Prose and Cons Read online

  I landed on the sidewalk below in a heap, and the broken trellis fell on top of me.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  EMT Keenan’s white teeth flashed against his dark skin as he smiled at me from the B&B’s white ironwork chair, which was identical to the one in which I sat. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” The smile grew even wider. “Then again from what David tells me, I should have known that we would be seeing each other again.”

  Rainwater paced on the other side of the hotel. He looked like a caged tiger and an angry one at that. I guessed I was the one he was so mad at. Daven York and Edmund Eaton stood a few feet away being questioned by Officer Clipton. Daven scowled at the officer, and Edmund scanned the area as if looking for escape routes. Charles regaled a bored-looking Officer Wheaton with a play-by-play of the morning’s events, ending dramatically with my tumble from the B&B’s trellis.

  “You took quite a nasty spill there.” Keenan removed the blood pressure cuff from my arm.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted. “I don’t know why everyone is making such a fuss.” I glanced over at the broken piece of trellis. “I’m a lot better off than the poor trellis.”

  I had already spoken to the B&B owner about the broken trellis and promised to pay for her to have a new one installed and to have any ivy that was injured in my fall replanted as well.

  Thankfully the owner was an old friend of my grandmother’s and would let me pay for the damage outright and promised not to file trespassing or damaging-property charges. It didn’t hurt that Grandma Daisy was so well liked in the village. I was grateful for that.

  Keenan lifted my elbow, moving my right shoulder in the process.

  “Ow.” I winced.

  “I thought you said you were fine.” He wiggled his thick black eyebrows.

  I gritted my teeth against the pain. “I am.”

  He started to pack up his medical kit. “What you are is lucky. You fell ten feet. It could have been so much worse for you.”

  I knew that.

  Keenan stood. “I still think you need to go to the hospital, but since you have refused, I can’t force you to go. You’re going to have to at least go to the nearest clinic and have that arm x-rayed. I think I’m right in my assessment that it’s only bad bruising localized in your right shoulder where you landed, but you shouldn’t take chances with these sorts of injuries. Only an X-ray will be able to tell you whether or not it’s more serious.”

  “All right,” I agreed grudgingly.

  He laughed. “Don’t sound so happy about it.”

  Rainwater paced back and forth ten feet behind Keenan. Back and forth. Back and forth. I would have run away to escape the tongue-lashing that I knew I was about to receive from him if my shoulder didn’t hurt so much.

  Keenan walked over to the chief and spoke to him. Rainwater watched me over Keenan’s shoulder as he listened to what his friend the EMT had to say. Finally, Keenan clapped him on the shoulder. “She’s all yours.”

  I grimaced. I was toast.

  Rainwater sat in the chair that Keenan had just vacated.

  For a moment, I wondered if I should play up the shoulder injury, but I was afraid that would backfire by causing Rainwater to ship me off to the hospital with Keenan.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” the police chief asked.

  I thought better than making a smart remark and told him everything that had happened since I arrived on Puffin Lane. “When I heard Daven speaking about the article that he wrote about Anastasia, I wanted to see who he was talking to. I climbed the trellis, and you know what happened after that.”

  “I do.” His voice was deceptively neutral. “Keenan said you refuse to go to the hospital.”

  “I have a bad bruise. I don’t really want to be stuck in the emergency room for the rest of the day. We’re in the middle of the Food and Wine Festival. I need to return to the shop and help Grandma Daisy open.”

  “Not until you get that X-ray, you won’t. I’ll take you to the clinic myself,” he said, leaving no room for argument.

  I hesitated. “Don’t you need to question Edmund and Daven? What about Charles? I know he must have a lot to say about it. I’m perfectly capable of going to the clinic by myself.”

  “My officers will take care of it.” He was stone-faced. “And I don’t know if you’re perfectly capable of making your way to the clinic after that stunt you pulled.”

  I frowned. “What about my bike?”

  “Officer Clipton will take your bike back to Charming Books.”

  I didn’t move.

  He stood. “Do you need help standing up?”

  “No,” I said, and with as much dignity as I could muster, I rose to my feet. It took everything within me not to cry out in pain as I moved.

  At his departmental SUV, Rainwater held the passenger door open for me while I climbed in. He shut the door behind me, and Officer Wheaton came over to him. “Chief, where are you going?” The sound of Wheaton’s voice was muffled, but I could clearly make out the words through the car door.

  “I’m taking Miss Waverly to the clinic for some X-rays. Finish your questioning. I expect a report on my desk by the time I return to the office.”

  Wheaton folded his arms across his muscular chest. “Shouldn’t the EMTs be taking care of her? Why do you need to take her?”

  “I don’t need to take her. I’m choosing to take her.” He turned and walked around the SUV.

  Wheaton scowled at me through the SUV’s windshield. I didn’t know what I had ever done to the buzz-cut officer, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

  Rainwater didn’t speak on the short drive to the clinic, and my shoulder hurt too much to bother with small talk. When we entered the clinic, the receptionist gave me a clipboard with at least forty documents I needed to fill out clipped to the front of it. Rainwater and I took seats next to each other in the empty waiting room.

