by Cat Chandler
“It was the little things that started to bother me,” Nicki mused out loud. “When I asked Paul where he was when Robin was murdered, he mentioned he’d been watching a movie the night before. How did he know the murder happened the night before? Lydia certainly didn’t, and the chief was keeping that piece of information quiet.”
“And he showed up at the hotel,” Matt said, taking up the narrative. “He claimed he was relaxing after a meeting with Amanda, but I checked that out this morning. Amanda hasn’t met with him in over a month.”
Nicki smiled. “But mostly it was the tontine that gave him away.”
Jenna looked around the room and sighed. “I’m not getting why? What about the tontine?”
“According to Doug, the pact was made that the wine would go to the last man standing.” Nicki looked over at Jenna. “The last man in the squad who was still alive.”
“And so? That was Robin’s father, right?” Jenna asked.
Nicki shook her head. “No. It wasn’t. The first time I talked to Paul, he told me that his father and Robin’s died within days of each other. He said Robin’s father passed away, and then three days later, so did his.”
Alex sat up straighter and gasped. “So the wine should have gone to Paul’s father?”
“Yes, but he was dying too, so no one thought of it at the time. But for those final three days of his life, Sergeant Franklin was the last man standing.”
“That’s sad. It really is,” Alex said.
Nicki nodded her agreement. Two men, who’d been lifelong friends, should have been able to work it out. But Robin was too stubborn to give in, and Paul too determined to have what he believed was rightfully his.
“You know what else is sad?” Jenna interrupted Nicki’s thoughts. “Paul was the florist.” She raised an eyebrow at her chef-turned-amateur-detective friend. “What does the bridesmaid code say about missing flowers? Are we going to have to comb through the forest to find some?”
As Alex groaned out a “who’s going to tell Mom because I’m not”, Clay laughed.
“That’s what I meant about coming here with a little payback,” he said. “We found Robin’s keys in the desk in Paul’s home office. Right next to the keys to his shop.” He held up a keyring that had a large old-fashioned key on it. I stopped by and took a quick look before I came here. I saw three bouquets, one of them all done in white carnations, and lots of other flower arrangements in his refrigerator, all tagged with ‘Kolman-Roberts’ Wedding’.”
Chapter One Hundred Two
The weather was perfect, the bride was breathtaking, and the groom never once stopped smiling. As far as Nicki was concerned, it was the most magical wedding she’d ever been to.
“That really is some creation,” Matt commented as they stood in front of the tiers of cupcakes, with graceful arches leading out from each layer, creating the illusion of a waterfall. And along every arch were more cupcakes, ending in a swirling pattern at the bottom.
“Kylie has a wonderful eye for design.” Nicki smiled as Matt bent down and kissed her cheek.
“So do you.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Gin told me that Amanda was so impressed with the cupcake tower, and Brad’s assurances that they had everything under control at Robin’s Catering, that the hotel is going to renew their contract. It seems Lydia and her daughter are happy to give Brad complete control in running the company, and he’s decided to do that.” She sighed. “I think even Robin would have approved.”
They wandered through the crowd, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm, stopping every once in a while to chat for a few minutes with friends Nicki hadn’t seen since, well, the last wedding she’d attended.
When they started to pass by the double set of French doors leading to the terrace, Matt pulled her outside. The cool night air was a refreshing change from the warmth of the St. Armand’s largest ballroom, and Nicki raised her face to enjoy its light touch on her skin.
“I don’t think anyone can ever look as beautiful as you do in the moonlight.” Matt ran a gentle finger down her cheek.
“And you are very generous with your compliments, Mr. Dillon.” Nicki said. She was sure she’d never get tired of looking into those serious brown eyes.
Matt kept his gaze on her as they slowly walked the length of the terrace.
“I’m not at all sure I’ll be going to Paris.”
Nicki stopped, waiting until he turned to face her. “Matt. You’ve been planning on opening an international office for your magazine ever since I’ve known you. And France is absolutely the perfect place for that. Besides, Jane has made all the arrangements. You can’t back out now.” Nicki paused and added softly. “It’s important to you, Matt.”
