Orange Blossom left his bowl to slink around the kitchen and see what K9 was eating. Erin had noticed lately that if anyone else were eating, Orange Blossom found their food far more interesting than whatever was in his dish. No matter how good what she gave him was, he was always on the prowl for something better.
K9 wasn’t paying any attention to the kitten, occupied instead with his treat. Orange Blossom snuck closer and closer, ears forward, nose quivering, belly to the floor.
“Look at the mighty hunter,” Vic whispered. They all watched him get closer and closer until he was nose to nose with K9. K9 finished the cookie, but there were still crumbs on the floor between his paws. Orange Blossom’s quick pink tongue rasped along the floor to clean them up. He raised his head to sniff at K9, and he licked up a crumb that clung to the dog’s chin.
K9 sniffed the kitten with interest. Orange Blossom decided, now that all remnants of the cookie were gone, that he was once again enemies with the dog. He bristled and hissed and backed away, his fur all puffed out. Back at his own dish, he crouched and growled as if the dog were threatening to eat his food.
“Orange Blossom isn’t very hospitable,” Vic observed.
“He needs some training,” Erin agreed.
The microwave beeped, and Vic pulled out the first dinner. “Do you want… Alfredo or primavera?”
“Whichever.” Erin shrugged. “You take one, and I’ll have the other.”
Vic looked at them. “I’ll have primavera,” she decided. “More vegetables. Since I’m having pasta and a bun from the bakery!” She pulled one out of the bag Erin had brought home.
“I’ll have one of those,” Terry volunteered. He flushed a little. “If you have extra, that is.”
“Sure,” Erin assured him. “Even if we’re too tired to cook at the end of the day, there’s always plenty of baked goods on hand!” She patted her stomach. “Way too many baked goods!”
Terry eyed Erin’s figure, a sparkle in his eye and that little bit of a dimple pocking his cheek. “You haven’t put on any weight that I can tell.”
In a few minutes, they were all sitting down at the table, Erin and Vic with their microwaved dinners and all of them with buns also warm from the microwave. Erin had retrieved butter and jars of jam from the fridge.
“I got these from The General Store. Mary Lou said that they are really good. She wouldn’t let me buy any of the commercial brands; she said these are made by a local lady and are to die for.” She flicked a glance at Terry. “Her words.”
Vic looked at the labels. “The Jam Lady. Doesn’t give many clues of who it is, does it? Did she say who makes it?”
“Just somebody local. That’s all she would tell me.”
“How mysterious.” Vic opened the jar and put it back down on the table. She dipped her knife into the deep purple jam. “I suppose everybody in town actually knows who it is.” She looked at Terry and raised an eyebrow. He put up both hands.
“Don’t look at me. I’m not hooked into the latest gossip on jams and preserves.” He reached for an apricot jam and applied it assiduously to his bun.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re doing your job, then,” Vic teased.
There was a period of silence in which they all applied themselves to their dinner. Erin didn’t normally go back for seconds, but she had to have another bun with more jam.
“These jams really are delicious. I’m glad I let Mary Lou talk me into them.”
Vic nodded, mouth full. She chewed and swallowed. “We should get some wholesale to sell at the bakery. It would be a good up-sell.”
“You’re right. I’ll ask Mary Lou who to talk to.”
“Are you sure that’s not just a way to find out who makes them?” Terry asked. He licked off his fingers. K9 looked up at him.
“Maybe.”
Vic pushed herself back from the table a few inches, distancing herself from the temptation of the buns and jam.
“We’re still going to the cave this weekend, right?” she asked Erin.
Erin shifted uncomfortably. “Uh… yes. That’s the plan.”
Terry’s brows lowered. “What’s this? Haven’t you had enough of caves?”
Vic shook her head. “I still want to explore. I never got to.”
But Terry wasn’t looking at Vic; he was looking at Erin.
“Vic still wants to go,” Erin repeated. “So, I agreed to go with her.”
“I thought you never wanted to set eyes on another cave again.”
