by Maddy Hunter
“Excuse me, Emily. Could I get you to take my picture?”
Stella Gordon waved her camera at me, causing the charm bracelets on her arm to jangle like leg shackles. “I’d ask Bill to do it, but he’s not here.”
“Isn’t that the way?” I teased. “I think the rap on husbands is that they’re never there when you need them, and always there when you don’t.” I held out my hand for her camera. “Where would you like to stand?”
Stella Gordon was a short woman with hair dyed too black, cheeks rouged too pink, and lips stained too red. She had unfortunate taste in clothing, demonstrating a fondness for blousy polyester prints in loud colors, but her five-inch strappy heels were nothing short of spectacular, shattering the myth that women over seventy were more interested in preventing bone fractures than making their legs look really good.
“Press the shutter halfway down, focus, then click,” she directed as she struck a dramatic pose against the rope barrier.
“So where did you lose Bill?” I asked as I focused and clicked. “Did he head off to see the Rolls with the rest of the guys?”
“Hell, no. He stayed behind in the shopping center. How’d the picture come out?”
I handed her the camera so she could check it out herself. “Bill stayed in the shopping center … on purpose?” Then again. Seventy shops. A bunch of restaurants. I might have stayed behind myself if I could invent a way to avoid excess baggage fees at the airport.
“Of course, on purpose.” She studied the image. “Nice job. If I photoshop him into the picture, all his Looney Tunes relatives will think he did the unthinkable and set foot on the Queen’s yacht. I can hear the fireworks now.” She let out a Wicked Witch cackle. “Now that should be worth the price of admission.”
I gave her a narrow look. “Why is it unthinkable for Bill to tour the Britannia?”
“Honey, you’re not up on your Scottish history, are you? What do you know about the Battle of Culloden?”
I’d actually brushed up on my Scottish history by reading a dog-eared bodice ripper Nana had lent me. History was always more entertaining when enacted by bare-chested men wielding really long blades. “Uhh—Isn’t that the battle where the guy who got defeated, a Scottish prince or something, dressed up like a woman to avoid being captured by the opposing forces?”
“Some prince,” Stella said sarcastically. “The coward abandoned his men and ran away from the English as fast as he could with his tail between his legs. What a wuss.”
Actually, being able to run away was pretty impressive, considering the length of women’s dresses back then.
“Charles Edward Stuart,” droned Stella. “Bonnie Prince Charlie. The Young Pretender to the throne of England. The only thing he ‘pretended’ to be was a man.”
Ouch. A little harsh, but she obviously had issues. “So Bill’s relatives don’t want him to tour the yacht because …” I gave her a blank look. “I’m sorry. I think I missed the point.”
Stella groaned at my obvious stupidity. “The ship is English. It belonged to an English Queen. Do you get the point now?”
“Uhhh—No.”
“Oh, for the love of—Whose back do you think Clan Gordon and the other highlanders were protecting at Culloden? I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t King George’s.”
My mouth fell open. “The Gordons were at Culloden? No kidding? Bill had relatives who actually fought in the battle?”
“Bill never kids, and he especially never kids about his ancestry.” She offered me an acid smile. “It’s what makes being married to him such a joy.”
“Okay, so Bill is refusing to set foot on the ship because … he’s ticked off about the disappearing act Prince Charlie pulled over two hundred years ago?”
Stella rolled her eyes. “Have you listened to the words coming out of my mouth? He’s not mad at the wuss. He’s mad at the English for slaughtering what remained of the Gordons after the wuss ran away. It was only one of the most brutal acts in military history, and the Looney Tunes Gordons aren’t about to forget.”
Great. Just what we needed to lighten the mood—a guest with a two-hundred-year-old battle ax to grind. “Was Charlie ever caught?”
Stella shook her head. “Hell, no. He hightailed it to France. Spent the rest of his miserable life dithering about which of his many mistresses was the flavor of the month.”
Wasn’t that always the way? The guy responsible for the disaster gets off scot-free while his underlings get stuck with the cleanup. In the popular vernacular, I believe it’s called “Getting the shaft.” On Wall Street, it’s called “Business as usual.”
I shook my head at the unfairness of it all. “Well, I might be totally off base, but if I were a Gordon, I think I might be more ticked off at Prince Charlie than the English. If he hadn’t abandoned his troo—”
“The Gordons looove Prince Charlie,” Stella cooed. “Doesn’t matter that he was a screwup. He was Scottish. The last Prince in the line of Royal Stuarts. In their eyes, he could do no wrong.” She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “It’s because of that clan nonsense with the blood and the allegiances and all the other blah, blah, blah. Turns ’em into fanatics. So I’ll give you a word of warning.” She stepped closer and bowed her head close to my ear. “Never, ever, belittle Prince Charlie when you’re around Bill. He has a teensie problem with his temper, and cheap shots about his hero really set him off.”
“How teensie?”
“Pills help, when he remembers to take them.”
Oh, God. Prickly heat crawled up my neck. “Uh—Did you happen to mention Bill’s … problem … on the medical history form we sent with your travel documents?”
“Shoot, we never fill those things out. Pain in the butt. We just leave ’em blank so you’ll think we’re healthy.”
