by Patti Larsen
The way he said it instantly made me feel better. Because there was a threat in that offer, an open invitation to do harm to anyone who might have slighted or belittled me. And while I’d never take him up on it, knowing not all men were utter dicks like, apparently, the sheriff of Curtis County, Vermont, lightened my mood considerably.
And, in all honesty, I had to cut myself some slack. I’d been through a lot today and was shocked it had only been a few hours since Skip died in my lap.
“Thank you.” I tried to take the platter from him but he bowed in a courtly fashion instead, good nature returning, that handsome face rugged in all the right ways. “I’m fine, I promise.”
“Good to hear it,” he said. “If you’re up to it, your mother is looking for you.” He talked about her like he revered her. Another tick in the boxes of hell yeah for Carter Melnick. Maybe I wasn’t such a bad judge of character after all.
I left him to deliver the food to the sideboard and joined Mom, finding her dishing up sauce over noodles while Petunia snuffled in her bowl, likely snarfling down a serving of her own.
Before I could tell Mom what Crew said, she looked up, smiled and dropped what she was doing before leaning across the counter and offering me a sandwich.
A. Sandwich. No. Not my Mom. She could not be in on Crew’s little jab of be a good girl and stay in the kitchen…?
From the look on her face she instantly realized she’d done something wrong and hesitated before setting the plate back on the counter. “I know you don’t like spaghetti,” she said. “So I made you this instead.”
Of course she did. Of course this was a kindness, a gesture of motherly love, not a jab or a jibe or a hurtful attempt to stop me from being me. How could I have thought otherwise of the amazing Lucy Fleming? I hugged her and pulled myself together before smiling at her while Carter rejoined us, helping himself to a slew of plates and then disappearing again.
“That boy,” she said, “is a godsend. He’s served, you can tell? Thank goodness because if Daisy dropped one more plate…” My mother sighed, leaned against the counter. “I sent her back to help that film crew she’s working with. Poor dear. I think she misses Petunia’s.” The sound of voices outside the kitchen door told me people were starting to gather for dinner. I wasn’t sure if Mom’s delicious dinner would do the trick for big shot L.A. folk but it was good enough for me.
“Mom,” I said, now confused by her sandwich offer. “I love your spaghetti.”
“Really?” She hesitated, head cocked to one side, looking more like my pug at the moment than she probably would have appreciated. “I distinctly remember you saying you hated spaghetti. And throwing it in the sink.”
Ah. Memories. Like the bane of my existence. “I was seventeen,” I said, voice small and embarrassed to even open my mouth. “Dad and I had a fight. It wasn’t the spaghetti, Mom. It was my life.”
She flinched. I watched her face relax into understanding and then perk to forgiveness and acceptance. Because she was that awesome.
“Besides,” I said. “Dad made dinner that night, not you. So if anyone’s spaghetti earned my wrath, it was his.”
Her eyes twinkled at the offer of an escape and she laughed. “Of course. Now I remember. He had a thing for kidney beans.” She wrinkled her nose and snorted. “That man. I could shake him sometimes.” She met my eyes and her face settled into knowing wisdom and the steady offer of return to our new normal if that was what I wanted. Coward, I accepted, though I had to admit this really wasn’t a good time to talk about why I left Reading. Maybe someday, but not today. “Something happen with Crew?”
Now how did she guess that? Because Mom was brilliant. I quickly imparted the conversation in my grumpiest crank humor and she gasped before her eyes narrowed. Mom grabbed the plate with my sandwich on it and offered it to Petunia. Startled, the pug snorted on it before my mother jerked it away again, a mischievous look on her face.
Wait, hang on. She wasn’t about to do what I thought she was about to do? And I was going to let her, oh yes I was.
“I’m sure Crew must be starving,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
It honestly wasn’t that big a deal. Petunia snorted on me all the time. Farted, drooled, you name it, she shared it willingly with anyone who came in close contact. It was the idea of what my mother was up to. The deliberate delivery of pug bodily fluids to an unsuspecting victim who should know better than to be mean to me. I really should have made her come back, but instead I beamed at her as she exited the room with the sandwich on the plate and giggled like a child.
