by Cindy Kirk
Once Stella felt like she’d done everything necessary for her new job, she signed onto her account at the Sun Times. After a laptop disaster during a previous story had lost her a month’s worth of research, Stella had gotten into the habit of keeping all her notes on the newspaper’s secure server.
At Stella’s request, Jane had reactivated her account when Stella accepted the Holly Pointe assignment. Now she could write without fear of losing anything important.
Stella keyed in her impressions, then paused. Until she was ready to submit the article, she preferred to keep these notes for her eyes only. Kenny Douglas might not be a drunk. Dustin Bellamy and Krista Ankrom might have a deliriously happy marriage. And the money raised from the Mistletoe Ball might flow through proper channels, just as it was intended.
She set her account to private, ensuring she was the only one with access to her thoughts and suppositions.
The last thing Stella wanted was for Jane to get all excited about the story going in a certain direction only to discover that Stella had been seeing things that weren’t there.
Too revved to sleep, Stella let her fingers do the browsing she’d yearned to do all evening. She quickly discovered that Johnson was one of the top three surnames in Vermont. But she hit pay dirt when she narrowed the search to “Sam Johnson in Holly Pointe, Vermont.”
Stella discovered that Sam was the son of Broadway producer Emily Danforth and playwright Geoff Johnson. It was quite an impressive pedigree. There were lots of pictures. Of him and his parents. Of him and his brother, Kevin. Of him with . . .
Stella’s eyes widened in shock. Britt Elliott.
The Broadway actress, who’d won a Tony this year, was sizzling hot. Her star wasn’t simply on the rise, it had shot straight into the stratosphere. Britt had gone from being a struggling and relatively unknown actress to being the darling of the stage.
She studied a picture of Britt and Sam taken two years ago at a New York City gala. Sam looked good in black tie. He and Britt looked amazing together. In every picture of the two of them together, he was smiling. Stella tapped her fingers against her lips and sat back. While Sam hadn’t exactly been a grinch tonight, he also wasn’t the man with the beaming smile in these photographs.
Stella flipped to the screen holding her notes. She keyed in what she’d discovered about Holly Pointe’s city administrator. The data, while very basic, had endless possibilities because of Britt’s star power and Sam’s family lineage. A fact that made Stella feel just a little sick inside.
Still, she went back to browsing the web, wondering what Kate had meant with her comment about Sam going through a lot the past couple of years. Some sixth sense had told Stella that a woman was involved. She needed to find out whether that woman was Britt Elliott.
How did the brother factor in? There were pictures of him with Britt and Sam. Kevin was as blond as Sam was dark, taking after his mother in height and coloring. Sam was a clone of his playwright father.
Had Britt preferred the brother with the tousle of blond hair and laughing eyes? Was that why Kevin no longer lived in Holly Pointe? It didn’t take her long to discover where Kevin was now.
Kevin now resided in the Holly Pointe Cemetery. According to the articles she read, Sam’s fraternal twin had passed away at the age of twenty-six of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
When she googled Kevin, she found lots of pictures. Some with Lucy. Some at the graveside and of the family coming out of the church after the funeral service. Not many. But enough to make her blood boil. The paparazzi hadn’t even had the decency to give his family time to grieve.
Even as the thought struck, Stella reminded herself that those photographers had simply been doing their jobs. She had friends who stalked celebrities in South Beach. They’d told her how much a good shot could bring in.
Still, a celebrity dancing the night away in a club seemed profoundly different from a parent or a brother grieving for a loved one. The expressions of grief on the faces of Sam and his parents brought back memories of her own parents’ funeral.
She couldn’t imagine people shoving a camera in her face or positioning themselves in the cemetery so they could zoom in and get a picture of her weeping.
There was right. There was wrong.
This had definitely been wrong.
Her heart ached for Sam, who’d lost a brother, and his parents, who’d lost a child. Though she normally tried to avoid thinking of those horrible days, memories flooded back. Family and friends spouting platitudes, saying her mom and dad were in a better place.
A few had patted her back and said that her mom and dad had lived long lives, even though they’d barely passed fifty.
Her mother hadn’t had the chance to help her plan a wedding. Her dad would never walk her down the aisle. They wouldn’t be there when she had a baby.
Her parents had done everything right. They’d been wearing their seatbelts. They’d driven a safe vehicle with five-star safety ratings. But there had been no way they could withstand the impact of a monster pickup that didn’t even slow down, much less hit the brakes, when running a red light. Their killer, Mr. Three-Time Offender, had walked away with only minor injuries.
Stella glanced down at her hands, now bunched into fists on the keyboard. She took a shuddering breath and forced her fingers to unclench. She told herself she’d moved on, but could you ever really move on from such a loss?
She could still see the face of the man who’d gone to prison for motor vehicle homicide. One day he’d be free to start his life again, but her parents would still be dead, all their hopes and dreams snuffed out by his careless actions.
Work had been her salvation in the months following the funeral. And now that was gone, too. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Without warning.
There would be no second chances with her parents. But if she did this job to Jane’s satisfaction, she had a chance to regain some of what she’d lost.
