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Father Morgan glanced out the church’s window, which he had stationed himself near to on purpose, while the choir fussed over their music. It was about the right time, they should probably start. He motioned to Father Evans, who called the choir to order and told them to begin with “Carol of the Bells.” Which after some eye-rolling and a few groans, they did.
And not thirty seconds later, right on the dot by Father Morgan’s watch, the man he’d been watching for walked into view. The man slowed, then stopped, listening. And smiled.
Father Morgan smiled as well. The song began to wind down from its crescendo, the man started walking again and soon had disappeared into the night. Morgan's subordinate, Father Evans, told the choir to find the music for “Silent Night” and then strolled over. “He was here?”
“The same as every night.” The older priest smiled, moving away from the window. “It’s a small thing…”
“But sometimes small things mean the most,” Father Evans finished dutifully; it was one of his superior’s favorite sayings. “But it’s cold and wet out. Why don’t you just invite him to come inside and listen?”
Morgan shook his head. “He wouldn’t be comfortable. And some members of our choir wouldn’t be either, so this way is best for now.” He walked to the front of the waiting choir, the younger priest trailing behind him. “All right, now that we’ve warmed up with the most difficult piece, let’s get cracking on the rest. I believe last night we decided that Silent Night needed to be just a bit louder…”
Father Evans dropped back and let him conduct, taking the time to sort out more sheet music. The choir in Sandford was surprisingly well-trained – or maybe that was unsurprisingly, considering what might have happened to former choir members who did not take their task seriously enough. He and Father Morgan were having to be very careful with the choir, and with the congregation in general, because of their reverend predecessor’s…affiliation with the old NWA.
Just thinking about it made him want to shudder – which he wouldn’t let himself do with the choir there, or any of the rest of the congregation either. But still, the very idea that they’d been tucking all those bodies away under the church for all those years was enough to make him occasionally wish he’d been assigned anywhere else but Sandford. Not that he hadn’t know what he was getting into before he’d come; Father Morgan had taken pains to make him abundantly familiar with what had happened in the church and in and around the picturesque little village before he’d taken up his duties there. “I don’t want you to be surprised by anything, Rod,” the elder priest had explained. “These people, they don’t need us to be shaken to the core by each new revelation, each horrible new discovery; they don’t need to deal with our shock and outrage, they’ve got enough of their own. So we’ve got to get all of ours out of the way before any of them come to us, or before some new horror comes to light, understand?”
Rod had, but he still hadn’t liked ‘getting it out of the way’ very much – although he supposed that if he had liked it that would have meant there was something seriously wrong with him. He’d lain awake all night after seeing some of the surveillance video footage, and the excerpts from Reverend Shooter’s journals had left him on his knees for countless hours, pleading wordlessly with God to cleanse him of the unclean feeling that even indirect contact with such madness had left in him. And he hadn’t even read it all! Father Morgan had, of course, and in consequence there were certain of the congregation – and those outside of the congregation, such as their solitary 6:05 walker – whom he treated with extra care and consideration because of it.
There were also those in the congregation whom it was difficult to treat with as much consideration as others because of it, something Rod seemed to have more of a problem with than his superior did. It wasn’t that he wasn’t compassionate; Sandford was a small, tightly-knit village, and every NWA member hauled off to prison had left behind a tangled network of friends and relations, some of whom were openly conflicted or even in outright denial about the whole situation. He glanced at the choir whose near-flawless harmony was filling the once-defiled church with a healing crescendo of peace and light; there was one older woman near the front who had been refusing to open her mouth during “Carol of the Bells” for nearly a week now because she’d realized who that particular song rehearsal’s timing was meant to benefit. Her brother Roy had been an active member of the NWA, and the man who walked past each evening on his way home from work…had been the one to see them all brought down.
There just really wasn’t a way for them to directly address an issue like that – from either end – without doing even more damage. Still, though, Rod promised himself that he’d say an extra prayer before he went to bed, and light an extra candle. He and Father Morgan couldn’t come up with anything save just waiting patiently, but God certainly should be able to. And Christmas had always been a time for miracles.
