The Snow White Christmas Cookie

about a case of the old postmaster’s home-brewed stout. “Would you mind lugging it upstairs for me?”

“You are on,” Mitch assured him.

“Fine and dandy. I’ll meet you down there in half a tick. Just have to stop off and take a pee. Or try. I may be a while, if you catch my drift.”

Nonetheless, Mitch headed off toward the kitchen with him.

Des watched them go, then turned to discover Josie was smiling at her. “You and Mitch are so fortunate that you found each other,” she said.

“Yes, we are,” Des said politely, all the while thinking: I really don’t like Josie Cantro.

CHAPTER 2

I really like Josie Cantro, Mitch reflected as he made his way down the steep stairs into Rut Peck’s dimly lit cellar. True, his new neighbor could get a bit overzealous when it came to dietary matters. She’d uncovered his secret caches of Cocoa Puffs three times so far and hurled them into the trash. But in the world of positive energy Josie was what’s known as a carrier. Ever since Mitch had lost his beloved wife, Maisie, to ovarian cancer he’d had very little use for the company of his fellow New York critics, a blase breed who were unremittingly sarcastic, sour and smug. Mitch vastly preferred people like Josie, enthusiastic people who embraced the joy of being alive.

And she’d sure worked miracles with Bryce. The man who’d shown up next door to Mitch at summer’s end had been a lost soul who had nowhere else to go. Mitch had been glad when Bryce’s older brother, Preston, an uber-rich Chicago commodities trader, permitted him to stay on as Big Sister’s winter caretaker. Winters were rugged out on Big Sister, the forty acres of Yankee paradise that Mitch was lucky enough to call home. There were five precious old Peck family houses on the island, not counting Mitch’s two hundred-year-old post-and-beam caretaker’s cottage and the decommissioned lighthouse that was the second tallest in New England. Last winter there’d been a ton of storm damage to the rickety wooden causeway that connected the private island to the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve. Also to the Peck family houses. But until Josie came along, Bryce had to qualify as New England’s most hands-off caretaker. All he did was drink beer, pop Vicodin and watch the Cartoon Network. Did no chores. Rarely left the island. Spoke to no one. It was the Peck family’s attorney, Glynis Fairchild-Forniaux, who’d gently urged him to contact Josie. Unexpectedly, the two of them had fallen in love. Once she moved in, Bryce was transformed into a dutiful caretaker from dawn until dusk. He took a chainsaw to the trees that had come down when Tropical Storm Gail brushed past them in October. Replaced several rotting planks and railings in the causeway. And when the blizzards started coming, one after another, he kept the causeway clear with the Pecks’ mammoth John Deere snow thrower. Mitch liked having Bryce and Josie around. They’d invited him over a few times for her three-alarm Thai vegan dinners. Josie would chatter away gaily. Sometimes Bryce would even stir from his remote silence and join the conversation. She was working wonders with the guy.

Rut Peck’s cellar reeked of damp concrete, mold and something else that smelled vaguely like decaying potatoes. There wasn’t much headroom down there. Mitch’s curly hair very nearly brushed the floor joists over his head. Cardboard boxes, suitcases and old steamer trunks were piled everywhere. There was a workbench against one wall, built-in cupboards against another. The only light came from one naked bulb in the stairwell.

Mitch heard footsteps on the stairs behind him almost as soon as he got down there. “That didn’t take you long at all,” he said. Only it wasn’t the old postmaster. “Oh, hey, I thought you were Rut.”

“Nope, still me,” Bryce Peck said, dragging deeply on a cigarette. “For now, anyhow. Just an awkward stage.” Bryce had a strange, elliptical way of talking. He often seemed to be not all there-not all there as in part of him was somewhere else that was far away and incredibly scary. “If Josie catches me smoking she’ll skin me alive. But I’m desperate, man. Cigarettes are the only vice I have left.” His eyes flicked warily into the cellar’s darkened corners. “Damn, I haven’t been down in a basement this small since I left Bozeman.”

“What were you doing there?” Mitch asked. Bryce had never mentioned Bozeman before.

“Working construction,” he replied. “Until I fell off a roof. Broke my collarbone. Learned a valuable lesson though.”

“What was that, Bryce?”

“Stay off of roofs.”

Mitch knew that Bryce had cracked up a motorcycle in his youth and that it still caused him a lot of back pain. Hence the Vicodin. He hadn’t known about the roofing accident. Bryce never talked about his past-until he suddenly chose to.

Upstairs, the partygoers erupted into raucous laughter.

Bryce shot a worried glance at the stairway. “I hate parties. Hate having to pretend. Especially clean and sober. It ain’t easy, man.” He stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another one. “I have to remember to breathe. That’s what Josie’s always telling me.”

“I know,” said Mitch, who’d suffered from panic attacks after Maisie died. The attacks didn’t go away until he rented his cottage on Big Sister and met Des. “Parties have always given me the jim-jams.”

“Other people seem to enjoy them.”

“Don’t kid yourself. They’re just here for Rut,” Mitch said, hearing footsteps on the cellar stairs again.

This time it was Rut, puffing and wheezing as he came slowly down. “Have you taken up smoking cigareets, Mitch?”

“That would be me, sir,” Bryce said.

The old man smiled at him genially. “How are you, young fella?”

“Doing okay, sir.”

“Sure you are. We’re all doing okay. And you don’t have to ‘sir’ me. Your dad was my second cousin. And a Peck is a Peck. Good to have you back in town, son. You belong here.”

Bryce looked at him curiously. “Do I?”

“Yes, you do. My young friend and I are about to tear into the last of my home-brewed stout. Can I interest you in a bottle?”

“None for me, thanks. I’d better head back up. Josie worries about me.”

“Treat her right, son. That one’s a keeper.”

Bryce smiled faintly. “Yes, she is.” He stubbed his cigarette out under his heel, carefully picked up both butts and carried them upstairs with him.

Rut watched him go, shaking his head sadly. “That boy could have done anything he wanted to-if he’d just learned how to like himself a little bit. But he never figured out how.”

“Any idea why?”

Rut peered at him through his thick glasses. “You don’t know the story?”

“I know he has a rich older brother.”

“Preston’s his half-brother, actually.”

“Beyond that he doesn’t talk much.”

“Me, I like to talk. Makes me awful thirsty though. You’ll find what we’re looking for in that jelly cupboard over there.”

Mitch opened the cupboard and pulled out a heavy, old-fashioned wooden case that held twenty-four brown bottles of Rut’s prized stout. He set it down gently on the workbench.

Rut opened two bottles and handed Mitch one. Then he settled himself down on a steamer trunk with his and took a long gulp. “Ahh, that’s the good stuff. Just the right temperature, too. If it’s too cold you can’t taste it.” He took another gulp before he said, “Bryce never had a chance. Wasn’t his fault. That’s why I feel so sorry for him. His father, old Lucas, must have been close to sixty when Bryce was born. Lucas was an investment banker in the city. He and his wife, Libby, had themselves a big apartment on Park Avenue. Their boy Preston was in his senior year at Cornell when Lucas fell head over you-know-what for a twenty-three-year-old lingerie model. He divorced Libby, married the girl and had Bryce with her. Less than a year after Bryce was born she took off with some tennis player. Abandoned Lucas and her baby.”

Mitch leaned against the workbench and drank his stout, which was even tastier than he remembered. “What