Read Online 4 Malice in Christmas River by Meg Muldoon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Meg Muldoon
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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
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
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