Inspector Nicholas Angel walked down the snow-dusted sidewalks of his adopted village, enjoying the Christmas decorations that graced the buildings and the way the lights grew soft halos in the cold night air. He’d always loved being outside at Christmas, even as a boy. Of course, London had been much louder and busier than Sandford ever could be, especially around the holidays and most especially on Christmas Eve. He smiled to himself – as well he had to, since there was no one else around for him to smile at. He’d given his entire team the night off, not seeing the sense in keeping them from the families they all desperately needed to reconnect with when he knew the night would most likely be uneventful. Sandford was still ‘catching its breath’ after the events of eight months previous, and normal levels of criminal activity had yet to re-establish themselves. Not to mention that, given the size of the village and the fact that most of his officers were somewhere within its boundaries, he could have as much help as he needed within minutes if he did happen to encounter something one man couldn’t handle on his own. The Christmas Eve schedule broke his hard rule that no officer was ever to go out alone, but as Nick had made the rule he had perversely decided that he could break it if he damned well felt it necessary. And it wasn’t like there was anyone around with sufficient rank to call him on it anyway.
Although Danny had tried, of course. Nick’s smile warmed as he thought of his partner; the new smile softened the sharp planes of his narrow face and made him look years younger – not that anyone would have told him that, even if someone had been around to do so. Nick was not considered approachable by most people, including most of the members of his own department. Again, Danny was the exception, and the fact that the cool, distant Inspector Angel allowed him to be was a source of amazement to many people both in Sandford and in London.
Danny was at his aunt’s house this Christmas Eve, the aunt being one of the few relatives Sandford’s ranking sergeant had in the area who was still on speaking terms with him. Many of Danny’s other blood relations were still somewhat displeased over the fact that he’d turned against his father, former Inspector Frank Butterman, who’d been the heading up Sandford’s murder ring for nearly twenty years; they’d gotten even nastier when Frank had committed suicide in prison not two months into the seventeen consecutive life sentences the Crown had seen fit to award him. Bella Waverly, actually a great aunt on his mother’s side, was the only one who had come ‘round to offer condolences, so when Danny had mentioned that she’d asked him over for dinner on Christmas Eve Nick had all but ordered him to go. He’d even arranged the schedule so that Danny could go back to her for Christmas Day if he so chose, with the tacit approval of the rest of the team – none of them had wanted Danny to be stuck in the station over the holiday if it could be helped, but the strain within many of their families over the recent goings-on had made inviting him to share in anyone else’s Christmas impractical if not outright impossible. And Nick had spent nearly every Christmas of his adult life on duty somewhere in one capacity or another – by preference if not necessity – so he’d had no alternatives to offer his best friend either.
He had, however, gone ‘round to Tony Fisher near the beginning of December and secured a backup invitation for Danny at the former sergeant’s house just in case Aunt Bella had failed to come through. Tony was the one surviving member of the Sandford P.D. who had left the service after the takedown of the NWA; the former sergeant had taken over the small shop Annette Roper had once owned and seemed to be quite happy selling candy and Cornettos and writing small, chatty articles for the newly revived village newspaper. Nick was happy for him. Tony was a good man, and so far as Nick was concerned the village was lucky he’d chosen to keep his small family there instead of opting to make a fresh start for them someplace else. Not to mention, Tony was also doing a bang-up job of helping Nick keep Danny down to one Cornetto per day when he was on duty.
The little shop was closed now, of course. Nick checked the door and had a look in the single window as he walked past, losing a chuckle over the revised sign that specified no more than one on-duty police officer allowed inside at a time. So far on his solitary patrol he hadn’t seen anyone else out save for a shivering pensioner watering an equally shivering little dog, but once he rounded the corner into the centre of the village things came to life again. The church was lit up from nave to belfry, spilling a joyful cascade of sound and color out into the street, and people in choir robes were flitting in and out while bundled children chased and played in the empty snowy street around the fountain. Nick stopped for a moment and just enjoyed how innocently picturesque the scene was; at the moment, he wasn’t missing the glamour and glitz of holiday London one bit. And he especially wasn’t missing seeing hefty unidentifiable men dressed as Father Christmas hanging about on the streetcorners, an absence he’d been thankful for all holiday long.
