digging out the hard plastic square from my pocket.

  It was a text message. And who it was from was something of a puzzlement to me.

  I clicked the button to view the message.

  That puzzled me even more.

  Sorry 2 bug you Cin. But I need 2 talk 2 you. Urgent. About Kara. Can I meet you at the shop?

  I stared at it a long moment.

  “Is anything the matter?” Laurel asked, putting down her empty glass and staring at me with a look of concern.

  “Uh, no,” I said, rereading the message again. “I mean, I don’t think so.”

  I hit send, and held the phone up to my ear, dialing his number. After several rings, it went to his voicemail.

  I felt a strange, anxious sensation in my stomach.

  I hung up the phone before leaving a message.

  “It’s just that—”

  “If you need to be somewhere, don’t hesitate to tell me,” Laurel said. “We can always pick this up another time.”

  I bit my lower lip, wondering if this would be terribly rude.

  Obviously, if it were up to me, I’d stay and drink white wine all evening with Laurel. But John hadn’t ever sent me a text message before like this. And with the way Kara had been acting lately, well… It made me worry.

  “It’s just that my friend seems to be in—”

  “I completely understand,” Laurel said, getting up. “Don’t worry about it. Like I said, we can pick this up another time.”

  “Are you sure it’s okay?” I said.

  “Of course, doll,” she said, smiling a large, sincere smile. “Let’s do Sunday. What do you say?”

  I stood up.

  “Thanks for being so understanding,” I said. “I’ve really enjoyed this. You know, it’s been like a breath of fresh air.”

  “You’re welcome anytime,” she said. “Now that we’re friends.”

  I smiled. She gave me a hug and then walked me through the house and out the front door to my car.

  “Next time, I’ll show you my boot collection,” she said, winking at me.

  “I’m dying to see it.”

  I got in the car and pulled away down the long driveway, feeling a little sheepish for having to leave so rudely.

  But mostly, I felt a sensation of unease pulling down hard at my chest.

  I hoped Kara was okay.

  Chapter 17

  John had taken one bite of his Cinnamon Blueberry Pie, and then left the rest of it just sitting there on the plate, rejected.

  He never did have much of a liking for pie.

  His face was a shade of bleached linen. His eyes had a strange look to them, and he kept wiping his palms on his khaki pants.

  He’d been waiting out in front of the pie shop when I pulled up, looking like he’d just had one of the longest days of his life. Darkened circles clung to his almond-shaped eyes, and his greying hair, which normally was clean cut, was disheveled and out of place, like he had just walked through a dust devil.

  Something was really wrong.

  And it scared me.

  Was there a bigger reason Kara had been acting so frustrated lately?

  I was scared to find out, but I had no choice.

  “I’m sorry if you were in the middle of something, Cin,” he said, taking a sip of black coffee.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait.”

  “So I hear you’re gonna have a Rodeo stand this year,” he said, staring out the window into the pink dusk.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Heaven help me, I am.”

  He gave me a wiry half-smile.

  “I guess folks get pretty rowdy,” he said. “But it should be good for your business, I’d think.”

  I nodded, that worry tugging harder at my chest.

  John was silent for a moment, lost in some faraway thought.

  I sighed.

  I couldn’t just sit here making small-talk or wallowing in silence while every worst-case scenario about my best friend ran through my mind.

  “Tell me what’s going on, John.”

  His eyes got shifty, and he played with the rejected blueberry pie on the plate with his fork.

  “I know this is probably a little weird me coming to you about this,” he said. “You know, since I used to come in here all the time before meeting Kara.”

  He paused.

  Before John took up with Kara, he’d had his eyes set on someone else. Despite having a general dislike for pastry, he used to come into my shop all the time, trying to work up the courage to ask me out.

  But John and I wouldn’t have made much of a match, and I didn’t return his sentiments. As it was, I had my eyes set on a certain stranger who had suddenly appeared back in my life again on a cold and snowy night.

  John took in a deep breath.

  “Please don’t tell Kara we talked, okay? Can you keep this just between us?”

  I bit my lip.

  I didn’t want to keep secrets from my best friend. But if it meant being able to better help her, then I would do it.

  I nodded.

  “Now tell me,” I said.

  Chapter 18

  I drove home in the dim twilight, crossing through the unusually crowded streets of downtown Christmas River before heading west.

