3 Madness in Christmas River (7 page)

I took my scarf and jacket off, hanging them back up on the coat rack, and quickly threw an apron on before heading out into the dining room.

When I did, I was glad that I hadn’t turned the customer away.

I placed my hands on my hips.

“Well, if it isn’t Sullivan Coe,” I said.

“The one and only,” Sully said, taking off his cowboy hat and revealing his balding head. “Cinnamon darlin’, you’re looking like a dream these days.”  

I shooed away his usual assault of flattery.

He always said compliments with such sincerity, it actually convinced you that maybe you did look like a dream.

But then you’d catch a glimpse of your reflection in the glass, and you’d realize that you looked like a sweaty, matted mess on account of a long day of working in front of a hot oven, and that, like always, Sully was just blowing smoke.    

I went around the counter and stretched my arms out, giving him a big hug.

Sully was one of Warren’s oldest and best friends. They’d grown up together here in Christmas River. And among other things in his life, Sully had once been sheriff of Christmas River. He’d been a city councilor too.

But these days, his life had a much sunnier disposition. 

“So how’s life in the tropics, Sully?” I asked.  

“Puerto Rico is heaven on earth,” he said. “White sand beaches and the warmest blue waters you could ever imagine. It’s just the medicine this old cowboy needs. I’ve been trying to convince your granddad to come out and visit me for years, but he’s a stubborn old coot.”

“Does Warren know you’re in town?” I asked.

“Do you think I’d get a moment’s break if he did?” Sully said. “The way that old man yammers, he ought to find himself a second career as an auctioneer.”

I faked an offended expression.

“Hey, watch who you call an
old man
,” I said, smiling. “Don’t think you can come in here and talk about my grandpa like that.”

“Well, what could I buy from you to make up for my poor manners?”

I grinned.

Sully had always been one of my best customers. Since the time I was a kid, baking mis-measured creations out of Warren’s kitchen and serving them up at the boys’ poker nights. No matter how bad my pie was, Sully always told me it was the best thing he ever tasted.

“Well, how about a warm slice of cinnamon blueberry? It’s hard to go wrong with that one.”

He took a seat at one of the booths.

“You had me at
cinnamon
,” he said, winking at me.

I went and got him a generous slice, scooping some French vanilla ice cream on the plate next to it. I brought it to him along with a fork and a napkin, and took a seat across from him at the booth.

I glanced out the window for a moment while he took his first bite. I couldn’t see much beyond our reflections, except that it looked very cold and windy outside. The strands of Christmas lights hanging from the rafters of Kara’s new ornament shop across the way danced in the gusts.

“So Cinnamon, I hear you’re about to make some lucky devil very happy this Christmas.”

I smiled.

“Did you get the wedding invitation?” I asked.

I’d never gotten an RSVP from him. But I hadn’t expected one. I knew that ever since he moved to Puerto Rico, he only came back to town occasionally.

“I sure did,” he said, pushing a heaping forkful of pie into his mouth. “And let me tell you, I was so happy to find out about you getting hitched again. I always thought you got a raw deal the first time around.”

“So did I.”

He took another bite of pie.

“So are you coming to the wedding, or what?” I said.

He wiped the corners of his lips with the napkin.

“No, I’m afraid I can’t be there, Cin,” he said. “I’m heading out to Las Vegas to spend Christmas with my grandchildren. Their mother will be in a real pickle if I don’t make it. But I’m real sorry that I’ll miss your wedding.” 

I patted his spotted and aging hand.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s a small wedding anyway. It really won’t be a big deal.”

“Well, I was back in town for some business and I wanted to make sure and stop by,” he said, finishing off the last of his pastry. “I want you to know that I’m just pleased as pie for you, Cinnamon.”

“Aw, well, that’s really nice of you,” I said. “You know, we’ve missed you around here, Sul. Warren’s always talking about the old days.”

