Sugarplums and Scandal

by Dana Cameron

  The next afternoon, Berenger collected the club’s gifts from Tracy Lattimer. Tracy wasn’t exactly a warm hostess, making him wait outside while she collected the bags. “So nice of Cecilia to send you. I really shouldn’t give these to you, but she called, okaying it. You’re walking?”

  “My truck is—” Decorated with twinkle lights? “Out of commission.”

  “Just don’t drop anything, or take it for yourself,” she ordered and closed the door in his face.

  Berenger hitched up the red bags containing the presents, slung them over his back, and started walking toward Cecilia’s. Accompanying her on the deliveries would give Berenger a good view of anyone wanting to dampen the holiday mood.

  He wasn’t expecting the Santa Claus suit she’d whipped up for him.

  Her car was waiting on the street; the tire tracks in the snow said she’d backed out and around his pickup and camper. Dressed as Santa, Berenger crunched his six-foot-four body into the compact car’s passenger seat and held on to the dashboard as Cecilia sailed around Dewdrop’s streets. Between spreading cheer and gifts, she seemed oddly quiet and distracted. The families whose gifts had been stolen were overjoyed; the grumpy bah-humbug people were friendly to Cecilia, joining in the Christmas carols. Children sat on his lap and some of their mothers, too. No one suspicious appeared in their route, and arriving back at Cecilia’s, Berenger held his breath as she drove around his camper and back into her garage. He was invited in for stew, freshly baked bread, and a recap of how everyone enjoyed the gifts. In a holiday mood himself, Berenger couldn’t resist tugging her onto his Santa Claus lap and asking her, “And what do you want for Christmas, little girl?”

  “I’ve got a big problem,” she said quietly. “And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Try me. And I do not think that the chief—or anyone else—has hired anyone to kill you.”

  “This is something else. I think I know who is behind these burglaries, and there’s only one way to find out.”

  Chapter 7

  Not every man would think “she just might have a good idea,” and agree to be her partner in crime.

  But then, Berenger seemed to know underworld tricks very well, using them as they B-and-E’d into Tracy and John’s home.

  “I just had to finish up a little shopping and stopped in to get one of those snow balls, you know, the little clear glass thingies that you turn and the snow inside stirs up and drifts down—”

  “Just the facts,” Berenger ordered as he made his way down the Lattimer hallway with Cecilia behind him.

  “It was just there—” Cecilia bumped into his back when he stopped to open a door leading to the attic.

  “What was?” Berenger wasn’t a talking man—when on a mission. His tone sounded like business. But then, maybe breaking and entering was his business.

  “It was a little ceramic house that lights up and you can put a whole bunch of them together like a town. This one was unique, with a little kitty in the window, one of a kind, hand-painted. Emma Schwartz showed it to me when she bought it at a craft show last summer… I don’t know anything about you—and I’m with you, breaking into Tracy and John’s house.”

  “If the stolen goods lead to Tracy, she might be involved. She could have gotten sloppy, and this is your idea.” He started up the steps, his tiny flashlight picking out the way ahead.

  “Yes, I know. But I needed help. I’ve never been involved in a crime before.”

  “Always a first time.”

  “Never again.”

  “They all say that.” His tone sounded distracted and Cecilia needed to make her point. “How would it sound if I made accusations that were really unfounded? Like I’m still the disgruntled, ugly, unappealing—”

  “You’ve got plenty of appeal. Your ex-husband is a dope.”

  “That’s unfounded. You don’t really know him.”

  “I know you. Any guy who would mess around with a good thing like you deserves what he gets. Look at that, will you?” Berenger’s tiny flashlight pinpointed to boxes of—

  Cecilia kneeled to examine the contents. “Loot. That’s the burglary loot. I’d know it anywhere. Toys from the Marshall family, that little town for their boy, that doll for their girl—”

  “You can identify the gifts?”

  She looked up at him, her face stark and pale in the dim light. “This is awful.”

  “Makes sense. Tracy is recycling the gifts in her store, which means she’s also probably selling the more identifiable ones elsewhere.”

