I ripped open the door, ran to the lawn, and yelled with all my might, “Finn! Finn, hurry!”
From somewhere in the distance, I heard an answering cry. “Tally?”
“Finn, I’m with Honey Jillson. Hurry!”
I dashed back inside, leaving the door wide-open, and picked up the phone again.
“Is someone coming?” I yelled, even as I grabbed Honey’s wrist and felt for a pulse.
“An ambulance has been dispatched,” the operator said, her voice reassuringly calm.
My breath caught on a sob when I felt a flutter beneath Honey’s paper-thin skin.
Then Finn was beside me, his hair in wild disarray, his face flushed from running.
“Help,” I said, and felt the tears begin to slide down my face.
He took in the scene quickly, and gently lifted Honey from the sofa and rested her on the floor, arranging her long, bony limbs as carefully as if they were made of glass. And then, as I looked on in teary wonder, my ne’er-do-well high school boyfriend began doing CPR on the mayor’s wife.
As he tilted back her head and blew gently into her nose and mouth, the front door crashed open.
I looked up, expecting the EMTs, but instead saw Cal McCormack and Bree.
“How did . . . ?”
Cal shot me an irritated glare. “I know the dang mayor’s phone number, Tally. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where you were.” Behind him, Bree shrugged apologetically.
“What the holy heck is going on here?” Cal asked.
His question prompted my tears to flow harder. “It’s Honey. She tried to kill Wayne and accidently killed Brittanie and now she’s taken a bunch of pills.”
Cal shook his head in disbelief, then snapped, “Did you call an ambulance?”
“Of course!” I snapped back. “I’m not stupid.”
Finn, softly counting chest compressions, looked up. “Little help?” he muttered.
Cal was across the room in a flash. With remarkable grace, he took over the gentle pressure on Honey’s chest, while Finn scooted up toward her head to continue mouth-to-mouth.
Feeling useless, I trotted back to the front door, grabbing Bree’s hand and dragging her after me. We stood on the lawn together, holding hands like little girls, waiting solemnly for help to arrive.
chapter 27
Alice locked the door behind the last of the evening’s ghosts and goblins. She turned and slid down the glass until she was seated on the linoleum and buried her head in her pinafore.
Halloween business had boomed at Remember the A-la-mode. Bree’s brilliant idea to give free jack-o’-lantern sundaes to all the children cost us quite a bit of sherbet, but the banana splits and malts their parents bought more than made up for it. And the News-Letter’s dramatic front-page story—that somehow made it seem as if I busted Honey Jillson for murder and saved her life all in one night—assured everyone it was safe to eat ice cream again.
But now, the witching hour approached, and all the trick-or-treaters were well on their way to a sugar crash. Alice, in her blue dress and white pinafore, looked ready to crawl down the nearest rabbit hole, and Kyle, his hair plastered into an impressive Mohawk, wasn’t doing much better.
“Come on, kids, how about a scoop for the road. We can clean up tomorrow,” I offered.
“No,” Kyle moaned.
“Bed,” Alice said.
Bree, dolled up as an Old West saloon girl, complete with zillions of red tulle petticoats and a feather in her sausage-curled hair, helped pull her daughter upright and wrapped her in a smothering hug. “You two have been troopers,” she told the kids. “Go home and get some sleep.”
Bree unlocked the door to let Kyle and Alice out and found Finn Harper standing outside on the sidewalk, a cardboard banker’s box in his arms.
“Hey, little boy. Want some candy?” she quipped.
“Mmm. Depends on what you got.”
She laughed as she held the door for him.
“Hey, Tally. Nice getup.”
In honor of my store’s name, I had dressed as Davy Crocket. By the time Finn showed up, I’d lost the coonskin hat, my hair was sticking up seven ways from Sunday, I had smears of ice cream all over my faux-suede coat, and I was practically sprawled across one of the iron café tables. If Santa Anna laid siege to the store, I would have simply handed him the keys.
“You know me. Always dressed to the nines.” I waved him in. “Bree and I were going to have some ice cream to celebrate the end of the worst month ever. Care to join us?”
