Busted in Broken Hearts Junction

by Meg Muldoon

  Busted in Broken Hearts Junction

  A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery

  by

  Meg Muldoon

  Published by Vacant Lot Publishing

  Copyright 2015© by Meg Muldoon

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance whatsoever to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Other Works by Meg Muldoon

  The Christmas River Cozy Mystery Series

  Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 1)

  Mayhem in Christmas River: A Christmas in July Cozy Mystery (Book 2)

  Madness in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 3)

  Malice in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 4)

  Mischief in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 5)

  Roasted in Christmas River: A Thanksgiving Cozy Mystery Novella

  The Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series

  Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Book 1)

  Coming Spring 2015

  Malarkey in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 6)

  Buried in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Book 3)

  Death at the Duomo: An Old Broad Abroad Cozy Mystery (Book 1)

  For recipes, contests and news about upcoming releases, sign up for Meg Muldoon’s Cozy Corner Newsletter mailing list and join her on Facebook!

  Busted in Broken Hearts Junction

  by Meg Muldoon

  Prologue

  The man in the cowboy hat stared at the glass of whiskey on the bar in front of him for a long while before touching it, wondering what in the hell he was doing in Broken Hearts Junction, Oregon, this Valentine’s Day.

  It was more of a rhetorical question than anything else. Because the reasons why he’d made the trip out to this small town in the middle of nowhere were clear. He was looking for something out here, in this lonesome place of juniper groves and howling wind and crows sitting on fence posts. The cowboy had driven through the worst snowstorm to hit Colorado in 20 years to get here. His busted-up Chevy got stranded for three days on one of them highways when they shut the road down on account of the white-out conditions. He had moments when he thought he wasn’t gonna make it out of that state alive. It’d been a month since he had, but sometimes he sensed his fingers hadn’t completely thawed. They still felt stiff in the mornings, and at night, when he stayed at The Stupid Cupid Saloon too long, they sometimes went numb.

  All that trouble to get here. And for what?

  She didn’t care about the state of his hands. Didn’t care if he made it through the storm or not. Didn’t care what the hell he did.

  He didn’t see that before he left for Broken Hearts Junction. But now that he’d been here a month, he could see it plain as day. As if somebody had turned on the light switch in a dark room, and he suddenly could see just what a tremendous fool he had been.

  And the cowboy wasn’t a man used to feeling like a fool.

  He reached for the glass in front of him and downed his double shot in several large gulps.

  To hell with love, he thought. To hell with her.To hell with this BS celebration. Those fools couldn’t think of anything better to come after Christmas than this stupid excuse for a holiday?

  The golden liquid burned down his throat, the way the hurt burned deep down inside. He was gonna drown that hurt, if it was the last thing he’d do.

  He glanced up in the mirror behind the bar. Two lovers sat at a table behind him. The man’s arms were around her as the couple watched the band play on stage. He was whispering sweet nothings in her ear.

  The cowboy closed his eyes for a moment.

  She had loved Valentine’s Day. And hadn’t he done everything right? Hadn’t he always bought her the roses, the candy, the dinners and fancy clothes? Hadn’t he been faithful? Hadn’t he always—

  “Want another round, Cowboy?” Law Dog asked from behind the bar.

  The cowboy opened his eyes slowly. Law Dog was leaning back with his arms crossed, that same old tough stance he’d always had. The one that made those young guitar players, like himself, vying for Law Dog’s job back in Nashville, tremble at the very sight of his grizzled mug.

  Those days felt like another lifetime.

  The cowboy looked down at his empty glass, as if he was undecided on Law Dog’s proposition. Meanwhile, the man was already pouring him another large whiskey, knowing the cowboy’s mind well enough by now.

  “You want to talk about it?” Law Dog said, pushing the fresh drink toward him.

  “Talk don’t do a damn thing,” the cowboy growled.

  “Okay,” Law Dog said. “I get it. But you ever change your mind, I’m here all night.”

  Law Dog was just trying to help. But the cowboy knew he couldn’t be helped.

  At least not by anything that didn’t involve a minimum 80-proof.

  Not tonight.

  He threw back the drink, then stared hard at himself in the mirror across from him.

  He’d mailed them a letter before coming here. Told them he was coming home. Told them that he was done with Broken Hearts Junction.

  But though he’d written it, he was finding the implications of what he’d promised hard to swallow.

  It’s over,Jake, he thought, looking in the mirror. Why can’t you just admit that? Say it, Jake. Say it’s over. It’s better for everyone. Say it’s over, and it’s okay. Just say it.

  No, another voice said. You’ve got to go talk to her again. You’ve got to hold on. If not for yourself, than for…

  “It’s over,” he said, the words coming out as soft as a timid breeze in early summer.

  “Did you say something, Jake?” Law Dog said, leaning over the bar.

  The cowboy lifted his eyes, meeting Law Dog’s questioning stare.

  “IT’S OVER,” he said, loud as a train whistle howling in a silent, empty night.

