“Oh, girls,” Holly leaned forward and lowered her voice into a tone stuffed full of mystery. “It’s my job to know.”
Without any further customers filing in, Holly was left alone behind the counter to ponder the imminent arrival of Aidan. At least, she presumed it was him that Elvira referred to. For all Holly knew, perhaps the girl had a dozen male cousins and was talking about a completely different one.
“These were divine,” Winter said, bringing the empty plates back to the counter.
“Oh, thank you. You didn’t need to do that,” Holly said, picking them up ready to take out the back. “I’m glad you enjoyed them, though.”
“I’ve been trying to convince Elvira that we should come back and do the same thing tomorrow. I’m sure that my schoolwork would improve if I had this to look forward to every day.” She then turned a critical glance down at her belly, rubbing it with her hand and frowning. “Although, my scales wouldn’t thank me for it.”
“You’ve got nothing to worry about on that score,” Holly said. “None of you. That’s the truth, too, even though as the co-owner of this fine establishment, it’s my sole mission in life to sell you cakes, no matter what.”
Winter shot her a shy grin before moving back to the table. As Holly took the dishes out to the back, Crystal returned from her deliveries.
“Do you want a coffee?” Crystal didn’t wait for an answer before adding some beans into the grinder. “I’m just about dead on my feet.”
“Just had one,” Holly replied. Even though she’d thought this morning that she would need a regular cup to keep her functioning throughout the day, a lightness was now lifting her step and making her buzz with energy. “Is there any news on Derek?”
“He’s being moved out onto the general ward already,” Crystal said, a smile brightening her face. “Although it’s thrown his dad into a tizzy trying to buy him a private room that the hospital doesn’t have spare.”
“Maybe he can give them a sizeable enough donation that they build one just for him.”
“If he was staying there for a few years longer, maybe. Either way, it’s excellent news. Derek passed all his function checks with flying colors, so at this rate, he’ll be back home in a couple of days.”
“That is good news.” Holly heard the door to the bakery opening and cut her conversation with her sister abruptly short. Even though it was only a few yards back to the front of the store, she’d missed Aidan. His tall figure was already halfway out to the road, with the three dark-dressed teenagers hurrying to catch up.
All Holly’s energy disappeared in an instant. Instead, an empty feeling carved out a hole in her chest, and the effort of standing began to feel too great to continue on for long.
“I will have that coffee after all,” Holly said, trudging back the few steps to the door. Crystal nodded and held up two fingers. Two minutes.
The bell over the door jingled again, and Holly turned to see Aidan standing in the doorway with a sheepish expression on his face. “I’ve been sent back inside to ask you something,” he said. “Elvira insisted that I wasn’t allowed to leave until I did.”
Over the increase in Holly’s heartrate, she found it hard to get the words out, “Ask me what?”
“Well, Elvira has been insisting all day long that I ask you out on a date. You don’t have to go,” he said, holding his hand up as though Holly had violently protested. “I just thought that we seemed to hit it off and you know…”
He trailed off and jerked his head back toward the parked car. “It seems I’ll never hear the end of it if I don’t at least give it a shot.”
Aidan leaned over the counter, his face moving so close to Holly’s that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. “Do you know what it’s like to ferry around three teenage girls who are all equally disappointed in you? I feel like the worst Dad in the world, and I didn’t even have the pleasure of playing with them as babies.”
Holly swallowed around a lump in her throat. “You still haven’t asked me anything. Am I meant to guess?”
“Hm. That does sound like fun. However, since I have a car full of mischief to get back to, I’ll cut down on time and just say, would you like to go on a date with me?”
“You understand I’m a married woman.”
“I understand you’re a soon-to-be-divorced woman. Why? Is your husband about to pop up out of nowhere and sweep you back off your feet?”
The thought of Simon lifting anything off its feet made Holly giggle. Or maybe that was just the endorphins rushing up to her head.
“Just letting you know what you’d be getting yourself into.”
“I know quite well, thank you. That’s why I asked.”
Holly nodded. “Then, yes. I would love to go on a date with you.”
As he double-pumped his fist into the air, Holly could hear the shriek of triumph coming from his car, even parked all the way over on the curb.
Chapter Eighteen
“Are you sure this is where you meant to bring me?” Holly asked as they pulled up outside the church at Inglewood. “I mean, it’s very honorable of you to take me to church, but perhaps not on the very first date.”
“I’m not taking you to the church,” Aidan said, reaching over into the backseat and trying to snag some items stored there. He gave up when the picnic basket wouldn’t make it over the seat back, instead clambering out and opening the back door to retrieve the set.
“Well, where are you taking me?” Holly asked. “The field?”
“No. The graveyard.” As Holly raised her eyebrows in surprise, Aidan shook his head. “I don’t need to hear about your objections. I promise you, if you have any love of history and place then this will be a date to remember.”
“It’s already a date to remember,” Holly said. “That started as soon as you said the word graveyard. I can already see the story I’ll be spinning for my kids.”
Aidan stopped dead in his tracks, frowning. “I thought you said you didn’t have children.”
“I don’t. A girl can dream, can’t she?”
