Born in a Barn (Clucks and Clues Cozy Mysteries Book 4) Read online

  Ruth added Andrea’s tray of snowmen to the array, then showed us past the cluster of craft vendors and the huge Gifting Tree in the center of the room. The fifteen-foot fir tree was decorated with miniature sweaters and stockings, and a long, striped scarf wound around the tree. It must have been hundreds of feet long. The wishes of local children fluttered on ribbons from the tree’s branches, and the star on top nearly brushed the high ceiling. Underneath, toys still new in their packages—donations that hadn’t yet been wrapped—clustered around the base of the tree.

  As we joined the end of the Santa line, Izzy and J.W. crowded as close as they could to the family ahead of us. Andrea grabbed their hoods before they crashed into the people, but the kids in front of us, a pair of scrawny sisters with thin blonde pigtails, sensed their presence and turned around to gawk at us.

  “There you go. Santa will be out in a just a minute. I should run and check the punch levels,” Ruth chirped, waggling her fingers and then promptly abandoning me. Peterson and I both tried to avoid eye contact as he stood awkwardly beside me. I might have to tolerate him, but that didn’t mean I had to talk to him.

  “What’s wrong with your eye, mister?” one of the little girls asked.

  “He had an accident,” Izzy supplied.

  “Like a potty accident in his pants?” the little girl asked, and all four kids dissolved into giggles.

  Peterson’s cheeks flushed slightly, although his Botoxed forehead didn’t even crease. “How much longer do we have to wait?” He leaned to see the extent of the line, as though measuring the length would tell him anything. Santa wasn’t even on stage yet, so the length of the line didn’t really matter. It hadn’t even started moving.

  “I’m sure it’ll go quickly once they get going,” Andrea said reassuringly. “Let’s just relax and enjoy the family time. It’s been so long since we were all together; I’m sure we have a ton of stuff to catch up on.”

  “Speaking of family, where’s Steve?” He meant Steven Flint, Andrea’s husband.

  “Cardiology conference,” Andrea said. “He’s stuck there for a few more days. He’ll fly out in time for Christmas, so you’ll get to see him before you go.”

  My heartrate slowed until I could count each beat as I took in her meaning. Today was only December 20. That meant Peterson planned to stay in Honeytree at least five days. Probably six, since he wouldn’t want to make the two-day drive back to Los Angeles on Christmas Day itself. Or longer?

  I fanned myself, feeling faint. That was not good news. I could barely fake nice for an afternoon. How would I last a whole week?

  “How many?” Mrs. Claus stood at my elbow, her pen poised above a small notepad that was printed at the top with the words “Nice List.” The crop of gray curls under her velvet bonnet was authentic, but the round circles of blush on her cheeks and the padding that rounded out her waistline under the frilly holiday apron were not. When she wasn’t playing Santa’s wife, Joan Packett was as narrow and pale as a parsnip.

  “Three,” Andrea said. “One of each kid and one of all of us together.”

  “How wonderful, a family portrait.” Mrs. Claus beamed, jotting down the photo order. “That’ll be thirty—”

  Before she had the words out, Peterson whipped out his wallet. “Do you have change for a hundred?” he asked.

  “Sure thing—or you could donate the change to the Gifting Tree,” she added sweetly. “All donations go toward Christmas magic for Honeytree’s most deserving children. Tax deductible. We got our nonprofit status this year.”

  “Perfect.” Peterson produced his hundred-dollar bill with a flourish and handed it to her.

  “Aw, Dad. That’s so generous!” Andrea squeezed his arm and looked at him adoringly as Mrs. Claus moved on to the people who’d joined the line behind us. Peterson’s eyes slid over to me, anticipating my reaction. I pretended I hadn’t seen the whole exchange. It was generous, but Peterson was only generous when there were witnesses.

  The elf, clad in a short green tunic and matching striped tights, arrived with candy canes for J.W. and Izzy. One of his rubber pointed ears slipped off when he bent to help them unwrap the end of their canes. I handed it back to him when he straightened, and he smiled crookedly as he reattached it, his dark blue eyes sparkling.

  Those looked exactly like Ruth’s eyes, which meant the elf had to be...