  Berenger was fishing out his cell phone. He looked at Cecilia as he spoke quietly. “Monroe, I’m at the John Lattimer house. Cecilia is with me. Looks like the stuff from the B and Es is in the Lattimer attic.”

  Chapter 8

  “You’re the police chief’s cousin? And that was your sister he was holding? She’d just broken up with her boyfriend and he was comforting her?” were Cecilia’s last words to Berenger through the search of the Lattimer home and Tracy and John’s arrest. At the police station, she sat pale and tense through the argument between her ex and his present wife, Tracy.

  John Lattimer was rigid and clearly not involved in his wife’s crimes. “How could you? It’s Christmas, Tracy. Cecilia always works very hard to make Dewdrop’s Christmases good for everyone.”

  “That’s just the point, John. Cecilia this, and Cecilia that. I had to do something, John,” Tracy argued fiercely. “Sales were slipping. I could have lost the shop. You’re always telling me how organized Cecilia is, how much of a success she is because she’s just… so… perfect. I hate her. I couldn’t let my business go down when she’s doing well. Don’t you understand? She won everything in high school, the president of the student body, the first chair clarinet, the cheerleader captain, and everything I wanted, she got—including you. I did it for you, John. You wouldn’t want a failure for a wife, would you?”

  Berenger looked up from writing his report. “If you were hosting the club that night, how did you manage to break into Cecilia’s house the second time?”

  Tracy’s voice filled with disdain. “I’m in shape, that’s how… I can run to her house in five minutes, even in the snow. I was in the moment she left the house. I knew she’d probably stop to chat with everyone—they all like her. I just told the ladies that I forgot to lock my shop’s back door and I was back before they missed me.”

  “The other thefts. Did you have accomplices?”

  “No. Do I look like I need help?” Tracy countered angrily, her neck vein throbbing.

  “I’m going home now,” Cecilia stated quietly. “And no, John, I don’t want you back.”

  Berenger started after her, but her look froze him in place.

  ———

  Later, in his camper, Berenger brooded about how to approach her.

  As he sat in the dark, the pickup’s motor suddenly roared and the camper was in motion, backing out onto the street. Berenger struggled for footing and fell onto the couch. He was just picking himself up again when the truck roared again, the gears grinding, and the camper lurched forward. As he held on and the contents of the camper tumbled around him, Berenger prayed that it wouldn’t roll over, though he was certain that only one tire was on the ground, the other in the air.

  Finally, after a few minutes, the pickup collided with something and stopped abruptly. Shaken, Berenger tore the wreath that had been on the door from his head. He listened as gears ground, the camper rocked, and he decided it was stuck—permanently. He jerked open the door, noted the campground, and Cecilia tromping off toward the highway. She turned to yell at him, “This is where campers go, in a campground, not in my driveway. There’s a right place for everything, and it’s not you—in my life.”

  Berenger struggled for reality, and balance. He was a little dizzy from the ride. “I don’t know where the hell we are, but it’s freezing. You are not walking back into town.”

  “Oh, I’m not, am I, Mr. Police Man on vacation? Cousin
to the police chief? Undercover Cop-Man?”

  “Get back in here. I’ll call for a ride. Be sensible.”

  Cecilia lifted her head at that and faced him as he approached her. Her teeth chattered as she stated haughtily, “I… am… always sensible.”

  “You’re scaring me. It must be ten below and a wind chill of way less than that. I’ll take you back to town. You can have the pickup to go back by yourself if you want. Here, I’ll unhitch the camper and I’ll stay here.”

  “It’s stuck.”

  Then Cecilia began to cry, the soft sort of a wounded cry that could javelin right into a man’s heart. Berenger didn’t know what to do, but he had to get her back into that camper and get her warm. He stripped off his quilted flannel shirt and put her into it. She was shaking badly and the tears on her face could freeze. He rubbed her arms. “Look, honey. You’ll freeze out here. It’s not much, but the camper is warm, especially stuck against those trees like it is.”

  Hit by the camper, a tree had fallen, covering it with snow. Steam was coming out from beneath the pickup hood, and a woman Berenger wanted very much was sobbing quietly.

