Previously…
– Travis planned to propose to Rosie.
– Rosie found an infant abandoned outside the KBPD. At the hospital, Claire helped her navigate the baby’s care before Social Services stepped in.
– Diane was shocked to learn that her fling from the cruise, Isaac, was also Tempest’s long-lost brother.

An instrumental version of “Silent Night” floats through the dining room of Bill’s on the Pier. The restaurant is aglow with the warmth of soft lights and dinner conversation. Small, brilliant red poinsettias rest in the center of each copper-topped table.

“It’s nice to be fancy for a night,” Rosie Jimenez says as she takes a sip of her red wine. Her black hair, which she so often wears in a ponytail, hangs loose tonight, styled with a gentle wave throughout; she wears a simple but elegant black dress and a gold pendant necklace.

“Fancy looks good on you,” Travis Fisher replies with a wink from across the table. 

“Ditto, handsome.” She grins at her boyfriend, who has on a navy blue button-down shirt. “Thanks for planning this.”

Travis smiles, even as his stomach does a nervous flip-flop. He has managed to get through most of dinner without letting on just how anxious he is, or that this is much more than a regular Christmastime date night.

“I just thought it would be nice, since we’ve both been so busy,” he says. He sets his fork down on the plate that once held his seared Chilean sea bass. “Actually, I’m gonna go use the men’s room. If they clear the table, would you ask for a dessert menu?”

“Oh, we’re even springing for dessert?” she says through a laugh.

“Have you met me?” Travis scoots out his chair and stands. “Be right back.”

He slips away from the table and into the front lobby of the restaurant. But instead of going into the short hallway that leads to the restrooms, he continues straight out the front door.

“Psst,” a voice hisses as Travis steps out onto the pier and into the chilly night. “Is it time?”

“Not yet.” He hurries over to the side of the building, where Landon Esco is waiting. “You all good?”

Landon holds up his iPhone. “Am I good? Of course I’m good. Are you good?”

Travis nods, bracing against the cold.

“You have the ring?” Landon asks.

“Yeah. It’s in my jacket pocket.”

Landon’s eyes go wide with alarm. “Where’s your jacket?”

“On the back of my chair.”

“You left your jacket — with the ring inside it — with Rosie while you came out here to talk to me?!”

“She thought I was going to the bathroom. Bringing my jacket would give me away.”

“What if she finds the ring?” Landon asks.

“She’s not going through my jacket!” Travis says.

“That’s what you think… but she’s a good cop, right? She probably, like, investigates stuff for fun. Get your ass back in there before she busts you!”

“She’s not going through my jacket,” Travis repeats, but he nevertheless moves back toward the door. “We should be out in 20 or so. Stay hidden and be ready to record, okay?”

“I stay ready,” Landon declares. “Now go inside and keep her from finding that ring!”

With a final roll of his eyes at his roommate, Travis pulls open the door and dips back inside the restaurant.

—–

Festive green garland and velvety red bows decorate the railings on the second floor of the mall. Window displays are filled with fluffy, fake white snow, their glass painted with messages advertising holiday sales. Diane Bishop and Sarah Fisher Gray walk along, each holding a few shopping bags and talking, until Diane has to leap abruptly out of the path of a running, screaming child.

“This is the last time I let you talk me into coming to this place at the holidays,” Diane tells Sarah. “Talk about the nightmare before Christmas.”

Sarah chuckles as the women resume walking. “Sorry. But thanks for tagging along. I needed moral support to brave this — and I need to get my shopping done this week.”

“You’re welcome,” Diane says with a wry grin. 

“Back to the important stuff,” Sarah says. “So he just showed up at your office?”

“Yeah. The security guard called to tell me I had a guest, so I went upstairs and there he was. Stalked me all the way here.”

“He wanted to see you again. And if he saw your KBAY badge and looked you up… that’s not insane.”

“It’s not not-insane!” Diane counters.

They round the end of one railing and step onto an escalator. Sarah looks out over the masses of people moving through the first floor of the mall; there is a particular sort of frantic energy that only happens around the holidays that appears to be in full effect this evening.

“Look, I understand being cautious with someone who’s essentially a stranger,” Sarah continues. “But it does seem like you hit it off with this guy, and if he feels the same way…”

Diane’s only response is a loud exhale.

“You have pretty good intuition,” Sarah says. “Are you picking up on any red flags?”

“Yeah! He lied about his name.”

“What?”

“He told me his name was Ben, but it’s really Isaac.”

Sarah does a double-take as she processes this news and then says, “Okay, well, so did you.”

“That was different!”

“How?” Sarah asks as they reach the bottom of the escalator and step off.

“I was escaping personal trauma! Anyway, that’s not the worst part.”

Sarah stops walking and turns toward her friend. “What do you mean?”

Diane draws a deep breath and motions toward a nearby bench. “You’re going to want to sit down for  this.”

—–

“Thanks for dinner,” Rosie says as she clutches Travis’s hand and threads her fingers through his. Now wearing their coats, they are walking past the host’s stand of the restaurant and toward the front door.

“My pleasure,” Travis says, though he is mostly focused on keeping his hand steady so that Rosie won’t feel it shaking. The script that he rehearsed, all the sentiments that he wants to express — it’s all bouncing around his head without any order or reason, a scramble of excitement and terror.

He manages to pull open the door and usher Rosie outside. His gaze immediately goes out to the pier, half-expecting to see Landon there in plain sight, his phone pointed right at them. Thankfully, he appears to have hidden.

“Look at the moon,” Travis says, leading Rosie out onto the pier. 

