3.5 Roasted in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  Kara cleaned the gingersnap crumbs off the back of her fork like a starved grizzly bear licking every last drop of honey off a honeycomb. Then she stared down at her empty plate.

  She glanced back at the half-eaten pie in the middle of the kitchen island. I could see food lust dancing in her eyes.

  It seemed like plenty of hungry folks were populating my pie shop today.

  I didn’t ask. I grabbed her plate and pushed another slice of Gingersnap Pumpkin onto it. She went for it like a ravenous cannibal.

  “Oh, Cin,” she said, in between bites. “I’m getting so fat. Yesterday I busted two buttons on my favorite shirt. I can only imagine what else is in store for me these next few months.”

  She sighed, feigning a somewhat depressed attitude. But I didn’t buy it for a second. The tone of her voice didn’t sound depressed at all.

  The past month, Kara had started getting used to the idea that she was going to be a mother. And I could tell by the way she spoke now that she wasn’t scared anymore, the way she had been when she’d told me in September that she was expecting.

  She seemed to actually be excited about the prospect now, and that made me happy to see.

  “Well, you might feel like you’re getting fat, but you certainly don’t look it,” I said. “You’re hardly showing.”

  “Aw, Cin,” she said, her words muffled on account of her inhaling the slice faster than the first. “You’re just trying to be nice.”

  “No, really,” I said.

  She waved her hand at me.

  “Don’t lie,” she said. “You’re no good at it. And I know I’m gaining weight faster than a fat cat trapped overnight in a Petco.”

  I shrugged and smiled.

  “You’re looking great, Kara,” I said. “I’m not lying about that.”

  She leaned back on the kitchen stool and let out a long sigh.

  “I don’t know about that either,” she said. “But I can tell you one thing. I’m pretty happy these days.”

  I smiled.

  That meant all the world to me. Especially after how unhappy and unsettled she’d been this summer.

  “Even more so after that pumpkin pie,” she said. “Did you change the recipe for that? I don’t remember it being so good.”

  “Same old pumpkin pie recipe I’ve been using for ages,” I said.

  “Well, I guess it’s just my newfound love for food talking, then,” she said, standing up from her stool with some difficulty. “Well, Cin, this quickly expanding lady had better go back to the ornament shop and get some work done ahead of Black Friday.”

  “If you must,” I said sadly, taking her plate away and putting it in the dishwasher.

  I guessed that was one of the ways you could tell when you were best friends with somebody. It just never seemed like you had enough time to talk to each other.

  “Oh, I was gonna ask,” she said, pulling on her jacket and draping a silk orange scarf around her neck. “Is there anything I can help you with cooking-wise ahead of turkey day?”

  I shook my head.

  “Nice of you to offer, but get out of town, pregnant lady,” I said. “All I want is for you and John to enjoy yourselves that evening. You just leave the cooking to me.”

  She smiled appreciatively.

  “You’re an angel, Cin,” she said. “I’ve also been meaning to thank you for inviting you-know-who to Thanksgiving this year. Especially after she was such a pain in the behind last year. But it means a lot to John. I can tell.”

  “Of course,” I said, as if I was actually looking forward to having Mrs. Billings at my table again. “But if you could, just let her highness of health know that I’m not holding back on the butter on her account. She can stick to the green beans and peas if it offends her so.”

  Kara grinned.

  “I’ll let her know,” she said. “But, you know, I do think she’ll be perfectly content sticking to the peas. It is her favorite color after all.”

  We both started laughing.

  “Oh, Cin,” she finally said. “What am I getting myself into with this marriage? Can you believe I’m signing myself up for a lifetime of playing daughter-in-law to that woman?”

  “Aw,” I said. “That’s a small price to pay for what you’re getting.”

  “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

  She was trying to be sarcastic, but it didn’t come out that way.

  She was smitten with her soon-to-be husband. And she couldn’t hide it.