  Cecilia sniffed and wiped the long sleeve of his shirt across her nose. “I was going to give you a new life, a second chance. How can I do that when you—?”

  He was clearly a real dog; the woman knew how to raise his guilt factor. Berenger moved in to block the wind from her body; he noted the snow falling heavily. A new terror spread through him: What if she caught pneumonia? “Let’s just get you warm and I’ll call to have someone come and get you. This probably isn’t the time, but I’d really like to see you—maybe a date or something, maybe a regular relationship—when you get back to maybe trusting me. So if anything happened to you, say pneumonia, I’d feel really bad.”

  “Yeah. That makes sense,” she said dully.

  Inside the camper, Berenger wrapped her in his blankets and coats and hurried to heat cocoa. He glanced at her and found color returning. She stared at him, silently laying on the guilt. “I’m sorry, really,” he said.

  “Yeah. Sure.” Her tone disbelieved as she studied the foam on the cup of cocoa. “If I were home, I’d have marshmellows on this. I really want to be home—what’s your name anyway? Joe? From the report, it said Joe Berenger.”

  “That’s me—Joe.” Uneasy with what Cecilia would do next, and fearing that at any moment she would decide to run off into the snowstorm rather than be trapped one more minute with him, he sat looking out of the window. If he looked at Cecilia, she’d know how much he wanted her, and that might frighten her even more.

  “This is awful. The weather radio said a blizzard is coming, road advisories and all that.”

  “Uh-huh. But I’ll get you home tomorrow, Cecilia. I just don’t think it wise to leave now. Tomorrow, I’ll get help.” Then his next thought turned him to her. “How did you get my pickup started? I have the key.”

  She delicately sipped her cocoa. “Hot-wired it.”

  He stared at her blankly. “You are a woman of many talents.”

  “True.” Cecilia placed her cup on a magazine and stared at it. “You need coasters. And what was that you said about dating me?”

  “I regret springing it on you that way. I should have worked out this thing, explained it, and come at you in a different way. I intended to. Then you saw that thingie at Tracy’s shop and we moved in on her—you looked real cute in that Ninja outfit you wore to her house. You’d be great undercover—I mean, working as an undercover cop,” Berenger hesitated because Cecilia was staring intently at him. She probably didn’t believe anything he said; he didn’t blame her. To conceal his nervousness, he stood. “I’m going outside. You probably want some time alone, to settle down. I’ll see if there is anything I can do about the pickup.”

  “This place is a mess,” she said and stood, facing him.

  He realized her need to neaten and order her emotions at the same time, the organizing kind of a woman she was. He wished he could give her more, in the middle of nowhere, with a blizzard coming. He wanted to say how she filled his heart, how just looking at her made him warm. But right now, things were looking sad to unlikely. “Look, I—” he began and decided against more, closing the door behind him.

  Cecilia straightened the camper and put the events of the evening in order with her thoughts about Berenger—Joe, the undercover cop, the cousin of the police chief. Putting the facts she knew aside, Cecilia itemized her emotions as she lit the candle and snuggled down inside the shirt scented of him. She was warm, snug and safe, and Berenger had just said he wanted a date and “maybe” a relationship. None of those were bad things.

  The good thing was how she felt when he kissed her—she felt like a hottie and a woman ready for a deeper relationship with a really good, safe man. He was uneasy now, fearing that he’d misspoken. But he hadn’t, not really, he’d said what was in his heart, and his heart was good. She’d seen how as Santa Claus he’d handled the children and talked with the elderly, reassuring them that someone still cared. She’d seen so many of Berenger—Joe’s—good points and, yes, it was true, he lit a spark that needed kindling and organizing and growing…

  She smiled at the knock on the door, because a really thoughtful man would do just that, and wait for a reply, though the temperatures were freezing. When she opened the door, he was standing and holding a small pine tree. “It’s not much, but I thought—”

  Berenger-Joe must have seen something in her face, something that she couldn’t hide, because he stepped into the camper with the tree. He stood there, big and powerful and sweet, holding the tree tightly as he waited for her to speak. Then he held it out to her and said, “For you. A present.”

