by Meg Muldoon
“No you weren’t,” I said.
I didn’t believe a single word that came out of that man’s mouth.
“Well, the past’s the past, as I always say,” he said, starting to close the door. “Unless of course, it isn’t. You have yourself a good day now, Ms. Peters. Bake them pies up real good, and I’ll be sure to find you later tonight.”
I watched as he shut the door and quickly walked away down the back steps.
I let out a disgusted sigh.
The creep had left his elf hat on the kitchen counter.
Chapter 19
By 1:28 p.m., Cinnamon’s Pies looked like it had been cleaned out by looters.
There was no flour left. No berries. No peaches. No oranges. No milk. No cornstarch, tapioca, gelatin, evaporated milk, cream, coffee beans, butter, eggs or vegetable shortening.
Pretty much all that was left that Fourth of July afternoon was a nice stack of green bills in the cash register.
I’d sold four times as many pies as I ever had in a single day in the history of Cinnamon’s Pies. And the crazy thing was, I could have sold even more if we’d had more: the line hadn’t slowed the entire day.
It was an exhilarating, if not exhausting, feeling to know how far the pie shop had come in these last few years.
And as I surveyed the subsequent damage to the kitchen’s reserves, there was one thing I wanted, and one thing only:
A cold, delicious, icy treat to celebrate.
“You feel like getting an ice cream shake, Ian?”
The teen looked over from where he’d been sweeping in the corner, a surprised expression on his face.
“It’s the least I can do for all the hard work you’ve put in today,” I said.
He shrugged, then put down the broom.
“Sure.”
I would have invited Tiana and Tobias along too, but Tiana had left as soon as I told her we were done for the day. She said she had thirty pages left of her romance novel and a bathtub of cold water with her name on it waiting for her at home. And, to my great surprise and delight, a blind date later in the evening with a man she’d met through a local online dating service. Meanwhile, Tobias had left in a hurry of sorts. After coming back from his break, he’d seemed strange: off somehow. Jumpy, I might even say. After we closed up, he’d left without saying so much as a word to any of us.
That left just me and Ian and less than three hours to kill before we had to head over to Geronimo Brewing Co. and start setting up for the grand opening.
I traded my apron for my purse and locked the door behind me. We walked down Main Street, which was littered with the flashy red, white, and blue remnants of Christmas River’s Fourth of July parade, and on over to the Christmas River Shake Shack on the north end of town. I ordered us a couple of strawberry shortbread shakes, and we wandered over to Meadow Plaza to sit and rest for a spell in the shade.
“Thanks again for helping me out today, Ian,” I said as we took a seat at one of the benches facing the river. “I know your grandmother probably made you do it, but I really appreciate it.”
He nodded quietly, sucking greedily at the straw.
“It wasn’t a problem,” he said.
I rummaged around in my pocket, pulling out several bills, and then handed them to him.
He stared at them for a long moment.
“What’s this?”
“Well, it’s not exactly legal, what with you not being a citizen. But I say we call this, uh, a donation of sorts to your travel fund this summer.”
He stared down at the money for a while, as if he was thinking hard about something.
And then he shook his head, handing it back to me.
“No,” he said. “Thank you, but no. I couldn’t take this.”
I furrowed my brow.
A 19-year-old kid giving money back wasn’t exactly something you saw every day.
Ian was a mystery.
“But you earned it,” I said. “Fair and square.”
He just shook his head.
“I couldn’t. We’re family now,” he said. “You help your family out when they need you, and you don’t expect compensation. It’s the right thing to do.”
I couldn’t have been more stunned than if he’d spit out his strawberry shake all over the bench.
“But I’d really like to pay you,” I said. “Isn’t there something you’d like to get for yourself with this?”
He shook his head again, looking across the plaza.
It was odd, but I swear. The kid looked sad for some reason.
“Nope.”
I finally shrugged, putting the money back in my pocket.
If he wouldn’t take it, then I’d figure out a way to get Aileen to slip it to him. But there was no use in arguing with him about it now.
“You know, you did really well today,” I said, taking a pull on my shake. “You have good instincts.”
“In the kitchen,” he said, shooting a quick look my way. “At the front of the house, I was ghastly.”
I laughed, the way he phrased it sounding so very Scottish.
“I wouldn’t say ghastly,” I said. “That sort of stuff just takes time to learn. You did really well.”
He shrugged.
“I was never good at it either at the bakery back in Glasgow,” he said. “I’d always get the orders wrong.”
“Did you like working in a bakery?”
He nodded.
“Loved it,” he said. “There’s something… something about it that just felt right, yeah? I didn’t even mind waking early. Because sometimes when you’re there at those early hours, when it’s just you and the bread… there’s just…”
He trailed off, seemingly unable to express the sentiment.
But he didn’t have to.
I understood it completely.
“There’s something peaceful,” I said, finishing the thought for him. “Like everything in the world is just… right.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Exactly.”
We sat and sipped our shakes for a silent moment.
“So how come you’re not still at that bakery?” I asked.
Ian’s face darkened suddenly.
