Menace in Christmas River (Christmas River 8)

by Meg Muldoon

  “Oh, almost forgot. That wasn’t the only thing, neither,” he said, leaning forward and resting his arms on the dividing door. “I wanted to tell ya that there’s a visitor wanting to see you out here.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said, dusting my good hand off on my apron. “Who?”

  He shrugged.

  “I better just let ya see for yourself.”

  And with that, he disappeared back out into the front.

  Chapter 50

  I leaned back against the edge of the counter, trying to conceal my surprise.

  Though I couldn’t explain why, I hadn’t expected to see him ever again. At least, not in person.

  I figured after what had happened, the chances of him ever coming back to Christmas River were slim to none.

  After all, there was nothing but unpleasant memories here for him.

  But here he stood in my pie shop kitchen, looking like he’d just crawled out of a car wreck.

  “What are you… should you be here?” I finally managed to say.

  He looked a little green around the edges of his jaw, and the back of his head was bandaged. But for a man who had been bludgeoned just two short weeks earlier, Cliff Copperstone didn’t look half-bad.

  He was standing on his own two feet, and that was a big improvement right there. And while his eyes might not have been the picture of health, they were lucid.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t be,” he said. “But here I am anyway.”

  He gave me a small smile. It came out a little strange and lopsided, but the sentiment behind it was what counted.

  His eyes fell on my sling.

  “You too, huh?” he said.

  I shrugged with my good shoulder.

  “Councilwoman Tunstall was the only judge who escaped unscathed,” I said. “But I’m trying to look on the brightside – I’ve got a story to tell my grandkids one day.”

  “Yeah, that’s one way to look at it.”

  I was glad to see that his faculties didn’t appear to be damaged.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “I’ve been better,” he said. “It’s going to be a little while before I get back to where I was – that’s what the doctors say. But, uh…”

  He cleared his throat.

  “But I guess you could say that I’ve been trying to look on the brightside of things, too.”

  He hesitated for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts.

  “I know you probably never want to see me again after the way I treated you,” he said. “But I came here because…”

  A strange, queasy expression came across his face.

  And for a moment, he looked no older than 12. A scared 12-year-old at that.

  I could tell Cliff didn’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing.

  “Could I interest you in a cup of coffee and a slice of warm chocolate cherry pie, Mr. Copperstone?”

  I said it in the most genuine, kind, hospitable voice I could muster.

  At first he looked puzzled.

  But then, though his lips betrayed nothing, I could see something flicker in his eyes at the prospect of pie and coffee.

  I smiled to myself, going for a serving plate.

  I wagered that a slice of warm pie could melt even the coldest of hearts.

  Chapter 51

  “After she left me, I never talked about her. I never told anybody about what happened, even. I stopped speaking to all of our friends who’d been invited to the wedding. I shut the whole ugly experience up inside myself and threw away the key. I focused on my career, instead. I was always the hardest worker in the room. And I knew that I was the smartest, too. I was going to make it all the way. People would know me. Everybody would want me. And I was going to show her just what she had missed out on.”

  He let out a deep sigh, leaning forward on the kitchen barstool.

  “She was the one.”

  He lifted his eyes.

  “My one. And when she left, all I wanted to do was to make her regret what she did to me.”

  His hand, which had been resting on the counter next to the half-empty coffee mug, curled up into a fist.

  “So I did everything above and beyond. I excelled in the internship. I graduated at the top of my class. When I came back to Portland, Sue Smith promoted me at The Stone Wall. It wasn’t long after that she saw what a mind I had for business, and offered me a stake in the restaurant. I made the smart moves and made The Stone Wall the most successful eatery in Portland. And when the old lady was running the business into the ground, I found a way to take control of it. Sue wasn’t the only one I screwed over, either. I left a nice little trail of dead and wounded behind me in my quest to make it big.”

  His eyes met mine for a split second.

  “But when I made it, when I was the biggest chef on the West Coast, appearing on television and in ads and magazines… when I had finally reached the top? You know what I discovered?”

  He smirked slightly to himself.

  “I discovered that all that work, all that hard work and stepping on top of others to get to the top… none of it was any use. Because Samantha didn’t care. I never got that phone call from her, begging me to take her back. I never heard a thing, in fact. And I found myself in a place I didn’t want to be – alone, and as big of a sad bastard as ever. Because there was never anybody like her. No one has ever measured up for me.”

  I studied him for a long moment, still somewhat in shock that Cliff Copperstone – the Cliff Copperstone – was being this candid, this revealing, to me of all people.

  When he had come into the pie shop, I knew that there was something he wanted to get off his chest.

  I just didn’t think he’d be so open and frank.

  “But what I didn’t understand, until last week,” he continued. “Was that Samantha wasn’t the only one who had hurt someone. Since she left, my life has become one long campaign to injure anyone and everyone who got close to me. From Sue Smith, to my other business partners, to all the women I led on – Julie Van Dorn included. I’ve treated people like they were pawns in my own little game of chess. And when I didn’t need them anymore, I just pushed them off the board.”

