“Doctor’s orders.” I watched while the guys lined up for the tug-of-war. In a show of machismo, all of them decided to remove their tank tops and T-shirts. The sight of sixteen tanned and muscled men elicited raucous whistles and cheers from the growing crowd.
“Now they’re showing off,” Cara said with a wry expression. “Men.”
Half-naked, Ryan and Porter made an even more contrasting pair. Tall, sandy haired, lean, and muscled, Ryan reminded me of movie star Ryan Gosling; how ironic they shared the same first name. Although much shorter than Ryan, Porter boasted the confidence and the physique of a champion of the World Wrestling Federation. I wasn’t certain who would come out a winner in an actual fight. I hoped we never had to find out.
“You and the O’Neills did great in your contest. The Janssens never had a chance.”
She chuckled. “The Janssens spent too much time in the beer tent at lunch. They were lucky to last as long as they did. But we fielded a pretty tough team this year.” A look of pride came over her face. “We O’Neills stay in good fighting condition.”
“You’ve also got the competitive Gale genes.”
Her smile vanished. “I consider myself an O’Neill now. After all, I’ve been married to Brody for over twenty years.”
We watched as Porter did a few stretches; all of them highlighted his bulging biceps.
“Your brother stays in good fighting condition, too.”
“Don’t let his muscles and strutting around fool you. I’m in much better shape than Porter, even if I am eight years older. He’s also diabetic. It runs in the family. Our dad had the disease, along with two uncles.” She bit her lip. “My son was diagnosed with diabetes last year right around the time my dad died. That knocked the wind out of me, let me tell you.”
Wyatt was only twenty. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Like I said, it runs in the family. I’ve been lucky. And I pray my daughter is, too. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get Wyatt to take better care of himself. But he’s as bullheaded as his uncle.” She shook her head. “I’m the one who’s tough. A damn sight tougher than they are.”
I gave her a sideways look. Cara’s sleeveless green blouse and cut-off jeans let me appreciate her toned, sunburned arms and muscled legs. Like Porter, Cara gave off an aura of strength, but without his pugnacious attitude to accompany it. Brother and sister also boasted similar features: round faces, straight brown hair, piercing slate-blue eyes. Those eyes narrowed now as she watched the men take their position along the rope.
“I wish the O’Neills had gone up against Blueberry Hill in the tug-of-war,” she said. “I’d love to have beaten my brother. But Porter insisted he wanted to compete against the Zellars.”
“When did this feud between the two families start?”
“The rivalry started with the grandfathers. Typical business competition, but after Blueberry Hill went national thirty years ago, the Zellars couldn’t hope to catch up. Now the feud primarily involves my brother and your fiancé. I know they never liked each other growing up. But things have gotten worse lately. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Porter is to blame. When in doubt, always blame Porter.” Her voice rang with bitterness.
This gave me a start. Ryan said almost the same thing to me only minutes ago.
She drained the rest of her water. “I’ll let you cheer your boyfriend on while I grab another water bottle.”
“I guess we’ll be rooting for opposite sides,” I said.
Cara lifted an eyebrow at me. “Don’t know why I’d cheer for Porter. He’s won too often already. It’s time he lost.”
She ran off to join her husband and friends, leaving me to wonder at the state of affairs between Porter Gale and his sister. Normal sibling rivalry, or something deeper?
I hurried to join the Zellar women as both tug-of-war teams took their places; sixteen pairs of muscled arms gripped the thick rope with iron determination. Ryan took up the last position, as did Porter for his team. According to the short lecture Ryan’s family had given me on tug-of-war strategy, the strongest person on each team should be last on the rope line, with the rest of the line alternating with the weakest and strongest competitors. Everyone gripped the rope underhanded, arms extended. Apparently, leg muscles were what won a tug-of-war, and I watched as the men planted their bare feet in the sand, shoulder width apart.
Unlike the O’Neill and Janssen contest, no one wasted time yelling challenges or insults. And no one laughed. The air vibrated with tension. Thank heaven I wasn’t part of this challenge.