  She buttoned up her coat, or as much of it as she could, and headed for the door.

  “Well, if you do need help ahead of Thursday, I’m around, Cin,” she said, pausing for a moment.

  “That’s kind of you,” I said. “But I’ve got things under control.”

  Kara shrugged and then waved goodbye. She backed away through the dividing door.

  I smiled.

  It certainly didn’t feel like I had things under control, but I wasn’t all that worried about it.

  It was going to be a great Thanksgiving. And while the food would be good, that wasn’t the most important thing.

  The most important thing was that everyone I loved the most was going to be sitting around my table. And even more, that everyone was at such a happy point in their lives this year.

  Including me.

  Chapter 7

  I had just spent two hours in the packed aisles of Ray’s Grocery, fighting over everything from baguettes to brown sugar to bags of cranberries.

  But as I pulled out of the dark, crowded, and icy parking lot, I realized that I still hadn’t gotten everything I needed to for Thursday’s menu.

  “Tarnation,” I muttered under my breath, remembering that I’d completely forgotten about the walnuts and goat cheese for the crostini starter. “Son of a musher.”

  I quietly scolded myself, considering the prospect of turning the car around and running back in to get the two ingredients. I tried to convince myself that it would only take a few minutes, but I was too much of a realist to really believe that.

  It’d taken me half an hour to get to the checker after getting in line. Somehow, it seemed as though everyone in Christmas River had collectively decided that tonight was the night to get their Thanksgiving shopping done.

  I let out a short sigh.

  It was too late to go back inside now. It was already later than I expected to be out and the roads were starting to freeze up. Daniel would start to worry if I didn’t get home soon.

  I would just have to stop by and retrieve the missing ingredients tomorrow instead, I reckoned. Hopefully, I’d be able to find a less-crowded pocket if I went earlier in the day.

  I pulled out of the grocery parking lot and drove cautiously along the outskirts of the downtown area, trying to be careful of dubious spots on the road where ice might have formed.

  With only a few days to go before the big day, I had a feeling that this Thanksgiving wasn’t going to be one of those 60-degree, pleasantly mild ones we’d sometimes get here in Christmas River.

  No. I had the feeling that it was going to be quite the opposite.

  As I drove along the downtown streets, I went over the menu for the big day in my head, just in case I had missed anything else on my shopping list. It was going to be a big dinner this year: bigger than any year previous. But I looked at that as a good thing. I was thankful to have so many friends and so much family to brighten my table. Warren, my beloved grandfather, the man who practically raised me, was coming back from Scotland with his Scottish girlfriend for the occasion. A couple of Warren’s cousins had also said yes to my invitation this year, no doubt to see the old man while he was still in the country. Kara, John, and old crabby Mrs. Billings would be there too. So would Owen, Daniel’s right hand deputy at the Sheriff’s Office, and Owen’s girlfriend and my baking assistant, Chrissy. Tiana, my other baking assistant, was coming with her sister. One of Daniel’s friends from Fresno and his wife and brand new baby were also planning t
o stop by.

  All and all, it had the makings of one insane day of kitchen work for me. Actually, two insane days, if I included all the prep work involved.

  Some of my guests said they were going to bring dishes. But after several years of putting on Thanksgiving for my family and friends, I knew not to count on anything. I’d be making the full meal. And anything else that the guests brought would just be the cherry on top.

  I was making honey goat cheese crostini, maple bacon rosemary turkey, cornbread cashew stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes with figs, ginger cranberry sauce, sage butternut squash, chipotle sweet potato biscuits, Cranberry Apple Walnut pie, and Gingersnap Pumpkin—

  A dark blur suddenly flashed across the road in front of me.

  I let out a stifled scream as I slammed on the brakes.

  The wheels squealed, the studs trying to grip the road, but they found nothing to hold on to. The car jolted and then slid across the other lane. I desperately hit the brakes again. I screamed loudly as my Escape demolished a cluster of mailboxes. I felt myself fly forward and then sharply backward at the impact.

