Kentucky Christmas (2 page)

The next morning, Andrew tried to weigh his experience so far in Kentucky, just to see how far he was coming out behind. That would help him determine how painful his cousin's murder would be, and how much energy he would have to spend covering it up. He felt like, overall, he was one hundred percent losing, which meant he could kill his cousin in cold blood, maybe with an ice pick, and then he would turn himself in to face justice since life couldn't get any worse.

But the more he thought about it, the more he thought maybe he would have to revise that plan.

They'd let him stay the night in the hospital. He checked out fine, a very mild concussion and minor whiplash, but when he asked about a local hotel, the night nurse looked at him sympathetically.

“You're not from here, are you?”

No, he was just asking for a hotel for his health. He shook his head. There was no need to be rude. She had a sweet smile, although her lips were nowhere near as nice as the Angel of Death's.

“Well, there are a few places about thirty miles up on the Interstate, but I understand your car is . . . not drivable?”

He wasn't sure how she would have known that, although maybe it was just because he had come in from a car accident.

“Bud was in earlier, asking about you. He's the one towed your car. Of course, you were in the ambulance when that happened.”

“Bud.”

“He'll take good care of the car, don't you worry. He said he thought it could be fixed. That's good news. That corner of the Cold Spot has totaled more than a few vehicles in its time.”

Andrew figured she was talking about the bar he'd rammed into. He hadn't been going very fast when he skidded, but still. His engine was smoking. That couldn't be good.

“But sweetheart, Bud ain't gonna fix that car tonight. If you've got no place to stay, I'll have someone fix you up one of these beds.”

“Oh, no, I couldn't—” She wanted him to stay in the hospital overnight? As a guest? Would his health insurance even cover that?

“It'll be just between us,” she said, winking. “We're pretty slow tonight, knock wood, and even if you had a car, I wouldn't drive in all this snow.”

He looked out the big plate glass windows. There was maybe an inch of snow on the sidewalks and even less on the roads, where cars had melted it to a gray slush.

But he had nowhere else to go for the night, and he needed to make that sales call in the morning if he wanted to be able to face anyone at Christmas dinner. Ugh, Christmas dinner. Ed would love it if he could poke at Andrew's failure in front of the rest of the family. Actually, he thought, maybe his car wouldn't be ready. One more point in the plus column.

So he stayed the night at the hospital, took an awkward sponge bath in the morning, and one of the night orderlies dropped him off at Bud's on his way home.

Andrew's car was fixable, said Bud, but it would take a little while. In the meantime, Bud let him borrow “the loaner,” a rust-orange BMW that was at least as old as Andrew was. Andrew pulled his suitcase and sales files and samples out of the trunk of the car and loaded the BMW. He unplugged the GPS and plugged it into the BMW's cigarette lighter. Bud gave him a look and asked him where he wanted to go, then gave him directions and sent him off with a pat on the roof.

So Andrew tallied. His cousin's car wasn't totaled, which was a plus, although at this point, anything that made life easier for Ed wasn't really a priority. He also had to include the people he'd met in the plus column—at the hospital, Bud. He had met the Angel of Death and she'd found him wanting, so that was another plus. Of course, she hadn't wanted to kiss him, so that was a minus. And he still had a job working for his meatball cousin selling veterinary equipment. So, in the experience column, he was coming out positive. It was just the life column that sucked.

Andrew found the vet clinic easily enough on what seemed to be the main street in town. He looked up at the street signs. Main Street. Of course. The clinic was housed in a red brick storefront building, the big picture window in front covered in paper. As he drove by, he saw that they were all crayon drawings saying things like “THANK YOU DR MONROE” and “TURNIP LOVES YOU” with pictures of dogs and cats and hamsters. Cute. But there was no way these people were going to have money to buy anything major from him.

As he drove around the building, he saw that it was bigger than it looked out front. There were probably a few exam rooms inside, and it was possible they had special operating facilities. According to Ed, this was one of the only vets in the county, so the clinic must also serve as the vet hospital. He parked, pulled out his spec sheets, and went inside.

A bell jangled as he opened the door. He was immediately assaulted by holiday cheer. The waiting room furniture was plastic, the linoleum sparkled, and every free space was covered in foil snowflakes, blinking lights, and fake snow. In the corner was a massive tree decorated within an inch of its life with more hand-drawn crayon pictures. Next to it sat a big, wrapping paper-covered box with a sign that said, “Take One for your Furry Friend.” A Great Dane was approaching the box, sniffing. Andrew peered inside.

