Willow gasped, unsure if she was delighted that Charley had done something about it, or shocked that somebody had told him she’d missed the show, to begin with. Of course, Willow had complained at length the next day at work, mostly because she was grumpy and wanted people to stop asking her about the vandalism. Perhaps it was her own fault.
“I’ve got it set up for you,” Charley said. “Just press play on the remote control to see the last week’s show.”
“Is it on a VCR?” Willow asked, peering at the buttons on her TV remote to work out which was the correct one.
Charley snorted with laughter and shook his head, grabbing the instrument off her. “It’s been a few years since anything’s been on video,” he said, pressing a button that Willow had never used before. “This here is on a USB stick. I’d leave it behind for you to use again, but you’d need a computer.”
Willow snuggled in next to him, putting his arm over her shoulders when Charley didn’t show the initiative to do it himself. “That’s a slippery slope, I’ve heard,” she said. “I’m quite happy sitting here with my TV show and my boyfriend.”
“Is that what I am?” Charley asked, sounding rather delighted.
“Shh,” Willow scolded him as the opening credits to Miss Walsham Investigates began to roll.
Chapter One
“Are you sure you can remember the specials for the afternoon?” Willow asked her waitresses for the umpteenth time. “I can’t whip up another batch of anything if you quote the wrong items.”
“We’ve got it off by heart,” Tiffany assured her with Wendy nodding in the background. “I promise you, we’ll be fine to cope on our own here for a couple of hours. We’ve always got your friend here to pester if something does happen.”
Tiffany nodded to Harmony who seemed to Willow to be far too complacent. Didn’t she understand that if something went horribly wrong, Willow would be out of touch to fix it? Why, the entire house might burn down by the time she got back from the park!
“Don’t look so worried,” Harmony said, putting a hand on Willow’s elbow and escorting her through the doors from the tea room into the house. “Between the three of us, we’re more than capable of fighting any fires that come our way.”
When Willow turned a shocked face toward her, Harmony laughed. “I meant metaphorical fires, not the real thing. Although, we do have the appropriate training with the extinguisher if it came down to that.”
“I just feel like I should be here,” Willow insisted once again. Her heart was torn—the tea rooms had only been in operation for a few short weeks, and she still felt it required her constant supervision to run correctly but on the other hand…
Miss Walsham Investigates was shooting an outdoor scene in the park today, and Willow would never forgive herself if she missed that event. It wasn’t ever likely to recur again, while in theory, her tea room should still be here tomorrow.
“Get going,” Harmony said with a stern shake of her head. “If you stay any longer, you’ll just be insulting the waitresses and me by insisting we can’t do our jobs. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No, I most certainly do not!” Willow sighed, looking over Harmony’s shoulder at the tea room doors. There were only a few tables occupied at the moment but give it an hour, and they’d be facing the afternoon rush. What if they ran out of everything or got the orders wrong? This was her reputation and business on the line.
Willow closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Even though she understood that her actions weren’t reasonable she felt as much of a connection to her fledgling business as a mother would to a child. The ache of being apart from it while the customers were turning up with their judgments and their hungry bellies made Willow’s heart beat faster in her chest. What-if scenarios flooded her head until it spun with all the options that could go wrong.
“We’ll be fine,” Harmony reassured her in a soft voice. “Get out to the filming, and you’ll forget all about us. If you don’t get a move on, then Trisha will wonder where on Earth you are.”
Trisha had told Willow that the television show was coming to town months before and was just as avid a fan of the program as she was herself. Since Willow’s two best friends—Harmony and Reg—didn’t give a fig for Miss Walsham Investigates at all, that made Trisha the obvious choice to meet up with. Together, they had planned an afternoon of fan-girl nonsense. Something that would be wasted if Willow couldn’t tear herself away from the business right this minute and head out to the filming area.
“Okay,” Willow agreed although every sense in her body was tingling with the urge to stay. “I’ll go out and enjoy myself then.”
Harmony burst into laughter at her reluctant tone, so at odds with the words she’d spoken. “And we’ll be here waiting to hear all about it when you come back.”
Harmony kissed Willow on the cheek before walking back through to the tea room and closing the door between them with a firm bang. If she followed her through now, it wouldn’t end well.
“Looks like I don’t have a choice, doesn’t it?” Willow cooed to Mavis who responded by pressing up against her leg and rubbing her soft neck. “I’ll just check my picnic basket one last time, and then I’ll go.”
The basket contained all the same ingredients as it had the first time Willow looked, but it gave her a small measure of satisfaction to tick off the list again. There were chicken salad sandwiches neatly cut on the diagonal and made with soft, white bread. They were inside a Tupperware container that sat alongside a bottle of orange and hibiscus tea made fresh that morning, chilled with an ice pack.
A selection of dried fruits—apples, peaches, cranberries, and apricots—nestled up against an assortment of nuts. Harmony’s gift to the picnic had been a half bottle of sparkling grape juice along with champagne flutes so Trisha and Willow could toast the wrap up when the TV crew successfully finished filming the episode.