“Who’s a good girl?” My pug farted with great happiness despite having no clue she was in on the biggest joke ever, because yes, yes she was all that and more.
Carter made another pass at dinner delivery, the last of the plates disappearing with him. He winked at me on the way out, butt hitting the door, Mom sneaking in past him as he left, a huge and wicked smile on her face.
“He’s eating it as we speak,” she chuckled. “That’ll teach him to tell my daughter to make him a sandwich.”
I sank to the stool by the counter, Mom ladling me some spaghetti and a generous helping of sauce, setting it in front of me before dishing up one of her own. A small basket of garlic bread appeared from the oven and she gestured with a fork for me to start.
“I thought maybe you’d like to eat back here,” she said. “You’ve had a rough day, sweetie.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I sighed over the delicious smells. “You’re the best, you know that?”
“Of course,” she said. Paused and spoke again with soft sympathy. “You do know he likely didn’t mean it the way it came out, right? Men have this dumb way of blurting things when they’re under stress that doesn’t sound the same out loud as it does in their silly heads.”
My mother, Oh Wise Woman. “I know,” I said, toying with a noodle. I was hungry but just not yet in the mood to eat. Weird but true. “He makes me crazy sometimes.”
Mom laughed. “You just described your father, Fee. From day one he drove me around the bend and back again.”
“Wait, it wasn’t love at first sight?” I finally took a bite and let the fabulousness that was my mother’s cooking fill my mouth a moment before chewing and swallowing. “I thought you chased him down and made him marry you because he was your true love?” At least, that was the way Dad always told it.
Mom snorted, nibbling her garlic bread. “Oh, please. That man has a massive sense of his own importance that has nothing to do with reality. The truth was, he needed someone to take care of him, the poor dear, or he would have been alone his entire life, miserable and lost.”
Nice to hear her side of events at last in a grin inducing snark delivery. “Go on, I’m listening.”
“He was a pain in my butt, I’ll tell you,” she said. “Chasing me around, making moon eyes at me, pretending he wasn’t interested but always telling the girls he liked me. Silly fool.” She was actually blushing. “I only asked him to go out with me so he’d stop pestering my friends.”
“Mom, you make him sound creepy, you know that, right?” I grinned around more pasta.
“No,” she said. “Just pathetic.” We laughed together but she settled, her teasing turning to real warmth. The kind of look I recognized when she talked about Dad. The love never ending look. Made me choke up a bit. “He was so genuine, Fee. So honest and endearing and absolutely terrible at courting me. He tried harder than anyone else and just didn’t have the knack. He said and did the wrong things more often than not. I almost walked.” She nodded abruptly once after a moment’s thought as if making the decision to stay all over again. “But when I finally decided to look past his mistakes and the words and actions that he’d been raised by, I instead saw the intent behind everything. And his intentions were always the best.”
A huge weight lifted off my shoulders and I slumped, sad and happy and a mix of feelings that didn’t make much sense as she went on.
“So
, I made a choice. To give John the benefit of the doubt every time, to stop choosing to get mad and instead see past what he said to what he meant. And because of that, I married him. That attitude has kept us happy and talking and together for the last thirty-two years.”
I had no idea. “You’re a better woman than I am, Mom.”
“I doubt that very much.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek. “You might be more like John than you are me, but you can do whatever you choose to do. And if that means seeing past the flubs of someone like Crew Turner or the sweet talk and charisma of the Carter Melnicks in the world, it’s up to you.”
So she noticed that, did she? Not much got past Lucy Fleming.
She was right, though. Ryan had that kind of easy going sweetness to him, just like Carter. Was I falling for the same guy all over again?
