I stopped at the corner to rearrange my bundles and bags. According to my little plastic fitness bracelet, I’d put in ten thousand steps for the day. My frozen feet and aching back would’ve guessed higher. Fumbling through my pockets for my cell, I hoped someone from the farm would be willing to come and get me.
I settled cross-legged on the nearest bench and plucked my gloves off.
A ragged green pickup slid against the curb before I could dial. The driver’s side window rolled down. “Holly White?” a congenial male voice called. “Is that you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. The driver hopped onto the curb and headed my way with a wide, warm smile.
“You probably don’t remember me,” he said, combing long dark hair off his forehead. “I’m Ray Griggs. We went to high school together. I was on the yearbook staff. Student journalism staff. Photography Club.”
I smiled back, having no idea who he was. “Right. Of course. How are you?”
“I’m great. You?” He took a seat on the other side of my pile of shopping bags and hooked his elbows over the bench’s back. His navy-blue ski coat fell open, revealing a gray thermal shirt beneath.
“Good. Glad to be home.” I reorganized my bags, filing smaller ones into larger ones and attempting to even out the weight. I sneaked peeks in Ray’s direction as I worked, trying to connect his voice or face to something in my memory. Mistletoe High School wasn’t very big, but nothing about him felt familiar. “You said you were on our yearbook staff?”
“Yep.” His blue eyes twinkled in the midday light. “You were a senior when I was a freshman. You didn’t know I existed.” He laughed.
“I was a reclusive art student. When I wasn’t brooding, I was dreaming of Renoir.”
“Lucky guy.”
A nonsensical blush crept hotly over my cheeks. “Are you out shopping?”
“Nah.” He cast his attention back to me and the pile of packages between us. “I’m not sure there’s anything left.”
“Funny.”
“Where are you headed now? Can I buy you a coffee?”
“I’m on my way home, actually.” I wiggled my phone. “I was calling for a ride when you pulled up. I drove a truck back to Merry Movers and figured someone from the farm would come get me.”
“You moved back?” Ray’s smile expanded, revealing a row of straight white teeth. “This isn’t a holiday visit?”
“Nope.”
“Well, in that case”—he stood and opened his arms like a game show host—“welcome back, Holly White.” He strode to the pickup and opened the passenger door. “Let me drive you home.”
I chewed the inside of my lip.
“Aw, come on. I’m not a lunatic.” He came back to my side and collected my bags. “Would a lunatic carry your bags and hold the door?” He tossed my bags onto the bench seat of his bulbous old Ford.
I nodded. “If he wanted to get me into his truck so he could kill me? Yes.”
Ray went around and climbed onto the driver’s seat while I stared at the open passenger door. “Hey.” He leaned across the seat until his face came into view through the open door. A deep crease had formed between his brows. “Weren’t you getting married?”
My tummy knotted as I climbed inside. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fair enough.” He pulled the green beast into traffic with a rumble.
I buckled up and kept 9-1-1 on my phone screen just in case this really was an abduction.
“I get up to Reindeer Games at least once a week for breakfast,” he said casually. “Your mom’s the best cook in town next to mine. My mom’s got a thing for the Hearth’s snickerdoodles, so I try to get out your way and bring a dozen home with me when I can.”
“You live with your mom?” I asked. Ray couldn’t have been more than twenty-three if he was a freshman when I was a senior. I guessed lots of kids moved home after college or an ugly breakup.
“We lost Dad a couple years back,” he said. “They had too much land for her to manage, and I didn’t have time to keep up with it for her, so she moved in with me when the estate settled. Farming’s a full-time job. I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”
I cleared my phone and stowed it in my pocket. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
He flicked his gaze in my direction. “Thanks.” His soft, youthful features turned hard for a long moment.
I’d scratched a wound. I needed a new subject. “So how about you? Not married?”
He gave me a goofy look. “No.”
“Why not?”
He smiled at the windshield. “No comment. What happened to your engagement?”
“I was dumped for a yoga instructor.”
He chuckled. “So you blame yourself?”
“No!”
“You should. You agreed to marry a moron.”
I laughed. “I guess you’re right.”
“We all make mistakes. At least you were lucky enough to dodge yours. I’d call that a win.”
I got comfortable in the warm truck, suddenly enjoying the view, the conversation, and the company. “You make it sound like I had a choice.”
He cast a curious glance my way. “Would you take him back?”
“No.”
“Well, then, you made a choice. A smart one, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Not at all.” I hummed along with the radio as the bustle of downtown slipped away outside my window. An abundance of snow-dusted trees appeared in the town’s absence.