“Well… I might have said that. But I had good reason.”
“I still think you have good reason for not going back,” he said. “Are you sure you really want to? What if something happens? What if one of you gets hurt or you have a panic attack?”
Normally, Erin would have been offended at the suggestion that she might have a panic attack. She had never had a panic attack in her life. She was made of sterner stuff than that. But after her last experience in a cave, she couldn’t swear that she wouldn’t. She remembered the darkness, the feeling of running into walls where she didn’t expect them or suddenly finding no more cave floor in front of her. She had agreed to go with Vic, but she wasn’t looking forward to it by any means.
“Willie is going to go with us as a guide, so we’ll be perfectly fine.”
“Oh,” Terry nodded. “Good. That’s sensible.” But there was no dimple in his cheek when he said it. He kept his face expressionless. “Which one are you going to?”
“Do you want to go?” Vic asked. “You could come along with us if you want.”
Erin blinked at Vic. She wasn’t sure she wanted both Terry Piper and Willie Andrews there. They would be a crowd in the narrow passages of the cave systems. And it would look suspiciously like a double-date; two men and two women. It wasn’t meant to be romantic. Just the two girls, along with a guide to direct them and make sure they didn’t run into any trouble. She liked Willie. The guy had grown on her, despite her initial misgivings about him. He had helped to save her life, after all. Erin also liked Officer Terry Piper. But they had never gone out together. The most they had done was to start calling each other by their first names once Angela’s murder investigation was finished, or to stop and chat at the bakery or at the house after work. Despite what Vic might say, there was no overt flirting. Just a friendly companionship.
Even as she thought it, though, Erin’s face warmed. She did like Terry. And maybe they did flirt. Just a little. Subtly. Like grown-ups.
“I don’t know,” Terry said, his eyes going from one woman to the other. “It sounds like this is just a girl’s day out… I don’t want to interfere.”
“No, no, you should come,” Vic pressed. “It would be great. You like spelunking, don’t you? And K9 can help.”
K9’s ears pricked up and he looked at Vic and then Terry. He put his head back down again and watched Orange Blossom having a post-prandial tongue-bath in the middle of the kitchen.
“Are you sure? You wouldn’t mind?” Terry looked at Erin. “Really?”
Erin shrugged and forced a friendly smile. “Of course not, Terry. We’d be happy to have you along. The more, the merrier.”
“Okay then. Sure. When are you going? I’ll have to check my shift schedule.”
“Sunday afternoon,” Vic told him. “Two o’clock. I’ll text you the coordinates.”
Terry nodded, the dimple making a reappearance on his cheek.
Vic was impatient with Erin the next afternoon as they worked, a peeved “why aren’t you more excited about going to the caves?” hanging in the air between them. “I thought you’d be happy about Officer Piper coming with us and not be so scared.”
“I didn’t want him to come,” Erin told her. “You should have asked me before inviting anyone else.” But she couldn’t explain to Vic why it was that she didn’t want both men there at the caves. Even when she tried to explain it to herself during a lull in customers, she couldn’t quite connect everything up logically. It wasn’t rea
lly logical, the feeling of not wanting Terry there. It was just emotion.
That was when the stranger walked in.
Erin was pretty sure she had never seen the woman before. A small, skinny, blond woman. Erin had seen lots of women like her during her time in New York. Dressed in form-fitting workout gear like she had just bustled over from the yoga studio. Designer handbag. Blond from a bottle. Fake bake tan. Showy jewelry that she couldn’t possibly have worn while working out. Perpetually in a hurry because there were oh-so-many important things she had to stay on top of. But the type was rare in Tennessee and practically unheard of in Bald Eagle Falls. She was like a brilliant peacock that landed in the middle of the henhouse. And all the hens immediately started clucking.
“My, you do a lot of business in here!” the woman said in a high, stringy voice. “I’ve been watching for a break all day, and other than when you closed mid-morning before the lunch rush, there has been a steady stream of people in and out of here!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Vic agreed, drawing it out like a true southerner faced with an impatient visitor. “We keep ourselves right busy.”
