by Ritter Ames
__________
Keep reading for Nathan’s ranger cookies recipe and a sneak peek at Organized for S’more Death, available now in preorder
RECIPE - NATHAN TILLMAN’S RANGER COOKIES
Beat the following together in a large bowl until fluffy:
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
To that same bowl, add 2 large eggs and beat until the entire mixture is smooth.
Get a second bowl—at least medium sized—and use a whisk to combine:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
Add the dry ingredients in the second bowl to the to the butter & egg mixture in the first one.
Once everything is mixed to this point, stir in the following ingredients until everything is well blended:
1 cup rolled oats (old fashioned)
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup shredded coconut
3 cups corn flakes
Baking instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper (or lightly grease the cookie sheets if preferred)
Drop the cookie dough by rounded teaspoons
Bake 10 to 12 minutes (remove when they are golden brown)
Cool on the pan or a cookie rack
No need to refrigerate cookies—just wrap them well and they can last for a week (but they’ll be gone sooner)
CHAPTER ONE
Excerpt from Organized for S’more Death Available now in Preorder
KATE MCKENZIE REACHED across the Berman’s kitchen table to touch Meg’s hand, then pointed to a small gray plastic box propped against the bottom of the room’s yellow wall and half-hidden behind the leg of the small oak task desk. She could see part of a red rubber band stretched several times around the device’s perimeter, holding a darker gray button against the body of the object. A silent, shining red light glowed behind the desk leg, so she could just see the halo of light that seeped around the obstruction. She didn’t want to interrupt the story Gil Berman’s guest was telling, so she leaned closer to Meg and asked in a quiet voice, “Isn’t that one of the walkie-talkies we used to try to figure out who was framing me for Amelia’s murder?”
Meg glanced in the indicated direction, and her face turned nearly as red as her hair. “Mark, you’re grounded,” she growled under her breath. She raised an eyebrow at her husband, then rose from her chair and stomped down the hall.
Across the table, Gil chuckled, put his finger to his lips for a moment, then resumed discussing old newspaper stories with their guest, author Paul Gaines. A few minutes later, Meg returned, bent to retrieve the small transmitter and turned it off before regaining her spot at the table. She tossed the unit onto the table
“What sentence did you give him? Any chance of parole?” Gil asked, removing the rubber band, then making the walkie-talkie twirl on the tabletop. “Remember, he’s only a fourth-grader. He can’t do hard time yet.”
“I told him we’d discuss his punishment later, but I intimated we might not let him go camping with all of us tomorrow.” Meg said.
“Pulling out the big guns. I’ll back you, but—”
Meg waved a hand. “It was a threat. I’m going to make him work when we get there instead. Lots of firewood to gather if we want to roast hot dogs and make s’mores.”
“Mark wants to be a writer, too,” Gil explained to Paul, propping his arms on the tabletop, and letting his lanky frame go stoop shouldered. He turned toward his wife. “I’m assuming he gave you the ‘I just want to learn’ excuse.”
“Yes, and I countered with the ‘you can’t legally bug people without a court order’ speech.” Meg sat back and crossed her arms. “We’re going to have to do something, Gil. He doesn’t understand the right to privacy. He keeps quoting the First Amendment and freedom of the press like that overrides everything else in the Constitution.”
Kate chuckled softly, but Paul Gaines laughed outright.
“He’s obviously of the opinion that the truth shall set you free,” Paul said. “He hasn’t figured out how to get to the truth without getting caught. He’ll get there.”
“Please don’t say anything along those lines to him,” Meg pleaded. “Mark needs no encouragement.”
Still dressed from work in his blue oxford shirt and no tie, Gil was a sharp contrast to Paul’s black t-shirt and khaki shorts. Meg had already mentioned how Paul called his own shots since he’d won a Pulitzer for his last exposé on the latest evolution of New York’s mob syndicates, and that she was worried Gil might decide to go for bigger journalistic fish.
