by Lesley Diehl
“Maybe I’m in the wrong business.”
Her laugh did nothing to lift my mood. “Oh, right. It’s your only passion aside from Jake.”
Jake and I seemed to have misplaced some of that hormonal high lately, but I didn’t say that to Sally. She sounded in a good mood this morning, and I didn’t want to be responsible for inserting gloom into it.
“Can you drop by the shop? I need to talk to you about something.”
I told her about Jeremiah taking Megan to the hospital in Syracuse today. “So I’ll have to come by in the afternoon when they return. I’m not leaving this place unattended.”
I heard a car come up my driveway and looked out the bedroom window. I didn’t recognize the vehicle.
“Someone’s here. I’ve got to run. See you later.”
A man got out of the car. With his back to me he appeared to be studying my barn. Someone from the tax assessor’s office? Finally he turned so I could see his face. Marshall! My heart stopped for a second, then pounded against my chest. This is silly, I told myself. I’ve got to get over my reaction to him. He’s not Michael. In fact, I have no idea who this man is and what he wants here.
I jumped into my clothes and raced down the stairs, torn between a kind of girlish anticipation at his being here and a creeping sense of foreboding that his purpose meant me harm. He’s not Michael, I reminded myself once more.
“Am I too early for a tour?” He turned on his charmer of a smile.
Of course he was. I had a snappish reply all ready for him, but he beat me to it.
“Well, of course I am. I couldn’t sleep, so I had an early breakfast at the diner, and my car just seemed to head out this way.”
He smiled down into my eyes. I couldn’t help smiling back.
“I think I have some coffee left. Jeremiah and Megan went out, so I’m here taking care of things.” I was jabbering on. What was wrong with me?
“I’ve had more than enough coffee for the day. Actually, I would like to see your operation, if you have the time. Or are you busy fermenting something or whatever it is brewers do?”
“Oh.”
“Maybe I’m bothering you. If I am, just toss me out on my ear.”
Bothering me? Of course he was, but I steered him toward the barn. At least if I did my tour routine, I wouldn’t have to think about anything but beer.
In the bottling room, we stood side by side as I pointed out the automation of the bottling line.
“We do have to keep an eye on it. Sometimes it acts up. I’ve been meaning to look into a new one or a better used one. This one came out of the Ramford brewery. I got it cheap from Michael.” I was blathering on again, feeling the closeness of his body next to mine.
I took a deep breath. “It’s hot in here, don’t you think?”
He moved closer to me. “Hera. There’s something about you and me. Don’t you feel it too? It’s not just that I remind you of Michael. It’s more than that.”
Was it more than his similarity to Michael that drew me to him?
He put his arm around my waist and pulled me into him. His lips, when they touched mine, were warm, firm, yet soft. I moved away from his embrace and looked around the room. Wasn’t this the point at which Jake usually appeared? The room was empty.
As if reading my mind, Marshall shook his head. “No one’s here to stop you. You’re on your own. You can do what you want.”
The problem was, I didn’t know what I wanted, not in terms of my attraction to this man nor regarding my recent ambivalence about brewing beer.
I took a step backwards. “Why are you here?”
He threw back his mane of curly dark hair and let out a loud chuckle.
“Now there’s a question. A good one. One you might ask yourself.”
I heard a car in my drive. Jake. It had to be. Saved.
With more calm in my voice than I felt, I walked over to the door. “The tour’s over.”
“For now.” He preceded me out the door. “How about dinner Friday night?” Before I could say no, he spun on his heel and held up his finger. “Consider this a business invitation.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m thinking I might want to buy a brewery once my father’s estate is settled. Perhaps this one.”
“I’m not interested in selling.”
“Not now, perhaps, but maybe tomorrow. The future is always unpredictable.”
I expected to see Jake getting out of his SUV, but it was Rafe Oxley in my drive, leaning against the door of his car.
