Christmas on Candy Cane Lane Read online

“What should I be living in, a yurt?”

  “More like an army barracks.”

  “I do have a feminine side, you know.”

  “Sure you do.”

  She did, and she could hardly wait to get everything all squared away in her new house on Candy Cane Lane. She’d have dried flowers on the dining table and she was going to give that quilted wall hanging her cousin Georgie had made for her a place of honor on the living room wall. The house had three bedrooms, two baths, a big living room with a fireplace and a den, which she was going to turn into a kick-ass party room where her pals from the force could come over and play Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. The kitchen was bigger than the one she’d had in her condo. Once she put in new flooring, it would be great. Lots of room to...heat frozen dinners. Or make cookies. She made a mean chocolate chip cookie. Maybe, with her fancy new kitchen, she’d graduate to cake or pie or something.

  Expanding her cooking skills would have to wait, though. The house needed some serious work. It had been a bank repo and the previous owners had done a fair amount of damage. Walls would have to be repainted, gutters replaced and, of course, the kitchen set to rights. And she’d have to replace the carpeting, which was badly stained and a little on the smelly side. Well, okay, a lot. She hoped she could afford to give herself new carpeting for Christmas, at least in the living room and den.

  “I don’t know, Tillie girl,” her mom had said when they’d first gone to see the place. “Sure looks like a lot of work. You really want to mess with that?”

  “Yes,” Tilda had replied. “It’s in a great neighborhood. It’ll be a good investment.”

  “It’ll be a pain in the patootie,” Mom had corrected her.

  Yeah, but it would be her pain in the patootie and she was ready for it. For the past five years she’d been envisioning herself in a house with a great guy and a couple of kids and a big, friendly dog. The guy thing hadn’t happened and she’d decided there was no point in waiting around. She was going to get her house and the dog, too. Heck, maybe even a kid. These days you didn’t need a man to have kids. These days, it seemed you didn’t need a man for much of anything.

  Tilda wanted one, anyway. There were still some things nobody did better than men, and she was darned tired of being the only one who ever saw the lacy bras and matching thongs she wore under her uniform.

  A man with a handsome, swarthy face and an admirable set of pecs suddenly appeared at the back of her mind. Oh, no. Devon Black was not in the running for that cozy life with the house, the kids and the dog. Devon Black did not deserve to see her in her bra and panties. Or out of them.

  Someday she’d find the right man. New people moved to Icicle Falls all the time. Maybe Santa would bring her the perfect man for Christmas next year. This year it was a house. And that was enough to ask for. After all, there was only so much the jolly old guy in red could fit in his sack.

  Tilda brushed at her wet uniform trousers. “We need to swing by my condo. I need some dry pants.”

  “Aw, you’ll dry out. What we need is a good bar fight to distract you.”

  “I’ll give you a good fight if you don’t go by my place,” she threatened, which made him chuckle.

  Dusk was falling and they’d hit the edge of the main drag through town when they saw a car coming from the direction of Currier’s Tree Farm. Well, maybe it was a car. It looked more like a holiday float—a giant tree with wheels under it. The windshield was barely visible under all that green fir. How could the driver even see? Okay, so much for going to get dry pants.

  “There’s another accident waiting to happen,” Jamal said as he flipped on the whirling lights that always made drivers so happy. “Is that a Mini-Cooper under there?”

  “That’s got to be Ivy Bohn,” Tilda said in disgust. Who else would buy the biggest tree on the planet but Miss Christmas of Icicle Falls?

  The tree pulled over and they stopped behind it.

  “Wanna do the honors?” Jamal asked. “Have some girlfriend time?”

  “Yeah, right,” Tilda said, but she got out of the cruiser.

  Having both grown up in this small town, she and Ivy knew each other. Sort of. But they’d never be buds. Ivy was a spoiled, entitled brat. She was always running late and seemed to think that speed limits were simply suggestions. The few encounters they’d had as adults hadn’t been good ones. Usually, Ivy claimed she hadn’t been speeding, and when Tilda ignored that and gave her a ticket, she demanded Tilda’s badge number (as if she couldn’t just call the station and use Tilda’s name). Her family had been in Icicle Falls for three generations and she now ran Christmas Haus, one of the most popular shops in town. They had plenty of money and if you asked Tilda, Ivy had always been spoiled and conceited. Tilda hadn’t been even slightly surprised when her husband had finally had enough and left her.

