A Fatal Slip (2 page)

“Call them now before you get cold feet,” Bill said, thrusting the telephone into my hand.

I took it, then put it down on the counter by the register. “Bill Emerson, I’m not going to chicken out, but I want to sleep on it before I make that kind of commitment.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Bill said. “What if they change their minds?”

“Then it wasn’t meant to be,” I said. “Now let’s go eat. I’m starving. Where are you taking me?”

“I thought you were buying dinner tonight,” he complained.

“I cooked last night.”

“You made pasta,” he snapped. “How hard is it to heat up water for the noodles?”

“If it’s that easy, why don’t you do it yourself sometime.” My husband was a whiz at making pancakes and eggs, but breakfast was about the extent of his cooking repertoire.

“No, I’ll leave that to you. You want to go to Shelly’s?” Shelly’s Café was owned by a dear friend of mine, but I’d had lunch there already today, and I wasn’t in the mood to hear Shelly proclaim to the world that I’d sold my oven and was moving into her restaurant.

“Let’s go home,” I said. “I’ll whip something up.”

“No, you don’t have to do that. I’ll wear a tie if I have to,” Bill said reluctantly. “Where do you want to go, Andre’s?” Andre’s was a fancy restaurant twenty miles from Maple Ridge, the place I insisted on dining when we were celebrating every birthday, wedding anniversary, and just about any other special occasion that I could come up with when I wanted a fancy night out on the town.

“Honestly, if you can wait, I don’t mind cooking. I thought a pair of pork chops would be nice, with some honeyed yams and green beans on the side. How does that sound?”

“Better than Andre’s,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“We need to stop by the grocery store on the way home.”

“I don’t have to go in, do I?”

“Of course you don’t,” I said, “though I don’t know why you’ve got such a strong aversion to grocery shopping.”

He smiled slightly. “I don’t. I’m just happier waiting for you out in the parking lot.”

We drove off in his truck, since we’d left my Intrigue at home when we’d made this evening excursion back to my shop. It had been a good idea to come back and remind myself exactly what I was thinking about buying, but now I needed a little time away from the place so I could make a more objective decision. Who was I trying to fool? I loved those tumbled red bricks, the emerald green awning, and even the ancient hardwood floors. I knew from the second I’d heard the offer that I was buying the place, and would have done it over my husband’s protests if there had been any.

I was trying to find a nice set of pork chops in the meat department when I heard a voice right behind me that made me cringe. “Carolyn, have you made up your mind yet? What on earth are you dragging your feet for? I knew you weren’t that sharp a businesswoman, but anyone can see it’s the right thing to do.”

“Hello, Kendra, it’s nice to see you, too.” What a bold-faced lie that was. Kendra Williams could be called many things, but a joy to behold was not one of them. Dressed now, as always, in a faded muumuu that had to be at least twenty years old, Kendra was the town gossip for Maple Ridge, and most days the very personal thorn in my side. I thought about asking her if she ever bought those billowing dresses brand new, but it wasn’t the wisest thing in the world getting on her bad side. She could slander at the speed of light, as I had found out from a few personally unpleasant past experiences.

“Please, spare me your humor, such as it is,” she said. “When are you going to sign the papers for Fire at Will?”

“Why are you so eager for me to buy my building?” I asked. “You’re not getting a commission on the sale, are you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

I wasn’t about to let her off the hook that easily. “Kendra, what’s the catch?”

She looked up and down the grocery store aisles visible from the meat department, and when she was satisfied no one was eavesdropping on us, Kendra told me in a low voice, “You haven’t talked to them yet, but I’ll tell you what they’re going to say. Either we all sell, or none of us gets to buy our shops.”

“I thought you had a contract,” I said.

“Keep your voice down. I do, but it’s provisional. My lawyer told me there was nothing I could do about it, so I signed anyway. You are buying, aren’t you? With the price we’re getting, we’d be fools not to, and you’re a lot of things, Carolyn Emerson, but I’ve never thought you were a fool.”

