Men Of Moonstone Series

by Christine DeSmet

  “In a chicken coop.”

  * * * *

  The chicken coop had been constructed in thirty feet of an old haymow above a barn; the other half of the haymow was a spacious, thirty-by-thirty efficiency apartment. The coop side was empty of chickens; his sister Lily had told him that Hyacinth Clarehout and Tootsie Winters had taken the chickens home recently when farm owner Crystal LeBarron, who was in her forties, had been ordered to bed rest with her first pregnancy. Crystal and Peter LeBarron resided maybe fifty yards away from the barn in a sprawling, new, two-story log home.

  Both of Jason's buddies that he'd met in Afghanistan knew Peter LeBarron. Peter had helped John “Bozeman” Hall get through the trauma of losing a leg to war. John had built the chicken coop apartment practically overnight when he'd found a woman and her little boy hiding out by living in a nearby cave in the dead of winter. John took them in, and then fell in love.

  The LeBarron family owned the only mansion in Moonstone. It was called the North Pole. The Jingle Bell Inn restaurant within the mansion overlooked Lake Superior. Jason's other buddy, Kincaid “Kade” Hunter, had tripped—literally—into his wife-to-be in the mansion last Christmas; Gloria had been hired to decorate the place. Gloria had Kade building gingerbread houses in no time. Both men now lived with their wives on neighboring ranches in Montana.

  Jason had helped out his buddies with a couple of cattle drives in the past. He'd become proficient as a cowboy, and he intended to join Kade and Boze in a couple of weeks for this year's spring cattle drive. But he had no intention of replicating their need to settle down. Jason suspected they'd been hornswoggled by some black magic around Moonstone that turned men to mush. The notion of having a wife, kids, chickens, and gingerbread duties gave Jase the heebie-jeebies. There was safety in being unfettered by females and constantly on the move.

  Around two a.m. Jason slipped under the blankets on the sleeper sofa in the haymow apartment. But he tossed and turned. His sister wasn't telling him something important. Why drag him all the way to Moonstone to investigate a bunch of women? He wondered what it was about Hyacinth Clarehout that had Lily flummoxed and fearful.

  ~—~—~—~ ~

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  * * *

  Chapter 2

  Nestled in the pink fog of sunrise on the chilly, early Tuesday morning, Hyacinth Clarehout's one-story, gray farmhouse had two goats—one white, one brown—on its roof.

  The rest of the farmstead's environs were just as odd.

  Jason leaned against the door of his rented, red Jeep Grand Cherokee, shaking his head. Old appliances, rolled wood slat snow fencing, rusted barrels, motors, tires, and wood piles dotted the place like crooked headstones in a neglected country cemetery. For pest control, this place was a disaster, or heaven, depending on whether you were human or vermin.

  Hyacinth's place was about three miles west of the LeBarron's, down a blacktopped county highway that cut across a rocky plateau studded with tall cedars. Jason bet there was a stunning view of both Moonstone and Lake Superior beyond those evergreens.

  Jason made his way across the gravel turnabout, stepping around iced-over mud puddles. A rotting picket fence wove tipsy as a drunk around the house, stopping his progress several feet from an enclosed porch. Its roof showed black mildew on buckling shingles. The goats hopped down from the main roof onto the porch roof, their hooves surely damaging what little protection the shingles still afforded.

  Fluffy chickens of every hue from red to black to tan to blue—to lavender—huddled together on the three steps to the porch door. They stared at him like beady-eyed guard dogs. Though he didn't see a protective rooster, Jason backed away. He'd been pecked by his share of angry roosters when trying to sneak through back yards while following a suspect.

  Jason walked away through the privacy of the fog to get a closer look at the outbuildings. They sat to the west of the house. Each building posed a possible place for hiding stolen goods or for growing marijuana or cooking meth. Everything was closed up tight with padlocks, which teased Jason's curiosity.

  The small barn needed paint, too. A silo and a milkhouse made of concrete blocks stood next to the barn. He didn't see the telltale glow of grow lights, yet the lingering morning fog could be shrouding the truth. Beyond the milkhouse, a gray plank shed served as a garage. Fresh vehicle tracks led to the door. A few yards behind the garage an outhouse tilted to the east. Its one window was blocked out from inside with cardboard.