“For your ice cream? Absolutely.”
“I’m scooping,” Bree offered. She slipped behind the counter. “Pick your poison.”
Finn and I groaned in unison.
“Sorry. Poor choice of words.”
“I’ll have butter pecan with hot fudge,” I said. “And I believe Finn will have cherry.”
He nodded as he took a seat across from me. “You remembered,” he said, a wicked smile curling his lips.
My face burned, and I sat up a little straighter. I didn’t really know where I stood with Finn. We hadn’t talked about my little freak-out in his backyard. But I knew I’d made an important realization that night by the pool. Being with Finn reminded me of the girl I’d once been, a girl we’d both loved. But all the slow dancing and hand holding in the world couldn’t unwind the last eighteen years. We had both changed irrevocably.
I would always be Tally Decker, but I’d also always be Tally Jones, and I didn’t know how Finn Harper felt about Tally Jones. Heck, I didn’t even really know Finn Harper at all.
“How’s Honey?” I asked, hoping to find more neutral territory.
His smile faded. “They pumped her stomach. She’s still weak, but she’ll be all right. She’s sticking by what she said in her note, so the DA will have to decide how to proceed when she’s a little stronger.”
While I was on the phone with Bree that night at the Jillsons’ house, Honey had been upstairs taking the amitriptyline and finishing a note, explaining how she had tried—and failed—to kill Wayne.
“So what’s in the box?” I asked.
Finn winked. “I went to talk to Eddie Collins today.”
I cringed.
“Yeah, he’s not doing so hot. Between Wayne trashing his business with that letter to the editor in the News-Letter and then finding out about Brittanie, he’s had a rough week. He didn’t have any comment for the paper. But . . .”
He leaned down to set the box on the ground and nudged it closer to me with his toe.
“He said this showed up at his house, and he’s pretty sure it’s yours.”
I half expected the box to explode. But with Finn smiling encouragement, I opened it carefully. Inside, curled up on a stained and threadbare towel, slept a tiny marmalade-colored kitten.
I sucked in a breath.
“What is it?” Bree asked, setting a tray laden with three sundae dishes on the table.
She peeked in.
“Aw, cutey-patootie.”
“Eddie said anyone who wanted a cat should have a cat. Because, and I quote, ‘they’re all about love. Groovy.’ ”
Bree snorted. “He did not say ‘groovy.’ ”
“Oh, yes, he did.” He nudged me under the table with his foot. “What are you going to name him?”
Tentatively, I reached out to stroke the kitten’s silky little head. He didn’t even open his eyes, just scooted over onto his back to show me his tummy.
“Sherbet,” I said. “He’s the color of sherbet.”
“I’ll be damned,” Bree said as she spooned up a luscious dollop of French vanilla oozing with warm caramel. “Miss Color Blind got it right this time.” She turned on her dim-witted toddler voice. “Yes, Tally, the puddy-tat is orange.”
“Bite me, Bree. The puddy-tat is also probably a health-code violation.”
Finn laughed. “I think we can keep the health inspectors at bay long enough for you to eat your ice cream. You should hurry up, b
efore it melts.”
“Mmm,” Bree moaned around another spoonful of sundae. “That’s the problem with ice cream. It melts.”
I dipped my spoon in my ice cream and popped it in my mouth. It was cool and warm, salty and sweet. I savored the weight and texture of it on my tongue before swallowing.
I met Finn’s eyes across the table, their soft hazel green as familiar as my own reflection, even though the man before me was all but a stranger.
I licked a drip of fudge from the back of my spoon. “Actually,” I said, “that’s what I like about ice cream. It melts, but it’s still absolutely delicious.”
Tally’s Tropical Sundaes
You can make Tally’s luscious tropical sundaes, even if you don’t have her Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream. Serves 4, generously.
