4 Malice in Christmas River (25 page)

Kara must have finally told him about the baby.

I would have thought he’d be relieved. Relieved that she hadn’t been having an affair. That in fact, it was good news instead.

But maybe he didn’t see it that way.

His text message certainly hadn’t been overflowing with joy. 

Maybe he didn’t want to be a father. Maybe there was a reason he was in his mid-forties and didn’t have any children.

Maybe for someone like John, this was even worse news than his girlfriend having an affair.

I waited in his office while he finished up with his last patient, looking around the walls at his diplomas and generic paintings of lighthouses, feeling jumpy and nervous.

All this time, he thought Kara was going to break his heart. Now, I wondered, was he going to break her’s?

The door suddenly swung open, and I sat straight up in the chair.

He was looking tired again. His face still a shade of faded linen. Large bags clung under his eyes. Like he hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before.

“Thanks for coming down here on such short notice, Cin,” he said.

“Of course.”

“Sorry too about making you wait here,” he said, taking a seat at his desk, facing me. “My last patient was hard of hearing and I had to keep repeating myself over and over until she understood what I was saying.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

He seemed to be stalling, and I was getting more anxious with each passing moment.

He started fidgeting with something in one of his desk drawers, and I couldn’t take the delays anymore.

“So what did you want to talk to me about?” I said, wiping my sweaty palms off on my jeans.

“Well,” he said, still fidgeting in the drawer. “I wanted your opinion on something.”

I had figured that much already.

But on what? On how Kara would take it if he told her he couldn’t handle being a father? On how she’d take it if he decided to leave her? On how she’d take it if—

He placed a small velvet box in front of me on the desk. 

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Open it.”

I grabbed it and did as he said, the hinge of the box snapping back as I flipped it up. 

A glittery rock sparkled back at me.

I looked up at him.

He was grinning ear to ear, happier than I’d seen him in a long, long time.

“You’re going to ask her?” I said, a great rush of relief sweeping through my body.

“I’ve been keeping that ring in this drawer for six months now,” he said. “I was always going to ask her. But now I just have something to spur me on a little.”

He looked at the box in my hands.

“So, do you think she’ll like it, Cin?” he asked.

I looked down at the large rock. It was blindingly beautiful.

I shook my head.

“John, I think she’s going to love it.”

He grinned. He was practically glowing with happiness.

I had never seen him like this before.

“Cin, I love that woman,” he said. “I love her so much. And this news… well this is just…”

He trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish the thought.

I could tell how he felt. The room was practically buckling under his joy.   

I let out a sigh of happy relief, and I felt my heart grow full.

Kara had herself a good man.    

Chapter 71

It was mid-October now, and I had just finished teaching my pie baking class how to make a Gingersnap Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie. 

Thanks to Erik Andersen’s recent glowing article about me and the pie shop, the class had been filled to the brim with ladies, and even a few gentleman. I’d even had to put a few folks on a waiting list.

And there was no one more pleased than me to see that Jo Pugmire had decided to give my pie baking class a second chance. She, of course, was nothing short of herself throughout the session. Wearing leopard print, asking too many questions, and talking incessantly about the way her mother had done things. But I didn’t mind so much this time. I knew she didn’t mean anything by it. It was just Jo being Jo.

And thankfully, there was no pie-slinging this class.

At the end of the session, she came up to me, declaring that the Gingersnap Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie was the best thing she’d ever tasted this side of her mother’s cooking, and that she was going to make it for Harry this weekend. I took that as the highest possible compliment from Jo Pugmire.

It was growing dark by the time I started driving home. Winter had come early this year to the high elevations, and the mountains in the distance had a fresh coat of snow on them. The weather down in Christmas River wasn’t quite as severe, but there was a distinct chill in the air that promised frost, and more to come soon.

We had finally escaped the brutal smoke and heat of summer for good, and I was loving the autumn weather. The cozy sweaters, the apple cider, the pumpkins, the rich fall pies…

It was what I’d been dreaming about for months.  

