She shrugged. “Maybe he grows orchids in his spare time,” she suggested airily.
I made a face. Cops don’t grow orchids. They follow their own rules and get yelled at by their chief and get thrown off the case. Or so TV has always told me. But orchids? I hardly thought that could be possible, but stranger things had turned up lately, so who knew?
I gave her a sideways look. “And speaking of men, what’s the deal with Mark lately? I haven’t seen him around for awhile.”
Actually, I had seen him, just not with her. Just the day before, when I went out to take a walk, I saw Mark driving off with Sherry in his car. That gave me pause. Sherry was very pretty and very young and very curvaceous. All the things that make for trouble when they come sashaying around between a man and his usual girl friend. A little clingy for my taste, but then I’m not a guy. For all I know, they like that sort of thing.
Sherry had played the “poor little me” victim card during our last escapade, claiming that the winery owner had seduced her and dropped her almost immediately thereafter. There was no denying that Kyle was a bad guy, but she had laid it on a bit thick, and Mark had seemed to fall right into her trap—wanting to take care of her.
Poor Bebe. It looked like she might have lost her man this time around. Still, she did have one card left to play. Bebe ran a huge cut flower operation and Sherry worked for her, managing the flower bundler group. It was an important job and it paid pretty well. If Bebe wanted to get tough, she obviously could make a real difference in Sherry’s life.
But knowing Bebe, I was afraid she was prepared to suffer in silence. Hmmm. It might be something to think about for the future. Things could use a little shaking up around here.
But right then, she didn’t want to talk about it and she changed the subject quickly.
“Okay, I need help with a very big decision.”
I nodded. “I’m ready to assist in any way I can,” I said lightly.
“Here it is. Should we get a Christmas tree this year?”
I blinked in surprise. “Don’t you usually?”
She looked like the question worried her. “I’ve had a little artificial tree for ages but last year it finally began to fall apart. So now I’ve got the dilemma—to tree or not to tree.”
“Why not?” I said helpfully. “But make it a real one this time.”
She frowned and I jumped in before she could give her reasons for fakery. “You’re a flower grower. You deal in the real thing all the time. Don’t you think it’s kind of lame to get a fake tree, when real plants are your life?”
She shook her head, looking bored with it all. “Oh, whatever. Now you’ve made it into such a big deal, I think I’ll take a pass after all.” She shrugged. “Too much trouble. Christmas is for kids anyway.”
I found myself studying her response. I didn’t really care, but there was something in her voice, something in her eyes, that told me she did on a certain level. I wondered why.
And then my cell chimed in with a message from the police, requesting my presence at the station house within the hour. I noticed it wasn’t from Detective McKnight. Oh well.
Ghost on Duty, available now from Amazon!
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ABOUT AUTHOR
J.D. Winters is a pen name for Helen Conrad, an award-winning, bestselling author of more than 90 romances (over 15 million copies sold) published under various pseudonyms with Harlequin, Silhouette, Loveswept, and others. She is currently revamping and rewriting much of her backlist--some available in the US for the first time--to present on Kindle.
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A Ghost for Christmas (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 1) Page 12
