Leaving Blue Bayou

by JoAnn Ross

  He’d turned the radio down, but she’d listened to a steady stream of road closures throughout the state. His voice sounded deeper and richer in the intimacy of the snow-shrouded silence.

  “Okay, here’s where I admit I have no idea what town that might be.”

  “Santa’s Village.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Maybe he wasn’t a stone-cold killer, or even 5150 insane, but once again Holly began to worry about him being delusional.

  “It’s the town’s name, all right. Population six hundred twenty-seven.” He glanced over at her. “It’s also not on the way to Leavenworth.”

  She definitely would’ve noticed that town on the map while planning her trip. “Damn GPS.”

  Not encouraging was that she’d bought the faulty navigation system from the same guy who’d sold her the purse-size Zeus Lightning Bolt taser pen. What if it turned out he was pushing fake Chinese stuff on an unsuspecting public? How many lives could that put at risk?

  “Ah.” He nodded as she filed the idea of a faulty taser away. She couldn’t see it working in her black widow cookie killer story, but perhaps, like all the other bits and pieces of criminal behavior she had tucked away in her mind, it could prove useful down the road. “It told you to turn right at that crossroad outside Skykomish,” he guessed.

  “Exactly.” Which was where she’d obviously gone wrong. “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “It seems to be a glitch in some programs. We’ve gotten lost drivers before.”

  “Who suddenly find themselves in Santa’s Village.”

  “Yep.”

  Damn. “That’s certainly a colorful name. Is it one of those cutesy theme towns?”

  Leavenworth, where she’d been headed, had re-created itself from a dying timber and railroad town into a faux Alpine Bavarian Village, which reputedly drew two-and-a-half million tourists a year.

  “It pretty much is.” He glanced over at her. “Sounds like you’re not a fan of cute.”

  “Cute has its place. Like puppies and kittens. Johnny Depp. I just don’t celebrate Christmas.”

  “So, is that a religious thing? Or were you at some time traumatized by a department store Santa?” Easy humor laced his voice.

  “Let’s just say the rampant commercialism gets to me.” Her tone, chillier than the snow falling outside, strongly suggested they drop the entire subject.

  Holly hated Christmas. The whole Christmas season.

  She hated the tinsel, the trappings, the decorated trees, the wrappings, and most of all, she hated Santa Claus, whom she’d quit believing in when she was seven years old.

  “And here I would’ve guessed the season would be a big deal for you. Given your name and all.”

  “My father named me. He liked Christmas.” Which was putting it mildly.

  She couldn’t remember all that much about her father, but she could recall him taking her to see them light the tree at Rockefeller Center every year.

  They’d been living in New York City, and, although she couldn’t remember it, she’d been told that she was a year old the first time she’d attended Macy’s parade, dressed in an elf green snowsuit, perched atop her father’s shoulders. The next year he’d put her on double runner skates and taken her ice skating for the first time.

  Christmas, especially Christmas in Manhattan, had been nothing short of magical.

  Then, the night Holly turned seven, while she was at home frosting sugar cookies for Santa with her mama, while out doing his annual Christmas Eve shopping, George Berry had been shot dead by a mugger who’d gotten away with three credit cards, forty-five dollars in cash, a Timex watch, and a Josephine Irish Cabbage Patch Kid with a pink dress and cranberry-colored pigtails.

  Her mother had gone into what Holly now recognized as a deep clinical depression. So dark that she packed up what was left of their little family and moved them to L.A.

  But despite the bright sun that was always shining above the palm trees, a dark cloud had settled over the house. And the next year, when Christmas rolled around again, there was no tinsel-draped tree. No presents. No trips to Macy’s to sit on Santa’s lap.

  That was when Holly, in an attempt to bring some small ray of happiness back into their lives, had written to Santa.