2 pints ice cream*
4 cups finely diced tropical fruit (a mix of mango and pineapple is great, but feel free to add kiwi, papaya, or others you like)
½ cup toasted coconut flakes (optional)
½ cup toasted chopped macadamia nuts (optional)
Tropical Coconut Dessert Sauce (recipe below)
*Vanilla ice cream (homemade or store-bought) is great, but don’t use French vanilla, because the additional egg yolks in French vanilla ice cream are a poor fit for the brighter notes of the tropical fruit. You could also use mango or banana ice cream or a tropical sorbet.
For each sundae, start with 1 cup of ice cream or sorbet. Top with 1 cup of fruit, then ⅓ cup of Tropical Coconut Dessert Sauce and 2 tablespoons each of the optional coconut and/or nuts.
Tropical Coconut Dessert Sauce
This silky-smooth sauce, brightened by the kick of lime and ginger, tastes like sin on a spoon (sweet but with a hint of heat). It’s great on ice cream and sorbets, but it’s equally good drizzled over fresh fruit or served alongside carrot or spice cake. Best served chilled or at room temperature. Yields 2 ⅔cups.
1 heaping tablespoon arrowroot powder
1 14½-ounce can lite coconut milk
⅔ cup sugar
Zest of 1 medium or 2 small limes
3 tablespoons lime juice
3-4 tablespoons grated fresh ginger with juice1
Mix the arrowroot with a quarter cup of the coconut milk to make a slurry, and set aside. Combine the remaining ingredients in a small saucepan. Gently bring to a boil, then remove from heat and allow to steep for about 15 minutes. Strain the sauce to remove the zest and ginger, and return to the saucepan. Bring the sauce back to a slow boil, whisk in the arrowroot slurry, and, as soon as the sauce starts to bubble, remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Read on for a sneak peek at
Wendy Lyn Watson’s next
Mystery à la Mode,
coming from Obsidian in July 2010.
“I can’t even believe that woman is related to me.”
“Alice, honey, I hate to tell you, but you and your mama are like two kits in a litter. Hardheaded, tenderhearted, and too smart for your own good.” I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. “Too smart for my own good.”
Alice folded her arms across her chest and cocked a skinny hip. She still looked more like a child than a woman, and I had a tough time remembering that she was finishing up her first year at Dickerson College. “That is so not true, Aunt Tally. I would never in a million years show up at a formal event looking like a ho-bag.”
I studied my cousin, Alice’s mama, trying to see her through her precocious teenage daughter’s eyes. Bree Michaels wore a vibrant pink tank dress that clung to every luscious curve of her statuesque form. A beam of late-afternoon sunlight filtered through the atrium windows of Sinclair Hall, brightening her bouffant updo to a glossy maraschino-cherry red. And when she threw her head back and laughed at one of her admirers’ quips, her abundant décolletage frothed like freshly whipped cream until I thought she might overflow her D cups. She looked like a sexy strawberry sundae, and the men surrounding her—from adolescents to octogenarians—practically drooled on her three-inch spike heels.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Alice tugging on the cuffs of her prim white cotton dress shirt, and I smothered a chuckle.
“In your mama’s defense, the invitation called this shindig a ‘reception,’ and they’re serving barbecue and ice cream. Not exactly black tie and tails.”
“You know what I mean,” Alice huffed. “You dressed appropriately.”
I glanced down at my own outfit, a knee-length black skirt and French blue wrap shirt. “I look like a waitress,” I muttered.
“Better a waitress than a call girl.”
“Show a little respect, Alice. And cut your mama some slack. She’s terrified she’s going to embarrass you today.”
Alice snorted.
“Seriously. Bree was a hot mess this morning. She tried on three different outfits and spent an hour on her hair, and she was still shaking so bad I thought she’d collapse the minute we walked in here and saw all the posters and displays.”
My niece nibbled on her lower lip, and I could see the wheels turning behind eyes as wide and blue as the prairie sky. “Mom’s no shrinking violet,” she insisted.
“You’re right. Bree’s cocky as heck when she’s on her own turf. When she’s singing karaoke at the Bar None or scooping cones at Remember the A-la-mode. But Honors Day on a college campus? Scares the piddle out of her.” I wrapped an arm around Alice’s scrawny shoulders and pressed a kiss to the silky hair at her temple. “Your mother is so freakin’ proud of you, little girl. Just turned seventeen and you’re presenting a research project at a prestigious private university? When she was your age, your mama had just gotten hitched to husband number one and was living in a camper in her in-laws’ side yard. She doesn’t want to hold you back, kiddo.”