He resumed his walk with a slow, measured tread, giving the people in the area plenty of time to see and identify him as he drew closer. Many residents of Sandford were uncomfortable around him, and a few were openly hostile, so some measure of care and forethought on his part was definitely required – and would be for the foreseeable future. So he walked slowly up the sidewalk, touched his hat when people acknowledged him, ignored those who avoided him…and tried not to start right out of his shoes when someone in a billowing robe came bustling out of the shadows of the churchyard. It wasn’t only the residents who had some personal issues left over from the NWA.
He was starting to cross the street, doing his best not to watch the churchyard shadows, when he heard the sound of a racing engine growling through the crisp night air. Nick stopped in his tracks, looking back up the road. A car was out on the roads, speeding by the sound of it…yes, he’d just heard tires squeal as the car took a corner, definitely speeding. He frowned, knowing there was nothing he could do about it at present. No one else was out on the streets and the snow was more wet than slick, so thankfully the possibility of a collision was unlikely tonight. And by the time he could get back to the station and get a car, the speeder would be long gone.
Or would he? Nick cocked his head, listening. The engine sound seemed to be getting louder, closer. Was that car coming through the village? He heard another screech of tires just before a shiny blue sports car came skidding around the corner, and he immediately calculated the speeding vehicle’s devastating, unstoppable trajectory. He leapt into motion, yelling at the children to get off the street, and managing to grab up the smallest of them himself and roll out of the way mere seconds before the car would have hit them both. As it happened, the car skidded broadside against the fountain before stalling to a stop, and Nick ended up tumbling against the sidewalk opposite.
He immediately sat up, uncurling from around the little girl in his arms. She was crying, but it didn’t look like she was hurt at all, so he pushed himself to his feet – he was more than a bit shaky, it took him two tries. A woman was rushing toward them, screaming something he assumed was the child’s name; he handed the little girl over when she screamed “Mama!” in return. “I don’t think she’s hurt, just frightened,” he told the sobbing woman, giving her the best reassuring smile he could manage. And then he turned away and stalked back across the street toward the stalled car, the smile falling away to make room for something much more snarl-like.
The driver of the car was, apparently, unhurt. He was trying to restart the car, in fact, and was immensely surprised when a fuming, furious uniformed police officer pulled him out of the driver’s seat and spun him around to shove him against the side of the car. “ “Thought we’d have a little Christmas Eve joyride through town?” Nick snapped, already clapping on the handcuffs. “I can smell the alcohol on you. You’re under arrest.”
“But it’s Christmas Eve…” the young man wailed, slurring a little. “I jus…just tryin’ to make it home…”
“You were driving under the influence, breaking the speed limits, and you almost ran down a group of children,” the angry inspector cut him off. “On Christmas Eve. So home is not a place you’re going to be arriving at tonight.” He yanked the now cuffed man upright, locked a hand around his arm…and realized they were surrounded by wide-eyed people in choir robes. Nick’s spine straightened and his rather nasty scowl morphed down into a stern look of authority. “I’m taking this menace off to jail,” he told the crowd. “I’ll call for the wrecker to come get the car as soon as I’ve got him settled. We’ll have the mess cleaned up before the midnight service, don’t worry.” The woman with the little girl was nearby, staring, and he nodded to her. “You don’t have to come in to file a complaint against him if you don’t want to,” he said, knowing that the people of Sandford had been well trained by their previous inspector in not swearing out complaints, and many were rather gun-shy about doing so. “But if you do, come to the station in the next day or so and we’ll take care of it.”
She just barely shook her head, and he nodded back his acceptance of her decision. Nick was surprised, however, when an older woman stepped up beside her, wringing her hands and looking nervously back and forth between he and his prisoner. “Can we…can we come see him?”
The strange, hesitant request took him by surprise. She – or rather, they, as there were a few other women gathering up with her – wanted to come see the drunken idiot who had just nearly run down the childrens’ choir and sundry? He opened his mouth to ask why…and then it hit him and he was very nearly sick. “There’s no need,” he managed to answer. “We’ll let him out tomorrow once he’s sobered up, he won’t be able to go before the magistrate to face charges until after the holiday. I’m not saying you can’t stop in to the station any time you like,” he added quickly. “But it would probably be more convenient for all concerned if you just spoke to him once he’s been released.”
