“What’s he doing home? I thought he was going to his sister’s with Cooper this morning.”
Besides being Detective Cooper’s uncle, Harvey and the Deadwood detective shared a streak of orneriness and a love of guns. Both had turned down my invitation to join us at Aunt Zoe’s Christmas Eve back before our plans had changed thanks to this stupid snowstorm.
“Cooper’s still at work, and Harvey doesn’t want to get stuck at his sister’s due to the blizzard, so he’s staying here. He said something about a movie marathon on the Old West channel.”
Harvey and Cooper were both living at Doc’s place while I tried to sell the former’s ranch and help the latter buy a new house.
“He’s staying home on Christmas?” The idea of Harvey all alone knotted up my heartstrings.
“I invited him to join us, but he says he has a duty to watch Addy’s pets and turned me down.”
Addy’s pets could go a few days on their own—well, maybe not the chicken.
I hefted the bag of Santa’s presents. “I’ll deal with Harvey when I get to your place.”
“Okay. Call me when you’re leaving Natalie’s.”
“Will do. See you soon, Candy Cane.”
Doc groaned at my new pet name for him and hung up.
I loaded the presents and my overnight tote into my Honda and rolled down the street toward Natalie’s place. The side streets were coated in white but not slippery yet.
Natalie was coming down the stairs when I rushed inside the boarding house. Her smile was big—a little too big. Her eyes dipped at the edges, a sad glint in their depths. One strap of her green overalls was unlatched, her red sweater only half-tucked.
“Merry almost Christmas,” she said, sitting down a few steps from the bottom. She patted the step next to her.
“Merry Christmas back at ya.” I dropped next to her, holding out her Christmas gift.
She smelled like a tropical drink, something with pineapple. Her brown hair was damp and hanging loose around her shoulders, curling slightly at the ends. She must be fresh from the shower.
“You okay, Nat?”
“Yeah, sure, why wouldn’t I be?” She sounded cheery enough, but she didn’t meet my eyes.
I had an idea what was haunting her, and it wasn’t any of the boarding house’s ghosts. It was more of a case of who, and he was very much alive and a major pain in the ass for both Natalie and me.
“Cooper didn’t stop by, did he?”
Her cheeks darkened, her gaze still averted. “Of course not. Why would he?”
Uh, maybe because he was one hundred percent nutcrackers over Natalie. Unfortunately for Cooper, Natalie was on sabbatical from men in an effort to rebuild her self-esteem and patch up her heart after multiple attempts to blast both to smithereens.
“I don’t know,” I lied. “Doc said he’s still at work, so I thought he might be doing rounds or something.”
She scowled at me. “Your nose is twitching.”
I covered my tattletale appendage. “It’s itchy.”
“And now your pants are on fire.” She shook her head. “You really need to learn how to lie without twitching like a mouse or Susan the snake is going to swallow you whole.”
Natalie knew all about my sister’s forked tongue. She’d grown up with me, stepping in to fight my battles for me when I was too worn down to stand on my own.
She shook the present I’d given her. “It’s heavy. Don’t tell me you bought me another Ming vase?”
“Nothing but the best for you, girlfriend.”
“Ahh, you’re the best-est bestie around.” She tore off the paper and opened the box. “Holy holly berries! Where did you find a pink hammer?”
“None of your beeswax. Look at the inscription.” I pointed at the words etched into the hammer’s head.
“ ‘To Natalie, ‘til death do us part. Love, Vi,’ “ she read aloud. “Creepy and sweet, just like your love.” She grinned, gripping it in her right hand. “So, do I get to use this to knock some sense into you the next time you try to ditch me for a man?”
“In a heartbeat.”
She looped her arm around my shoulders and hugged me, and then handed me a gift the size of a shoebox.
It was sort of heavy. I shook it. Something metal sounding clanked inside. “Is it bars of gold?”
“Even better.”
I ripped off the paper and sliced through the tape with my car keys. Inside the box were two small chrome discs with jaguars etched into them and three prongs sticking out from around the center hubs.
“Is this the newest trend in friendship charms?”
She picked one up from the box. “They’re a little too heavy to wear around our wrists, but we could hang them from our rearview mirrors. However, since they’re the wheel knockoffs from your ex’s fancy-schmancy Jaguar, you might want to keep them hidden from a certain Deadwood detective for a few months.”
My ex, Rex Conner, aka the piece-of-shit sperm donor, had recently returned to the Black Hills to mess with my life for shits and giggles. He denied his return was meant to thwart me, insisting he merely wanted to use me and my children for a career advancement. The dickhead was leading a team of scientists at the research lab in Lead down in what used to be the one and only vast Homestake Gold Mine.
“What are wheel knockoffs?”
“The decorative covers for the lug nuts.”
“Rex’s wheels aren’t going to fall off without these, right?” As much as I loathed the man and wanted to have him relocated to one of Saturn’s moons, I didn’t want to be responsible for his death. At least not at Christmastime. Valentine’s Day might be more appropriate for the big jerk.
“Unfortunately, no,” Natalie said.
“That’s too bad. Are these expensive?”
“They’re only about fifty bucks, but on the annoyance scale, I think this will make Rex’s sphincter squeeze up good and tight.”
A Christmas present centered around revenge. Natalie knew my hopes and dreams so well. I giggled with a good dose of
