Page 26 of Must Love Mistletoe

“Ah. How are they?”

Seriously? “Who would know? I talk, they listen.”

“And you do this often?” she asked delicately.

“Once a year.”

“I see.” She came closer, took her gloves off and made a show of warming her hands over the firepit flames. She wore a padded coat belted in at the waist and the fur lined hood tamed her flyaway hair and framed her heart-shaped face just so. She had big doe eyes, a pert nose, and lips that haunted his dreams. He’d never seen her look prettier.

“Sam not with you?”

“He’s trick-or-treating in Marietta with his best friend and then having a sleepover.” She dusted fresh snow off the chair beside him and took a seat.

“Be right back,” he muttered and returned a minute later with two more beers and slightly more composure. He opened both, set one on arm of her chair and returned to his seat. Better.

He had no idea what to say to her. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough,” she said quietly. “For what it’s worth, I never once thought you had anything to do with Red’s disappearance, or, as it turns out, his death. I was horrified when I heard you’d been called in for questioning. Red’s lie to me made trouble for you when I repeated it, and I felt so guilty.” She looked to the empty chair in which he’d mentally seated Red’s ghost. “I expected better of him.”

She always had, thought Cal.

And there were so many times Red simply hadn’t delivered.

“What happened on my wedding day, Cal? Why did Red turn up late? Why did you miss it completely? You were supposed to be his best man.”

No. Nope. He wasn’t ever planning to talk about how he’d found Red with a redhead in a Motel8, both of them naked and damn near unconscious with booze. No remembering shoving Red in the shower and driving the woman to the emergency department for fear she had alcohol poisoning. It hadn’t been the first time Cal had hauled Red out of a hole. It had been the first time Cal had betrayed Beth, though. And it wore like a stain on his soul.

No. Nope. For better or for worse, he was taking that secret to the grave.

“You still managed to get married, didn’t you?” He smiled faintly. “It was what you wanted.”

“I know Red was hungover. I could smell it on him.”

Red had wanted him to drop the woman at the hospital and circle back to pick him up and get him to the church on time, but Cal’s conscience hadn’t allowed him to leave until the woman had been seen to. Eight hours later…

Gotta love an overburdened hospital system.

Suzie, that was her name. Red had picked Suzie up at a bar the night before, where she’d been drowning her sorrows with the help of a few pills.

Suzie sent Cal a Christmas card every year—these days with a picture of herself, her husband, and their two little girls, and a long rambling letter to go with it, listing all their achievements each year.

Every year, Suzie scrawled THANK YOU, COWBOYstraight across the middle of it all with a thick black sharpie and every year it made him laugh as he tried to read the summary beneath.

Suzie’s story wasn’t his story to tell. “He’d had a bit to drink, yes. He regretted it.”

“You were his best man. He looked up to you, relied on you to keep him out of trouble, and you didn’t.”

“He was a grown man. We’d had his buck’s party the week before. As far as I knew, he didn’thaveany plans to go drinking the night before the wedding.”

“He was with another woman.”

Cal said nothing. How much did she know?

“Red said he didn’t even know her name, that he’d picked her up in a bar,” she said quietly. “I chose to believe him. And that was the start of our marriage.”

He did haveonetruth he could tell. “I couldn’t have stood there and watched you marry him, Beth. Not knowing what I knew. Not knowing whatyouknew. Couldn’t do it. I figured you’d made your choice and the least I could do was respect it.” They’d all been soyoung. Not a lick of maturity to be found in any of them back then. “I saw the photos afterward. You made a pretty bride. You both looked so happy.”

Chalk that one down to things he told himself in the dead of night to ease his guilty conscience.

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