I introduced the two men. They shook hands. Although Rafe smiled and chatted with Marshall for a few moments, his manner was more reserved than usual, cold almost.
“Think over my offer, Hera.” Marshall got into his car and drove off.
“You don’t like him,” I said to Rafe.
“I don’t know him.”
“You’re not fooling me. I know you, and you don’t like him. You could give him a break. He’s not Michael, although he looks just like him.”
“Does he? Yes, I suppose so, and like your friend Michael, he does not have your best interests at heart.”
“Are you into mind reading suddenly?”
“Perhaps, but yours seems to be too messy to read right now. I heard about the accident here yesterday, but it’s more than that bothering you.”
“Do you sometimes hate the beer business? Have you ever considered quitting?”
~
My mood lifted when Jeremiah and Megan arrived late in the afternoon and told me the good news. Her vision would be fine.
“The eyeball needs time to heal, but the rods and the cones in my eye and the optic nerve were not touched by the caustic.”
I gave her a hug of relief, surprised at how attached to this young woman I had become. Jeremiah smiled at our embrace. I knew he felt the same as I.
“I hope you two don’t mind, but Sally called, and I need to go in to see her.”
When I got to Sally’s house, there was a note on the door: Hera—We’re at the hospital.
That could mean only one thing. The baby. I jumped back into my truck and broke the speed limit through town and up the hill to the hospital.
“Her mother is with her in our maternity wing. Go down the hall and take a right,” said the nurse on the maternity floor.
I could brew beer, but I knew nothing about delivering babies. I’d told Sally that months ago when we discussed my attending the birth.
“You won’t be doing the work. I will.” She was insistent. She wanted me there, so here I was.
I headed toward the birthing rooms. Seated on a chair next to the door of one on the rooms sat Marshall, looking nervous.
I also thought he looked quite pleased with himself, and I felt an urge to wipe that smugness off his face. My greeting was not friendly. “What are you doing here?”
“I can’t go in, but I wanted to make certain Sally was all right.”
“Of course you can’t go in there. The room is only for friends and family. When did you start worrying about Sally, and how did you find out about the labor?” I knew I sounded shrewish, but I didn’t care. This time his infectious good looks and the smile he flashed left me cold. The nerve of this man, checking to see the status of the competition for the estate.
He got up and reached out his hand as if to touch me. I brushed past him into the room. The first thing I heard was the wail of a baby.
“You’re too late, Hera. She’s already here.” Sally gave me a quick smile, then turned her attention to the bundle she held in her arms.
“You should have called me.” I was disappointed and felt left out.
“I told her. She made me call everyone else.” Sally’s mother shook her head.
“I knew you were minding the brewery and wouldn’t be able to get away. Besides, everything happened so fast. Mom was my labor coach.”
“I hardly got to do anything. This one just popped out.” The new grandmother beamed her delig
ht at her daughter and first grandchild.
The midwife nodded. “Fastest delivery I’ve ever attended.”
I approached the bed and enveloped Sally and the baby in an awkward embrace. “You look exhausted, but you look, I don’t know, you look very proud.”
“I am. Look what I did.” She held the baby out for me to see. “Want to hold your niece?”
My niece? We didn’t know that for sure, but even if this baby wasn’t related to me by blood, Sally and I were more than friends. We were like sisters. I took the tiny bundle into my arms and looked down into a face that was surprisingly beautiful, although scrunched up a bit with her crying. When she stopped for a minute and opened her eyes, I saw they were blue, like Michael’s, like Sally’s, like mine. But her hair said she was all Sally’s. A puff of red, downy like a little duck’s.
“You cloned her,” I said to Sally.
“The her of whom you speak is named Michaela Elizabeth Hera Ramford Granger, named for her grandmother, her aunt and her father. That should take care of everyone.”
“Mickey,” said the midwife.
“Anything but Mickey.” My voice pleaded not to use that nickname. I remembered all too well it was the name Cory, Michael’s girlfriend, had called him. We didn’t need to be reminded of her.