  She could still remember the letter. Dear Santa, she’d written in her very best second grade printing with a red pencil in the hopes the bright color would help it stand out from all those other millions of letters he probably received at the North Pole. My mama cries all the time since Daddy died. She says you can’t bring him back to life. But this year, the only thing I want is a happy family. Like I used to have. Thank you and Merry Christmas to you and Mrs. Claus and all the elves and reindeers. Especially Blitzen. For some reason, whenever her daddy had read her The Night Before Christmas, Blitzen had been her favorite. Love, Your friend, Holly Berry.

  P.S. In case you didn’t notice, being so busy with your toy factory and all, I’m living in California now.

  Whatever she was thinking wasn’t good, Gabe thought. Her lips were pulled into a tight line and she’d encased herself in enough ice to cover Mount Rainier. The lady was a touchy one. He also suspected there was a story there. One he intended to discover for himself.

  Meanwhile, with her Highlander stuck in a snowdrift and the roads closed all throughout the mountains, it wasn’t like she’d be going anywhere soon.

  And neither was he.

  Four

  She stayed silent for a long time, seeming lost in thought as she watched the woods out the passenger window.

  The only sound was the crunch of the snow beneath the tires, the slight scraping noise of the wipers as they struggled with the snow that was rapidly turning to ice, and the low drone of the voice on the radio announcing yet more road closures.

  Her scent—reminding him of a vacation his family had taken to Vashon Island, where they’d gleaned fruit from a peach orchard—bloomed in the heat blasting from the dashboard vents.

  He wondered if she smelled like that all over. Wondered if she tasted as good. Which had him imagining her lying on hot, tangled sheets while he ran his tongue down her smooth white throat. Across her collarbone. Then lower, over her pink-tipped breasts that he’d make wet with his kisses . . .

  Fire shot, along with his blood, from his obviously fevered brain to his groin.

  “I don’t understand,” she said as he shifted to adjust his suddenly too-tight jeans. “This storm wasn’t even on the radar. I checked. The forecast was sunny, with temperatures in the high forties.”

  “Things change fast in the mountains.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “So, you’re not from around here?”

  He was hard and ached and short of pulling over to the side of the road and somehow getting her out of those tight jeans and boots so she could ride him hard and fast—which, unfortunately, wasn’t an option, especially since he didn’t exactly run around with a condom in his pocket these days—there wasn’t a helluva lot he could do about it.

  At least not for now.

  Although it might not make a lot of sense, Gabe suddenly wanted to know everything about her—her favorite food, her favorite color (though he’d guess, from the coat, hat, and gloves, that would be red), whether she was a morning person or night owl, whether she liked her sex hot and fast, or slow and dreamy.

  He wanted her both ways. First fast, then, once they got that out of the way, he’d take his time, touching her all over. Tasting her everywhere. Drawing out every sensation, warming every bit of her fragrant peach-scented flesh until she was begging for him to finish her off.

  Then, what was really scary, was the absolute certainty that he’d want her again. And again.

  “I’ve been in Seattle the past six months,” she said, her voice breaking into a fantasy of being deep inside of her, feeling her contracting around him. “Before that I lived in L.A.”

  “Now there’s a coincidence. Us both coming from the same tow
n.”

  It didn’t suit her, he decided. With that white as cream skin, she was the least likely California girl he’d ever seen.

  “So, is your family back there?”

  Significant other? Fiancé? Lover?

  Or, oh hell, how about a husband?

  “My father died when I was a kid.”

  “That must’ve been tough. I’m sorry.”

  “So was I.” She exhaled a slight breath that told him she still hadn’t quite gotten over it. “My mother’s spent the past few years traveling.”

  “Lucky her.” Having joined the Marines to see the great big wide world, Gabe wouldn’t mind if he never left these mountains again. “But where’s her actual home?”

  “She doesn’t have one. I mean she really travels. She works as a croupier on a cruise ship. So mostly she sails around the Caribbean. And occasionally along the Mexican Coast, what’s called the Mexican Riviera.”

  “Sounds like an interesting gig.”