  Jason returned to the wobbly fence, but before he could unlatch the gate and take his chances with the chickens, the porch door banged open.

  “Mr. Bellows? My skunk man?” Out charged a woman as tall as his own six feet in height. She wore a red-plaid, insulated shirt and carried a fuzzy, black chicken. The woman had apple cheeks and a long, red-brown braid that hung well past her breasts. She flipped the thick braid over one shoulder. “Am I glad to see you! The skunks are restless.”

  “Hyacinth?”

  “All day today and every day.”

  Hyacinth stretched a hand over the gate. The sturdy-looking woman wore a red turtleneck under the insulated flannel shirt, bluejeans scuffed with mud, and brown leather Wellington boots with her jeans’ legs tucked into the boot tops. The only thing delicate about her were her eyes. They were ... hyacinth blue, an elusive color, blue but limned with lavender.

  “I'm Jason.” He took off his Stetson and shook her hand. The woman's firm hand squeezed him with toasty warmth that sped through his veins. Jason liked the woman's high wattage on the damp, cold day, but then she held his hand a little too long. The hyacinth blue eyes held his gaze prisoner, too. Alarm prickled his scalp. Is this the Moonstone magic? The trickery? He took his hand back and plunked the Stetson back over his brain. “That's a fancy-lookin’ chicken.”

  “Meet Hildegard.”

  The chicken made burbling noises instead of clucking. Her flyaway black hair looked soft, intriguing him, but Jason kept his distance. “She reminds me of the ladies in Sunday church with their hats.”

  “You're welcome to take Hildegard with you to church next Sunday.” Hyacinth's smile made fawn-colored freckles on her cheeks wiggle.

  With a sudden beam of sunlight breaking apart the fog, Hyacinth's eyes grew iridescent, more like bowls of clear glass reflecting everything around them. Jason was glad for the rickety fence between him and Hyacinth. He didn't want to see himself captured in her eyes.

  “Maybe tell me about your skunk. He's not happy?” He sounded like an idiot. His sister would pay for this stupid assignment if nothing came of it.

  “She is under the back porch. I heard her banging about. The Mavens warned me that it could be a mother with babies. That's why I'm moving the chickens out of the house, though they're balking at the idea.”

  Hyacinth jiggled Hildegard, whose fluffy, fine head feathers threaded into the air like spider web tendrils. The chicken burbled again.

  Hyacinth laid her cheek against the chicken's head. “I know, I know. You'd love for this nice man to hold you, wouldn't you?”

  Jason wanted to turn and run, as in run all the way back to Texas, but for his sister's sake, he feigned interest. “So you're afraid your silkies will get sprayed?”

  “And their eggs eaten. Silkies are too curious and friendly. They'll try and make friends with a skunk instead of running the other way.”

  Jason figured that if he helped Hyacinth move the chickens, he could take a look inside the locked barn. “I'll be glad to help you move your church hats.”

  Hyacinth's face glowed around a crooked smile that made the freckles dance on her cheeks. “You wouldn't charge me extra?”

  “No charge at all. Call it an introductory special offer.”

  “Thanks. Have you had breakfast? I have to pay you somehow.”

  “I planned on going into town.”

  “No. You have to stay and help me with a new recipe for The Jingle Bell Inn restaurant. I'm helping Kirsten develop new omelets b
ased on local ingredients. I'm making the ‘Moonstone Monster’ made with all M's—mushrooms, meatloaf, and a tomato marmalade sauce on top. Instead of muffins, I'm trying maple-flavored monkey bread.”

  Though he had no clue what monkey bread was, Jason's mouth watered. He also wanted inside Hyacinth's house. “I accept.”

  “Great. I need a taster.” Hildegard purred in Hyacinth's arms. Hyacinth opened the rusty latch on the gate. “I have fresh goat cheese, too, which I'm thinking we could label as our very own Moonstone cheese. But I have to come up with a name that has pizzazz.”

  Hyacinth led him to the hen-covered steps of the enclosed front porch. Her auburn braid flicked back and forth across her back in a teasing fashion. The goats on the roof peered down at him like gargoyles.

