She hurried on to the south, past empty lots and a couple of dark cabins. Two vehicles passed her, one a Jeep and the other a Subaru like hers, both continuing up the mountain until their red tail lights disappeared from sight.
She ended up in front of a soaring glass and wood home with a fairy tale garden that elicited a gasp from her. Although winter was nearly upon them, the flora surrounding the house flourished with end of fall blooms—including the roses. No doubt the caretaker of this property was waiting until the bitter end to give those roses the deep pruning they would need to bloom like this again.
Looking down the side of the house, her own cabin appeared in the distance, the twinkling white Christmas lights outlining her roof. She took another look at the elegant home. This was the house directly across from hers? She darted a glance up and down the street. Nothingness surrounded her. Carefully, she padded down the long and narrow side yard until she reached the face of the mountain on which this house hung—and a completely unencumbered view of the cliff on the other side of the canyon and the ocean beyond.
Her mouth formed the word “wow.” She had specifically told her real estate agent that she wanted to live cliff side near the water, which is likely the reason she’d never seen the houses on this mountain up close. But, wow. The view ... the view was spectacular—even in the dark. She imagined it was ten times more magnificent in daylight.
Tasha glanced into the owner’s backyard, aware that just a few minutes ago she had been caught snooping at Jim and Helena’s. Oh, but this backyard! Two thickly padded wrought iron lounge chairs on wheels faced the expanse of canyon, cliff, and sea. If she lived here, she would probably recline out on one of those loungers every night—even if she had to bring a wool blanket with her for protection from the elements.
She pulled her gaze away and found herself staring across the canyon toward her little cabin where something moved near the back door to her home, across the deck. A figure stood under her porch light, and though it was difficult to make out exactly who it was, she knew. It was Marylu. Since her welcome wagon visit, Marylu had called Tasha twice, asking if she could check in on Wolfy for her when she was at work. Finally, Tasha took her up on it. Especially since the days had grown colder and she’d been leaving Wolfy inside more and more. She always left the back door open anyway, so why not? Tasha had wanted to take this little excursion up the hill without anyone noticing, and having Marylu feed her wild beast had given her the excuse she needed to bypass her home after work—and snoop around up here.
Another figure crossed the deck and stepped over the threshold into her house. Tasha blinked. Marc? She bit her lip, squinting into the dark at his unmistakable, towering figure. What did he want? She sighed. Probably interrogating poor Marylu. Unless, of course, he had some other reason to enter her home ...
A low and whiny groan came from somewhere nearby. Tasha froze. Instinctively, she whipped out her phone but noticed she didn’t have service. She bit the inside of her lip and hastily slipped the phone back into her pocket. The whine began to build until it morphed from a subtle groan into a fierce yet guarded bark. A dog jumped down from one of the lounge chairs and scrambled toward her, barking its fluffy white head off.
Courtney!
Tasha bent and tried to soothe the furious animal. “Ssh, Courtney. It’s okay. Ssh.”
The prima donna poodle held her ground a moat’s distance away, groaning and growling like an irate queen. Realizing the animal would not be allowing her to get close, Tasha stood and began to back away. She was halfway back to the street when the poodle released one more “and stay out” bark into the black night and retreated, ostensibly back to her perch on her owner’s backyard lounger.
Minutes later, Tasha reached the car, her heart still beating in her ears. If she’d wanted to simply raise her metabolism after a long day’s work, she’d certainly accomplished that. Tasha slid into the driver’s seat and put her key into the ignition. Truth was, she was looking for something—anything—that would help her figure out who was out to get Marc, and why they had attempted to pin the crimes on her.
She made the slow and windy ride home, past the occasional cabin lit with Christmas lights and whimsical decor. She had put homes with some of the faces she’d met, and she had become introduced to another area of Cottage Grove, but for all the new information she had gained, Tasha realized that she still had more questions than answers.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The roses on her kitchen table exploded from their green-tinged vase. Every rose was dark crimson, open—and ostentatious. A card stuck up above the largest one, as if waving at her and calling out, “Pick me, pick me!”