  I was right-handed, so filling out the forms was no picnic. However, I refused to ask Rainwater for help, since he seemed set on giving me the silent treatment.

  I was only halfway through the forms when a nurse appeared in the doorway leading to the back office. “Miss Waverly, we’re ready for you.”

  I stood up and handed the nurse my clipboard. To Rainwater, I said, “You don’t have to wait. I can call a friend or Grandma Daisy for a ride back to the shop.”

  “I’ll wait.” He leaned back in the uncomfortable plastic chair as if he planned never to move.

  Okay, then, I thought, and followed the nurse back into the examining room.

  Nearly an hour later, the medical staff at the clinic had bent and twisted my body in so many ways to capture all the X-rays they needed, I felt like a pretzel that had been broken into a thousand pieces and then stomped on for good measure.

  When the X-rays were done, a nurse directed me back to the waiting room. As promised, the police chief was right where I had left him. He held his cell phone next to his ear. “That sounds fine, Clipton,” he said into the phone. “We can discuss it further when I get back to the office.”

  The nurse stood beside me. “Violet should be fine,” the nurse told Rainwater without prompting. “She has some deep bruising on her right shoulder and her right hip, but both will heal in time. We gave her some Tylenol for the pain. The doctor wrote her a prescription for something a little stronger to take at night, so that she can get some sleep.”

  Rainwater nodded. “Are you ready to go, Violet?” He no longer sounded mad.

  I was so relieved that he was no longer giving me the silent treatment that I said, “More than ready. Let’s get out of here.”

  Again Rainwater opened and closed the SUV’s passenger side door for me. When he climbed in, he asked, “Do you want to swing by the pharmacy to pick up those pills?”

  I shook my head. “I’m g
oing to tough it out with Tylenol. I hate to take anything stronger. In fact, I hate taking medicine of any kind.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “And why’s that?”

  I laughed. “I just like to have all my working faculties.”

  His eyebrows rose a little higher.

  What I didn’t tell the police chief was I didn’t like to take medicine because of my mother’s illness. The number of drugs she had been on the last two years of her life was staggering, and none of them helped, not really. She still died.

  I struggled with my seat belt. A stiffness had settled into my muscles and bones.

  Rainwater took the seat belt buckle from my hand and clicked it into place.

  “I’m not an invalid.”

  A smile played on the corners of his mouth. “I never said you were, but I do need to get back to work and don’t have time to watch you prove that you can do absolutely everything on your own right now.”

  I leaned back in my seat feeling all of four years old.

  He started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “While you were getting your X-rays, my sister called.”

  “Oh?”

  “She said that Lacey Dupont offered her a job at the café. She starts tomorrow. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” He glanced at me before returning his attention to the road.

  “I’m sorry if you think I was meddling, but when I spoke to Lacey this morning, she mentioned she and Adrien needed extra help at La Crepe Jolie and Danielle immediately came to mind. I suggested that Lacey talk to her. I didn’t know she would out-and-out offer her the job, but I’m glad she did.”

  He gripped the steering wheel. “I don’t think you were meddling. In fact, I wanted to thank you for Danielle and myself.”

  I let out a breath. “You don’t have to thank me.”

  The village was small, and we were already moving down River Road. It was midmorning now, and the merchant district was picking up. Rainwater rolled the SUV to a stop in front of Charming Books. With the number of text messages on my phone, I knew my grandmother was wondering what had become of me.

  The SUV idled in front of the bookshop.

  “Thank you for the ride,” I murmured, but before I had a chance to unbuckle my seat belt, Rainwater did it for me.

  “You need to learn that you can ask for help.” His voice was low.

  “It’s a hard lesson for me,” I said quietly. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a very long time.”

  He shifted in his seat to face me. “Why is that exactly?”

  I stared at him. It was a loaded question, and the answers were many. Because I never had a father, because my mother died when I needed her the very most, because I was accused of murder when I was seventeen. Those were all good reasons; I could have told Rainwater any one of those answers, and it would be enough.

  Even though the movement made my sore body scream in pain, I leaned across the seat and kissed the police chief on the cheek.

  His tanned skin changed into a burnt red shade.

  “Thank you,” I said, and opened my own door and stepped onto the tree lawn in front of Charming Books.

  From the grass, I gave Rainwater a little wave through the SUV’s window. He smiled at me and finally pulled the car away from the curb. It wasn’t until Rainwater’s taillights disappeared around the corner of River Road that I realized I wasn’t alone on the sidewalk.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Nathan Morton, in another mayoral suit, stood ten feet away from me on the sidewalk in front of my bookshop.

  “Nathan,” I said, taken aback. “What are you doing here?”

  “I heard about what happened this morning and came to see if you were all right.” He glared in the direction of where Rainwater’s car had disappeared. “I see that you are.”

  “Yes, I’m perfectly fine.” I took a step back from him.

  He balled his fists at his sides. “Tell me one thing.”

  “What?” I asked, guessing that I wouldn’t like whatever he had to say.

  “Are you and the police chief seeing each other?”