  Remembering his purpose, Jason said, “Farming's a hard life. You have a lot going on out here.”

  “I plan to become famous for my goat cheese, but I doubt I'll make a fortune. I do what I have to do to get by.”

  Like what? he wondered. She laughed again, creating an unsettling suspicion in Jason. Sometimes criminals were open about their chicanery. Especially if they had no reason to distrust Jason.

  Hyacinth handed him two hens, one for each arm. Jason swallowed when Hyacinth mentioned a rooster. Lucky for him, Hyacinth handled the rooster, a black one named Colonel Cinders who evidently had separate quarters in the house. They hurried to get the dozen hens and the colonel to the warm barn.

  Compared with the frosty morning outside, the barn felt almost hot, which Jason enjoyed as much as the chickens did. The barn was heated to around seventy degrees by a wood-burning furnace, Hyacinth pointed out. “The hens do okay with this temperature but the brooders'll be set at ninety-five degrees for the chicks. The chicks are fragile when they come from the incubators and hatchers. I still need to get that equipment set up this week.”

  Jason had no idea what she was talking about. She was so close that he could count the freckles on her cheeks and see his reflection in her eyes. Unnerved, he stepped away, looking about the barn. “Give me a call. I could help.”

  “That's so neighborly of you.”

  Sneaky, really. “Glad to help my customers.”

  Jason found nothing amiss in the lower barn, but he ached for a look at the haymow above. “Do you need me to get any feed or straw down from your haymow?”

  Hyacinth led him outside, then locked the barn door. “I'll do that later. I'd hate having you to see what's up there.”

  “What's up there?”

  She tossed her braid off a shoulder then led him back to the house. “Just stuff. It's a mess.”

  She strutted away fast on her long legs.

  Jason caught up with her, conscious that his shoulder was level with hers, which meant their eyes were on the same plane, too. Not wanting to look into her eyes—and give himself away somehow—he kept his focus straight ahead. Their boots crunched on the gravel. “Why were the chickens living in your house?”

  Hyacinth gestured at the junk around them. “I didn't have a way to heat the barn until today. But we got that wood-burning unit set up yesterday from some of this stuff around my house. We welded that ourselves.”

  “We?”

  “Two college students help me with sustainable projects. I want to be totally self-sufficient here, not relying on anybody else for my electricity or heat or fuel. Or food, for that matter.”

  The students could be involved with the thefts. Certainly stealing a gumball machine sounded like a college prank.

  Hyacinth pointed to the house roof. “Goats don't seem to like being kept inside a fence. They sort of fly past your shoulder at times. So I'm going to put them to use keeping the roof trimmed as well as the yard.”

  “A sod roof?”

  “Natural insulation. I also plan to get a flock of sheep and a small herd of cows, though we have wolves in this area. But I'm going to get guard dogs. Keep your eye out for Great Pyrenees puppies for sale. They're...”

  As she chatted on about giant white guard dogs, Jason wondered what Hyacinth needed guarded besides animals. He sniffed the air for the telltale smells of bleach and other chemical products used to process drugs. All he could smell on the moist, soft air was a hint of fresh baked goods from inside her house—and chickens. Chickens always had that smell of straw about them. He picked at the straw and rainbow of feathers on his shearling coat.

  Hyacinth talked on and on, her arms waving like the windmill twenty yards east of the house. “And I'll be replacing this gate and fence with timbers I take off my land. We won't use nails in the construction.”

  “What's the windmill for?”

  “I need a lot of water for the things I'm involved in here, but wind power will do that for me up here on this bluff. I still need a converter so we can get DC current off of the windmill and stored in a battery. I have a lead on a converter that'll be free.”

  As in stolen? Did she want her own electricity source so local authorities had no chance of noticing the huge amount of electricity for a marijuana growing operation or for processing chemicals into drugs? Checking home electric usage was one of the first things cops looked into when suspicious. But Hyacinth didn't look like she was involved with drugs. Her eyes were too clear and vibrant, her skin flawless save the freckles and ruddiness from the cold weather. Her teeth looked like her originals, with slight imperfections but healthy and white.