Before I could comment, Mom’s gaze left mine, flickering over my shoulder and she gasped, one hand pressing to her chest. I spun, heart in my throat along with my spaghetti as it rose in response to my heightened fear. Turned to sudden rage at the sight of the paparazzo Russell creeping by my back door.
With red closing in around my vision and Mom calling after me, I stomped across the tile with ill intent, positive if I got ahold of him Crew would have a second murder on his hands.
***
Chapter Twenty
Fortunately for Russell, he was more agile than I was at the moment and managed to evade me, though he did nothing to try to escape, snapping pictures of me as I lunged for him, clicking more of the kitchen past the door.
“Get the hell off my property.” That sounded about right, growled in Dad’s low and threatening cop voice.
But Russell was made of sterner stuff than the average human. I should have known that a mere command would grant me a grin and more photographing. “Make me, sweetheart.”
As was extremely apparent, the last eight hours or so of my life hadn’t been stellar and having an arrogant jerkwad of a photographer stick a camera in my face and call me sweetheart while basically ignoring my right to privacy was pretty much the perfect culmination of events.
The redhead in me snapped, a shriek building in my chest to the point I am positive, given opportunity, means and motive wouldn’t have been remotely in question.
But before I could fly completely off the handle and go all Fleming on his ass, he lowered his camera and winked.
“Before you bust a gut and call the cops in on this,” he said, “I’ve got some information you might find interesting.”
“For a price,” I snarled.
He shrugged, lowering the camera further. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe not, if you’re nice to me. Skip wasn’t my biggest fan and the feeling was mutual. But Willow always played fair. So maybe I owe her one or two.”
That settled my temper a bit, but not enough to give him a free ride. “So tell the cops,” I said. “If your information is important.”
“Didn’t say that,” he said. “Just that it’s interesting. Figured you could pass it along for me and keep me out of the mess.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Restraining order?”
He laughed then, tipping his camera at me. “You’re smarter than you look, Red.”
Grumble, snarl, growl, argh. “What is it, then? I don’t have all night.”
Russell hesitated, shrugged. Opened his mouth. Only to stiffen then spin and run for it. I stared in shock, frozen by his sudden vanishing act, hearing the screen door slam, feet pounding past me, Carter in hot pursuit of the paparazzo while I stood there in stunned silence.
Something fluttered to the ground at my feet. I bent, retrieved the business card. Randy Russell. Some kind of cheesy tagline that made me wince. And a phone number and website address.
I looked up from it, Carter triggering the light over the carriage house. I really did have to plug the hole in that fence. Still a bit stunned by the whole event, I turned back to the house and, on my way past, dumped the card on the compost pile.
And that was what I thought of the photographer’s offer to help.
Carter came jogging back and I held the door for him, but he waited for me to go inside first. A perfect gentleman. Mom spotted us together and, clearing her throat, exited the kitchen with a little smile, leaving us alone with the sadly watchful Petunia.
“You’re okay?” He was fuming still, vibrating from the chase. “That guy, he thinks he’s outside the law. Damned paparazzi.”
“He was there this afternoon when Skip died.” I sat again, my legs wobbly. I really needed to lie down. All of the stress and adrenaline rushes had finally knocked the wind out of me.
“I’m not surprised,” Carter said. “Randy probably laughed when Skip passed away.”
Yikes. “They hated each other that much?”
“Randy used to track Willow, but one night Skip got ahold of him outside a club and beat the crap out of him.” Wow, nice guy. “Ever since, Randy’s made it his mission to destroy Skip. Posts all kinds of private photos about them. He’s a menace.”
“Good to know,” I said. “He tried to offer me some inside info.”
“I wouldn’t trust a word he says.” Carter’s anger faded and he sank down next to me, concern in his beautiful dark eyes. He really was delicious to look at. Surely he had a soul, something my ex didn’t possess? I was positive I saw one behind that gaze. “Fee, you look exhausted.”
“Thanks.” I made a wry face. “Just what a girl likes to hear after the day from hell.”
