“Well, then, crack a window or something. I can’t even see where I’m going,” said Denny.
“Who ya got over there, Uncle Denny?” said another voice.
“Oh, uh. Yeah, fellas. I wanted to introduce someone to ya, but we can’t even see your faces.” He pushed a button on the wall and the overhead garage door slowly went up. The smoke in the garage circled and snow blew in. Complaints filled in the garage.
“Ay! Uncle Den, don’t open it. We’re already freezin’ our asses off out here,” said one voice.
“Yeah, I didn’t even wear my coat out here. Carol didn’t want my church coat stinkin’ like cigars,” said another.
Denny nodded his head and patted the air. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you’re so cold, go inside and stand next to the oven with the rest of the girls.”
Good-natured moans filled the room.
When the thickest puffs of smoke abandoned the garage, Denny turned slightly and gestured towards Mitch. “Alright, alright. Settle down. This here’s Mitch. He’s JoJo’s fella.”
A couple voices shouted. “Hey, Mitch.”
Mitch was pretty sure he heard a “How ya doin’, Mitchie?” and a “Welcome to the family, fella.”
Mitch smiled back at the group of men, feeling only slightly uncomfortable. They seemed like a friendly bunch. “Hello, thanks for the invitation. I appreciate it.”
“JoJo told Denny you had your own family get-together today,” said the deepest voice, the one Mitch was sure was Uncle Jack’s.
Mitch wasn’t quite sure what Johanna had told her family, but he knew better than to mess up whatever ruse she’d told them. He certainly understood what it felt like to be pressured into finding a wife.
Mitch shrugged. “I was thinking about going to see my brother in Atlanta, but it didn’t work out.”
“Where ya from, Mitchie?” said a tall guy with beefy arms and thinning hair, holding a can of beer in a blue Bud Light coozie.
Mitch pointed at him. “What’s your name?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m J.J., Jack’s oldest.”
“Oh, right. Jack Jr. It’s nice to meet you. I lived in Brooklyn when I was a kid. I live in Manhattan now.”
“Oh, yeah? Did your folks move, or they still livin’ there?”
Mitch drew up his cheeks. “Actually, they were killed in an accident when I was in college.” He said it knowing full well that it would be a mood squasher, but at least they had gotten it out of the way right off the bat, and maybe then they wouldn’t ask him about his family anymore.
He was right. The room went silent for a second. Until J.J. pointed a finger at him. “Oh, hey man, I’m sorry.”
Mitch waved his hand. “Oh, it’s alright. It was a long time ago.” When no one else said anything, Mitch pointed at the next guy, who sat on the seat of a Harley, also holding a beer and cigar. “So, you’re Kenny or Robert?”
The shorter guy pointed a finger at himself. “I’m Bobby, that’s Kenny.” He pointed at a slim guy in a slick suit. He looked like a car dealer. Mitch made a mental note to avoid discussing cars with that one.
“Nice to meet you both.” He looked over at the oldest of the group, who sat comfortably in a tweed Barcalounger in the corner of the garage. “You must be Uncle Jack?”
The man lifted his chin and Mitch made the short trek across the garage to shake his hand. “I appreciate the invitation.”
“Nice to meet you, Mitch. Glad to hear JoJo’s got a new fella. It’s been too long.”
Mitch grinned and held a hand out to the next guy, who was sitting on a barstool next to a workbench. “Hey, how you doin’, Kevin?”
Kevin pumped his hand. “Good to see you again, Mitch.”
“Oh, you two know each other?” Denny’s brows lifted in surprise.
“We met the other day. Kevin helped us out on a little project that Jo’s working on for one of her books.”
“She tell you about all her stories?” asked Denny. “She’s kind of a big deal, ya know. They did a thing in the paper about her. Put a picture of her in there and everything. All my friends saw it. They called her one of the city’s hidden treasures.”
A smile curved Mitch’s lips. “One of the city’s hidden treasures, really? And what did Jo think of that?” He chuckled to himself as he could only imagine how the self-proclaimed introvert felt about seeing her name and picture in the paper.
Denny grinned. “She took it about as well as you can imagine. She wasn’t thrilled, but she did say it made for some good sales for quite a while after that.”