  Inside the enclosed porch, white plastic boxes maybe sixteen inches square lined shelves just under the windows. Straw was stuffed inside.

  “Pre-made nesting boxes?” he asked. He'd seen his share of chicken coops around the world. They were prime places to hide drugs and weapons. Most coops had nesting boxes cobbled from whatever scraps of lumber lay around.

  “Those are boat toilets,” she said. “I'll move those later today to the barn with Tildy and Toad's help.”

  “Toad?” Boat toilets?

  “My student, Ted Vinje, but everybody calls him Toad because he loves to ‘hop to’ and do things. Matilda Hamm's just as motivated. She's on scholarship, first in her family to go to college. She comes from a family of nine kids right here in Moonstone. Unfortunately their dad lost his construction job when the housing market tanked.”

  Jason had seen a Hamm woman on his list of suspects.

  Hyacinth's kitchen looked to be the biggest room in the modest house, maybe twenty by fourteen or so, with plenty of room for the table and six chairs around it. The walls were painted minty green. Jason also noticed two gray field mice chase along the wood flooring of the kitchen, then speed through the arched doorway that led to a living room in the same minty green. Hyacinth, busy dishing up the “M” breakfast, hadn't noticed the mice.

  Jason forgot the mice, too, once the omelet hit his tongue. The goat cheese, meatloaf, and tomato marmalade concoction transported Jason. And the maple monkey bread? That was a pile of sticky dough balls baked in a maple and brown sugar glaze. “Hyacinth, this isn't just food. This is a vacation from the ordinary.”

  “You're brilliant! You just gave me a perfect advertising slogan.” Hyacinth rushed to her counter and wrote down his words on a pad of paper. “'A vacation from the ordinary.’ Keep thinking of a name for the omelet. ‘Monster’ just isn't right; that sounds like kids’ food, and calling it the ‘M’ omelet is too flat. The Moonstone ... what?”

  “You'll think of something.” Jason used the sticky monkey bread to circle around the last vestiges of “vacation” on his plate. Hyacinth sat back down across from him, explaining in entertaining octaves that the rusty oil drums in her yard would become rain barrels, and one would become an outdoor grill and smoker. Jason suspected some of the chickens might be destined to be “recycled,” too. One of the old motors would be retrofitted to run on the discarded vegetable oil from Kirsten's kitchen at The Jingle Bell Inn in Moonstone.

  “What's the motor going to run for you?”

  When Hyacinth got up from the table to pour him a glass of goa
t's milk, a mouse ran from under the refrigerator, scurrying almost across Hyacinth's toes and socks. Jason held his breath. Hyacinth never saw the mouse slip under the stove.

  “I need the engine to run the conveyor for the haymow, come June.”

  At his friend Boze's Montana ranch one summer, Jason had plunked down many a fifty-pound bale on the conveyor's chain belt that worked like an escalator from the hay wagon to the top of the barn. Haying was often hot, punishing work that many women couldn't do. But Jason could sense that Hyacinth would wear the sweat and hay chaff on top of her freckles like a badge.

  Jason dawdled with the last crumbs, licking maple syrup off his fingertips, buying time to get a “read” on Hyacinth Clarehout. She gestured a lot with her hands and arms while she chatted about farm chores. Was she nervous? His gaze kept dipping down to her perfect breasts jiggling underneath her red turtleneck. She could gesture forever as far as he was concerned. But he reminded himself that women used everything as a weapon to get their way with a man.

  Jason pushed himself away from the table, stuffed. He wasn't sure he could even stand up without help. “That was delicious.”

  “Thank you. Think of more ‘M’ foods for me. I feel like this ‘M’ aspect could turn into something big for Moonstone.” Hyacinth licked her fork then put it down. “What would you like tonight?”

  “Tonight?” Panic struck him. He recalled feeling this way back in college when he realized he'd studied the wrong stuff and would flunk the exam. Was Hyacinth referring to sex? Had she seen him staring at her breasts? Had licking his fingers sent a sexual signal?!

  “Skunks come out mainly at night,” she said. “You'll be back to watch for them coming out, and then you'll help me plug the holes under my back porch. Right?”