Menace in Christmas River (Christmas River 8) (4 page)

“Just what’s up your sleeve, Sheriff Brightman?”

He laughed.

“Not a thing but love, darlin.’”

He let the laugh fade into a grin.

“And I have been, if you were wondering,” he added.

“Have been what?” I said.

“Good all day,” he said, leaving the bottle on the table and going over to the stove where dinner was bubbling in a Dutch oven. “And when I say good, I mean
gold-star
kind of good.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said, dividing the steaming contents of the pot between two plates. “I caught the two troublemakers who stole Marjorie Greyson’s 1962 Cadillac. And not only that, but I saved three kittens from a sewer grate.”

I felt my face light up, and then I let out a dreamy, head-over-heels sigh.

“That’s my Sheriff, all right,” I said.

He brought the plates over to the table, placing one of them in front of me.

The hearty aroma of wine and meat and rosemary was everything I could possibly want and more on a windy night in February.

“But the thing is,” Daniel said, pausing for a moment before taking his seat. “I don’t think I can continue this gold-star streak I’m on. You see, I’m no angel, Cin. No angel at all. And even now as we speak – I can feel the darkness trying to pull me under.”

He gave me a look full of mischief and mayhem, and I found that I was distracted a moment from the feast in front of me by the quick pitter-patter of my heart.

“Well, you hold out as long as you can, hon,” I said, watching as he took a seat across from me. “If you have to give in, well, I guess you just can’t help it.”

I winked at him and then took a bite.

The flavorful roast practically melted in my mouth and the chill that had worked its way into my bones during the drive back from the resort became a distant memory.

“You are wrong about something, though,” I said, gazing at him.

“What’s that?”

“You
are
an angel.”

He laughed and I watched as his cheeks flushed red.

Inside, I felt warm and cozy and happy, and little of it had to do with the delicious meal or the toasty fire.

Chapter 6

“Wow,
Cin
,” he said, his eyes brightening with surprise. “That’s
great
news.”

I forced a smile, wishing I felt as excited as he sounded.

I should have been, after all. It was a big honor to be asked to judge the Chocolate Championship, even if it was only as a last minute replacement.

But somehow after leaving the meeting at the resort earlier, I didn’t feel as good as I should have.

Daniel handed me my refreshed wine glass and then sank back down into the sofa next to me, draping his free arm over my shoulder.

“I suppose it is great,” I said quietly.

“You just
suppose
?” he said, peering at me.  

I shrugged.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It just kind of makes me feel like a fraud or something.”

Daniel lifted his eyebrows.

“
A fraud
?” he repeated. “Now how on earth do you figure that?”

I let out a sigh, watching as one of the logs in the fireplace cracked and broke apart in the flames.

Huckleberry, who was lying near the fire alongside his buddy Chadwick, lifted his head at the noise and looked around as if to make sure everything was okay. When he saw that it was, he let his head drop again. A moment later, he was back herding sheep in dreamland.

“I feel like a fraud because right before that assistant of Julie’s came through the pie shop’s door, I had just failed miserably – yet again – at making a chocolate cupid sculpture and was seriously thinking about throwing in the towel. And now, they want me to judge other folks who clearly have more skills in chocolate artistry than I do.”

I put the wine glass down on the side table and crossed my arms, leaning back into the soft leather sofa cushion.

“Doesn’t something about that seem wrong to you?”

There was a hint of a smirk on Daniel’s face at that.  

“What?” I said.  

He shrugged.

“I think you’re overthinking this a little bit, Cin,” he said. “They want you to judge because you’re a successful business woman in the culinary field and a credit to the local community. And because you’ve proven yourself many, many times in competitions like this. Now, if I was a committee member, I’d have picked you right from the get go. Forget about that Bundt cake lady – she’s got nothing on you.”

“You’re just saying that because you have to,” I said.  

“Honest to God, I’m not,” he said. “You’re just the logical choice, Cin. And it doesn’t matter how many chocolate cupids you broke, either. You’re still a genius of pastry.”  