“I bet.”
“Hey, uh, Mitch, you wanna beer?” asked Uncle Jack, pointing at Mitch. “Kenny, get Mitch a beer.”
“So what’s the story with you and JoJo?” asked Bobby from the motorcycle.
Kenny handed Mitch a beer. He immediately cracked it open and took a hard swallow. “Story?”
“Yeah, you know. Give us the lowdown on how ya met and stuff.”
Mitch grinned. “We bumped into each other in the park.” She was pretty sure that’s how he’d heard Johanna describe it to her sister in the entryway.
“Well, that’s what she says. You pick her up?” said Bobby skeptically.
“Not exactly. It was actually Rocky that brought us together.”
“Oh, yeah? How so?”
“Literally. He ran over me. I think he was after a squirrel or something. Jo offered to pay for my dry cleaning. We’ve pretty much been friends ever since.”
“So you two really aren’t dating?” asked Denny, with a bit of a glum look on his face.
Mitch wished he had an answer to that. There was something special about Johanna Hughes. She made him feel things that he hadn’t felt since Felicia died, and he most definitely had a very strong urge to kiss her. But Jo was like a spooked horse, ready to bolt at the tiniest thing. He wasn’t sure if she was ready to be dating.
“Let’s just say we’re getting to know each other. I don’t know if Jo’s ready to date anyone, to be honest.”
Denny sighed. “I was afraid of that,” he said quietly. “Did she tell you about James?”
Mitch nodded. “And her mom. I know she’s scared.” The air in the room had taken another somber turn. He felt bad for weighing down the festivities. Mitch took another sip of his beer. “Hey, how about those Giants?”
28
“M itch sure seems like a nice man,” said Maureen Hamilton to Johanna as she moved the mashed potatoes from the pot on the stove to a serving bowl.
Johanna nodded as she finished arranging deviled eggs around the outer edges of Aunt Lucy’s vintage green glass relish tray. “He is.”
Whitley was hunched over, leaning on her elbows on the counter, trying like mad to keep from chatting with the women.
Maureen glanced at Johanna out of the corner of her eyes. “He seems to fit in well with the boys.”
“Yup.”
“Hanna,” chastised Whitley. “She’s trying to have a conversation with you! You have to at least try to get to know the poor woman.”
The women had all spent the better part of the day slaving away in the kitchen, and the food was almost ready to be served. Ginny and Carol, Bobby and J.J.’s wives, had gone to round up the kids for dinner, and Melissa and Aunt Lucy were in the dining room, putting the final touches on the dinner tables. Of course the men were nowhere to be seen, which left Johanna, Maureen, and Whitley to themselves in the kitchen.
“And you met him in the park?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You’re going to hurt her feelings,” said Whitley with a glum expression.
Maureen put her spatula in the sink and turned to face Johanna squarely. “I’m really sorry you didn’t know your dad and I were dating, JoJo. I’m sure it hurt your feelings to be the last to know, and to find out at a family holiday at that.”
“I’m okay.” Johanna pressed her lips together. She felt awkward being left alone to chat with the random woman her father was dating and obviously had
feelings for, but she didn’t know how to make the awkward feeling go away.
“It’s easy to say you’re okay,” said Maureen, turning her attention to finding a gravy boat in the cupboard. “But I want you to really be okay. I think your dad is a pretty great guy, JoJo.”
“He is.”
Without moving her head, Maureen’s lashes flickered up and towards Johanna. “I want to get to know you better. Someday I hope to maybe be part of your family.”
“Part of my…” Johanna bit her lip. Surely, she wasn’t talking about marrying her father! Marriage! Already? Johanna had barely gotten accustomed to the idea of her dad dating! Now they were talking marriage?! Her eyes flickered up to meet Whitley’s.
Whitley smoothed her hands over the kitchen counter. “Relax, Hanna. She said someday. Not tomorrow.”
Maureen smiled lightly. “I know, I know. We haven’t even been together for a year.” She shook her head as she lifted the pan of gravy. “But I think when you know, you know. You know?”
Johanna remained silent. No. She didn’t know.
