Ever since those long summer days, I’d always fantasized about living in Buttercup, but it wasn’t until two events happened almost simultaneously that my dream moved from fantasy to reality. First, the paper I worked for, which like most newspapers was suffering from the onset of the digital age, laid off half the staff, offering me a buyout that, combined with my savings and the equity on my small house, would give me a nice nest egg. And second, as I browsed the web one day, I discovered that my grandmother’s farm—which she’d sold fifteen years ago, after my grandfather passed—was up for sale.
Ignoring my financial advisor’s advice—and fending off questions from friends who questioned my sanity—I raided the library for every homesteading book I could find, cobbled together a plan I hoped would keep me from starving, took the buyout from the paper, and put an offer in on Dewberry Farm. Within a month, I went from being Lucy Resnick, reporter, to Lucy Resnick, unemployed homesteader of my grandparents’ derelict farm. Now, after months of backbreaking work, I surveyed the rows of fresh green lettuce and broccoli plants sprouting up in the fields behind the house with a deep sense of satisfaction. I might not be rich, and I might not know how to milk a cow, but I was living the life I’d always wanted.
I focused on the tasks for the day, mentally crossing cheese making off the list as I headed for the little yellow farmhouse. There might not be fresh mozzarella on the menu, but I did have two more batches of soap to make, along with shade cover to spread over the lettuce, cucumber seeds to plant, chickens to feed, and buckets of dewberries to pick and turn into jam. I also needed to stop by and pick up some beeswax from the Bees’ Knees, owned by local beekeeper Nancy Shaw.
The little beeswax candles I made in short mason jars were a top seller at Buttercup Market Days, and I needed to make more.
Fortunately, it was a gorgeous late spring day, with late bluebonnets carpeting the roadsides and larkspur blanketing the meadow beside the house, the tall flowers’ ruffled lavender and pink spikes bringing a smile to my face. They’d make beautiful bouquets for the market this coming weekend—and for the pitcher in the middle of my kitchen table. Although the yellow Victorian-style farmhouse had been neglected and left vacant for the past decade or more, many of my grandmother’s furnishings remained. She hadn’t been able to take them with her to the retirement home, and for some reason, nobody else had claimed or moved them out, so many things I remembered from my childhood were still there.
The house had good bones, and with a bit of paint and elbow grease, I had quickly made it a comfortable home. The white tiled countertop sparkled again, and my grandmother’s pie safe with its punched tin panels was filled with jars of jam for the market. I smoothed my hand over the enormous pine table my grandmother had served Sunday dinners on for years. I’d had to work to refinish it, sanding it down before adding several layers of polyurethane to the weathered surface, but I felt connected to my grandmother every time I sat down to a meal.
The outside had taken a bit more effort. Although the graceful oaks still sheltered the house, looking much like they had when I had visited as a child, the line of roses that lined the picket fence had suffered from neglect, and the irises were lost in a thicket of Johnson grass. The land itself had been in worse shape; the dewberries the farm had been named for had crept up into where the garden used to be, hiding in a sea of mesquite saplings and giant purple thistles. I had had to pay someone to plow a few acres for planting, and had lost some of the extra poundage I’d picked up at my desk job rooting out the rest. Although it was a continual battle against weeds, the greens I had put in that spring were looking lush and healthy—and the dewberries had been corralled to the banks of Dewberry Creek, which ran along the back side of the property. The peach trees in the small orchard had been cloaked in gorgeous pink blossoms and now were laden with tiny fruits. In a few short months, I’d be trying out the honey-peach preserves recipe I’d found in my grandmother’s handwritten cookbook, which was my most treasured possession. Sometimes, when I flipped through its yellowed pages, I almost felt as if my grandmother were standing next to me.
Now, I stifled a sigh of frustration as I watched the heifer browse the pasture. With time, I was hoping to get a cheese concern going; right now, I only had Blossom, but hopefully she’d calve a heifer, and with luck, I’d have two or three milkers soon. Money was on the tight side, and I might have to consider driving to farmers’ markets in Austin to make ends meet—or maybe finding some kind of part-time job—but now that I’d found my way to Buttercup, I didn’t want to leave.
I readjusted my ponytail—now that I didn’t need to dress for work, I usually pulled my long brown hair back in the mornings—and mentally reviewed my to-do list. Picking dewberries was next, a delightful change from the more mundane tasks of my city days. I needed a few more batches of jam for Buttercup’s Founders’ Day Festival and Jam-Off, which was coming up in a few days. I’d pick before it got too hot; it had been a few days since I’d been down by the creek, and I hoped to harvest another several quarts.