“I never want to hold him back, of course,” Meg had said to Kate earlier. “I just don’t want him writing stories likely to get him into dangerous situations. I know state politics isn’t as sexy as mob money exposés, but it certainly makes me sleep better at night.”
So, Kate wasn’t surprised to see a couple of frown lines deepen in Meg’s forehead as they sat and listened to Paul’s urban war stories, and Gil’s face took on a light of both enthusiasm and a little jealousy.
“Oh, before I forget.” Paul stood and started rummaging around in the pockets of his cargo shorts. “I need to give you the key to the cabin.”
“I’m really sorry that we’re displacing you like this,” Gil said. “I would have never asked Jim for the cabin if I’d known you were going to be staying there.”
“No problem. I found a guy nearby who has a little caravan setup I can use,” Paul said. “As long as I have electricity for my laptop and phone, I’m good.”
“And running water,” Meg added, using her fingers to count amenities. “And an indoor toilet and doors that lock and—” She stopped when the men laughed.
“I can see you have your own ideas about spending time in the great outdoors,” Paul said.
Meg waved a hand. “I believe R&R doesn’t have to stand for rough and ramshackle.” When everyone laughed, she added, “This is a trip to give all of us a little break. I don’t want any of us to actually get broken in the process.”
The McKenzie and Berman families were using the cabin Gil’s editor owned near Weston, Vermont to enjoy a long weekend in the area’s national forest. A planned outing already months overdue since it had been put off numerous times that summer due to scheduling problems at the newspaper every time Gil thought he had an all-clear. In the meantime, Paul had been borrowing the cabin as a place to stay while he worked on his latest manuscript and sent tie-in newspaper columns to his paper to whet interest in the upcoming RICO trial his information played a key role in securing for federal prosecutors.
With school starting again in another week, it was now or never, and the all-clear signal came for the next few days. Paul arrived after dinnertime to provide the cabin keys. Kate was invited to drop in to meet him when Meg learned Kate’s twin daughters were spending the night at their McKenzie grandparents’ house, and her husband, Keith, was covering for a colleague by trading times for their radio shows this weekend. She watched the body language of the people at the table: Meg crossing her arms and chewing a hangnail, Gil leaning toward Paul and making the coffee cups rattle when he laughed and slapped the table. And Paul, sitting back, comfortable in his spotlight, telling one close call and another almost-missed deadline after the other. All in pursuit of the next story.
Lights flashed on the wall, and she turned to see Keith’s Jeep pass the house.
“Oops, that’s my cue.” Kate rose and pushed in her chair. Extending a hand toward Paul, she added, “It was wonderful meeting you. If you want a campfire meal cooked this weekend, stop by and see us. You know where we’ll be.”
A puzzled expression crossed Paul’s tanned face. “You do know there a full kitchen in that cabin, right?”
“Yes, but I expect our crew will want us to do the whole outdoor experience as much as p
ossible,” Kate replied. “The boys have already convinced my girls they won’t really be camping unless they’re sleeping outside in a tent.”
“Which means the fathers will be sleeping in the tents, too,” Meg said, as she scooped up the plate holding a decimated lemon Bundt cake. “Hang on a minute, Katie, and I’ll wrap up a piece of this for Keith.”
As they moved to the counter, Paul stretched and stood. “I need to be going, too.”
“You aren’t driving back tonight,” Gil said, rising to walk him out.
“Have to. I need to get something to my editor first thing in the morning, and I haven’t started writing it yet.”
“Then stay here.” Gil wrapped an arm around Paul’s shoulders. “You have your notes on your phone, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then, come on and use the laptop in my office.” The men moved toward the formal living room Gil had appropriated for his library and work space. “We’ll get you set up so you can write and email from here. That’ll give Meg time to make up the guest room too.”
Kate heard teeth grinding, but Meg never said a word while the guys were within earshot. As soon as they heard the pocket doors slide closed, however—
“Be happy you’re not married to an inconsiderate newspaper reporter,” Meg said, shoving the plastic wrapped package into Kate’s hands.
“I can stay and help.”