“I heard about Margaret Fenwick,” Ray said. “Were you there when it happened?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
I gave Ray a long look. “I found her.”
“You’re kidding.” He jerked his gaze from the road to my face and back. “Seriously?”
“I tried to resuscitate her, but the paramedics said she was probably gone when I found her. That it wasn’t my fault.” I pressed a mitten to my mouth. “Sorry. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
He watched me silently, dragging his attention back to the road only as needed to stay between the lines. “Did you kill her?”
“No!” I scoffed, twisting on the seat until my back was pressed to the door. “Why would you ask something like that?”
“Well, if you didn’t kill her, how can it be your fault?”
“I don’t know. I keep thinking I should’ve done something else. Something more.” I studied the puddle forming around my boots on the floor mat. “I stayed with her until help arrived so she wouldn’t be alone.” Stubborn tears blurred my vision. “It wasn’t enough. If I’d left the Hearth a few minutes sooner, she might be alive. My family farm wouldn’t be under town-wide scrutiny. I’d be pouring hot chocolates and taking cookie orders instead of spending all my money in town trying to find out what people knew about Margaret.”
“Hey . . .” Ray slowed to a crawl on the berm of our quiet county road. “This wasn’t your fault.”
I caught a rebellious tear with the pad of my thumb. “I know.” I sniffled. “Logically, I know. It just seems like there should’ve been something someone could’ve done.”
He slowly added pressure to the gas pedal, steering us back into our lane. “Yeah, the killer could’ve not murdered a harmless old lady, but you did all you could.”
I fished a crumpled tissue from my purse and blotted my eyes. “Did you know this is the first murder Mistletoe’s had in forty years?”
His eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “Where’d you dig up that information?”
“Sheriff Gray.”
“Ah.” He bobbed his head. “Does the good sheriff have any suspects?”
“Yeah, right.” I barked a humorless laugh. “You mean besides my family and every worker on the farm? Not that I’m aware of, which is why I was in town talking to everyone.”
“Private investigation. I like it.” Ray tapped his thumbs against the steering wheel. “Learn anything?”
“Not really.” I shoved the ruined tissue into my pocket and sighed. “Do you have any tissues in here?”
“Glove box.”
I leaned forward and pinched the little door open. A travel pack of tissues that’d had been jammed in haphazardly with countless receipts, pens, and notebooks fell out. A lanyard with a laminated nametag landed beside my boots. “Sorry.” I scooped the fallen object into my hand and pulled it onto my lap. I liberated a tissue before replacing the items into Ray’s glove box. A tiny photo of Ray smiled back at me from the nametag. “Ray Griggs, Mistletoe Gazette.” I read aloud. “You’re a reporter?” My tummy clenched.
“I’m trying. Mostly, I take pictures.”
Nausea set my world on edge. “All your questions,” I groaned. “Was this some kind of interview?”
“No. Of course not.” He slowed the truck at my parents’ driveway.
A few hundred feet away, the sheriff’s cruiser blocked the closed entrance to Reindeer Games.
“Right.” I gathered my packages. “Reporters always insist on driving women home immediately after their family has undergone a trauma, expecting nothing in return.”
“I thought you’d want to talk about it.”
I scoffed in his direction and released my seat belt. “Did you even go to my high school?”
He jammed the truck into park and swiveled to face me. “You seriously don’t remember me at all?”
“No.” I gripped my bags with unnecessary roughness. “But I won’t forget you now.” I popped the door open and jumped out. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Holly.” The sincerity in his voice stopped me short.
I turned for one last look at him.
“I take photos for the paper, and sometimes I submit articles, but I wasn’t prodding you for an inside scoop. I was just being friendly. Sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me.”
“If I see any part of our conversation in an article, the next time your name’s printed, it’ll be in your obituary.” I regretted the rant immediately. “I’m sorry. That was a joke. A terrible, horribly timed, not funny joke.”
“So you aren’t planning to kill me?” he asked. A teasing smile played on his lips.
I leveled a palm between us and tilted it side to side to indicate the jury was still out.
Ray flipped his visor down and retrieved a business card. “Here.” He pushed it in my direction. “If you just want to talk.”
I snagged the little paper rectangle. “I hope you’re a nice guy,” I said. “I like to think the best of people—don’t prove me wrong.”
He did a weird salute. “It was nice talking with you, Holly White.”
I wasn’t sure I shared the sentiment, but I returned his salute anyway.
The rusty pickup reversed out of the drive and spun onto the road in a slow, steady fashion.
What could I do if he wrote an article about our conversation? Nothing. Absolutely nothing—once it was printed, I’d be too late. The damage would already be done.