  “Rusty!?” I gasped. A little over a year ago, Ruth’s brother had left town to serve a short prison sentence for his part in a decades-old crime, but I hadn’t heard he’d been released. Ruth must be ecstatic to have him home for the holidays.

  He spread his arms wide. “Surprise! It’s the elf, himself.”

  “It’s great to see you! How’re you doing?”

  “Just trying to get my feet under me, find a job and stuff.” Rusty plucked his short tunic. “As you can see, I’ll take what I can get.”

  “Is this another boyfriend?” Peterson asked snidely, looking Rusty up and down from the tip of his green, pointed hat to the curled ends of his green boots. Andrea elbowed him, but frankly I was a little pleased that I wasn’t the only one struggling to be nice.

  “Just a friend. Some people have them.” I knew better than anyone that Peterson struggled in that regard. He had employees. He had colleagues. He had associates at the country club and at various other organizations where he paid to be a member. But true friends? I’d been his only one. Maybe he should have thought of that before he divorced me is all I’m saying.

  Peterson looked appropriately chagrined and, after a conciliatory handshake, Rusty moved down the line, whistling “Jingle Bells” as he passed candy canes to the next batch of kids.

  “Tell Dad about your chicken farm,” Andrea urged, sensing the tension between Peterson and me. “It’s going really well, right?”

  “Really well” was all relative. I was hitting my goals: selling eggs to local businesses, keeping my farmers market booth stocked in the warmer months, growing my flock to meet the growing demand. And my apple harvest and the resulting cider press had been fruitful to say the least. I was enjoying myself—that was my success—but I wasn’t rolling in cash or anything. I wasn’t successful by Peterson’s yardstick, which measured profit rather than personal satisfaction. Besides, the guy didn’t even have a goldfish—to say he was uninterested in animals would be an understatement.

  “I don’t think your dad cares about chickens.”

  Peterson made a face. “What’re you talking about? I love chicken! Just talking about it is making me hungry.”

  I glared at him. “I raise them for eggs, not meat.”

  “See? We’re catching up,” Andrea said cheerily.

  Now it was my turn to crane my neck to get a better look at Santa’s throne. Still empty. “Where is that guy?”

  Just then, Ruth reappeared with two glasses of punch. She handed them to Peterson and Andrea and then, with an apologetic smile, grabbed me by the elbow and tugged me out of line. “Can I borrow you for a minute?”

  Relieved to avoid further awkward chit-chat, I nodded and followed her urgent strides to the front of the stage, where the photographer was standing next to his tripod, snapping his gum and scrolling through his phone while he waited for Santa to show up. “What is it?”

  She kept her voice low. “You know Homer Wilds?”

  I nodded. Homer was well-known around town, for reasons both good and bad. His business, the gas station here in Honeytree, sponsored many of the school sports teams, and his round belly and grizzled white beard were a fixture at home games. If your kid played football, basketball, or any other kind of ball while they were growing up, Homer Wilds was their biggest fan.

  Unfortunately, he also hit the sauce a little too hard, and his fanaticism for sports was not improved by his liquor. He sometimes had heated words with the referees if he thought they made bad calls and would regularly get thrown out of school gymnasiums and soccer fields.

  Ruth gulped a deep breath. “He’s sup
posed to be Santa for us, but he hasn’t shown, and he’s not answering his phone!”

  Mrs. Claus joined us in front of the stage in time to hear the end of Ruth’s words. “He’s probably passed out somewhere, as usual,” she said matter-of-factly, fanning her notebook of photo orders. “We might as well start without him.”

  “Hi Joan. So sorry about all this. I’m going to try him one more time.” Ruth fiddled with her phone and pressed it to her ear, catching her bottom lip in her teeth as she waited for him to pick up. After a few seconds, her face fell, and she hung up. “Straight to voicemail. I think his box is full. Probably full of my messages.”

  “We can’t afford to refund all these photo fees,” Joan declared, adjusting her cap. “I already paid the photographer and we’re behind on Gifting Tree donations. Let’s just have them take their pictures with Mrs. Claus.”

  “It’s not the same,” Ruth said glumly. “No offense, Joan. You look great in your costume. The kids just want Santa.”