Meg shook her head. “Go home to your husband. I’ll have the room ready in a few minutes. I just hate being treated like ‘the help’ by my own husband.”
“You never said whether Paul is married.”
“He isn’t right now.” Meg planted a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow. “But I have a good idea why he’s already been divorced three times.”
Kate decided to take the shorter route out the back door. “Does he have any kids?”
“One daughter. She graduates this year, I think, but only sees her dad on a semi-annual basis.” Meg flipped on the back porch light and followed Kate outside.
“Does she live far away?”
“Connecticut. One short train ride from Paul’s New York apartment.”
The women crossed the soft lawn to reach the gate.
“I would imagine the daughter has to resent that kind of inattention,” Kate said.
“You would think so.” Meg held out a hand to grab Rowdy’s collar, the larger of the two loveable Berman mutts and the resident escape artist. “But, she adores him. Drives her mother insane.”
“Are all of his ex-wives bitter? Or only that one?”
“Pretty bitter. Though they do all get alimony—the man is a serial adulterer—so I guess he needs to focus on his work to pay their bills. When he’s not playing around, of course.”
Keith opened the McKenzie’s back door and walked to the end of the porch. When he called out, Kate waved to him.
“Hang in there,” she said to Meg, stepping through the gate and closing the latch. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Holding up the cake, she added, “And thanks for this.”
“Thank you for coming over tonight. I wasn’t looking forward to experiencing that much megawatt author testosterone without some backup. Now I just have to live through the hero worshiping from Gil and Mark until they can get it out of their systems.”
“Guess I shouldn’t have said he could come for a campfire dinner.”
Meg shrugged. “It’s fine. I have no doubt Paul will show up during our trip anyway. He’s like a bad penny. You can’t get rid of ’im.”
THE NEXT MORNING, KATE glanced up from her clipboard and pushed a swath of blonde hair behind her right ear. She surveyed the mountain of camping supplies stacked in the right half of the McKenzie garage, the side normally taken by Keith’s Jeep Cherokee. This had been hers and Meg’s weeklong effort, and now two family’s worth of hiking, fishing and sleeping gear patiently waited on the cement floor sharing space with the pegboard wall holding every gardening and repair tool the organization expert could figure out how to hang. The camping equipment was slated to be split up and loaded into her van and the Jeep. In a few hours, the McKenzie and Berman families would trek to the Weston, Vermont area cabin to spend a weekend in the semi-wild. She reminded herself to be excited about the opportunity to have this family-friendly trip and made one more checkmark before turning ask Meg, “I think we’ve corralled all the nonperishable stuff. Where do we stand?”
Her neighbor stood in the open doorway, the sunlight making her auburn curls a halo of fire as she ticked the completed items off with her fingers. “Okay, we have Gil and Keith armed with a shopping list and hunting down our big food supplies at the grocery store. We’ll grab the perishable stuff at the little market near the cabin. I told Gil to pick up my boys at mom’s and dad’s house on the way home. Your girls are at Keith’s parents, and we’ll trade them for whisker-face over there.” She pointed to the oversized, squash-faced, orange and gold mass of fur napping in a box originally slated for food stuffs. “Is Robin-Hero aware he isn’t going?”
The cat looked up when his name was mentioned, then yawned so big his one green eye squeezed shut again and his long pink tongue curled lazily out like a long strip of bubblegum. Kate smiled and shook her head. “Nope, he doesn’t know it yet, but he’s headed for Chez Grandparents for the weekend.”
She wrote a note on the clipboard to remind herself to load the cookie dough from the freezer, then said, “Not that I want to change the subject, but how about your house guest?”
A brief storm passed over Meg’s face before she answered, “Mr. Pulitzer Prize Winner was still asleep when the guys left for the store. I took great pleasure in knocking loudly on the guest room door to tell him there was toast and oatmeal in the kitchen, and we’d all be leaving soon.”
“How late did they stay up last night?”