“Isn't that sweet? Billie does this every year.”

Andrew looked over at the jowly woman trying to restrain the Great Dane.

“See? These are for cats,” she shook a package wrapped in paper covered in Christmas mice. “And these are for guys like my friend Tiny, here.”

Tiny, who probably weighed twice as much as his owner, sniffed an odd-shaped package wrapped in tissue paper. He removed the paper using a combination of ripping-with-teeth and dissolving-with-drool, and immediately began chewing on the rawhide bone inside.

“Huh,” said Andrew, pushing up his glasses. “Nice.”

At the reception desk, a woman in a very tight, pink sweatsuit was holding a very dazed, very furry white cat with a plastic dome around its neck. Andrew heard a voice come from under the desk.

“Trish, I can't get this daggun computer restarted, so just go ahead. We'll send you the bill or get you next time.”

“Thanks, Billie.”

“Don't let Missy scratch!” shouted the voice from under the desk. “When the painkillers wear off she's going to be a pain in the ass, but it's all part of the healing process.”

Trish laughed, then turned to go.

“Oh,” she said, almost running in to Andrew. “Hi, there.”

Missy hissed at him.

Trish shrugged. “Never mind,” she said, then sauntered out the door.

“Be with you in a second!” came the voice from under the desk.

Andrew stood patiently, and was soon joined by a woman holding the oldest dog Andrew had ever seen. He was all whiskers and shivering, even under the elf sweater he wore.

“Hilda doesn't feel very well,” the woman explained.

Andrew nodded, then looked over as the voice behind the desk stood up.

He gasped.

“Hi,” she said, coming up a little breathless. “How can I help you?”

“You're the Angel of Death,” Andrew said.

The woman snuggled Hilda closer.

“I'm sorry?”

“Sorry, no. Um, you're the woman from last night. You helped me. With my car accident?” Andrew could feel that the words he was saying were not coming out the way he wanted them to, but he couldn't seem to get his mouth to stop.

“Oh!” said the Angel of Death. “I'm glad to see you're up and about. Hi, Mary Jane. Hi, Hilda. Cute sweater.”

“I have an appointment with—” Andrew checked his notes—“a, uh, William Monroe?”

“Huh?”

“William Monroe. Ed Bateman set up the appointment?” If Ed had screwed this up, none of that slow poisoning nonsense. Ed was getting an arrow in the forehead.

The Angel of Death laughed. “Ed Bateman said he set up an appointment with William Monroe?”

“Actually, he said it was with Billy. That seemed a little informal.”

Mary Jane snorted.

“It is Billie. With an i-e. I'm Billie Monroe,” the Angel of Death said, stretching out her hand for him to shake.

“But you're a girl.”

Hilda snorted.

“OK Mr.—?”

“Oh, Bateman. Andrew Bateman.” He shook her hand. Billie's hand.

“Okay, Mr. Andrew Bateman. Let me get Hilda here checked in and then I'll be right with you.”

Andrew gratefully took a step back toward the Christmas tree, where he was hoping he had dropped his dignity. And his brain.

She was just as beautiful as he thought he had hallucinated. Her eyes were warm and green, and her hair was just as red as the pom-pom hat she'd worn. She was wearing green scrubs with cats in Santa hats on them, but underneath he could see she was trim and small. Her skin was pale and smooth; she looked so soft. And those lips. He thought those lips could probably kill him.

“Sorry, Mary Jane. Computer's on the fritz again. Let me run back and tell Dr. Carson you're here.”

“I can look at it,” said Andrew's mouth before his brain knew what it was doing.

Mary Jane cradled Hilda closer to her chest.

“The computer, I mean. I'm pretty good with machines.” Before his brain could stop his legs, he was behind the desk, crouching at the feet of the Angel of Death.

Merry Christmas to me, thought Billie as she watched Andrew fiddle under the desk with her hard drive. It was a pretty good view. His charcoal-gray pants weren't tight, exactly, but they were that kind of slim fit that guys in Hollow Bend didn't wear. In Hollow Bend, men got dressed up in their black Wranglers. Well-tailored clothes were exotic for around here. Thank goodness Andrew wasn't wearing a suit. If he was wearing a suit, she would probably have him naked on the exam table, and there was no way her father would approve of that.

She heard him grunt and whistle—what the hell was he doing under there?—and then finally sit up, glasses askew, short hair mussed, and clicked a few icons with a triumphant smile.

“OK, that should speed it up,” he told her.