  A Girl Scout carrying two paper plates of fudge squares paused by our small group. “Would you like to try some homemade fudge? I made it for a badge, so it’s free.”

  Ruth and I dutifully took a square, but Joan waved the fudge away with a disgusted face. “Get that away from me!” she snapped. “You don’t offer sugary trash to a diabetic!”

  The poor little Girl Scout flushed. She looked like she was about to cry. Joan didn’t need to be so rude to the poor kid. Ruth and I shared a surprised look as we sampled the fudge. It wasn’t perfect—a little grainy—but it was a great attempt.

  “It’s very tasty,” Ruth said kindly.

  I nodded. “I like the sprinkle of salt on top.”

  A smile spread across the Girl Scout’s face and she moved on to offer her wares to the families waiting for Santa. It was good timing; most of the kids had demolished their candy canes and were getting bored. They wiggled, crawled on the floor, clung to their parents’ pant legs, and whined.

  “What are we going to do?” Ruth moaned as she watched the whole line descend into chaos. The Girl Scout ran out of fudge about halfway through the line, and the complaints from the end of the line swelled.

  Rusty jogged over to join us, his elf hat askew, the empty candy bucket hanging from his belt. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think we should start. The people are already out the door.”

  Joan pinched the bridge of her nose. “Obviously. But the queen bee here says we can’t until Old Sot Nick shows up.”

  Ruth’s mane of curls seemed to expand around her head as her temper rose. She gestured to the long line that snaked all the way across the community center, the bells on her earrings jangling loudly. “They literally came to get pictures with Santa. How can they do that without a flip-flapping Santa?!”

  Joan pursed her lips, the round circles of blush on her cheeks brightening. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you chose a boozing bozo like Homer Wilds to represent the spirit of Christmas without consulting the Gifting Tree Committee.”

  Ruth tossed up her hands. “Excuse me for choosing a guy who looks like Santa to play Santa!” Her voice carried across the room, and I noticed Eli’s head turn toward our group where he stood by the bake sale table. Even the parents in line, who’d been too busy tending to their impatient children to pay attention earlier, looked over at us. In the middle of the crowd, Peterson and Andrea were staring, too. This whole exchange was getting out of hand.

  I stepped between Ruth and Joan. “Let’s take a minute, calm down, and come back with solutions instead of blame. We all want the same thing here, don’t we?”

  Ruth put her hands on her hips and glared past me at Joan, whose face was becoming more and more pinched. “What I want is some respect.”

  Joan sniffed. “I could say the same. I’ve been the chair of the Gifting Tree Committee for twenty-four years, and I’ve never seen Honeytree Holidays in more of a mess. We have felons playing elves, drunks playing saints, and hairdressers playing head honcho. One can only conclude—”

  “Lady, you better not say it!” Rusty, who’d been silent until now, exploded. “My sister worked her a—

  “Is there a problem over here?” Eli asked pleasantly, strolling over with his hands behind his back.

  Rusty deflated and stepped back, staring at his turned-up toes. “No, Sheriff.”

  Joan opened her mouth, but I beat her to the punch before she could resume her slander of Ruth. “Homer’s supposed to play Santa, but he hasn’t turned up,” I quickly explained.

  Eli raised an eyebrow. “I’ll swing by the gas station and check on him. Maybe he lost track of time.” He gave my hand a quick squeeze. “I’ll find you when I get back? I saw some mistletoe around here somewhere, and I want to see if it works.”

  I nodded, blushing, and with a flash of his most mischievous grin, Eli left in the direction of the parking lot.

  Joan snorted and crossed her arms over her apron bib. “I guess I’ll let the poor children know that they’ll be waiting even longer. And Santa will probably be drunker than a skunk when he does show up. Lovely. Just lovely.”

  Ruth rubbed her forehead as Joan carried on, her posture defeated. Rusty, on the other hand, paced back and forth, his tension mounting as he listened to the lengthening diatribe. He looked like a volcano ready to erupt. I needed to do something before he totally lost it.

