Christmas In Paradise (Tj Jensen Paradise Lake Mysteries Book 4) (13 page)

“But we have so many special ones I’d miss putting up,” Tj countered.

“Then can I get my own tree for my room and decorate it however I want?”

“Sure. I think that would be a good idea. And we can get one for Gracie’s room as well. How would you like to decorate your tree?” Tj asked.

“I don’t want to look at decorations,” Gracie whined. “Can’t we go see Santa?”

Tj hesitated. She really did want to get the house decorated this weekend. Ever since Maggie’s Hideaway had reopened they’d been slammed. If she didn’t buy what she needed tonight, who knew when she’d get the opportunity?

“How about I
help the girls get decorations for their little trees and then take them to see Santa?” Jordan offered. “You can do your shopping and we can meet in the ice cream shop for hot cocoa in, say, an hour?”

“Actually
, that would be very helpful.” Tj smiled. “If you get to the ice cream shop before me, just order me a coffee.”

“The decorations I want are in the back,” Ashley informed the adults.

“Okay, then let’s get our own basket and check out those red and purple ornaments,” Jordan said.

“I want baby animals on my tree,” Gracie decided.

Tj watched as Ashley and Gracie hung on Jordan as he walked toward the aisle where the shopping baskets were located. In another circumstance she was sure he would have been a wonderful father to Gracie or anyone else. Tj could see how Jordan was exactly the type of guy her mom would go for, yet there was something nagging at her about the whole thing. Maybe she should have asked more questions about the night Gracie was conceived. At the time she and Hunter had interviewed Jordan, she was just so happy he wasn’t planning to take Gracie from her that she hadn’t wanted to rock the boat by grilling him.

“You here alone?” Kyle walked up and kissed
Tj on the cheek.

“For the time being. Dad and Rosalie went for coffee, Grandpa took off with Bookman and Doc, Jenna and
her family were exhausted so they headed home early, and Jordan took the girls to buy decorations for the little trees they’re getting for their rooms and then to see Santa.”

“I thought you were meeting Hunter
.”

“He had a duck emergency.”

“Ah. My mom and Annabeth are looking at Christmas dresses, so I find myself at loose ends. Want to get a beer?”

“I
’m on the prowl for Christmas decorations for the house, but I’d love to have some company while I shop.”

Kyle shrugged and followed Tj down the aisle as she considered whether to get colored li
ghts or white for the banister.

“So how are things going with Uncle Jo
rdan?” Kyle asked. Although Tj and Kyle had seen each other almost every day between choir practice and play rehearsal, they hadn’t had a chance to chat privately.

“Really good. He seems to be a genuinely nice guy who really want
s nothing more than to get to know the daughter he never knew he had.”

“But?” Kyle asked as Tj began loadin
g white lights into her basket. “I can tell by your tone there’s a
but
.”

Tj sighed. “I’m not sure. I just have this nagg
ing feeling that something doesn’t add up.”

“He seems to be who he says he is,” Kyle confirmed. “I completed a pretty thorough background check before he arrived. He was born in Germany, grew up all over the world as the only child of a
Navy family, went straight into the Naval Academy after graduating college, and has been working his way up the ladder ever since.”

“Yeah, that all tracks
, but there’s something about the part where he’s Gracie’s biological father. The whole scenario feels off for some reason.”

Tj began sorting through boughs of
holly

“I confirmed that the man was in port on the night in question and that he was on the ship that set sail the following day,” Kyle reminded her.

Tj frowned. She knew there was a problem with Jordan’s story, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Do you think these tall candles would look good on the mantel, or should I get these rounder, shorter ones?” she asked.

“I’d get the shorter ones,” Kyle
said. “They look sturdier, less likely to fall if they get bombarded by rolled-up socks like the mini fire catastrophe of last year.”

“Good point.”

The previous Christmas, Ashley and Gracie had been throwing sock balls at each other and had knocked a lit candle off the table, resulting in a small fire. Luckily, Tj had realized what had happened and put it out.

“You know,” Tj continued as she moved on
to the section with red and green bows in all shapes and sizes, “I think my trepidation has more to do with the actual meeting of my mom and Jordan. When Hunter and I interviewed him, he said he didn’t even know my mom’s last name. And it turned out she’d given him a fake first name too. He said they didn’t talk about their lives. In the five years my mom was alive following that fateful night, she never once tried to contact the man she must have realized fathered her daughter. She dies in a car accident and a friend of hers, who I just realized I know nothing about, decides to contact Gracie’s father after all of this time? Why?”

“Good question,” Kyle admitted. “Maybe she felt that Jordan had the right to know
he had fathered a child, but until your mom’s death she’d been protecting her secret.”

“Okay, then if we assume that last names and other personal information were
n’t exchanged between Jordan and my mom, how did this friend even know who he was or how to find him?”

Kyle picked up a piece from a nativity set
on display and looked at the price tag stamped on the bottom. “Maybe after your mom found out she was pregnant she did some research and figured out who Gracie’s father was, and for some reason she told the truth to this friend.”

Tj thought about it. “If my mom knew who Gracie’s father was and how to get hold of him
, she would have hit him up for money. She was constantly in a state of financial crisis, and if she knew the identity of the man who fathered Gracie, I guarantee she would have looked at Jordan like he was a cash cow. The only reason she wouldn’t hit the man up for money would be because she didn’t know who he was.”

“And if she didn’t know who he was
, she couldn’t have told the friend,” Kyle realized.

“Exactly. My mom
slept around. Even if she realized the man she was married to wasn’t the father of her baby, she probably had no way of figuring out which of the many men she had flings with was the father.”

