Sandpiper Way (Cedar Cove #8)(75)

She gave a humorless laugh. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“I agree with you—I should tell someone.”

For the first time since he’d entered her room, she turned to look at him. “Who?”

“I thought I’d make an appointment with Roy McAfee.”

“You’d be willing to do that?”

“Yes.” Dave rubbed his tired eyes. “I trust Roy, and while he isn’t an attorney, he knows the law. He can tell me my rights.”

Emily nodded, accepting his suggestion.

“Then, after Christmas,” he continued, “the two of us can go and talk to the sheriff together.”

“Okay,” she whispered, appeased. “Thank you.”

It wasn’t the perfect solution, but a workable one. As soon as Christmas was over, he’d settle this somehow, once and for all.

Twenty-Six

“Come on, Dad, don’t be such a stick in the mud!” Megan stood, hands on her hips, in the driveway next to her car. “You’ve got to come with us.”

Troy wasn’t in the mood to go shopping for a Christmas tree. The last few years, he’d brought Sandy on this expedition, and the four of them had driven to a nearby tree farm. Once Sandy had gone into the care facility, Troy hadn’t bothered with Christmas decorations, so Megan and Craig’s tree became theirs, too.

He wanted to forget about the holidays this year; his Christmas spirit was nonexistent. He had better things to do on a Friday evening than tag along with his daughter and her husband. Better things like…watching reruns of CSI, for instance. He’d tried his best to get out of the excursion, but Megan wouldn’t hear of it.

“Artificial trees are much safer,” he pointed out. “And they don’t lose their needles.”

“Dad,” Megan moaned, “it’ll be fun. We do this every year, remember? It’s tradition.”

And who was he to fight tradition? “Oh, all right,” he said with ill grace.

“Come on!” she cried again and clapped her hands. “Show a little holiday spirit. We’re going to pick out our tree and drink hot cocoa and get a free candy cane. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m happy,” he muttered, but he wasn’t. The week had seemed interminable. Yesterday Martha Evans’s two daughters had stopped by his office and made a big fuss. They wanted to know what he’d done to find the culprit who’d walked off with their mother’s jewelry, and more importantly, their inheritance. Never mind that he considered them grasping and unpleasant, they were entitled to answers, although he had none to give. He had his suspicions but nothing concrete. He was waiting and watching, but so far the person he suspected hadn’t slipped up. Not yet, anyway. And reliable as a cop’s hunch might be, at least in the mystery novels Sandy used to read, it wasn’t enough to justify an arrest.

And all week long, he’d thought about Faith. He missed her. He wished now that he’d approached her with more finesse. He’d been unfair to her because he’d overreacted to Megan’s fears.

Having lived with Sandy all those years, watching her decline little by little, had taken a toll on his psyche. He couldn’t tolerate the prospect of Megan going through the same ordeal. In retrospect, he realized he’d discounted the difference thirty years had made in the treatment of MS. While he wouldn’t wish the disease on Megan or anyone, it wasn’t the death sentence it had once been.

But Megan had been his reason, his excuse, for breaking off the relationship with Faith. His daughter needed him, he’d told himself, and she did, without a doubt. Deep down, however, Troy had begun to wonder if he was afraid of finding new happiness. If he believed, maybe not even consciously, that he had no right to experience joy while his daughter was struggling.

“You’re old enough that your father doesn’t need to come with you,” Troy complained, trying one last time to back out of this family trip.

Megan smiled that sweet innocent smile of hers. “That’s true. But this is the first Christmas without Mom. Please, Dad?”

Troy couldn’t refuse her. “All right,” he muttered again, no more graciously than before.

“Next year there’ll be the baby,” Megan reminded him. “We’ll start a new tradition with your grandchild.”

“Will it involve freezing my tail off stomping through acres of trees that all look alike?”

“Oh, Dad,” she chided him. “What’s with you this year?”

He shrugged. “I’m just not in the mood to celebrate Christmas, I guess.”

“This evening will help,” she promised gently.

Craig drove, and Troy sat with his son-in-law in the front seat while Megan sat in the back. Christmas songs, one after the other, blasted from the radio and they sang along. Well, Megan and Craig joined in; Troy bobbed his head now and then. He didn’t much care about either Frosty or Rudolph at the moment.

When they arrived at the tree farm, it was packed. It seemed as if every family in Cedar Cove was there, which surprised Troy because this was a Friday night. Colored lights were strung around the area, brightening the trees. There was a big kettle of hot chocolate and one of warm apple cider, both of them, in his opinion, grossly overpriced.

“Why is it so busy tonight?” Troy wondered aloud as he ventured away from the car. They were fortunate to have secured a parking space.