“Well, it’s good that you have so much business here. That means you should still be able to scrape up a living when The Bake Shoppe reopens, I imagine.”
Vic and Erin just stared at her. Erin looked toward the door. Where had the woman come from? She had to be associated with Trenton Plaint somehow. If not his girlfriend, then his lawyer, real estate agent, or personal trainer.
But the woman, who seemed all skinny arms and legs like a spider, didn’t jump in and introduce herself. She just smiled and preened, letting everyone admire her. Except that everyone was just Vic and Erin and neither one particularly admired the type. Vic was much prettier than the stranger, Erin decided. With a kind of friendliness and grace that the other woman would never learn in a million years.
“What can I help you with?” Erin asked, since Vic didn’t jump in with the appropriate words.
The woman tip-toed up to the display case and peered in like she was afraid there was something in there that was going to bite. Or maybe something gross and disgusting. Mold or slime rather than delicious fresh-baked goods.
“I’d like some cupcakes,” she said slowly, an awkward pause between each word, like she wasn’t sure if they would have cupcakes. When they were right in front of her face.
“Yes…?”
“But I know you specialize in gluten-free goods…”
“Yes…” Erin gave her an encouraging nod. “They’re very good. You can try a sample if you’re not sure if you’ll like something.”
“No, it’s not that.” The woman wrinkled her nose. “You see, I’m a vegan, and I’m sure everything here is just laden with animal products.”
“I’m sure you are,” Vic murmured. Meant for only Erin’s ears, but she should have kept it to herself and just said it in her head. Because the woman heard her, or part of what she had said, and cocked her head, looking suddenly threatening.
“What was that, dear?”
“We do carry vegan goods,” Erin offered, rushing in over anything that Vic might have to say. “Not everything is vegan, of course, but we do try to keep a few things dairy and egg free for those who are allergic or who… prefer not to eat them.”
“Oh!” The stranger raised her eyebrows. “Really? I just assumed that since you were making gluten-free… well, gluten-free baking often relies on extra eggs and dairy. It’s so hard to find anything that is really good that is both vegan and gluten-free.”
“I do my best. Now the ones that are vegan that we have on today are the chocolate chip cupcakes, with all the icing and chocolate sprinkles over here… the ginger snaps on the bottom shelf there… and if you want something for dinner rather than dessert, these rosemary bread sticks over here.”
“I’m not sure…” The woman peered through the glass at the various offerings. She had said she wanted cupcakes, so Erin wasn’t sure why she didn’t just go immediately for the cupcakes. But the odd woman looked dubious about them. “I’ll need to see ingredients for everything. Are you sure there’s no shellac in those sprinkles? Or cochineal food coloring? It’s not just about eggs and dairy, you know. I want to be sure that no living creatures were harmed to make my food. You know a lot of people put honey in their baking because they say it’s healthy. But honey is from bees. It’s not vegan!”
“It’s not like they kill the bees to get it,” Vic said impatiently. “It’s all natural. The bees don’t need all of the honey they produce.”
Erin made a small motion for Vic to be quiet. She knew that any reasoned argument would only get the woman more worked up. “I have ingredient sheets here.” She reached under the cash register for the ‘Bible,’ her binder with all the ingredients to everything they baked. “Here are the cupcakes…” She flipped through the plastic sleeves to find the list. “And I’ll get you the sprinkles label to double-check.”
“And the chocolate chip label,” the woman said, rising on tiptoes as Erin headed toward the kitchen door and raising her voice. “Even chocolate labeled ‘dark’ has milk in it most of the time…”
“Yes, ma’am,” Erin agreed.
She made faces while she was in the kitchen. Just to get them out of her system and to ensure that she could keep a straight face while she served the woman. She grabbed the bags she needed and took them with her out to the front, running her eyes over them quickly as she did so. She was usually pretty careful when she bought ingredients, aware of red flags, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make a mistake. One instance of shellac or red #4 could have snuck by her if she had been tired and not paying close enough attention. But she didn’t see anything worrisome on either ingredients list.