Aidan swung his arm around her waist. “Better dream fast there, missy. I know as a male I have no right to pass judgment but…”
“But you will, anyway.”
Aidan laughed and nodded. “But I will. Tick-tock.”
Holly joined in with his laughter, but felt a tug on her abdomen all the same. Since the night after the wedding, the thought of children kept recurring to her. The idea of someone to pass the bakery down to, a little person who she’d get the excitement of seeing grow into an adult.
Only if she got a move on, though. On that point, Aidan was perfectly correct. Especially since longevity wasn’t a family trait.
“Mrs. Henderson told me that you do gravestone rubbings,” Holly mused as they walked around the side of the church and out to the back. “How does that work?”
“It’s very complicated,” Aidan said, juggling the basket and rug and a tube tucked under his arm. When it seemed he was about to drop the lot, Holly sprang forward, but he recovered nicely.
“First off, you have to find a gravestone. It’s not as easy as you think because they only allow them in small, contained areas. If you go searching for them higgledy-piggledy, then you’ll probably return home without any luck.”
“Ah, yes.” Holly cast a radiant smile his way. The man was so silly that she couldn’t help but find it endearing. Silly, but as she already knew from his firm stance on the wedding day from hell, he had a backbone and didn’t mind fighting his corner if need be.
“I think I’ve heard of these places you speak of,” she continued. “In fact”—she held a hand up to her shocked face—“I think we’re standing in one right now.”
“Well-spotted. You’re a natural.” Aidan placed the picnic basket down on the ground, the rest of the perilously positioned items tumbling down on top of it. “Once you’ve located a cemetery teeming with stones, then the next step is to choose one.”
&nbs
p; “And how do you decide which one it is that you want?” Holly stepped forward, reading one of the engravings from the stone nearest her. “Would Alice MacKenzie and her husband Robert be a good pick?”
“They would do if you intended to record the hum-drum of daily life in gravestone form. If you’re after a bit more excitement with a touch of familiarity, then you might instead start here.”
He pointed at a simple stone of black granite. The carved letters were so old that the wind and rains of time had worn them down almost flat.
“I can’t make this one out at all,” Holly said. “Why would this be better than the poor MacKenzies?”
“Well, first off, the MacKenzies were notorious thieves.” He held up a finger as Holly opened her mouth. “And not of the interesting kind, either. Robert MacKenzie ran the butcher store in town for many years, and all the anecdotal evidence suggests that he liked to place his thumb upon the scale.”
Holly faked a look of horror. “The dastardly fellow. Cheating those poor settler folks out of their hard-earned cash.”
“Indeed. I can’t say that the man’s wife was as dishonest, but she certainly didn’t lift a finger to make him change his ways.” He nodded at the carved angel perched atop their extravagant stone. “That’s what happened to the money the good people of Hanmer Springs were cheated out of. It was invested in their lavish stones.”
The ridiculousness stuck Holly’s funny bone, and she burst out laughing. What with the sun overhead and just a smattering of puffy clouds for sky decoration, it seemed set to be a lovely day. There was no way for her to know if Aidan’s tale held any truth at all but for the moment it didn’t matter.
“So, who does this stone belong to, then? Since it’s not ostentatious at all, I presume that it belonged to one of the folks that the dreaded MacKenzie’s cheated?”
“Almost definitely,” Aidan said, placing a hand lightly on the top of the stone as he placed a sheet of tracing paper flat against it. “Now, if you give me a few moments, I’ll show you what we’re dealing with.”
Holly sat down on the spread blanket, feeling the sun warming the top of her head. In a few hours, it would become uncomfortable, but for now, with the mid-morning breeze lightly teasing at the tree-tops, it was pleasant.
Aidan kneeled in front of the gravestone, taking much the same posture that he’d been in when Holly first spied him and asked him to move his car. With a long piece of charcoal, he gently pressed against the paper, drawing it across in slow sweeps until the carved symbols that had almost evaporated became visible once again.
“Oh!” Holly sat up, seeing words she hadn’t expected to read appearing across the paper. “That’s Celia. That’s my great-great-granny!”
Aidan turned with a wide smile. “I told you that she was buried out here. It took quite a bit of locating, seeing how worn away the letters are.”
Holly leaned forward, pressing up against Aidan’s back as she peered intently over his shoulder. “How did you ever find it? I couldn’t read that at all!”
“Just perseverance,” he said with an air of nobility. “Hours and hours of searching among the stones until I found the one I was seeking.”
As Holly turned to read his face, trying to work out if that was the truth, she saw the twitch of a smile.
“Or I asked Minister Woodfield for a guide that he keeps in the church office and scanned the columns for a few minutes. One of those.”
Holly collapsed into giggles while she watched him draw her relative’s grave into legibility. A first date in a cemetery. That seemed like the kind of anecdote an old married couple would tell.
Chapter One
The sun was dying away as Aidan dropped Holly Waterston back home. The low rays caught the change of color in the leaves of the old oak trees at the back of her house. After a long summer, they’d finally given in to the change of season and begun to turn to the brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows of fall.