  The cowboy felt a hundred drunk eyes on him. But that didn’t matter to him: He’d past the point of caring about what others thought a long, long time ago.

  He pulled out bill folds from the wallet in his back pocket and slammed them on the bar. It was too much money for the drinks, but he wasn’t going to stick around for the change. Besides, Law Dog had been good to him. He could consider the overpayment as a parting gift.

  To hell with this town.

  He was going back to the motel. Tomorrow, he’d hit the road early. He was getting out of this place, even if it meant driving through a dozen snowstorms. Getting stranded on a thousand highways. Losing feeling in all his extremities and never cracking a safe again.

  It’d be the price to pay for dignity. Whatever dignity he had left, anyway.

  He stood up, pulled on his jacket, and gave Law Dog one last look.

  The band droned on.

  “I’m leaving for good, Law Do—”

  The word caught in his throat as something hit him with the force of a hell-bound train. Excruciating pain, worse than anything he had ever experienced in his life, erupted from his back.

  The cowboy hit the floor, his arms useless to break the fall. His breath wasn’t coming. He struggled for it, his lips m
oving the way a fish does out of water. Nothing coming.

  There were screams. Harrowing screams. He knew they were about him. The world turned fuzzy.

  A warm liquid ran down his side, spreading out in a pool under his body.

  He heard the sound of a rifle loading and Law Dog’s footsteps thunder around him.

  The cowboy struggled to say something, but nothing came out.

  Something had stopped moving in his chest.

  But it wasn’t the pain in his back that terrified him. Or the inability to fill his lungs with air. Or the growing silence in his body as the blood leaked away across the floor.

  It was the knowledge that he’d failed the boy.

  In every way.

  Chapter 1

  “By old Velma the Ox!” Beth Lynn shouted. “The bouquets, Ma! The damn bouquets!”

  I quit zipping up the back of my hideous, puffy-sleeved, sequined, pink bridesmaid dress, and glanced over at my best friend.

  Her expression hadn’t changed much, on account of that Botox injection she’d gotten to make her face as flawless and wrinkle-free as possible on her wedding day. But there was a frantic look in her eyes that was hard to miss.

  Beth Lynn’s mother, dressed in a silver, matronly-looking lace gown, smacked a hand up to her forehead as a look of guilt swept across her face.

  “Oh, no, hon,” she said. “Oh no…”

  “That was your only job, Ma,” Beth Lynn said, her eyes betraying her anger, if nothing else on her face did. “‘Just remember to bring the tub of bouquets in the kitchen.’ That’s what I told you. It was your only job and you—”

  “I know, honey, but then your cousin distracted me saying she couldn’t find the—”

  Beth Lynn lunged toward her mom, her French manicured nails digging into Anna Baker’s arms like the poor woman was made out of clay.

  “What are we gonna do!? The guests are already seated, the music’s playing, and Robbie’s waiting out there. And those bouquets are just sitting in my kitchen, 20 minutes away. What are we gonna…?”

  She started wheezing, unable to finish the last sentence.

  I ran over to the curtain that divided the back room of the Broken Hearts Junction New Hope Chapel from the main worship area, and peeked through the slit.

  Beth Lynn was right. Everyone had taken their seat and Robert was indeed up there, waiting. Shifting his weight nervously between his feet.

  I took in a deep breath of air, sizing up the situation.

  The way I saw it, there was only one thing to do.

  A wedding just wasn’t a wedding without bouquets.

  I finished zipping up my dress and went back over to Beth Lynn, who appeared to be having a full-on panic attack. I nudged her over to the aging chez lounge, helping her adjust her wedding gown so she could take a seat.

  “Now you just sit here and have yourself a glass of champagne, Beth Lynn,” I said. “I’ll be back with those bouquets before you can finish your drink.”

  Beth Lynn shook her head.

  “Bitters, you can’t go out there. It’s snowed at least four inches since we got here. The roads are bound to be—”

  “Don’t waste your breath trying to talk me out of it. Now, Anna, would you be so kind as to get your daughter a glass of bubbly, please?”

  Beth Lynn’s mom nodded vigorously and headed for the ice bucket on the corner table.

  I grabbed Beth Lynn’s house keys. Then I went for the coat rack near the front door, shoving my arms and the puffy, pink fabric of the dress into my more sensible snow jacket. I quickly walked across the plush carpeting of the chapel’s entrance, fishing the car keys out of my purse.

  When I opened the door, I was met by a punishing blast of cold February air and a showering of white flakes.

  I hesitated for a moment, wondering if going out in the storm wasn’t a foolhardy prospect.

  But I soon realized that even if it was, I’d come too far – put in too much time and effort – to let a few flakes get in my way.

  As Beth Lynn Baker’s and Robert Reese’s matchmaker, I’d spent nearly a year helping the couple fall in love with each other, suffering through all the high and low moments of their blossoming relationship right alongside them.

