Lori Wilde - Mistletoe & Mayhem

“DID YOU GET the gun, dear?”

“No. Hank Jefferson flat out refused to sell me one,” Jodie announced as she joined the Rutherford sisters at their regular table in the window of Albert’s Café.

“It’s for the best,” Irene, the younger of the two sisters said as she patted the peach-colored curls that framed her face. “Guns make me nervous.”

“Everything makes you nervous,” Sophie declared. “And Hank Jefferson’s an idiot.” In her early seventies, Sophie Rutherford still dressed with military precision and wore her iron-gray hair pulled back and twisted into a neat bun. Sophie reminded Jodie of a tank, and she had a personality to match.

“It’s your constitutional right to bear arms,” Sophie added. “You could sue him.”

“Hank would probably persuade the jury that he’d saved my life,” Jodie replied.

Irene shivered. “Firearms are dangerous. An accident could happen.”

“I don’t think Hank was worried about an accident,” Jodie remarked dryly. “He thought I wanted the gun to shoot myself.”

Irene stared at her. “Why ever would you do that?”

“Because of Billy,” Jodie said.

“What does he think you are? Some poor Ophelia pining away for her Hamlet?” Sophie demanded.

“He wanted to introduce me to a perfect stranger,” Jodie said. “I think he was going to ask the guy to take me to the Mistletoe Ball.”

“Well, Hank’s got it all wrong. Billy’s coming back to you, dear. He didn’t desert you by choice,” Irene said. “When the police came to the house, he tried to resist arrest. That shows how much he really cared for—”

Sophie set her teacup down with such force that it rattled every piece of crockery on the table. “When are you going to stop defending that good-for-nothing nephew of ours? It’s thanks to him that Jodie lost her house, and we have to turn ours into a bed-and-breakfast!”

Irene clapped her hands over her ears. “I’m not going to listen to anything bad about Billy. He’s innocent until proven guilty.”

Jodie took one look at the expression on Sophie’s face and hastened to intervene. “How are the preparations for the Mistletoe Ball going?”

Immediately a smile lit up Irene’s face. “It’s going to be the best one ever. Having it in Slocum Hall instead of the library gives us so much more room for dancing. It was Sophie’s idea.”

“You’re the one who thought of having the caterers dress up as Dickens characters this year. People are going to remember that longer than they remember the extra dancing room, my dear.”

Breathing a silent sigh of relief, Jodie leaned back in her chair as the two women continued to talk about the ball. For as long as she could remember, the Rutherford sisters had cochaired the Mistletoe Ball, an annual fund-raiser for the Castleton College Library. It was scheduled for the Friday before Christmas, and practically everyone in town would be going.

“Hank Jefferson could be right about one thing,” Sophie said, turning suddenly to Jodie. “You really should have a date for the ball.”

“Absolutely not,” Jodie said. “No sympathy dates for me, thank you. Besides, attending the Mistletoe Ball is part of my job. I have to stand at my boss’s side and make sure he knows the names of all the important contributors.”

“It’s time that Angus Campbell resigned from that job if he can’t keep track of the contributors,” Sophie said. “And you shouldn’t let him intimidate you. Did you forget your motto of the day?”

“No,” Jodie said. How could she, when Sophie tore them off a calendar and stuck them on the refrigerator door each day? According to the publishers of the calendar, if she incorporated them into her daily life, she was going to be a new person in just 365 days.

Privately, Jodie had her doubts about how effective a bunch of mottos was going to be in transforming her. The expression of pity she’d seen earlier on Hank Jefferson’s face testified to the fact that they hadn’t done much good so far. In the eyes of the residents of Castleton, she was still the same “poor Jodie” who’d allowed Billy Rutherford III to turn her into a complete patsy.

“Jodie!” Nadine Carter hurried toward them, a teapot in her hand. The pretty blonde had been Jodie’s student assistant until she’d decided to quit college six months ago and start waitressing at Albert’s. So far Jodie had been unsuccessful at getting her to go back to school.

“I’ve got this new herbal tea I want you to try. It’s supposed to be great for pulling you out of depression.”

“I’m not depressed,” Jodie said, but she knew as she met Nadine’s eyes that she had about as much chance of convincing her of that as she’d had of getting Hank Jefferson to sell her a gun.

“Just try it,” Nadine urged. “I hear you’re feeling a little down today.”

Jodie stared down at the teapot Nadine had placed in front of her. It had bright-yellow daisies dancing all over it, mocking her. Alicia Finnerty had been busy, she thought. By this evening, everyone in town would know.

Suddenly, she’d had it. She glared down at the dancing daisies. “Take it away. I’m through with herbal tea. I’ll have a…a cappuccino.”

Nadine stared at her in exactly the same way Hank had when she’d asked to hold one of the guns in his display case. “But you…you don’t drink caffeine.”

“Well, today I’m just going to go for it,” Jodie said, lifting the teapot and placing it firmly back in Nadine’s hands.

Nadine opened her mouth, shut it. Finally she said, “I don’t know—”

“On second thought, make that a double-strength cappuccino,” Jodie said.

Sophie waited until the waitress had walked out of earshot before she reached over to pat Jodie’s hand. “Atta girl. You did remember today’s motto.”

“Go for It,” Jodie recited. “And I’m throwing over my herbal tea habit. Whoop-de-do,” she muttered sarcastically.

“You tried to buy a hand gun, too. And Hank Jefferson had no right not to sell it to you. Did you tell him about the prowler?” Sophie asked.

“He told me to go tell the sheriff, and he patted me on the arm.” Jodie frowned. People were always patting her—on the head, on the arm, on her back. Somehow she brought that out in people. She hadn’t liked it at eleven and she didn’t like it any better at twenty-six. “I don’t think he believed me. He almost refused to sell me the rope.” She gestured toward the package she’d carried into the café. “I’m sure he’s worried that I might use it to hang myself.”

Both women reached for her hands.

“You wouldn’t,” Irene said.

“You couldn’t,” Sophie said.

As Jodie looked into the eyes of the two older women, she smiled for the first time since she’d left Hank Jefferson’s sporting goods store. “Of course not,” she said.

She’d known the Rutherford sisters ever since she was a little girl. Born into a once affluent family of New York city bankers, they’d never married. And when the family had fallen on hard times, they’d moved into one of the Rutherford family’s summer homes on Castleton Lake. Both women served on the board of trustees at the college, and they’d convinced the dean of the college to hire her as assistant librarian once she’d graduated.

Irene cleared her throat. “What are you going to do with the rope? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Not at all,” Jodie said. “It’s Plan B. Sort of. Remember last Monday’s motto—There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Cat?”

Sophie shot a triumphant glance at her sister before she turned to Jodie. “Those mottoes are starting to work. They’re becoming part of you.”

“I guess,” Jodie said. The truth was that while she’d been working all morning at the library and trying to visualize the gun in her mind, she’d begun to have second thoughts about whether or not she’d have the nerve to actually use it. Pulling a paper out of her pocket, she spread it out on the table. “While I was helping one of the students do some research work on the Internet this morning, I came across this.”