  He leaned back in his chair, looking out the window with a contemplative expression.

  “People think I’m successful,” he said. “They want to be like me. I can’t tell you how often I hear that. But they wouldn’t think that if they knew all the things that I’ve done to get where I am today.”

  He looked dead into my eyes.

  “I don’t know why I had my driver take me all this way to tell you these things,” he said. “But when I woke up in the hospital after the Chocolate Championship, do you know who was looking down at me?”

  I could guess, but I let him tell the story.

  “It was Samantha. And you know what? I didn’t hate her the way I did at the event that day. It’s the strangest thing, but I didn’t hate her at all. Not even a little. It was like all that anger I’d been holding onto for all those years just left when I saw her face. When I saw how worried and concerned she was about me.”

  He shuddered slightly.

  “It took getting bashed over the head for me to listen to her. But there in the hospital room, she told me why she had left me. And how sorry she was for hurting me like that.”

  He paused for a long moment.

  “And I’m not going to say that I’ve forgiven Sam for doing what she did,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that pain. But it helped to hear her side of things. To hear what was going on inside her head and why she acted that way. I feel like… I don’t know. Like her telling me everything, giving me that chance to understand where she was coming from, helped somehow.

  “It feels like for the first time in 15 years, I can actually see clearly.”

  He searched my face, looking to see if I understood what he was saying.

  I did.

  There wasn’t any designated time limit when it came
to healing from heartbreak. Sometimes, all you needed was someone new to help you heal. Other times, it took a lot more than that. It took understanding and compassion.

  And closure.

  “I’m really glad to hear that Cliff—”

  “I came back to Christmas River to apologize,” he said. “I’m sorry I treated you so poorly. And if you can find it in your heart, I’d like to ask for your forgiveness. I’m very sorry.”

  He gulped, and pulled his hands back from off the table, trying to hide the fact that they were shaking slightly.

  I looked away for a brief moment, absorbing the apology.

  It was about as sincere of one as I could ever remember getting from anybody.

  I looked directly at him.

  “It’s okay, Cliff,” I said. “I forgive you.”

  A look of relief swept across his face and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

  He let out an unsteady breath.

  “That, uh, that wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be,” he mumbled.

  He let that linger there for a long moment. Then he stood up.

  “What I’m about to say now I’m saying because it’s the truth,” he said. “Not because of any other reason. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I want you to think better of me when I leave here today.”

  He paused dramatically, and I furrowed my brow, not understanding what he could possibly be talking about.

  He looked deathly serious suddenly.

  “Cinnamon?” he said. “That chocolate cherry hazelnut pie was the best dessert I’ve had in the last five years.”

  My eyebrows nearly bounced off the ceiling.

  I felt as flabbergasted as I’d ever felt before in my life.

  “You… you really think so?” I stammered. “You’re not just saying that?”

  “I really do, and have you actually ever seen an episode of my show?” he said. “Because I always tell the truth and I always tell it exactly as it is. I have the complete inability to sugarcoat anything.”

  Though Cliff Copperstone was a troubled and complicated man, I did trust his judgement in one area: Food.

  “You probably don’t need to hear this from me,” he said. “But I think you’re very talented and you’ve got a bright future ahead of you. You can really go places if you want.”

  He smiled slightly, looking around the kitchen.

  “But I don’t know… this pie shop you have here looks like a pretty nice place to settle down, too.”

  I smiled back.

  Cliff had gotten lost, and I sensed that he still had a ways to go before he found home.

  But he had just discovered the road back.

  He started pulling his jacket on.

  “Where are you headed now?” I asked.

  “Back to Portland,” he said. “There’s, uh, there’s someone else I need to apologize to. An old mentor I’ve got to make things right with.”

  I couldn’t help but feel a warm and cozy feeling inside when I realized he was talking about Sue Smith – Holly’s mom.

  Cliff had a long way to go.

  But maybe one day, he’d be able to make amends to the Smith family.

  I stood up and went over to the refrigerator where another row of the HubbaHubba pies sat cooling. It took me a little while longer than it normally would have to retrieve the plastic wrap, rip a piece off, and fit it over the round tin. But I managed well enough with the use of just one arm.

  I handed the pie to Cliff.

  He looked at it, and maybe it was the lighting in my small, cozy kitchen, but I could have sworn that I saw his eyes dampen slightly.

  “Take care of yourself, Cliff,” I said.

  He glanced away for a moment.

  Then he looked back at me.

  He nodded sincerely.

  “You’re a good person, Cinnamon.”

  Chapter 52

  I dusted off my good hand and hurriedly slipped out of my apron. Then I went about the kitchen like a small tornado, throwing half-made pies and bowls of filling into the fridge, and dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

  “Well, just what’s got into you?” Tiana said, her eyes trying to keep up with my fast and feverish movements.

