Charleston with a Clever Cougar: A Dance with Danger Mystery #6

by Barton, Sara M.

  Charleston with a Clever Cougar:

  A Dance with Danger Mystery #6

  by Sara M. Barton

  Published by Sara M. Barton at Smashwords

  Copyright Sara M. Barton 2012

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is dedicated to all the people out there like Cady, Doc, Daisy, and Carole, who are in the right place at the wrong time and the wrong place at the right time. Real love is a great healer, but sometimes taking that leap of faith is terrifying. Sometimes you have to push yourself into action, even when courage fails you. That’s how real heroes are made.

  And for all the men and women of our military, who, like Doc, put their lives on the line in faraway lands because they believe in freedom. Thank you for your service.

  Chapter One --

  “How long has this coffee been sitting in that pot -- a week?”

  “Excuse me?” I turned away from the counter where I was rolling pie crust and looked at the disgruntled gnome glaring at me from behind thick glasses.

  “Bitter, too acidic, undrinkable,” he declared. “You left it on the burner too long.”

  “How about I get you a fresh cup?” I offered, keeping an eye on the countertop convection oven, where I had a batch of blueberry muffins due to come out. “On the house.”

  “Only if it’s a fresh pot.”

  “You drive a hard bargain,” I told him. “Just give me one moment.”

  He muttered something to himself as he turned away and went back to his table by the window, trailed by his oversized London Fog raincoat. It looked like it had seen better days. I glanced over at Daisy, my part-time employee. As usual, she had her earbuds in her ears as she was unloading the dishwasher. I looked over at the coffee machine. She had left the coffee in the pot, instead of pouring it into the thermal carafe.

  “Daisy, what’s the rule about coffee?” I asked, as I brushed past her. “Your customer complained.”

  “Oh, I forgot. I had a big line of customers and I never got back to it,” she explained, pulling out her earbuds. She was good at forgetting.

  “Please make a fresh pot and bring a cup to the guy over in the corner.” I turned back to my pie crust, fully intending to finish crimping the edges in the pie tins, but I saw another customer enter the bakery, so I whirled around to notify my assistant.

  “No!” I cried, horrified as I watched her pour the dregs of the offensive coffee into the thermal carafe.”What are you doing?”

  “Geez, Cady, take a chill pill!” She glared at me, thermal carafe in hand. “I’ll dump it.”

  “Daisy,” I said, softening my tone for the teenager, “our reputation depends on the quality of our coffee and baked goods. You can’t dump old coffee into the carafe. The coffee is supposed to be kept airtight, so that it stays fresh. Customers know when it’s bitter and they don’t like it. It’s really important that you respect the coffee.”

  “How about you respect me as much as you respect your coffee!” she snapped, in a little burst of temper.

  “Young lady!” It was the gnome in the thick glasses, hunched over at the counter. “Where’s my coffee?”

  “Coming up. I’ll bring it right over,” I promised. Daisy gave me a roll of her eyes and emptied the carafe before pouring in the contents of the fresh pot of organic Sumatra blend, the roast of the day. While she screwed on the lid, I grabbed the muffins from the oven and set them on the counter. I plopped one on a plate, grabbed a couple of packets of butter, and reached for a clean coffee mug, just as Daisy was about to pour coffee into the returned mug.

  “Stop,” I commanded. “I’ve got this.”

  “Whatever!” She flounced away into the back room, but not before sticking the earbuds back into her ear canals. I made a mental note to have a short, but firm chat with her about what was expected of her, preferably when the shop was empty.

  With the fresh cup of coffee in one hand and the plated blueberry muffin in the other, I crossed the shop floor to the little table by the window.

  “What’s that?” the gnome asked as I put the offering in front of him.

  “I thought you might enjoy a freshly baked blueberry muffin,” I said, giving him a bright smile.

  “I’m not paying for that!” he snarled. “It’s not my fault the coffee was bad!”

  “I don’t expect you to pay. It’s a peace offering. I am trying to apologize for my inexperienced employee. Obviously, you’re a man who knows his coffee, and I’m in the business of making good coffee. Please, try the Sumatra.”

  He looked up at me through those high school science nerd glasses with suspicion. I waited as he sipped, oddly wanting him to approve the taste of the fresh coffee. What did I care if the guy liked it?

  “Mmm...better. Who are you?” he wanted to know. “The manager?”

  “Actually, I’m Cady, owner of Cady’s Cakes. I’m the baker and the coffee roaster.” I smoothed my cotton candy pink apron.

  “You roasted the coffee?” I saw interest in those green eyes. “You went a little heavy on the Arabica beans. That’s why there was too much acid in the blend. You should have gone more mellow.”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t looking for a dark roast flavor,” I told him. “I wanted something more medium in body.”

  “I’m just saying you could have knocked back some of the acid with some dry-processed Harar,” he replied. I looked at the man sitting in the seat with fresh eyes.

  “A man who knows about Ethiopian beans? You must be a coffee connoisseur. No wonder you tasted the acid notes,” I replied.

  “I like good coffee. I spent some time in Africa and the Middle East. It spoiled my taste buds.”

