by Peg Cochran
“There you are, dear,” Mrs. Willoughby said when she looked up and spied Shelby standing by the door. “Come in, come in. Please take a seat—it’s time we got started. They’ll be needing the room later this afternoon for the monthly Mothers Coffee.”
Shelby slipped into a vacant seat between Coralynne and Margie Dale, who worked part-time behind the counter at the Lovett General Store and with whom Shelby had a nodding acquaintance.
“So, Mrs. Willoughby wrangled you, too,” Margie said, leaning close to Shelby.
She was a tiny woman who looked like she’d been left out in the sun too long—her skin was rough and wrinkled and resembled the dried-up bed of a river.
“Mrs. Willoughby takes no prisoners,” Shelby whispered back.
“Now that everyone is here”—Mrs. Willoughby paused dramatically, her hands clasped in front of her ample chest—“I will explain how things are going to work. We’re going to have a sort of production line. Person number one will take a letter.” She picked one up and waved it around. “Their job will be to fold the letter.” She folded the letter in thirds and held it up. “Like this. You will then pass it to the next person, who will insert it into an envelope and then remove the protective strip on the flap and seal it.”
Mrs. Willoughby picked up an envelope and tried to insert the letter, but it kept getting caught at the edge. Shelby had to put a hand to her mouth to hide the smile she couldn’t quell.
Mrs. Willoughby finally managed to insert the letter into the envelope, and she waved it in the air again. “Next—the label.” She peeled a label from one of the printed sheets stacked on the table. “You will affix the label. Always being careful to center it properly.” She once again held the envelope up for everyone to see. “The final step will be adding the postage stamp, which will be the job of the last person in the line.”
Everyone began to talk at once, and Mrs. Willoughby cleared her throat forcefully. “We will rotate positions every fifteen minutes so that no one has the chance to get bored. That’s when slipups happen.”
Margie rolled her eyes. “Says who?” she whispered to Shelby. “You’d think we were on the factory line at General Motors.”
Shelby half expected Mrs. Willoughby to blow a whistle to indicate they should start but she settled for clapping her hands and trilling let’s begin.
Mrs. Willoughby, Shelby noticed, hadn’t assigned a task to herself but was acting as a sort of quality control manager, inspecting each envelope before placing it into a large bin.
Conversation swirled around Shelby as she stuffed letters into envelopes and sealed them, and she was only half listening when Mrs. Willoughby’s voice rose above the rest.
“That was quite something at the pie contest at the fair on Sunday, wasn’t it?” She looked at the group assembled around the table. “I don’t imagine anything like that has ever happened before.”
“How is Isabel? Have you heard?” Coralynne turned toward Mrs. Willoughby, momentarily forgetting the letter in her hands, thereby slowing down the entire production line.
Mrs. Willoughby waved at her to continue with the task at hand. “Reverend Mather had a call from the hospital. Isabel is fine. She was released shortly after she was brought in.”
“I wonder what caused that terrible reaction. Was it an allergy?” Coralynne absentmindedly fiddled with the piece of paper in her hand.
Mrs. Willoughby gave her a stern look, and Coralynne put the letter down and smoothed it out carefully.
“You won’t believe it,” Mrs. Willoughby said.
She paused until everyone around the table was nearly quivering with anticipation.
“Jenny Hubbard’s lemon meringue pie had been doctored.”
A collective gasp rose from the women around the table.
“What do you mean—doctored?” Betty Duffy asked. She had tightly permed gray hair and clear blue eyes.
“Doctored,” Mrs. Willoughby repeated with relish.
“With what?” Margie asked with a trace of irritation in her voice.
“Pepper,” Mrs. Willoughby pronounced with a flourish. “The pie was laced with pepper.”
“Who would do such a thing!” Coralynne said, her face flushing with excitement. “What I wonder,” she said in a sly voice, “is whether or not Jenny Hubbard had a reason to dislike Isabel.” She looked at the others gathered around the table as if seeking affirmation.