Was there an actual compliment buried in there somewhere? I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t going to protest the description. “I’m buying. How about Nate Walker? Have you talked to him yet?” Nate owned In the Grounds, and I couldn’t imagine him just abandoning his business.

“Four or five times. Nate’s still on the fence,” Kendra said, frowning.

“That’s odd. I thought he’d be the first one to sign up.”

She shook her head. “He’s afraid a national chain is going to come in and drive him out of business the second he signs the papers.”

“Would they?” I knew chains had a way of wiping out small businesses, but In the Grounds had been around for twenty years, and the coffee shop appeared to have more business than any of the rest of us.

Kendra waved a meaty hand in the air. “Who knows? I can’t see them coming to such a small town, but Nate’s convinced the second he agrees to buy the place, the competition is going to flood in. We need to talk to him together.”

“Leave me out of it,” I said. “I just decided to buy Fire at Will myself. I’m not interested in pressuring him into making a decision he might regret. It took me this long to figure out that owning my place was what I wanted.”

“So that gives you a vested interest in his decision. Rose and I have been talking about bracing him together, but it would be better if all three of us did it. Tomorrow at 8 A.M., I expect to see you at In the Grounds.”

Before I could proclaim my reluctance again, Kendra scooted out of there like she was on wheels. I was so distracted by her determination to back Nate into a corner that I went back to the truck without another thought.

“What’s wrong?” Bill asked.

“Why should something be wrong? Honestly, I don’t know why you’re always so negative. Can’t something be right, just for once?”

“I was just curious,” he said softly, “since you came out of the grocery store without any bags. Did you change your mind about dinner?”

“Of course I didn’t. I just wanted to see if you’d rather have lamb chops.” I was well aware that I shouldn’t lie to my husband, but Kendra had flummoxed me so much that I’d completely forgotten why I’d been in the market in the first place.

“I hate lamb chops, and you know it,” Bill growled.

“People change their minds all the time,” I said.

“Look at me, Carolyn. Have I ever been one of those people?”

I didn’t even glance over at him. “Well, if you’re going to be difficult, I’ll go back and get the pork chops.”

He put a hand lightly on my arm. “Tell me what happened in there. You’re in some kind of mood.”

“We can talk about it later,” I said, pulling gently away from him. “Right now I have to get us dinner. You know how grumpy you get when you don’t eat on time.”

“You make me sound like some kind of animal,” he said.

“I don’t call you an old bear for nothing,” I said as I got out of the truck. As I picked up the groceries I’d need for dinner, I put a cheesecake from the bakery in my basket as well. I shouldn’t have taken my aggravation with Kendra out on my husband; I knew it wasn’t fair. But blast that woman, I’d just settled into the idea of owning Fire at Will, and now I was beginning to worry that the deal might not go through after all.

When I got back to the truck, this time with two brimming grocery bags, Bill barely glanced in my direction.

“Buckle up,” he snapped.

I’d hurt his feelings, that much was clear. “I didn’t mean anything by what I said before.”

“You call me an old bear, and you expect me to smile about it?” he asked.

“Would you rather I’d called you an old bull? How about an old goat?”

“How about not referring to me as old at all?” he suggested as he drove us home.

“Well, you’re no spring chick,” I said.

“In case you haven’t noticed, neither are you.”

“As ungracious as it is of you to remind me of that, I never claimed otherwise.” I grinned over at him. “I’m still younger than you are, though.”

“By seventeen months. That’s not exactly a decade or two, you know.”

“Believe me, I know. But it’s still seventeen months.”

He glanced over at me, and he must have seen my grin. “Okay, trophy wife, let’s go home and eat.”

 

After we’d had dinner, and dessert as well, Bill asked, “Are you going to tell me what upset you in the grocery store? You asked me to wait until after dinner, and I’ve held my tongue, but now we’re finished.”

“Barely,” I said. “Honestly, it’s not that big a deal.”

“I know better than that,” he said. “Tell me about it, Carolyn.”

“If you must know, I ran into Kendra Williams in the meat department.”