Stella refocused on the keyboard and entered in more notes.
She would get Jane the story she wanted. One way or the other.
Despite being up late, Stella woke at the crack of dawn, tossing out a few more tweets. She had passed Spring Lake on her way into Holly Pointe. Knowing she’d likely face potentially uneven terrain, she left her heels behind.
She stepped out of her vehicle and glanced down at the knee-high boots with rubber soles. If she’d been wearing this footwear yesterday, she might not have met Sam. Smiling at the thought, she lifted her gaze and widened her eyes.
Speak of the devil.
It was almost as if she had conjured him up. He stood at the edge of the ice-covered lake, wearing jeans, boots, and what she recognized as a Carhartt jacket. He was hauling big coolers from the bed of a pickup to the concession stand. Raising her phone, she snapped a few pictures.
Her favorite was a close-up of Sam bent over. The others were ones she might actually use for publicity.
Shifting her attention to the lake, Stella spotted Kate and Faith using short-handled brooms to sweep a dusting of snow off the backless benches that encircled the perimeter. The benches were obviously meant for putting skates on and taking them off. Stella glanced wistfully at the ice, wishing she could be out there today.
For several minutes she watched Nate, along with a couple of men she didn’t recognize, clear snow from the ice.
After taking some shots, she strolled over to Kate and Faith. “Where’s Melinda?”
Asking didn’t seem strange since, in her brain, the three were linked. When she saw one, she expected to see three.
“Mel is getting the concession stand ready.” Kate slanted a glance in Stella’s direction and smiled. “You look ready to hit the ice.”
This morning Stella had pulled on her ski coat and hat. She’d shoved her gloveless hands into her pocket. “I may look ready, but I’m missing one key ingredient. I don’t have any skates.”
“What size are you?” Faith raised her voice even though she stood not five feet
away.
“Ten.” Stella rolled her eyes, remembering Tasha’s size-six feet. “I know, I know. I have Amazon-size feet.”
Faith laughed. “Hardly. I’m a nine, and Mel is a ten. I bet she’d loan you hers. Just ask.”
There it was again, Stella thought, the simple kindness this community appeared to have in abundance. “I’ll think about it.”
Kate must have been listening to their conversation because she paused in her sweeping and called out. “Don’t just think about it, do it. You’ll get some great pictures on the ice. Plus it’ll give you a chance to embrace the experience.”
Stella nodded. The woman made an excellent point. Still, it seemed that pointing a camera while trying to keep her balance might prove tricky.
Unless she was skating with someone . . .
She turned in the direction of the concession stand, where Mel stood laughing with Sam. Stella narrowed her gaze and felt something twist inside her.
Which was simply ridiculous. She barely knew the guy. Had only exchanged a handful of words with him. Of course, he had put his arms around her.
Only to keep her from falling . . .
Stella pulled her attention back to Faith. Though this wasn’t a business event like the party last night, to her, Faith remained the woman in charge. “In my notes it says the skating starts at ten.”
“That’s correct.” Faith moved to the next bench, and Stella trailed behind.
Her gaze lingered on Faith’s coat. It was a rosy flesh color, a midlength puffer coat capable of making even a thin person look as if she’d eaten her way through a box of Christmas cookies one too many times. Faith had paired the coat with a pair of red Ugg boots that sparkled and a red-and-white hat with a huge pom-pom.
On anyone else, the combination would have looked ridiculous, even laughable. Faith pulled it off.
Faith lifted the broom and paused. “Do you have questions about the start time?”
“Not about the skating, but about Santa Claus. It says he won’t arrive until noon.” Stella frowned. “It seems to me it’d make better sense if his arrival kicked off the event.”
For a second, Faith hesitated. When she spoke, her tone was matter of fact. “Kenny isn’t an early riser. He asked for a later start. We saw no harm in obliging him.”
Was that because Kenny knew he’d be sleeping off too many shots of whiskey from the night before? The question hovered on the tip of Stella’s tongue for half a heartbeat.
In the end, she remained silent. If she appeared too eager for details, she could raise suspicions. She would get more information by watching and listening.
“That was nice of you,” Stella said when the silence lengthened.
But Faith’s focus had returned to her task.
It felt to Stella as if she was the only slacker in the crowd. She sat on one of the recently cleaned-off benches and did her job. Overhead, the sky was a cloudless blue. Though the day was cold, there was little wind. Which meant that even Stella—used to the heat of Miami—was relatively comfortable.
She found herself smiling as she posted to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The challenge of making a tantalizing tweet or a clever caption had her so engrossed that she didn’t notice someone approaching.
A tap on her shoulder had her jerking. She swiveled and found herself gazing into Sam’s warm brown eyes. In his hands were a pair of battered white skates.
“Mel wanted me to give these to you. Said something about you taking pictures from the ice.”
Stella’s heart pounded an erratic rhythm. From the shock, she told herself. She’d been so totally focused, she hadn’t heard the crunch of his boots. “Faith and I were talking. I mentioned I wished I had some skates. Taking pictures while circling the lake would give me some interesting angles.”
And she was rambling. She flushed, but thankfully her cheeks were already red from the cold.