On my way home, I was thinking about what I was going to make for dinner that night. I was tired and fresh out of ideas. There wasn’t much in the pantry, if I remembered right, which meant I’d have to do some scrounging around once I got home.

I pulled up into the driveway just as the sky was turning a deep shade of autumn plum. I grabbed my purse, got out, and started walking up the porch steps.

I probably should have stopped at the store on the way home, I thought, but I just hadn’t had it in me. Going to a store in a town this small was like going to church on Sunday: you inevitably bumped into at least half a dozen people you knew, and it turned into a big social event. And I was too tired at the moment for small talk about the weather.  

I fished the house keys out of my pocket, and opened the front door.

Something simple, I reasoned. Pasta or a couple of steaks from the freezer. Nothing too fancy. I was far too tired to make anything more than—

A blast of warm air hit me as I stepped inside the house. It was followed by the gentle rhythms of a ukulele floating from the kitchen stereo.

The pleasant aromas of grilled meat, fresh lime, and toasted coconut hit my nose.

I looked around the room in awe.

Colorful, pineapple-shaped lights were strung around the dining room. The table was decorated with coconuts and candles and flowers.  

My purse slid off my arm and hit the floor. Huckleberry came up, fighting for my attention, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from the scene in front of me.

Daniel was standing over by the stove, humming along to the stereo. He hadn’t heard me yet, and I just stood there for a moment, staring at my husband, enjoying the spectacle.

“What’s going on?” I finally said.

He turned around and looked at me, that million-dollar smile of his lighting up his face.

He turned a knob on the stove and then came out from the kitchen. He still had the cast on his leg, but he was able to walk around on it now without crutches.

He had a black collared shirt on that made him look dapper and handsome. I noticed he was wearing a bolo tie – something I hadn’t seen him wear since our wedding. His hair was freshly trimmed, and the beard that he’d been growing out since the accident was gone, revealing his smooth jawline.

He grabbed me, wrapped me up in his arms and planted a long, slow, swoon-worthy kiss on my lips that instantly made my knees weak and my heart beat like the wings of a moth trapped inside of a glass jar.

He pulled away after a moment and grinned.

He’d taken my breath clear away.  

“Welcome to Dan-O’s Luau. Tonight we have a menu that’s going to knock your flip flops off. We’ve got Mai Tai’s, pineapple skewers, sweet and sour pork with fresh mango salsa, grilled coconut with salt and lime juice, and for desert, well, let’s just say there’s a first time for everything.”

He pulled a fresh hibiscus flower from his pocket, one that he must have plucked from one of our tropical house plants, and then slid it behind my ear.   

I looked around the room in disbelief again.

“You’ve done all of this?” I said.

“Well, I just thought that since we can’t go to Hawaii tonight, why not bring Hawaii here?”

I shook my head.

“Daniel, this is just…”

“And speaking of our honeymoon,” he said, fishing something out of his back pocket. “Here. Open this.”

He handed me an envelope. I looked up at him and then back at it.

It couldn’t be.

I ripped it open.

There were two tickets inside.

Two Hawaiian Air tickets.Roundtrip to Maui. The flight left in early November.

“But…” I stammered. “I thought you couldn’t get any more time off until next year. How can we go in November if you’re—”

“It’s not paid time off,” he said. “But hell. I want to give you your trip, Cin. You deserve it.”

He laced his fingers through mine.

“Some things are more important than money.” He looked deeply into my eyes. “That’s uh, that’s something I’ve figured out these last few weeks.

I bit my bottom lip.

He was so right.  

It was so easy to get caught up in the day to day grind. In the little dramas of work, in the trips to the grocery store, in the hours of mindless vegging in front of the television. You could live your life that way, always caught up in the next thing. Always thinking of tomorrow, of your future, of the next paycheck. Never stopping to appreciate the moment you had now. Never stopping to appreciate the friends and family and love and laughter that existed in every single day of your life.

