He ducked his head when he told her about the two weeks he’d spent in jail, as if he were ashamed at having been arrested, even though the charges had been dropped. The faire had given him a haven, a place at first to hide and then to heal. As the story ended, he looked into her face like a man awaiting judgement. “When you said you wanted in on the wager, all I could think was, here we go again.”
Robbi pulled herself out of that clear blue gaze and watched the wine swirl in her glass. “You don’t even know what I was going to do if I won.”
“What were you going to do if you won?”
“I don’t know. I just wanted to buy some time. Everything was happening so fast.”
He nodded, waiting for her to go on.
She set her glass down on the coffee table and turned toward him, tucking one leg under herself. “I still don’t know. I mean, I don’t want all of you to lose your homes, but I don’t want to see Guy killed either. I think…” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “I’ve been wondering why Laura was buying those shares, and I think she was trying to keep Guy from being able to sell. So, I’m leaning that way too. You know, for her. And for all of you.”
He set his glass down beside hers. “I don’t want Guy to die either—even though I want to punch him sometimes. There has to be another way.”
“What do we do about the wager, anyway? Wait until Guy heals? Tell him he rides or he loses, broken leg or not?” Her nose wrinkled. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“When we brought him home yesterday, he seemed like he was taking himself out of the mix. If he still feels that way tomorrow, I guess his shares go into the pot and it’s between you and me.”
She shifted her weight sideways, so she was facing him. What would she do if they went on with the competition and she won? If she pushed the sale of the faire, the money would give her a new start, but the Troupe would lose their little piece of paradise. The thought of Joanne packing up her forge and locking her cottage for the last time made Robbi feel a little queasy. It would be as bad or even worse for the others. Winner take all, Mal had said, which meant the McClarens, Cara, Dale, and Miller would walk away with nothing. For Dale, who had lost Laura too, it would be worse than nothing.
And if she kept things as they were? Assuming they could find a way to keep Guy alive, she’d probably be able to negotiate a portion of the gate sales. She could finish her thesis and then come back here to stay as long as she wanted to. The best of both worlds.
But if Mal won, she’d be the one to walk away with nothing.
He watched her wrestle with it, not speaking, just giving her time to think it through. She liked that he didn’t rush her, liked that calm, solid presence that had given her comfort on her first terrible day here.
“If Guy withdraws, do we have to compete? Or can we come to an agreement?”
“I think that’s up to us,” he said. “What sort of agreement would we be coming to?”
Mal felt a weight lift from his chest as they hammered it out together. First, they’d divide the shares so Robbi’s vote would have the same weight as Mal’s and Elinore’s. Then they’d find a way to save Guy. If that meant selling, they’d pay Guy’s debt and give the silent partner his due, then divide the rest evenly between Robbi and the Rennies. If they could find another way, things would go on as they were, with Guy at the helm but hobbled, unable to use the faire as gambling collateral. Robbi would get Laura’s portion of the gate.
It was as fair a deal as they could make it, with the caveat that, when the killer was discovered, he—or she—got nothing.
“You do think they’ll get caught, don’t you?” Robbi said.
“I do. Sooner or later.” He had to believe that. The thought of going on, day to day, knowing one of his friends might be a murderer was too unbearable to contemplate. He waited to see if she wanted to talk about it further. She leaned forward to pick up her wine glass, her wistful expression suggesting a distraction from murder and loss might be more welcome. He said, “About that baggage of yours…”
She took a sip of wine, then set her glass on the table. When she turned back to face him, she seemed to shift a half-inch closer. “What about it?”
“Your turn to share, if you want to.”
Minus the jail time and the marriage, her story sounded familiar. She’d been gullible, just like he had, reliving old patterns, making excuses for the inexcusable. Those patterns, too, had common denominators. His father had been absent, hers adoring but unreliable, at least when it came to the marriage. Both their mothers were emotionally unstable, hers committing suicide when Robbi was a teenager, his succumbing to pneumonia in a mental institution when he was a child. Both he and Robbi had been introduced to literature as education and escape, she by her father, he by Elinore, whose thirst for books was second only to her thirst for making things and taking them apart.
That revelation led them to books, which led them to movies, which led them to philosophy, their best and worst jobs, and their Ren Faire experiences. That led them back to Laura, but this time in a way that felt less of loss than of appreciation. They shared their favorite memories until Robbi’s eyes were bright with laughter, and Mal thought if he didn’t kiss her, he might regret it until the day he died.
He slid closer, resting his arm on the back of the couch. A junior high move, but there was nowhere else for it to go. He hesitated. Why had everything he’d brought had garlic in it?
She lifted her chin, and once again, he found himself caught up in the depths of her eyes.
Go on, Mal. Take a chance.
What were hearts for, if not for breaking?
Their lips were almost touching.
And then they did.
I use my trademark weave between the legs to take the deputy down. He lands with a thud that knocks the breath out of him, and Tuck plows straight across him in his eagerness to get away. We cut through an alley, across two lawns, and down the next street before the man’s curses fade into the distance and we finally feel safe.