  “It’s lovely, thank you. Our first Christmas tree.” She held it, just as she would a bouquet of roses. “You need me, Berenger-Joe. Don’t you?”

  He leveled one of those dark intent looks at her, the kind that brought a flush to her cheeks—it was sweet and a bit devilish, and very hot. “Yes, ma’am. I truly do.”

  “There’s just one thing: I truly do not like that thing men do, the ‘What the hell have you done now’ thing.”

  “I’ll rephrase. What about: Would you please keep your fingers off my stuff, honey?”

  She smoothed a snowflake from his hair, already feeling in charge and possessive. This one wasn’t getting away; he was a keeper. “First, my friends, a little get-together at my house—and your cousin and wife. Then we have to fly to Florida to meet my family, then yours—I understand it’s extensive… I’ll pack for you. I’m good at organizing, you know…”

  She watched him carefully place the tree aside and turn to her. He brought her into his arms with a gentleness and warmth that she wasn’t letting go. Then his searing kiss stopped her priority list of to-dos.

  “You’re not predictable at all, are you?” she asked much later in a breathless tone. “We’ll have to work on that.”

  Chapter 1

  “Fa-la-la-la LA, la-la-la laaaa,” Nick Fredricks boomed through his third Christmas carol and wondered what had possessed him to sing a medley of holiday tunes in the shower, particularly “Jingle Bell Rock,” Holly Townsend’s favorite song.

  Holly—the ultimate Christmas girl. His holidays had never been the same since she’d touched his life with her special magic.

  Nick turned off the water, stepped out of the shower and felt for a towel. She had certainly been in his thoughts lately. Perhaps it was the time of year. He could swear he even smelled her perfume in the air: Obsession. Perfect for Holly. She was obsessed with Christmas and all things wild and crazy.

  Perhaps this was all about his recent engagement to Gwen. Memories of the past and all that. After all, he’d planned on proposing to Holly that fateful Christmas Eve two years ago. If only she hadn’t decided to go so over the top that day. Why did she always have to push things to the edge of respectability?

  Whatever it was making him so nostalgic, he had places to go and people to
see, so he better snap out of it. Where was that damned towel?

  Holly reached her hand toward him, but it passed like fog through his arm. Oh, how she would love to touch him again. She floated toward the ceiling and watched him in all his dripping nakedness. He had beautiful strong legs and an athlete’s body she remembered so very well.

  Nick still made her heart stand still. Being dead, her heart standing still wasn’t much of a problem these days. Holly giggled into the steamy bathroom air and noticed it made a nice tinkling sound like delicate brass wind chimes in a summer breeze. Surprisingly, Nick seemed to hear that sound!

  She wondered what else she could do. She’d tried thunking him on the head and talking in his ear, but so far she’d only managed to create a silvery chime sound when she laughed and to make him sing her favorite Christmas carols.

  Holly slid down like a melted chocolate until her ethereal body was as close as a whisper to Nick’s warm living body. Not that she could feel cold or heat, but a sharp memory of his touch struck her and vibrated through her soul. Oh, Nick, you silly, sexy man.

  But she had more important things to do than cause him to get all hot and bothered, as fun as it was. She had to catch Nick by the short hairs of his inner soul and lead him into the light. It was vitally important, and she had to work quickly. She only had tonight.

  ———

  Now why the hell had he gotten a hard-on? It wasn’t like he was thinking of Gwen. It wasn’t even her weekend to sleep over. Nick finished drying off and rubbed a spot of clarity in the fogged-up bathroom mirror.

  He knew what it was. It was Holly that had caused his temporary arousal. It was Christmas carols and the memory of making love to her in this shower, and that funny tinkling, musical sound that must be some wind chime she’d hung up outside he’d forgotten about, and it was this odd sense of her that surrounded him today.

  Well heck, they’d broken up on a Christmas Eve much like this one, and it’d been about a year ago he’d gotten the odd note from her friend telling him Holly had been killed in an automobile accident down in Carmel, California.