Maureen waited for a response, but when she didn’t get one, she continued on with a smile. “Well, at least I think I know. Denny seems sure, but I worry that he hasn’t dated anyone else between your mother and me. What if he only thinks he’s sure because he hasn’t experienced anyone else? What if I’m like the rebound girl?”
“Han, tell her she’s crazy!” cried Whitley.
“Mom’s been gone for almost fifteen years. I highly doubt you’re the rebound girl,” said Johanna.
“Would you have liked to see him date around before settling down with someone?” she asked. “You can be honest.”
Johanna thought about it for a minute while Whitley stared at her expectantly. Would she have liked to see her father dating a stream of women just to find another Maureen? The answer was a resounding no.
“Dad’s not that kind of guy,” she said.
“That’s what your sister said. She said Denny’s a one-woman kind of man. He always has been.”
“So you should feel good about that,” said Johanna lightly. She straightened the pickles one more time so they all fit perfectly on the tray. She could feel the sting of tears threatening. “He picked you to be that one woman.”
Maureen grinned to herself. “Yeah. I do feel good about that,” she admitted, almost as a realization to herself.
“He said you two work together?” asked Johanna, realizing she knew very little about Maureen.
“Yeah. I’m the local delivery sorter at his UPS center. I’ve been loading Denny’s truck in the mornings for the last five years. One day about a year and a half ago, your father came in early so he could arrange his truck so he knew where everything was. Lexi and Henry had a school concert that night, and he wanted to make sure he got off on time. He and I had our first real conversation that day. The next day, he came in early to arrange his truck just because he wanted to talk to me again. He’s come in early every day since.”
“Awwww,” cooed Whitley, wiping a tear from her eyes.
Johanna stopped arranging the black olives and looked up at Maureen. The woman was lost in thought and had a silly grin on her face. That was the first time Johanna had seen Maureen for who she was: a woman in love with her father.
She was about to say something; what, she wasn’t sure. But she was interrupted by the onslaught of men suddenly flooding the kitchen.
“Is dinner ready yet?” asked Denny, giving Maureen a little squeeze around the waist.
“We’re starved!” said J.J.
“Nothing like a little football to work up an appetite,” said Kevin, holding a ball under his arm.
Mitch rounded the corner of the counter and put an arm around Johanna’s waist. His coat was chilly and his hands cold to the touch. “Miss me?” he asked with a little grin.
Johanna glanced over at her father and Maureen, who were both staring at her. She cleared her throat and gave Mitch a forced grin. “Yeah. Of course. Did my cousins drag you outside in the snow?”
Mitch popped a pickle in his mouth and gave her a little lopsided grin. “Something like that.”
Bobby pointed at him. “Don’t let him fool ya, JoJo. He’s got skills. He tried to pretend to be all nah, I’m not very good, but four interceptions an’ two touchdowns later, we realized he was bamboozling us.”
Johanna grinned up at Mitch. “Ah, I didn’t know he was a bamboozler.”
“A big one. You gotta watch out for that guy,” said J.J. playfully.
Suddenly the rest of the women and the kids were in the kitchen too, and all hell broke loose. Rocky barked from the other side of the room. Noises and people surrounded Mitch and Johanna, smashing their bodies together.
With their faces only inches apart, Mitch looked down at Johanna. “Yeah, you gotta watch out for this guy.”
“Do I?” She swallowed hard, shocked by her sudden desire for him to kiss her.
“Yup.” He crunched on his pickle while smiling from ear to ear, exaggerating the little creases by his eyes.
Johanna’s whole body tingled with excitement to be so close to Mitch that she could feel the warmth of his pickle breath on her forehead.
“Your nose is red. You look like Rudolph.” She reached up and touched it with the tip of her finger. “Brr, it’s cold. I should warm it up.” She smiled as she rubbed his nose into the indentation of her palm.
He reached up and grabbed her hand and pressed it to his lips. “My lips are cold too. I feel like you should help me warm those up too.”
Johanna was speechless then. The way he smiled at her when he said it… she felt like it had been an invitation for her to kiss him.
“Hey, JoJo, you guys ever find anything else out about that girl?” asked. Kevin from behind them.