“No. If she’s to have a nickname, then it will be Lizzie after my mother.” Sally reached out and stoked the baby’s cheek.
A soft knock at the door was answered by the midwife. Marshall stuck his head in.
“May I come in? I won’t stay but a minute. I wanted to say congratulations to the mother and see the little one.”
I was about to tell him to leave, but Sally interrupted me.
“Oh, of course. Come in. Michaela would love to have another relative hold her.” She took the baby out of my arms and handed her to Marshall. He appeared surprisingly adept at holding a newborn. He looked every bit the father of the child. Why was Sally being so solicitous of this man?
I scrutinized her face, but it didn’t take a mind reader to understand what was happening to Sally. The glow of motherhood was accentuated by the flush of affection on her cheeks. Sally had a crush on Marshall, a big one. So this was what she had been so eager to tell me that she called and asked me to stop by the house today. I almost blurted out my shock and dismay at the situation, but I bit back my words and lifted the infant out of his arms.
“Sally’s exhausted, wouldn’t you say?” I turned to the midwife for confirmation. She nodded. “So let’s all of the extraneous relatives and, um, acquaintances, let her get some rest.” Before I could push Marshall toward the door, he leaned over Sally’s bed and placed a kiss on her blushing cheek.
“I’ll be by to see you tomorrow then.” He hovered over her just a minute too long for my taste.
“Oh, she’ll be back in her little apartment over the bakery by then.” The midwife seemed pleased that her charge could leave the hospital so soon.
Oh, good. That’s what he needed, a map and schedule of Sally’s whereabouts. I shoved him toward the door.
Back in the hallway, he turned to me. “Have you thought anything more about dinner?”
“What have you been up to?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, yes, you do. You’ve been spending time with Sally, haven’t you?’
“I like Sally, and she welcomed my company.”
“She was stuck at home in bed with a baby on the way. She would have welcomed the company of the town’s drunk. So what? You took advantage of the woman.” I was working myself up to a monumental rage against this man. I told myself I had every right to hate what he had done to her, but in mid-burn, I stopped. Was I trying to protect Sally, or was the anger all about my conflicted feelings? Not quite, I told myself. Marshall had made a pass at me just this morning, and all the while he was winning over Sally while she waited for the baby to be born. He was a duplicitous cad. I calmed myself.
“Look. I’m not about to fight with you outside Sally’s room. I’ll take you up on that dinner invitation, and we’ll straighten this out then.”
The door at the end of the hallway opened, and Jake entered, carrying a large bouquet of flowers and several packages wrapped in pink paper and tied with colorful ribbons. Marshall smiled at me, nodded to Jake, and walked away.
“How’s our little mother?” Jake’s whole face seemed to smile with joy.
“Tired but happy.”
“What was he doing here?” Jake jerked his head toward Marshall’s retreating figure.
“He’s up to no good. First he stops by my place this morning and …”
I stopped there. I had to be careful what I told Jake about Marshall’s visit. The kiss was not something I thought I should share with him.
“And what?” Jake’s voice was filled with suspicion.
“He offers to buy my brewery. Like I’d sell it, and certainly not to him.”
“Uh, huh. What else?”
“He’s been courting Sally since he came into town. Do you believe that?”
“Jealous?”
I hated it when Jake could ferret out my baser feelings, so I exploded at him, letting out all the fury I’d managed to control with Marshall.
“You jerk! Of course not. Jealous of what? A Michael look-alike who thinks he can come around here and wrap women around his finger?”
“That’s what I thought. I think I’ll just slip in and see Sally for a sec.” He opened the door and disappeared.
Why couldn’t he use his instincts for tracking down the killer, not harassing me about past feelings that were no longer relevant now? Why did Marshall have to remind me so of Michael? And he was such a rat to boot.
I stood facing the birthing room door, deciding whether I should go back in, and didn’t see Megan come up behind me.