  Joan gave Ruth a pointed look. “Even if the sheriff finds Homer in a ditch somewhere, he still has to haul him back here, stuff him into the Santa suit, and sober him up. I hope you have plenty of coffee and breath mints handy.”

  “Where is the Santa suit?” I asked Ruth. “Does Homer have it or is it here?”

  “It’s in the dressing room.” Ruth sighed, motioning to a door next to the stage.

  “Great, then all we need is a volunteer to put it on.”

  Ruth shook her head. “I wish it were that easy. When I rented the suit, I didn’t get a beard, because—”

  “Homer has a real beard,” I finished. I scanned the room, holding my breath, looking for a decent substitute. At this point, it didn’t even need to be a white beard. A gray one or even a salt-and-pepper one would do. But the only men in the crowd with beards were young, and a brown, black, or red beard was not going to cut it.

  We were down a Santa.

  Motherclucker.

  Chapter 3

  As I desperately searched the room for a second time for anything even slightly resembling Santa’s beard, my eyes lit on the white quilt batting that decorated the photography backdrop. A slow smile spread across my face.

  “Ruth, it’s time to use your superpowers.”

  Ruth stared at me blankly. I grabbed a piece of the batting from the bottom of the North Pole sign and held it up. “You are going to transform this into a beard, and Rusty here is going to go slip into the Santa suit. The kids will never know the difference. All we need is a pair of scissors.”

  Ruth grinned at me and plucked the batting from my grasp. “Brilliant, Leona. I always carry shears in my purse. You’d be surprised how many haircuts I’ve given in the bleachers of a Little League game.”

  Joan looked skeptical, but Rusty immediately disappeared into the dressing room behind the stage, Ruth on his heels. They emerged mere minutes later. The kids in line quieted as soon as Rusty stepped out, their whines turning to whispers and gasps of delight.

  Ruth had done a magnificent job with the quilt batting. She’d managed to shape the polyester strands to look like a natural beard. It wasn’t the lush carpet of curls that fake Santa beards usually sported, but in a photograph, it’d look perfect. Rusty made a slim Santa, but once he was seated in the throne, the only sign that he’d once been an elf were his striped green-and-white stockings and his turned-up toes.

  He noticed me looking at his feet and shrugged apologetically. “I wore sneakers today.”

  “Well, they call Santa the Jolly Old Elf. Maybe that’s why.” I grinned at him.

&nbs
p; Joan looked him up and down appraisingly. “I guess that’ll have to do. Let’s get started,” she said to the photographer, who’d been leaning against the back wall of the stage, listening to music on his earbuds. The photographer took his post and Joan led the first family in line to meet Rusty.

  Ruth and I moved out of range of the camera, and she gave me a quick squeeze around the shoulders. “You saved my bacon back there.”

  “You’re the one who saved the bacon. Nobody else could pull that off with just a pair of scissors,” I said admiringly.

  “Maybe this hairdresser can play head honcho, huh? Don’t tell Joan I said that, though. I don’t want to be on her naughty list again. I’m supposed to help wrap the Gifting Tree donations, so I’m stuck with her tomorrow, too.”

  I grimaced at the thought of a whole day with Joan. “I don’t think I’d make it an hour.”

  “Come wrap with us,” she begged. “Please? One, I could use the moral support. Two, we’ll get it done faster, so I don’t have to spend any second longer than necessary with her. And three, you’ll be there to break up any fistfights between us.” She giggled, but then her face fell. “Shoot, you can’t. You have company to entertain.”

  I followed her gaze over to where Andrea, Peterson, and the kids were shuffling forward as the line moved toward Santa. They were only a couple families from the front of the line now. Rusty and the photographer were doing their best to move things along while still giving every child the attention they deserved.

  As I watched, Peterson glanced impatiently at his Rolex. His signature move: I don’t have time for this. The familiar gesture made my skin crawl.

  “You know what? I’ll do it.” The words flew out of my mouth. “I’ll probably need a break from playing gracious hostess, anyway. You know I can only be nice for so long. And on that note, it’s back to the salt mines—I mean the Santa line—for me.”

  Ruth giggled at my retreating back. I rejoined the line just as the twins reached the front. Andrea released J.W.’s hood so Joan could lead him over to Santa.