The stranger perused ingredients lists like she was the lowest reader in her class, studying them and moving her lips. She murmured ‘I just don’t know,’ several times. Erin looked toward the door, wishing someone else would show up and interrupt the little drama. Even the glacially slow Potters were preferable to the new out-of-towner.
“And the breadsticks…?” her customer asked. “You’re sure that you used shortening in them and not lard? Around these parts,” she looked around her in distaste, “I just imagine everyone uses lard around here.”
“No. I used shortening,” Erin promised. “I am very strict about following those recipes, so I can guarantee that I know every ingredient when a customer needs help sorting through multiple allergies.”
Like Bertie Braceling. Erin was determined that one day she was going to be able to make something that Bertie Braceling could eat. Something other than a cold glass of water. But Bertie’s multiple allergens had so far foiled all of Erin’s attempts to feed him. They would discuss Bertie’s needs at length, and then Erin would whip something up, only to be informed that one ingredient or another gave Bertie hives, or the runs, or made all the skin peel off of his hands. Just when she thought she had it all figured out, Bertie’s body would stump her again. Bertie would laugh good-naturedly, remind Erin that, ‘I told you not to even try feeding me,’ and walk out the door until the next time.
“It is nice to see someone who is so thorough,” the woman conceded. “You should hear some of the people I talk to. They have no idea what they’re eating or putting into their food. So ignorant!”
“That must be frustrating,” Erin soothed.
She looked at Vic to give her a sympathetic eye roll. After all, Vic was suffering through the whole production as well. But Vic’s comical expression took Erin off guard, and she snorted back a laugh, then tried to cover it with a discreet cough into the crook of her elbow.
“I’m sorry,” she said, mortified. “I just had a little tickle…”
The woman studied her for a moment, suspicious.
“You should try hot yoga,” she said. “Nothing like it for working viruses and impurities out of your system. Sweating is very healthy, you know.”
Erin nodded along with her.
“I don’t imagine you even have a hot yoga studio in town.”
“No… but Mrs. Leong leads tai chi in the park. And we sweat a lot here.”
She could feel Vic trying not to laugh beside her. Erin gave her a glare and then looked away, not wanting to be infected herself.
“I think I will go with the cupcakes,” the woman decided. “Six of those. And six of the red velvet ones?”
Erin froze. “The red velvet cupcakes are not vegan,” she warned.
“Oh, I know. But they’re not for me. They’re for my boyfriend. Just so he has options. You know how childish men are about any of these alternative diets…”
So that clinched it. She was Trenton’s girlfriend. Well, good for her. She could have him. Erin still hadn’t seen Trenton in the light of day, but she had already decided that she didn’t like him. She was rushing to judgment too quickly, she knew. The man had grown up in an extremely dysfunctional family. In a town that probably shunned psychology as witchcraft. How did she expect him to turn out? A perfect gentleman? Someone like Terry Piper?
Erin put the cupcakes into boxes one at a time, slow and deliberate, making the woman wait for Erin, since Erin had had to waste so much time on her. She put six cupcakes in each half-dozen-size box rather than all twelve in the same dozen-size box, so they wouldn’t touch each other or breathe the same air. Vic rang them up at the cash register and waited. The woman paid by credit card, and finally wandered out of the store, without so much as a ‘good-bye.’
Erin gave a sigh of relief.
“You’re the one who wanted to cater to all the special diets,” Vic reminded her.
“Ugh. I know. Usually, it’s fun, but Miss Prissy Pants rubbed me the wrong way!”
“Those pants were so tight I could see her religion!” Vic snickered. “Joelle Biggs.”
“What?”
“That was the name on her credit card. Joelle Biggs.”
“Well!” Erin couldn’t think of what to say to that. She was not going to be forgetting Miss Joelle Biggs anytime soon.
Chapter Four
Dairy-Free Death Page 3