“Would you like to go to a movie on Saturday?” Aidan asked, releasing the lock on Holly’s door. If she wanted to make a break for freedom, now was her chance. Instead, she turned to look at his twinkling blue eyes and brushed back a strand of hair from his unruly fringe.
“That sounds delightful,” she said. Not quite the truth, Saturday sounded far too long away for her satisfaction. Still, Holly would be hard at work all week, so she could hardly expect an arrangement any earlier.
For all the years of her marriage, Holly had considered work as the highlight of her day. Now, although she loved every second of working in the bakery, the days would drag from Monday to Friday. The weekend meant friends and outings, all the things to enjoy. Why did the working week pass so slowly?
“Did you have anything in mind?”
A puzzled expression flitted across Aidan’s face and Holly laughed. Although they’d only known each other a few weeks, she already knew him well enough to guess at what he was thinking. “Yes, you did ask me out to the pictures,” she reassured Aidan. “But I meant, which film did you want to see?”
He laughed and leaned forward to press his cheek against hers in a quick gesture that sent her heart fluttering. “You obviously still think you’re in the big city. Around here, if you go to the movies, you can only see the one show they’ve licensed for the week.”
“Well, that sounds lovely,” Holly said. “Let me know what time and I’ll be ready and waiting.”
“Okay.” Aidan stared at Holly for a second, lifting a thumb to trace the contours of her chin. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips gently against her cheek.
Before Holly could shift into a different position and direct those lips where she really wanted them to go, Aidan sat back and put his hands on the steering wheel. “I’ll see you on Saturday, then. Say around five?”
Holly nodded and got out of the car, feeling her knees object to the change to standing. Why did her body protest its age at the same time she felt so young? She hung on the car door for a second, but Aidan stared fixedly ahead until she closed the door and stepped back. He gave her a tiny salute as he pulled out, checking both mirrors and over his shoulder, though he was the only car on their stretch of road.
Aidan switched between absent-minded and overly conscientious without any middle ground in between.
“Another hot date comes to an end,” Crystal said behind her, making Holly jump. She slapped at her sister’s shoulder in reprimand, but Crystal just wrapped her arms around Holly’s midriff and perched her chin on Holly’s shoulder.
“I don’t understand how you’ve been in town five minutes and have a boyfriend, but I’ve lived here my whole life and I’m single.” Crystal sighed so deeply that Holly could feel the movement of her sister’s chest against her shoulder blades.
“You’re single by choice,” Holly said, placing her arms on top of Crystal’s. “I’m sure if you wanted to, you’d have the men of Hanmer Springs wrapped around your little finger.”
“I wish.” Crystal stepped back. “Instead, you seem to be on the verge of a proposal and I can’t get anybody even halfway decent on Tinder.” She shook her head. “There’s some leftover lasagna in the oven if you haven’t eaten.”
“I’m sure that half those profiles on Tinder are perfectly nice men,” Holly said, following her sister into the house with only three quick checks over her shoulder to see if Aidan really had driven away. She felt like a teenager again with all the accompanying anxiety. Last weekend, she’d phoned Aidan and received an engaged signal and actually believed that it might be because he was phoning her at the exact same time.
Take me out of the oven, I’m done.
“It’s strange how all those perfectly nice men managed to wind up living in their grandmother’s house between jobs while looking for a woman with a house, car, and job who”—Crystal lifted her fingers into air quotes— “‘knows how to take care of herself.’ I’m sure I’m missing out on a real catch.”
Holly laughed but Crystal stamped her foot and cro
ssed her arms over her chest. “I’m serious. You’re practically getting married, and all that’s on offer for me is a bunch of losers.”
“A bunch of losers who’ll inherit their grandmother’s houses one day. You should swipe right on that.” Holly had moved across to the oven before she connected the rest of Crystal’s sentence. “Hey! I’m not ‘practically’ getting married, either.”
Holly grabbed a tea towel, then hooked out the earthenware dish half full of lasagna from the oven. “This smells absolutely divine.” She dropped it down on the bench and grabbed a fork, not worried about creating an extra dish that she’d just need to wash.
“You’ve been on a date every weekend with the same man for months,” Crystal said, jumping up to sit on the kitchen bench and leaning over to snag her own forkful of pasta. “What else am I meant to think?”
“You’re meant to think that your sister hasn’t even got her divorce settled yet and won’t for at least another year.” Holly stopped to chew down another mouthful and rolled her eyes at the taste. Bechamel sauce was her favorite. Along with all the other things that were her favorite, too.
“A piece of paper won’t stop you from moving in with him or reaching an understanding, as the young kids call it.”
“What young kids do you know?” Holly asked, flapping the tea towel at her sister. “Especially ones who are moving in with their boyfriends?”
“You’d be surprised.” Crystal may have been aiming for mysterious but overflew that to land squarely in comical. Holly burst out laughing, holding a hand up in case her mouthful of food made a run for it.
“Oh, yeah. Laugh at me, why don’t you? It’ll all be a different story when you bury me alone in the graveyard. Then, who’ll be laughing?”
“Neither of us, I should think.” Holly scooped up another mouthful and offered the dish to Crystal. Another forkful of damage each and the lasagna was gone.
The Sweet Baked Mystery Series - Books 1-6 Page 29