“Well,” he held out the skates. “Melinda say she’ll be too busy handling the concession stand to skate. She said you could wear hers.”
She lifted the skates from his hands and saw him frown.
His gaze lingered on her hands. “You aren’t wearing gloves.”
“It’s easier for me to key.” She held up a hand when she saw him open his mouth. “The gloves that are supposed to work with your phone never work as well as they say they do. Once I post this tweet, I’ll—”
Once Stella finished the tweet, she slipped gloves from her pocket and pulled them on. “—do this.”
“You’re not used to this climate.” His expression was one of concern. “Don’t leave the gloves off for too long. No tweet or Instagram post is worth getting frostbite.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” Stella gave a mock salute and kept her tone lighthearted. But she was touched both by his concern and by Mel’s generosity.
Before she could say more, Sam turned to speak with Nate, and the quiet peacefulness of the lake was shattered by the arrival of families and more children than she could ever recall seeing together at one time. Granted, she never attended events specifically geared toward children in Miami, but this was a deluge.
Did all these kids know how to skate? The second her thoughts registered the question, she dismissed it. Her father had come from Minnesota, and he used to regale Stella and her mother with tales of snowshoeing, ice fishing, and cross-country skiing. And, yes, ice-skating.
She remembered him telling her that’s why she had a knack for skiing. It came naturally, through her DNA. Then he’d given her a wink while her mother laughed.
Pain as sharp and hot as a lightning bolt ripped through her, stealing her breath. Stella had found herself thinking of her parents more in the past twenty-four hours than she had in the past six months. It couldn’t be the climate. While they’d spent vacations skiing, they’d spent more time at the beach.
It had to have something with the people in these parts. They reminded her of her northern-born father. While he loved the weather of South Florida, Stella knew he would have liked the camaraderie of this community. As would her mother.
Stella sighed and shoved thoughts of her parents aside. Even happy memories could be distracting. If she was going to put together a Jane-worthy story, she had to stay focused.
The sight of Dustin and Krista’s twin sons had Stella ripping off her gloves and pulling out her phone. They were an adorable twosome, dressed in identical ski jackets. Blond curls whipped around their cherubic faces as they ran toward the lake, holding their skate bags against their chests.
When Stella raised her phone to snap a picture, Sam’s hand pulled her arm down.
“What?” She barely kept the annoyance from her voice.
“Dustin and Krista don’t want the boys being photographed. It’s a security thing.” He spoke in a firm tone that brooked no argument. “We respect their privacy when they’re in Holly Pointe.”
The twins were now engulfed in a group of boys about their same age, making getting a good shot nearly impossible.
“What about paparazzi?” Stella asked.
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “They’re not welcome here.”
“How do you keep them away?” Stella asked, genuinely wanting to know. “The last I knew this was a free country.”
The chill that filled the air between them had nothing to do with the temperature. For a long moment his gaze searched her face, as if looking for . . . something. She kept her expression impassive.
Everyone told her she had a great poker face. But something he saw, though she had no idea what it was, had the tense set to his shoulders easing. “We’re a welcoming community, but we look out for each other and protect our own.”
Stella nodded as if that made perfect sense. It did, at least as far as it went. But in her journalistic career, she’d seen far too many cases where protection and cover-up were entwined.
She wasn’t sure whether that was the case in this town. But she was sure going to find out.
Chapter Five
/> From a high spot on the bank, Sam watched Stella circle the ice while talking nonstop to Kate. Both women were excellent skaters, and they seemed to have a lot to say to each other, though he noticed that Kate was doing most of the talking.
Sam took a sip of the hot cocoa he’d purchased—his contribution to the scouting fund—and thought back to each time he’d seen Stella in conversation with someone.
It struck him that she was always listening while the other person talked. That could be because she was new to Holly Pointe and listening was her way of getting better acquainted. Stella also needed information for the town blog and for all the other social media she had her fingers into.
She’d been a reporter. Likely still considered herself one at heart.
“Who’s the woman with Katie?”
Sam didn’t even turn. He knew that voice. Derek Kelly was a local contractor and a friend. “Her name is Stella Carpenter. When Kinsley was injured, she got the social media job.”
Beside him, Sam could see Derek’s gaze study the reporter as she skated around the lake. “She’s a looker.”
Sam nodded. No argument from him.
“Where’d she come from?”
“Florida.”
“How’d she end up in Holly Pointe? Does she have family here?”
Derek had an inquisitive nature. Sam had always thought his friend would make a good detective. “She told Faith her family had once skied here. She lost her job and wanted to try somewhere different.”
“She leaves sunny Florida to come to Vermont during the winter?” Derek’s gloved hand rose to his chin. “I’m betting there’s more to the story.”
“She asks a lot of questions, but I think that’s just her reporter background.” Sam watched Stella throw back her head and laugh. Whatever story Kate was telling her was obviously entertaining. “She arrived in town yesterday.”
“How’d she already get a job?”
“The story is she was having a cup of coffee in the Busy Bean and overheard Faith talking to Kate and Mel about Kinsley’s accident.”