He touched my cheek ever so gently before dropping his hand and actually blushing. Wow. “I just meant… you should take care of yourself. That was horrible, what you went through. I wish I could take the experience away for you.”
Heat rushed through me as I leaned closer, Carter matching me. “He’s not my first dead body,” I said, meaning it as a joke but unable to stop the hitch that added a sad little tremor to my voice.
Carter’s big hand settled over mine. “You’re pretty brave, you know. I’d be a basket case.”
As if. “Thanks.” Um, that came out a bit breathy. Didn’t help he was so close, his face now inches from mine. How did that happen? Such intensity in those eyes, so much caring and gentleness for a man who dished out violence for a living.
I have no idea if he would have kissed me or I would have kissed him or anything else that could have evolved from that long, warm moment of just staring into Carter’s eyes. I didn’t get the chance to find out. Because as I sat there, dreamily lost in his deep brown gaze, the kitchen door swung open and Crew walked in.
I’d done nothing wrong. It wasn’t like Crew and I had anything even remotely resembling a relationship building between us. If anything, we were screwing up enough in our communication with each other that gold sweater would have gone to waste in my closet.
So why did I jerk back from Carter with guilt smothering the heated happiness of the last minute or so? Crew’s face went from open questioning to flat emptiness in about a heartbeat before he nodded to me and then to Carter, spun and left the room like he hadn’t come in here for a reason.
Or tried to. Mom was already on her way back in and, with a firm hand on his chest, pushed him backward, protesting, until the door swung shut behind her.
“Thanks for the help,” I said. Carter nodded, stood.
“Get some rest,” he smiled. “You earned it, Fee.” When Carter turned, I saw him purposely make eye contact with Crew who didn’t budge an inch. Because boys were idiots and their hormones made them Neanderthal thugs who pounded their chests and thought their stupid displays of manhood impressed anyone.
Yeah, it was that kind of night.
Mom ignored Carter, smiling at me like nothing was wrong. “How was your sandwich, Crew?”
He muttered something under his breath before side stepping her. “I have work to do.” This time he managed to escape while Mom sighed at me.
“What?” My turn to make an exit. Before she gave me a hard time for somethin
g that I was already starting to beat myself up over.
***
Chapter Twenty One
Work kept me busy into the wee hours, a welcome distraction. I’d unplugged the phone, letting the message service take my calls after it rang incessantly starting about two seconds after I got back from the parade. But I really needed to do some damage control and, as I sighed over the maxed-out list that clogged my phone’s inbox, not to mention the email flood that washed away any chance I had to sleep in the next several hours, I let myself become absorbed in running Petunia’s again.
Speaking of my place’s namesake, she curled up next to me on the couch in my living room downstairs, snoring as I settled my laptop on my legs, propped my feet on the coffee table, and sorted through all the pending messages burdening my chugging computer with their demands.
One would think murder would be an excellent deterrent to visiting a cutsie little town like ours, but I’d found just the opposite to be the truth. After the death of Pete Wilkins last July, Petunia’s had been busier than ever, as if knowing someone died out back increased interest. And with the murder of Skip Anderson, it appeared like the lull I’d experienced the last little while was officially over. I had people messaging me to come stay immediately in rather insistent language that set me off before making me sigh. I finally had to create a standard “closed for business at the moment” email that I truly hated to send, at least to cover the next week. Because who knew how long the party would go on upstairs? Surely I wouldn’t be so lucky as I had been on Valentine’s Day and have everything wrap up in less than twenty-four hours.
Nope. Not this time, Fleming.
After a week, well, it would likely turn into a free for all and my few empty dates were filled almost immediately with a waiting list piling up in frightening fashion. The rest of the night was spent apologizing and booking into the following year. If I had the time and was smart about it, I’d buy another place and expand. I knew Olivia would have loved that and was likely planning something of her own, despite the 150 new rooms at the lodge. It sounded like most tourists wanted to stay right here in Reading. There was an excellent chance there would be a few illegal operations fire up before summer hit, and so be it.
