She tugged absently on the end of her black tie, looking down at her hands. “I was a rookie when the accident happened. My partner and I were the first officers on the scene. It was awful…we haven’t had a wreck that bad since, here. Even then, I knew it was the beginning of the end for both those families. Everly’s left town, and Max’s…well…”
“Collapsed,” I said. “Max came to stay with us for a while. Through graduation.” I’d barely seen him, but I remembered it.
“His mom didn’t wait long to file divorce papers. I don’t blame her.” She snorted. “I remember how belligerent Maxfield Senior was when we brought him in that night. He was shouting, telling us he was going to get us all fired, sue us all, make us pay ‘because I’m the mayor, goddammit!’ I’m amazed he still lives in town, honestly. God knows he never shows his face in the diner. Dinah would have his head on a plate.”
“It’s been ten years.” To me, that felt like an incredible amount of time—I was only twenty-four, and that was a huge chunk of my life. “Do you think people will ever forgive him? I mean, he wouldn’t stay if he was completely miserable, would he?”
Lauren’s smile was a little tight. “You’d be surprised the amount of misery people are willing to put up with, for all sorts of reasons. Come on.” She stood up and went over to her desk, where her hat laid on top of a short stack of paperwork. “Let’s head out.”
It was still twenty minutes before our patrol, but I nodded and got up from my desk. “I’m ready.”
…
That morning we handled, in order: one loose dog who got clipped by a car, who we stayed with while we waited for his owner to pick up; one breakdown on the highway that just required a tire change—I carried a spare jack in my car at this point, because I’d changed more tires since becoming a cop than I would have if I’d been a mechanic; and we stopped a house fire from becoming a domestic once the firemen were out of the house and informed Jill McClellan, who worked at the gas station, that her stovetop had caught on fire because her husband had left a pan untended on it.
Never a dull day in small town life.
My phone buzzed in my pocket as we finally settled back into the car and pulled it out to take a look. “No texting and driving,” Lauren prodded me jokingly, but I was too absorbed in my text to bother responding.
It was from Max. Travel plans fell through. Hal stuck around so I could do my meeting remotely. Now the ladies and I are getting lunch at Dinah’s. We’d love to see you if you’re free.
Wait, what? He hadn’t gone back to the city after all? My breath caught, stomach swooping like the rollercoaster I was on just plummeted down a drop.
“Uh, do you mind if we stop by Dinah’s for a few minutes?” I hoped I sounded more casual than I felt. “Max and the girls are having lunch there.”
Lauren frowned. “I thought he was leaving this morning.”
“He was supposed to, but apparently that plan didn’t happen.” My fingertips were tingling. I forcibly relaxed my grip on my phone.
“That can happen in blizzards.” She shrugged. “Sure, let’s do it. I could use a fresh cup of coffee.”
“And a fresh pot of gossip,” I ribbed her as we pulled away from the McClellan’s smoke-damaged—but not destroyed, thankfully—house and toward downtown.
“I hardly gossip at all!”
I coughed. “Bullshit.”
“Ha-ha.”
I got to Dinah’s maybe a little faster than I should have, but not enough that Lauren gave me shit for it. I didn’t recognize any of the cars parked there. Come to think of it, how the hell had Max gotten here anyway?
Wait—the station wagon, that was Phee’s.
And there in the diner’s window, the little hand waving in our direction—yeah, that was Marnie.
We headed into the diner, and the girls were on us in a second. “Uncle Nicky, you came! Hi, Lauren! How’s Benjamin?” Benjamin was Lauren’s older son, a classmate of Marnie’s. Steph extended her arms to me, and I picked her up then made for the table where Max was sitting with Phee, half-eaten slices of shepherd’s pie and piles of disposable napkins spread out in front of them.
Max waved me over as soon as he saw us. I sat at the end of the booth seat, as far in as I could go with Steph in my arms.
“Hi,” I said, feeling weirdly shy. I’d just seen him a few hours ago—why was it strange to see him now? Maybe it was because he wasn’t in my bed. “You’re still here.”
Max sighed but put on a smile. “Yeah, it turns out rentals are a lot harder to come by in this weather than I thought they’d be.” He nodded toward Phee. “Mrs. Jackson was kind enough to offer to be our ride in exchange for lunch.”
He looked past me to Lauren, who was standing with Marnie hanging off her arm, telling her about her break so far. Max visibly steeled himself when Lauren turned her attention to him. Was he expecting Lauren to dislike him?
“Hang on a second, honey,” Lauren said to Marnie and held her hand out to Max. “Lauren Shriner. I’m Nicky’s partner.”
He shook her hand. “Lauren…Shriner? Not DeLuca?”
She laughed. “Not since before you and Hal graduated!”
“Belated congratulations, then.”
“Thank you.” Lauren looked at Max slowly, speculatively, and I found myself almost holding my breath. I wanted her to like him. Not really for my benefit, because what did it matter if Lauren approved or didn’t approve of the guy I had slept with once? But for his benefit. I wanted him to feel welcome here, to feel like Edgewood could be a good place for him to visit and stay in if he wanted, not just a tragic memory. “How long will you be here?”
Max glanced at me. “Given that the wait for a rental at any town within a hundred miles is a week and my own car won’t be done until Wednesday, it looks like I’m staying through Christmas.”
Marnie cheered, and even Steph grinned. I tried to tamp down on the butterflies making themselves known in my stomach, but it was hard when what I wanted to do was cheer like my oldest niece.
“You should come with Hal and the girls to the holiday play the church is putting on,” Lauren said then winked. “No inflatable camels this year, thanks to some lobbying from the high school’s theater teacher. My oldest is going to be the head wisewoman.”
“I wanted to be Mary,” Marnie piped in, “but Mrs. Krakowski said I’m still too small to hold Baby Jesus properly. She asked Steph to be a candle in the big menorah, but Steph didn’t want to be in the play.”