He paused a long while, and I wondered if I had just been rude somehow. Maybe in Scotland, it wasn’t polite to ask a question like that.
He finished the rest of his shake and then stood up quickly.
“Because I beat the living daylights out of the owner,” he said. “That’s why.”
I felt my mouth drop open in shock.
“You… you wha—?”
“I have some place I’ve got to go, Mrs. Brightman,” he said, tossing the paper cup into a nearby trashcan. “Thanks for the ice cream. I’ll see you at the brewery later.”
And with that, he walked quickly across the plaza, disappearing down Main Street before I could even ask him why.
Chapter 20
Warren adjusted the strings of his bolo tie while looking hard at himself in the bar mirror. He matted down a couple of unruly white-haired cowlicks at the back of his head.
I watched from the shadows of the pub as he dusted off his jacket.
He was one handsome devil, all right.
He took in a deep, unsteady breath and gave himself another nervous once-over in the mirror.
“Just remember how this place got its name,” I said, flipping over a barstool and placing it beneath a table. “Remember that story you told me?”
He looked back at me in the mirror.
“Remind me,” he said, his voice a little shakier than normal.
Warren knew the story well enough, but I guessed he just needed to hear it again. It was a story from his childhood, something he told me a few years back when I’d come to a crossroads of sorts in my life.
The story meant a lot to me.
“When you were just a boy, you and your friends used to go up to Elk Lake and jump into the water from an old tire swing they called The Gallows,” I said. “But then o
ne of your friends broke his leg one day after jumping from the swing, and your mom found out and told you to never go to the lake again.”
He nodded.
“Yep, she did,” he said. “She was right angry with me after finding out we’d been so reckless.”
“Yeah. But it wasn’t just that. You were scared,” I said. “After seeing your friend break his leg like that? Why, that old tire swing had you lily-white scared.”
He smiled.
“That’s right,” he said. “I’d even get nightmares about it. The other kids saw the fear in me, too. They started calling me a sissy mama’s boy when I wouldn’t jump in anymore.”
I walked around the bar and stepped next to him.
“So what did you do then?” I said.
“I realized I couldn’t let my fear stop me,” Warren said. “Otherwise, I’d be afraid of that old tire swing my whole life. And that’s no way to live your life, Cinny Bee.”
“That it isn’t.”
He smiled.
“So one day, I gathered every bit of courage I had and I went up to that tire swing, got onboard, and swung myself out as far as I could over that lake, jumped, and screamed ‘Geronimooooo!!!’”
Warren raised his arms above his head and closed his eyes for a moment, as if he could still feel the wind off the lake rustling through hair that was no longer there.
“Sometimes in life, you’ve gotta do the things that scare you,” I said, squeezing his arm. “That’s what you told me, Grandpa.”
“‘Cuz otherwise, those things that you’re scared of lick you for the rest of your life,” he added, a newfound confidence in his voice.
I leaned in and kissed him on his wrinkled cheek.
“You’re looking like a million bucks, old man.”
“You think so, Cinny Bee?”
I nodded, adjusting his bolo tie some more so that it sat perfectly.
“Tonight’s going to be great,” I said. “Don’t you worry about a single thing.”
He took in a deep breath and stared at himself in the mirror again.
“I am looking handsome, aren’t I?” he said, grinning. “All those young bucks better watch out for me.”
“Damn straight, they better,” I said.
He squeezed my hands, then went over to the front door of the pub.
He took in a deep breath, and then propped the door open, letting the hot late afternoon air into the cool bar.
“Geronimo,” he whispered.
Chapter 21
“Hmmm… I don’t think I’m in the mood for anything too hoppy,” Harry Pugmire said, adjusting his thick glasses as he studied the menu some more. “Now what about the Cinny Bee Saison? What’s in that?”
I tapped the pencil against the pad of paper in my hand, and rummaged around in the recesses of my mind to come up with the answer.
“Well…” I stuttered. “It’s a… Saison beer.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that from the menu already,” the mayor of Christmas River said.
“Now don’t be rude, Harry,” Jo, his wife, said.
She looked up at me apologetically, and then straightened out her red, white and blue visor.
The cantankerous Harry Pugmire grumbled something inaudible under his breath, which caused Jo, a portly woman, to shoot him a glare that would have sent most folks running for the nearest exit.
I took advantage of the little tiff and scanned the bar area, looking for Warren, hoping he’d see that I needed bailing out. However, the old man wasn’t free himself. He was talking to Harold, who was laughing heartily and slapping the old man on the back while he poured another pint of beer from the tap.
I finally looked back at Harry Pugmire, who’d been grilling me for the past ten minutes about every single beer on the menu. I’d done pretty decent so far, able to dish out international bittering unit numbers and alcohol by volume percentages with the best of them. But my recollection of the bottom half of the menu was shaky, at best. Being no beer expert, I’d clear forgotten what a Saison was, never mind what kind of mouthfeel it provided or what made Warren and Aileen’s version different than others.
“It’s, uh, it’s a Belgian-style beer,” I said, trying to buy as much time as possible before it became obvious that I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was talking about. “And, uh, it’s a… well, it tastes real good.”