“Yes, I believe you’re right, Inspector,” Father Morgan agreed, making his way to the front of the crowd. “Beatrice, if you really must see him tonight, Father Evans or I will take you ‘round to the station, all right?” he asked, and patted her shoulder when she nodded. “Very well. But I think we should give the inspector some time to get his prisoner settled and get himself cleaned up, don’t you think?” He smiled kindly, if a little concernedly, at Nick. “Inspector Angel, are you certain you’re all right?”
Nick was puzzled by the question and it showed, but then he felt something trickle down the side of his cheek; raising a hand to it he found a scrape near his temple that was bleeding freely and grimaced. “It’s just a scrape, from the concrete I think,” he said, fishing a handkerchief out of his pocket and using it to pat the blood away. “I’ll take care of it back at the station, it’s fine. Now if you’ll all excuse us…”
The small crowd parted for him, just a bit reluctantly in some quarters, and he led his staggering drunken prisoner off down the street. The choir watched them go, some more intently than others, until Father Morgan began herding them all back into the church – and even then, some looked back over their shoulders to watch. The priest exchanged a grim look with Father Evans over their heads and mouthed Give him half an hour before disappearing back into the warmth and beginning to spout reassuring platitudes about the hand of God being over them all this night and a tragedy being averted.
Forty minutes later, Father Evans was back out in the cold – bundled up warmly this time – and leading Beatrice and two other older ladies down the street to the new police station. Little Tina’s mother had decided to come with them as well, and the young priest was almost as nervous as they were. He wasn’t entirely sure what they wanted from Angel, and it worried him even though Father Morgan had assured him that the inspector would handle it and he need only go along as escort for the sake of appearances. What he did know, however, was that this was not the sort of difference-bridging Christmas miracle he’d been asking God for a week previous; he resolved to be more careful about making such requests in future, the last thing Sandford needed was more dramatic action in the streets. But still, God had to have set the sequence of events up as He had for some good reason, even if Rod himself wasn’t able to see it just yet. He put that train of thought aside for later consideration, resolving to speak with Father Morgan about it after the service – and after their Christmas Eve ‘visit’ to the new police station was over and done with.
The new police station was in one of the buildings that had been standing empty near the south end of Sandford ever since its owner had died of a sudden ‘accident’; its front steps had been recently cleared of snow, and there was a small plastic wreath tacked to the door. The outside light had a new energy-saving bulb in it, the white spiral of which was just visible through the more traditional glass globe crowning the fixture’s metal arm. Rod pushed the door open and held it for the ladies, then followed them inside.
A large, rough rug had been laid in front of the door to catch the muck that could get tracked in, and beyond that was a good-sized desk behind which Inspector Angel was sitting. He’d taken off his coat – which was hanging on a tree behind the desk – and he was now down to his shirtsleeves and stab vest. The little pool of light from the one lamp he had on at the desk caught the gold in his cropped hair, and the harder-edged bluish light from the computer screen picked out a small flesh-coloured bandage at his temple where he had apparently taken care of the scrape from earlier. He looked surprised to see them – or possibly just to see so many of them – but he immediately stood up. “Father, ladies,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming by tonight or not, what with the service to prepare for.”
“We’ve just time before the rest of the congregation starts to arrive…for a short tour?” Rod requested diplomatically when none of the ladies with him said anything. “If you’re not too busy, that is, Inspector.”
Angel shook his head. “I was just catching up on paperwork. I expected tonight to be a slow night, that’s why I let the rest of the department go.” He saw the priest’s raised eyebrow and shrugged. “This isn’t the city, where something’s going on ‘round the clock so you always need a full shift. I didn’t see the need to take anyone away from their families just so they could sit around the office with nothing to do, wishing they were someplace else.”
“The old inspector kept the shift in,” one of the older women said abruptly. She looked around the very sparsely decorated office with a slightly disapproving frown. “It was a party for them, on Christmas Eve, with lots of people going in and out, and then they’d all come down to the church together for the service.”
“We had our holiday party day before yesterday,” the new inspector told her. “And I leave the decision of whether or not to attend services up to the individual officers, Mrs…?”
