Love, Lies and Mistletoe. Jennifer Snow
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The man’s voice broke into another fit of loud, throat-ripping coughs.
Victoria moved to stand in front of her, her eyes wide. “They sound terrible—who is that?” she asked. “And why are you on the rotary?”
“Hey, anyone notice that the connection for the network is down?” Luke asked, entering a second later.
Heather nodded and gestured at the receiver in her hand.
“I’ll try to fix it,” Luke said, coming around the desk.
Sure, why don’t they all hang out there?
He glanced at her with a frown. “Who’s dying on the phone?”
She was.
“Sorry, Heather. Did you get that email?”
“Yes, sir,” she lied. “Thank you. I’ll send it right away,” she said quickly, hanging up the phone.
Oh, my God.
Victoria was staring at her.
“What?”
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she asked, still bouncing Harper on her shoulder.
“No, of course—” She stopped. She couldn’t lie to her friend. “Yes...as fast as my little legs can go.” She stood and hugged her. “I’m so sorry, Vic.”
Victoria waved a hand. “Don’t be. I knew this wasn’t a permanent situation. It’s fine,” she choked out, as tears formed in her eyes.
“Oh, Vic—don’t do that!”
“They’re happy tears, see?” She faked a weird, grimace-type smile.
Luke laughed behind the desk. “Yep, those are happy tears.”
Heather shot him a look. “Nothing is definite yet. I haven’t even sent my résumé.”
“What company is it?”
“Highstone Acquisitions.”
Victoria’s eyes widened. “That’s wonderful! I applied there three times when I worked for Clarke and Johnston.”
Heather frowned. “I never knew that. Why didn’t you tell me? My brother-in-law works there—I probably could have gotten you an interview.”
“You were dating our boss, remember? Not exactly a trustworthy vault back then,” she said, looking envious. “So if Rob works there, you’re sure to get the position.” She didn’t sound thrilled.
“Not necessarily,” Heather said, but she prayed Victoria was right.
“Well, if you need a reference or anything...”
“No offense, Vic, but I don’t think I’ll be adding front desk clerk to my résumé.”
“I meant a coworker reference from when we worked together at Clarke and Johnston,” she said, playfully slapping her arm.
Heather smiled at her friend. Nearly all traces of the high-powered, New York City woman had disappeared from her over the past few years, except for the tiniest spark in her eyes when she talked about her former life in the city. “Thanks,” she said.
“I’m going to go feed the baby now,” Victoria said, choking up again as she left the room.
“No crying!” Heather called after her.
Luke checked the phone and then pointed at her. “You’re going to be crying if you remind Victoria again about how much she loved her life in New York.”
“WHAT ON EARTH is that old lady doing?” Jacob mumbled, leaning low in the driver’s seat of his squad car to peer through the windshield. The people around here made no sense to him.
Rolling down the passenger-side window as he slowed the car and pulled to the side of the road in front of Ginger Snaps, the bakery he avoided on Main Street, he called out, careful not to startle the woman and extra careful not to use the nickname he’d assigned to her. “Ginger! Mrs. Norris—what are you doing?”
The woman was standing on a plastic step stool on the icy ground outside her bakery, holding on to the side of the building for support and using the end of a broomstick to swipe at the large icicles hanging from the awning.
She stopped and turned to look at him. “I’m clearing the awning of icicles. You threatened me with a fine if I didn’t do it, remember?” she snapped.
“You’re eighty years old. You shouldn’t be doing that. I meant ask someone to do it for you.” He’d noticed her granddaughter, Leigh, and her husband going inside the bakery at least once a week. And he was sure the guy was renting the space above the bakery for an office. Some bestselling author or something. Jacob may not care about the goings-on in town, but little escaped his notice.
“I’m seventy-seven,” she said, resuming her attempt to knock them loose, swinging the broom haphazardly.
He swallowed a curse and climbed out, sliding his hands into his gloves. “Get down, please,” he said, taking her elbow to assist her.
“Don’t get fresh with me, young man.”
Wow. “Just making sure you don’t break your neck on all of this packed snow that I’m pretty sure I asked you to have cleared weeks ago,” he said, taking the broom.
“I’ll do that next,” she mumbled.
He shook his head as he opened her bakery door and waved her inside, trying not to breathe in the delicious smell of gingerbread and cinnamon.
She muttered something under her breath as she passed him, and he couldn’t be sure that it was an insult aimed at him, but it certainly wasn’t “thank you.”
“Hey, Sheriff Matthews, when you’re done over there, could you maybe come do mine, as well?” Tina Miller, or Nosy Nelly, as he liked to think of her, called to him as she wrote on the specials board outside Joey’s Diner.
He gave a mock salute and continued working. The day before, he’d issued twenty-four-hour warnings to the business owners along Main Street to clear their awnings of these dangerous icicles. By the look of things, everyone had ignored him. Except Ginger. Well, they wouldn’t be laughing when an icicle fell on a passerby, and they were suddenly smacked with a lawsuit.
Oh, what was he thinking—no one sued anyone around here. A New York City boy from the time he could walk, he was so far out of his comfort zone in Brookhollow, he couldn’t even remember what his comfort zone felt like. But it certainly wasn’t this sense of being watched from afar and speculated about on a regular basis. He’d told himself that he was being paranoid, and that was natural given the extreme circumstances. But after his conversation with Heather the night before, he knew that wasn’t the case. People were watching and speculating and judging.
After clearing the awning, he went inside the bakery and immediately wished he hadn’t. The tempting aromas were almost too much to resist. But diabetic from the age of eight, he rarely consumed sweets or refined carbs. Keeping his blood sugars under control was his first priority. “Here are your broom and your step stool,” he said, leaving them inside the door.
“Did you want a muffin or something?” Ginger offered begrudgingly.
“No. What I want is for you to ask your granddaughter or her husband to come clear the walkway...or at least put salt or sand on it or something.” He was wasting his breath. No one around here listened to him. He was just the big-city, hotshot cop who didn’t understand about small-town life. Well, they were right about that. And unfortunately, uncleared walkways and awnings just didn’t compare to drug deals and dangerous criminals on his scale of what mattered. But unfortunately, this