Powdered Murder

"Do you need us to help you get home?" Patrick asked.

"Oh no," she insisted. "I'm fine." She looked at the two of us and sighed. "You know it's a pity you couldn't find a nice girl here in town to marry. Then Bison Creek wouldn't have to deal with all the publicity."

"What?" My jaw hung open. Patrick's secret was out. He was getting married to Lila Clemton tomorrow at the Pinecliffe Mountain Resort, and the news had spread as far as Mrs. Tankle. "How do you know about the wedding?"

"Don't be silly," she said casually. "The whole town knows."

"It must have been my mother," Patrick commented.

"No dear, your mother has kept quiet and I have no idea how. When my little Kristen got married, I couldn't keep my mouth shut about it."

"Well," Patrick confessed. "I asked Mom not to tell anyone." He glanced at me for brief second.

"So it must have been someone else," I added. "Who else knew about the wedding besides our parents and…?” I stopped when I realized exactly who had blabbed. It was the same person had who had threatened me. "Of course. Martha Millbreck."

"The mayor’s wife?" Patrick asked.

"Knowing her, you can expect a full blown caravan of paparazzi tomorrow."

Patrick looked down as he shook his head. He slumped his shoulders and paused to stare at a tiny crack in the wooden floor Mrs. Tankle couldn't afford to have refinished. Patrick looked defeated. I placed my hands on his tense shoulders, feeling his deltoids contract from the stress. They were rock solid.

"Lila won't mind if there is a press invasion," he confessed in a low voice. Mrs. Tankle and I leaned in closer so we could hear him clearly. "She wanted the cameras, the camera crew, and the A-list guest list. The quiet mountain ceremony with no publicity was my idea."

"Maybe nothing will happen?" I suggested. But I knew I was only dreaming. Lila Clemton was a tabloid regular. The papers loved her and they hated her. Anyone who missed out on the opportunity to film or snap pictures of her secret wedding to the pro snowboarder Patrick Jaye would surely be fired.

"It's bound to happen." He finally looked up and smiled at Mrs. Tankle. "Good to see you again, Mrs. Tankle." He pushed open the shop door, letting in a rough breeze. "I should head back to the resort." He stepped onto the sidewalk and shoved his hands in his pockets as he made his way back towards Pinecliffe Mountain. The resort was within walking distance, but it wasn't a walk anybody made late at night and in the snow.

"Bye, Mrs. Tankle." I opened the door to follow him down the street. "And sorry again."

I jogged to catch up to Patrick.

"Patrick," I said.

He kept walking.

"I don't know what I'm doing anymore, Essie," he quietly replied. Patrick wasn't the kind of man who gave up easily. That was obvious from the moment he moved here and set foot on a snowboard for the first time in his life. He knew what it took to continually fail, and then pick yourself back up again. Seeing him this way hurt.

"It's okay." I offered words of encouragement, but I had no idea what was the right thing to say. "Things will work themselves out."

"I don't know." When he exhaled, his breath lingered in the air. The snow started falling even heavier until I glanced behind us and could no longer see our footprints. "No matter what happens tomorrow, someone is going to end up hurt."

"Huh?" My heart dropped.

"Essie, I have a confession to make."

"Okay." I gulped, knowing that any sentence starting out that way wasn't going to end well. I stopped under a street lamp and casually looked into the light at the flittering flurries above our heads.

"Throughout my career," he said. "I always meant to visit Bison Creek more often than I did, and now that I'm retiring and moving back I find myself in the same predicament that I can't seem to overcome. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"Not really." I folded my arms and rubbed my hands against my coat for warmth.

"I love it here but…" He sniffled and dug the heel of his boot into the snow. "It's too hard. I thought that getting married would make things different, but it has only made everything worse."

"Patrick, you're not making any sense."

"Essie, I know I can trust you," he continued. "I've always trusted you." He paused and gri

"I was young and dumb," I snickered. "And we were lucky that thing didn't eat us for breakfast."

"Yeah well…" He raised his eyebrows and paused to laugh with me. His face went straight again and this time before he spoke, he looked at me. His eyes were glassy. "My mom is sick. She's been seeing a specialist in Denver, but she doesn't have much time left."

"Cancer?" The street fell peacefully silent. Patrick nodded. As he did a snowflake rested gently on his cheek and dissolved into a bead of water against his warm face. "I'm sorry, Patrick."

"She been fighting for years, but she's exhausted. It has been too hard to see her this way so … I've been avoiding it altogether. Does that make me a terrible son?"

"No." I shook my head and instinctively wrapped my arm around his shoulders. "I think that just makes you human."

Patrick did something he had never done before. He pulled me close to him and held me tight. His sharp chin rested on my shoulder and his muscles move as he squeezed me tighter. At first, he took me by surprise. I slowly placed my hands on his back and let him find comfort he needed. I couldn't put myself in his shoes, but I did understand how it felt to feel so confused about life that you think you'll never find clarity. I love my mom and I was lucky that she adopted me when I was a baby, but some days I can't help but wonder about my birth mother. Where she is. What she's doing. If I should keep searching for her. The whole situation makes my life feel more complicated than it probably is.

I slowly rubbed the middle of his back and gently squeezed his shoulders. The warmth from his core was now radiating through me. My chest felt like a fire being kindled until it was ready to roar from the fireplace. I pulled myself away from Patrick and let the freezing wind cool me off.

Our eyes co

Under different circumstances, the moment would have been prefect. Patrick kissed me and I let him do it. Everything around us faded away in a haze of smoke and fog. I wanted him to hold me forever because the moment he let go, I knew nothing between us would ever be the same.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Patrick and I walked hand in hand towards the Grizzly, both of us aware that the moment we were in eyeshot of the townsfolk things would go back to the way they were before we'd kissed. In a few minutes, Patrick would go back to waiting on Lila and I would go back to trying not to get killed.