“Small, Jean Small,” she said, fussing with her scarf. She pointed out the other ladies. “This is Beatrice Post and Jenny Taverner. And young Mrs. Towner.”
Angel inclined his head just slightly to acknowledge the introductions. “Mrs. Towner, is your little girl over her scare?”
She nodded, a little too jerkily. “It’s her that’s not over the scare,” the woman introduced as Jenny Taverner told him with confiding sympathy. “Little Tina was off playin’ again in five minutes.”
“Children are quite resilient,” Angel agreed. “Well, if you’d like to take off your coats, there are pegs just there for them…” No one moved to take off a coat, and he nodded. “Or you can keep them on, if you’d prefer. All right then, please follow me.”
He proceeded to lead them through the station, which wasn’t very large. The wardroom where all of the Sandford officers had their desks (“Having everyone out here together makes for a more cooperative atmosphere”), the two locker rooms (“We’d only the one before, and everyone had to share it”), the break room which currently boasted a tiny decorated tree in the center of its single table and half a plate of store-bought Christmas cookies (“We had a Christmas cake for the party, but it didn’t last long”), his own surprisingly small office (“No, I find it plenty large enough – I don’t spend much time in there, actually”), a room for doing questioning (“They aren’t always ‘interrogations’; sometimes we just have questions which are better asked and answered in private”), and the steel-doored evidence locker (“Sorry, but it’s against regulations for me to show you the inside of that one”). At the entrance to the cells, however, he stopped. “I’m afraid I can’t let you in here, Mrs. Towner,” he apologized. “As your daughter very nearly fell victim to our current prisoner’s drunken driving, it would be against regulations for you to be allowed contact with him while he’s in police custody. You may wait in the break room or out front, whichever you prefer.”
Abbey Towner nodded – she had yet to say a word – and went back out front. Once there, she sat down in the same chair the inspector had vacated, not wanting to sit in the ‘visitor’ chair with her back to the door, and just listened. The station was draped in silence, only faintly broken by the on-again off-again hum of the central heating vent. She couldn’t hear the inspector or the others. Aside from the wreath on the door, and a piece of fake evergreen garland across the front of the desk she was sitting at, the room was bare of decoration, or of much of anything else that might be interesting.
On the computer screen, the words incident report caught her eye. Paperwork…he’d been making out his report about the drunken driver when they’d come in. Curious and a little defiant, wanting to know what he was saying had happened, she started to read. Surprise widened her eyes; it wasn’t what she’d expected.
The bell on the front door jangled, a sharper than normal sound in the cold air, and she jumped guiltily as a heavyset man well bundled in coat a muffler and carrying a bag walked in, stamping his feet on the rough mat. He looked surprised to see her, his dark eyes narrowing a bit as he tried to make sense of her presence behind the desk, and when he unwound the muffler she saw that it was Danny Butterman – or Sergeant Butterman, now. “Mrs. Towner? Is somethin’ the matter?”
Abbey found her voice. “I…he told me to wait, out here, while they went to see the pr-prisoner.”
“Ah, he wouldn’t be able to let you go back there, would he?” He plopped the bag down on the desk, and next to it placed a hat he’d apparently had tucked under his arm; the hat was crushed, in fact it rather looked as though it had been run over by something, and when he saw her looking he smiled a little tightly as he stripped off his own coat and hat and hung them on one of the pegs by the door. “Yeah, it’s the inspector’s. I found it in the street, and Father Morgan told me what happened. Tina looked all right.”
“She wasn’t hurt.” Abbey glanced back at the screen, frowned. “He saved her – the inspector. He just gr-grabbed her up out of the street and jumped, but…”
“But what?” Danny came around behind the desk, leaning over to look at the screen himself. His sigh surprised her, but when she looked up at him his expression was still neutral and pleasant, giving away nothing else. “Oh. Well, that’s just the way he writes things up – just the facts, no ‘unnecessary embellishments’,” he told her, and then gently chivvied her up out of the seat and guided her to the visitor’s chair she’d avoided earlier. He took the inspector’s seat himself and leaned back in it, running a hand through his hat-mussed brown hair. “He says if we want to write thrillin’ cop stories we can do it on our own time. He’s right, of course. The paperwork’s got to be professional.” Danny grinned. “Which means it’s right boring, but those are the breaks.” He cocked an eyebrow, the grin melting down into a more professional friendly concern. “You sure you’re okay, Mrs. Towner? You had quite the scare, according to Father Morgan.”
