A Small Town Christmas Page 12

  “Pizza Heaven,” said a bored teenage-girl voice. “Heaven’s what we deliver in every sliver.”

  Sarah needed a little heaven right now, and pizza alone wasn’t going to do it.

  After the girls got busy baking, moods improved. Even Damaris forgot she was a pill and began to have fun.

  But once the pizza arrived and Sarah insisted they eat at the table she reverted to pillhood. “We always eat on the couch and watch TV,” she informed Sarah. “High School Hitters is on right now,” she explained to the other junior bakers. “I looove Seth.”

  “I’m going to marry Bo,” Beanie announced.

  “You can’t marry Bo,” Damaris said. “You have to be totally hot. Anyway, him and Kirsten are breaking up today. Can we watch it?” she asked Sarah.

  Sarah didn’t watch much TV, but even she knew about the new teen soap that was luring kids to the small screen after school on a daily basis. “Not today,” she said, sweetly but firmly. “Today we’re too busy living real life to watch pretend life.”

  “I hate real life. Real life is boring,” said Damaris.

  “Only if you’re a boring person,” Sarah retorted.

  Damaris shut up and took another bite of her pizza.

  “I was a fairy for Halloween,” Mandy announced.

  “I’ll bet you were a very pretty fairy,” Sarah told her.

  “I was a pirate,” said Beanie, her voice full of swagger.

  “Girls can’t be pirates,” scoffed Damaris.

  “Yeah, they can. Didn’t you see Pirates of the Caribbean?”

  “She wasn’t a pirate. She was just a pirate’s girlfriend.”

  “Well, I was a real pirate. I get to take fencing when I’m older. My grandma said,” Beanie bragged.

  “I’m going to take acting lessons,” countered Damaris. She dove to beat Beanie to the last piece of pizza and tipped what was left of the Coke that had come with it.

  And I’m going to take an Excedrin, thought Sarah, reaching for a sponge.

  “Sorry,” said Damaris, and stuffed the pizza in her mouth.

  “That’s okay. Accidents happen,” said Sarah. It’s only pop, nice, sticky pop. “Okay, girls, time to get back to our cookies.”

  By five o’clock a miracle had occurred. Everyone was smiling and each girl was loading up a paper plate with cookies to take home.

  Damaris pronounced the cookies good and the other girls agreed. “That was fun,” she said to Sarah.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” Sarah said. Maybe “relieved” would have been a better word. One cooking lesson down, three to go. “Do you need to call your dad to come get you?” How soon can he get here?

  Damaris shrugged. “There’s no hurry. He doesn’t live far.”

  “Well, let’s call him now,” said Sarah. The sooner the better.

  Damaris was dialing when the doorbell rang. George Armstrong stood on the doorstep, holding a bottle of white wine. “I thought maybe you could use this.”

  Sarah smiled. “You have no idea. Come on in. The girls are getting their cookie plates ready to take home.”

  George stepped inside. “My hat’s off to you. I sure couldn’t do this. You women must have some extra gene that makes it so you can cope.”

  “As a matter of fact, we do,” said Sarah, leading the way to the kitchen. “It’s called the insanity gene.”

  “Grandpa!” squealed both girls at the sight of him. “Try our cookies,” said Lissa, holding up her plate.

  The phone rang. Sarah answered it to find Sam on the other end of the line. “I’m just checking to see if you survived.”

  “I did,” she said.

  “Did you save me a cookie?”

  “Ah, now we’re getting to the real reason you called,” she teased.

  “No, I really wanted to know how it went,” he insisted.

  “It went great. George is here right now, so I’ll call you later.”

  “George?”

  “He’s here picking up the girls. I’ll call you back,” Sarah said, and hung up. Or better yet, she’d run a care package over to the station as soon as she’d gotten everyone out the door and Betty off her doorstep. Which meant she’d get there around midnight.

  “So, are you going to do this again next week?” asked George as the girls got their coats.

  They had survived this first class somehow, and everyone was happy. That was a good sign. Surely she could manage this three more times. Anyway, Sarah had already planned the next week’s baking challenge. “Of course we are. We’re going to make pumpkin cookies for Thanksgiving.”

