15
T he next thing Dillon knew, Olivia was kneeling by his pallet. Maud stood in the doorway, not exactly frowning. Just being Maud. Which was definitely an improvement.
“You snore,” Olivia told him.
“That’s why you woke me up? To say I’m making noise?”
“This goes way beyond noise,” she replied. “Sit up and take this.”
“This” was a steaming mug. The smell of coffee pushed him upright. “I could use another couple of hours.”
Maud asked, “What time did you finish last night?” “I didn’t check the clock. Late.” He realized a pair of blankets were tangled about his form. “Where did these come from?”
“The Christmas elf,” Maud replied, and started back down the corridor. “You’ve got twenty minutes.”
He asked Olivia, “What’s happening?”
“Things have been kicked up a level.” Olivia rose to her feet. “Better get a move on.”
Dillon entered the station’s main room to the sound of laughter defying the day’s gray light. Porter and the fire chief and a younger officer stood with their backs to him, blocking Dillon’s view of whoever was causing the mirth. Olivia stood by the kitchenette’s entry, smiling and . . .
Happy.
Her face shone with a light that took him straight back. The young lady at her best was visible again, a magical California sprite who could light up the darkest hour. Turn a troubled young man from the problems and worries that dwelled in his home and heart. Fill him with a momentary joy over simply being alive and in her company.
He stood there at the periphery of whatever was happening. His mind flashed back to the first time he had seen her as more than just the childhood pal from down the hill. Olivia had been a year ahead of him in school, as her birthday was two weeks over the boundary line and his was three weeks behind. Something she loved to bring up, how she was the elder in their relationship. On that particular day, Dillon had entered the school and not seen her, but rather how all the faces within view were aimed in the same direction. They had seemed to reflect a magical illumination, and a desire to capture the flame.
But she had chosen him, the kid with no future.
Occasionally he had become captured by the fear that Olivia chose him simply because he needed her more than anyone else. Which had been both shameful and true . . .
Then the group shifted position, and Dillon’s focus shifted to the woman who held their attention.
Growing up, Bailey Long had been the woman named most likely to do whatever she wanted in life. In Bailey’s case, it was stay in Miramar and take care of whatever needed doing. Lead from the front, that was Bailey in a nutshell.
Their senior year was also the point when Bailey had fallen head over heels in love with Dillon’s best friend.
Dillon had often thought Griff Gaines was an odd choice as Bailey’s lifetime mate. Griff was as easygoing as Bailey was intense. A good-natured fellow who could stop any schoolyard battle with a smile. Which was how they had been brought together, after Griff had been named the school’s head marshal. Griff and Dillon had both found the appointment hilarious, seeing as how they had played a lead role in so many earlier pranks. But Griff had grown into the position, bringing an astonishing level of peace and harmony to their final year. Especially after he and Bailey hooked up, and Griff was given another reason to outgrow his Peter Pan years.
Porter said, “I don’t guess introductions are needed.”
“Long time, Dillon,” Bailey said. “You look . . .”
“Strung out and battered,” Dillon suggested, and accepted a refreshed mug.
“I was going to say, all grown up. But I suppose your words will do.”
“Sort of defines the season,” Maud offered. Olivia said, “The diner’s brought us a plate of breakfast burritos.”
“Which the chief wanted to snarf, right down to the very last crumb,” Charlie said.
“Now we both know that’s not true,” Porter said. “I was only kidding about that last one.”
“I had to beat him off with a rolling pin,” Maud said.
Bailey had the remarkable ability to stand at the center of everything, and yet remain politely distant. Her expression took Dillon straight back, the smile, the piercing gaze, the quiet authority. Dillon had always thought of her as a general in waiting. Never more than now. He accepted a still-warm burrito and asked, “Why am I here?”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Dillon was seated at his desk, holding his recharged mug in one hand while pointing to the laptop’s screen. He explained decisions he’d made late the night before, now imbedded into the state’s forms as numbers. Concrete requests for urgent financial assistance. Helping a town planted on the storm’s front line.