  My mind was milling over every moment of my conversation with John.

  It wasn’t what I expected. Since getting his text message, I had worked myself up over every possible scenario. Like Kara having some terrible disease, or that she was being forced to close her shop.

&nb
sp; In the big scheme of things, it wasn’t nearly as bad as any of that.

  But it still worried me.

  I flashed back to John’s glassy, pain-ridden eyes as he told me.

  “Kara’s cheating on me.”

  I bit my lip, thinking over the rest of the conversation. John said he had seen text messages on her phone. That he had actually seen this particular man at her shop on a few occasions. That this had been going on for the past month.

  I didn’t want to believe it. But then John told me the name of the mystery man.

  “His name is Bradley Houston,” John had said with a shudder. “Do you know him?”

  And I felt my stomach drop about ten stories.

  Brad.

  Kara had dated Brad in her early 20s. Brad was just the kind of guy she went for back then. Cool and quiet, he always dressed in a motorcycle jacket and ripped jeans. He had raven dark hair, and stunning features that Kara always liked to say made him look just like Keanu Reeves.

  I’d been away at college during that time, and Kara and I had drifted apart a little then. I never knew what exactly happened between the two of them, but I didn’t think it ended very well. It had seemed like a blustery, fiery relationship that had run its course.

  But then again, maybe it hadn’t.

  Last I heard, Brad had moved to Portland. But it seemed like he was back in town now.

  I let out a long, long sigh as I pulled into our driveway.

  Seeing Kara happy was all that mattered to me.

  But I also didn’t want to see her throw away a great relationship on a fling with an old flame, just because she was having some sort of mid-thirties crisis. Which is what she seemed to be doing.

  I felt bad for John. I’d been where he’d been. The cheated-on. And it was a terrible place to be.

  He had left my pie shop close to tears. I had reassured him that I’d talk to Kara and get to the bottom of all of this. But part of me wondered if there would be any getting to the bottom of this. Would John really forgive her for cheating on him?

  Some hurts don’t go away, no matter how hard you try to move past them.

  I got out of the car, noticing that Daniel’s truck was once again not in the driveway.

  I thought back to what Laurel had said about husbands and wives.

  How distance was the number one killer of marriages.

  I fished my keys out of my pocket and entered the empty house, a hard heaviness sloshing around in my chest.

  Chapter 19

  “C’mon, help me load the dishwasher.”

  He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his sweaty hair forward and grumbling.

  “Do I have to?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, turning on the facet and letting water run over the stack of plates piled up in the sink. “It’ll only take two minutes if we both do it.”

  After another unhappy grumble, Daniel stood up, grabbed his empty plate that a few minutes ago was piled high with mashed potatoes and steak, and came over next to me by the sink.

  I wasn’t doing it to torture him after a long day of work. I just didn’t want him to fall asleep on a full stomach, the way he’d been doing the last few weeks. He’d get home so late some nights, he’d scarf down a plate of reheated dinner, wash it down with a cold beer, and then pass out watching TV in the living room.

  Then he’d wake up around 3 a.m. or so with a case of bad heartburn.

  Having him help me with the dishes would take his mind off sleep for at least the next 10 minutes.

  He placed his dish in the sink, and then leaned over, pecking me on the neck.

  “Okay, slave driver. I’m at your command.”

  We alternately began filling up the washer, placing dirty mugs and bowls in the top half, plates and silverware in the bottom half.

  “You haven’t said much about your day,” he said.

  I sighed, thinking about Kara and John. Thinking about Laurel. And how even though I didn’t think it was her intention, she had planted some thoughts in my head… thoughts about marriage, about the difficulty of living with another person and keeping the lines of communication open.

  Things I didn’t much feel like talking about tonight. Not when my feet ached as bad as they did, and not when I was about to fall asleep standing on them.

  “You haven’t said much about yours either,” I said. “What’ve you been up to today?”

  He shrugged.

  “Oh, you know. This and that,” he said.

  I glanced over.

  He tried to hide it with a half-smile, but I noticed it easy enough.

  A cloud had just passed over Daniel.

  Something was still bothering him.

  There was something he still wasn’t telling me.

  “What is it?” I said.

  He looked away and then shook his head.

  “Nothing.”

  “It seems like something, Daniel.”

  “It’s not.”

  I placed a bowl in the top half of the dishwasher and let out a long, frustrated sigh.

