The Final Tap

by Amanda Flower

  “It’s too late for that. The police will always be looking for me.” She smacked the handle of the shovel against her hand. “I can’t let you go. You know that. You know what I did.”

  “You think I’m the only one?” I thought quickly. “Chase Wyatt is outside. He’s the police chief’s nephew, and the police are on their way. My assistant already called them.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Before I could answer, I heard noise from outside. “Kelsey!” someone called.

  “See, they’re already here,” I said.

  “Then I’ll have to make this quick.” Corrie took a step toward me with determination in her eyes. I didn’t have much time.

  The handle of the sugaring paddle stuck out of the boiling trough of sap.

  I grabbed it, boiling drops of maple sugar falling onto the floor and onto my hand. Ignoring the burning, I whacked Corrie in the shoulder with the blade of the paddle in one sweeping motion. She cried out and dropped the shovel.

  She didn’t fall, so I whacked her again, this time on the other side. As she fell to the concrete floor, she reached out and grabbed the spigot on the maple sugar basin. A boiling hot stream of maple syrup poured onto her hands. Corrie screamed as it spilled onto the floor.

  I jumped over her and turned off the spigot. My boots stuck to the floor and made a sickening sticky sound when I tried to lift them.

  “Corrie?” I asked.

  The girl moaned and cradled her hands. I didn’t know how badly she was burned, but I had to get her some relief.

  I put my hands under her armpits and half-lifted, half-dragged her through the open door of the sugarhouse.

  Much of the snow in the woods had melted over the last two days, but there was still plenty in the places shaded by the trees. I dragged Corrie to a snowy patch and dropped her there. Then I made a snow pack and placed it on her hands, which were already red and blistering. She moaned.

  Detective Brandon, Officer Sonders, and Benji came crashing through the woods just as I was packing more snow on Corrie’s hands.

  “Step back, Ms. Cambridge,” the detective said.

  I did as I was told. “Gavin is in the sugarhouse. She hit him over the head.”

  Officer Sonders took off for the sugarhouse at a run.

  “Kelsey!” a weak voice called.

  I ran to Chase, who was still at the tree where I’d left him. He was trying unsuccessfully to stand up. I put his arm around my shoulder and helped him.

  He touched the welt on his forehead and winced. “I have a headache.”

  “You might have one for a few days.” I rubbed his arm.

  “Corrie hit me … with a shovel.”

  “I know. She killed Beeson.”

  “Why?” Chase wobbled.

  “You’re going to fall over. I’ll tell you everything later.”

  He tried to focus on my face. “Did she hurt you?”

  “No.” I glanced over at the girl who was pressing snow to her hands while Benji and the police looked on. “I don’t think we have to worry about her anymore.”

  Detective Brandon was talking on her cell phone. “I need an ambulance here ASAP. We have a burn victim and two head injuries.”

  “One head injury is me,” Chase said, wincing.

  “I know. Gavin’s the other. Corrie really liked that shovel.” I brushed Chase’s hair out of his eyes to check if they were dilated. “You need to go to the hospital, and I’ll take care of you until you’re one hundred percent.”

  “That’s sounds nice.” Chase squinted. “Paramedics make terrible patients. I thought you should know that. We’re kind of like doctors in that way.”

  I smiled at his attempt at a joke. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  epilogue

  By Monday, I’d come to a decision about Chase. I would give him a chance, a real chance.

  It was time to stop controlling every little event in my life and see what would happened. I’d ended up marrying Eddie because it was planned and what was expected. Maybe it was time to face the world embracing the unexpected.

  It turned out to be a good thing that Hayden was staying with Eddie that weekend, because as soon as Chase was released from the hospital, I’d trundled him to my cottage and parked him on the couch with Tiffin standing guard. Chase claimed he didn’t need all the attention, but he said it with that teasing smile on his lips that I found equal parts infuriating and adorable.

  The festivities on Sunday had gone off without a hitch. On Monday, I went to my office to do paperwork and called Henry several times, hoping for an answer about Jason and his trailer. Henry wasn’t answering my calls. I figured I’d think about it later, and in the early afternoon I headed home. I knew Chase was preparing to leave—he was well enough to take care of himself, and we’d both agreed that he should head out before Hayden got home from school. I still wanted to take things slowly for my son’s sake.

  Chase was waiting for me outside the cottage, and he stood up when I walked through the gate. “There’s my guardian angel.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Hardly. How’s your head?”