She clicked around, opening all of her usual programs. The booking software whizzed right up, and the billing program. Even Facebook was pretty fast. She shut that down.

“Wow, thanks. What did you do?”

“Oh, I just looked at a few things. I used to do tech support for a big law firm. We saw this stuff all the time.”

A big law firm, she thought. He probably owned a suit. She shivered.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘this stuff'?”

His smile turned from triumphant to sheepish. God, he was cute.

“Your mouse was loose.”

“That's it?”

“Yeah. It's why your programs were so unresponsive.”

She blushed. If there was a dumber computer problem to get a hot guy in nice slacks to fix, she couldn't think of it.

“Trust me, it's not the stupidest technical problem I've ever dealt with.”

Billie looked at him, relieved, but then quickly reassessed. Was he trying to butter her up for a big sale? Sometimes, when these vet-supply reps came in, she could read it all on their faces. She knew what they saw: she was young, small, female—an easy sell. But she was also tough, smart, and cheap. If they were dealing with her father, that was another story—he'd buy a bridge in the desert just because he liked a guy.

But Billie had called Bateman Supply because the ultrasound was on the fritz and Bateman had some good deals. So really, she thought, she probably was going to be pretty easy.

Watching Andrew straighten his glasses, she knew she was going to be very easy.

A few hours later, Andrew was dismantling their old ultrasound machine. He had spread everything out on a clear desk in the office. Billie explained the problem to him: sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. He got her to narrow down the angle at which it didn't work, and took a look inside. He was more familiar with the newer models—it was his job to sell them, after all—but this was one of the “workhorses” that Ed was always talking about. It was at least ten years old, but built to last, unlike the stuff Andrew had. Oh, his would work just fine; it would just be obsolete in about six months.

God, he hated his job.

“Can I help you with something?”

A woman stood in the doorway. Andrew thought she was a woman. It was hard to tell under the gigantic parka and Clydesdale snow boots. She sounded like a woman.

The woman didn't sound pleased to see him.

“Hi. I'm just, uh, fixing your ultrasound machine.”

“In our office?”

“The exam rooms were full. I needed space. Sorry. Billie said I could work in here.”

“Billie said you, a stranger, could work in a room full of sensitive financial documents?”

“Uh. Yes?” Did he just get the Angel of Death in trouble?

The woman shook her head. “I don't understand people from Kentucky. Far too trusting.” She turned on her heel to go. “Would you mind coming with me?” she asked. “Wait,” she said, putting up a hand to stop him as he followed. Then she tore off her parka and her hat—what was it with the pom-pom hats?—and Andrew followed sheepishly.

They ran into Dr. Carson in the hallway.

“Hey, baby,” he said to the woman, wrapping his arm around her waist and kissing her gently. “Is it already time to go?”

“No, I came in to do some paperwork.”

Dr. Carson smiled at her. “You do love paperwork.”

She smiled back. “I love you more.”

“What's going on?” Dr. Carson asked, noticing Andrew.

“This guy was in the office,” she told him. “He said he was fixing the ultrasound machine.”

Andrew smiled, sheepishly.

“Yeah, Billie put him there. We need all the exam rooms today.”

“Keith. You put a stranger in a room with sensitive financial documents?”

Dr. Carson—Keith—looked at her stupidly. “Oh. Uh. Billie did it.”

The woman rested her head on Keith's chest. “If you weren't so handsome . . . ”

“What's going on?” Billie bounded out from the reception area. “Andrew, did you fix it? Oh, hi, Mal!”

“You're in trouble,” said Keith.

Mal rolled her eyes. “You're not in trouble. But it's probably not a good idea to let strangers work in the office.”

Billie laughed. “He's not a stranger. This is Andrew. He's the sales rep I told you about.”

Mal's eyes widened. “It's definitely not a good idea to let sales reps in the office.”

“OK, OK, sorry. He had a rough night. You don't have to scare him to death.”

Mal gave Andrew a surprised look. He flinched.

“Did I scare you?” she asked.

“Well . . . I don't know about scared. Intimidated, maybe.”

She looked at Keith, beaming. “Did you hear that, honey? I'm intimidating!”

That seemed to calm her down, so Andrew nodded. Yes, very intimidating. He didn't mention that her fierce demeanor was slightly diminished by the pom-poms on her boots. By the time he was officially introduced to Mal, Keith's wife, not a native Kentuckian, four months pregnant, everyone was happy to let him get back to work.

“What the hell is this place?” he muttered to himself, and took apart the ultrasound machine.