  “What?” he said.

  I leaned against the sink and after a moment, half-turned toward him.

  There was something in his expression that I wasn’t expecting.

  Something like fear.

  “I just…” I started.

  I thought about John and Kara.

  “Sometimes I just worry, that’s all.”

  “About what?” he said.

  “About us not talking. About all these long nights you’re working. I’m afraid… I mean, what if things change, Daniel? What if you don’t always feel the way you do now about me?”

  I bit my lip.

  It was probably just the exhaustion from the long day I’d had, pulling at my emotions. Making things distorted, like the mirrors in a funhouse.

  But in that moment, the fear felt very real.

  Daniel scanned my face. His expression softened.

  “Cin, of course things are going to change,” he said. “And of course I’m going to feel differently about you.”

  I looked up at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  He put down the mug he was holding and then rested his hands on my waist.

  “I mean, of course I’m going to be more in love with you next month than I am now,” he said. “Of course I’m going to love you more in a year than I do today. That’s only natural.”

  “But what about… I mean, you’ve been holding things back. You haven’t been telling me everything that’s going on. I can sense it.”

  “You don’t want to know everything, Cin.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “Well, maybe one day soon we’ll revisit this,” he said. “But don’t mistake me not telling you the details of what I do as me feeling different for you. Those are two separate things.”

  He pulled me close to him. I could smell the sweat of a hard day’s work on his skin. But it wasn’t a bad thing. It smelled right.

  “I love you, Cin,” he said. “Nothing’s going to change that. Ever.”

  He kissed me hard then. If I’d been less tired, I might have been slightly embarrassed, him kissing me in front of the open window so passionately.

  But then again, nobody was out in the meadow tonight to see us.

  “I love you too,” I said in between kisses. “And nothing’s ever going to change that either.”

  I let him sweep me up in his arms and pull me away.

  We left behind the half-loaded dishwasher.

  It could wait.

  Chapter 20

  Daniel’s side of the bed was cold and empty when I got up the next morning.

  Today was one of the busiest days of the year for the Sheriff’s Office. The Rodeo was a nightmare for law enforcement. Drunk driving, public indecency, medical emergencies… the whole thing took a lot of policing. And unfortunately, the organization of all that fell to Sheriff Daniel Brightman. Which meant an early morning, and an even longer evening.

&n
bsp; I just hoped I hadn’t kept him up too late the night before.

  I lay in bed, thinking for a few minutes about last night. About his assurances that he’d always love me.

  This morning, in the light of day, I believed him with my whole heart.

  And while Laurel had been trying to help, she could keep her advice.

  She didn’t know our marriage. Or how strong our relationship was.

  I rolled over to his side of the bed, wishing he was still there. I lay on his pillow, and breathed in the smell of his aftershave, thinking of the way he’d held me last night after we…

  I let out a happy sigh.

  I was crazier than an old bag lady hoarding an army of kittens for my husband.

  And nothing was going to change that.

  After a few minutes of wallowing in the bliss of knowing just how deep our love ran, I rolled over, got out of bed, and then went to the kitchen.

  He’d left me half a pot of hot coffee, a few slices of bacon, and a couple of flap jacks.

  A handful of freshly-picked wildflowers from the meadow sat in a vase in the center of the table.

  Even on a day as busy as today, he’d taken the time to make me breakfast and pick me flowers.

  I poured myself a cup of coffee, sat down, and enjoyed the breakfast.

  I glanced over at the dishwasher. It had just finished running.

  I was luckier than sin.

  Chapter 21

  It wasn’t even 20 minutes after the fairground gates opened, and already, I was sweating more than a drug smuggler pulled over for expired plates.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this hot or this smoky in September. But “supposed to” didn’t do me a whole lot of good now.

  The sun beat down hard and unkindly on the pie stand.

  A table fan I had plugged into one of the outlets hooked up to the generator pivoted back and forth but was too weak to do me much good. Beads of sweat rolled down the side of my temples as I waited on rodeo customers dressed to the hilt in cowboy garb. Big metal belt buckles, buffoonishly large cowboy hats, embroidered shirts, wranglers and cowboy boots that hadn’t been broken in yet represented the average rodeo goer. There were even several folks with Santa hats on, playing into the Christmas River Rodeo theme. Though how they stood the velvet pom-pom hats in this heat was beyond me.