He looked away for a moment and ran a hand through his hair before looking back at her. “What I can’t do is leave you, Nicki Connors. You’re important to me too.”
“I know. And I’m going to miss you so much.” She blinked away the tears that were threatening to fall. “Which is silly when I think about it. I mean, what’s really going to change? We’ll still call, and Skype, and see each other when we can. The three months will be over before we know it.”
He gently rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “It’s the thought of putting even more miles between us that I don’t like.”
“Me either, but I hate that you’d give up doing something you’ve planned on for so long.” Her lips trembled when she smiled at him. “That’s important to both of us.”
He studied her face for a long time before he finally nodded. “Okay. But there are conditions.”
“I don’t know, Matt,” Nicki teased. “What are they?”
“Just two, Nicki. Don’t find another guy while I’m gone.”
She quickly stifled a laugh. He had to be the most adorable man on the planet. But since he looked so serious, she placed a hand over her heart and nodded. “I absolutely promise that no other guys will be allowed to darken my doorway.”
“And no dead bodies.”
Nicki grinned up at him. “I’ll do my best to avoid them.”
“A man can’t ask for more than that.” As music drifted out through the open doors, Matt held out his arms.
“Dance under the stars with me, Nicki Connors.”
Nicki didn’t hesitate even one moment before she stepped forward and into his warm embrace.
She wasn’t looking forward to three months of Matt being even further away, but tonight? Well, tonight was just perfect.
A New Series
Champagne, Cupcakes, and Murder introduces Clay Thomas, the good looking, and all business Chief of Police in the fictional town of Brewer, Washington, and Ricki James, the former deputy US Marshal, who left the agency in the wake of loosing her partner in an ambush during a routine prisoner transport. But when a serial killer uses the park as his killing ground, Ricki takes up a badge again and goes on the hunt for a killer who moves like smoke through the forest and hides in plain sight in town.
If you enjoy mysteries, suspense, and action, it’s time you met Special Agent Ricki James. One Final Breath is now available on Amazon and in KU!
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Tea, Dessert, And Murder
A Food and Wine Club Mystery Book 5
By
CAT CHANDLER
Chapter One Hundred Three
Nicki’s blue eyes crinkled at the corners when her best friend, Jenna, held up her coffee cup in a silent plea. Grinning, the writer, and now once again part-time teaching chef, reached over and lifted the pot from the espresso machine that graced her kitchen counter, and filled Jenna’s cup to the brim.
When dark-brown eyes bored into her over the mug’s rim, Nicki had no trouble interpreting their silent message. Jenna might as well have said “do something” out loud. In the same mute language developed between close friends everywhere, Nicki raised her eyebrows, sending back a “like what?”. Judging by the sudden frown on Jenna’s face, Ni
cki guessed her friend hadn’t liked that response too much.
Maxie, their mutual landlady, had been talking non-stop for the last ten minutes, and all of it centered on the newest resident in what the silver-haired genealogist fondly referred to as her “writers’ colony”. Made up of three sets of attached townhouses spaced around a cul-de-sac, Maxie only rented them out to writers and anyone else she deemed as an artist in their field. And an occasional genealogist. Including one Viola Richards, who was currently at the center of their landlady’s increasingly annoyed list of complaints.
“Did I tell you her latest demand? That I ‘loan’ her my house for some kind of celebration tea party.” Maxie’s nails, colored in a hot pink and polished to a high gloss, drummed rapidly on top of Nicki’s gleaming quartz counters. “What in the world could she possibly be celebrating? Taking a vacation in Soldoff when she could have had her pick of anywhere in the world?”