“If what you
’re saying is true, Jordan’s story about the friend falls apart. Either he’s lying about the whole thing or someone did send him a letter and that person is lying about what she knows and how she knows it.”

“
I’d like to find out more about this friend,” Tj said.

Kyle tucked a large bear dressed in a Santa outfit under his arm.
“I’ll see what I can find out. I suppose you can start by asking Jordan if he’s willing to share the identity of the woman who contacted him. I assume he checked her out before contacting an attorney.”

“I’ll ask him later. It’s probably nothing
, but I have this strange feeling that there’s more going on than meets the eye.”

By Sunday afternoon the weekend visitors had checked out
, bringing a brief lull to the busy resort. Tj packed a basket with sandwiches and hot cocoa while Mike tracked down the ax they would need to cut down the Christmas trees they would require. The family always displayed a fifteen-foot tree in the living room, but in addition to the tree that would grace the main part of the house and the small trees the girls wanted for their rooms, Ben usually looked for a medium-size tree for his bedroom suite and Tj cut a tall, slim tree for her room.

Doc, Bookman, Hunter,
and Kyle and his family, decided to come along to pick out trees for their residences, and while the staff from the resort would cut a six-foot tree for each cabin, Mike usually liked to pick out the tree for the lobby himself. Given the large number of trees that would be required, and the many friends and family members who’d asked to go along, Mike hooked up three sleighs, each pulled by two horses. Mike drove the sleigh that carried Rosalie, Ben, Doc, and Bookman, while Kyle drove the one that carried his dog Trooper, his mom Vicki, Annabeth, Jordan, Ashley and Gracie, and Tj, Echo, and Hunter followed behind in the open sleigh that they’d use to transport the trees.

“The resort looks great,” Hunter commented as the caravan of horse
-drawn sleighs started down the snow-packed trail.

Tj nodded.
“The staff did an excellent job.”

In addition to stringing white lights in the f
ir trees surrounding the lodge, the staff had hung colored lights along the eaves of the lodge, the restaurant, and all twenty cabins. During the summer the resort was filled with people who booked space in the campground, but during the winter the guests were limited to the twenty cabins, as well as the hotel rooms located on the second story of the lodge. While the resort would be booked to capacity when it got a bit closer to the holiday, with the campground closed, the restaurant and bar tended to be much less crowded than it was during the busier summer months.

The resort
’s activities director had turned the lobby of the lodge, as well as the activities center, into a magical wonderland with lights, evergreen boughs, and mechanical displays that fascinated the children who spent their holiday at Paradise Lake. Mike had always treated his guests like family, and over the years the resort had acquired several groups who returned every year to spend the holidays with the Jensens. One of the best things about the arrangement was that Tj had developed relationships with some of the guests, who seemed to replace the aunts, uncles, and cousins she’d never had growing up.

“The Cartwrights are coming
for Christmas this year,” Tj informed Hunter, referring to a family with a grandfather, great-aunt, mom, dad, and three children—two boys and a girl—who were about the same age as Hunter and Tj. When they were all younger, the Cartwright children had spent many a summer evening at the beach with Hunter and Tj. As the offspring grew up, they began skipping the family outing, so it had been a few years since Tj had seen anyone from the younger generation.

“Are Conrad a
nd his wife coming?” Hunter wondered. Conrad was the eldest son, who had recently gotten married to a girl neither Hunter nor Tj had met yet.

“They are
, and Dad said April and her husband are bringing Kyla, the baby. I can’t wait to meet her.” April was the only daughter, and the middle child. During their teen years April had had a huge crush on Hunter, following him around whenever she got the opportunity. 

“It seems so odd that April is married with a baby,” Hunter
said. “I know it’s been a few years, but it seems like yesterday she was following me around, trying to show off her new smile after she got her braces off.”

“Does this mean we
’re getting old?” Tj asked. “I always figured when I started making statements that began with ‘seems like yesterday,’ that would be a sign that I was getting old.”

Hunter laughed. “Yeah, I guess maybe we are getting on in years.
Won’t be all that long until we’re sitting on the porch, talking about the good old days when we had the energy to go out and cut our own tree rather than buying one from the lot in town.”

“Do you think we
’ll still be friends when we’re old enough to buy a tree from the lot?” Tj asked.

“I hope so.” Hunter smiled and held her hand in spite of the fact that they
both had gloves on.

L
ost in their own thoughts, they sat quietly as the trail paralleled the water. The lake had many moods and at times bore waves rivaling the ocean, but today the air was calm and overcast, with just a few snow flurries dancing through the air, and the surface of the water was so calm it reflected the surrounding mountains like a sheet of glass.

“I’m sorry Jake decided not to come,” Tj
said as the sleighs turned toward the forest and slowly began their climb to the top of the rise, where the best trees could be found.

“His joints have been bothering him and he didn’t think he could take spending so much time in the cold. He’ll help me to decorate when I get home.”

After Jake had suffered a heart attack, Hunter had insisted that his grandfather move in with him so he could keep an eye on him. His sister Chelsea had moved into the house as well after a bad breakup, but she was still on the East Coast with her parents and would be until after the New Year.

“Did you ever ask Jordan about the letter he received?” Hunter asked.

After her conversation with Kyle the previous Friday, Tj had called Hunter to fill him in on their discussion.

“I did. He said the
letter was simply signe
d
A
. He was unable to track the letter to its source, but the details provided were accurate, and when he saw a photo of Gracie, he realized the woman most likely knew what she was talking about.”