“What girl?” asked Denny curiously.
Johanna’s whole body tensed up then. Dammit, Kevin, she wanted to holler at him. Her whole family didn’t need to know about her investigation, and they certainly didn’t need to know about Mitch and Felicia. “No girl,” she grumped, staring over her shoulder at her brother-in-law.
Denny looked at Kevin. “What’re ya talkin’ ’bout?”
Kevin glanced at Johanna and then at Mitch. He could tell he’d screwed up. “Ah, nothing. Just a character in one of JoJo’s books.”
“Why do you know about a character in one of JoJo’s books?” asked Melissa, pulling a stack of plates from a cupboard behind Kevin’s head.
“She asked me some IT questions. I-I was just helping her out,” he stuttered.
Johanna pointed to the other room. “Kevin, can I see you for a minute?”
He swallowed and then said gloomily, “Yeah, sure.”
She led him to the little mudroom off the back of the kitchen that led to the backyard. Mitch followed.
When they were safely out of earshot of the rest of the family, Johanna threw her arms down on either side of her. “Kevin! Why would you say that in front of the whole family?”
Kevin crossed his arms and sighed. “Sorry, JoJo. I wasn’t thinking. I was just curious. You find anything else out?”
Johanna scowled at him. She was still annoyed that he’d mentioned the case she was working on in front of her family, but she needed to ask him to look up some more addresses for her. “Yeah. Some stuff.”
Mitch looked at her curiously. “You found out more stuff?”
Johanna dug in the pocket of her suede skirt and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. She handed it to Kevin. “I went back to the street and walked the path that Felicia would have walked. I wrote down the address of every house that had a video camera aimed at the street. There were five on just the first two blocks alone, that I could see anyway. A couple of them had signs that said what company their cameras were through, but not all of them.”
Mitch turned Johanna’s shoulders so she’d look at him then. His expression changed from easy-going to suddenly uptight. “Wait, you went back to Bank St
reet? You didn’t tell me.”
Kevin looked at the list that Johanna handed him. “JoJo, I can’t keep hacking into security camera systems for this. I mean one time, you know, I made it look like I was helping those people out by exposing their firewall weaknesses, but I mean, three of these are through ADT. There’s no way I’m hacking into ADT’s system.”
Johanna’s face crumpled. She’d been banking on Kevin getting her access to those tapes. “But you said if only we had the rest of the tapes…”
Mitch lifted Johanna’s chin so that her eyes had to meet his. “Jo, why didn’t you tell me you went back to Bank Street? I would have gone with you.”
“It’s not a big deal. I went after you dropped me off at home. You had to get back to work, and I didn’t want to bug you.”
Kevin grimaced. “Listen, JoJo, I’ll do my best with this list, alright?”
“Thanks, Kev. Whatever you can do, I’ll appreciate.”
Kevin nodded and made a hasty exit, leaving Mitch and Johanna staring at each other.
“So you found more cameras? Is that it?” asked Mitch.
Johanna looked up at him wide-eyed. “Well, actually there’s more,” she admitted. She had planned on telling him while they were driving to Aunt Lucy and Uncle Jack’s, but they’d been having such a comfortable visit, she hadn’t wanted to bring it up. “While I was there, I saw Dutch Erickson pulling up to the curb, so I knocked on his door.”
Mitch’s face went ashen. “You knocked on Dutch’s door? Jo, what were you thinking? He might’ve been the one that killed Felicia!”
Johanna shook her head. “I really don’t think so, Mitch. I mean, we saw him drive away in the surveillance video.”
“He could have circled back!” Mitch ran both hands through his blond hair in frustration. “I can’t believe you went to see Dutch alone! What if something had happened to you?!”
Johanna shrugged. “I don’t know. I would have figured it out. But nothing happened. Dutch did admit to using Janet Sandborn as his realtor to purchase the house. So obviously she made a tidy little profit off Felicia’s death. Plus, Dutch was pretty sure there was a Four Seasons Realty car parked in front of the house when he got there that day.”
Snow Cold Case: A Mystic Snow Globe Romantic Mystery (The Mystic Snow Globe Mystery Series Book 1) Page 23
