Ganache and Fondant and Murder

by Patti Larsen

  Given up on… stutter, splutter, choke. “I don’t go looking,” I said. Blushed. “Mostly. I swear, this stuff falls in my lap.”

  He waved that off. Fell still, waiting.

  Did I have an answer for him? I guess I did, tied to the new fear I only now realized Dad’s comment had woken in me. That somehow Crew’s job was in danger and it was my fault. “I want to help,” I said. “Help you. And I’m good at it. You’re good at it. And I trust you.” There. Said it.

  Crew nodded slowly, sipped his beer. “I assumed you’ve been screwing with me, and I’m sorry for that.” He stared at the bottle, not speaking before he rushed on. “Now I get you had no idea. You weren’t setting me up. Or mocking me, pushing me. You had no clue how much pressure I’ve been getting. From Olivia and the council. About your dad and you.” I shook my head, feeling misery rise. I’d had an inkling of it in October, but no details. “It’s actually made me want to quit, Fee. I’ve never quit anything in my life, but having John and Fiona Fleming shoved in my face over and over again? That’s brought me about as close as anything ever has.” He sighed deeply, standing straighter, shrugging with a faint smile. “And you know what? When I thought you did know, it wasn’t so bad. I could almost put up with it. Until I found out you didn’t. That you were totally oblivious. You were making my life miserable and you didn’t know you were doing it. Aside from the obvious.”

  I needed to go. This was too much. Was he quitting? Leaving Reading because of me and Dad? That was the last thing I wanted.

  “I understand, though.” Crew bobbed a nod, almost to himself. “I get that it’s hard for everyone to let go. John was sheriff for a lot of years. This is a small town and outsiders aren’t always welcome. And with you, the golden Fleming daughter, home again when everyone thought you were long gone,” wait, the what now? “I guess I was feeling a bit on the jealous side.” He laughed then, downed his beer, reached into the fridge for another. Stopped. Met my eyes again.

  “You’re a natural, Fee. If I’d known you when you were a kid, if you’d told me you wanted to be a cop and your father said no? I’d have stood up to him for you and told him where he could shove his idea he could tell you what to do.”

  I didn’t know if I should hug him or cry, still caught up in the golden daughter statement. Where was he getting the idea anyone wanted me home aside from Mom and Dad?

  “I’m sorry,” I said, choked on it. “I’ll stop, I swear. Just don’t quit.” I set my bottle down, the base rattling on the counter. “You’re great at what you do, Crew. And I’m a nosy busybody who really should just go home.” I’d expected pushback, planned for a fight. This was something else entirely. If he wanted to win, he’d found a way to do it. Only it didn’t feel like he was playing me. Was this the private talk he wanted to have? If so, I’d misread him about as much as he misread me. I was an idiot. He wasn’t into me. That whole moment of maybe died before it could live. Whatever opportunity there had been, that day in the garden last April? I’d clung to it for no reason. And that realization sucked more than anything.

  “Fee.” Crew circled the counter while I turned and headed for the door. I had to get out of here before I cried or something equally stupid. He caught me before I could get those damned boots back on, but he didn’t say anything while I jammed them on my feet, one heel sticking so I stumbled over the compressed leather. Getaways should have been easier than this.

  And then I was blurting, because I couldn’t stop the words that tumbled out of my mouth. “I just, this stuff happens to me and it doesn’t seem right not to tell you because I thought I could help and now I know I’m not helping I’m really making a huge mess of everything and I’m sorry, Crew, I’m sorry.” I gasped a breath, shaking my head, wishing I hadn’t come here tonight.

  Wishing the world would crack open and swallow me so I didn’t have to meet his eyes, feel shame about making his life so hard and my own a pining waste of both our time.

  When his warm hands cupped my hot cheeks they felt chilled in comparison. A detail that went away the instant his lips covered my mouth.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty

  So, if someone had told me that this day would end with Crew Turner kissing me I’d probably have laughed in their face then gone home and ate an entire pint of ice cream while doing my best not to cry in my pillow. I’d imagined what it would be like, what those amazing lips would feel like pressed on mine, how his body might mold against me, how he would taste if I ever got the chance to kiss him.

