Hal Holden stood by the open passenger side door of his blue 1990 GMC pickup truck as he tugged on a box in the seat. He was a couple inches taller than Ezra but with the same deep-set eyes, high cheekbones, and wide mouth. There was no denying they were father and son.
“Hal,” Lynn scolded. “Leave it.”
The man pulled his shoulders back and huffed, “I’m not an invalid,” as he turned to face her. His irritation turned to happily surprised when he spied Ezra. “Hey, stranger. Good to see you.” He took a wobbly step toward his son and held out his hand. “I thought you weren’t going to be here for a few more hours.”
“Hey, Dad.” They shook hands. “We decided to pop over before checking in at Thorny Creek.” He shook his head at the truck. “I can’t believe you’re still driving that old beater.”
“I just had the engine rebuilt two years ago. She’s practically brand new.” Hal looked at my car. “Don’t tell me you’re buying foreign these days.”
“No, my Chevy is back home.” Ezra gestured to my mini-SUV with a quick jerk of his thumb. “We brought Nora’s car because it has more room for bags and stuff in the back.”
“And it’s more comfortable for long drives.” I smiled at Hal. “Hi, I’m the aforementioned Nora.”
“Call me Hal.” Hal leaned toward me, and I shook his hand. “Glad to finally meet you, Nora.”
I stepped back to give Ezra and his dad some room.
Lynn skirted around Hal and got the box out of the passenger seat while the man was distracted by his son. It was too cold to be outside without my coat on, but there had been an urgency in her action to get outside before Hal could carry anything in, so Ezra and I had followed her without donning our jackets.
“Anything else need grabbing?” I asked her.
“There’s a bag on the floor there.” She pointed to a cute cloth tote covered in pictures of Christmas trees and presents. “It’s got the silverware and some odds and ends that I wanted.”
When I leaned over to grab it, a brisk breeze went right up the back of my sweater. “Woo, cold,” I muttered as I hurriedly snatched the woven handles and lifted them out. It was half full of red cloth napkins along with some candles, a bundle of forks, knives, and spoons. The silverware gave the tote heft.
Swiftly, I followed Lynn back into the house, leaving the two Holden men chatting in the cold driveway.
The box of dishes clattered as she set it down on the center island. “Here.” She indicated the space next to the box for me to put the tote. “It’s feeling a lot like snow,” the woman observed.
“The humidity is making everything damp, and they’re calling for a cold front,” I agreed. I plopped the bag onto the surface. “We might just get a white Christmas.”
“They’re overrated,” she said, then gave me a sly grin. “Do I sound Grinchy?”
“Only a smidge.” I giggled. “The house is full of holiday cheer, and you baked an awful lot of cookies.”
“I make them for everyone in the family. It’s a cheap Christmas gift.”
“Are you kidding? When you factor in labor, each one of those tins is worth at least twenty-five dollars. That’s a substantial present.”
She frowned as she scanned the counter of tins, then nodded. “You know what? You’re absolutely right.” The kettle we’d abandoned roared to boiling. Lynn widened her eyes. “The water’s ready.”
We decided to make up four cups of tea. Lynn opened the drawer and picked English Breakfast for Ezra and Dragon Well green tea for Hal. Ezra was more of a coffee drinker, so English Breakfast, being a stronger black tea, was a good choice. Soon, the four of us were settled into the living room.
“Did you all have a nice drive in?” Hal’s eyes lit up when he smiled. I was once again reminded of Ezra.
“Yep. Roads weren’t too busy,” Ezra answered.
“We stopped at Weston’s Restaurant for lunch,” I added.
“They have the best onion rings,” Lynn remarked. “Gosh, Hal, we haven’t eaten there in a while.”
He smiled at his wife. “We should make a plan.”
She looked startled for a moment, then narrowed her gaze on him. “We’ll see.”
Ezra took the opportunity to transition the conversation. “While we were at the restaurant, we ran into Penny. What’s she been up to lately?”
“You didn’t ask her?”
He shifted uncomfortably under his mom’s scrutiny. “Our interaction was brief.”
I arched a brow at him.
He shrugged. “Anyways, I was just wondering how she’s been doing. She seemed a little on edge.”
