A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(4)

“Did you look under the sofa?”

Keeping up the game, Sun dropped to her knees and searched under the sofa.

Auri shook her head, tsking as she headed for the side door. “I swear, Mom. You’d lose your head if that nice Dr. Frankenstein hadn’t bolted it onto your body.”

Sun straightened. “Did you just call me a monster?”

When her daughter only giggled, she hopped up and followed her out. They stepped onto the porch, and Sun breathed in the smell of pine and fresh snow and burning wood from fireplaces all over town.

Auri took a moment to do the same. She drew in a deep breath and turned back. “I think I love it here, Mom.”

The affirmation in Auri’s voice eased some of the tension twisting Sun’s stomach into knots. Not all of it, but she’d take what she could get. “I do, too, sweetheart.”

Maybe it was all in her imagination, but Auri hadn’t seemed the same since she’d let her go to the supersecret New Year’s Eve gathering at the lake. The annual party parents and cops weren’t supposed to know about. The same parents and cops who began the tradition decades ago.

She’d only let Auri stay for a couple of hours. Could something have happened there? Auri hadn’t been the same since that night, and Sun knew what could happen when teens gathered. The atmosphere could change from crazy-fun to multiple-stab-wounds in a heartbeat.

“You know, you can stay home a few more days. Your asthma has been kicking up, hon. And your voice is a little raspy. And—”

“It’s okay. I don’t want to get behind,” she said.

“Do you have your inhaler?”

Auri reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the L-shaped contraption. “Yep.”

A woman called out to them then. A feisty woman with graying blond hair and an inhuman capacity for resilience. “Tallyho!”

They turned as Elaine Freyr lumbered through the snow toward them, followed by her very own partner in crime, a.k.a. her roughish husband of thirty-five years, Cyrus Freyr.

Sun leaned closer to Auri. “Did your grandmother just call me a ho?”

“Hey, Grandma. Hey, Grandpa,” Auri said, ignoring her.

It happened.

The girl angling for the Granddaughter of the Year award hurried toward the couple for a hug. “Mom’s worried you guys are going to prison.”

Elaine laughed and pulled the stool pigeon into her arms.

“Snitches get stitches!” Sun called out to her.

“Your mother’s been saying that for years,” Elaine said over Auri’s shoulder, “and we haven’t been to the big house yet.” She let her go so Auri could give her grandfather the same treatment.

“Hi, Grandpa.”

Cyrus took his turn and folded his granddaughter into his arms. “Hey, peanut. What are we going to prison for this time?”

Auri pulled back. “Election tampering.”

“Ah. Should’ve known.” Cyrus indicated the apartment with a nod. “What do you think of her?”

“She’s beautiful, Grandpa.”

His face glowed with appreciation as he looked at Sun. “And it’s better than paying fifteen hundred a month for a renovated garage, eh?”

He had a point. Santa Fe was nothing if not pricey. “You got me there, Dad.” She gave them both a quick hug, then headed toward her cruiser, the black one with the word sheriff written in gold letters across the side.

“Sunny, wait,” her mother said, fumbling in her coat pocket. “We have to take a picture. It’s Auri’s first day of school.”

Sun groaned out loud for her mother’s benefit, hiding the fact that she found the woman all kinds of adorable. She was still angry with them. Or trying to be. They’d entered her into the election for sheriff without her consent. And she’d won. It boggled the mind.

“We’re going to be late, Mom.”

“Nonsense.” She took out her phone and looked for the camera app. For, like, twenty minutes.

“Here.” Sun snatched the phone away, fighting a grin. It would only encourage her. She swiped to the home screen, clicked on the app, and held the phone up for a selfie. “Come in, everyone.”

“Oh!” Elaine said, ecstatic. She wrapped an arm into her husband’s. “Get closer, hon.”

The cold air had brightened all their faces. Sun snapped several shots of the pink-cheeked foursome, then herded her daughter toward the cruiser, her father quick on her heels.

When Auri went around to the passenger’s side, Sun turned to face him.

He offered her a knowing smile and asked, “You okay? With all of this?”

She put a hand on his arm. “I’m okay, Dad. It’s all good.” She hoped. “But don’t think for a second you’re off the hook.”

“I rarely am. It’s just, I know how much you enjoyed putting this place in your rearview.”

“I was seventeen. And one shade of nail polish away from becoming goth.” She thought back. “Nobody needed to see that.” After sliding him a cheeky grin, she stomped through the snow to the driver’s side.

He cleared his throat and followed again, apparently not finished with the conversation. “Well, good. Good,” he hedged before asking, “And how are you sleeping? Any, you know, nightmares?”