“I don’t know. I went to bed.” Meg’s mouth shot down at the corners. “Gil got up with me, but he was still downing coffee to wake up when Keith came by this morning to grab him and take the boys by my parents to say goodbye while the guys shopped.”
The cat kicked up his purr to diesel volumes and raised his chin. Meg bent down to scratch along his jawline. “You know your mother-in-law will have this fellow spoiled by the time we get home. Probably making him homemade anchovy treats already. And he’ll be napping in the big La-Z-Boy with George every afternoon.”
“As long as R-H isn’t pacing the house wondering why everyone abandoned him, I’m okay with spoiling the big guy,” Kate replied, kneeling to rub a finger between the feline’s pointed ears. He turned his smushed-up face toward her, and Kate felt her heart constrict a bit. When the one-eyed cat followed the girls home one evening in late spring and found a permanent home in the McKenzie household, he arrived a matted up mess, undernourished, dehydrated, and in need of a bit of TLC. Which he received after only a few reservations on Kate’s part. But the plucky feline proved his worth ten-times over when he helped Kate takedown a murderer.
Meg clapped. “R-H. I knew that Robin Hood name wouldn’t last.”
“Robin-Hero. The cat’s name is Robin-Hero,” Kate said, lifting the large cat from the box. “Yes, I abbreviate it sometimes, but it’s all your fault he has the hyphenated name anyway. Between him helping save me, and you giving me the Batgirl nickname, my twins couldn’t decide what to name him.” When he looked up at her, she touched her nose to his fuzzy pug-like one.
“Well, you certainly have changed from the ‘Oh No, We Don’t Need a Pet’ Katie we’ve all known and loved,” Meg said, crossing her arms.
Kate tossed Robin-Hero onto the backseat of the van and slid the side door closed. “Grab that cat carrier off the shelf over there and we’ll head for his weekend retreat. I’ll be back in a minute with his food and dishes.”
Minutes later the women were in the front seats of the van and pulling out of the cul-de-sac. Meg twisted around when they heard a meow. “Your cat isn’t in the back anymore.”
“No, he’s
under my seat. Don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“O-kay.” Meg pulled a brochure out of the map holder in the passenger side door.
“I know that tone, Meg Berman. The cat isn’t a problem like this. We’re barely going out of the neighborhood. We could practically walk the cat there,” Kate argued. “The girls have already started asking when they can ride their bikes to see their grandparents.”
Meg took her time unfolding the brochure to create a large-scale map of the nearby national forest, and said, “I was just sitting here being quiet.”
“A very loud quiet.”
“Admit the cat has you wrapped around his overlarge paw. Nothing else can convince you to so quickly break the rules as your furry admirer.” Meg laughed, and waved the map to flatten out some of the creases. Then she changed the subject, “Katie, you’re going to love the Green Mountain National Forest. I wish we’d been able to go earlier in the summer, but it’s still going to be great now. Trust me.”
“I trust we’ll have mosquitos.”
“You’ve been taking your B-complex, right?”
Kate squinted at her neighbor. “You guarantee that will keep biting insects from using me as their personal smorgasbord?”
“I have no scientific data to back up the claim, but the boys’ pediatrician says it works. If nothing else, the B-12 will help everyone from being cranky.” Meg grinned, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “It’s going to be perfect. Exactly right to get everyone ready to start school again in a few days. We’ll hike and eat under the trees, with views of mountain majesties as the daily pick of the moment. Imagine breakfast looking at Mount Equinox every morning.”
Kate blew a wayward clump of blonde bangs from her eyes. “I think you have me confused with a Girl Scout.”
“But your parents—”
“My parents were nature fanatics, granted, but whenever they sat in the shade of a centuries-old tree the more likely reason was because they were chained to it while playing chicken with a developer’s bulldozer.” Kate slowed the van to a halt at a stop sign and turned to face her redheaded neighbor. “Mom and Pop lived for weeks up in the branches of threatened trees in the northwestern U.S., sure, as well as linked together with other environmentalists near the roots. But hiking and camping for pleasure was never a family pastime for us.”