  “Ah,” I nodded. “Interesting. Well, your coffee is getting cold. I hope it’s drinkable.”

  “It’ll do.” When he smiled, I saw a mouth full of white, carefully tended teeth, and I found myself oddly disconcerted. It seemed to contradict the ratty raincoat and tattered jeans. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” I called over my shoulder as I headed back to the kitchen. Daisy was texting as she stood watch at the cash register. “Put it away, Daze. You know the rules.”

  “It’s an emergency,” she insisted.

  “Oh? What’s the emergency?”

  “Vicki’s upset.”

  “About what?” I was busy cutting lemons for the iced tea.

  “Her and Bobby got caught making out behind the tennis courts during assembly and they got detention for a week. It’s her third detention in less than a month, so her dad said she can’t use the car. And now I don’t have anyone to drive me to school. That means I have to take the bus,” she said with great emphasis. “The bus.”

  “You’ll survive. She and Bobby will survive. Put that away. I don’t pay you to play with your cell phone. Go and refill the sugar and sweetener compartments, please.”

  “You’re mean,” Daisy decided.

  “And you’re here to work for me. No work, no pay.”

  Daisy lived in the condo unit next to mine with her mother and little brother Dylan. Carole was one of my dearest friends and undergoing treatment for breast cancer. It was taking a lot out of her. She didn’t really have the energy to handle a wayward teenager
, so I took it upon myself to mentor Daisy. Letting her work in the shop allowed me the chance to know what was going on in her life, to steer her, guide her in a healthy direction. She made a big point of rebelling, but most of it was bluster. The truth was she was terrified that her mother was dying, and some days I thought she might be right. That’s why I did everything I could to help Daisy have as normal a teenage life as possible.

  If you think I’m tooting my own horn, save yourself. The truth is I was doing for Daisy what my Aunt Pinkie did for me. I once stood in those teenage boots, and even more than twenty years later, I can still remember the terror that welled up in me as the life ebbed out of my mother. It was Aunt Pinkie who kept my head above the tears, who taught me to swim through the ache even as my heart was breaking. She got me through the unthinkable and convinced me to go on when I wanted to give up. Daisy and I were both the daughters of single women who battled cancer. Aunt Pinkie said children should always be able to count on the adults around them, even the adults who weren’t related. I owed it to her memory to help Daisy. It’s what Aunt Pinkie would want me to do.

  “Time to take out the trash, Daze,” I prompted the teenager. We were getting ready to close for the day.

  “Boy, it seems like all I ever do around here is take out the trash,” she grumbled. “I never get to do any of the fun stuff.”

  “Such as?”

  “Decorating the cakes. I’m really good at calligraphy.”

  “Food for thought.” I let that roll around in my head for a bit, as I started shutting down the equipment and cleaning it. Daisy wiped down the tables, straightened out the chairs, and swept the floor, working around the lone customer while he nursed his coffee and muffin, hunched over his book. When she finished, I offered her a carrot.

  “How would you like to help with the Henslacker wedding later in the week?”

  “You mean the cake?”

  “No, no,” I said quickly, dashing her hopes. I couldn’t afford to let a teenager decorate a cake with a price tag of more than five hundred dollars. Any mistakes would ruin my reputation. But I did have the perfect job for her. “I want you to decorate the wedding cookies. They’re favors for the guests. You’ll write the names of the bride and groom on each.”

  “Cool. Can I at least watch you decorate the cake?” Daisy had an artistic streak that hungered to be let loose on the world. I well understood that passion. I came by it naturally.

  A war widow, my mother raised me on her own, refusing to move home to Mississippi to live with her parents after my father was killed. She was feisty, proud of her independence, and wanted to stay in Connecticut. We moved off the Groton Navy base and into civilian housing. She got a job as an interior decorator with a small design firm, often traveling between Connecticut and Rhode Island, doing everything from stately mansions to museums. She even did hotels along the shoreline from time to time. She always encouraged me in all my creative endeavors. Daisy and I had that in common and more.

  Over time, my mother started going out again, dating one of my dad’s friends. They spent a lot of time together, in between Roger’s deployments as a nuclear sub commander. They fell into a nice routine and he was really good to her. He was good to me, too. He treated me like an adopted daughter, taking an interest in my life. We went to ballgames and sailing cruises along the New England coast, right up until the day my mother broke it off with him.

  It came out of left field. Roger and I were both baffled when she suddenly announced the romance was over. We had no idea that she was terminally ill. He and I stayed in touch, and when I finally found out the truth, I told Roger as soon as I could, He had just started a year-long deployment in the Bering Sea, but he managed to get a two-week leave just a month before she died, and they spent it together, in her hospital room. He moved heaven and earth to make those last two weeks memorable for her. Every morning, he wheeled her down the hospital corridor, to the day room, where she sat in the sunlight dozing. He read to her in the afternoon, or sometimes just held her. At night, he broke all the rules, crawling into her bed and wrapping her frail body in his arms. The night nurses turned a blind eye to the hospital regulations, because they knew Roger had to return to his submarine and this would be the last time he ever saw my mother, ever held her.