Nicki couldn’t hold back a smile. Certainly no one would argue with Maxie’s reasoning that a vacation in Soldoff hardly compared to Paris or Rome. The small town in the Northern California wine country barely merited a dot on a map of the huge state. Nestled between its better-known cousins of Santa Rosa and Sonoma, Soldoff had gained most of its notoriety over a hundred years ago when the town’s founder made a trip back East and tried to sell off parcels of land that his neighbors already owned. That infamous land scam was the reason the town square boasted a bronze statue of grapes rather than the founding father.
But aside from a wide choice of wine tasting rooms, and a few restaurants and hotels, there wasn’t much else about Soldoff to attract a vacationer. Most of the tourists came during one of the many art and wine festivals held each year, but there wasn’t another one of those scheduled for another month or so.
“She not only asked for use of my house,” Maxie went on, “but she had the gall to say that there should only be scones at her little party, no baguettes.” Maxie rolled her gaze to the ceiling. “Is she assuming I’ll also be catering the thing?”
“Why a tea party?” Nicki wondered out loud, her curiosity piqued. “I don’t know anyone who prefers tea to coffee, except Alex. And that’s not very often.”
Maxie waved her hand in the air. “I have no idea. She said it had to be all English, nothing French because she’d eliminated that possibility.” The landlady rolled her eyes. “Eliminated what possibility? I had no idea what she was talking about. But she kept saying she was positive everyone she’d be inviting to her little party would prefer tea.”
“Speaking of which,” Jenna spoke up, her voice a little louder than necessary to be heard over Maxie’s indignant tone. “Suzanne has this idea to branch out at Eddie’s.” When the other two women only stared at her, the tall computer geek with the long, kinky dark hair secured to the top of her head with a giant clip, was quick to add, “catering. I meant she wants to branch out into catering.”
Maxie blinked while Nicki’s mouth dropped open. Jenna wiggled her eyebrows at them. “I think it’s a fine idea. I’d hire them in a nano-second.”
The genealogist’s lips curled up into a smile. “Of course you would, dear. That’s all you eat anyway — hamburgers from a fast food diner.”
“Suzanne wants Eddie’s Burger Diner to start a catering line?” Somehow Nicki couldn’t quite envision that. “Is she planning on purchasing a commercial-sized portable barbeque?”
Jenna shrugged and lifted her coffee cup toward Nicki. “No idea. Didn’t ask for the details. But since you’re partnering with Suzanne on those cooking classes of yours, I’d bet my brand-new laptop that she’ll be coming to you for a few pointers. I think I remember her mentioning that she already has a couple of clients.”
Running a catering business out of a fast food diner? Suzanne really did come up with some unique ideas. Amused, Nicki shook her head, sending her honey-blond hair sweeping across the top of her shoulders.
“Speaking of clients,” Maxie interjected. “Have either of you heard anything about Viola trying to find a few right here in Soldoff? I’m appalled to think she might be using my name to drum up business.” She glanced over at Nicki and frowned. “She hasn’t approached you, has she?”
Not wanting to set Maxie off again, Nicki suddenly became very busy rearranging the plate of fresh-out-of-the-oven pastries that she’d put out. She didn’t have much hope that it would distract Maxie for long, but it did buy her a few more seconds to think up a diplomatic response. But even that was lost when Maxie’s eyes narrowed slightly, and she made a low humming noise in her throat.
“I see.” Maxie shifted her attention to Jenna who quirked an eyebrow from behind her over-sized black-framed glasses. “Well? Did she try to sell her genealogy services to you as well?”
Jenna leaned over the counter and snagged the coffee pot. “How’s Matt?”
“What does Matt have to do with Viola peddling her services all over town?” Maxie demanded before her eyes widened and she turned a horrified look toward Nicki. “Please don’t tell me you broke up? Matt would be devastated.”
“He’d also have been on the first plane out here and standing on Nicki’s doorstep even as we speak.” Jenna grinned at her friend. “And it’s real progress that hearing me say that sort of thing doesn’t make you blush anymore.”
Nicki shook her head. “You’re just trying to get me to turn red, and Matt wouldn’t do any such thing.” She glanced over at Maxie. “Not that he’d have to, because we haven’t broken up.”