Porter and the fire chief frowned at his words, clearly having trouble following his explanation. Bailey’s response was entirely different. She watched Dillon as much as the electronic charts. Studying him with something that almost looked like approval.
Charlie Hurst asked Porter, “You understand what this fellow’s saying?”
“Not in a year of Sundays,” Porter replied. “Not if I stood here ’til next Christmas.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Bailey said, straightening. “He sounds like a pro. That’s going to make as much difference as numbers on the screen.”
Porter remained bent over, squinting. “Sure about that, are you?”
“I am, yes.” She checked her watch. “Two minutes to showtime.”
“You men need to shift to your stations,” Maud said. “Everybody else, stay out of range and keep quiet.”
“Good luck,” Olivia told Dillon, and followed Ryan into the kitchenette.
“I won’t be needing a desk,” the mayor replied. “Maud, scooch me over an empty chair. I’m going to sit here behind our star player, make sure he sings on tune.”
“Your confidence is just so reassuring,” Dillon said.
As the two men shifted to empty desks, Charlie said, “Somebody’s got to hook me up here.”
“That makes two of us,” Porter said. “With my daughter at university I can’t hardly work the coffeemaker.”
“You men,” Maud said. She moved from one desk to the next. “Dillon, you need me to hold your hand?”
“Our lad’s already up and running.” Bailey had her phone out, typing swiftly. “Maud, you should join in on this.”
“I’m not on the approved list.”
“Sign in using my name.” Bailey kept typing. “If Ransom objects, I’ll explain. But I doubt he’ll even notice.”
Dillon asked, “Ransom?”
“Ransom Bates. State auditor. Not our pal.” Bailey showed the remarkable ability to talk and type at hyper-speed. “My predecessor was part of a statewide scam that Ransom missed. When it became public, Ransom got publicly splashed with mud.”
“The man deserved a lot worse,” Maud said. “He should have been locked up with all the others.”
Bailey tsk-tsked. “It would not be in the town’s best interests for their mayor to say the state auditor had his head buried in the sand.”
Dillon asked, “Who are you texting?”
“Just a pal in Sacramento.” She checked the message, hit send, and pocketed the phone. “In case Ransom decides this is his chance to get even.”
Abruptly Dillon was captured by a memory. The last time he had been seated in such a position, prepared to pitch a financial document with calm confidence, had been his downfall. Lured by lies into believing he had found a huge opportunity, so big he pitched it with confidence to his fund’s primary investors. They would all go in big, and come out rich.
If only.
He wished for the screen to come alive, give him a reason to push away the bitter regret. But the main screen remained blank except for the message that they waited for the meeting’s leader. Dillon turned to the woman seated at his right and said, “So. Mayor Bailey.”
“Actually, it’s Mayor Long.”
Which carried the jolt required to shove the memories aside. Griff’s last name was Gaines, and Bailey wore no ring.
Since Dillon had served as Griff’s best man at their wedding, he searched for something proper and came up blank.
But Bailey showed him that slightly canted grin of hers, and said, “Go for it, sport.”
“No Griff?”
“Not for years. Which you would know, if you’d stayed in touch.”
He nodded. “Guilty.”
She liked that. “See, that’s the difference between you and my ex. Griff never found an uncomfortable moment he couldn’t run from.”
“I reached out to Griff several times. He only wrote back once. A two-word text. ‘Don’t ask.’ ”
“Sounds like Griff.” She managed to hold on to her grin. “Now’s your chance to say how you never thought we were a match made in heaven.”
Which were precisely the words he had spoken to Griff at the bachelor party.
Dillon shook his head. “I’m carrying too many bad moves of my own to comment on anybody else’s errors in judgment.”
She asked, “Are you staying or passing through?” “Nowhere else to go.”
“Truth or Christmas fable?”
“I ran a smallish investment fund. I pointed my investors to a huge new opportunity called Lead Balloon Incorporated. I lost everything. Including my reputation and any chance I had of ever starting over.”
“I’m so sorry, Dillon. You deserved better.” Then the laptop pinged. Instantly Bailey stowed away her patent-perfect smile and aged ten years. She said loud enough for all the station to hear, “Okay, people. Here we go.”