  Aunt Pinkie was my mom’s best friend from childhood. Never married, she was in love with a man who persistently and consistently “unavailable”-- better known as a married man. All they ever had were stolen moments snatched whenever possible, usually in the middle of the week. Never on weekends. Weekends were reserved for Allen’s family -- for his wife, the Newport socialite Romy Klinghoffer, and his kids. Romy’s father was Rheinold Klinghoffer, the king of German plumbing fixtures. Allen used to tell people his wife was flush with cash. He got a big kick out of that. He also got a big kick out of Aunt Pinkie, said he couldn’t live without her. In the end, he had to, when she up and died on him.

  It wasn’t a quick death or even a kind one. She was crossing Newbury Street in Boston one icy winter day, on her way to a banking convention four years ago, when a sedan hit a slick patch and slid into her. She struck her head on the curb as she went down and suffered major brain trauma. Allen was at her side for much of the time she lingered. For a while, it looked like she might pull through, but in the end, her body just gave up the fight.

  That accident led to Allen’s embarrassing public downfall, exposing the decades-long romance to the rest of the world. Allen finally admitted he loved Aunt Pinkie and didn’t care who knew it. Instead of sneaking around to meet her here and there, he parked himself at Massachusetts General as he waited for her to mend. His wife had him ousted from the company just short of his golden parachute inflating. He crashed and burned, figuratively, on his sixtieth birthday, when Romy served him with divorce papers, the board of directors of Klinghoffer Plumbing booted him out, and his luggage was delivered to Aunt Pinkie’s hospital room. His lawyers told him they wanted the cash up front before they would represent him in the divorce because he was such a bad credit risk. In the end, Romy succeeded in breaking him. As soon as Aunt Pinkie’s body was in the ground, headstone carved, Allen crawled back to the family manse on his hands and knees. He told me, tearfully, that he wasn’t a proud man or a strong one, that as much as he had loved Pinkie, he needed the security of his old life. It was true. I could see that. I even understood it. But I didn’t respect it. That’s because I chose to be with Aunt Pinkie. I knew how much I mattered to her and how much she loved me.

  Both sets of grandparents were willing to raise me after my mother died, and would have done a fine job, but I knew Aunt Pinkie needed me. Without me, she would have been stuck with Allen. Does that sound strange? I think in some ways, I was Aunt Pinkie’s lifeline as much as she was mine. When I moved into her tiny little house in Old Saybrook, I filled a void in her life that cut deep. Aunt Pinkie, as my legal guardian, made sure that I was well-educated, well-fed, and well-nurtured, and as her adoptive daughter, I made sure she knew how much it was appreciated.

  Over the years, as I grew older, I often thought about all the years Aunt Pinkie sacrificed for Allen. She never found another man to marry, nor did she have kids of her own. She always settled for someone else’s. She spoiled me rotten -- not with material goods. Heaven knows she never made a lot of money as the assistant bank manager for Livingston Trust. But those weekends, while Allen was out sailing and skiing with Romy and the kids, I was spirited all over the East Coast, feasting on Maine seafood, hitting the shows in New York and Boston, learning to hike and bike in Vermont, and even visiting Cape May with Aunt Pinkie. She knew by then that Allen would never leave his wife. She never complained, never berated Allen. I sometimes resented the fact that she went without. Aunt Pinkie was a good person. She deserved better. She should have had a Roger in her life. Long after my mother’s funeral, he remained a part of my life, helping to keep me on an even keel.

  “Hey!” A voice broke through my ruminations of the pas
t. It was the little gnome, standing at the counter, trying to attract my attention. I shook myself back to reality and put on a chipper smile.

  “How was that second cup? Any better than the first?”

  “Passable. What did you put in the muffins?” It sounded like an accusation of sorts.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That spice. Subtle, but nice.”

  “Cardamom.”

  “Works with the coffee.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Most people use cinnamon.”

  “I like to shake things up once in a while, perk up your taste buds, get your attention.”

  “Well, it worked,” he said. Those eyes met mine head on and locked in, with an intensity and fierceness that was disconcerting. I suddenly found myself blushing. “Good muffin.”

  With that, he turned and headed out the door.

  “Thanks!” I called after him.

  Chapter Two --

  Daisy had become my shadow at work several months earlier, when her mother contracted the flu during chemotherapy. Carole’s weakened immune system failed her, and she hovered between life and death, frightening Daisy. Dylan was packed off to his grandparents in Westerly, Rhode Island, where he was able to resume some semblance of life as a child, in between sporadic visits to his mother. He thought he was on vacation because Mary and Phil kept him busy with activities and toys. Daisy, on the other hand, refused to leave Carole’s side. She was adamant about it. She instinctively knew how sick her mother really was.

  “This rat is not deserting the ship,” she insisted, despite a plea from her grandparents to move in with them. “I have to look after her, Cady. I’m all she’s got to keep her going.”

  “That’s not true, Daze,” I reminded her. “Your mom has good friends and family who love her. We’re all going to help her get through this. Tonight, you’re coming home with me. You can sleep in my spare room.”