by Hillary Avis
Preston looked Doc up and down and then snorted. “She was a casualty of her own ambition. If she hadn’t meddled, I wouldn’t have had to poison her, too. It’s just a shame she survived so we had to hold this farce of an election. Everyone knows Cal will be a better mayor than her.” He nodded toward Margie in the front row, whose pale complexion was growing redder by the second.
“He better watch it or Margie’s gonna blow,” Ruth said under her breath as a wave of chatter swept over the crowd.
I nodded. “The funny thing is, Preston’s probably right about Cal and Margie. Cal would be a better mayor just because he’s less of a bully. She even bullies her own husband.”
I watched as Margie’s lips quivered, waiting for her to erupt. But to my surprise, it was Doc who lost his temper first. “You spiteful, good-for-nothing, bootlicking backstabber! I wish you’d had a sip of your own medicine.”
Preston barked a laugh. “I wish you’d had a taste of it, too. You were supposed to—if you and mangy Marge hadn’t flounced on the meeting, you’d all have gone down in one terrible, tragic accident.” He clasped his hands under his chin and drew his face into a grimace of satirical grief. In a syrupy, sarcastic voice, he said, “I don’t know how that darn yellow-bellied newt crawled into the coffee pot, Sheriff.” He fluttered his eyelashes at Eli.
Eli gave him such a look of disgust that I made a mental note to never flutter my eyelashes again.
Realization dawned on Cal’s face. “That’s why you made me whiten my teeth that morning—so I couldn’t drink the coffee. And you didn’t have any yourself, because you knew it was poisoned. It’s just lucky that the Morrows weren’t killed along with Amelia.”
“Not for lack of trying!” Doc added, still steaming in front of the stage.
Cal shook his head sadly as he looked at Preston. All the anger seemed to have drained out of him with Preston’s admission. Now he just looked like a limp husk of the man he’d been during the Scramble. “Why didn’t I see you for what you were?”
“Nobody could have seen it,” Eli said soothingly as he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt pouch and motioned for Preston to turn around. “Well, except Leona. She figured it out.”
It felt like the whole room turned toward me.
“How did you know?” Ruth asked. The folks around her nodded and wondered aloud the same thing.
“It was the coffee,” I stuttered, my cheeks flaming due to the unexpected attention. “At the Scramble meeting, Preston said that he didn’t drink caffeine, but then later I saw him have a second cup of coffee at the Rx Café. I know for a fact that Sara doesn’t serve decaf. Plus, he was eating at the café on Saturday afternoon when nobody else in town would because they were afraid of food poisoning. He knew Amelia hadn’t been poisoned there, because he was the one who poisoned her. But I didn’t know he was trying to kill Margie and Doc, too.”
While I was talking, Eli had taken advantage of the distraction and moved around behind Preston to handcuff him. “I guess that’s all, folks,” he said. He moved to close the first handcuff around Preston’s wrist.
But Preston wasn’t going gracefully. He tore his hand away from Eli’s grasp and dove from the stage, rolling as he landed. Three giant steps and he was face-to-face with me. I froze in fear. He grabbed me by the neck and began to squeeze, his mouth contorted with anger.
“Help!” I squeaked with what breath I had remaining, my hands flailing as uselessly as T-Rex arms. Ruth leaped into action and grabbed his fingers, prying them off one-by-one, but she couldn’t work fast enough. Spots swam in front of my eyes and I thought I was going to pass out. I saw a blur behind Preston a millisecond before Doc Morrow tackled him, knocking him off his feet and away from me. I stumbled backward and fell down, coughing and rubbing the searing pain in my throat where Preston’s fingers had dug into my skin.
“Are you all right?!” Ruth gasped, kneeling beside me.
“Fine,” I croaked. “Actually, better than fine. Look.” I nodded to where Eli was handcuffing Preston, with a knee in his back, while Doc Morrow sat on his feet.
“Who knew Doc had it in him?” Ruth said wonderingly.
Margie reached down a hand to help me to my feet. “I did,” she said, as she patted the Aqua Net atrocity on her head. “Why do you think I married him?”
