understandable. Where businesses never closed and marriages were forever and no one ever died.
He shook his head at his sentimentality and hauled on one of the elaborately cast bronze door pulls. Inside the church, his glasses fogged over, blinding him. The smell of pine and beeswax filled the shadowy air. From the choir stalls a soloist was singing, then stopping, going back and repeating her phrase.
“Hey. Chief Van Alstyne. Are you here to help, too?”
He popped his glasses back on. A startlingly well-scrubbed Kristen McWhorter faced him, carrying a box of tall white candles.
“Kristen. Hi. I’m surprised to see you here.”
She jiggled the box. “Reverend Clare talked me into helping with the decorating. I’m sprigging the candles. Don’t ask.”
He grinned. “Okay. How is everything?”
“Pretty good. The funerals were hard. Hard to get through. But knowing what happened to her helped. I still haven’t spoken with Wes Fowler. Which I can understand. But I have been seeing Cody.” She smiled. “The Burnses have asked me to be a godmother, isn’t that cool? He’s going to be baptized here in January.”
“That’s very cool, yeah. I’m glad for you.” He glanced around the church. A woman was twining greenery around huge standing candelabras and an elderly man was wedging votive lights into recesses in the windowsills. “Where’s the Reverend?”
“I heard her muttering something about coffee. I’d check in her office.”
The hallway was dim and quiet. He knocked on her door frame. “Anyone in?”
“Russ! Well, isn’t this a nice surprise. If you’re here for the seven o’clock service, you’re a few hours early.” Clare rose from one of her odd-looking admiral’s chairs, elegant in a tailored black blouse and long skirt. “Let me get you a cup of coffee.” She poured from her Thermos into a Virginia Seminary mug. The coffee was hot and sweet and tasted of cinnamon. He dropped his package on the shabby love seat and laid his parka over it before sitting down.
“I meant to call when I saw the notice about Fowler’s funeral in the paper.”
“I didn’t officiate. I asked Clifton Whiting from St. Ann’s in Saratoga. I thought my presence would be more of a hurt than a help.” She looked into her coffee. “I can’t help but think that if I’d been a little more on the ball—”
“You could have stopped Fowler from destroying himself? Someone once told me you can’t take responsibility for everyone around you. Seems like a pretty smart observation.”
She smiled crookedly at him. “I should have had you around to put in a good word for me when the vestry called me on the carpet to explain what had been going on. I don’t know who shocked them more, me or Vaughn Fowler.”
He slipped off his glasses and polished them on his scarf. “If you need me to let them know what a genuine help you were—”
“No, no. They just need time to readjust their worldview. I’m taking advantage of the confusion to push forward my young mothers’ mentoring program. For which, by the way, I have the support of the Burnses, who have forgiven me for narcing on Geoff’s drunk driving episode.”
“Let me get my glasses back on. Whenever I think about Geoff as a father, I get a headache.”
“It’s given him a sense of humor. He told me they were signing Cody up for infant swim classes.” Her eyes glinted. “At least, I think he was trying to be funny.”
He almost snorted coffee out his nose. He put the mug down. “I’m really here to give you this.” He pulled the wide, foil-wrapped package from beneath his coat. “Happy Holidays.”
“For me? You shouldn’t have!” She tore into the paper eagerly. “Oh, Russ.” She started laughing. “Thank you. They’re just what I needed.” She held up the waterproof, insulated, chain-tread-soled boots. “How did you know?”
He laughed. “Lucky guess?” She turned the boots back and forth, admiring them.
“I love them.” She dropped them into the box. “I’ll wear them tonight after midnight mass.”
“It must get crazy for you on Christmas Eve. Everyone else is having a holiday and you’re working your tail off.”
“Like a cop.”
“Like a cop.”
“It easy for me to lose all sense of what I’m here for and turn into this grumpy, harried martinet, obsessing with getting everything done right and on time. That’s why I’m hiding out in my office.”
“Oh. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Oh, no, I’m glad you came. I haven’t seen you since they hustled you off to get your backside dressed at the hospital.” The last light of the sunset was flooding the room, from windows and mirrors. Her hair, caught up in its usual twist, had already come loose, strands the color of gingerbread and fire floating around her face.
“Seems like a long time, yeah.”
“I’ve really missed having you to talk with.” Her words hung in the air.
“Me, too.” There was a long pause. He had a sudden, lung-constricting conviction that coming here had been a mistake, that he had to leave right away, had to climb back into his truck and go home. “I ought to be going.”
“Oh.” She looked at the coffee mug in her hand. “Of course.” She placed it carefully on the desk. “Thank you. Thank you for my favorite present.” They both stood. She reached out and they clasped hands, squeezing hard. She smiled brightly. “Merry Christmas, Russ.”
He pulled her to him without conscious thought and she came, settling against him, their arms wrapped around
