4 Malice in Christmas River (8 page)

We sat there like that for a little bit while the ice in the mochas melted and the muffins stayed untouched. Me not knowing what else to say.

A moment later, there was a sharp dinging sound of a bell being rung out in the front.

“Excuse me? Anybody home?” an old lady’s voice echoed. “I have a question about one of these snow globe ornaments.”

Kara wiped away the tears.

“Sorry, Cin,” she said. “I’ve been a mess lately.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “As you know, I’ve had my share of mess in my time.”

She forced a little smile.

“How about a girls’ night one of these days?” I said. “Rom coms and ice cream – well, I guess rom coms and juice, since you’re on your cleanse.”

She nodded.

“Thursday?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Then I remembered that Thursday wouldn’t work.

I was going to Laurel’s.

“Uh, no actually. I’ve got something. What about Friday night? After the first day of the Rodeo?”

“I’ve got something Friday. Maybe Saturday?” she said. “What do you have Thursday?”

“Laurel McSween invited me over to her ranch,” I said. “She said she wanted to apologize for the article.”

Kara’s right eyebrow shot straight up.

“Really?” she said.

I nodded.

“Well, that’s—”

“Excuse me! I can hear you back there!”

The old lady wasn’t going away.

Kara gave me a deadpan, frustrated look before rolling her eyes.

“I better get to work,” she said, sighing.

She took off her crafting apron with one hand, holding her singed one above her head, and went out into the front. I heard her apologize and greet the old lady in an enthusiastic voice, like everything in the world was just peachy and not a thing was wrong.

I sighed, wishing there was some way I could help my best friend.

Chapter 13

George Hardin, a balding, pudgy man who worked as a school resource officer most of the year but took on crowd control duties at the fairgrounds for the extra cash during the summer, tossed the third of the heavy folded tables onto the ground next to me.

“Here’s the last of them, Mrs. Brightman.”

He leaned over, trying to catch his breath. He pushed his thick bifocals farther up on the bridge of his nose. They began to fog with sweat.

“Thanks for your help, George,” I said, crawling over to the table and pulling out its legs.

George was an occasional customer at
Cinnamon’s Pies
. He’d sometimes be one of the first customers in the morning, coming in before school started to grab himself a slice of pie for his lunch later in the day. George wasn’t a bad sort. He was your typical small-town, lower-level law enforcement type. He had a mustache and a beer belly, and on weekends, you could find him shooting beer cans out in the woods, recanting whoever was around with stories from his glory days back in the Marines.

I always got the impression that George sort of just thought of me as the pie lady. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a woman who made her living in the kitchen, something I had a feeling he probably approved of. But I’d noticed that ever since I married the Sheriff of Pohly County, George had become infinitely nicer to me. He called me Mrs. Brightman, instead of Cinnamon, even though I hadn’t changed my maiden name to Brightman yet. When he came by the shop, he actually left tips. He even held the door open for me once when I ran into him at the Shell gas station convenience store.

And now here he was, helping me set up my pie booth ahead of the Christmas River Rodeo set to start tomorrow. The Rodeo fairgrounds were swarming with vendors and fairground folks, most of whom could have used more help than I did. Still, George had made it a priority to make sure I got more assistance than I needed.

Extra effort didn’t seem typical of George. And I half wondered if he thought being nice to me would get him some sort of in with the Sheriff’s Department.

And not that I didn’t want to see folks move up in the world, but leaving a couple of dollars in a tip jar and shuffling around some tables wasn’t going to buy anything for him.

I started lifting the fold-out table, pushing it over on its side. In less than a second, he was there to lift it up and put it in place.

“Can I help you with anything else today, Mrs. Brightman?” he asked.

“I think I’ve got it from here,” I said, draping a blue checkered cloth across one of the table tops. “Thanks for your help, though. I appreciate it.”

“Not a problem,” he said.

He continued to linger, taking off his cowboy hat and squeezing it in his hands.