Chuck, the small apricot rescue poodle who had been my constant companion for the past five years, joined me as I grabbed a pair of gardening gloves and the galvanized silver bucket I kept by the back door, then headed past the garden in the back and down to the creek, where the sweet smell of sycamores filled the air. I didn’t let Chuck near Blossom—I was afraid she would do the same thing to him that she did to the milk bucket—but he accompanied me almost everywhere else on the farm, prancing through the tall grass, guarding me from wayward squirrels and crickets, and—unfortunately—picking up hundreds of burrs. I’d had to shave him within a week of arriving at the farm, and I was still getting used to having a bald poodle. This morning, he romped through the tall grass, occasionally stopping to sniff a particularly compelling tuft of grass. His pink skin showed through his clipped fur, and I found myself wondering if there was such a thing as doggie sunscreen.
The creek was running well this spring—we’d had plenty of rain, which was always welcome in Texas, and a giant bullfrog plopped into the water as I approached the mass of brambles with their dark, sweet berries. They were similar to the blackberries I bought in the store, but a bit longer, with a sweet-tart tang that I loved. I popped the first few in my mouth.
I went to work filling the bucket, using a stick to push the brambles aside, and had filled it about halfway when I heard the grumble of a motor coming up the long driveway. Chuck, who had been trying to figure out how to get to the fish that were darting in the deeper part of the creek, turned and growled. I shushed him as we headed back toward the farmhouse, the bucket swinging at my side.
A lanky man in jeans and a button-down shirt was unfolding himself from the front seat of the truck as I opened the back gate. Chuck surged ahead of me, barking and growling, then slinking to my ankle when I shushed him with a sharp word.
“Can I help you?” I asked the man. He was in his mid-forties, with work-worn boots and the roughened skin of a man who’d spent most of his life outdoors.
“You Lucy Resnick?” he asked.
“I am,” I said, putting down the bucket. Chuck growled again and put himself between us.
“Butch Simmons, Lone Star Exploration,” the man said, squinting at me.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, extending a hand. Chuck yipped, and I apologized.
“Good doggie,” the man said, reaching down to let the poodle sniff him. Usually, that was all the little dog needed to become comfortable, but something about the man upset him. He growled, backing away.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” I said, scooping him up in my arms. “Can I help you with something?” I asked again, holding the squirming poodle tight.
“Mind if I take a few pictures? We’re surveying the property before we start the exploration process.”
“Exploration process?” I asked. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
He turned his head and spit ou
t a wad of snuff. I wrinkled my nose, revolted by the glob of brown goo on the caliche driveway. “We’re drillin’ for oil.”
Want to read more? You can find Killer Jam here!
Acknowledgments
First, many thanks to my family, not just for putting up with me, but for continuing to come up with creative ways to kill people. (You should see the looks we get in restaurants.)
Special thanks to the MacInerney Mystery Mavens (who help with all manner of things, from covers to concepts), particularly Alicia Farage, Rudi Lee, Mandy Young Kutz, Kay Pucciarelli, Priscilla Ormsby, Olivia Leigh Blacke, Samantha Mann, Pat Warren Tewalt, Norma Reed, Barb Wiesmann, and Chloe Shepard, for their careful reading of the manuscript. What would I do without you???
Kim Killion, as usual, did an amazing job on the cover design, and Randy Ladenheim-Gil’s sharp editorial eye helped keep me from embarrassing myself. And finally, thank you to ALL of the wonderful readers who make Gray Whale Inn possible, especially my fabulous Facebook community at www.facebook.com/karenmacinerney. You keep me going!
About the Author
Karen is the housework-impaired, award-winning author of multiple mystery series, and her victims number well into the double digits. She lives in Austin, Texas with her sassy family and a menagerie of animals, including twenty-three fish, two rabbits, and a rescue dog named Little Bit.
Feel free to visit Karen's web site at www.karenmacinerney.com, where you can download a free book and sign up for her Readers’ Circle to receive subscriber-only short stories, deleted scenes, recipes and other bonus material. You can also find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AuthorKarenMacInerney or www.facebook.com/karenmacinerney (she spends an inordinate amount of time there). You are more than welcome to friend her there—and remind her to get back to work on the next book!
P. S. Don’t forget to follow Karen on BookBub to get newsflashes on new releases!
@KarenMacInerney
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Claws for Alarm Page 18