Abbey started to shake her head, then stopped. “You’ll r-really put the Parker boy back out tomorrow?”
Danny shrugged. “Once he’s sober, yeah of course; don’t need him clutterin’ up the jail, and there no judge in for two days to take him in front of ‘cause of the holiday. I don’t think he’ll do a runner, especially since we’ve got that flash car of his impounded and he’s sure to want it back.” He cocked an eyebrow, all the amusement gone from his face. “You goin’ to swear out a statement about what happened? Law doesn’t require you to do it in a case like this, but we can take that to the judge, you know. If nothin’ else, it should earn young Parker some extra community service hours to go with his pulled license.”
She thought about that; the inspector had also said she didn’t have to swear out a complaint, but he hadn’t told her what use her complaint would be if she did choose to make one. She glanced at the monitor again, although she couldn’t see the bare-bones incident report any more. The inspector hadn’t glorified his actions of an hour ago the way some of the choir had said he doubtless would; his official report only said that there had been children playing by the fountain and that he had made sure they all got out of the street – it didn’t say how he’d done it. Her eyes were drawn to the crushed hat. She hadn’t realized he’d been as close to where the car had crashed as that when he’d grabbed Tina. “I’ll make out a st-statement,” she said. She looked up at the surprised sergeant. “Can I wr-write it out and br-bring it in to you?”
“’Course you can.” Danny smiled. “I’ll have a paper for you to sign when you bring it in, and then we’ll put it with the inspector’s report to go to the judge.” Voices appeared in the far hallway, and he half turned around. “Hallo, everybody,” he said as the three older ladies and Father Evans filed back in through the wardroom with Angel behind them. “How was the tour?”
“You’ve a nice little station here,” Jenny Taverner told him.
“And so very neat and clean,” came from Jean Small, who gave Angel a smile that seemed to fluster him somewhat. “You need more Christmas decorations, though.”
“Oh, we had more, but they all got blown up with the last station,” Danny told her, standing up. He picked the hat up off the desk and waved it at his boss. “Found your hat, Inspector.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
Angel had stiffened just a little, and Rod took that in along with the appearance of the hat – dear God, had the man really been that close? – and the sergeant’s slightly raised eyebrow. Apparently Sgt. Butterman had not been expected at the station tonight, nor had he been called in as a result of the incident in front of the church. “And thank you for the tour, Inspector Angel,” the priest said, moving his charges in the direction of the door, although he did pause just long enough to shake hands with both officers. “We’ve got to be getting back to the church now, and we’ll let you get back to your paperwork.” He started to ask if either of them would be coming to the midnight service, then thought better of it. “Happy Christmas to you both.”
“Thank you, Father Evans,” Angel replied. “Happy Christmas to all of you as well.”
“Happy Christmas,” Danny echoed.
Once their visitors had left, Danny took another look at the hat he was holding, then dropped it on the desk. His partner was frowning at him. “I thought you were at your aunt’s tonight? Did something happen?”
“I was, and no, nothing happened except a really great dinner,” Danny told him with a shrug. “She knew you were on duty tonight, she wanted me to bring you some food. Which I did.” He waved a hand at the bag. “Spotted your hat in the snow outside the church as I was walkin’ over here, gave me one hell of a turn. Father Morgan told me what happened. Were you gonna call anyone in?”
This time it was Nick who shrugged. “I didn’t see the need. Turner will be in at seven, and then I can go home and get some sleep – I certainly don’t expect any trouble out of this prisoner, he’s practically asleep now.”
“Yeah.” Danny picked up the sack. “Well come on then, Mister No-More-Eatin’-Cake-At-The-Desks, let’s take this to the break room. So how did our first official tour of the new station go?”
Trailing along behind him, Nick rolled his eyes. “They mainly wanted to make sure I wasn’t planning to bury the drunken idiot in an unmarked grave out back,” he said. “I thought for a moment the choir was going to prevent me bringing him back here at all – and they just might’ve tried it if Father Morgan hadn’t stepped in.”