The rush of adrenalin coincides with a rush of fondness for Tuck. I must say, the little chap came through when it counted. He’s exuberant with victory. If this had been a football game—what most Americans call soccer—we would have won the World Cup and bought each other a round of excellent ale.
Soon enough, however, the euphoria fades. There are no convenient pickup trucks heading out of town. It’s a long walk back to Robbi’s cottage, and by the time we get there, the sun is a splinter of gold edging the tree line. Tuck’s cheery demeanor has long since evaporated, and my patience is stretched as thin as air.
I bite my tongue to keep myself from telling him, “Tuck, you are no Watson.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was almost sunrise when she heard Trouble come in through the window she’d left open for him. “Where have you been?” she murmured as he curled up at her feet and fell fast asleep.
He was still sleeping when she got up an hour later. She felt groggy from the wine and her late night with Mal, but there was a bubble of joy in her chest that she hadn’t felt in a long time. By the time she’d flown and fed Falcor, then taken a long shower, she felt refreshed. She came out drying her hair and peeked in on Trouble. Still sleeping soundly. Whatever he’d been up to last night seemed to have worn him out.
She took a closer look. His fur, usually so shiny and sleek, was dull with dust and dotted with burrs. The pads of his paws looked tender. Whatever he’d done, it looked like he’d gone a long way to do it.
Her phone beeped to announce a text, then another.
The first was from Joanne: How did it go last night?
The second was from Mal: Want to come over and see the lambs?
One gorgeous blue-eyed Scotsman plus an unspecified number of fluffy, gangly, big-eyed baby sheep? What red-blooded woman would say no to that? She sent him a quick yes, then fretted over her response to Joanne. Everything she thought about seemed like too much or not enough. She settled on
a thumbs up, followed by a heart, a hug and a thanks. It didn’t begin to encompass what Joanne had done, considering her own feelings for Mal, but Robbi was pretty sure her friend would understand.
Her knock was greeted by Elinore’s husky “Come in.”
Robbi was pleased to see her awake and alert, if a bit wan, working on one of her contraptions at the kitchen table. “It’s for Miller,” Elinore said, “if he doesn’t turn out to be a villain. He wanted a prototype for a machine to deliver sweets to children.”
“Do you think he’s a villain?” Robbi leaned in for a closer look at the device, which used a series of cogs, weights, and levers to deliver a pea-sized piece of bread dough from the end of a wooden tube.
“The final version will be bigger,” Elinore said. “And instead of dough balls, he’s going to use little marzipan creatures, like dragons and unicorns. That means there has to be enough force to get them to the end of the tube, but it has to be gentle enough not to squish them out of shape. It’s quite the puzzle.” She picked up the dough ball and looked at it with a critical eye. “But you asked about Miller. If I think he’s a villain.”
“Do you?”
The injured woman shrugged, wincing at the movement. “He could be, I suppose. He’s an odd little bird, which makes him an easy person to suspect.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“I’m not like Mal,” Elinore said. “Mal gets hurt and picks himself up, and after a while he forgets what that felt like and goes right back to trusting. He’s the only person in this world I’d swear on my soul is not a villain.” She ran a finger over a wooden cog. “Miller didn’t ask me to make this machine because he trusts me, and I didn’t say yes because I trust him. If he turns out to be the one who did this, I’ll give his little prototype to whoever takes his place. In the meantime, I like the challenge.”
They both looked up as Mal came through the back door and wiped his feet on the mat.
“Tuck’s plum tuckered out,” he said, shaping his brogue into a bad Southern twang. “He looks like he went on a five-mile hike last night.”
“Trouble, too,” Robbi said. “I wonder what they got themselves into.”
“That cat,” Elinore said, though her lips tugged upward in a smile. “He’s a bad influence on our Tuck.”
Mal snorted. “Tuck was a delinquent long before Trouble came along.”
He came around the table and pulled Robbi to him for a kiss. It was little more than a peck, but it made Robbi’s knees wobbly. He smelled like sandalwood and soap, with an underlayer of something delicious that was all him. She felt a rush of heat, along with the awareness that his bedroom was less than ten feet from where she was standing.
Reluctantly, he pulled away. “El, we’re going out to see the lambs. Do you need anything before we go?”
“What? Not going to ask me if I want to come along?”
He grinned. “When you’re engrossed in a project? What would be the point of that?”
Elinore waved them off with her good hand. “No point at all, so get on with your young selves, and let me get back to it.”
Robbi had barely stepped off the stoop when he turned and drew her in for another kiss, a real one this time. She’d almost forgotten what a real kiss felt like, one that made you tingle in all the right places. From the hunger in his eyes, she thought maybe he’d almost forgotten too.
They stepped apart as Guy’s car, a gun-metal gray Honda he’d traded his Lexus for, pulled to a stop in front. He’d cited practicality as the reason for the trade, but in retrospect, Mal supposed he should have suspected an ulterior motive. For all his generosity, Guy had never been much for deferred gratification.
Resisting the temptation to stake his claim by putting an arm around Robbi, Mal started toward the car. As far as he could tell, there was no reason for Guy to drive over when he could text. Surely, he couldn’t finesse the pedals with his broken leg.
