“Minnie?”
I turned. Ash Wolverson was smiling at me in a tentative sort of way. In the worn jeans and hoodie he was wearing, he didn’t look at all like a sheriff’s deputy.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
He stood at the end of the booth, looking hesitant. “Are you waiting for anyone?”
“Nope. Have a seat.”
I watched him slide in, thinking that I’d never before met a man this good-looking who was also so unsure of himself. “How was your Thanksgiving?” I asked.
“Okay,” he said. “How about yours? Did you drive or did you cook?”
I laughed. “Mostly I did dishes.”
There was a short silence that might have grown uncomfortably long had Carol not arrived with a glass of ice water. She eyed Ash. “You leave your dinner much longer, it’s going to get cold, and fried fish doesn’t microwave up anything decent.”
Which was when I realized Ash had already been in the restaurant when I showed up. The place wasn’t that big, making it yet another day in which I wasn’t going to win a Power of Observation award.
I started to talk at the same time he did. “Go ahead,” he said.
“Thanks.” I smiled and then peered at him. Was he blushing? Surely not. “I was just wondering if Detective Inwood has forgiven you for missing the hat.”
Ash touched the edges of the paper placemat in front of him. “Hard to tell. He’s still letting me work with him, so I figure he can’t be too mad.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but maybe he was right. “I know you can’t talk about an active investigation, but can you tell me if there’s been any progress?” Please let there be progress. Please be close to figuring out what happened. And pretty please figure it out before the court hearing.
“Some,” he said. “We’re working with a local conservation officer, putting together a case.”
Which wasn’t really an answer at all, or at least not a useful one. If anyone asked me, Ash was following far too closely in Detective Inwood’s footsteps. No one was, but I was ready if the question came up.
Still, if they were working with a CO, a type of officer who had full arrest powers and was responsible for enforcing the hunting and fishing laws, that probably meant they were still thinking a hunter with remarkably poor shooting ability had killed Roger by accident. And if they thought that, I was sure they were wrong. Denise was the one who—
“Can I ask you a question?”
I blinked away from my thoughts. Ash was studying the table. “Sure,” I said.
“Would you . . .” He blew out a breath, looked up at me through eyelashes far too long to belong to a grown man, and asked, “Would you go out with me?”
I blinked at him. Blinked again. “Go out with you?”
Now the blush was evident. “Maybe have dinner and a movie? We could go anywhere you’d like. And see any movie you want. What kind of food do you like? I’ll eat anything, and I like almost everything. There’s a new place in Petoskey people are talking about and it sounds good.”
The poor man was starting to babble. I had to stop him, and fast. “Thanks very much,” I said. “I appreciate the offer—really I do—but I’m seeing someone right now.”
“Oh.”
He deflated, and I felt horribly sorry for him. “I’ve been seeing Tucker Kleinow for a few months. Do you know him?” Ash shook his head slowly. “He’s a doctor,” I said, “an emergency-room doctor, at the hospital in Charlevoix. He hasn’t been up here very long; this will be his first winter Up North.” I suddenly realized I was talking too much, so I picked up my water and took a long drink.
“A doctor,” Ash said dully. “That figures.” He slid out of the booth and stood. “Sorry to bother you.”
“You didn’t.” I smiled at him, but he didn’t see it because he was studying his shoes. “Honest. And I’m sorry you didn’t know I was seeing someone.”
“A doctor,” he muttered under his breath, and trudged back to his dinner.
I wanted to call him back, wanted to make him smile and laugh, but I knew he needed time to get over what he would undoubtedly be considering a rejection. How hard it must be, sometimes, to be a man.
Sighing, I thought about the specific hardships of being a man. Then I thought how hard it was to be a woman. Really, it could be a hardship just plain being human.
I shook my head, trying to jolt free the sadness and the worry. Worrying didn’t help anything and it didn’t make tomorrow any better. Plus, worrying had the definite minus of making the present worse.
Worrying, I realized with a sudden shock, was what I did when I didn’t have anyone to talk to or anything to read. In theory, I could read on my cell phone’s e-book app, but that gave me a headache.
So I got up and grabbed a real-estate guide from the rack next to the cash register.
After all, anything to read was better than nothing.
* * *
I ate my meal while perusing advertisements for lakeshore homes I could never hope to afford, and tried not to notice when Ash left. The poor guy. I wondered again at his odd lack of self-confidence in a social setting, then stuck a fork into my salad and concentrated on criticizing the multimillion-dollar houses that were for sale.
When dinner was eaten and paid for, I zipped my coat and headed home. One step outside, and I came to a sudden stop. The snow that had been coming down gently when I’d arrived at the Round Table must have been falling heavily ever since. A three-inch coating of white lay over everything in sight—buildings, streets, sidewalks, trees. Even in the winter darkness, the town almost glowed with snow-white brightness.
I stuck out my tongue to catch a few flakes and smiled, because this would be the perfect night to take the long way home and check out the holiday decorations.
On one street there were two armies of wire-framed snowmen on a front lawn, set up in a snowball-fight formation. On another street there was a spectacular display that included a pair of five-foot-high nutcrackers and a slightly creepy ten-foot-tall Santa Claus. Another family had put up a tall pole and strung lights down from the top, creating a massive treelike structure that changed color every few minutes.
But I saved the best until last. Two streets away from the boardinghouse, I stopped in front of a two-story Victorian-era home and smiled.
The front yard had been transformed into a winter fantasy scene. There was a waist-high small village, complete with a train station, church, blacksmith’s shop, horse-drawn sleighs, and even a pint-sized ice rink. Adults walked, children ran, and a pair of dogs tussled over a gift-wrapped box. A restrained hand had lit the miniature town with tiny lights that illuminated the scene in a golden tone. I was completely entranced, just as I was every year, and I didn’t hear the footsteps until they were closing in on me.
I turned and exchanged nods with my aunt’s neighbor Otto Bingham.
“Nice,” he said, gesturing at the display. “All in wood, isn’t it? Professionally done, it looks like.”
The man can speak? It’s a Christmas miracle! I smiled. “I’ll tell my Aunt Frances.”
“Oh?” He tilted his head slightly to one side. “Did she help put it up?”
Laughing, I said, “No, she made it. Plywood, most of it, with some hard maple for the blocky bits, like the church steeple.”
His mouth dropped slightly open. “She made this?”
I pointed. “If you squint a little, you can see the date above the front door of that city hall.”
“Nineteen eighty-two?”
“Yup.” I put my hands in my pockets. “She grew up helping her dad—my grandpa—in his woodshop, and when she married a guy who lived up here, she made sure to have space for a shop herself.” It was in the basement, which wasn’t an ideal location, but the addition of an exterior stairway had made it a lot better.
I loved to brag about my aunt. Since everyone in the county knew about her talents, I didn’t get to do it very often, yet here was someone right in front of me. Perfect!