AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Because it wasn’t just one thing on his plate now.
At least he didn’t have to go into work this morning, where he’d have to deal with a flood of calls from those worried about the mail. Instead, he was home, where he was ignoring the flood of calls and trying to decide if he should make a call of his own.
The toppled cowboy Santa, wet tourists, downed disco balls, and a mayor’s injured butt now seemed like annoying specks in the grand scheme of things. There was no way for such bad news specks to compete with Emmy kissing him or finding two hundred and twelve letters and cards and thirteen packages that his father should have but didn’t deliver.
Yes, Emmy’s kiss definitely ranked high up in the breaking news of the past twenty hours.
Not a bad thing, exactly, but not good either. After all, she hadn’t kissed him because of the relentless heat that they generated anytime they were together but because she’d been pissed at Sasha.
Too bad his body hadn’t gotten the memo that it was a kiss all for show, because certain parts of him had reacted. The brainless part of him behind the zipper of his jeans had thought it was the best idea ever and had urged him to dive back in for more kisses. He hadn’t, thank goodness. He hadn’t jumped headfirst right into that stupid pool and kissed Emmy as if there was no tomorrow.
Because there was a tomorrow.
And he was darn sure he was going to need his best friend to get through all the stuff that was going on. The stuff that included him making this call and dealing with the cards that Vanessa Bozeman had sent Waylon.
Or rather, sent toDaddy.
There were twelve of them, and from what Calen had been able to tell by the postmarks and the occasional enclosed pictures, Vanessa had sent the first one when she’d been about six. The last had come two years ago, right before Waylon had died from a heart attack.
Calen wasn’t sure it was technically legal for him to open his father’s mail, but he’d justified it because he was Waylon’s next of kin. He’d also justified running a background check on Vanessa since she, too, might be next of kin. He’d discovered she was twenty-four, twelve years younger than he, and that she lived in San Antonio, where she worked in a bakery. She was also a widow, having lost her husband in a construction accident six months earlier.
Before Calen could disgust himself with any more debates, he pressed in the number he’d gotten from Vanessa’s background check. It was nine in the morning, so he figured she’d be up and about.
His gut tightened while he waited. And waited. And waited. After six rings, the call went to voicemail, and he heard the recorded greeting.
“Hi, this is Nessa. I can’t take your call right now because I’m probably mixing up some sugary sweet goodies that’ll double the size of your thighs and make you saymmm. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you. Happy holidays.”
The entire message was coated with plenty of glee, but the last two words were especially glee-filled. So, this woman who was possibly his sister was a holiday lover. Strange, since she had to be going through her own crap anniversary. This was the first Christmas since her husband’s death.
He settled for saying, “Uh, this is Calen Jameson. Call me if you want to talk,” and clicked off.
Calen frowned, added anotherwell, hell, but he didn’t have time to dwell on the call because there was a knock on the door. A frantic one. Since he didn’t live in town but rather on the outskirts, it meant someone had driven out to his horse ranch, no doubt to ask him about the blasted undelivered mail. Cursing his father and everything else going on, he went to the door, prepared to tell whoever it was to get the hell off his porch.
But it was Emmy.
Emmy wearing snug dark jeans, boots, and a red sweater beneath her equally Christmassy-colored coat. Colors not chosen because of her fondness for the holiday but because the tourists preferred to buy books from someone who looked the part in ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.
Bringing in the cold morning wind with her, she rushed in the moment he opened the door and then quickly closed it behind her. She peered out one of the sidelight windows.
“Someone might have followed me,” she muttered, shrugging off her coat.
That gave him a jolt of alarm. “Who?” And because he was a cop, his brain went straight to a worst-case scenario. Not logical. Because Christmas Creek wasn’t a haven for serial killers or stalkers.
“Any one of the three-dozen people who’ve come to my house to ask about the blasted letters,” she snarled. “It’s been nonstop since you left yesterday, and it started again at eight this morning. You haven’t gotten anyone out here?”
“Calls, texts, and emails but no visitors.” That probably had something to do with folks not wanting to make the drive out to his ranch when they could just pester Emmy. After all, she was the one who’d found the letters, and some probably figured she’d be more likely to talk about them than he would be. “I’m sorry,” Calen added.
She waved his apology off, but she was clearly annoyed when she turned to face him. Well, temporarily annoyed anyway. He saw her mood quickly morph to include something he didn’t want to see on his best friend’s face. Wariness.
Hell, this was about that blasted kiss.
Since he was feeling some wariness of his own, along with a whole crapload of guilt for having such dirty thoughts about Emmy, Calen decided to deflect and fill her in on the past hours since he’d left her house.
“I worked my way through the hierarchy of the U.S. Postal Service and reported the undelivered mail. They’ll investigate the situation right away and come up with a solution. The most obvious one is that the mail will simply be delivered to the addressees or returned to sender if the recipient is no longer alive.”
Emmy stayed quiet a moment. “And will they press charges against your father?”
He shook his head. “No need since he’s not around to be arrested, but there’ll be an investigation to see if anyone else in the post office here was complicit in what happened. I don’t believe anyone else was involved, and that’s what I put in my official statement,” Calen added. “I think this was just Waylon being Waylon.”