  “Sounds good,” he said with a nod. “That way if I burn the turkey we’ll end the feast with a good taste in our mouths.”

  “You’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner?” She’d already figured out that George Armstrong was no Emeril. His poor family.

  “Not me. My son’s a pretty good cook. He’ll probably do most of the work.”

  “He’ll do no such thing,” Sarah said firmly. “You tell him you’re all coming here for Thanksgiving dinner. I insist.”

  “Naw, we couldn’t do that,” George protested.

  Sarah could tell it was halfhearted. “Please do. It’s my first Thanksgiving without my daughter and her family, and having children in the house would really help me get through it.”

  “Well. Twist my arm,” he said with a grin. “But you’d better assign us something to bring or my son will kill me.”

  “You tell him to bring his best dish, whatever it is. Oh, except dessert. Between my niece and me, we’ll have it covered,” Sarah said. “I’m sure she’ll bring a ton of chocolate.”

  “Your niece?” George’s expression turned speculative. “The one who owns that chocolate shop?”

  “That would be the one,” said Sarah. “She’s alone, and she’ll be with us this year.”

  George nodded, and Sarah could tell by the glint in his eyes that they had successfully gotten on the same wavelength. “Sounds good.”

  “What are we going to make next week?” Damaris asked.

  “One more thing for Thanksgiving. Then, the week after I’ll teach you how to make candy cane cookies.”

  “Cool,” said Beanie.

  “Yum,” said Damaris.

  “Come on, girls. Time to go home,” George said to his granddaughters, ushering them out of the kitchen.

  “Do we have to go already?” asked Lissa.

  “Yep. Tell Mrs. Goodwin thanks.”

  “Thank you for having us,” said Lissa. The phrase came out well rehearsed but heartfelt.

  Mandy did her one better. She hugged Sarah fiercely.

  Sarah suddenly thought of Addie, her youngest granddaughter. Her eyes misted and she reached down and touched the child’s head. “You were very good.”

  Betty arrived to pick up Beanie just as George and company were leaving.

  “Beanie, your grandma’s here,” Sarah called from the doorway, determined to keep Betty corralled on the front porch. Beanie thundered down the hall, followed by Damaris.

  “Oh, look at those lovely cookies!” Betty cried when Beanie showed her the plate of goodies. “And you made those all by yourself?”

  “We all made them together,” said Damaris, but Betty didn’t hear her. She was still raving about the cookies and Beanie and Sarah’s big heart. Damaris shrugged and set her plate on the porch, then skipped onto the front yard to do cartwheels. “Can you do that?” she taunted Beanie.

  Beanie trotted onto the lawn and did a back flip, making Damaris gawk.

  “She just loves gymnastics,” bragged Betty, following Sarah’s gaze. “And soccer and climbing trees and anything that gets her dirty.” Betty lowered her voice. “This is so good for her. I understand that she’s athletic and all but I want her to be well rounded. I want her to remember she’s a girl.” She looked at Damaris in her hip jeans and jacket. “This little girl who is with her is awfully cute.”

  So were baby tigers. “Beanie is fine j
ust the way she is,” Sarah said. “And she did enjoy the baking. I think she’s perfectly well rounded.”

  “Well, it’s good to see she’s making some nice, new friends. A girl can’t have enough friends, you know. We moved around so much when I was little I just didn’t have that many,” Betty confided.

  Sarah had moved a couple of times herself as a kid, but she’d had trouble leaving friends, not making them. Betty’s difficulty probably had more to do with her mouth than her physical location. Or maybe that was why she talked so much now. Making up for lost time?

  Betty kept Sarah freezing on the front porch for a good ten minutes while the two girls chased each other around the front yard and Sarah continued to check the street for some sign of Damaris’s father.

  “Damaris, did you get ahold of your dad?” Sarah finally asked.

  “The line was busy,” said Damaris, who was now twirling in circles.

  “You don’t have voice mail?”

  “We have an answering machine,” Damaris replied. “My dad likes to screen calls.”