“Sure is smoky today, isn’t it?” he said, squinting out across the fairgrounds and into the hazy film that had turned the sky the color of steeped tea.

“Sure is,” I said.

It was the small talk that everyone in Christmas River had been having for the past two months. About the smoke and the oppressing heat.

“I heard they were evacuating the Cultus Lake area on account of another fire,” he said. “Sure’s been a wicked summer with all these fires.”

“Sure has,” I said, smoothing out the table cloths. I started hanging the banner that said “Cinnamon’s Pies” in a twisty and playful font.

George cleared his throat and shifted his weight between his feet.

“So, uh, do you think the Sheriff’s Office has enough manpower for the Rodeo?” he asked.

I knew it.

So George was trying to get an in with the Sheriff after all. And he thought little ol’ impressionable Cinnamon Peters was gonna help him punch his ticket,

I kept my answer vague, even though in all honesty, Daniel probably could have used extra help. Owen McHale, his right-hand deputy, was on vacation for a few weeks. He was taking Chrissy, my bakery assistant who he had met and become smitten with last winter, back home to Pittsburg to meet his family.

That left Daniel with just a handful of deputies, including Trumbow, the former sheriff of Pohly County.

“Well, I can’t say for sure, but I think they’ve got enough manpower, George,” I said. “They’ve got everybody working the event and running DUII patrols. Been planning for it a while now.”

“Well, you just tell your husband that if he needs any extra help, that I’m his man,” he said, tapping his chest. “I’d be more than happy to help keep folks behaving well. I mean, that’s what I do for a living anyway, so if Sheriff Brightman needs me, I can be there like that.”

He snapped his fingers and smiled a greasy smile.

“That’s kind of you, George,” I said, trying to sound nicer than I felt. “I’ll be sure to pass that along to the Sheriff.”

“Can I give you my number to give to him?” he asked.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” I said. “I’m sure he knows where to find you.”

He smiled again.

“That’s right,” he said. “He
is
the Sheriff.”

I nodded.

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer Mrs. Brightman. You have a lovely day.”

George walked away, weaving in between vendor stands and people, heading over toward the corrals.

I felt relieved to be alone again.

Like I said. George wasn’t a bad sort. But I’d been used enough for one week. And I had better things to do this weekend than to lobby George’s case with Daniel.

I started setting up the poles to hang up the awning, which would also eventually hold the menu sign. I was planning to serve my classics at the Rodeo. Mountain Cherry, Blueberry Cinnamon, Whiskey Apple, and Peach Blueberry. Full-proof classics that I hoped would be a hit with the rodeo crowd looking for some downhome authentic Christmas River comfort food.

“Seems like you’ll sell a lot of pies this weekend.”

The low voice immediately sent the hairs on the back of my neck on end.

It was the same voice that had first spoken to me several weeks ago, asking if I’d be interested in having a story written about my pie shop and the classes I’d been offering.

I turned around, the words escaping me as I peered into Erik Andersen’s face.

He had his sandy blond hair slicked back, and he was wearing his usual silver-rimmed glasses. He was neatly shaven, and wore a collared shirt and a buttoned-up velveteen blazer that made him look like Dustin Hoffman, but looked positively dreadful in the September heat

He had his trademark notepad in one hand.

I couldn’t even pretend to be polite to this pip-squeak.

“Did you get my messages?” he asked, stuffing the notepad into one of his blazer pockets.

A trickle of sweat dribbled down the side of his face.

“I didn’t listen to them,” I said. “There couldn’t have been anything worth listening to. Just more lies, I figured.”

He looked away and sucked in some wind.

“It wasn’t my intention to—” he started, but then trailed off. “What I mean is that I’m still going to write about your pie shop and the classes. But what happened between Mrs. Pugmire and Mrs. McSween that night was something that my editor wanted me to write up because of its relevance to the election. I had no choice but to write that story.”

I shook my head.

“We always have a choice, Erik,” I said, tying the other side of the banner to the awning pole. “You just chose to be an ass.”

He paused before answering.  