Both teams remained frozen in place while the judge positioned the rope’s white bandanna. The scream of the whistle shattered the tableau as the men began pulling in opposite directions. Shouts and cries rose up all around me, and I held my breath as the men bore down. Sweat glistened on all those bare chests as they grunted and heaved.
“It’s too hot for a tug-of-war.” Emily Zellar stood beside me, watching the contest with a furrowed brow.
“I agree,” I told her. “Especially with guys that take it this seriously.”
“I checked the weather app on my phone. It’s ninety-seven degrees.”
I suddenly felt even hotter.
Just when I thought the tug-of-war would remain frozen indefinitely, Porter’s team took one baby step backward. Ryan responded by yelling, “Dig in! Dig in!”
Another long minute passed when the teams did nothing but strain and pull. Finally, Ryan’s team took one tiny step back. Another. And another. Please let this contest end soon, I prayed. And let Ryan win. His body dripped with sweat, his arms trembled, and his face had turned an ominous scarlet. Did people die of heart attacks during a tug-of-war?
Now it was Porter’s turn to shout commands to his team. They stretched so far back to resist the pull of Ryan’s team, they almost lay flat on the sand.
“Maybe we can ask the judge to call it a draw,” I suggested to Emily.
She shook her head. “The guys would never agree.”
I heard Ryan shout out another command, spurring his team to pull like never before. The crowd noise grew to a roar when Ryan’s team began to take larger steps, all in unison.
“They’re power-walking.” Emily grabbed my hand. “It’s almost over.”
Inch by tiny inch, Ryan’s team pulled Porter’s men closer, the white bandanna almost at the red line painted on the ground. So close. I smiled. There was no way Ryan would lose now.
Suddenly, Ryan’s nephew J.J. cried out in pain. His right knee buckled and he loosened his grip on the rope. This not only stopped the Zellars’ power walk, it allowed Porter’s team to regain lost ground. They did more than regain it. Now on the offensive, Porter’s team inexorably pulled the Zellars toward them. No matter how much Ryan shouted at his brothers and cousins to resist, the men of Blueberry Hill kept pulling them to their side.
The white bandanna not only approached the red line, but was yanked across it. The Zellars collapsed forward, the rope finally released by an exhausted but victorious Blueberry Hill team. Porter fell back on the sand, arms upraised.
Emily sighed. “I need to sit down in the shade. All this heat and excitement isn’t good for me or my baby.”
I thought about joining her. Ryan was sure to be in a foul mood, and I dreaded having to deal with it. But I needed to give him moral support. If only both teams would get up and leave the contest area so life could go on. However, Ryan now bent over J.J., who clutched his foot. When I saw the blood staining J.J’s foot, I broke into a run.
“How did you get hurt?” I heard Ryan ask his nephew.
“I stepped on something sharp,” the boy replied.
Ryan dug around in the sand. His brothers crouched down and did the same.
I knelt beside Ryan. “What do you think J.J. stepped on?”
“This.” Ryan held out a jagged piece of glass, covered in sand and stained with blood.
“The judges should have checked the sand,” I said. “Maybe there’s more broken
glass.”
Ryan pointed at Porter and his team, who were congratulating each other. “Porter, you’re a slimy cheating bastard! You planted glass in the sand!”
Porter looked at him with a scornful expression. “What are you talking about?”
“You were kicking at our sand before the contest started.” Ryan took a few steps toward Porter. “That’s when you dropped the glass there. Knowing one of us would gash our feet on it.”
“You’re crazy, Zellar.” Porter shook his head in obvious disgust.
“My brother’s right,” Jim Zellar said. “One of you sabotaged our side of the sand.”
“Get over yourselves,” Porter said. “Zellars lose, Gales win. That’s the way it’s always been. Accept it and move on. And try not to whine when you get beat.”
Ryan lunged at Porter, knocking him to the ground. Porter lay stunned for a moment, allowing Ryan to land two solid punches to his face. Blood gushed from Porter’s nose.