“I tell you, this town looks different every time I come back,” he said. “I used to walk around here and know everybody by name. Now it’s like the town’s overrun by strangers.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s not a little mill town anymore. That’s for sure.”

“It’s hard to watch, if you ask me,” he said.

“Well, you’re an old man,” I said. “Of course you think that.”

“Hey, now. Who are
you
calling an old man?”

“Well, let me make it up to you,” I said. “Let’s call this slice on the house.”  

“That’s mighty kind of you, Miss,” he said.

He stood up, grabbing his hat from off the wooden table and placing it back on his head.

“I’m sticking around town for a little while,” he said. “I hope to make it to one of your grandpa’s poker nights. Does he still do that?”

“Warren may be getting old, but he’d have to be in his grave not to have his weekly poker night,” I said.

“Well, good for him. Hey—are you the only one here tonight?” he asked.

“Yeah. My workers have gone home.”

“Nobody else back there?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He furrowed his bushy eyebrows.

“Well, be careful locking up,” he said. “This town isn’t as small as it used to be.”

“You’re right at that, Sully,” I said.

He tipped his hat at me.

“Until I see you again, darlin’,” he said in a real country twang that always worked on all the ladies.

He opened the door and started heading out.  

“Hey, what did you think of the pie?” I yelled after him.

“Didn’t I say already?” he said.

I shook my head.

“Best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

I smiled.

“All right, get out of here you old dog.”

He cracked a half-smirk and stepped out into the wintry night.   

Chapter 14

I woke up in a cold sweat, not knowing where I was.

I reached for the other side of the bed, only to find that nobody was there.

I sat up, trying to catch my breath as the walls of the bedroom came into focus.

When I had a moment to put together where I was and who I was, and what I had been dreaming, I let out a frustrated sigh.

“Every single night,” I said out loud.

I was getting tired of this. Tired of running away from the wolf in the dream. Of feeling the pain in my legs as the creature ripped into my flesh.

Tired of waking up in cold sweats.

I glanced down at the foot of the bed. Huckleberry was lying curled up on his side, his paws twitching as he was in the middle of his own dreams.  

I glanced at the clock on the nightstand, the face showing
4:09
.

I just couldn’t get an uninterrupted night’s sleep these days.

I grabbed my phone and checked for any messages.  

There were none. 

When I talked to Daniel before bed, he already knew about the vandalism of the tree. Deputy McHale had been keeping him apprised of the situation here.

From the tone in Daniel’s voice, I could tell that he’d had a long day, and that there were probably other things on his mind.

In the comparatively big city streets of Fresno, I was sure the vandalism of a Christmas tree sounded like a very small problem to have.

I told him about the ornament left on the porch and about how Marie had just picked up and left, disappearing without a word.  

“But you say that she’s disappeared like this before?” he had asked.

I told him that she had. When she was younger, she’d always just show up out of the blue, crash at our house, and then sometimes disappear without saying goodbye. That was just her way.

But she used to leave things, letting us know she was all right. When I was a kid, she’d leave behind a stuffed animal and some high-end beef jerky for Warren. Or during my teenage years, she’d leave behind expensive make-up products for me. Products that usually went to waste on a tomboy such as myself, but that I enjoyed trying out in the bathroom mirror nonetheless.

But this time, there’d been no little gifts left behind at the house.

I didn’t tell Daniel about the bad feeling I had in the pit of my gut.

“Well, if you don’t hear from her by tomorrow night, I’ll talk to Owen or Trumbow,” he had said. “They’ll track her down.”

Then he paused for a moment.

“There’s not anything else going on, is there?” he asked.

“Why would you think that?”

“You sound strange,” he said.

“I’m just tired,” I said. “And you just sound so far away.”

“I feel far.”

“Do you want to tell me about your day?”

He had paused again.

“It wouldn’t do any good. I’ll tell you everything when I get back home.”

“Make that soon, cowboy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After I hung up the phone, I had gone to bed. Falling into yet another fitful sleep.  