“I never lied to you,” he said. “It happened, and it was news, Ms. Peters. And I think the people have the right to know about this rift between the wives of their mayoral candidates.”

I just shook my head.

I wasn’t any sort of expert in the field. But city councilor’s wives going head to head during a pie baking class seemed like a lot of tabloid hogwash to me. No matter how Erik justified it to himself.

“You know, don’t bother writing that story about my pie classes,” I said. “I don’t want it. I don’t want anything more from you, Erik.”

He was quiet for a moment. I adjusted the banner, trying to ignore him.

“Well, that’s all then, I guess,” he finally said.

I turned back to look at him. His expression was as cold as ever, but there was a hint of something in his eyes.

Something like regret maybe? I didn’t know. And it didn’t really matter anyway.

He should regret doing what he did.

I turned back around.

I heard the soft patting sound of his dress shoes against the dusty ground as he stalked away toward the rodeo arena. A few moments later, I glanced back after him. A man in a cowboy hat greeted him, and they started walking. The man was waving his arms, like he was showing the reporter around. Erik was taking notes.

I sighed.

I didn’t like being mean to people. It wasn’t really my nature. I’d become a pie baker not just because I loved pastry, but also because I loved comforting people. I kind of saw myself as a foodie psychologist sometimes. Helping people by providing them a little bit of love and soul in the form of comfort food. I didn’t listen to their problems, but my pie sure did. And I think sometimes, it went a ways toward solving those problems. More than an hour at a shrink’s office probably did.  

I hated being prickly and unpleasant to people. But Erik had brought that out in me. And he had it coming to him after what he’d done.

He probably deserved worse than I could dish out, I told myself. I had every right to be rude to him.

I finished hanging the banner and backed away, taking a look at the finished pie stand I’d constructed.

It looked fun and inviting: exactly the way I had envisioned it.

I thought of all the money I’d be making this weekend. I thought of all the comfort and happiness I’d be giving to the folks at the Rodeo through my lovingly-made pies. Of all the good publicity I’d get from this event.

But even with all these good thoughts, I couldn’t quite shake off the tiredness in my bones.

And the feeling that maybe I’d been a little harsher than I needed to be with Erik Andersen.

Chapter 14

The muscles in my shoulders were tighter that a spool of thread caught in a sewing machine, and my feet ached like I’d been standing in line for a ride at Disney Land the first day of summer break.

I could have fallen asleep standing up. That’s how tired I was after baking the amount of pies I had made that afternoon in preparation for the next day at the Rodeo. They were now all sitting in the fridge under plastic wrap, keeping cool for the hordes of tourists that I hoped would stop by my pie stand the next day.

I was exhausted. But not exhausted enough to cancel on Laurel and her offer to have me over at the ranch.

I changed out of my flour-stained apron and
Cinnamon’s Pies
tank top, and into a nice black tunic and a pair of dusty, faded jeans. I slipped into some copper sandals and took my dark brown hair out of its high ponytail.

I still smelled like butter from slaving over the oven all day, but there were worse things to smell like. 

Then I closed up the shop early and headed out of Christmas River in the Escape. The sun cast long shadows over the highway as I drove through the forest, following the road as it wound up over and then down a ridge.

Soon, the woods gave way to golden, sunburnt meadows that spread out and rolled away from both sides of the highway.

The pretty scene was smudged by a thick layer of wildfire smoke.

It seemed like the only thing that would stop the fires would be a massive cold front. Which, according to the local weather man, was still several weeks away.

I drifted over into the turn lane at Terrebonne Road, and made a right off the highway. I sped down the empty and narrow road, which took me past more spacious meadows and corrals where goats, sheep, and horses ambled and grazed.

After a few minutes, I came up upon the ranch entrance.

It was hard to miss, and I had trouble not bringing the car to a full stop in the middle of the road just to gawk at its magnificence.

Two juniper posts reached high up into the sky and supported a rustic carved sign that said
McSween Ranch
. Two bronze horse statues stood on each side.