  I gripped the wheel hard and closed my eyes, bracing for the worst.

  It took me a moment to realize that the car had come to a stop.

  Chapter 8

  “You didn’t get a look at what it was?” Daniel asked, his right hand gripping mine, the other one planted firmly on the wheel as we drove back home.

  Daniel had looked like he’d seen a ghost when he pulled up to the scene of the accident.

  Even though I’d reassured him on the phone that I was perfectly fine, he seemed as though he’d been frantically worried the entire drive over. He asked me if I was okay at least two dozen times. I told him I was fine. And that mostly, the only thing that had been hurt was my pride.

  The crash had been my fault, pure and simple. I’d been thinking about a million things and not playing close enough attention to the road. I was driving five over the speed limit when the thing, whatever it was, had bolted out in front of me. Then I hit a patch of ice, and that was all she wrote.

  I should have known better after almost 20 years of driving in Christmas River winters.

  Luckily, the extent of the damage seemed to be limited to the large dent on the right side of the car and the row of mailboxes, which were lying in a twisted heap off to one side of the lawn I had mangled.

  The crash had drawn old Bob Granger out of his house. Dressed in slippers and a robe that looked as though some mice might’ve gotten to it some years back, he seemed to be more concerned with the condition of his mailbox than with my wellbeing. He’d started spewing some misogynistic jargon about the poor reflexes of women drivers at me, and probably would have gone on with it if Daniel hadn’t shown up as quick as he did. The Sheriff appearing on Bob’s front lawn had shut him up real quick, causing him scurry back inside his house like the rat that he was.

  After assessing the damage, Daniel moved the Escape to a side street, saying we’d take it in to the shop in the morning. Then he transported all the groceries in the backseat to his truck.

  Then he drove me home.

  I glanced over at him and squeezed his hand, which was still firmly clamped on mine. It was still a little damp, and his face was pale.

  I felt bad for worrying him like this. I really should have been paying more attention.

  “It must have been a raccoon,” I said. “It was just this blur across the road. I should have kept going, but my foot was slamming on the brake before I could think it through.”

  He nodded, keeping his eyes straight ahead on the road.

  “Bad driving conditions out here,” he said. “I should have driven you to the store. I’m sorry.”

  “I wouldn’t have let you,” I said. “I’m as good a winter driver as anybody. It was just one of those things.”

  He patted my leg.

  “You think it’ll cost a lot to fix the Escape?” I said.

  It seemed like my poor car had been through a lot lately. Last Christmas, the windshield and windows had been shattered. Now this.

  “Naw, I shouldn’t think so,” Daniel said. “But don’t worry about it now. I’ll take care of it in the morning.”

  I smiled warmly.

  We pulled down Sugar Pine Road and then into the driveway of our lovely cabin home. A crescent moon hung high in the cold autumn sky above the meadow that was our front yard.

  I got out of the car and walked up the steps. Daniel unlocked the front door, and then we entered our warm and cozy house.

  The aroma of something warm and scrumptious permeated the air.

  Daniel had been cooking dinner.

  “The groceries,” I said, remembering that we’d left them sitting in the car.

  I started pulling away from him and heading back for the doorway, but my husband reached for my arm and pulled me back to him. He rested his face in my hair.

  “Just… just wait a moment.”

  He hugged me hard, breathing out a long sigh of relief.

  Chapter 9

  “You know, I should be the one to take the Escape in,” I said. “It was my fault, after all.”

  We were back in Daniel’s truck. It was pitch dark and bitterly cold out on the streets of Christmas River at this hour of the morning. A faint grey light had started to tinge the edges of the horizon, but we still had several hours of darkness ahead before the sun would show its face.

  Sometimes this early in the morning, you wondered if the sun would actually rise at all. It felt like the darkness could just swallow you whole out here.