  Tilda approached the tree car and heard the whir of the window being lowered. There was Ivy in all her perfect makeup and blond highlighted glory, peeping out between the boughs like a pissed-off Christmas angel.

  “I wasn’t speeding,” she greeted Tilda.

  “We’re not stopping you for speeding.”

  “Then what?”

  Ivy suddenly looked on the verge of tears, and for a moment Tilda felt sorry for her. It had to suck, being left by your man.

  Tilda sighed. “Ivy, you’re a menace. You can’t see where you’re going under that tree.”

  “Yes, I can,” Ivy insisted, pointing to a two-inch gap between boughs.

  “Why didn’t you get Kirk to deliver it?”

  “Because he’s out of town and couldn’t do it until next week and I wanted the tree today so I could put it up this Saturday. Besides, Jinx told me it would fit on the roof of the car just fine.”

  Of a Mini-Cooper? Really? Tilda was going to have a talk with Kirk’s son. And his uncle Al, who ran Santa’s tree lot. Al would happily pull the same kind of stunt if it meant a sale.

  “Well, you can’t drive with that on your roof,” she said. “You’ll run someone over.”

  “Okay, fine,” Ivy snapped. “I’ll take it off.”

  And dump it by the side of the road? Leaving someone else to clean up her mess... Tilda scowled. “Stay where you are.”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t give me a ticket. For heaven’s sake, it’s Thanksgiving. Have a heart.”

  “Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Tilda said, barely holding on to her patience. “I’m not going to.” She marched back to the patrol car. Who the heck bought a Christmas tree the day before Thanksgiving? Oh, yeah. Someone who was probably going to be very busy selling Christmas ornaments for the next month.

  “So what are we doing?” Jamal asked when she got back to the car.

  “We’re taking the stupid tree over to Ivy’s place.”

  Ivy’s place...which turned out to be right next door to Tilda’s new house. Why was she shocked? She’d run Ivy’s information often enough. She knew the address. It just hadn’t sunk in. The Mini-Cooper hadn’t been in sight when she’d come to look at the house and neither had Ivy. Out of sight, out of mind. In any case, she’d been in the throes of house lust, so excited about her great find she hadn’t stopped to think about who her neighbors were. Oh, well, just because she lived next door didn’t mean they had to be best friends.

  “Thank you so much,” Ivy gushed once the tree was unloaded and safely stowed alongside her pretty, perfectly painted blue house, and Tilda and Jamal were covered in pitch.

  “We’re here to serve and protect,” he said cheerily, making Tilda want to gag.

  “No problem,” Tilda added, then muttered, “That tree is ridiculous,” as they made their way back to the patrol car.

  “Hey, it’s big. I’d think you’d like that.”

  “It’s too over-the-top.” Like Miss Christmas the
re, who was about to become her next-door neighbor. And like all the houses on her street. She was moving to the epicenter of Christmas craziness. “Some people take their decorating too far.” She wouldn’t be one of them, though. There was such a thing as overkill.

  “Yeah? We’ll see what you do once Candy Cane fever hits,” Jamal teased.

  “I’m never going crazy like these people,” Tilda said with a snort. “They need to get a life.”

  Sometimes, when it was just her and a plate of food from the Safeway deli, she told herself the same thing—get a life—but she sure wasn’t confessing that to Jamal. Or anyone else.

  * * *

  The next day was Thanksgiving, and talk around Dot Morrison’s table quickly turned to the subject of Tilda’s new house. “It sounds great,” said her cousin Georgie, who was there with her new husband, Jay. Georgie was a super-girlie-girl with perfectly highlighted hair and nails that never had chipped polish, but Tilda loved her, anyway. When they were kids, Georgie was the queen of Monopoly. Now she and her husband had invested in a duplex in one of the newer neighborhoods in town, and it looked like she was going to score in real life the way she always had in the game.

