4 Malice in Christmas River Read Online Free Page B

week. Like a lot of working couples these days, we’d delayed it several months after the wedding. At the time I’d been a little disappointed about that. But it had given me something to look forward to the entire summer.  
    I pulled down our gravel driveway and parked in front of the house.
    The swollen sun sat low in the smoke-curtained sky and bathed the meadow in front of our home in a rich orange hue. The evening calls of meadow larks echoed across the grassy expanse.
    I stood for a moment against my car, admiring the peaceful scene.
    I never had a view like this at my old house.  
    The beauty of it almost distracted me enough to make me not notice that Daniel’s car wasn’t in the driveway.
    Again.
    I sighed, fishing my keys out of my pocket.
    I opened the door and a hurricane of black and brown fur hit me full force.
    I laughed and rubbed Huckleberry’s sweet little head.
    Daniel may not have been home yet, but at least I wasn’t all alone.
    I walked in, kicked off my shoes, and headed for the kitchen to cook us up some steaks.
    I still got goose bumps when I walked into our beautiful new home.
    Hell, I still got goose bumps calling it our beautiful new home.  
     

 
    Chapter 4
     
    “Damned, blasted technology,” he muttered.
    The sound of wrinkled fingers hitting plastic in vain broke across the speaker.
    “I don’t even know what the point of it is if it’s only going to work 25 percent of the time. I mean, is it really worth the aggravation for that 25 percent? I say we throw this technology back to where it came from and bring back the old fashioned telephone. Say what you will but the telephone never let you down the way this piece of cr…”
    Though I couldn’t see his face, I knew that his cheeks were starting to turn rosy with frustration, the way they tended to when technology got the better of him.
    Though my grandpa was young at heart in many ways, in other ways, he was your average old man. Especially when it came to him trying to get Skype to work.
    He ranted a little more as I tried on my end to fix the stream.
    The sharp rays of an early morning summer sun filtered through the blinds of the pie shop kitchen. I’d come in early to talk to Warren and to get a head start on my day: something I definitely needed with all the tourists in town. Chrissy was on vacation and Tiana, my other baking assistant, wasn’t in yet. I was all alone in the shop, save for my grandfather, who was keeping me company 4,600 miles away.
    “You could depend on a telephone in my day,” he went on. “We may not have had them everywhere we went like you youngin’s today, but by golly, at least they wor—oh, hey! There you are, Cinny Bee. I can see your pretty face now clear as day.” 
    I smiled as Warren’s old wrinkled face illuminated my laptop screen. Just as I thought, his cheeks had turned a shade of strawberry from his frustrations with technology, but the color was fading now. He was looking healthy, and he was smiling a great big old signature Warren grin.
    “It sure is good to see you, old man,” I said.
    Even though we had just Skyped last week, it felt like ages since I talked to Warren.
    “We’ve been missing you terribly around here,” I said. “Everyone agrees that Christmas River just isn’t the same without your poker nights.”
    He waved his arm in a shooing motion.
    “Aw, get out of town,” he said. “Those boys are glad to see me gone. I’ve been cleaning them out for years.”
    He grinned and his eyes grew small with the effort. He was joking, but I could tell by the tone in his voice that he was missing all of us too.
    In January, Warren, my beloved grandfather who was more of a father to me than anything, had done something completely unprecedented. He left behind just about all his friends and family to study craft beer in Scotland for a year with his friends Larry and Sheila.
    It was something I admired the old man to no end for. To be his age and to do something that