  I took my time answering her.

  Because it wasn’t exactly easy to put into words the things I’d just been thinking to myself since Cliff left the pie shop.

  I paused for a moment, looking down and smiling to myself.

  “A pair of green eyes,” I said, finally. “That’s what’s got into me.”

  Tiana furrowed her brow, not understanding my answer.

  But then, after a few seconds of thought, she figured it out.

  “Oh… I see. Well, no problem, Cin,” she said, winking at me. “I’ll cover for you.”

  But I shook my head.

  “No you won’t,” I said. “We’re closing the shop for the rest of the day.”

  That caused a horrified look to come across her face. Ian, my other baking assistant, dropped what he was doing and looked over at me, as if he wasn’t sure whether he’d heard right.

  “But… Cin, the dining room’s the most crowded it’s been since December,” she said. “People are finally starting to get over their New Year’s Resolutions and eat sugar again. We can’t just turn those folks away.”

  “And we won’t,” I said, without hesitation. “We’ll serve everybody who’s in the pie shop right now. But then we’re going to turn the sign over to ‘closed’ and take the rest of the day off.”

  “But, Cin, you’ll be losing out on a big sales day. I don’t think—”

  I went over, putting a hand on her shoulder. She stopped speaking abruptly.

  “There are more important things than work, Tiana.”

  I glanced past her in the direction of the dividing door where Tobias was slaving away at the front of the house.

  “I think we all could use a day to appreciate what we have,” I said.

  After a moment, Tiana seemed to understand what I was trying to say.

  “All right, Cin,” she said. “All right. I’m in.”

  She smiled, then started putting dishes away.

  Tiana wasn’t wrong – we would be losing a chunk of money by closing up early.

  But the way I saw it, there wasn’t enough money in the world to keep me in the pie shop, away from him, all day.

  Chapter 53

  He knit his eyebrows together and shot me a concerned glance as I hooked a right out of the Sheriff’s Office parking lot.

  “I wish you would have let me drive, Cin,” he said. “If this is as serious as you say it is, then we should have taken the Sheriff’s truck.”

  I met his stare for a split second, then focused back on the road.

  “No, we shouldn’t waste any more time,” I said. “And besides, I’m perfectly capable of driving with this here arm. It’s gotten real strong balancing all those pie dishes these past few weeks.”

  He kept his eyes on me, obviously displeased by the turn of events.

  But short of jerking the wheel, there wasn’t anything he could do about it now.

  “Fine,” he finally said.

  He was quiet for a long, long while. I turned onto the highway and hit the accelerator, feeling a sense of freedom in the bare pavement. For the first time since the big storm, the highway was completely clear of snow and ice.

  A sharp wind rustled through the junipers and pines that lined the ribbon of road in front of us, and the sun sparkled between the shadows.

  It was a beautiful crisp afternoon in the mountains. A day so beautiful, in fact, it made you forget how bad things could get up here if Mother Nature had a mind for it.

  “So this concierge at the Lone Pine Resort… She told you she has important evidence related to the attempted murder of Cliff Copperstone?”

  I nodded.

  “How come she contacted you and not the Sheriff’s Office?”

  I shrugged.

>   “I guess she remembered me from when I dropped Cliff off that night,” I said, keeping my eyes glued to the road in front of me. “She knew who I was, being that I’m somewhat of a local celebrity these days.”

  I smiled a little bit to myself at the joke.

  “Hmm,” Daniel said. “Interesting.”

  He rubbed the stubble on his chin and looked out the window.

  I cleared my throat and adjusted myself in the seat – no small task considering I was operating with only one hand on the wheel.

  “So, uh, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I said, trying to switch topics.

  “Yeah?” he said. “What’s that?”

  I tilted my head off to the side.

  “Well,” I said, pausing dramatically. “I heard a little rumor about you and Julie Van Dorn.”

  I didn’t have to look over to see that his eyebrows had lifted noticeably in surprise.

  “What kind of rumor?”

  “Something about why Julie left the county’s public relations department last year,” I said. “I heard she left because of you.”

  He was quiet. Perhaps trying to choose his words carefully.

  “Where’d you hear that from?” he finally said.

  “A little birdy by way of Moira Stewart.”

  “Aw, you know better than to listen to old Moira,” Daniel said, leaning back in the passenger’s seat.

  “Yeah, but in this case, I think she might be right.”

  I met his stare for a brief second.

  “Well? What’s her version?” Daniel said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “It’s pretty short and to the point,” I said. “Just that Julie wouldn’t stop making advances at you. And that, well, you told her you were going to bring it up to the human resources department at the county if she didn’t stop. And that she was so embarrassed by the whole situation, and so taken aback that you wouldn’t go for her, that she quit.”

  He laced his fingers across his chest in a relaxed manner.

  “Well, you know. Holding the prestigious office of Sheriff and being as pretty as I am, Cin, I’m not exactly a stranger to ladies losing it over me,” he said, grinning.