I threw my legs over the side of the bed and leaned forward.

The darkness felt suffocating.

I could handle being on my own. I’d had a lot of experience at it.

But with the wedding so soon, all sorts of crazy thoughts were running through my head.

And sometimes, when you wake up from a nightmare, all you want is for somebody to be there and tell you that it’s okay.

I thought about picking up the phone and calling Daniel, but then reconsidered.

He didn’t need a phone call at 4 in the morning to wake him up too.

And sometimes in life, you just had to be strong enough to handle things on your own.  

I got out of bed and started getting ready for work, pushing the nightmare away as far as I could.

Chapter 15

Huckleberry bounded out of the passenger seat and into the soft snow piled high on the curb.

He crash-landed, then scrambled up on the sidewalk to the front door, his little nub wagging happily as he waited for me to follow him.

He knew that a visit to the shop always meant buttery, gooey treats galore.

I pushed the door of the car open and stepped out carefully in case ice had formed over the snow, as it tended to do when the temperature dropped like this.

The night was cold and empty. I disliked how often I was out and about at this hour lately. But I supposed that had something to do with my troubled sleep patterns.

Even though I was tired, I was looking forward to getting into the shop’s kitchen.  

Baking always helped ease my mind. It was like meditation, or yoga, for me. I could just throw myself into the entire process. Into mixing, rolling, and shaping. Into combining ingredients and balancing flavors. Into popping it all into the oven and watching the magic happen.  

Baking was the best kind of distraction I knew.

I opened the front door, letting Huckleberry in. Then I went through the dividing door, back to the kitchen, and got down to business.

I put on a Townes Van Zandt album, tied an apron around my waist, and started mixing up a batch of pie dough.

Even after several years of owning a pie shop, my own perspectives on what should go into the dough was ever-evolving. Pie dough was one of those culinary topics that polarized bakers, creating fierce, unbending opinions.

Growing up, my mother had always taught me that the best pie dough had equal parts butter and vegetable shortening, mixed together with flour and salt until just combined. Those kinds of crusts were always good, but I was always striving for perfection. When I first started getting serious about baking, I rebelled, and went through an all-butter period. That, however, was difficult to reproduce at a large scale, and frankly, while the all-butter dough was rich and flavorful, the dough texture wasn’t as flaky as it was with vegetable shortening, leaving something to be desired. Plus, the all-butter version often folded in on itself during baking, losing its shape completely.  

So, after a few years, I went back to the shortening and butter combination.

My mother had known her stuff.

Lately, though, I was experimenting with other additions. I’d read in a baking magazine that adding a tablespoon of ice-cold vodka to the mixture right before gathering it all up into a ball would help make the dough more pliable, and help the pies keep their perfect, crimped shapes while baking.

I grabbed the bottle of vodka from the freezer, measured out enough for five pie crusts, and added it to the flour, butter, and vegetable shortening mixture.

Then, I grabbed a clean shot glass, poured myself a shot, and threw it back.

To hell with calorie counting.

As far as I was concerned, it was still night. And I was planning on being at the shop until the late afternoon, giving that shot plenty of time to work itself out of my system.

Plus, maybe a shot of vodka was just what my nerves needed.

I glanced over at Huckleberry, who was sitting on his dog bed, which was situated next to the back door.

 I swore he was eyeing me with a hint of disapproval.

“Aw, c’mon,” I said. “Don’t give me that look.”

He yawned, stretched out his legs, and rolled over on his side.  

I mixed the dough and split it up into several balls. I covered them in plastic wrap and threw them in the fridge. Then I took out a tray of already made pie crusts that I had rolled out the day before, and stuck them in the oven to pre-bake.

“What do you say, Hucks?” I said out loud. “Do you think we should make up some Mountain Cherry or Santa’s Florida Vacation pies?”

Huckleberry didn’t answer or acknowledge the question, as he’d fallen sound asleep in his doggy bed.

He knew that tasty treats were still a long way off.