She looks up at the sky, where the silvery moon hangs calmly, half-concealed behind wisps of clouds.  Its light spills over the bay, illuminating the dark water with a shimmering glow.

Travis swivels to face her head-on.

“It’s a beautiful night, huh?” he says.

“Yeah. Freezing cold, but yeah.” She cocks her head slightly. “What’s with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re being weird.”

“I am not.” 

Rosie smirks at him. “Should we go?”

“Um. Actually…” He takes her hand again and is about to lower himself down onto one knee when the electronic blip of a phone notification sounds.

Without hesitating, Rosie reaches into her jacket pocket and checks her phone.

“That’s strange,” she says.

“What is it?” Travis asks.

“It’s your mom.”

“My mom? Why would she be texting you?”

His mind races. Although his mother knows that he’s planning to propose to Rosie, she doesn’t know that it’s happening tonight, let alone right this second.

“Oh my god,” Rosie says as she stares at the screen, her mouth now agape.

“What? What did she say?”

“We have to go,” she says, her body already turning back toward the parking lot. “We have to get to the hospital.”

—–

Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” plays somewhere underneath the noisy chaos of activity in the mall. Sarah and Diane sit on the bench, bodies turned toward one another and their shopping bags by their feet.

“How is that even possible?” Sarah asks in disbelief. “You go on an Alaskan cruise and just happen to meet a guy who turns out to be Tempest’s older brother?”

“I know. I know!” Diane does an exaggerated shake of her head. “So they have all this history and unresolved shit to work through, and… I hope they do. But it’s a total non-starter for me.”

“Why? Because you dislike Tempest so much that you feel like you’re not allowed to like her brother?”

“No. Because it’s too complicated. Besides, he’s more years younger than me than I’d like to admit.”

“That didn’t seem to be an issue when you were on that ship, from the sounds of it,” Sarah says with a grin.

“That– that wasn’t real life. It doesn’t count.”

“How do you figure?”

“It was me, on a damn cruise ship, calling myself Ann Marie,” Diane insists. “It was all make-believe.”

The women fall silent, and Sarah purses her lips in thought. A cluster of cackling teenagers walk right past them, so absorbed in their horsing around that they nearly trample Diane and Sarah’s shopping bags. Diane eyes them with annoyance but bites her tongue.

“See how I almost had a ‘get off my lawn’ moment there but refrained?” she says.

“Very impressive,” Sarah says. “Is Isaac still in town?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know if he tracked down Tempest or anything. It’s not my business.”

“You’re allowed to be happy, Diane.”

“What does that mean? I am happy.”

“I mean…” Sarah trails off, again stopping to collect her thoughts, before she says, “Do you think there’s some part of you that’s shutting down the possibility of anything with Isaac because you’re… because you worry Tempest will tell him what happened with you and Tim?”

“‘What happened.’ That’s a nice, neat way of putting it.”

Sarah leans in toward her friend. “You know I’ve forgiven you for all of that — you’ve proven to me what a great, loyal friend you are. Tim and Samantha have made their peace with it and don’t expect you to dwell on it, either. You’ve learned, Diane. You’ve changed.”

Diane sighs. “I know I have. But it’s a no-go with Isaac, okay?”

She stares Sarah down in a way that tells Sarah the conversation is over for now. While she isn’t intimidated by Diane the way a lot of other people would be, she knows when there is no use in pushing back.

“Now let’s finish shopping before this place makes my head explode,” Diane says as she stands and gathers her bags.

Sarah rises to join her. “Let’s do it.”

—–

On the pier, under the light of the moon, Travis looks at Rosie in confusion.

“Rosie, what’s going on?” he asks. “Is my mom okay?”

“Sorry, yeah. She is. She’s working,” Rosie explains. “It’s the baby.”

“What baby?”

“The little girl — the one who was left at the station. Her foster parents were arrested.”

Shock hits Travis like a wild electrical current. “What? Is she okay?”

“CPS brought her in to be evaluated,” Rosie says. “They’re bringing in KBPD, anyway, but your mom thought I should know, and I feel like I need to go.”

“Yeah. Of course. Let’s–”

The clattering of trash cans interrupts him, and they look over to see Landon stumbling out from the side of the building. Travis instinctively lets out a groan of annoyance at the sight.

“Landon?” Rosie asks. “What are you doing here?”

“Yeah!” Travis hastens to pile on. “Why would you be here?”

Landon brushes himself off. “I’m, uh, I just dropped a passenger off.”

Rosie shoots him a critical look. “On the side of the building? Where’s your car?”

“It’s, um, it’s up in the lot,” Landon says. “I parked, and then I started thinking about pie, so I came down here, and…”

“What a weird coincidence,” Travis says before taking Rosie’s hand. “Come on. Let’s get to the hospital.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Rosie glances back at Landon again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yup. I’m good. I’m great.” Landon strides toward the restaurant and whips open the door with a flourish. “Gonna get that pie now. I’ll be seeing y’all.”

He disappears inside.

“Was he acting even weirder than usual?” Rosie asks.

Travis nods insistently. “See? That’s what you call weird. Now let’s go, okay?”

“You don’t have to come,” she says.

“I want to. This is important to you, so it’s important to me,” Travis tells her. “Come on.”

They rush back up the pier toward the parking lot.

END OF EPISODE 1056

What will Rosie and Travis learn at the hospital?
Will Travis have an opportunity to propose soon?
Could Sarah be right about Diane’s attitude toward Isaac?
Discuss it all in the comments below!

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