  Imagination? Pfft. Pale comparison.

  Maybe my inner feminist should have protested the unagreed to kiss now being deployed against my lips that moved in time with his though I didn’t give them the go-ahead to do so. Instead, I leaned into him, feeling my entire body sigh in answer to his touch, the delicious taste and scent and warmth of him spreading a happy ball of delighted tingling from the center of me to every extremity until I vibrated with the zinging joy that was kissing Crew Turner.

  When he leaned away I barely suppressed the soft moan of regret, thinking, rather oddly, of that same sound Petunia often used to express her own disappointment when she didn’t get what she wanted. Which made me giggle ever so slightly.

  Crew laughed. Threw back that handsome head of his with his dark hair curling over his collar and laughed a belly laugh that sounded like heaven.

  “I don’t know if I should be offended or not you’re amused that I kissed you,” he said, grinning down at me while I smiled breathlessly back.

  “Definitely a giddy compliment,” I said, not even trying to explain the pug connection and giving myself kudos for avoiding being a weirdo for once. Awesome. No, really. Awe. Some.

  Crew lowered his big hands from my face, sliding them around my shoulders until he pressed me against his chest, my coat compressing under his grasp. I had trouble focusing on his eyes, though whether from the close proximity or the close proximity (you get what I mean, right?) I wasn’t in a position to decide.

  “Thanks for the info,” he said, deep voice now rumbling and catching a bit. His pupils were dilated all over again, but this time for reasons that made me want to take my coat off and stay a while after all. Daisy wouldn’t mind. Especially if I told her why I didn’t come home tonight.

  Growl. Down, girl.

  “You’re welcome.” I sighed into his chest and did the right thing. “You won’t quit?”

  He shook his head. “You’re stuck with me a while,” he said.

  I’d take it. And leave it. “I guess I should go.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long time. Make no mistake whatsoever. If Crew had decided me leaving wasn’t what he wanted, I can promise you right here and now I would have been staying put. But, he was a good boy, wasn’t he? Maybe his wife’s memory still lingered. There was enough in his expression, in the way he smiled at me, how his hand slid over my back a moment that told me there was a very good chance I’d be getting a date after all.

  Imagine that.

  He held the door for me while I slipped out, hopping to fix my boot while he shook his head and laughed again, waving when I smiled in turn.

  “Stay safe out there,” he said.

  I felt a bit giddy as I made it all the way down his walk—without tripping and falling on my face! Yay me!—and turned to find he was still at the door, watching me. I wanted to laugh, to yell and run like a teenager who’d had her first kiss. Instead, I bobbed a ridiculous curtsy when he waved one last time, the sound of his laughter carrying as he finally closed the door.

  I stood there in the street, taking a deep breath of the cool night air before pulling out my cell phone and texting Daisy I was on my way. Realized I didn’t want to go home just yet the exact moment a black car with tinted windows rolled past.

  I should have went home. But I was still on a high from Crew and now that I felt about as free and clear and a bit wild as I ever had, it was time to confront the Irishman who thought he could jerk my chain a
nd get away with it.

  I stomped down the street to the stop sign where his car had pulled up, but instead of waiting, his driver peeled away in the direction of The Orange. I scowled after them and made a terrible life choice, my favorite.

  Another quick text to Daisy and I found myself bouncing the five blocks to the other side of town and a confrontation with destiny. Okay, not so much, but everything just felt epic and saga like, as if I’d walked into a Hollywood movie, the heroine with a passionate kiss for her true love off to do battle and all that. Though calling Crew my true love was a stretch. And I wasn’t that much of an action hero as I shivered in my coat and wished I’d taken my car two blocks before I reached my destination.

  Heroines didn’t whine about the cold. Didn’t.

  Malcolm was just getting out of his car when I crossed to the front door, pausing to raise an eyebrow at me, his personal coldness still firmly in place. He could rival the bitter wind now rising against my back. Crap, that meant a chilly walk home.