Tasha set her purse down and slipped out of her boots, sliding them up against the wall. Wolfy wandered over, sniffed her sock feet, sneezed, and rolled himself up next to her boots. Tasha patted his head. “Missed me, eh?”
She pulled the card from the bouquet, curious. Had Marylu found them on the porch and brought them inside? She couldn’t imagine that Marc had given them to her, although she still wondered what had drawn him inside her cabin. Snooping for clues, perhaps? She rubbed her thumb over the place where her name was written on the envelope. The penmanship didn’t look familiar. Then again, it was probably written by a florist clerk. Tasha dropped the unopened card onto the table with a sigh. If her parents or a friend or camp folk had sent her flowers, they would not have been roses—and definitely not red ones.
Her cell phone split the silence, the tune painful in its familiarity. Since You Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson. Brutal Lyrics. Perfect to signal that an ex was calling. Thing was ... she’d not actually received a call singing out that ode to a deadbeat ex—until now. The words of the song cut through her mind like a sharp blade. Her stomach tumbled, like she might be sick. She reached out, found herself staring at Roger’s name blazing on her screen like some rogue celebrity, and in a knee-jerk reaction, she turned off the ringer and tossed her phone onto the floor.
Wolfy wandered over, sniffed her phone, then gave her a what’s-this-all-about look.
“Don’t judge!” she said.
Her pooch quirked his head to one side, and when she didn’t reply, he collapsed onto the ground next to her phone, the loose skin above his eyes shifting side to side.
“Fine!” She ignored the phone and instead grabbed the envelope on her table and ripped it open.
Tash -
You were the one and I never knew it. I want you back. Can we put this behind us?
Rog
Really? The card was the size of a business card, so clearly he couldn’t fit much on it, but ... really? She remembered back to the evening she’d called him to discuss last minute reception seating arrangements. “About that ....” He’d begun his farewell speech, over the phone no less. About that? About their wedding? Their marriage? She took another glance at the card. His penmanship, as usual, was perfect. Image had always meant the most to him, and saying things like “I’m sorry I ripped your guts out of your body while breaking your heart ...” was probably not something he’d like to admit on paper.
Tasha collapsed into a chair and rolled her disheveled hair up into a bun, then let go, allowing it to cascade down her back. She cut a wary glance at the flowers. She had to admit—they were gorgeous. Fresh and lovely. She knew that she was allowing her past to color her view. Part of her still wanted to drop them in the garbage pail, but another part wanted to give them a home that would appreciate it.
Decision made, she got up, turned off the light, and padded down the hallway toward bed.
~~~
The next day after work, Tasha drove back home, those ridiculous roses still strapped into the front passenger seat of her small SUV. Three of the baker’s dozen were already drooping hopelessly, a reminder of her engagement to her ex-fiancé—weak and short-lived.
“What’re you doing with those?” Lorena had asked that morning, her face marred with stress lines. Tasha had just arrived and had schlepped
the large bouquet up the back steps, thinking they’d brighten up the dreary cafeteria. She had hoped that by now they would have hauled out holiday decor and decked the halls. But they’d been shorthanded, and besides, she’d heard that most of the decorations had turned up moldy after being stored in a leaky closet all year.
“Just a little something to brighten up the cafe,” she said. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Lorena bit her top lip. “You haven’t heard, I guess.”
“Heard what?”
She sighed. “Oh, it’s a mess, really it is. Sit down and I’ll make us some coffee.”
And that was when she learned that Jeremy had run off and married the camp director’s daughter—without anyone’s blessing. He was thirty-two, and she was only eighteen.
She pulled up next to the edge of her property, and released an exhausted sigh. The day had been long, and by the looks of things on her neighbor’s property, the night could be longer. Marc had a full house over there. A fire had already been lit. Next thing you know there’d be the mingling aromas of marinades and marbled meat wafting through the trees.