Harry stroked his whiskers, looking none too impressed.
“But what kind of flavors does it impart, Mrs. Brightman? What makes this Saison any different from the three dozen or so that are made in the Pacific North—”
“Harry!” Jo said, exasperated at her husband. “Cinnamon is doing a fine job and you’re just being picky for no good reas—”
“The Cinny Bee Saison comes in at a healthy 7.1 percent ABV,” a familiar voice sounded over my shoulder. “As typical with a Saison, the Cinny Bee is low in bittering units, but high in flavor. It’s the perfect summer sipper for the man, or woman, who likes their beer strong. Furthermore, it has a nice refreshing finish thanks to the addition of orange zest, honey. and of course…”
He stepped beside me, looking down into my eyes.
“Cinnamon.”
I smiled, letting out a sigh of relief.
Daniel Brightman certainly had a knack for saving me when I needed saving.
“Now that sounds quite interesting,” Harry Pugmire said, sitting up straighter in his chair. “Is the Cinny Bee something you would endorse, Sheriff?”
“Whole-heartedly, sir,” Daniel said, nodding. “You know that when it comes to anything that involves cinnamon, I just can’t say no.”
He grinned down at me as the Pugmires broke out into a round of laughter.
“Well if it’s good enough for the Sheriff of Pohly County and his wife, then it’s good enough for me,” Harry said.
“I’ll be right back with it, then,” I said.
I swear. If Daniel wasn’t the sheriff, he would have made a fine salesmen. Folks, including grumpy old mayors, just seemed hypnotized when he spoke.
Daniel followed me as I weaved my way through the packed pub. It seemed like Geronimo Brewing Company’s grand opening had attracted just about every tourist in town, not to mention every alcohol-drinking local within fifty miles. Even Kara and John had stopped by briefly with baby Laila at the very beginning of the night, though they hadn’t stayed very long. Since then, I’d seen just about everyone from the Pugmires, to The Plaid Hipster who frequented my pie shop, to Christmas River Police Department Captain Lou Ulrich. I’d also seen Rip Lawrence, who, still dressed in his elf costume from the parade, sat at the bar, knocking back beers and making sour faces. I hadn’t forgotten about his little visit earlier, or the fact that he wanted to talk to me about something. But there was no way that was happening anytime soon with the way folks kept pouring into the small brewpub.
Haley Drutman was even in attendance with a pack of her girlfriends. The girls looked overdressed – or underdressed – depending on how you looked at it, with their low-cut shirts, Daisy Dukes, and skyscraper heels. Haley had that stupid poodle with her, of course. But tonight, she wasn’t laughing or even shooting me mean glares, the way she had earlier in the day. In fact, she was acting like she didn’t even know who I was. And she had a depressed expression on her face. The kind of look someone like her might get after getting dumped by a boyfriend.
I half-wondered what had happened to change her mood so profoundly from earlier when she’d stopped by and threatened me. But it wasn’t any of my business and I didn’t care to make it so. I was far too busy. With only Aileen, Warren, Ian, and me to take orders, we were all rushing around like turkeys on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
Luckily, the fireworks, which they shot off of the Christmas River Butte every year, were about to start any second, meaning that we might catch a small break before the night got really rowdy.
“Do you have a minute, Mrs. Brightman?” Daniel shouted over the country music as I fille
d up a fresh pint glass with the Cinny Bee Saison.
Daniel looked like he’d spent the day working construction outside under the hot, hot sun. His hair was matted down with sweat when he took off his hat. There were dark shadows under his eyes and his deputy shirt, which had been crisp and ironed when I had left early that morning, was wrinkled and had been sweated through multiple times.
Though I was one to talk – I was sure I wasn’t looking any better after the day I’d had.
“For you, I’ve got all the time in the world,” I said.
“Out back in a minute?”
I nodded. Then I quickly weaved my way back through the crowd, delivering a crisp, perfectly-poured Saison to Harry Pugmire. His face lit up like a Christmas tree as he tasted the beer, and I made a mental note to tell Warren about it later – I was sure that impressing an old curmudgeon like Harry Pugmire would please the old man to no end.
After scanning the room to see if anybody else was in dire need of a drink, I headed for the back of the pub. I slipped through the screen door, taking in a deep, greedy breath of pine-scented air.
“God Bless America” echoed throughout the woods as the music blared down from the Christmas River Butte in the distance. The song meant we only had a few minutes to go before the big fireworks show started.
A pair of strong arms suddenly reached around my waist and pulled me off into the shadows.
“You got here just in time,” I said. “I thought you might miss the show.”
“No way,” he said, nuzzling my neck. “I wouldn’t miss it. Not even after a day like today.”
I knew the Fourth of July often brought out the worst in folks. The Sheriff’s Office was usually inundated with all sorts of emergencies.
“Was it that bad out there?” I said.
He shrugged.
“I’ll tell you about it all later,” he said. “What about your day?”
I leaned my head back into his chest.
“Long,” I said. “And it’s still going, with no end in sight.”