“I went to Sally’s and saw the note. I need to talk to you.” Megan’s voice made me jump.
“You scared me. I didn’t see you there.” I looked down into her face, usually so innocent and pleasant, but now it was suffused with fear.
“What’s wrong?” I took her arm to lead her into the waiting area.
“No. I don’t want to go out there. He might be waiting for me.”
“Father’s out there?”
“Not Father, the man who just came from here. He was walking out when I was coming in.”
“Oh, that was Marshall. Not one of my favorite people.”
“Mine either, I guess. I think he was the man I saw in the shadows at your place the night Bruce was killed.”
Twelve
“Wait here.” I left Megan in the hall, then slipped back into Sally’s room and whispered in Jake’s ear.
Sally sat up in bed. “Something’s up. What?”
Jake patted Sally on the arm. “Police business.”
I remained in Sally’s room with baby Michaela while Megan and Jake talked in the hallway.
“What’s going on?” Sally’s tone was insistent.
There was no way I’d tell her Marshall was the man Megan saw in the shadows the night Bruce was killed.
“Megan wanted to discuss something about her accident with Jake.” I moved the items around on Sally’s bedside table.
She reached out for my hand, stopping my nervous sorting. “It was an accident, right? Not something more sinister?”
“Yep.” I managed to meet her eye. “Listen, I’d better let you get some rest.”
Sally grabbed tighter to my hand. “You’re lying to me, Hera. I can tell because you’re biting your upper lip. You always do that when you’re trying to protect someone you love by fibbing. What are you keeping from me?”
Sally was my best friend and someone I couldn’t hide the truth from. “Megan thinks she saw Marshall at my brew barn the night of Bruce’s death.”
I let go the breath I’d been holding.
“Megan would say anything to point the finger away from herself, wouldn’t she?” There was anger in Sally’s vo
ice. “Marshall and I discussed Megan and her group. It sure looks now as if she’s trying to distance herself from them, especially once Father Charles couldn’t provide her with an alibi for the night Tony’s bar was vandalized. She’s up to something, and you’re a fool to believe what she says and more of a fool to take her on at your place.”
“Once again you’re misplacing your trust.” It was on the tip of my tongue to call her a fool for letting Marshall get too close, just as she had with Michael, but so had I. I shut my mouth. This was supposed to be a joyous occasion, and I wasn’t going to ruin the day of her daughter’s birth for her. I’d already said too much.
“You think I shouldn’t trust Marshall, right?”
“I don’t think you know him well.” I tried to make my tone gentle and comforting.
“But you do.”
“No, I don’t. No one knows him, and that’s the problem.”
Before Sally and I could say more to hurt one another, Jake poked his head back into the room.
“Uh, Hera, there’s someone here to see you.”
“Who?”
“He says his name is Benny. He looks familiar to me, but I can’t place him.”
I stepped out of the room. A tall, emaciated looking young man of about thirty stood in the hallway, appearing very uncomfortable, as if he expected a doctor to grab him and wheel him off to surgery.
“Hera Knightsbridge?”
“That’s me. Who are you?”
Instead of answering, he slapped an envelope into my hand. “You’ve been served.” He turned and almost ran down the hall toward the entrance.
“Served?” Me?
“What did you do now?” Jake sounded aggravated but not surprised. Megan hovered in the hallway behind him.
I tore open the envelope and read the contents quickly.
“Oh, great.” I turned toward Megan. “Your parents are suing me for wrongful death.”
“Can they do that? You didn’t kill Bruce. The murderer is still unknown, right?” Megan looked first at me, then at Jake.
“It’s a civil suit. They can pretty much do anything they want to if they’ve got the money to pay for a lawyer.” I reread the papers more slowly.
“Interesting. I’ve got co-defendants. The college is named, specifically the dean and the head of the culinary program. That’ll please the president, who’s been looking for publicity for his food and hospitality program, but hardly this kind of press.”