  And lonely, Gabe thought. Even though you’d be surrounded by people, wouldn’t they mostly always be strangers? That was one of the things he’d liked about being a Marine. Semper Fi wasn’t just some snazzy military slogan. It was a way of life. Once you got that service emblem pin at graduation, you became part of a family for life.

  Not that he didn’t love his own family. But after having grown up with three older sisters, it had been cool to have brothers.

  She moved her shoulders in a small shrug. “Mom seems to like it.”

  Her tone didn’t exactly ring with enthusiasm.

  “Although you might not celebrate Christmas, to a lot of people it’s a pretty big deal,” he said. “So, can I take the fact that you’re traveling to a murder trial over the holidays to mean that you don’t have some guy waiting for you back in Seattle?”

  She glanced over at him. “No. Why?”

  The NO TRESPASSING sign was up and flashing in bright Day-Glo neon letters. A sensible man would back away. But, dammit, Gabe had been unrelentingly sensible for the past year. And more amazingly, celibate for two.

  Maybe it was high time—hell, past time—to take a few risks.

  Having never been one to play games, he decided to just lay his cards on the table.

  “Because you’re a good-looking, obviously intelligent woman and you pretty much had me from the moment you stepped out of that SUV. So, I just wanted to know if there’s some guy out there I’m going to have to fight for your favors.”

  Her eyes widened. The smudge around the right one was growing darker. Yep, the lady was definitely going to have one helluva shiner.

  “Well, that’s certainly direct and to the point.”

  “I’ve never been one to beat around the bush. Or waste time playing games.”

  “I’m not one to play games either. But has anyone ever told you that you’re a very unusual man?”

  “Because I admire a woman with brains and looks?”

  “No. Because, along with supposedly having a friend with eight reindeer and a sleigh, and living in a town called Santa’s Village, you don’t know anything about me.”

  “That can always be changed. And, for the record, about the town? It gets worse. Santa’s Village bills itself as ‘The Most Christmassy Town in America,’ and you happen to be looking at the guy who not only owns an honest-to-God Christmas tree farm, but the Ho Ho Ho Inn.”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  She was, unsurprisingly, less than impressed. He figured the usual guys she went for in the city were lawyers and stockbrokers who wore Armani suits and lived in penthouses overlooking Puget Sound.

  “Hey,” he said, “it’s not like I named it.”

  Of course, admittedly, he hadn’t changed the name either. He’d told himself that was because it was, in a way, a historical landmark. But it was mostly because Emma loved it.

  After having been absent for so much of his young daughter’s life, Gabe was willing to give her whatever she wanted. Within reason. And hey, his ego was strong enough not to feel the need to change the name to something his former Marine buddies wouldn’t have ragged him to death about.

  “I returned home last year and bought it from this couple who’d run it for the past thirty years and decided it was time to go lie in the sun and catch marlin and sun fish in St. Petersburg, Florida.”

  He could tell she thought he was crazy. And, hell, maybe he was. But he’d been starting to get crazy more and more back in the sandbox. And to Gabe’s mind, the admitted wackiness of his hometown was a helluva lot better than the insanity of a war zone.

  Five

  “When do you think he’s going to get here?” the five-year-old girl asked for the umpteenth time in the last hour.

  “It’s been snowing to beat the band,” Beth O’Halloran reminded her granddaughter yet again as she took the basket of sliced potatoes out of the deep fryer and dumped them onto a plate next to a half-pound of Angus beef burger. “It takes time to get back up here from the city.”

  “I know.” Emma O’Halloran’s frustrated sigh ruffled her bright bangs. “But it’s just taking forever!” She began pacing again, the heels of her pink cowboy boots clicking an impatient tattoo on the heart-of-pine plank floor of the Ho Ho Ho Inn.

  “I know,” Beth said sympathetically, stepping around the little girl to get the coleslaw out of the commercial refrigerator.

  With three of her four children being daughters, Beth was accustomed to the amount of passion that could simmer inside even the youngest feminine body.