I leaned my head back and gave him a loving look at that.

It tickled me when he called me a genius.

“And that committee’s just lucky that you were available for judging. Otherwise they’d be up a brown creek, if you catch my drift,” he added.

I punched him lightly in the shoulder at the crude remark.

He just smiled.

“‘Sides,” he said. “Who knows what kind of publicity you could get out of this? I have to think sitting on a judging panel with someone like that Copperstone guy can only be a good thing. You never know. Down the line, he could be a real good contact to have when you expand your business to Portland.”

I felt my lips curl up slightly.

I’d been too busy worrying about whether I was worthy of being a judge – not seeing the good that could come out of it. Or the fact that maybe my chocolate construction skills had nothing to do with why the committee wanted me to help judge.

“You’ve got to think big picture, Cin. Be selfish sometimes, you know? Think about what you can get out of it. Not whether or not you deserve to be asked.”

He put his wine glass down on the coffee table and then turned toward me.

“You deserve every opportunity that comes your way, Cin. And you could never, in a hundred million years, be a fraud, darlin.’”

I gazed up into his strong green eyes, feeling a damn sight lucky to have someone like him always on my side.

“Be selfish, huh?” I said.

He shrugged.

“It’s not the sort of advice that I’d give out to most folks,” he said. “But in your case, I think it’s appropriate.”

“Well in that case, I’ll take it, Sheriff.”

He kissed the top of my head.

“You’ll make a great judge, Cin,” he said. “They need someone like you. Fair and honest and, most importantly,
easy
on the eyes.”  

I smiled.

“But I guess that means no trip to Paris, then,” I said.

Unfortunately, being a judge at the Championship didn’t come with the kind of perks that winning it did. However, I took solace in the fact that I hadn’t had a chance in the North Pole at winning the thing.

“Aw, I’ll take you there someday myself,” he said. “Soon as we both can get some time off.”

“Really?”

“It’s a promise,” he said.

I felt touched by that – because when Daniel promised something, I’d come to learn that he’d always find a way to keep it.

Though we both knew that going to Paris wouldn’t be just an issue of getting time off. There was the money part, too. There wasn’t a whole lot of the green stuff floating around loose these days.

The conversation faded away for a few moments as we watched the flames of the fire lick up toward the chimney.

Daniel finally cleared his throat.

“So, uh, so Julie’s got her own PR firm now?” he asked.

I nodded

“Yep,” I said. “Public relations and event planning. She didn’t seem to remember that we’d met before, but I tried not to hold it against her.”

“Does it seem like things are going well for her?” he said.

“Yeah, I think,” I said. “I imagine getting hired by the Chocolate Championship Showdown organizers must be a pretty feather in her cap.”

He didn’t respond to that.

He reached for his wine, finishing off the glass. He then set it back down on the coffee table.

“Say, tell me something,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“What’s that Cliff Copperstone really like?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“Well, he’s like he seems on TV,” I said. “Kind of hard to describe. I wouldn’t call him friendly, exactly. But you know, he is quite
easy on the eyes
.”

I gazed at the crackling fire as I said it, pretending like I was deep in a dreamy thought.

I felt Daniel staring at me, and I couldn’t help but grin wildly.

“Should I be worried?” Daniel said, jokingly.

I paused and scrunched my face up, as if I was weighing my options.

“Hmm, I can’t rightly say at this point,” I said. “I guess only time will tell.”

His fingers found my ribcage then and I squirmed as he started tickling me.

“What was that?” he said, smiling. “I didn’t quite hear you.”

“I said only time will—!” I let out a sharp yelp as he found my most ticklish spot, giving no mercy.

“Okay, okay!” I cried. “I give in. I give in!”

He stopped tickling me, but his fingers hovered over my ribcage threateningly.

“Now, what was that you said?” he asked.

“I said you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

“That’s more like it, now.”

I laughed and rubbed a hand against his cheek, feeling the coarseness of his beard.

