Mayhem in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy, Book 2) by Meg Muldoon Page A

You’ll take my place?”
    “I’ll do my best,” I said.
    “This means a lot to me, Cin,” she said. “A little peace and quiet away from Sarah Reinhart is going to do me wonders.”
    “Just don’t expect me to wear those heels you’ve got. Mrs. Claus is going to end up in the North Pole mass general if she has to go further than ten feet in those death traps.”
    The edges of Kara’s mouth turned up a little at that.
    “No,” she said. “Those aren’t mandatory. But I’m afraid the wig is.”
    I let out a long sigh.
    “Oh, Jesus,” I said.
    “You really do have nice cheekbones too, you know,” she said.
     

 
    Chapter 16
     
    I knew that it just couldn’t go on the way that it had been.
    It was torture. I couldn’t think about anything else. Even with my best friend’s store burning to the ground, I couldn’t focus on her loss.
    I was wholly consumed with my own feelings about him.
    And worse than that. 
    I’d been consumed with what it would all mean for us.
    I knew I had to make him understand. That was the only way for us to get through this.
    I needed to make him see why I felt the way I did. Before it was too late to do anything more.
    Most women would probably have gone home, taken a shower, dressed up and put some make-up on before a talk as big as this one. 
    But when I left Kara’s house, I was gripped by a kind of wild desperation that didn’t allow for that kind of narcissism.
    I needed to see him, and I needed to see him now. 
    I ran, taking a trail that cut through the woods. The air already felt prickly with the heat of the day. I ran, as if it were possible to outrun my own doubts, my own shortcomings.
    As if I could outrun these past few days.
    But when I showed up at the station, all of it caught up with me again.
    Sweat was pouring down my face, and I felt my cheeks burn. 
    I must have been as red as a cherry tomato.
    Real attractive.
    But I didn’t care. And I just hoped Daniel wouldn’t care either.
    After I caught my breath, I opened the heavy wooden doors and hobbled into the station, my legs feeling like jelly.
    “Is Daniel in?” I asked Norma, the receptionist who had a steely attitude to everybody but the cops at the station, who she liked to call my boys .
    No matter how many times I came into the station, she treated me like I was just another one of the floozy girls some of the younger deputies took out on the weekends.
    “Deputy Brightman’s here, but he’s in a meeting right now,” she said. “When he’s finished, I’ll let him know you’re here.”
    I sat down in one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs.
    But that wasn’t going to do. 
    After a few minutes of rocking back and forth nervously, I realized that this couldn’t wait.
    I stood up, and hoping she wouldn’t notice, brushed past the front desk and through the station to the back where Daniel’s office was.
    “He’s in a meeting, Cindy!” she yelled after me, getting my name wrong like she always did.
    I didn’t respond to her attempts to stop me. 
    I had an answer for him. A real answer. And he needed to know, right away.
    It was an answer that scared me, that made my insides tremble. An answer that made my stomach twist into a web of knots.
    It was an answer that had come to me in the past few seconds of sitting there waiting for him.
    A definitive answer with definitive consequences.
    Norma was going to have to get used to calling me something else soon.
    The office door was closed. I thought about knocking, but that crazy desperation didn’t allow for such timidity.
    I grabbed the door knob, twisted it, and opened the door.
    I walked in.
    “Daniel, I…”
    I trailed off, my words giving out.
    Daniel was standing there in the middle of the room, his arms around someone.
    He looked at me.
    His eyes widened with surprise.
    All I could see was the long red hair and the high heels.
    She turned around, and looked at me.
    And I was speechless as my heart stopped dead inside my