Page 17 of Blame it on the Mistletoe
But since launching Operation Cookie Monster, she’d spent every night of the past week in her kitchen, baking and freezing ginger bear cookies.
Tonight was her last night of baking, and tomorrow she’d begin the painful process of frosting fifty-dozen ginger bear cookies.
The idea of fifty-dozen cookies was far different than the reality of how much dough it took to bake fifty-dozen cookies in her stamp-sized kitchen.
After cranking the heater to Oahu-in-summer, she slipped on her apron and got to work. With the oven preheating, she pulled out the dough, which had been chilling since last night, and sprinkled flour on the cutting board. Then, one by one, she cut out each little bear face, placing it on the cookie sheet, then topped it with a dough Santa hat. The layering would give her cookies depth and make them stand out from the cookies of the past.
“You are so cute,” she cooed to the first batch of the night, then slid them into the oven.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. And what better late night snack than leftover apple pie? Which she popped into the microwave.
Never having much downtime, Faith didn’t know what to do with leisure, so she decided to watch the plate spin around and around. Afraid she might be standing too close, she took a small step back, then watched the seconds count down.
Anticipating theding,she’d just touched the handle when an ear-piercingcrackshot through the night, filling the air with charged static. Suddenly, everything plunged into complete blackness.
Faith’s stomach hollowed out as her body dropped straight to the floor, knocking over the mixing bowl, sending a cloud of flour exploding on impact. Old instincts kicked in and she covered her head with her hands, curling herself into a tight ball.
Her heart ricocheting off her ribs, her eyes tightly shut, she remained completely still, except for the involuntary chattering of her teeth. Her lungs burned to release the trapped oxygen and her pulse thundered so loudly she was certain it was audible.
And in that split second of time, Faith was a six-year-old girl again, huddled behind the couch, feeling so helpless and afraid, she was dizzy with dread.
Still unmoving, she strained to listen through the roar in her ears, waiting for glass to shatter or the sound of footsteps pounding toward her, but all she heard was a thick, suffocating silence.
Out of nowhere, a low rumble started overhead, shaking the house and rattling the windows.
Relief seeped into her tightened muscles and she opened one eye, then the other, right as another bright flash lit up her kitchen like Rockefeller Center at Christmas. It wasn’t until the thunder rolled again that Faith allowed herself to breathe, to believe that it was only a storm and her life wasn’t in danger.
Swallowing the wave of hysteria clogging her throat, she pushed herself up on shaky hands. Another flash of light cut through the night sky, illuminating the moist handprints she left behind on the hardwood floors, and glistening off the beads of sweat covering her arms. And only because laughing was better than crying, she allowed a small laugh to escape, which sounded a little closer to a teary croak.
“One Mississippi,” she counted shakily, refocusing on the rhythm of the words and trying to slow her heart. “Two Mississip—”
Boom!
Faith let out another laugh because Mother Nature was not playing nice tonight. “Seriously, you couldn’t even let me have the second Mississippi to collect my shi-gle bells?”
Boom!
Not that it would have helped. Two Mississippis didn’t come close to cutting it when dealing with the haunting memories that stalked her. Which was ridiculous when she really thought about it. It had been over twenty years since that night but she could have sworn that she smelled discharged gunpowder in the air moments before everything went dark.
Then a downpour of hailstones the size of softballs bounced off the roof, confirming it was simply a winter storm; the rest of it had been in her head. That didn’t mean she didn’t jump when her phone vibrated in her back pocket.
“Hello?” she answered, surprised that she sounded calm and collected. Not like she was in the middle of a nervous breakdown.
“Hey, it’s Shelby. Pax wanted to call and make sure you were okay.”
Faith took stock of her body. She was in one piece, no one was in the room with her, and it had been nothing but a little scare.
“Tell him I’m fine,” she said casually, as if she hadn’t dropped to the ground like someone in the middle of a shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. “I’m fine,” she repeated. It was something she’d become adept at telling people—including herself.
But instead of Shelby’s answer, Faith got some rustling on the phone followed by heavy kid breathing.
“You okay?” It was Pax, and he sounded worried and small.
“You bet, buddy. I was just heating up some apple pie for dinner,” she said. “How are you doing? Did you see the lightning?”
Thankfully, Pax hadn’t yet been born when that awful night happened. But he’d woken Faith up from enough bad dreams to know that loud noises could sometimes freak her out. And with a heart the size of Texas, he wanted to make sure his older sister was okay after the thunderstorm.
“The lightning was pretty cool, I guess. But I told JT I might go home,” he said quietly. “You know, if you don’t want to eat dinner by yourself.”