“Anyway, you know that neck tattoos aren’t my thing,” I said.

“No?” he said, pulling me to him. “What is your thing, Mrs. Brightman?”

I rested my arms on his shoulders and leaned my forehead against his.

“Heroes who save kittens from sewage grates,” I said. “
That’s
my thing.”

“I told you though,” he said, resting his hands on my hips. “I can’t keep that goody two-shoes act up all night.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I’ve been waiting all this time for it to wear off.”

A moment later, I was wrapped up in his arms, feeling like I was floating on air.

Chapter 7

“Cinnamon-
won’t-tell-me-a-damn-thing-ever
-Peters!”

The shout reverberated not only throughout the kitchen, causing the stainless steel bowls and utensils to shake with fear, but it also wound its way past the dividing door and into the packed dining room.

I could tell by the hushed silence that ensued from that part of the pie shop.  

The back door slammed with a marked ferocity typical of Kara when something had gotten her temper flaring.

I looked up from the ganache I was making for the Hubba Hubba Hazelnut Cherry Chocolate Love Pie and watched as she waltzed across the kitchen toward me, her pink and white plaid cape flowing behind her like she was royalty. Enraged royalty, at that. The way her tall, skinny black boots clicked madly across the tile only emphasized her point.

Even before she said anything, I had a feeling I knew what had sparked the mood.  

“Just what do you have to say for yourself, missy?” she said, slapping down a rolled-up newspaper on the kitchen island in front of me and placing a hand angrily on her hip.  

Tiana, who had just pulled a pan of Whiskey Apple pies from the oven, looked past Kara’s shoulder at me with wide eyes.

Kara and Tiana got along just fine. But sometimes, I got the sense that Kara’s boisterous personality, which was almost the exact opposite of Tiana’s somewhat shy and mild-mannered one, induced a shock and awe effect in my bakery assistant.

I looked back at Kara, then glanced down at the front page of
The Redmond Register
.

Celebrity chef to judge Chocolate Championship Showdown in Christmas River.

“Oh yeah,” I said, feeling my lips curl up into a Grinchy smile. “I heard something about that this morning.”

That practically sent Kara over the edge. Her already-rosy cheeks turned a shade darker as she struggled to express herself. Several strange, irritated noises escaped her mouth until she found the words she’d been searching for.

She gestured wildly at some of the article’s fine print. My eyes scanned over it.

“Additionally, Publicity Director Julie Van Dorn announced last night that local pie shop owner Cinnamon Peters would replace Trixie Curtis of the “All About That Bundt” franchise on the judging panel due to a family emergency.”

“Why wasn’t I the first person you told about this?!” Kara said, her tone reaching levels of shrill I hadn’t known possible. “Have I not known you forever? Have we not been Junction partners for years? Am I not your absolute bestie?”

Kara sounded like she’d been reading too many TMZ articles. Which, given the fact that she was in some of the slowest sales months of the year at her ornament shop, might have been the case.  

“
Of course
I was going to tell you,” I said. “But they only just asked me to fill in on the judging panel last night.”

“You’ve known about this since last night and you didn’t think to call!?”

I shrugged and began whisking the melting dark chocolate chips as the steam from the boiling water beneath the bowl started doing its magic.

“I know how difficult it is for you to get a good night’s sleep these days,” I said. “I didn’t want to wake you or John or Baby Laila up with something that could wait until the morning.”

My thoughtfulness didn’t seem to win me any points with her, however.  

“Well,
damn you
, Cinnamon,” she said, crossing her arms, her eyes still glowing with anger. “Damn you for letting me find out about this at the same time as everyone else in this town. Damn you for not telling me something
this big
.”

Kara and I had had dozens of these kinds of spats throughout the course of our friendship. I guess we were just opposites in that respect: I was reluctant to talk about myself and my feelings. Meanwhile, all Kara ever wanted to do was talk and gossip and talk some more.

And she always found a way of taking it personally when I didn’t immediately drop everything and tell her any news I had.