It wasn’t the smoothest of segues, but I gave him an E for effort.
Hal took a sip of his tea. He made a face at the beverage and then looked at Ezra. “She got laid off from her secretarial job at Mega-Shield Insurance and has been working in the front office at Pike Manufacturing for about a year.”
“Hal put in a good word for her,” Lynn said, “He’s the day shift supervisor over the fabrication department now.”
“Congrats on the promotion, Dad,” Ezra said. “That’s great. You deserve it.”
“Hal’s been at the plant now, for what, Thirty-six years?” Lynn interjected.
Hal nodded, looking pleased by the opportunity to talk about his work. “Yep. It’s been thirty-six years. I know every job out on the factory floor backward and forward. I started working there when Lynn was pregnant with Ezra. Worked my way up from the line.” He shrugged. “Even so, I don’t see Penny much at the plant. The last I heard, she was doing a good job, but that was the first couple of months she was there.”
Lynn set her teacup down on the coffee table. “Lettie says that Penny’s been helping Clark Faber organize the Santa Walk.”
Ezra cocked a brow. “Clark Faber?”
“He’s a Springfield local who just moved to Hillside this past year after he retired from the air force,” Hal said. “Pike hired him as the new human resource manager back in June after Dale Watkin left. Penny’s his assistant.”
“Clark decided to retire after his mother got sick. She suffered from Alzheimer’s, so he moved back to the area to be close to her. A good son.” Lynn sighed. “She died a few months ago.”
I didn’t think that was a dig at Ezra, but I’d have to understand the family dynamic better before I could make that call. Even so, I saw the wounding on Ezra’s face.
Hal, oblivious to the shift in the room between mother and son, gave a condolent nod. “From what I heard, Penny stepped up to help him when he had to settle his mother’s affairs.”
“Lettie says Penny’s really turning her life around,” Lynn added as if she needed to defend her niece.
A grunt of disbelief escaped Ezra.
His mom’s brows dipped at him. “You have something to say?”
Ezra hemmed for a moment, then dropped the bomb. “She was meeting Rob.”
“Really?” Lynn frowned. “Elaine’s Rob?”
Ezra nodded. “Yep.”
“Penny’s family.” His mom pished. “I’m sure it wasn’t anything.”
Hal harrumphed. “I knew he was cheating on Elaine. She wouldn’t say, but this seems like proof.”
“That’s not proof,” Lynn said firmly. “If he was stepping out on her, she would’ve told me.”
Hal flexed his fingers and rubbed the knees of his jeans. “The next time I see him….”
“Hopefully, we won’t run into him any time soon.” Lynn returned her attention to Ezra and changed the subject to a happier topic. “How’s Mason?”
“Good.” Ezra’s chest puffed with pride. “He’s a senior at MU.” MU was the University of Missouri in Columbia. Mason was studying biomedical science there.
Hal held up a finger to indicate number one and wagged it at us. “Go, Tigers.”
Ezra beamed with pleasure. “He made the Dean’s list last semester.”
“Didn’t he just graduate last year?” Lynn asked.
“Yep,” Ezra replied warmly. “But he earned his associate degree by taking college courses while he was in high school.”
Ezra’s dad reached out and gave him a congratulatory pat on the knee. “He gets his smarts from you.”
Ezra half smiled. “I’m afraid Mason far surpasses me in the brains department.”
“He and my goddaughter Ari were part of the STEM program back home,” I said.
“What’s that?” Lynn asked.
“Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” I answered. “They were both in the program at Garden Cove High School.”
“They build robots and other really cool things,” Ezra added.
“Is that how you two met?” Lynn asked. “Through the kids?”
“No, nothing that simple.” I glanced over at Ezra, and he was looking at me with a light in his eyes that made my heart skip a beat. “He arrested my best friend for murder.”
Lynn’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re kidding me.”
“Not in the least.” I shook my head.
“And not exactly accurate.” The smile on Ezra’s face was worth every bit of this rehashing. “We actually met when I served her with a restraining order.”
“For what?” Hal said. He and Lynn leaned forward, eager to hear the story.
“She pulled a gun on a man….”