  “Nathan, don’t be ridiculous. He gave me a ride home. That’s it.” I opened the gate that surrounded Charming Books’ front yard.

  “I saw you kiss him, Vi.” He was hurt and angry.

  I spun around. “Were you spying on me?”

  “It’s hard not to see it, since you did it in front of God and everyone,” he snapped.

  I placed my hands on my hips, forgetting about my injured shoulder. The sharp movement sent a jolt of pain up my right arm, but I refused to let Nathan see I was hurt. I had only kissed Rainwater on the cheek. It hadn’t meant anything, but I wasn’t going to tell Nathan that. It was none of his business. Nothing in my life was his business. Just because we had been in love once, he thought he had some claim on my heart. Well, he didn’t.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Nathan wanted to know.

  I refused to speak.

  “Fine.” Nathan stomped down the sidewalk in the direction of the festival and Riverwalk.

  To my surprise, part of me wanted to run after him and explain. Why, I didn’t know. Maybe it was to re-create the friendship that we’d had before Colleen died. Nostalgia for another time before our lives became so complicated could be the only reason for the impulse. But that time was past, and there was no getting it back. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation, least of all Nathan Morton.

  I was about to step through the gate when I saw Sadie making her way up the sidewalk toward Midcentury Vintage. This October morning, she wore a cashmere sweater, a black-and-pink poodle skirt, and saddle shoes.

  On anyone else, the outfit would look like a Halloween costume, especially with the holiday just one week away, but on Sadie it worked. Despite how adorable the vintage clothier looked in her outfit, it was evident that not all was well in her world. She moved up the sidewalk dragging her feet as if there were glue stuck to the bottoms of her saddle shoes. Even the poodle embroidered on her skirt seemed to droop.

  “Sadie,” I called.

  She looked up from her shoes and gave me a small smile.

  I walked over to her. “Are you on your way to open Midcentury Vintage?” Her shop should have been open by now. I didn’t like how Sadie was letting what had happened to Anastasia impact her business.

  She pulled on the end of her long black ponytail. “You’re moving strangely. Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine. I had a little tumble this morning.” That was one way to describe it. “I’ll be fine.”

  Her mouth fell open. “A tumble? What happened?”

  I gave her a short version of the morning’s events.

  “Violet, you could have been killed!” she exclaimed.

  “Naw,” I said. “The trellis wasn’t that high.”

  She shook her head and her ponytail swayed back and forth. “I can’t believe you did that for me. I can’t believe you teamed up with Charles Hancock for me either.”

  “Trust me—Charles was not part of the plan.”

  She laughed, and I was so relieved to hear her good humor had returned. The fall had been worth it. Almost.

  Her good cheer made it even more difficult to ask what I had to ask her next. “Why didn’t you tell me that you and Grant already broke up?”

  She looked up at me. Tears gathered in her big blue eyes. “How did you find out?”

  “Grant told me.” I held on to my right arm with my left hand, hoping that would alleviate some of the pain. I had told Rainwater that I wasn’t interested in any strong drugs to help me through my injury, but that prescription in my pocket was sounding pretty good right about now. “This is the reason he hasn’t been around since Anastasia died, isn’t it?”

  She nodded miserably.

  “Why did you let
us, even Nathan, continue to believe that you and Grant were still together?” I asked.

  A single tear slid down her face. “Because I was hoping that it wasn’t true. Grant and I have broken up before and we always got back together. I thought this time it would be just like that.” Another tear followed the trail of the first. “I want to be with him. I love him.”

  I stopped just short of asking her why. Considering my own love life dilemmas—if I could even call them that—I was in no place to point fingers.

  Despite the pain in my shoulder, I gave her a hug. “And you just might get back together, but I want you to think long and hard about being engaged to Grant again. Do you really want to be with someone who will break your heart so easily?”

  “He is what I want,” she said with as much conviction as I had ever heard her use.

  “Then, okay,” I conceded gently. “Soon this mess surrounding Anastasia’s death will be behind all of us, and we will be able to move on with our lives. Will you be at the Red Inkers meeting tonight at Charming Books?”

  “Will there still be a meeting, considering . . . ?” She trailed off.

  “I think we should have it. It’ll give everyone a chance to talk about what happened. In the village, we knew Anastasia the best of anyone. Sure, we didn’t know her as Evanna Blue, but we knew Anastasia Faber, and I think it would do us good to talk about her and what happened.”

  “I don’t know if I should come. What if they think I really did pour that nicotine on Anastasia’s dress?”

  “Please,” I scoffed. “Not one of the Red Inkers could think you were behind Anastasia’s death. They know you. They’re your friends.” I took a step back in the direction of the still open gate that led into Charming Books’ front yard. “Now, no more arguing. The Red Inkers meeting will go on as planned, and I’m expecting you there.”

  She nodded. “All right.” And with that, she crossed the street to her own shop.

  I watched her go before I retreated to my own shop. As soon as I walked through the door to Charming Books, my grandmother was in front of me, and she wasn’t happy. I could tell by the way she held the end of her cobweb-printed scarf in a stranglehold.