  “You’re here,” he said, voice crackling with disdain, “to ask me if I killed the sod I went to collect money from. Because you didn’t get enough of me earlier, I take it. And you’re as much a nosy brat as they say you are.”

  That was nasty and uncalled for. I scowled at him, unwilling to let him take the edge off my buzz. “And you’re pissed at me for not being courageous enough to look into my father’s past because I’m afraid I’m going to find something that breaks my heart.”

  I watched his face thaw ever so slightly, his body twitch in response.

  “Am I right?” His gray eyes clouded over. “Are you a coward, lass?”

  “You tell me,” I said. “You’re happy judging me. That’s on you, Malcolm. But doesn’t answer the question. You’re right about that much.”

  He grinned at last, quick and sharp. “The man was indebted to another, for dabbling with ponies and some troubles with the tax man.” The IRS? That was a new development, though hardly surprising. Someone like Ron Williams would try to defraud the government. “Not me personally. It’s damned hard to collect on what’s owed when he’s gone and died, now, isn’t it?”

  I believed him. I wasn’t there to ask him about Ron anyway and I think we both knew it.

  “Tell me one thing,” I said as he turned to enter his bar, his bullies hulking near the door.

  “Aye,” Malcolm said. “One thing.”

  “Am I going to hate my father when I’m done talking to Siobhan Doyle?” I squared myself, prepped for the answer. “Either way, I can take it. But I need to know.”

  Malcolm’s face twisted, his gaze dropping to the sidewalk between us. He seemed like he wanted to say something, lips working, lean face tight. He finally just shook his head and turned his back on me.

  “Come see me when you have that answer,” he said, the door closing behind him and his bullies while I glared after him.

  He could have at least gotten one of his boys to drive me home.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty One

  It was closer to go to Mom and Dad’s, so I stopped in on the pretense I wanted to know how Mom was doing. The truth? I was an icicle by the time I reached their street, so it was a no brainer to run up their walk and knock before dashing inside. Why, oh why did I leave my puffy coat in the kitchen and take my dressier wool one instead?

  My need for warmth came up against a giant roadblock. The front door was locked tight and though there were lights on, Mom’s car and Dad’s truck were gone. How could they both be out at a time like this? I stood on the stoop, shivering from the horrible wind I’d been forced to walk into all this way, stomping my boots to try to get some feeling in my toes while I blew into the cuffs of my mittens, fingers curling into my palms inside the soft fleece in a desperate attempt to conserve heat. It took me a long moment to admit defeat and head back into the wind, winding my scarf a little more firmly around my lower face and gritting my teeth against the chill.

  Most of the shine that I’d gained from Crew’s kiss had worn off by the time I hurried through the front door of Petunia’s, shivering so violently I was positive I’d never be warm again. Daisy rushed to my side, tugging me into the kitchen, Petunia waddling after us. My bestie, bless her heart, stripped my boots from my freezing feet, my mittens from my clawed hands and tucked warm towels around both sets of extremities before brewing me a hot pot of tea.

  By the time I could talk past my chattering teeth, toes and fingers on fire with the tingling return of warmth, she brushed off my apology for taking so long.

  “Fee,” she said, turning toward the window behind her, an anxious look on her face before she spun back to me. “I’m worried about your mother.”

  Wait, Mom was here? No, not here. I could see it now, the lights over the fence. Someone was in the annex. Cold forgotten, I bundled back up, leaving Daisy with Petunia and heading out into the freezing night with my puffy coat protecting me this time. It was after 9PM, what was Mom doing here? I shuddered at the return of winter’s touch but ran the distance to the fence and around the Carriage House before hurrying up the back path to the kitchen door and bustling inside.

  To find my mother sitting alone in the work lights, the mostly completed kitchen huge compared to her despite her down jacket and adorable fur hat with the matching mittens in her lap. I went to her, sat next to her, took her hand in mine. She clutched at me, bringing my cold fingers to her mouth and blowing on them like she used to when I was a little girl. And then she cried and I cried with her, finally getting the Mom hug and giving the daughter one I’d wanted to yesterday.