“Who was stalking my best friend,” I emphasized so I didn’t sound like a crazed killer. “And he’d shown up at my house trying to track her down.”
“What happened to him?” Lynn asked.
“He’s the guy my friend was arrested for murdering.”
The woman stirred her tea with her fingertip, captivated by the tale. “But she didn’t do it.”
“No way. Gilly, while having a decent motive, was completely innocent.” I turned my gaze to Ezra. “Your son helped me prove it.”
“Don’t you mean you helped me?” He playfully nudged me with his elbow but addressed his parents. “Nora is quite the detective. She’s consulted with the police department on several investigations.”
“Really?” Lynn asked. “How did you get involved in consulting?”
“My dad was the chief of police until he died, and my ex is the current chief of police in Garden Cove. However, it wasn’t a career I was ever interested in. But in the past couple of years, since my best friend’s case, I’ve developed a gift for sniffing out crime.”
Ezra snorted a loud laugh. “That’s right on the nose,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to his parents. “Did you want to see some pictures of Mason? I took them this summer when he was home for break.”
“Oh, yes,” Lynn exclaimed. “I haven’t seen Mason since Kati moved him away.”
That was nine years ago. Wow. That was a long time not to see their grandchild. I retrieved my phone from my purse, and I saw I had several missed texts and phone calls from Gilly, but I didn’t immediately check them. If the shop had burned down since this morning, I could wait a little while longer to find out.
First pictures.
I tapped the picture folder and scrolled through until I found the ones with Mason in them. I pulled up the first one I landed on. Mason and Ari, Gilly’s daughter, were posing playfully, and the lake was in the background.
I handed the phone to Lynn. “We had a barbeque at Ezra’s cabin. I took that picture down by the dock.”
“You have a cabin on the lake?” Hal asked.
My gut squeezed as Ezra gave them a crisp “Yep.” The conversation up to this point had been so pleasant I’d almost forgotten they were estranged.
Lynn had grown quiet. Finally, she commented, “He looks just like you did at that age.”
“He is definitely a mini-Ezra,” I agreed.
She handed the phone back to me. “Pretty girl. Ari, you say? Is she Mason’s girlfriend?”
“They’re just friends.” Ari had strongly hinted that Mason was gay, but until he was ready to tell people, I wasn’t about to out the kid to his dad or his grandparents.
“I wish you would’ve brought him to Hillside for the Holiday,” Lynn said wistfully. “We would love to see him more than once every decade.”
Ezra arched his brow at his mom. “The road from Garden Cove to Hillside goes both ways. You all could always come and visit.”
Lynn’s shoulders bunched, and her expression cooled. “We’ve never been invited.”
I shifted uncomfortably as the mood in the room altered.
“You don’t need an invitation to visit family,” Ezra countered.
“Apparently, you do,” his mom argued. “Would you ever have come home if I hadn’t asked?”
“Now, Lynn,” Hal cautioned.
Ezra’s ears were turning an unflattering shade of red, but he spoke calmly. “I’m here now.”
Whoa. Things had gotten super tense. I thought the room needed a moment to breathe. I certainly did. I stood up from the couch. “We have got a bunch of presents for the tree,” I chimed in. “Might as well get it done sooner rather than later. Ezra, you want to give me a hand?”
He got to his feet beside me. “Good idea.” To his parents, he said, “Then we better go get checked in at the B and B.”
His mom sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to fight with you.”
Ezra nodded. “I’m not trying to fight with you either.”
She gave him a tight smile. “Good. Then we won’t fight.”
“That’d be a first,” Hal muttered.
Lynn gave him a warning glare, and I fought down a nervous titter.
Ezra headed out. Lynn touched my arm to stop me from leaving after him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “This isn’t the first impression I wanted to make.”
“It’s fine.” I had real sympathy for her. Whatever she was going through with her husband couldn’t be easy. Add to that a rift with her son, and I imagined she was struggling to cope with it all. “Family is messy.”
“That’s the truth.” The tension around her mouth and eyes eased. “Do you want some help bringing stuff inside?”
“No, we have it.”
She stared toward the door where Ezra had exited. “I’m sure things will be less tense this afternoon.”
I didn’t think anything would change between then and now, but I liked her optimism.