And The Earth Moved: Romantic Comedy Cozy Mystery (Amber Reed CCIA Mystery Book 1)

by Zanna Mackenzie

  Charlie raises an eyebrow as he slumps on the bed and reaches for my hand. “Why not? Why are you moving your case?”

  I lower my voice to a whisper. “I think I should sleep in the other room.”

  “Fed up with me already?” he asks with a cheeky grin.

  As if.

  “It doesn’t feel right us sharing a bed,” I reply inclining my head towards the wall and the bedroom where Martha is settling in. “Not with her in the cottage with us.”

  “Don’t be daft.” Charlie looks mystified. “What difference does that make?”

  For an intelligent investigative agent sometimes he can be quite dense. “Because…” I hiss. “She clearly already thinks I’m not up to doing my job. If she knows we’re involved then she’ll think that’s the only reason I’m here, because I’m sleeping with you, and then she’ll think even less of me.”

  “You have an overactive imagination.” He shakes his head. “And anyway, I would think she already knows we’re dating. Everyone at the CCIA probably does. When I recommended you as a possible new support officer I had to declare that we were involved on the forms. Normal procedure.”

  I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Everyone knows?”

  He nods. “I’m sure she won’t mind. What we do in our own time and our own private space is up to us and has nothing whatsoever to do with this investigation and the agency.” He reaches for my hand again but I plant my feet firmly on the floor and resist even though, at this particular moment, I would love nothing more than to climb onto the bed with Charlie for a cuddle.

  “It just doesn’t seem, well, you know, professional.” I shrug. “I’ll move to the other room.”

  He stops slouching on the bed and sits up. “You’re serious?”

  “Yes.” He looks well and truly fed up now so I add, “I can always sneak into your room in the middle of the night for a quick cuddle.”

  He shakes his head.

  “No?”

  “Nope,” he replies, feigning indignation. “No chance. It’s all or nothing. If you’re not staying the night with me then you’re not nipping in here for a quickie before skulking back to your own room under the cover of darkness. Those are the rules.”

  “Rules?” I try my best seductive smile on him. “Since when were you one for following the rules?”

  He shrugs. “It’s different if I’m the one making the rules.”

  I lean down to kiss him on the lips. “You’ll change your mind soon enough,” I say as I pull my suitcase towards the door.

  He gets to his feet and starts unpacking his own bag. “Nope, I won’t,” he says with a wink. “It’s all or nothing. Remember that.”

  “So you’ve worked with Martha before,” I say, stopping in the doorway. My case, with its dodgy wheels, decides not to stop at the same time as I do and promptly whacks me across the ankles. I wince at the pain.

  “Yeah, a couple of times.” Charlie is doing his version of unpacking – grabbing random handfuls of clothes from his holdall and flinging assorted items into drawers without even looking at them. It’s one of many traits Charlie and I share – untidiness. We’re both also stubborn and can be incredibly nosy.

  “She seemed very pleased to see you.” I stand on my right leg and surreptitiously rub the other foot up and down the back of my still painful ankle.

  Charlie gives me a warning look. “We were never involved,” he says, clearly cutting off my line of questioning before I can get into my stride.

  “Just friends then eh?”

  “Not even that really,” he replies, opening the wardrobe door and chucking the now empty holdall inside. “Just work colleagues.”

  “Right.” I nod. “Well, I’m off to unpack.”

  I take a leaf out of Charlie’s book and fling my clothes into various drawers and wardrobes, feeling miffed about Martha being here and about everyone at the CCIA knowing that Charlie and I are involved. Charlie’s the reason I’m working for the Celebrity Crimes Investigation Agency because we met when he came to investigate the death of Joel McKarthy in the village of Palstone where I live.