  This was what I’d gotten used to in my line of work as a pie shop owner. No matter the time of year, owning a pie shop meant getting up earlier than a rooster. Which wasn’t always a pleasant thing on a chilly morning in late fall.

  Despite my protests, Daniel insisted on getting up at this brutal hour and driving me to work in his truck. He also insisted on taking my busted-up Escape to the shop, letting me get a head start on what promised to be an insanely long day.

  I didn’t much like the idea of Daniel having to clean up my messes. But he didn’t seem to be taking no for an answer this morning.

  “Let me take care of it,” he said. “The boys down at Raymond’s Auto Body will see the Sheriff walk in, and they’ll be less apt to rip us off. Besides, the accident wasn’t your fault. You hit some ice. Happens to the best of us.”

  He gripped the wheel and stared intently out at the street in front of him.

  I half wondered if Daniel hadn’t been so insistent on taking me because he was worried about the driving conditions out here.

  I guess I had given him quite the scare. The entire night before, it seemed as though he couldn’t stop asking how I was doing and if he should take me in to see the doctor. I had just a little stiffness in my neck from the crash, but that was about it. Still, he’d been looking at me like I had just been in a bad rollover accident.

  “Anyway,” he added. “Things have been so quiet at the station lately. It’s not like I’ve got anything pressing to get back t—”

  His eyes fixed on something out the driver’s window. The truck slowed down to a crawl. I followed his gaze, finding what had caught his attention.

  “What in the world…?” I muttered, looking at her, wondering if I wasn’t in some November version of Groundhog Day.

  A moment later, we had pulled off to the side of the road.

  Chapter 10

  Deb Dulany was out in the street, curlers in her hair, a thin flannel robe tied loosely around her waist, and nothing but a pair of beat-up, weathered slippers on her feet.

  Again.

  It couldn’t have been more than 25 degrees out. And with the wind chill, it had to feel much colder than that.

  I watched as Daniel quickly unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car, leaving the headlights on. Maybe I should have stayed behind, but I found myself unbuckling my seatbelt too and getting out.

  A bli
stering wind blew into my face as I stepped onto the icy street. I tiptoed around the car, jumping from patches of ice-free asphalt like they were stepping stones in a creek.

  Daniel noticed me, but didn’t tell me to go back in the car and wait. He’d come to terms with the fact that I just wasn’t the kind of woman who waited in the car.

  “Jack!?” Deb called out into the empty street, keeping her back to us, as if she hadn’t noticed us approaching her. “Jack Daniels!?”

  Panic laced her voice.

  Another bitter gust howled around us, making the barbed wire circling Deb’s front yard shake. I shivered, my wool jacket unable to keep a wind that cutting out.

  “Can I help you Ms. Dulany?” Daniel asked, digging his bare hands deep into his leather Sheriff’s Office jacket.

  She turned around abruptly, her eyes wide and panicked.

  “Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Sheriff,” she said, gripping onto the sleeves of his coat. “Jack… it’s Jack Daniels. He’s gone.”

  Daniel lifted his eyebrows and glanced over at me.

  “I’m, uh, I’m afraid I don’t understand.” he asked in a concerned tone.

  I almost smiled, realizing he probably thought she was a crazy lady looking for a missing bottle of whiskey.

  “It’s her turkey,” I said, remembering the day before when I’d watched her chase said turkey down Main Street.

  Deb nodded.

  “I don’t know how he could have gotten out again,” she said, burying her face in her hands. “I locked that thing up good and tight after yesterday morning. It’s impossible.”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s just impossible.”

  In the dim light coming from her porch, I could see her wide blue eyes filling up quickly with water.

  Daniel glanced around. It was hard to see anything out on these dark streets at this hour of the morning.

  “Ms. Dulany, I think you should go back in the house,” he said, reassuringly. “In the meantime, I’ll have a look around and see if I can’t find your turkey. I bet he hasn’t gotten very far.”