Alice leaned in to me, and I gave her a little squeeze. Underneath the eighty-pound attitude, she was a great kid.
Before we could get any gooier, a smartly dressed woman emerged from the curtained platform that ran along one side of the atrium and made a beeline for us. I put her somewhere in her early to mid-thirties. Her caramel-colored hair fell just past her angular jaw in a chic asymmetrical bob, and funky tortoiseshell glasses rested on her aquiline nose. As she strode closer, I could see the nubby weave of her ankle-length gray dress and eggplant jacket, maybe linen or hemp. The name tag pinned to her breast read DR. EMILY CLOWPER, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH.
“Alice, have you seen Bryan?” she snapped. Like a pit viper on speed, she vibrated with barely controlled energy.
“No, Dr. C.,” Alice said. “Reggie said he was still running off programs.”
Emily glanced at her watch, clearly irritated. “Figures. Go find him, will you? It’s time to get this show on the road.”
Alice slipped from under my arm and trotted off without a backward glance.
I held out my hand. “Hi. I’m Tally Jones.”
Emily looked at my hand as if it were a riddle to be solved before grasping it and giving it a single, bone-wrenching shake.
“You make the ice cream,” she said.
I smiled. “Have you tried it? The university is serving cones of honey-vanilla bean, raspberry mascarpone, and chocolate truffle out by the barbecue.”
“Diabetic.”
“Oh.” Alice raved about Emily Clowper’s brilliant mind, but she sure couldn’t carry a conversation.
She looked at her watch again and sighed.
“Uh, thank you for taking Alice under your wing. She loves working for you.”
Emily’s mouth softened into something approaching a smile. “The pleasure is mine. This paper she’s presenting today on the misogynist subtext of Robinson Crusoe is graduate-level work. I’m not a Freudian, but she’s made a compelling case for the island as a symbol of dehumanized female sexuality.”
“Oh.”
“Her mother?”
“What? Oh, no. Aunt. Well, actually first cousin once removed.” One of her eyebrows shot up, and I felt as though I’d got
caught passing notes in class. “I’m her aunt.”
I glanced nervously across the room to where Bree continued to hold court. This woman would make Bree cry.
When I looked back at Emily, her attention had moved to something—or someone—behind me. Now there was no mistaking her smile or the crinkling at the corners of her eyes, the subtle softening of her posture.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, Finn,” she said.
My heart did a somersault in my chest as I turned to find Finn Harper standing at my shoulder, a camera hanging from a strap around his neck. His mouth curled in a devilish smile, and I couldn’t tell whether the heat in his velvet green eyes was for me or for Emily.
Either way, I wanted to curl up in a tiny ball and die.
My relationship with Finn remained uncertain. After a near-twenty-year absence, he had returned to Dalliance about six months ago to take care of his ailing mother. A bizarre set of circumstances threw us together, and I flirted with the notion that we’d pick up our teenage romance right where we’d left off.
But, of course, real life didn’t have fairy-tale endings. I still needed to unload a lot of baggage from my marriage and divorce, and I struggled to untangle the dreamy memories of my high school heartthrob from the man he had become. Bottom line, we’d both done a lot of living since I broke his heart in the Tasty-Swirl parking lot.
I still saw him out and about, at the cafés and shops that circled the courthouse square of Dalliance, Texas, and at the various events he covered as a reporter for the Dalliance News-Letter. But every single encounter reduced me to a stammering, gelatinous mess.
Dr. Emily Clowper held out her arms, and Finn stepped awkwardly into her embrace. I couldn’t bear to look at him, so I studied her, instead, seeing her this time the way a man would see her. Like the eye doctor switching from one lens to the next, my perception of her shifted from awkward and angular to tall and lithe, from cold and abrupt to smart and edgy.
I Scream, You Scream Page 22