“They call that ‘getting it in the can,’” Willow told Mavis who seemed unimpressed with the jargon. Instead, she reached up for the basket, her long body allowing her paws to catch at the bottom of it even though Willow was holding it well off the ground.
“There’s nothing in here you’d like,” Willow assured her kitten. “It’s all human food, of no interest to a meat eater like yourself.”
On second thoughts, there was the chicken salad, but Mavis probably wouldn’t enjoy all the greenery. Besides which, Willow had already fed her for the morning and another meal wasn’t due until the end of the day.
Willow tilted her head to one side as Mavis continued to reach for the basket. “Is it the food you’re after?” she asked, “or did you want to come along for the adventure?”
At that last word, Mavis went into an overdrive of enthusiastic dancing. After spinning on the spot for a few minutes, punctuated with the occasional leap, she had Willow laughing.
“If I let you come along today, you must be very good and very quiet,” Willow said in a low voice, so nobody would overhear. “I can only take you along to see Miss Walsham if you promise not to misbehave.”
Mavis sat back and stared at Willow from innocent blue eyes. Her face creased a little, perhaps with concern that anybody thought her capable of being naughty.
“Okay, then. It’s a deal. Jump in.” Willow held the picnic basket low enough for Mavis to jump inside. She pulled the wicker lid halfway down, just enough so that Mavis had a slit to peek through but was otherwise out of sight.
Willow held a finger to her lips, “Shh. It’s our little secret.”
She thought Mavis nodded and gave a small wink of acknowledgment before settling down for the walk out to the film set.
Chapter Two
The television production had chosen a glorious day to film outside. The sun was shining down and spreading its warmth in the most delicious way. A few weeks from now, Willow knew the temperatures would rise into unforgiving territory, but for the moment, it was pleasant. Small puffs of breeze brought with it the pine sce
nt of the nearby forest, a refreshing aroma as well as a brake on the heat.
“Trisha!” Willow called out as she spotted the woman peering at the crowds with an anxious expression. It turned into relief as she waved back to Willow and Trisha gave her a hug as soon as she was near enough.
“Has anything exciting happened yet?” Willow asked. Her basket tipped to one side as Mavis tried to pop her head out to examine the scene.
“Nothing so far. I haven’t even seen Thera on the set yet, so you haven’t missed anything.”
Willow nodded and gave a sigh of relief. Thera Bourne was the actress who played the lead role on Miss Walsham Investigates. If today offered her nothing but a glimpse of her favorite star, it would be worth it.
A familiar female voice called out behind them, and Willow turned with a start of excitement. It faded when she recognized the supporting actress from the series. Although meeting Polly—the flailing assistant to the great lady herself—would have been a treat at any other time, today Willow only had eyes for the star of the show. Everyone else was just window dressing to pump up her anticipation.
“I heard she might get a bigger role in the production,” Trisha said with a nod in Polly’s direction. Not that it was the woman’s name, that was just the character she played.
Willow scrambled for a few seconds, trying to recall the actress’s moniker, then snapped her fingers as it came to her. “Presley Sampson,” she said aloud with a satisfied air. A second later, Willow blushed as the actress turned her way with a frown.
Trisha offered her a supportive elbow in the ribs, along with a chuckle. “Nice to see you’re making an impression already and they haven’t even begun filming yet.”
“Do you want to find a spot to sit?” Willow walked a short distance away from the bulk of the gathered crowd, selecting a spot on a small rise that would offer a clear view of the entire shooting area. “How about we settle down now, so we can prepare ourselves for all the action?”
“Sounds good to me.” Trisha followed her lead, producing a thick blanket to spread out to protect them from the lingering damp in the soil. The previous week, rain showers had inundated Aniseed Valley and soaked the soil until it couldn’t take any more. Even though it had been dry and warm for the last couple of days—thank goodness—there was still a lot of moisture in the ground and even the odd puddle lying around.
“This is a great spot,” Trisha said appreciatively as she sat down on the rug and pulled out her phone to take a couple of quick pictures. Willow cursed her thoughtlessness for not bringing her own. She always forgot that her cellphone doubled as a perfectly good camera. She’d been raised in an age when phones and cameras were two very different things.
“I can see everything from here, look!” Trisha pointed over to a parking area close to the main road. “There’re the trailers for the stars.”
With her bad eyesight and the vanity that precluded her from wearing glasses, Willow couldn’t make out much more than a few smudges. She nodded along, though, happy that they were what Trisha said they were.
“I’ve packed up a nice lunch for the two of us,” Willow said, popping the picnic basket down with great care. “Just help yourself if you want anything.”
“Thanks. I will.” Trisha rubbed her stomach and pulled her mouth down at the corner. “It might take a while before I’m hungry though. Right now, I’m too full of butterflies!”
Willow felt precisely the same, but she opened the lid of the basket a bit more until Mavis had a clear view of the area. “I also brought along a little friend,” she admitted to Trisha. “When I tried to leave, it seemed that my kitten didn’t want to miss out on the fun.”
“Oh, how sweet!” Trisha patted the rug next to her until Mavis grew bold enough to jump out of the wicker basket. “You’re a special wee cutey, aren’t you?”