“But who’s to say that Daniel wouldn’t have taken the first bite? Or you, Mrs. Willoughby?” Shelby pointed out.
“Yes,” Margie said. “Did Jenny have some reason to dislike you?” She looked pointedly at Mrs. Willoughby.
Mrs. Willoughby dropped the envelope she was holding and had to bend down to get it. The unaccustomed exercise caused her face to turn red and her breath to come in audible gasps.
“It seems more likely that someone wanted Jenny Hubbard to lose the pie contest this year,” Shelby said, sealing her envelope and passing it to Margie for a label.
“I think you’re right,” Coralynne declared, and Mrs. Willoughby gave her a displeased look. “The pies were sitting out on the table for at least half an hour. It wouldn’t have been difficult for someone to come along and dump some pepper onto Jenny’s lemon meringue.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Mrs. Willoughby conceded. “But who? Who would do such a thing?”
“Someone who wanted to win the contest themselves,” Betty said in her soft voice.
“Who did win the competition? I wasn’t there,” Margie said, sticking a label on the envelope Shelby had handed her.
“Tonya Perry,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “With her rhubarb pie.”
Margie shuddered. “I can’t stand rhubarb. My mother used to make rhubarb pie all the time. She would tell me it was cherry, but as soon as I took a bite, I knew what it was.”
“Don’t you think it odd that Tonya wasn’t there to get her ribbon when the prizes were handed out?” Coralynne asked no one in particular.
“Very peculiar, if you ask me,” Mrs. Willoughby said.
“I don’t like to jump to conclusions—” Coralynne began before Mrs. Willoughby interrupted her.
“Maybe Tonya was the one who added the pepper to Jenny’s pie. She might have been determined to win the contest this year.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Margie said. “Given her behavior lately.”
“I know.” Mrs. Willoughby blew out a gust of air, causing her tightly curled bangs to quiver. “I blame Daniel, too, you know.”
Shelby felt like she was in a play where everyone knew the lines except her.
“What does Reverend Mather have to do with it?”
Mrs. Willoughby and Coralynne exchanged a conspiratorial look.
“Daniel and Tonya have been . . . stepping out, as we used to call it.”
Shelby was confused. “Daniel is widowed, and Tonya isn’t married, so—”
“It’s not seemly.” Mrs. Willoughby’s mouth snapped shut like a steel trap. “Not with Prudence barely in her grave.”
“It’s been a few months,” Shelby protested.
Dear Reader, that’s quite rich of me, don’t you think? Given that I haven’t let myself date yet even though it’s been a few years now.
“Still,” Mrs. Willoughby said as if that was that.
“But Daniel’s not the sort who thrives as a bachelor,” Coralynne put in. “He needs a woman to run the house and help out with parish duties.”
“When I was growing up, our rector was a bachelor,” Margie said. “And he managed just fine.”
“Daniel’s not the sort to manage on his own,” Coralynne insisted. “I help out with the cleaning and cooking and such, and I can see how lost the poor man is . . . wandering around the rectory in that old cardigan of his. I asked him to give it to me so I could mend it, but he woul
dn’t part with it. He has holes in his socks, too, no doubt.”
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Willoughby shook her head.
The expression on her face made it clear she did, indeed, know. And she obviously didn’t approve.
“So, it seems likely that Tonya is the one who ruined Jenny’s lemon meringue pie,” Margie said.
“It stands to reason, doesn’t it?” Mrs. Willoughby said.
7
Dear Reader,
As the Bible verse reminds us, “To everything there is a season,” and that couldn’t be more true than on a farm. I’ve been working hard getting the gardens ready for the cooler-weather vegetables—working our homemade compost into the soil, removing any straggling plants whose season is over, and planting carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, and Brussels sprouts. Even if Billy refuses to go near Brussels sprouts. I’ve found chopping them and cooking them in butter and some bacon fat makes them more than palatable—they’re actually quite delicious.