My jaw dropped to my chest. “But all our guests are required to fill out medical forms. It’s absolutely mandatory. No exceptions.”
“Sorry. No can do. Our medical history is none of your business. You ever heard of privacy laws?”
“But what if you’re walking around with serious health issues? What if you’re allergic to bee stings, or shellfish, or peanuts?” I made a calculated leap to worst-case scenario. “What if you go into anaphylactic shock and die before I can figure out what’s happening?”
Stella bobbed her head with indifference. “Same warning. If the Gordon clan shows up for my funeral, pass the word along not to say anything unflattering about Prince Charlie. That temper thing? It’s hereditary.”
_____
I found Nana on the veranda deck, posted in front of the glass partition that provided an interior view of the Queen’s bedroom. “Is Bill Gordon on your team?” I asked as I perused the narrow starboard compartment with its modest twin bed and homespun furnishings.
She held up a finger to “wait a sec” as she concentrated on the voice speaking on her audiophone. “Well, I’ll be,” she marveled when the tape ended, her mouth hanging open in awe. “When the Queen packed up for an official visit, she brung five tons of luggage with her. Can you imagine? I don’t got five tons of stuff in my whole apartment. No wonder she didn’t go by plane. She never woulda cleared security in time. I’m sorry, dear, what was your question?”
“Bill Gordon. He’s on your team, right?”
“Yup. He’s one a them birthers.”
“He’s the birther?” I winced. “Great. Is he causing problems?”
“Not for me, but if George ever gets a notion to run for President, he better watch out, on account of Bill says Farkas don’t sound like a real American name.”
“What kind of name does he think it sounds like?”
“One that don’t got a real birth certificate.”
“Well, Stella Gordon just finished talking to me about Bill, and I’m afraid he might turn out to be a handful.” I raced through
the historical information, ending with the pertinent information about how to avoid igniting Bill’s temper. “Will you spread the word to the rest of the gang? Forewarned is forearmed.”
“You bet. Isn’t that somethin’? He never said nuthin’ about bein’ Scottish. Gordon don’t even sound Scottish.”
“Maybe you should ask to see his birth certificate.”
A gleam crept into her eye. “Emily, do you s’pose there was Maccoulls what fought in that battle Stella was talkin’ about?”
Nana was Scottish on her mother’s side of the family, but no one had ever dug into the genealogical history.
“Anything’s possible,” I admitted, “but I’m not sure Bill is the guy to ask. God only knows how he’d react if it turns out your Maccoull ancestors fought with King George and the English against the Gordons. You don’t need to pick up where the Hatfields and McCoys left off.”
“Amen to that.” She locked her lips with an imaginary key and dropped it down her bosom.
“Can you handle more upsetting news?”
She went statue-still, her eyes darting to the corners of her sockets. “Your mother’s standin’ behind me, isn’t she?”
I shook my head. “It’s worse than that.”
“There isn’t nuthin’ worse than that.”
“How about … Grace and Helen have come up with a team slogan already.”
“I knew this was gonna happen. Them girls are a lot smarter than they let on. Must be they think better when they don’t gotta run roughshod over the Dicks. Them two fellas can be a real brain-drain.” She sighed with resignation. “Lay it on me, dear. What’d they come up with?”
“‘Do it or lose it.’”
“Dang. That’s a good one.”
“And did you notice the matching sweatshirts they’re wearing?”
“I didn’t pay ’em no mind on account of they looked like they was made of polyester. Polyester don’t breathe good.”
“It’s their new team uniform.”
“They got uniforms?” Her eyes bulged with panic. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. If my team don’t wake up, we’ll be headin’ straight down the tubes. We don’t even got a slogan yet!”
Breathless with frenzy, she charged to the left then whirled back to the right before stopping dead in her tracks. “Don’t know if I should be headin’ up or down. I gotta find Tilly and George. Have you seen ’em? We gotta call an emergency team meetin’ before we get blown away.”
“I didn’t pass them on my way down from the upper deck, so they must be ahead of—”
“Emily! Thank God I found you.” Tilly pelted toward us from the aft sun lounge, jaw set and cane thumping. “You’d better come quick. Margi’s being detained by security.”
“What for?” I cried.
“Distribution of a suspicious substance. If you hurry, you can catch them before they haul her off to jail.”
three
“I don’t know what was wrong with their noses,” Margi Swanson fussed later that night. I’d brought her back to my hotel room for a little TLC after her near brush with disaster at the hands of the Britannia security detail, but the incident had turned her into such an instant celebrity with the other tour guests that I’d had a hard time dragging her away from her admirers. “Honestly, Emily, does this smell like a compound that could be used to make a nuclear device to you?”
Seated opposite me in a comfy armchair, she leaned forward to hand me a plastic bottle that was no bigger than my baby finger. Popping open the flip-cap, I squirted a stream of clear gel into my palm and sniffed. “Hmm, this is different.” I rubbed it into my hands and sniffed again. “Smells like a blend of … baked ham, hickory-smoked bacon, and pork rinds.”