Mavis nodded in agreement that cute was precisely what she was. The kitten padded her paws into the thick rug until she had it to her liking, then sat down in a patch of sun.
“Look!” Trisha raised her arm and pointed off into the distance. “I think that’s the director. They must be about to start filming if he’s on the set.”
Willow peered into the direction that Trisha was pointing and grew excited as the man came into focus. She now felt a bit silly for her nagging the staff earlier. Of course, they could handle the tea room service by themselves, just as they handled it superbly on the days that Willow was there to supervise.
It was lucky that Harmony had prevented her from changing her mind and staying at work. Right here was a memory Willow could treasure for the rest of her life.
Then the day got even better.
“Claud?”
The voice delivering the query was one Willow would have recognized anywhere. She turned and saw the star of the show glide onto the set. Miss Walsham! Or rather Thera Bourne!
Thera walked with an elegance that belonged to another age. Although other crew members staggered as the wet ground shifted beneath their feet, the woman smoothly crossed to the director as though gliding over a ballroom floor.
“Claud. Why are half my best lines cut?”
Oh. Willow ducked her head down to hide her blushing face. It appeared that the star was in the middle of an argument and to look now would be an intrusion. Instead, she turned her attention to Mavis, stroking the kitten’s back until the animal purred with satisfaction.
“It’s bad enough you’re forcing us to film these scenes outside when you know my allergies are at their worst, now you’ve cut out half my dialogue and handed it to my assistant?”
Claud Hale, the show’s director, turned slowly toward the actress. He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder that Thera flung off.
“The changes will tighten the scene, and they’ll make more sense later on in the season. Remember, we talked about expanding Presley’s role?”
“You talked about it, and I pointed out that the show is only in existence because of me.” Thera rustled the screenplay pages at the man. “This doesn’t make any sense. For eight seasons my assistant has been positively dim-witted, now she’s suddenly got the skills to solve crime?”
“It fits with the development you character has offered her,” the director said in a soothing voice. It got on Willow’s nerves just listening to it, so she couldn’t imagine how it would irritate the leading lady. She didn’t have long to wait.
“I refuse to accept these changes. If you wanted to make this episode different, then you should have warned my manager or me. Now, my lawyers will have to look through the script to ensure that I’ve got the correct amount of screen time. That will take until tomorrow, so you might as well pack up the crew for today.”
Thera Bourne turned on her heel and stalked off toward her trailer. A second later, the director gave a massive sigh and followed along, calling out the woman’s name.
“Oh, no. I hope that doesn’t mean they cancel the whole day’s filming,” Trisha said with dismay.
Willow shared her sentiment. “I can’t believe the nerve of that man, trying to write the star into a smaller part. What does he think the fans tune in for?”
“Presley!” an excited voice called out from behind the two women as ‘Polly’ walked onto the set. The young woman’s face was as calm and happy as Thera’s had been upset. She too was reading through the script, presumably noting with relish the same changes.
“Presley!”
The eager fan stepped forward, straight onto the picnic rug.
“Careful,” Willow called out. She looked up, but the man seemed oblivious to her and Trisha’s presence. His eyes were fixed on the actress Presley Sampson, and he didn’t even acknowledge that Willow had spoken.
He waved, taking another step forward. The weight of his foot pulled at the rug where Mavis was sitting, and she turned with a frown, hissing as she stood up.
“Excuse me, sir?” Trisha stood up and tapped the man on the shoulder. “You’re standing in the middle of our
picnic!”
The man’s focus altered from the actress to Trisha and his eager expression transformed into a snarl. “It’s a free country,” he insisted. “I can go wherever I want to. It’s not like this is your private park.”
“I don’t want you to—”
Trisha stopped talking as the man turned and ran between them, heading at great speed for the object of his affection. He was only a few feet away when a burly security guard stepped forward, out of nowhere, and placed a huge hand flat on his chest. “No one near the crew,” he said in a rumbling voice. “Step back, sir, or we’ll have to eject you from the area.”
Willow stood up to help Trisha lay the rug back out flat again. Mavis didn’t have the same patience for the situation and took off at a run.
“Come back here,” Willow called out. “You promised you would be a good kitty!”
Mavis barely twitched an ear in acknowledgment, heading for the comparative safety of a table. It was heaped with lights and microphone equipment, and the dangling cords gave Willow a fright.
“Mavis. Come on, kitty. If you come here, I’ll feed you some chicken.”
The kitten’s ear twitched, and she turned and trotted back, allowing Willow to scoop her up off the ground and carry her back to their blanket. “That’s better,” Willow cooed to her as she sat back down. She opened the container with the sandwiches and took one out, separating a juicy piece of chicken from the greens that Mavis would turn her nose up at.
“What a rude man,” Trisha said as she reached over to pet Mavis behind the ears. “Now it looks like he’s arguing with a crew member.”
Willow glanced over to see the same person gesticulating frantically at a man with the blue dungaree uniform of a member of the film crew. She shrugged and offered another piece of chicken to Mavis. “I hope that awful man didn’t scare you.”
Tea Shop Cozy Mysteries - Books 1-6 Page 26