Her best friend instantly raised a hand. “I can attest to that. I can hear that Skype call ringing every day at exactly eleven in the morning. Not one minute after. And then I have to keep working while their voices coo at each other for a good hour or more.” Jenna laughed when Nicki glared at her. “Not that I can hear what you two are actually saying, no matter how hard I press my drinking glass against the wall.”
“Every day? How wonderful, dear.”
Maxie fairly beamed at her while Nicki gave a mental groan. She knew there was nothing Maxie would enjoy more than to push her relationship with Matt to what her well-meaning landlady liked to call “a natural conclusion”. Nicki adored Maxie, she really did, but not as part of her dating life.
“Yes, how wonderful,” Jenna echoed. “And how cute.”
“And how rude of you to be eavesdropping,” Nicki countered, quickly moving the pastries out of Jenna’s reach. She opened a lower cabinet and began rummaging around. “Now where did I put those rice cakes?”
Jenna’s lip instantly stuck out in a pout. “No one eats rice cakes before ten in the morning. I think there’s a law against it.”
“How is Matt, dear?” Maxie’s amusement was clear in her voice.
Grateful that their antics had at least diverted their older friend’s attention away from her newest tenant, Nicki smiled. “He’s fine. The Paris office is coming along, and he thinks it should be ready to run on its own within the next few weeks or so. He’s hoping to be home early next month.”
Jenna yawned as she stood to her full height, which was a great deal closer to six feet than Nicki’s petite five feet two inches. “You can’t be missing him all that much since you just saw him a week ago.” She rubbed the small of her back. “I don’t think you’ve even completely unpacked yet from your trip to Paris. But I’ll bet he misses your cooking. The man’s a bottomless pit when it comes to food. Especially when you cook it.”
“True,” Nicki agreed. She was always amazed at how much food Matt Dillon could put away without gaining a single ounce. “And he does seem very sincere when he says he misses my cooking.”
Maxie also rose making the flimsy material of the lavender blouse she was wearing ripple in becoming waves around her waist and hips. Her sandals were a perfect color match, and so were the large hoop earrings she wore.
“Speaking of cooking, I need to get home and convince my Mason to go out for lunch today,” Maxie said, referring to her husband, the retired police chief of Soldoff.
“We’ll need to escape before Viola makes her regular appearance on our doorstep, which she has managed to do at noon every single day this week.” Maxie smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her capri pants. “Thank heavens she’s only here on a vacation and this arrangement is temporary.”
Nicki politely kept her opinion of that to herself. She certainly hoped it was true, but from what she’d seen, Viola Richards had made herself right at home since her arrival the day after Nicki had returned from Paris.
“My Mason and I haven’t had any peace and quiet since she got here,” Maxie sighed. “She seems to know exactly when we’re going to sit down to lunch every day. I swear the woman has planted a hidden camera in my kitchen.”
“Well if she has, she’s planted one in Nicki’s too.” At Maxie’s startled look, Jenna nodded. “She’s on Nicki’s doorstep every night for dinner.”
Maxie whirled around and pinned Nicki with her stare. “Is that true?”
Wishing Jenna hadn’t stirred this particular pot, Nicki didn’t like the heightened color in Maxie’s cheeks. “Like you said, it’s only temporary. And I imagine she’s a little lonely, since she doesn’t know a lot of people in town.”
“Yes, it is temporary. Very temporary.” Maxie’s hands went to her hips. “It’s too much.” She whipped her cell phone out of a pocket and marched off toward the front of the house.
Nicki and Jenna barely had a chance to exchange a long look before Maxie was back in the kitchen, waving her phone in front of her.
“She isn’t answering her phone. And I know she’s there. I saw her car parked in the driveway. Or rather my car that she asked to use during her stay.” She smiled politely at Nicki. “Might I borrow a cup of coffee, dear?”
Not even daring a glance at Jenna, Nicki poured out a cup and handed it to the older woman, who nodded her thanks.