  “It’s pretty cool,” Tilda said, always the master of understatement. It was definitely an upgrade from a one-bedroom condo, or at least it would be once she’d fixed it up.

  “Cool? It’s freakin’ adorable,” said her other cousin Caitlin. With her Julianne Moore hair and stylish clothes, Caitlin was almost as much of a girlie-girl as Georgie. Unless she was on a baseball diamond with Tilda’s team, playing first base, then look out.

  “Yeah, well, remember that the pictures you saw online didn’t show the stains on the carpets and the bunged-up kitchen floor and the nonworking stove. I’m going to have to redo the cabinets, too. But it’s all good. For the price I paid I’m willing to put in some labor.”

  Some labor? There was another understatement. One of the bedrooms had a fist-size hole in the wall. The other walls were grimy and in need of paint. The gutters needed replacing, and the yard had been let go, too. But that was all cosmetic stuff. The house itself was sound. It just needed some TLC.

  “I’m handy with a hammer,” Uncle Horace offered.

  Actually, she’d seen some of her uncle’s handiwork. Good thing he’d gone into insurance. She thanked him, anyway.

  “The place’ll be great once you get it fixed up,” Caitlin said. Caitlin did love a project. Usually, though, her projects were of the human variety. She went through a lot of men who had what she called potential. Tilda could suggest another name for them—losers.

  “You got a steal of a deal, but you couldn’t pay me to live on Candy Cane Lane,” Georgie said.

  “I think it’s charming,” Aunt Joyce put in. “Remember how we always used to drive over from Wenatchee to see it at Christmas when you kids were little?” she asked her daughters.

  “And here I thought you were coming over to see me,” Mom cracked.

  “Well, that, too,” Aunt Joyce said with a smile.

  “It’s really cute, but they go overboard at Christmas,” said Caitlin, who had seven pairs of Christmas-themed earrings, wore enough green in December to put a leprechaun to shame and played Christmas songs 24/7 all month long. “I wouldn’t want all that pressure of trying to keep up with the neighbors.”

  “No pressure,” Tilda said. “I can handle sticking some lights on the fir tree in the front yard.”

  Georgie cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah? If you think you can get away with just throwing up a string of lights, you’ve got another think coming. I’ve heard those guys are like the decorating police.”

  “Well, as far as I know, they don’t have any covenants requiring you to go all Griswold Family Christmas, so I’m not stressing,” Tilda said.

  “You should be,” Georgie told her.

  “Why don’t we get you a big blow-up Santa for your front yard?” Caitlin suggested.

  “Good idea,” Aunt Joyce agreed.

  Tilda pointed a warning finger at her cousin. “Don’t even think about it. I hate those inflatable decorations.”

  “I thought you’d appreciate getting a blow-up man for Christmas,” Caitlin teased.

  “Is everyone in this family a smart mouth?” Tilda lamented, and they all chorused, “Yes.”

  “So what time do we start moving you on Saturday?” Jay asked her.

  “Around ten.”

  “Is Jamal helping you move?” Mom asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Yeah, but don’t get excited. He’s not moving in or anything. We’re partners.”

  Mom frowned. “Dumb if you ask me. What woman in her right mind would pass up a good-looking man who comes with his own handcuffs?”

  The women all guffawed and Jay blushed. Uncle Horace just shook his head.

  Conversation drifted to other topics and then, after dessert, the family settled in front of the TV to get in the Christmas spirit by watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. “There’s Tilda’s house,” Caitlin said as Clark Griswold set the night ablaze with his over-the-top outdoor decorations.

  “That’ll be the day.”

  “You’ll catch Candy Cane Lane fever,” Caitlin predicted.

  Tilda frowned. “I don’t have time for that.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see.” The movie ended, and that wrapped up another family Thanksgiving.

  “Do you guys want to come our way for Christmas?” asked Aunt Joyce.

  That worked for Tilda. Aunt Joyce was a good cook and she always sent Tilda home with leftovers.

