Page 337 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

“Just spill it. All of it,” Molly said, making a sweeping motion with her hand. She was holding the phone with the gesticulating hand, and the picture went wild before settling back on her face. “Chaco’s with me on this one. She wants to know what Mama’s been up to.”

“Only if you tell me about the real date you mentioned. The one that’s not for the Twelve Dates of Christmas.”

Molly pulled a face. “He seemed perfect until he tried to recruit me for his cult.”

“You’re exaggerating. Like with Blake and all his underwear.”

“That was no joke,” Molly said seriously. “Blake probably bears sole responsibility for one of our landfills.” She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right about the veterinarian, but I’m mighty suspicious about those self-betterment groups that peddle sunshine and probably sell uppers on the side. But I don’t want to talk about me for once. I need this epic story you’ve been teasing me with for hours.”

Molly’s description made her think about Blue, who’d been quite rightfully horrified by the whole puking incident. Dan had been waiting with an aggrieved expression when they got back from the bathroom. He’d gotten Blue another beer on top of her untouched one, which seemed to represent a certain hardheadedness. He didn’t want to know much about Blue’s work or her friends, and he couldn’t even be bothered to remember what she liked to drink? Upon learning Maisie’s “friend” had vomited on Blue, he’d turned even colder. It had obviously solidified his bad impression of Maisie—just like his behavior had made her more certain she’d made the right call about him.

If the Bad Luck Club had led Blue to that gem, it might not be much of a winner.

But Molly cleared her throat, lifting her eyebrows in expectation, and forced her to table the thought. She’d promised Blue an explanation for Lee’s behavior, but she could catch up with her later.

“To be clear,” Maisie said, her gaze shooting to the pen and pad ready and waiting next to her sister, “this absolutely cannot go in a blog post, anonymous or otherwise. It’s too personal to Jack.”

Her warning only seemed to make Molly more eager, and because Maisie had never intendednotto tell her, she started with Victoria’s close, personal friendship with the Biltmores. Molly laughed plenty, made inappropriate comments even more, and cheered Maisie for talking so frankly with River and Georgie. And, of course, for the whole sex-against-the-door incident. When Maisie made it to the end, her voice almost hoarse from talking, Molly shook her head dramatically.

“That’s one hell of a story,” she said, “and it physically pains me that you don’t want me to write about it.”

“You’ll survive. You can write about the cult.”

Molly’s only response was to make a speculative sound in her throat.

Something creaked in the hall, but when Maisie glanced over, she didn’t see anything through the crack in the door. Old houses.

“Thatwouldbe interesting,” Molly continued. “But unfortunatelyBeyond the Sheetsonly does puff pieces. An undercover piece would be too in-depth for them.” A pause. “I can’t believe you and River finally had a real talk. That’s about seven or eight years overdue.” From the speed with which she’d changed the subject, it was obvious she didn’t want to talk about work. Maisie wondered, as she had for some time, when Molly was going to get sick of working forBeyond the Sheets. It was fun, but fun only got you so far. Someday she’d want more of a challenge.

“Yeah, I guess it was time.” Thinking about it, her throat got thick with emotion. “It went so much better than I could have hoped. I…God, as much as I hate to say it, Mary was right, we were codependent on each other after Mom and Dad died. If we’d gotten together, it wouldn’t have been good for either of us. He thanked me for pushing him away that day. For not kissing him.”

“You agonized over it for like a week. Okay, until a few months ago,” Molly said, her eyes dancing. “Guess you made the right call after all, although you’ll have to throw away all of those old notebooks with Maisie Reeves written on the margins. I’m sure you still have them.”

“Nah, I went for River O’Shea. I’ve always been a modern woman,” Maisie joked. “And I’ll have you know I’ve started throwing things out.” She waved at the room around her. “This is just the beginning. I’m done living in the past, Molly. I’m ready.”

“And Jack? Is he going to be part of this splendiferous future? I know you were worried in the beginning because ofMary’s whole thing about the guys you date being too similar to River, but she’s full of it. Everyone has a type, Maisie, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It helps keep us honest.”

Chaco looked up at Maisie, wagging her tail, and she smiled at both of her girls. “I hope so, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

They talked for another minute or so, then signed off, Maisie promising to text her after the sure-to-be-disastrous engagement party. If it wasn’t canceled, of course, and it really, really should be. She wasn’t confident the Buchanan family could sit down to break bread together at this point without at least one person being poisoned or otherwise dispatched. She and Molly were supposed to talk to Mary in a three-way video chat tomorrow, although Maisie would be at the shelter on and off all day. She’d needed to take yesterday and today off, mostly, but she planned to make up for it by being the primary on-duty staffer for Christmas.

After they hung up, Maisie left the room and lingered at the top of the stairs for a moment, listening for sounds of conversation from the kitchen. There were none, so she headed down to the living room, Chaco climbing down after her.

Jack was pacing in front of the Charlie Brown tree, Einstein following at his heels, and from the look on his face—dark, tortured,angry—she knew it hadn’t gone well.

Had Lee been fool enough to reject their indisputable evidence of Prescott Buchanan’s wrongdoing? Had he managed to convince himself it was some other woman in those pictures, maybe someone else’s voice on that tape? Because people were good at convincing themselves to believe the things they wished to be true. She’d fallen victim to it before, and she never wanted to again.

Chaco gave a little whine, and Jack flinched—physically flinched—and looked over.

“So I take it everything went well?” she asked with a small smile, hoping to lighten his mood, but his gaze only darkened.

In the back of her mind she realized this foul mood he was in, this cloud he was under, wasn’t because of Lee. Or at least it wasn’t only because of Lee. It was because ofher. And that meant…

“I overheard part of your conversation with your sister,” he said in a ragged voice. “River’s the reason you didn’t want to start a relationship with me.”

Part of her knew she should apologize for not telling him sooner. She hadn’t wanted him to find out like this, and she wasn’t even altogether certain of what she’d said to Molly. But she’d learned on her first-grade kickball team that defense was the best offense, and the lesson had stuck. “You know, when Dottie invited us to listen in on her conversation with Prescott, she wasn’t suggesting we spy on each other.”

His jaw flexed. “I came up to tell you Lee walked out. Ioverheardsome of what you said, I didn’t eavesdrop. And for the record, I didn’t want to eavesdrop on Prescott either.You’rethe one who did.”

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