Preston didn’t even attempt a struggle once he was in cuffs. He just smiled thinly as Eli read him his rights. I imagined that prison wouldn’t be such a bad place for someone with ruthless ambition like Preston’s. He’d find a new way to rise, as he put it. New candidates to help to the top of the jailhouse pecking order.
As Eli led Preston toward the exit and the pitch of the crowd’s conversation rose, Margie’s voice echoed through the community center. “We’re not quite done here!”
We all stopped our chatting to look at her. She marched up the stairs of the stage, past the shellshocked judge still clutching his Bible, and went to the microphone. She waved Cal over and waited until he was at her side. Then she motioned the judge over, too. “Come on, boys. We still have an oath to take.”
The judge nodded and extended his Bible to Cal again. But Cal shook his head and backed away. “No—no, I can’t. I meant what I said earlier. I promised Amelia I’d step back from politics, and I’m going to keep my promise to her.”
My heart panged for him. When I’d gone to him in the days before the election and revealed my suspicions about Preston, Cal had confided that he didn’t think he could handle the role as mayor, anyway. All he’d ever wanted was to lead his congregation with Amelia by his side. Preston had convinced him that Honeytree needed an ethical, upstanding leader—and we did. But his heart wasn’t in it now that Amelia was gone, especially since they’d decided together to quit the campaign.
So he and I came up with the script for confronting Preston—one that required Cal to pretend for one more week that he wanted to be mayor, only to pull back at the last minute—with the hopes that it’d send Preston into a spiral of anger.
Wow, had it worked. But now Honeytree was in a pickle. The mayor they’d elected didn’t want to serve.
Cal gestured to the Bible. “It’s all yours, Mayor.”
Ruth and I shared a look. Marge-in-Charge was going to be insufferable now that she was mayor again. I hoped she wouldn’t hold a grudge against me and Lucky Cluck Farm during her next term. She might never approve my farmers market booth, and if she made another complaint against me to the ODA, I could get shut down completely.
But to everyone’s astonishment, mine perhaps the greatest, Margie straightened her gloves and shook her head, too. “No,” she said. “I didn’t win. I don’t want it unless I deserve it. I can’t accept the role unless we have another election without any meddling—or murders.”
Chatter rippled through the crowd. I could tell everyone was asking the question that was on my mind, too. If not Cal or Margie, who would lead Honeytree?
Marv returned to the stage and patted the judge on the shoulder. “Sorry, buddy. Looks like you’re going to have to drive back up here another day. Folks, prepare yourselves. We’ll have to hold another election in November. For the next six months, Honeytree will have an interim mayor.”
“Doc!” came a shout from the back of the room. Then a few more people called out his name. A second later and a chant began in earnest, Margie joining in and clapping along with it as she stood on stage. “Doc! Doc! Doc!”
Marv held up his hands and the chant died down. He grinned down at the front row where Doc Morrow stood in his tux, which was slightly rumpled after his tussle with Preston. “Doc, if you’ll have us?”
Doc hesitated, staring up at his wife on stage. Margie winked at him. “You don’t need my permission, Warren. The people have spoken.”
Chapter 28
Epilogue, four weeks later
For the second week in a row, the egg coolers in the back of my Suburban were completely empty. The farmers market had turned out to be a stellar wa
y to find customers. I even had a list of pre-orders for next Thursday’s market that was as long as my arm. And even better news—Sara was re-opening the Rx Café and had placed a standing weekly order, too.
It was hard to believe that only a month ago, my farm seemed doomed to fail. Now it was doing so well that I could barely keep up. With the egg demand exceeding my current supply, I planned to order a new batch of chicks from the hatchery next week. Lucky Cluck Farm’s egg production would double by this time next year. It felt like a fluke, this sudden success, even though I knew it was because of all my hard work—plus a little luck.
I smiled as I thought about my flock waiting patiently for me on the farm. Well, maybe not so patiently. They were probably fussing over being shut up in the run all day. I’d better let them out when I got home, or I might have a mutiny on my hands.