Bill nodded. “That’s all you need to say. That woman could scare the paint off a barn and put a pig off its dinner.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. It wasn’t the sight of her that upset me, it was what she said. It turns out that if we all don’t buy our businesses, none of us gets the chance to own our shops.”

“I thought everyone was on board with the idea,” Bill said.

“From what Kendra said, it appears that Nate’s still on the fence, and without In the Grounds, we all might be homeless, or at least our businesses could be.”

Bill grabbed the phone, and I asked, “Who are you calling?”

“I’m going to talk some sense into Nate,” he said.

I shook my head. “Bill, don’t. You’ll just make things worse. We’re all going to talk to him tomorrow.”

“Who’s we?” he asked as he reluctantly hung up the telephone.

“Kendra, Rose, and I are going by his shop together in the morning to have a word with him.”

“Aren’t you having coffee with Hannah?”

Hannah Atkins was my best friend as well as the mother of my assistant, David. We met every chance we got at In the Grounds for a chat and a cup of coffee before we started our days, and I missed it sorely when we went too long between get-togethers. “As a matter of fact, we’re meeting with Nate an hour before Hannah and I are getting together, so I should have plenty of time.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to talk to him first? I might have a little more luck than the three of you.”

“What are you going to do, bully him into buying the place?”

“I resent that,” my husband said darkly. “I plan to use reason with the man.”

“If I need someone to reason with him that way, I’ll call Butch Hardcastle.” Butch was a member of the Firing Squad, a group of potters and ceramists who met once a week at Fire at Will to share new techniques for working with clay. They were also my “go-to” group whenever I got in a jam or needed help extricating myself from something unpleasant. The group included Butch, a reformed crook; Jenna Blake, a retired judge who knew the local law enforcement community; Sandy Crenshaw, a reference librarian who could find out just about anything you’d ever need to know; and Martha Knotts, a mother of five who had more connections in Maple Ridge than the head selectman. It was an eclectic group, and I was honored to call them my friends.

“Don’t call Butch. I can handle this,” Bill said.

“I’m telling you, I don’t need either one of you. I can take care of this myself.”

“So let me get this straight. You’ll take help from Kendra and Rose, but not from me or the rest of your gang? You know that doesn’t make any sense, don’t you?”

“I don’t have to make sense, I’m your wife,” I said.

He shook his head in mock disgust—at least I hoped he was faking it—and went into the living room to watch
MythBusters
, his favorite television show. Usually I watched with him, but I figured I’d had enough stimulation for one day and decided to skip tonight’s episode. I sat out on the back porch and stared at the woods behind our house, though their beauty was lost on me at the moment. There had to be some way to convince Nate that the town of Maple Ridge needed him and his coffee shop, and I wondered if I could prove my earnestness to him without sounding like I had too much of a vested interest in the outcome of his decision.

 

“Where’s Rose? Did you remember to tell her to meet us here?” Kendra and I were standing outside In the Grounds the next morning much too early, at least in my opinion.

“She’ll be here,” Kendra said. “Why are you suddenly in such a hurry to speak with Nate?”

I wrapped my coat around me as I said, “I don’t care if it is nearly June; it’s freezing this morning.” While our late spring days were rarely what anyone would call tropical, we were generally a few shades warmer than this. I’d somehow missed glancing at the thermometer before I’d left the house, but one step outside and I knew I had to have a jacket. I was beginning to wish that I’d dug a little deeper in my closet for something warmer than the windbreaker I was wearing. “Let’s go inside and get some coffee, then we can come back out here and wait for Rose.”

“We’ll do no such thing,” Kendra commanded. “We will go in strong and all together. It’s the only way to appear with a show of force.”

I tried to keep my teeth from chattering as I asked, “What force are we trying to show? We don’t have the least bit of power or influence here. If Nate doesn’t want to buy the shop, there’s nothing we can do to convince him otherwise.”

“Don’t sell the power of three independent women acting together short, Carolyn. You’ve been married too long if you’ve forgotten what a formidable foe a woman can be.”

“I tend to think of my marriage as more of a partnership than a war zone, Kendra.” The woman had some kind of nerve.