  At this rate the child would be here all night. “I’ll take you home,” said Sarah. At least it would get Betty off her porch.

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll call.” Damaris rushed back into the house.

  “We could give her a lift,” offered Betty. “I have to take Beanie home anyway. And besides, I haven’t done my good deed for the day yet.” She wagged a playful finger at Sarah. “Can’t let you outdo me.”

  That worked for Sarah. She could get rid of everyone and go collapse with a nice glass of wine. “Thanks, Betty. I appreciate that. Damaris, tell your dad never mind,” she called. “Mrs. Bateman is going to take you home.” No reply. “Damaris?”

  Damaris came walking down the hall a moment later. “It’s too late. He’s on his way.”

  “Let’s go, Grandma,” said Beanie, tugging on Betty’s arm. “I have to go home and learn my spelling words.”

  “They give these children so much work,” Betty said with a shake of her head, but she let Beanie lead her away.

  And that left Sarah alone with the baby tiger.

  FOURTEEN

  Back inside the house they went. “I’m thirsty,” Damaris decided. “Do you have chocolate milk?”

  “We can make some,” said Sarah, resigned to her fate.

  Damaris fingered the wine bottle while Sarah poured her milk. “My dad drinks beer.”

  “A lot of people do,” Sarah said.

  “I had beer once,” said Damaris, dumping in enough spoons of chocolate to turn her into fudge.

  Somehow, Sarah wasn’t surprised to hear it.

  “My dad let me have a drink of his.” Damaris wrinkled her nose. “It was nasty.”

  “It is,” Sarah agreed.

  “What does wine taste like?”

  Nice try, kid. “Just as nasty,” Sarah told her. “Chocolate milk is better.”

  “I like chocolate. Can we learn to make candy like what they sell in that chocolate shop?”

  “Maybe.”

  Damaris made a face. “That means no. My mom always says maybe.”

  The doorbell rang and Sarah heaved an inward sigh of relief as she went to answer it.

  Damaris’s dad looked to be somewhere in his thirties. He was dressed in jeans and a Huskies sweatshirt, which proclaimed him a fan of the University of Washington’s football team. His stocky frame betrayed him for an ex-football player, probably high school, Sarah guessed.

  He gave her a polite nod. “I’m here to get Damaris.”

  “Damaris, your dad’s here,” Sarah called.

  “I’m finishing my drink,” Damaris called back.

  “Dam, quit screwing around. We gotta go,” her dad yelled. “We have to pick up her brother from soccer practice,” he explained. A moment later Damaris sauntered down the hall. “Come on, Dam,” he cajoled, “we’re late.”

  She shrugged and skipped out the door past Sarah. “Bye.”

  “Bye.” . . . Dam. If ever there was a fitting nickname for a child—this kid was Dennis the Menace in drag.

  “Thanks for having her,” said the man. Then he turned and followed Damaris down the walk.

  Sarah shut the door and went to the kitchen and opened the wine. Sam could have the cookies she’d saved for him tomorrow. By the time she was recovered from her first baking class she’d be in no condition to drive.

  “There’s someone in here. This time I’m sure,” hissed Mrs. Kravitz.

  “I’ll check it out,” Josh promised, and entered her house to look for burglars. For the third time in one week.

  Martinez had taken to teasing Josh that Mrs. Kravitz had the hots for him. “Pretty soon she’ll be wanting you to stop by for a cocktail.”

  “Yeah, well, you should talk,” Josh had retorted. “At least she’s not requesting a ride along every week like your romance babe does with you.”

  “That woman’s a writer. She’s doing research.”

  “Yeah? What’s she researching? She want to know how big your gun is?”

  “Maybe. At least the romance writer is under fifty. And she is a babe.”

  That was more than Josh could say for Mrs. Kravitz. She was a sixty-something widow with gray hair. And she was paranoid.

  Who did Mrs. Kravitz think was going to burgle her house at eight in the evening? And why would anyone pick this place? It was a funky, old, two-story farmhouse with battered shingle siding, and it screamed no money. The floorboards creaked under Josh’s feet as he walked through the living room on his way to the back bedroom.