Then the driver’s door opened, and Hammond stepped out. Guy clambered out the passenger side, pulling his crutches out behind him.
“What’s going on?” Mal asked as Robbi came up beside him.
Guy glanced from one to the other, then settled himself onto his crutches with an appraising tilt of the head. “Ham’s driving me to meet with the developers. I’m going to see if I can get them to make an offer on the land we haven’t built on yet.”
“We had a deal,” Mal pointed out, keeping his tone mild. “You might not even own that land. Or at least, you might not own the right to sell it.”
Guy held up his hands. “I know, I know. I promise I won’t sign anything.”
“Although,” Hammond pointed out, “if I recall, y’all didn’t draw up any papers.”
“It was a gentleman’s agreement,” Mal said, coolly. “Though I don’t suppose you’d know much about that.”
With a glower at Mal, Hammond started around the car.
“Hold on, hold on!” Guy snagged the sheriff’s shirt as Hammond passed. “Mal’s right. It was a gentleman’s agreement. It’s binding, morally at least, and probably legally. We have witnesses.”
The sheriff rounded on Guy with a punch. Guy let go of his shirt and parried with one crutch, teetering on the other, as Mal moved between them.
He was quick, but Robbi was quicker, darting under his arm and coming up in the center of the three men like a dolphin surfacing for air. “That’s enough,” she said, then added sweetly, “Could we have a little less testosterone here, please?”
Guy hopped back, laughing and wincing at the same time. “Aye, m’lady.”
Mal suppressed a smile. His fierce little falcon. He held his ground until, grudgingly, Hammond stepped back. Guy looked back at Mal and Robbi and said, “I’m just going to see what they’ll offer. I came by because I wanted you to know.”
Mal held up a hand. “What you said yesterday, about the wager?”
Guy sighed, looking so broken and defeated that Mal almost wished he hadn’t brought it up. Almost.
Guy said, “I haven’t changed my mind. If you break a leg during the Olympics, they don’t put the games on hold until you’re up to par.”
Mal nodded, torn between relief at Guy’s decision and regret that it had come to this. “You’re a good man.”
Guy tucked his crutches back under his arms, already turning toward the car. “I’m not. But I’m trying to be.”
As Guy’s Honda pulled away, Robbi laid a hand on Mal’s back. His muscles were like knotted steel.
“Hey,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t sound angry, but he didn’t sound fine, either. She said, “This is good, right? He’s stepping aside. We can follow the plan.”
He pulled his gaze away from the car as it disappeared around the Loop. “I don’t like that Hammond is with him. Guy has good intentions, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be swayed.”
“What is it with you two? Sometimes I think you’re best friends, and sometimes I think you hate him.”
He smiled, but it looked forced. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out. Now, let’s go play with some lambs.”
Watching Robbi giggle at the antics of the two-week-old lambs, Mal felt the tension drain from his shoulders. The babies clambered over her, nursing at her fingers, nibbling at her hair, nuzzling at her pockets for nuggets of oat cake.
“They should bottle this,” she said. “We’d make a billion dollars selling cuteness in a jar.”
“I like the way you think.” He dropped onto the grass behind her, and she settled in against his back like she belonged there.
“Mal,” she said, nuzzling a small muzzle with her cheek. “Why do you think Guy came here, instead of to Cara’s? I mean, clearly she’s crazy about him.”
“A little too crazy, maybe. I like Cara, but Guy’s a free spirit, and she’s made it clear she’s ready to snap on a leash.”
“Did you know she used to work as a magician’s assistant? The G
reat Fallini.”
“Never heard of him.”
“They had a knife-throwing act. She ‘accidentally’ killed him during practice.” She extracted a finger from a lamb’s mouth and made air quotes with her fingers.
He bent his head to rest his chin against her hair. It was still damp and smelling of some flowery shampoo. For a moment, he let himself get lost in it. Then he pulled his mind back to the conversation at hand. He didn’t want to think of any of the Rennies killing anyone. Not Cara, not Dale, not even Miller, whom he’d always thought of as innocuous and a little annoying. If there was a killer—and in light of Guy’s accidents and the attack on Elinore, there clearly must be—Mal wanted it to be some malevolent stranger. Or maybe an evil spirit from an ancient burial ground.
Or Hammond.
The phone in his pocket buzzed. Ignore it, he told himself. Instead, he pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. “It’s Guy,” he said.
“Already?” She sat up straight and scooted around to look. The lambs swarmed around her, and she handed out a handful of oat nuggets to appease them.
He tapped the answer button, and Guy’s voice came on the line, his words pouring out in such a panicked rush that Mal could only catch half of them: “Car crashed…no brakes…I think…sheriff’s dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
I’m awakened by a pounding at the door. I tuck my head under Robbi’s pillow and wait for the pounding to stop. When it doesn’t, it becomes clear that Robbi has gone someplace without me. I don’t know whether to be grateful for the extra bit of a kip, or annoyed at having been left behind. I decide on the former when I realize she’s left a bit of grilled halibut in my bowl. I bolt it down and, still a bit disgruntled at my interrupted sleep, hop out the open window to see what’s up.
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