I passed the blueberry farm and noticed that a “sold” placard had been added to the top of the for-sale sign during the time I’d been in town. The deal with Jam and Jelly must have finally closed. I made a mental note to call Ruth and congratulate her—and thank her for the idea to join the farmers market. She’d been too busy to stop by my booth today, but I wanted her to know it was a runaway success.
But before that, I’d pop over and welcome the new neighbors with a dozen eggs. Maybe if I got them addicted to the rich yellow yolks, they’d go easier on me when I dug in my heels and refused to tear down my chicken palace. I crossed my fingers as I parked and jumped out to grab an empty egg carton from the back of the car. There weren’t any eggs left in the porch fridge, so I hoped my girls laid a few while I was at the market.
The hinges on the door to the nest boxes creaked as I peered inside. A beautiful sight greeted my eyes: at least two dozen eggs had been laid in my absence. I selected the prettiest, smoothest ones to add to the carton for Jam and Jelly. As I moved down the line, swiping a couple of eggs from each box, Dr. Speckle muttered at me from her spot in the rightmost nest box and hunched up her feathers.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I pushed her off the nest and collected the three eggs she’d been trying to incubate. I knew the early signs of a broody hen when I saw them. She stalked off, muttering and rearranging her feathers. Hopefully being evicted this early would cure her of her motherly intentions. I wanted more chicks, to be sure, but I didn’t want more broody hens, and the old timers at the feed store had warned me that it was catching.
With a full carton of freshly laid eggs in hand, I squeezed through the barbed-wire fence that separated my apple orchard from the blueberry farm next door and headed up the row of bushes toward the white farmhouse. I could make out a couple of cars parked up there, so I knew my new neighbors were home.
As I neared, I noticed one of the cars was Ruth’s. She was probably there for the same reason I was—to congratulate the buyers. I waved and called a greeting to the people standing on the porch before I realized who they were. Ruth was there, of course, but Eli was standing behind her at the door, too. A whole welcoming committee.
Interesting.
“Hey, Leona,” Eli said, grinning at me over the top of Ruth’s head. “How’s it going?”
I held up the eggs as I glanced around for Jam and Jelly. “Good. Just saw the ‘sold’ sign and came over to welcome the new neighbors.”
“Perfect timing.” Ruth flashed a huge smile at me as she jingled a key. “Your new neighbor was just moving in.”
To my surprise, she handed the key to Eli, and he used it to unlock the front door. I frowned. “Are Jam—I mean, Sam and Kelly meeting you here?”
“Nope,” Ruth said.
Eli glanced impatiently over his shoulder from the doorway. “Come on in. What do you think? Should I store those eggs in the fridge?”
He was acting like he owned the place.
Wait a minute—Ruth had handed the keys to him.
And—I glanced over my shoulder to double-check the driveway—Jam and Jelly were nowhere in sight.
Was this really happening? Did Eli buy the blueberry farm?
I pinched myself in that tender spot on my upper arm. Nope. Not a dream.
Motherclucker.
“Your face!” Ruth pointed at me and started cracking up. She laughed so hard she bent over with her hands on her knees, tears streaming down her face.
“Glad you’re entertained by my ignorance,” I snapped, walking past her into the farmhouse’s little vintage kitchen. Eli was leaned up against the fridge, his arms crossed and his eyes crinkled with amusement. I sucked in my cheeks as I set the eggs on the counter. “Did you really buy this farm?”
“Yup.”
“What?! How? And more importantly, why?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” He stretched out his hands beseechingly.
“He’s been shopping for a while,” Ruth said behind me.
Eli nodded. “I’ve always wanted a little piece of property. Been saving since my military days, actually. I thought I’d buy a place when I had a wife and kids, but that just never happened, so I never pulled the trigger. But then you came back to town, doing this farming thing all on your own, and I was like—what am I waiting for?”
I blinked. “I see. And you thought you’d move in next door to me?”
“No, he didn’t want to move in next door,” Ruth interjected.
Eli shrugged. “I worried it’d be weird.”
“It is a little weird,” I said, nodding.