Those are the vegetables whose flavors are enhanced by cooler weather—even the slightest nip of a frost can bring out the best in them.
The house seemed so empty when Shelby got home despite the vociferous greeting she received from Jenkins and Bitsy. The two dogs wore themselves out jumping on her, wriggling against her legs, and wagging their tails. Both were now stretched out in a sunbeam, panting, their pink tongues stretched long and thin.
It always took Shelby a couple of weeks to get used to having the house to herself when the children went back to school. She missed the television blaring cartoons, Billy’s shouts as he played with his cars and trucks, even Amelia’s music seeping through the floor from upstairs.
Shelby’s stomach growled and her thoughts turned toward food. She went into the kitchen, tied on her apron, and opened the refrigerator. There was some homemade Greek yogurt and a bit of roast chicken left over from another night. Neither appealed to her at the moment. She opened the produce drawer, but it was nearly empty. There were half a dozen large brown eggs she’d collected the day before from the Rhode Island Reds she kept out back by the barn. And a few pieces of bacon, but the thought of fried eggs and bacon didn’t appeal, either.
Suddenly she had an idea. She went out the back door to the garden, where she picked a handful of leaves from a head of butter lettuce and carried them inside cupped in the bottom of her apron.
She would fry the bacon and cut it into lardoons for her salad. She would then make a dressing with the bacon fat, olive oil, and a dash of balsamic vinegar. And on top of the salad, like the cherry on top of an ice cream sundae, she’d carefully slip a poached egg.
The first bite convinced Shelby she was onto something. She quickly scribbled down the steps she’d taken to make the salad—she would share the recipe on her blog tomorrow.
She was chasing the last bit of lettuce around on her plate when the front doorbell rang. Shelby wiped her hands on her napkin and went to see who it was.
“Howdy.” Her best friend, Kelly Thacker, was standing on the doorstep.
She smelled of horse, barnyard, and manure and there were bits of hay stuck in her tumble of auburn curls. Kelly was the local vet. She dealt mostly with farm animals but once a week she held a clinic for household pets.
“I was over at the Mingledorfs’ farm, and I thought I would stop in,” she said as she wiped her boots on Shelby’s doormat. “Old Mr. Mingledorf was convinced that his cow was pregnant, so I did an exam and felt—” She stopped short at the look on Shelby’s face.
Kelly loved sharing tales of her veterinary cases, but Shelby had finally convinced her to leave out some of the more delicate details.
“Anyway, the cow is pregnant and that made Mr. Mingledorf quite happy.” Kelly dug some dirt out from under a fingernail. “He was all in a tizzy about Zeke Barnstable. Apparently he’s known him since he was a kid, and he said he was practically a saint. As Mr. Mingledorf put it, ‘there was no cause for him to go and get himself murdered.’ As if poor Zeke had done it on purpose to upset him.”
“I have to confess, I’ve had the same thought,” Shelby said. “He was practically a recluse, from what I understand. Why would someone want to kill him? And who?” She took her dish to the sink, rinsed it, and put it in the dishwasher.
“I can tell you who,” Kelly said. “Ryan Archer, for instance.”
Shelby took a seat at the table again. “Who is Ryan Archer? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him.”
“No reason you should have,” Kelly said, fiddling with a pen Shelby had left on the kitchen table. “He’s not someone who would pop up on your radar—he’s younger than we are but older than Billy and Amelia.”
“What’s his connection with Zeke?”
“Zeke caught Ryan defacing a gravestone in the cemetery. Worse luck, it was Zeke’s wife’s grave, although everybody knows she’s not really buried there. But he insisted on the headstone even though she hadn’t been missing long enough to be declared dead.”
“I can imagine that would have made Zeke want to kill this Ryan. But why would Ryan want to kill Zeke?”
“Zeke reported him even though Ryan begged him not to. He even said he would pay for the damage.”
“What happened to him?”
“Ryan? He spent a month in jail and all the money he was saving to buy a car went to pay for cleaning the headstone and toward the hefty fine that had been levied against him.”