  Joel was the brother of an old friend and former boyfriend of mine – Ennis McKarthy. Ennis is a famous actor these days but when I knew him he was just Ennis, a great guy with a passion to one day be an actor. Ennis fiercely guards his privacy and wanted to make sure Charlie wasn’t going to sell the story to the media hounds, so he begged me to shadow him throughout the top secret investigation into Joel’s death. Charlie, much to my shock, agreed to the arrangement and we discovered we worked well together and ended up collaborating on the case. Actually, in the interests of full disclosure, we ended up doing far more than that, but that’s a whole other story!

  When the case was solved Charlie and I got involved and, well, he thought my investigative skills (i.e. stubborn nosiness) would make me a great support officer for the CCIA, so he recommended me and… well, here we are.

  I used to be a part-time barmaid and part-time newspaper administrator back in Palstone, Derbyshire. My duties at the paper also used to include making up the horoscopes under the name of Madam Zamber.

  Now here I am, after six months intensive training, working on my first official case for the agency, with Charlie as my supervising officer, and me not dealing very well with seeing the dead victim. I feel as though I have a lot to prove. Doesn’t everyone when they start a new job? In this case though, because of the way Charlie recommended me to the agency, I feel I have even more to prove. I don’t want to be the woman who got her job because of who she’s dating.

  “So what do we know about this guy?” Martha asks.

  I feel as though she’s taken over the cottage. Her stuff is everywhere and now she’s commandeered the kitchen and is making us all dinner. I’ve also noticed that she is flirting full tilt with Charlie whilst pretty much ignoring me. Except for asking me to fetch her stuff.

  Would you be an angel and fetch me the chicken from the fridge, Amber? Would you mind fetching some rosemary from the little herb garden at the side of the cottage for me, Amber?

  She’s asking so politely that if a stranger walked into this kitchen they probably wouldn’t sense the subtle but there none-the-less undercurrents between the two of us. But I do sense them and I know what she’s up to. I know she sees me as her assistant, someone to run her errands whilst she works closely with Charlie to solve the case of the ex-pop star washed up on the beach.

  I hand her the chicken and fetch the herbs as requested. What else can I do? I know I’m new to all of this and I don’t have her years of experience. I’m here to learn and I want to be actively involved in finding out what happened to Flynn Garrison. The CCIA might want their best agents on this case so have sent Martha to partner Charlie but I’m not going to be pushed out.

  Charlie rests his perfect jean-clad bottom against the kitchen counter and folds his arms. “We know he was lead singer with one of the top pop groups until almost two years ago when he quit. He left the band, called Dynamo Monsoon, and decided to make use of his geology degree instead. This past year he’s been one of the presenters on a science show on TV. He’s also been contracted to do some research and development consultancy work by an Edinburgh university.”

  Martha arches one of her perfect eyebrows. “What kind of research work?”

  “We aren’t sure yet,” I chip in.

  “Married? Kids?” Martha asks as she slices potatoes ready to go in the oven for roasting.

  “Records show he’s been married to a woman called Melissa for three years,” I answer. “No children. They must have married pretty young, him and this Melissa. He would only have been twenty six on his next birthday.”

  “I wonder what made him quit the group?” Charlie ponders. “What happened two years ago to make him walk away from the band, from being famous? Something must have triggered it.”

  “Yes, that’s another thing we need to get some answers on,” Martha says.

  “I’m pl
anning on quizzing the locals, see what I can find out about him, when he arrived, where he was staying,” Charlie says. “See if he had any local connections. Why was he here on Farra?”

  Martha nods her approval.

  “Fine. Tomorrow I’ll access his bank records to see if that offers any clues about our victim. In the meantime, this meal will take half hour or so to cook so I’m off for a quick shower.”

  She turns towards me and adds, “I trust I can leave you in charge of checking nothing burns?”

  I want to tell her exactly what she can do but silently count to five before nodding. Be professional. Martha is a work colleague. You have to behave civilly towards her, I tell myself. No matter how much you might want to shove her onto the first ferry back to the mainland.

  As soon as the bathroom door clicks shut Charlie grabs me from behind. “Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?”