  “Fine. I’ve been fine for a while.” He grinned as he walked toward me. “But I thought if I let on, you’d make me leave.”

  I suspected as much.

  “I heard from one of my buddies at the hospital,” he said. “Gavin is fine too. He was discharged yesterday.”

  I gave a sigh of relief. I wished the same could be said for Corrie. Her physical wounds would heal, but I didn’t know if her emotional wounds ever would. Thinking of her made me terribly sad.

  In three strides, Chase reached me. He placed his hand under my chin and tilted my face up.

  I knew he was going to kiss me. It would be our first kiss. But then my cell phone rang. I checked the readout.

  “Ignore it,” Chase said.

  I stepped back. “I can’t. It’s from the Cherry Foundation. It must be about Jason.” I put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Cambridge, this is Henry Ratcliffe from the Cherry Foundation.”

  “Yes, Henry. Have you come to a decision about the trailer?” I made a face at Chase, and he smiled.

  “We have. You have all the appropriate permits, and after being to the Farm myself, I can vouch that everything is in order. We have no reason to force you to ask him to leave.”

  “That’s wonderful news! Thank you!” I grinned at Chase.

  Henry took a breath. “I have more good news.”

  “More good news?” I asked. Warning bells went off in my head.

  “Yes. The Pumpernickle family has made a very generous donation to the Foundation.”

  “The Pumpernickle family?” There was only one person I knew with that last name.

  “Yes. The only stipulation of the gift was that Barton Farm host their daughter Krissie’s wedding to her betrothed, Edward Cambridge. Is he any relation to you?”

  I couldn’t answer.

  “Ms. Cambridge, are you there?”

  All the blood drained from my face. “I’m here.”

  “In any case, I told the family you would be happy to accommodate them. I’ll be emailing you the wedding dates and requests for Barton Farm staff. It’s a June wedding, so I know you’ll want to start working on it right away.”

  “Okay.” It was all I could manage. I thought it was pretty good under the circumstances.

  “This is a wonderful development for the Foundation and for Barton Farm.”

  “Okay,” I repeated. Now I knew what it felt like to be shell-shocked. I didn’t like it.

  Henry sniffed, perhaps at my lack of enthusiasm. “Well, I won’t keep you. Have a good day, Ms. Cambridge.”

  “Good day.” That was two words. A good sign that my vocabulary might recover.

  Chase
put a hand under my elbow. “What happened? You look like you’ve just been fired.”

  “It’s not that.” I swallowed hard. “You know that problem with Krissie that I didn’t want to deal with?”

  He nodded.

  “It just got a whole lot worse.”

  He took my hands in his. “How?”

  I studied him. “Are you sure you want to hear it? Are you ready for all the baggage that comes with me? A kid? An ex-husband and his future wife? Not to mention my father. And then there’s this Farm and all its strings. It’s a lot to take on. If you run away now, I’ll understand.”

  Chase’s face softened. “And my ex-fiancée is a police detective who hates you. I’d say we both come with some serious baggage.”

  I slipped my arm through his. “I guess we do.”

  About the Author

  © Sara E. Smith

  Amanda Flower, a multiple Agatha Award–nominated mystery author, started her writing career in elementary school when she read a story she’d written to her sixth grade class and had the class in stitches with her description of being stuck on the top of a Ferris wheel. She knew at that moment she’d found her calling: making people laugh with her words. She also writes mysteries as USA Today bestselling author Isabella Alan. In addition to being a writer, Amanda is a public librarian in Northeast Ohio.

  www.amandaflower.com

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my readers who enjoyed The Final Reveille. I hope you will love The Final Tap even more, and that Kelsey and her friends will make you laugh.

  As always, thanks to my superstar agent Nicole Resciniti, who understands my quirky voice better than anyone else, and to my editors Terri Bischoff and Sandy Sullivan for giving this series a home.

  Thank you to my assistant Molly Carroll-Syracuse and the Cozy Club for their endless publicity support of this and all my mysteries. Thank you also to my dear friend Mariellyn Grace for reading the manuscript in its early and somewhat convoluted stage.

  Very special thanks to those who helped me research this novel, including Allegra Waldron for answering my countless questions about tapping trees, maple sugaring, and Ohio maple syrup, and Andy, Isabella, and Andrew for our undercover research trip and pancake breakfast taste test. Any mistakes about maple sugaring practices found in the novel are my own.

  Finally, gratitude to the Heavenly Father for creating so many of the earth’s wonders, including maple trees.