  When we both finished, faster than I expected, I sat back and accepted the tissue from her pocket. That was my mom, always prepared. I dabbed at my tears, blew my nose while she did the same. She seemed calmer, but still not quite herself. A fact she reinforced for me when she spoke.

  “I never expected things to go so badly.” She laughed a little, shook her head, the flaps on her hat bouncing. “Fee, I was such a fool to ever think I could compete.”

  “No,” I said, squeezing her hand. “You did everything right. It’s not your fault.” I thought about what Joyce said. “Even if you had tested the batter, there was no time to change it.”

  “It’s all right, honey,” she said. “Your old mom had her butt handed to her and now I have to figure out what that means.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything when someone cheats you out of a chance to show what you can do.” I had to get through to her because I wasn’t liking how this was sounding.

  “I’ve taken on so many things in my life,” Mom said, blinking and smiling at me, looking so vulnerable I wanted to hug her again so I did. The rest of her words came out muffled from the collar of my coat. “And I’ve been very successful. I guess I wasn’t expecting to fail quite so spectacularly and publically.”

  I pushed her back, jaw tight, ready to shake sense into her if I had to. “Stop that.”

  She touched my cheek with trembling fingers. “What does it feel like, Fee? To never doubt yourself?” Like I’d know. “You and your father, you’re both so… it’s effortless for you. The rest of us mere mortals have to work for it. But you and John, you have the kind of courage I wish was catching.”

  She did not just say that to me. “Lucille Marigold Fleming,” I said, “you listen to me. I am the biggest self-doubter you’ve met in your entire life and you know it. I’ve spent my whole adulthood wondering what the hell I did wrong and flailing from one disaster to another.” Felt kind of cathartic to admit it out loud, to not have to be strong and powerful and pretend I was all together, especially with my mother. “So don’t hand me that crap. I’m a walking danger zone.” I rolled my eyes. “Murder magnet, busybody, you name it.”

  Her smile didn’t change, softness in her eyes, tremble to her lower lip. “But you keep going,” she said. “You never quit.”

  “I get that from you,” I said. “You taught me that.”

  “You get that from
John,” she said, sighing and looking down. “Fee, you weren’t here. You don’t understand.”

  I was here. I sat across from her the whole time she—

  Wait. She wasn’t talking about the show.

  “I wasn’t,” I said. “I left.” I left her. I left my mom. And something happened. Did this have to do with Siobhan Doyle? Was I going to have to murder my father and hide the body? “So tell me.”

  She waved off my concern. “Nothing big happened,” she said while I exhaled mentally, though the tightness in my stomach didn’t release. I had to research that woman and get this anxiety out of me. “I just… stopped wanting to teach. To be a principal. I felt like I was failing, Fee. And your father, he was still going strong. But when the chance came up to step away…”

  “You retired.” I focused on her, trying to be there for her now like I wasn’t years ago, overcompensating maybe a bit but refusing to let her down. “And?” I could guess. “All of a sudden your purpose was gone.” I knew that feeling, had it when Ryan cheated and I left him and was stranded in New York those miserable few weeks before Grandmother Iris died and left me Petunia’s. As terrible as her loss was, it meant a new start for me. A blessing after dealing with the judgment of most of our friends, how the few who stood by me picked sides. But the worst part was not having him in my life anymore. Not him specifically, but the familiar was gone.

  Maybe not the same thing. But I could relate.

  Mom’s face crumpled before she pulled herself together. I wished she’d just cry it out. Instead, she sniffed and spoke. “I tried so many things. Volunteering for the council, taking on small projects. I even tried to learn to knit.” She snorted a laugh and I joined her though unsure what was funny about knitting. “I just kept coming back to baking, Fee.” Her eyes finally lit up. “I’ve always loved it. I worked at Vivian’s grandparent’s bakery when I was a teenager, did you know that?” I hadn’t. “Walter French gave me my first job and I learned so much from him.” We needed to have these talks more often. I wanted to know everything about her past. Hopefully not when so many tears and this much hurt was involved. “I should never have pushed John to retire.” Again with the face scrunching as she fought tears. “It was so unfair of me. I just hated not having a job to do and he was still so wrapped up in work.”