Shouts rang out as both teams attacked each other. The scene reminded me of a baseball fight that empties the benches. Within seconds, I got knocked down in the resulting furor. By the time I struggled to my knees, I found myself in an honest-to-God brawl. Men wrestled, shoved, and yelled all around me. I had to duck to avoid getting hit by punches being thrown by both sides. Ignoring his injured foot, J.J. gripped one of the Gale team members in a headlock. I pushed my way through the melee to where Ryan and Porter wrestled on the sand.
“Stop, Ryan!” I made a futile attempt to pull Ryan off Porter. It was a mark of Porter’s sheer strength that he was able to prevent Ryan from pummeling him nonstop. “You’re hurting him! Stop!”
Ryan ignored me. Maybe his rage was so great, he could focus on nothing but the man lying on the ground beneath him. When Porter at last managed to free one arm and smack Ryan on the head, Ryan reacted as if he had been seared by a hot poker. With an angry cry, he wrapped his hands around Porter’s throat and began to strangle him.
I screamed. “Someone help me! Please! He’s choking him!” Frightened Porter might die, I pounded at Ryan’s arms.
A second later, I was pulled away as three security police separated Ryan and Porter. This brought the brawl to a halt. Alarmed friends and family rushed in to keep the respective team members apart. I saw Ryan’s mother and father try to calm down their enraged son. The other Zellar boys were surrounded by their wives. Sloane had now joined the group, helping a bruised and bloodied Porter sit up. I felt sick to my stomach, but this time it had nothing to do with the pie I ate.
I shoved my way out of the crowd. No matter how the glass had gotten in the sand, Ryan should never have flown off the handle like that. He might have choked Porter to death! And over something as meaningless as a tug-of-war contest.
As I stomped off the field, I passed a couple with two children in tow.
“What’s going on?” the father asked me as he pointed to the mob scene I had just left. “We’re looking for the tug-of-war contests between the fruit growers.”
“The contests are over now,” I said.
“Who won?” the woman said as she picked up the youngest child.
“No one.” I glanced back at Ryan and Porter, surrounded by security and an agitated crowd of onlookers. “No one won.”
Chapter Three
After the tug-of-war brawl, I worried they might rename the festival the Blueberry Blow Up. How embarrassing to have Zellars and Blueberry Hill involved in such a melee. It had spoiled the whole day for me. My first instinct was to take refuge in work. It had always helped me deal with personal problems in the past, especially those of a romantic nature. But if I went back to my Berry Basket booth here at the fair, Ryan would know where to find me. And I didn’t want to be found. At least not until I could process what I’d just witnessed.
I thought about leaving the fairground and heading to my store in the village. Except my business revolved around all things berry. I had a responsibility to be an ongoing part of an annual event dedicated to blueberries. The Berry Basket booth at the fairground would be operating every day, with the Cabot boys, Gillian, and myself taking turns working at the shop and here. A good business decision, too. The first three hours we had been open today had seen record sales of most of the items I had brought, including blueberry-flavored coffee, candy, pancake mixes, muffins, jams, jellies, and syrups.
With the booth currently overseen by the Cabots, I decided to explore the rest of the fairground. After watching Ryan nearly choke a man to death, I needed frivolous distraction. When I reached the carnival midway, the aroma of fried elephant ears and funnel cakes helped to raise my spirits. Perhaps no one could stay depressed when surrounded by carousel music, laughing children, and vendors holding aloft clusters of colored balloons.
While my stomach made me forgo any of the concession treats, the many prize booths called out to my natural competitive drive. An hour later, I’d won five plastic necklaces, a hand puppet, a giant blueberry ring, and two yo-yos. As soon as I won a prize, I gave it to the first child I saw. The games were only a welcome mindless activity, although if I’d won the stuffed blue parrot, I might have kept it.
I’d just given away my last plastic necklace when a tall ginger-haired man waved at me. “Hey, Marlee! Take a ride on my bumper cars.”
Feeling my mood grow even lighter, I walked over to the Blueberry Blow Out Bumper Cars where my friend Max Riordan stood guard.
Max seemed eternally boyish. His hat crowned with foam blueberries only added to that impression. He brought to mind the character of Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter novels.