  She was just opening her mouth to say, “Great idea,” when Georgie said, “I know what, let’s do Christmas Eve at Tilda’s new place.”

  “My place?” For Christmas dinner? What did she look like, freakin’ Martha Stewart?

  “Oh, good idea,” said Aunt Joyce. “We can celebrate Christmas and have a housewarming.”

  “You can come over and spend the night with me on Christmas Eve,” Mom offered to Aunt Joyce and Uncle Horace.

  “This’ll be fun,” Caitlin said.

  Getting her place pulled together by Christmas and putting on a Christmas dinner? Fun? Really? “Uh, guys. I don’t cook. Remember?”

  “Well, it’s about time you learned,” Aunt Joyce said, showing no mercy. “Anyway, you can’t do any worse than your mother.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Mom said.

  Tilda echoed that thought. But, oh, well. There were only seven of them. How hard could it be to stick a turkey in the oven? Even she could make dressing from a box and manage that green-bean casserole. Everyone else would bring rolls and dessert. They’d be fine. And maybe it would be fun to have the whole family over to celebrate the holidays at her new place.

  “Okay,” she said, “but don’t expect everything to be perfect.”

  “If we wanted perfect, we’d never come to your mother’s,” Aunt Joyce pointed out, and went off to fetch her coat.

  “We’ll see you on Saturday,” Caitlin said. “I’ll bring the inflatable Santa. Maybe I’ll bring two. We can double-date.”

  * * *

  Fortunately, Caitlin didn’t make good on her threat. It had snowed again Friday night but that didn’t stop the family moving crew from showing up at Tilda’s condo promptly at eight, along with Jamal and Enrico Abano, another of Icicle Falls’s finest. Within an hour her furniture and the boxes containing her household items had all been loaded into Jamal’s truck and the trunk of her and Georgie’s cars, and the caravan was on its way to Candy Cane Lane.

  The neighborhood was a mix of old and new houses, all well-maintained and beautifully landscaped. Her place, toward the end of the street, stood out with its dirty white exterior and hanging gutters like an unloved ugly duckling. But an ugly duckling with potential,
she reminded herself—unlike Caitlin’s loser boyfriends. A few repairs and touch-ups, a little TLC from Hank’s Landscaping, and it would be good as new.

  As they drove down the street she noticed that practically every resident was outside, bundled up in parkas, hats and gloves, hanging from ladders stringing lights or setting up prancing reindeer and nativity sets on their snow-covered lawns. And, of course, candy canes were everywhere.

  “I’m thinkin’ you’d better let me get you one of those inflatable Santas, after all,” Caitlin said as they parked in the driveway. “Otherwise, they’re gonna have you arrested for the house version of indecent exposure. This place looks bare naked compared to what’s going on everywhere else.”

  “Not everyone overdoes it,” Tilda said. The other Victorian beside hers didn’t have more than a wreath on the door and a couple of candy canes on the front porch steps.

  Even Ivy didn’t have her outside lights up yet, but inside Tilda could see the tree that had taken over the world standing by the picture window. And there was Ivy herself, busy stringing it with a silver tinsel garland. She shouldn’t be putting the thing up so early, even if it was freshly cut. It would dry out and turn into a fire hazard. If Ivy’s house caught fire and it jumped to Tilda’s place, Tilda was going to throw her in jail for the next million years.

  Of all the people in all of Icicle Falls, I have to end up living next to you. Well, she’d mind her own business and Ivy could mind hers, and they’d get along just fine. As long as Ivy didn’t burn down the neighborhood.

  Georgie and Jay parked at the curb, and Jamal and Enrico pulled up behind them in Jamal’s truck, which was loaded with furniture and covered with blue tarp.

  Georgie took several plastic grocery bags with food from the backseat and followed Tilda and Caitlin to the front door. “This place has so much potential. I can hardly wait to see the inside,” she said to Tilda.

  “Remember, it needs some work,” Tilda cautioned as she balanced a box of video games on her hip and opened the door. They were greeted by a blast of eau de litter box.

  Georgie wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”