  “He’s upstairs,” Mrs. Kravitz whispered, right on Josh’s tail. If Josh stopped suddenly she’d bump into him.

  A door off the bedroom led to a staircase the width of a pencil. Josh motioned for her to stay put, then started up the stairs.

  “There he is. I hear him,” she whimpered.

  Mrs. Kravitz needed to get her hearing checked. Or her head.

  Josh stopped on the stairway and listened. And then he heard it, too. His adrenaline came on duty and his heart rate picked up. He pulled his gun and started up the stairs, ready for an attack. A small hallway and landing was flanked by two large rooms. He chose the one to the left and entered gun first. No one in the room itself.

  He took a deep breath and approached the little door in the corner that probably led to some sort of crawl space alongside the room. Now he had his flashlight and his gun. He opened the door cautiously, gun ready, and shined the light into the cobwebby dark. He heard the noise again and leaned in further.

  Then he saw it and about dropped his flashlight. It was a rat the size of King Kong.

  Shit! He backed up so fast he knocked his head on the rafters. Once out, he slammed the door shut and rubbed his head, swearing under his breath.

  Okay, it was just a rat. A giant, killer rat with fangs the size of daggers. Nonetheless, he was glad none of the guys had been present to witness this little scene.

  He took a deep, restoring breath while he holstered his gun and flashlight. Then he went downstairs to tell Mrs. Kravitz that she was safe. As long as she didn’t open that door.

  “Rats!” she cried. She looked in disgust at the fat, white cat sleeping on her bed. “Really, Princess. What good are you?”

  “At least it’s not a burglar,” Josh told her.

  “I’m calling an exterminator first thing tomorrow,” she said as she walked him to the door. “Thank you for coming out, and thank you for believing me. I’m sure I sounded crazy.”

  He hadn’t, and she had, but he sure wasn’t going to tell her. “We’re here to serve, ma’am,” he assured her. And sometimes the best way to serve was to be willing to listen.

  He couldn’t help wondering if this widow had anyone to listen to her these days. On his way out he noticed that the shutters on the living room windows were hanging loose. Did Mrs. Kravitz have kids? And if she did, where the hell were they?

  He got back in his car and drove downtown for a quick pat
rol before going to run radar over by the high school. Driving by the Chocolate Bar gave him a hankering for some candy. Too bad it was closed for the night. Maybe he’d pop into Safeway and get a Snickers.

  As if what he really wanted could be found in Safeway. You’re a fool, he told himself. No guy in his right mind would stoke the hots for a woman who continually sent buzz-off vibes. Well, he hadn’t been in his right mind since Crystal died, so no surprise. Maybe he never would be again.

  Life had been perfect before a drunk driver plowed into his wife’s car as she was coming home from a Tupperware party. A damned Tupperware party. She’d wanted extra containers to store her Christmas cookies in and some asshole with fresh divorce papers wanted an escape. He’d escaped all right, staggered out of the wreckage with nothing more than a broken arm.

  Josh stopped the patrol car with a sigh. He knew that life wasn’t fair, that bad things happened to good people, but what happened to his family was beyond unfair. It was wrong. His girls shouldn’t have to grow up without a mother.

  There was only one way to fix that problem.

  Except finding the right woman to help him fix it was a daunting task. Don’t be in a hurry, he counseled himself. The girls don’t need any more grief and neither do you.

  And he sure didn’t need to eat Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of strangers. “Why the hell didn’t you ask me?” he demanded when his dad told him the next morning about their dinner engagement.

  Dad scowled at him, the same scowl that used to scare the shit out of Josh when he was ten. “What are you getting so damned pissed about? We’ve got to eat.”

  “Yeah, with our own family. That’s what Thanksgiving is for.”

  “So? There’ll be families there.”

  “I don’t want to go out,” Josh said. He knew he sounded like a sullen fifteen-year-old, but hell, he had a right. “You know, it’s great you came to live with us, but I’m the dad in this house. I get to make the big decisions.”

  The scowl deepened. “You may be the dad in this house, but I’m still your father. And I want to go to the Goodwins’ for Thanksgiving.”