  And I’d be damned if I was going to let a few flowers ruin the couple’s fairytale ending.

  I took a deep breath before bolting through the church’s front door, running in my pink high heels across the snowy parking lot.

  Chapter 2

  I suppose this is what was bound to happen when Beth Lynn chose Valentine’s Day as the day to say ‘I Do.’

  Valentine’s Day was a perfectly acceptable date to have a wedding on: if you lived in oh, say, California or Florida or Arizona. But when you lived in Broken Hearts Junction, a small town on the high desert of central Oregon, well, having your wedding on February 14th was just asking for trouble.

  And, just as most of us had suspected, a wicked winter storm had descended upon the town just in time for Beth Lynn and Robert’s wedding nuptials.

  The storm did kind of make for an atmospheric affair, though. The way those snowflakes tumbled down from the sky and swirled around like the whole town was in a snow globe. It made it all kind of pretty and enjoyable – so long as you could watch it all from a warm, cozy seat indoors.

  I sped as fast as was sensible along the snowy roads of Broken Hearts Junction, the wipers flashing back and forth across the windshield of my pick-up truck. My feet were freezing: my heels having been soaked right through with melted snow. But I blasted the heater and did my best to ignore that fact. Because I had one thing going for me: I had successfully retrieved the tub of bouquets, which were now safely in the backseat of my truck. Additionally, I was less than ten minutes away from the chapel.

  I pressed my foot down harder on the accelerator, realizing that I could hardly feel my toes.

  I was one dedicated matchmaker. That was for sure.

  With my eyes fixed dead ahead on the road, and one hand on the wheel, I blindly rummaged through my purse until I felt hard plastic. I pulled out my phone, unlocked it, and glanced down at the screen.

  There were still no messages.

  Dammit.

  I hadn’t heard a thing all morning. And I was starting to get seriously worried.

  But I didn’t have much time to think too hard about any of that, I reminded myself. I had a wedding to save—

  “Holy mother of—!”

  The truck’s back end started fishtailing wildly, slipping and sliding like the road was an ice rink. I slammed hard on the brakes out of instinct, realizing too late that I was doing the exact opposite of what I should have been doing. The truck drifted across into the oncoming lane before finally riding up on the shoulder, piled high with cleared snow from the morning.

  I lurched forward as the car dug into the snowbank.

  I was still screaming, long after the truck had come to an abrupt stop.

  Chapter 3

  There was a difference between being brave and being a fool.

  And as I pressed my high heel down hard on the accelerator and listened to the engine rev and struggle while the truck stayed stationary, I realized that I belonged to the latter category.

  Instead of solving a problem, I’d just gone and made it worse.

  Not only were the bouquets missing from Beth Lynn’s wedding now. But so was the maid of honor right along with them.

  I thought of Beth Lynn, probably nervously downing her third glass of champagne by now. Much longer, and she’d be stumbling her way down the aisle, if she got down the aisle at all.

  I thought of Robert up there at the altar, a rock probably now in his gut, probably starting to wonder if something was the matter. Wondering if Beth Lynn might have had a change of heart, and whether his whole life was about to give out under him.

  The entire matrimony resting on this here beat-up old pick-up truck that was, at the current moment, stuck in a snowdrift.

  I pu
shed my foot down harder on the accelerator. The engine roared, and the tires squealed. But both the truck and I knew we weren’t going anywhere.

  “For the love of matchmaking…” I trailed off.

  There wasn’t a soul I could call for help.

  I let out a sigh, then turned the car off, the engine wheezing as it died. I quickly zipped up my jacket and pulled my hood over my head.

  It was snowing cats and dogs and other things out, and I was ill prepared for the weather, to put it mildly. But I wasn’t going to be responsible for my best friend’s wedding falling apart. And if that meant ruining my hair and makeup and getting my hands dirty, then so be it.

  I pushed the squeaky door open and stepped outside on the shoulder. A bitter, wicked wind blasted into me, cutting right through my jacket and dress. Snowflakes blinded my vision, and I could hardly make out where I was going.

  I struggled against the wind, my ankles wobbling as the heels sank through the soft layer of snow.

  Like I didn’t already have a hard enough time walking in these things.

  I reached over into the truck bed, pulling out an old two-by-four. I sped around to the back wheels, and knelt down. I began digging the snow out from in front of the first tire with the wood, shoveling away large scoopfuls of snow. After a few short moments, my hands had gone completely numb, and my hair was beginning to come undone in wet strands around my face.

  “Son of a hound dog,” I muttered, getting up and going over to the other back wheel.

  I started digging it out as fast as a person could with no feeling in their hands, quietly scolding myself in the meantime.

  I guessed, when you considered all the facts, this entire situation had been my fault to begin with.

  I should have been the one in charge of the bouquets in the first place. Not Beth Lynn’s mom, who while well-meaning, was unreliable and crazier than her daughter. Which was saying something, considering that Beth Lynn wasn’t exactly a candidate for most sane resident of Broken Hearts herself.