Life could just pass you by like that, without you really noticing the good. And it was a shame if it did.

It was a sin, if you let it go like that.

I hadn’t always seen that either.  

But looking up into Daniel’s eyes, I realized that there was nothing more important than this moment. Than the here and now. Than him and me, together, like this.
Right now.

My life was full and rich and beautiful.

I had everything and everyone I ever wanted right at my fingertips.

I kissed Daniel passionately as this newfound understanding rushed through me.  

“
Mahalo
,” I said.

Chapter 72

The sky was falling.

Hell had turned to ice.

The moon had up and floated away.

I stared down at the slice on my plate, and then looked back up at him.

“This is… this is…”

My pool of adjectives had dried up completely.  

Daniel placed his jacket over my shoulders and took a seat next to me out on the deck. He smiled at me with eager anticipation.

“Well? Are you gonna just stare at it all night? Or are you gonna take a bite?”

“I’m just... I’m still in shock that
you
did this.”

“Well, don’t say anything yet. It could be the worst-tasting thing this side of the Christmas River.”  

I couldn’t believe it. Daniel had baked me a pie.

A Coconut Chocolate Cream Pie, at that.

I grabbed the fork and dug in. I brought a hunk up to my mouth and closed my eyes, letting the flavors take over.

Sweet and creamy custard melded with the rich and roasted flavors of toasted coconut and luxuriously smooth chocolate. A soft chocolate cookie bottom finished it off. I let the flavors swirl around in my mouth, dancing on my tongue. A moment later, I felt an uncontrollable happiness spreading through my body.

I could taste another ingredient in this pie too.

A rare, hard-to-find ingredient that pushed its way to the foreground.

Love.
And a lot of it.

“What do you think?” he said, finally, after I’d been silent for several more heavenly bites.

I didn’t answer. I finished the entire slice without saying so much as a word.

I could feel his energy start to dim a little bit, thinking that my silence was an answer in itself.

I put down my fork and plate.

“Daniel Brightman,” I finally said, taking time to enunciate each syllable. “That’s the best damn pie I’ve ever had.”

His face lit up brighter than the North Star on a cold and dark winter’s night.  

“You mean it?” he said. “You’re not just saying that?”

“That’s my professional assessment,” I said. “And should you ever need a job when this Sheriff’s thing runs its course, the door to my pie shop kitchen is always open.”

He laughed.

“You know, I could say the same thing to you,” he said. “You’d make a pretty decent cop. Maybe we both missed our callings.”

I laughed too and reached for his hand.

After that bad fight we’d had, we’d had a long, long talk. A good talk. We made several agreements. He wouldn’t ever keep anything that was bothering him from me. And I would tell him if I ever had a hunch about something, instead of going off and trying to solve it myself.

And in the end, I knew that our marriage was that much stronger for what had happened.

I now knew that we could face anything, so long as we had each other to hold onto.  

We sat there for a little while, enjoying the cool, autumn night air, enjoying the crisp colors of the sunset while listening to the music drifting from the stereo inside. Bobby Darin’s
Beyond the Sea
came on, and Daniel stood up.

“Dance with me, Cin?”

He reached a hand out to me. I looked up and smiled.

I shook his jacket off and placed my hand in his. He pulled me to my feet, and clutched me tightly.

It wasn’t much of a dance, what with his cast sticking out the way it did.

But Daniel Brightman was the only one on earth I wanted to dance with. The only one I’d ever want to dance with.

I was more in love with him than ever.   

“You know, I never needed Hawaii,” I whispered into his ear.

He pulled away just far enough so he could look at me.

“What do you mean?” he said.

I held onto him tightly.

“I think you know.”

I stood on my tiptoes, kissing him softly and tenderly. Bobby sang about golden sands and seashores and ships. And it was as if we were already in Hawaii and on our honeymoon.