“They’re still scared.”
“I know.” Nick leaned against the breakroom’s doorframe. “I don’t hold it against them, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know.” Danny was pulling things out of his sack; he set one piece of plastic-wrapped cake off to the side. “You’ll have to take that one home to eat off duty, it’s got enough rum in it to take a man over the legal limit in one slice.” He cast a sidelong look at his partner. “Or you can come over to mine and eat it, I’ve got vanilla ice cream and it goes real well with that.”
A smile crinkled the corners of Nick’s brown eyes. “That sounds good to me. We haven’t had much time for movies lately.”
“Nope, we haven’t, and it’s a damn shame,” Danny agreed. He set a small box of fudge next to the Christmas cookies. “That’s for the rest of them. The rest of this,” he waved a hand over the little plate he’d arranged with small servings of pie and cake and tarts and jelly cookies, “is for you.”
Nick laughed. “Only if you’re helping me eat it all.”
“Nope. What you don’t want now, you can take home for later.” The other man folded his arms across his chest. “Happy Christmas from Aunt Bella, Nick. She said that next time I’m to bring you along, either that or stay here with you and she’ll bring Christmas Eve dinner in to us both.”
A sigh. “We don’t need…”
“More than one man on the desk on Christmas, yeah yeah,” Danny finished for him, rolling his eyes. He stalked over to his friend, who was still leaning somewhat tiredly in the doorway, and gestured at the bandage on his temple. “Sidewalk rash?”
Nick nodded. “I didn’t even notice until Father Morgan pointed it out to me – it was bleeding, you know how drippy even the most superficial head wounds can be.”
“Yeah, you scared them all a bit – and not just because some worry you’re going to follow in my dad’s footsteps.” Danny arched an eyebrow, tapped the bandage with a gentle finger. “You were shook up from that close call, they all saw it, and then you had blood runnin’ down your face to boot. A few of them thought they should have stopped you coming back to the station because they wanted to make sure you were okay before you went off on your own.” He tapped the bandage again. “I damn near had a heart attack when I saw your hat crushed into the snow in the road like that, Nick.”
“Sorry.” Nick sighed again. “I damned near had one when I saw that car skidding right for those kids.”
“Yeah, I bet. But it ain’t the same, and I’m gonna tell you why.” Danny used the tapping finger to point up to the top of the doorframe, where a white-berried sprig of dull-leaved greenery had been impaled on a tack just over their heads. And then when Nick looked up, Danny grabbed the edges of his stab vest in both hands, pulled him down the two-inch difference in their respective heights and kissed him. After a long, thorough moment he drew back just enough to whisper, “It ain’t the same because I love you, you idiot.”
Nick goggled at him, but he didn’t pull away. “You love me?”
“Yeah.” Danny cocked an eyebrow, not letting go. “Have done, for a while now. So?”
“So…” Nick licked his lips, obviously thinking the thing through. “I need to call you the next time I jump in front of a drunk driver to save a little girl?”
Danny took this question as a good sign. “Yes, you most certainly do. And no more breakin’ your own rule about nobody workin’ alone.” He pulled his partner down and kissed him again. Thoroughly. “And what else?”
“I need to change the Christmas schedule.” Nick grimaced. “It’s not that I didn’t want…I mean, I just didn’t want you to have to spend Christmas Eve in the station. You…”
“Used to spend every Christmas in the station, yeah. Since I was eleven, anyway,” Danny finished for him. He gave Nick a small shake. “But those were good times, Nick; bein’ here at Christmas don’t make me sad any more than it makes you sad. It’s somethin’ you and I have in common, somethin’ the rest of them can’t understand. Bein’ a police officer isn’t just a job for you and me, it’s our life. When we’re here, we are home for Christmas.”
This time, he didn’t have to pull down; Nick met him halfway. “I love you too, Danny.”
“I know.” Danny let go of the vest and wrapped his arms around his partner. “Happy Christmas, Nick.”
“Happy Christmas, Danny.” Nick smiled that special soft smile, resting his forehead against Danny’s with one more sigh – this one contented. “Glad you came home for it.”