Before she could turn the key in the lock of her front door, Marc was there to greet her. “Can we talk?”
She glanced at the revelry going on next door. A girl was hanging on Andy’s arm ... the girl with the truck. Tasha eyed Marc, not sure she felt like dealing with anymore drama tonight. She huffed and clicked open her door. “I guess,” she said, as he followed her inside.
Tasha set the flowers back onto the table, along with her keys and bag. She didn’t remove her coat. Instead, she swiveled around to face Marc, her hand leaning on a dining chair. “What did you want to talk about?”
His face filled with concern, his brows lowered. “Are you okay?”
She tilted her head slightly. “You mean about your near accusation the other day?”
He stared at her, recognition lighting his eyes. “I thought you knew that ... surely, you know that I don’t think you’re guilty of any wrongdoing.”
“Ha. Well, thanks for that.” She made no attempt to force the sarcasm out of her tone. “Phew. Now I’ll be able to sleep.”
“Glad I could help.”
“What’re you doing here, Marc?”
He took a step toward her, his own strong arm finding the top of a dining room chair. “I heard about Jeremy.”
She relaxed. “Yeah. Hard day at camp. The director was AWOL today, but nobody blames him.”
“And you? How are you handling it?”
“Me? Well ... I’m fine ... why do you ask?”
His dark eyes zeroed in on her. “It seemed like you and Jeremy were pretty ... close.”
Tasha laughed. Hard. “What? Wait ... because he helped me with a few boxes yesterday, you think I’m upset over his elopement?”
“You were flirting with him.”
She frowned. “You have got to be kidding me.” She shook her head. “If there’s nothing else, Marc, I’m tired and I’d like to relax a bit, so—”
“If you and Jeremy weren’t seeing each other, then may I ask, who sent the flowers?” He nodded toward the wilted bouquet on the table.
“Is that what all this questioning is about?” She crossed her arms, her laughter without much mirth. “You think Jeremy sent me flowers, and then ran off with the boss’s daughter? Man, that would have made me a little testy.”
He rubbed his face, his hand scraping across stubble. For the first time, the confidence in his eyes wavered. She kind of enjoyed seeing that. “I suppose I misjudged the situation,” he said.
“I suppose you did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Marc? Why do you care who sent me the flowers? Or if Jeremy and I had a thing going? Aren’t I the enemy?”
He shook his head. “I thought I already ... no. No, I don’t think you’re a criminal, Tasha.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re really not going to let me get off the hook easily, are you?”
“No.” His dark eyes turned into pools of sadness and she sighed, exasperated. “Sit down,” she said, pointing to a seat at the end of the table. As he took a seat, she did too. “The roses are from my ex.”
He listened and nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Roger called off our wedding less than two days before we were to walk down the aisle.”
“Oh, Tasha.”
She waved a hand at him. “It was hard at first. Very hard. But I moved here to start fresh in this beautiful place, even though the house does need a ton of work. I figured the peace and quiet would be good for me ...”
“And then I showed up with my work crew.”
“Right. Well, best laid plans and all of that.” She idly splayed her left hand on the table. He reached for it and she darted a look at him.
“You know you drive me crazy, don’t you?” For once, she couldn’t say a thing. He kept holding her hand and staring at her. “I just have one question,” he said, his voice a dark whisper.
She quirked her head, waiting.
“Do you want him back?”
~~~
Early the next morning, Tasha slipped out the door, coffee in hand, and settled on a cushioned seat on the small patio on the front side of her cabin, the one overlooking the street and the sea beyond it. The eastern sunrise cast a red and yellow glow across the sky, but nothing about the water looked amiss. The waves appeared calm today, with only an occasional slosh against the cliff’s edge. She took a sip of her hot coffee. Marc had asked her a question last night, and though she knew the answer deep in her heart, she hadn’t divulged it fully to him.