Shelby looked at her friend in amazement. “How do you know all this?”
“Ryan’s younger brother is a friend of my younger brother, Jacob,” Kelly said. “Although Ryan’s a couple of years older than him.”
“He doesn’t sound like someone you’d want your younger brother hanging out with.”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Jacob’s a good kid. And he and Ryan aren’t buddy buddies. A bunch of guys go around in a pack, like wolves, and Ryan sometimes hangs around the fringes.”
Shelby grabbed a basket of peas off the counter and retrieved a bowl from the cupboard. She put the bowl in her lap and the basket on the table and began shelling the peas. They tumbled into the bowl, pinging like miniature green marbles.
“How’s Seth?”
Seth was Kelly’s fiancé and the local family doctor.
Kelly groaned. “Seth is fine, but his mother . . .”
Shelby reached for another pea pod. “What is Mrs. Gregson up to now?”
“What isn’t she up to?” Kelly sighed. “It’s about the wedding. She fails to understand that it’s our wedding—we’re paying for it, so we get to make the plans.”
“Does she have ideas of her own?”
“Does she ever! She wants a formal sit-down affair with men in black tie and women in ball gowns. And those fiddly covers on the chairs, with the big bows in back. And a string quartet and huge centerpieces so that no one can see across the table. What doesn’t she want?”
“Obviously you and Seth have different ideas.”
Kelly held out her hands. “You know me, Shelby. I’m not that sort and frankly neither is Seth. Half the time I’ve got straw in my hair.” Her hand went to her head reflexively and she shook loose a piece of hay, which she stuck in the corner of her mouth.
“I can’t picture myself all done up in the gowns she’s been showing me—huge tulle skirts, embellished with beads, crystals, and precious stones.” She snorted. “I’d probably trip and rip my dress on the way to the altar.”
“How do you picture your wedding?” Shelby popped three peas out of the pod she was holding.
Kelly’s brows lowered over her eyes. “I haven’t given it much thought. I’ve been too busy being horrified by Mrs. Gregson’s suggestions.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Suddenly she giggled. “Don’t laugh but I imagine wearing my cowboy boots under my dress—a comfortable dress that I can hike up and dance in. And simple food li
ke fried chicken or chicken-fried steaks with plenty of mashed potatoes and green beans cooked in bacon fat.”
“So far it sounds great.”
“And square dancing.” Kelly’s eyes were alight now. “And a make-your-own sundae bar with a whole bunch of homemade pies.”
“Sounds perfect,” Shelby said, sniffing back a tear.
Dear Reader, my wedding with Wild Bill had been much like that. How in love we’d been! We’d naively assumed we would be together forever.
“Where would you hold it?”
Kelly’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. Somehow the function room at the Comfort Inn out on the highway doesn’t quite do it for me.”
An idea was forming in Shelby’s mind. Why not?
“Why not have it here at Love Blossom Farm?”
Kelly bolted upright in her chair. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. We could hold it in the barn. I’ve been planning on installing some electrical wiring anyway. And we can have a wooden dance floor brought in.”
Now Kelly’s eyes were shining. “That would be wonderful! I can picture it,” she said, her gaze turning dreamy.
“But what would Mrs. Gregson say?”
Kelly lifted her chin. “I don’t care what the old dragon wants. If Seth likes the idea, and I like the idea, then that’s what we’ll do.”
She jumped up and gave Shelby a hug, which nearly sent the peas in her bowl scattering to the four corners of the room.
“I can’t thank you enough. It will be such fun! Seth and I would like to be married sooner rather than later—if we hope to start a family we’ve got to get a move on—and this way we won’t have to deal with venues that insist you book three years in advance.”
Kelly plopped down in her chair again. “I do hope Seth likes the idea.”
8
Dear Reader,
I love the idea of hosting Kelly’s wedding here at the farm. I do hope Seth agrees with our plan. I have a feeling that even Mrs. Gregson would end up having fun. Who can resist square dancing?