“It’s the pharmacy’s signature scent for the summer,” said Margi. “They call it, ‘Hog Wild.’ Isn’t that cute? They formulate it right there at Pills Etcetera, and I buy it in gallon containers and transfer it to one-ounce bottles for travel. Saves me a ton of money. You wouldn’t believe what hand sanitizer goes for in specialty shops.” Margi still worked part-time for the Windsor City Medical Clinic, so annihilating other people’s germs was a big part of her daily routine.
“The pharmacist is working on a new scent for fall,” she tittered. “An homage to grain farmers. He’s going to call it, ‘Harvest Moon.’”
I wondered what that was going to smell like. Corn silage?
“Okay, Margi, here’s the deal.” I handed back her plastic bottle. “In order to avoid a repeat of today’s incident, I’m going to recommend that you only hand out sanitizer to people who know you.”
Disappointment rippled down her face in one long, gut-wrenching wave. “But, Emily, people who don’t know me have germs, too.”
“True, but they also have suspicions. How do they know the gel in those bottles won’t kill them?”
She lowered her brows over her eyes, fixing me with a grave look. “Because if I intended to hand out poison, I would have bought the bottles with the skull and crossbones on them.”
“Of course you would! I know that, and you know that, but they don’t know that.” I paused. “Where do you find travel-size bottles with skulls and crossbones on them?” My nephews would get a kick out of something like that.
“Pills Etcetera. They’re in the aisle with all the pirate paraphernalia.”
“The pharmacy carries pirate stuff ?”
“They expanded their inventory after the tornado remodel.” She sighed. “I suppose I could have bought the regular one-ounce bottles and attached warning labels, but I think the print would have been too small to read without a magnifying glass, and I’m not sure the pharmacy sells magnifying glasses in bulk. I could have tried a couple of the big box stores—”
“Margi.”
“But if I struck out at Walmart, I would have gotten stuck driving all the way to Ames, and—”
“MARGI!”
She clamped her mouth shut and blinked. “What?”
“If you distribute all your sanitizer to complete strangers, you’ll run out, and then you won’t have enough left for your friends. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”
She inched her lips into a self-confident smile. “I stuffed so many bottles into my suitcase, I’ll never run out.”
Of course she wouldn’t.
“I had to play it safe, Emily. I knew I couldn’t replenish my supply with British pounds sterling. Did you get a load of the exchange rate? It’d wipe me out.”
I heard a key card being slid into the outer lock, and in the next moment Etienne strode into the room, his piercing blue eyes locking on Margi. “Ms. Swanson! Just the person I wanted to see. How fortunate to find you here.”
He crossed the floor with the wiry grace of a panther, every pore in his six-foot, two-inch frame oozing testosterone and some powerful pheromone that rendered women deaf, dumb, and dizzy. His hair was black, his shoulders broad. His dimpled smile had the same effect on the female psyche that sunshine had on flowers. In a perfect world, his picture would appear twice in the dictionary: once under “raw sexuality,” and the other under “1 percent body fat.”
“Your public is clamoring for you in the hotel lounge,” he announced as he crossed the floor toward us. “And bring a pen. They’re demanding your autograph. Who knew that your being suspected of domestic terrorism would cause such a sensation?”
She stared up at him like a puppy dog, her mouth hanging slightly open, her eyes adoring. “Okay.”
He offered her his hand, which she stared at, adoringly.
“Ms. Swanson?”
Her gaze drifted to his face. “Uh-huh?”
“Would you like to join the other tour guests in the lounge before it closes? The drinks are on them.”
“Okay.”
He helped her to her feet and slid her shoulder bag up her arm. �
��And if I could impose upon your good nature, would you mind distributing your sanitizer to our Destinations Travel guests only? We want your sightseeing experience to include visits to sites other than police interrogation rooms.”
She smiled dreamily. “Okay.”
I rolled my eyes. It was official. There was no justice in the world.
He escorted her to the door and let her out. “The hotel lounge,” he called after her. “Ground floor. Through the glass doors to the right of reception.” He rejoined me, looking a bit wary. “Did she seem a bit ‘off’ to you?”
“She’ll be fine once she’s outside your force field.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Let’s just say that she likes your suggestions better than mine, even when they’re the same suggestion. You kinda have that effect on women.”
“I do?” Smiling seductively, he pulled me off my chair and pressed me against him, locking his arms around the small of my back. “Well, then, Mrs. Miceli, I have another suggestion.”
Oh, boy. I knew what that tone meant.
“But it involves some minor effort on your part, like … not objecting when I do this.” He unclipped the barrette at the back of my head and tossed it onto the armchair. Tangling his fingers in my unbound hair, he tilted my head, baring my earlobe. “Or this.” He traced the curve of my ear with his tongue, electrifying every nerve ending in my body. “Or this.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed each of my fingertips slowly, provocatively, before drawing my freshly sanitized forefinger into the warmth of his mouth and—
“Emily, darling.”
“Mmm?” I moaned in a hormone-induced haze.
“I have another suggestion.”
“Okay.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Ravenous,” I purred.
He set me away from him and tidied my hair. “Would you hold that thought until after we find a deli? I’m at a loss to explain it, but I have a sudden, uncontrollable urge for a ham sandwich.”