Now as she sat here contemplating the day, she wondered why. As it was, they spent the evening talking just about everything else—trivial to significant—in their lives. He had expressed his sympathy for her broken heart, and she in turn had felt her chest clench more than once when he told her that he’d lost both of his parents before he’d turned eighteen.
No wonder he had such a soft spot for Andy and the other crew members.
“We need to get a move on!” Helena huffed her way along the road, her tiny hands rolled into even smaller fists.
Jim trailed behind, his pet beagle coughing and straining forward. “For once in your life, woman, stop trying to control everything!”
Tasha shrank back in her chair as if she were about to be caught eavesdropping. Again. Kind of unfair, considering she’d spent far less time on this patio than she imagined she would.
“Well, hullo, Miss Tasha!” Mr. Cho drew up behind Jim, Courtney prancing along beside him.
The morning had become a regular neighbor brigade. She waved to Mr. Cho from her perch, causing Jim to swivel a look at her. His scowl morphed into a smile. After they moved on, a truck pulled up in front of Marc’s lot, followed by another.
With one last glance out to sea, Tasha drained her coffee cup. She took the activity around her as a sign that it was time to get to work.
~~~
After another long day’s work, Tasha stepped out of her car and lingered by the edge of the road. A crew of four guys including Marc were ogling their day’s progress. She knew this day was coming, the day she would arrive home to find cement poured and curing. With winter on its way, she’d actually believed that this part of the project would have already been done. Of course, that was before a variety of questionable activities had slowed the process.
Tasha assessed the gray geometric pattern that served as a base for a soon-to-be home, noting the way the immense pine skirted the home’s foundation from a respectful distance. She knew that it had to go, and again, had thought the deed would already have been done by now. After a few breezy more minutes, Tasha emerged from her discreet watching place beside her car. She hiked her bag over one shoulder and made her way to her cabin, not immediately noticing that a visitor waited with his back against the wall of her home.
Roger.
His hair was the same sandy brown she’d remembered, only l
ess architectural. The angles had been replaced by length and wisps that reached his collar, the effect startling and different, as if he were ... someone else.
“I’ve missed you,” was all he said.
Tasha sensed eyes from the crew next door on her. Their chatter stilled. She darted a look to her porch out front, then to the back deck, before releasing a breath and giving up. “Come inside,” she said, and unlocked the door to her home.
He wandered in behind her like a puppy dog who had been swatted with a rolled up newspaper after leaving his master a “present” on the living room carpet.
Inside, Tasha dropped her bag and pivoted. She wanted to look at him full force, but also to leave plenty of space between them. He could always make her heart race, especially in the beginning, but her pulse was barely a whisper above its norm right now. And that was probably because she was simply tired and hungry. And annoyed.
“What are you doing here, Roger?”
He reached out to her. “I wish you would call me Rog like you always used to.”
She waited.
He moved closer.
“Roger, I can’t ...”
He rubbed his hands up the length of her arms, settling them on her shoulders. “Ssh. Baby, please. We’ve got all night to talk. Okay?” He chucked a finger under her chin so he could smile into her face.
“I received word that you were missing.”
His face brightened. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”
She shook her head. “No, I ...”
He put a forefinger to her lips, and kissed her forehead before drawing back. “You watching out for me is the best news I’ve heard all day. I couldn’t go on in that dreary office without you there. None of those women get me, you know?”
“Well, with all due respect”—she gently pulled herself out of Roger’s embrace—“you aren’t engaged to any of those women.”
“About that. Maybe I was too hasty ...”
An hour later, Tasha stood on her deck, taking in the wide expanse of canyon and mountain behind her house, the moon’s glow casting it all in a shimmery haze. If she turned just so, she could take in all the activity and celebration going on next door, and though she no longer cared to vilify Marc and his crew, she decided that perhaps it was time to erect a fence between their properties. Nothing offensively airtight, but something that could be a visual divide between their two homes. He would have his privacy and she would have hers—something she desperately needed right now.
The Christmas Thief Page 7