  I pretend to try to wrestle free from his grasp as he starts to tickle me. I spin round in his arms and he backs me up against the fridge freezer.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I say as I run my hands up his neck and into his hair. He had it cut just last week. I think it’s a little too short at the back but the front is still just about long enough to look all desirably tousled when he gets out of bed in the morning.

  OK. OK. I know I was the one who proclaimed there was to be no funny business between Charlie and me whilst Miss Martha is around but I can already feel my resistance weakening. “She can try to wind me up all she likes but I won’t retaliate. I will remain calm and unflustered and I will prove to her I’m every bit as useful on this case as she is. I can do this job.”

  Charlie grins at me. “That’s my girl! For a moment there I was getting worried.”

  We both hear the electric shower click on and buzz into life in the bathroom down the corridor. Our eyes meet and I know we’re thinking the same thing. We have the chance for ten minutes of quality time whilst Martha is out of the way.

  I stand on tiptoe and trace fingers over Charlie’s jet black hair. The kiss we share is urgent and hungry and he presses me further back against the fridge. I need Charlie’s warmth and comfort and reassurance. Want him to hold me. Erase images of the beach. Of Flynn Garrison. I need to be distracted. Hands, lips and tongues explore, finding the particular spots we know we each like, the spots we have discovered during the six months we’ve been a couple.

  Admittedly, due to Charlie’s work with the CCIA and my agency training, we didn’t get to spend the whole six months together but even so…

  However much later we hear the shower click off. I ease away from Charlie and send him a we-have-to-behave-now look. To his credit he does just that. He releases me and I tidy up my ponytail as he tucks his shirt back into his jeans. I sniff the air and realise I totally forgot to check the oven – is that burning I can smell?

  Opening the oven door I poke and prod the roast potatoes and vegetables with a spoon. Some of them are a little charred around the edges. Oh well… I’ll just have to work harder to prove to Miss Beautiful that, despite what she thinks, I am a capable modern woman. Well, some of the time I am…

  I hear the bathroom door open and stand up, closing the oven, in time to see Martha sashay – and no, I’m not exaggerating or being bitchy, there is no other word for it – down the corridor from the bathroom to her bedroom wearing nothing but the tiniest of bath towels. Her long tanned legs seem to go on forever and her generous cleavage is almost spilling over the top of the white towel.

  She turns as she reaches her bedroom door and the towel - on purpose I am sure - slips ever so slightly, revealing yet more 36DD, before she clasps it to her bosom.

  “Oops,” she laughs and then winks at Charlie in full view of me before disappearing inside her room.

  Instantly I turn to see if Charlie took in that whole little scene – after all, she clearly performed it especially for his benefit. He’s standing looking slightly dazed. I clear my throat and he pulls his gaze away from the bedroom door and back to me.

  Yep, he saw her little show all right.

  “I’ll check on the oven,” he says, turning his back to me.

  Great. Now I not only have to prove myself worthy of working for the CCIA but also have to prove it to a man-eating six-foot blonde goddess with designs on my boyfriend.

  Grab a copy of Precious on Amazon and continue the story…

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  Other books by Zanna Mackenzie

  Precious – Amber Reed CCIA Mystery Book Two

  Mine Forever - Amber Reed CCIA Mystery Book Three – out soon!

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  If You Only Knew

  How Do You Spell Love?

  The Love Programme

  Find Zanna’s books on Amazon

  About the author:

  Zanna Mackenzie lives on the Derbyshire / Leicestershire border with her husband, 3 dogs, a vegetable patch that’s home to far too many weeds and an ever expanding library of books waiting to be read.

  Being a freelance writer and editor of business publications is her ‘day job’ but, at every opportunity, she can be found scribbling down notes on scenes for whatever novel she’s working on. She loves it when the characters in her novels take on minds of their own and start deviating from the original plot!

  Find out more about Zanna on her blog or over on Twitter or connect with her on Facebook