“That’s why Ruth and I’ve been shopping around so much. I was hoping another property would come up that I liked better. But honestly, this place is perfect—it’s exactly what I’ve always wanted. Including its proximity to you,” he finished, color rising on his neck for an awkward beat. Then he rushed to add, “But that’s just the icing on the cake. I really did try and find somewhere else so you wouldn’t feel like I was breathing down your neck. I know you like your space.”
I whirled on Ruth. “How’d you get out of selling it to Jam and Jelly? Didn’t you have to present their offer to the seller?”
“Yes, I did,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “You made sure of that, you brat. There was only one way I could stop you from making the worst mistake of your life, and that was to present a competing offer. That’s where Eli came in. He’s your knight in shining armor. He saved you from living next door to Jam and Jelly for the next twenty years.”
Eli beamed. “When Ruth told me it was me or them, I figured I was the better option. So I pulled the trigger and put in an offer at the same time they did. I don’t think I’m bragging when I say I have the most to offer.”
I rolled my eyes at his bad joke, but I can’t say I disagreed.
Ruth chimed in. “We’ve been dying to tell you—it’s been so hard not to spill the beans when you’re around that we’ve both been avoiding you a little.”
Now that, I’d noticed. I’d chalked it up to some budding romantic interest between them that they didn’t want everyone to know about yet. I motioned between them. “So you two aren’t...?”
Ruth laughed. “No! Gross!”
Eli pulled a face at her. “I’m not that gross. But we’re just friends, if that’s what you’re asking. Poor Ruth’s had a certain high-maintenance real estate client monopolizing her every spare minute. But now that I’ve found my forever home, maybe she’ll have time to date. Maybe I will, too.” He gave me a very saucy wink.
My knees felt a little weak. For lack of a chair to sit on, I slid down the cabinets to the kitchen floor. Eli’s kitchen floor. “Why all the secrecy, then? You should have just told me!”
Ruth plopped down beside me and put her arm around my shoulder. “Because you would have tried to sabotage it, you silly goose. You would have done everything short of cut off your right arm to stop Eli from buying this place.”
She was right. I would have—but it wasn’t because I was a goose. It was because I was chicken. Straight-up scared of what it might mean if I let the sparks between me and Eli turn into something more. And
fear was a terrible reason to give up on something.
Ruth struggled to her feet and offered me a hand. I let her help me up and then gave her a tight hug. “You can thank me later,” she murmured in my ear. “Are you mad at me?”
I couldn’t answer. My throat was tight, my heart welling over with emotion. Yes, I was mad—but not mad at her for hiding this from me. I was mad at myself for being so stubborn that I always got in my own way. Lucky for me, my friends knew me better than I knew myself. They’d protect me from all enemies, whether that enemy was an overambitious campaign manager with a penchant for poison, or just myself. I blinked away my tears and shook my head.
“Good. I’m glad.” She patted my hand and looked past me to Eli. “Welcome home, Eli.”
“Thanks, Ruth. I’ll have you over for dinner when I get the kitchen unpacked.” He smiled awkwardly at me once she’d left. “You’re invited, too. Every night, if you want.”
I grimaced, and he laughed out loud. “What, it sounds that bad? I’ll have you know that I’m a pretty decent cook. I’m a big boy, Leona. I even wash my own socks.”
I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t sound bad at all. You’re telling me I’ve got a man next door who’ll build me a chicken coop, forgive my speeding tickets, and cook me dinner...and he goes back to his own home every night and does laundry? How can I resist?”
He pulled me into his arms and planted the best, Doublemintiest kiss of my life on me. In that moment, I gave up on protecting my heart from Eli Ramirez. If it killed me, it killed me, but at least it’d be a good death.
Did you enjoy A Flock and a Fluke? Please consider leaving a review! A Roost and Arrest, Book Three in the Clucks and Clues cozy mystery series, is coming Spring 2020. You can find out when it’s available—and receive behind-the-scenes updates, deals, sneak peeks, and other announcements—when you sign up for Hillary’s Author Updates: http://eepurl.com/dobGAD