I had a tendency to associate people with fictional characters since I had been named after one. My mother, an English literature professor, happened to be rereading A Christmas Carol when she went into labor. I entered the world a few hours later on Christmas Eve. With the last name of “Jacob,” my Dickens-loving mother couldn’t resist naming me after Jacob Marley from the Christmas tale. Given the unpleasant backstory of Mr. Marley, I wished she had been reading Little Dorrit that night. But it had inspired me to imagine what fictional character other people reminded me of. The fun-loving Max belonged at Hogwarts. House Hufflepuff, most likely.
A line of people waited to board the cars. “You chose the perfect ride to sponsor, Max.”
Every summer, local businesses and farms sponsored rides at the Blueberry Blow Out, with half the proceeds going to a charity of their choice. I sponsored the Bounce House this year; it seemed maintenance free and safe, unless some child accidentally bounced their way out of the inflatable structure. Max, owner of Riordan Outfitters in downtown Oriole Point, signed up for the bumper cars. Not a surprise. We dated during our senior year in high school, and I had white-knuckle memories of driving around with Max in his beat-up Ford, a car that was beat up because he rarely paid attention to the road and got in one fender bender after another.
He laughed. “Yeah, I do have experience bumping cars. Why don’t you give it a try? But this time you can be at the wheel. I’ll even let you cut in line.”
“Maybe later. My stomach is finally starting to settle. I don’t want to rile it up again by crashing into cars.”
“That’s right. I heard you won the pie-eating contest.” He eyed my blue ribbon. “Congratulations, marzipan.”
“Marzipan” had been his nickname for me since high school. I found it an endearing name and liked it, as I did Max. But because he and I had once been romantically involved, his affection for me did not sit well with Ryan, who had a jealous nature. I had no patience with jealous men, and Ryan knew it. He also knew Max and I only dated a few months before I ended the relationship when Max asked me to marry him right before prom night. And with his grandmother’s ring, no less. Luckily, I soon went off to college in New York. By the time I moved back years later, any awkwardness over the proposal had vanished. I regarded Max as a loyal and true friend, even if I suspected he still harbored romantic feelings for me. I also had no intention of giving u
p his friendship merely to calm Ryan’s unwarranted fears.
“It appears I’m a pastry-eating monster. I finished my pie before the other contestants got halfway through theirs.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. You were also the girl who ate two large boxes of Jujyfruits whenever we went to the movies back in high school.”
“Please don’t remind me. I paid for that with a half dozen cavities. My parents banned sugar from the house until I went to college.”
His smile faded. “I heard a fight broke out at the tug-of-war between Ryan and Porter Gale. Is it true security had to be called?”
Shifting my gaze to the midway, I chose to watch the carousel spin rather than meet Max’s penetrating gaze. But the carousel only reminded me of Ryan. The Zellar family had chosen to sponsor the ride this year. Luckily, none of the Zellars were there at the moment.
“Things got a little heated.” I had to speak louder to avoid being drowned out by the calliope music. “Porter’s team won and Ryan accused him of cheating.” I briefly explained about the piece of glass buried in the sand.
Max wore a disapproving expression. “Getting into a fight over something that stupid is uncalled for. Is Ryan always so quick to fly off the handle?”
“Not at all. When he gets irritated, he usually shuts down and says nothing. I’ve never seen Ryan come close to punching someone out before. Let alone choking a man! But he has this thing about Porter Gale. It’s making him act crazy today.”
He put his hands on my shoulders. “Marzipan, you know I love you. Always have. Always will. And I’m glad we’ve remained friends all these years. As your friend, I need to be honest with you. I don’t like Ryan. And not because you accepted his proposal after turning down mine.”
“Let’s not talk about this.” I tried to pull away, but he held me tight.
“He’s not the one for you, Marlee,” he went on. “Yeah, he’s good-looking and all the girls in the county trip over themselves trying to get his attention. But is his attention really worth having? What has he done to make you willing to marry him?”
Killed on Blueberry Hill Page 3