  Emma stopped in front of the kitchen window again, pressing her nose against the double-paned glass, peering into the gathering purple darkness. “Do you think he’s bringing my present?”

  “He probably did some shopping,” Beth hedged as she added the slaw to the plate.

  “No. My real present!”

  Beth sighed. They’d been through this before. Too many times to count. Although Gabriel had been, in some ways, easier than her girls, Emma was definitely her father’s child when it came to tenacity. Once either one of them got something into their heads, it was nearly impossible to shake loose.

  “Even if your father does decide to give in and get you that pony, I doubt he’d risk pulling a trailer up the mountain today.”

  “Not that present.” The pink ribbon Beth had tied the unruly red-gold curls back with this morning loosened a bit as Emma emphatically shook her head. “I changed my mind. To something more special. Something I’m going to ask Santa for.”

  Beth sighed again as she thought about the palomino Welsh pony currently residing at Lucas Nelson’s stable waiting to be delivered on Christmas Eve night. Although she’d personally thought the gift had been a little extravagant, she understood why Gabriel had bought it for his daughter. And it was a sweet little animal, she allowed. And docile enough for a child to handle.

  Now, if Emma had changed her mind this close to Christmas, with the roads being closed, even if they could order a new present on the Internet, the delivery trucks wouldn’t be able to reach town.

  Well, no point in borrowing trouble, Beth decided. Whatever else her granddaughter had her heart set on now, Beth knew Emma would be over the moon when she got up on Christmas morning and saw the pony grazing in the small pasture behind the inn.

  She held out the plate. “Here. Take this over to Ben Daughtry. He’s sitting in the back booth.”

  “That’s where he always sits.”

  “It’s called tradition. Some people believe it’s a good thing.”

  Heaven knows, until this past year, Emma’s life had been unsettled enough. There were times Beth blamed herself for that. She and Will had visited their granddaughter three times a year and had never witnessed any signs of domestic trouble, but if they’d left the mountains and moved back to California, perhaps they might have been able to provide the stability they hadn’t realized the little girl had been missing.

  Then again, had she known about her daughter-in-law’s illic
it romance with her wealthy property developer boss while Gabriel had been overseas, Beth wasn’t sure what she would or could have done. Surely e-mailing her son about his wife’s adultery would’ve just given him one more thing to worry about during a time when he’d needed to keep focused on staying alive.

  Unfortunately, life was a great deal more complicated than it appeared in those mystery books she liked to read, where problems were presented, then, in four hundred pages, neatly solved, with the bad guys behind bars and the good guys living happily ever after.

  She watched the little girl carry the plate across the wood floor with the care that suggested she was walking on eggshells. Her teeth were worrying her bottom lip. Better fretting about a dropped cheeseburger than her daddy having an accident, Beth decided.

  There may be state laws against child labor, but the way Beth saw it, this was a family business, Emma was most definitely family, and besides, having the child help out now and again made her feel useful, kept her out of trouble, and most important, tonight would hopefully keep her mind off her father’s trip up the mountain.

  Emma had reached Ben Daughtry’s booth without incident. The sixty-something artist had moved here after being priced out of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, which, he’d complained, was having its bohemian roots overtaken by Starbucks and sushi joints. He’d never married, apparently choosing to direct all his energies toward his art, which, when he’d arrived had been—to her mind—disturbingly dark.

  These days, rather than painting landscapes of a school of sharks attacking kayakers in Puget Sound, or King Kong atop the Space Needle fighting off attacking fighter jets, Daughtry earned a comfortable living creating seasonal watercolor greeting cards that all tended to make Santa’s Village look like, well, a Hallmark card.

  Beth suspected his former artist friends in the city would be amazed at the transformation of the man who’d arrived depressed and argumentative, but she wasn’t surprised. She’d seen it happen many times, and although there were those few detractors who suggested that the town council was putting something in the water, she liked living in the kind of small town epitomized in old black and white movies and the Sinclair Lewis stories she’d enjoyed teaching to high school English classes.