Inherit the Word (The Cookbook Nook Series)

by Gerber, Daryl Wood

  “Meow!” Tigger raced from beneath the cookie preparation table and leaped onto the counter by the register.

  “I didn’t do it.” The freckle-faced boy threw his hands in the air, which of course meant he had done whatever it was.

  I hurried to the counter and scooped up Tigger, a new wave of anxiety gushing through me. “Shh, fella. You’re okay. Why are you so jumpy today?” I checked him out, making sure he didn’t have icing in his eyes or ears—he didn’t—and breathed a sigh of relief. I frowned at the boy, whose mother was giving him a quiet talking-to. I imagined pulling a cat’s tail had been one of his crimes. He nodded obediently to her, but I could see he was holding back giggles.

  As I set Tigger on the ground and encouraged him to be brave and mingle with the public again, I heard a jangle.

  “Phone’s ringing,” Bailey said as she sidled behind me to set down her things.

  I rummaged through my purse, which I had stowed on a shelf beneath the antique National cash register, and retrieved my cell phone. The readout said: Whitney. Wholesome, wondrous Whitney. My sister was brilliant at most things, but being a home-business entrepreneur, she was a tad dim when it came to knowing the hours other people kept at work. I asked Bailey to mind the shop, then sneaked to the storage room with my cell phone and pressed Send. “Hey, Sis. I can’t talk right now. We have a kids’ soiree going on.” Not to mention a café to run and more cookbooks to inventory.

  “Jenna Starrett Hart, listen up.”

  I was single when I had established myself in my advertising career. After David and I got married, I decided not to change my surname to his, Harris. Hart . . . Harris. People would have gotten confused.

  “Jenna,” my sister barked.

  “Don’t have a tizzy.” I laughed. I loved pushing my sister’s buttons. “What’s up?”

  “You know I’m here in Crystal Cove.”

  “No.” If she was checking up on me after my encounter with a murderer last month, I was going to clock her. I didn’t need a reminder. I had put the past behind me. And I could clock her. I had six inches on her and a lot more hard-earned muscle, especially since I’d returned to a daily routine of running on the beach.

  “Well, I am. I’m at The Seaside Bakery on The Pier getting the cake for Dad’s surprise party tonight. You know it’s tonight, right?”

  I would have if she had clued me in. To anything. Ever. Well-meaning, warped Whitney. All my life I’d slung W adjectives together for my sister. She did the same to me: jazzy, jittery Jenna. Luckily I didn’t have plans.

  “Anyway,” my sister continued, “I need you to pick up—” She halted, then screeched, “Omigosh!”

  “What?”

  “Get down here. Right. Now.”

  “No need to shout. Where are you?”

  “The Seaside Bakery. Aren’t you listening? I mean it. Come right now. And bring Bailey. Her mom, Lola. I think she’s going to throw a punch.”

  Chapter 2

  I GRABBED MY purse, snagged Bailey, and hurried out of The Cookbook Nook. She kept pace, which surprised me. Usually her short stride was no match for my long legs.

  “What’s going on?” she cried.

  “Your mom.”

  Bailey blanched. “What about her? Is she okay?”

  “Yes. She’s . . . Whitney called . . . Punch.” I couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

  “Your sister wants us to join her for a drink?”

  “No.”

  “How does this involve my mom? I don’t understand.”

  “Get in.” I pointed to my VW bug.

  Even though the car sputtered and hiccupped, I drove to The Pier in lickety-split time. The extensive parking lot to the south was nearly full, but I found a spot at the farthest end. By repeating our buddy dash, we were running on the boardwalk in less than three minutes.

  “Do you see your mom?” I held a hand above my eyes to block the sun.

  “There must be hundreds of people here. Why are you so worried?”

  Hordes of tourists as well as locals were milling about. Many with shopping bags. Others with surfboards. Loads with corndogs on a stick. A line ran out of the barn-shaped Bait and Switch Fishing and Sport Supply Store. The place was probably having a sale. I darted around the throng and made a beeline for The Seaside Bakery. I couldn’t make it past the crowd outside Mum’s the Word Diner.

  Bailey grinned. “What do you bet someone from the diner is tossing out tickets to win a free brunch again?”

  A hoot of encouragement erupted from a guy in the swarm. A second onlooker let out with a whoop of football-fan-like glee.

  A third man standing quietly at the back of the crowd made me stop in my tracks. For a second, I was struck by just how much he reminded me of my deceased husband, and the memories caught up with me.

  Over two years ago, David had gone sailing. Two days later, another sailor discovered his empty boat. The investigators determined that David must have struck his head and fallen overboard. David wasn’t a master sailor, but he was a strong swimmer; he refused to wear a life jacket. For the first two years after his death, I was distraught without him. Moving to Crystal Cove had been the right decision for me. I started over. I was making new memories. I was finding my smile.

  Until right now. Where in the heck was Bailey’s mother, Lola?

  “Is that Whitney?” Bailey pointed. A woman, also near the back of the pack, had short blonde hair, but she was not my older sister.

  “Forget Whitney. Do you see your mom?” I pushed my way through a couple of thickset men who looked like they regularly ate at Mum’s the Word, or as the locals called it, the Word.

  Bailey followed. As we reached the front of the pack, she yelled, “Mom, don’t!”

  Lola Bird, as tiny and curvy as her daughter, stood with her fists primed.

  Bailey tried to press forward. I held her back. “Wait. I think she’s okay. She looks like she’s in control.” I adored Lola; she was like my second mother. I had her to thank for my love of books.

  Though Lola’s foot drilled the boardwalk, her face seemed composed. She was standing opposite Natalie Mumford, the owner of the Word. Natalie, who was in her fifties with perfect teeth, perfect gold-blonde hair, and a perfectly plastic demeanor, was the instigator of last year’s Grill Fest fiasco.

  “Admit it, Natalie,” Lola demanded.

  “What does my mother want Natalie Mumford to admit?” Bailey asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Whitney didn’t tell me, and if you didn’t notice, I just got here myself.”

  “This looks serious. Check out my mother’s skin. She’s pale. Is she going to faint?”

  Lola did not appear remotely ashen. She had copper-toned skin and her cheeks were flushed pink. By the glisten in her eyes, she was having a good time. Before buying The Pelican Brief Diner down the road, Lola had worked as a lawyer defending the poor and downtrodden. During her lucrative career, she had challenged some of the state’s staunchest attorneys. I adored her wit and saucy personality.

  Someone in the gathering erupted with another hoot. I glanced around. Were people expecting a catfight? Were they betting on the outcome?

  “Admit it,” Lola repeated.

  “I did not steal him,” Natalie said. A harpy couldn’t have sounded shriller.

  “He left my employ for yours,” Lola said, her voice steady. “I’d like to know why.”

  Bailey dragged me over to Natalie’s business manager, Sam Sykes, the husband to Natalie’s Grill Fest nemesis. With his weathered skin, thick nose, and crinkly eyes, he reminded me of a mature cop in a TV drama. “Who are they talking about, Sam?”

  “Your mother thinks Natalie stole her chef,” he said.

  “Did she?”

  “He’s working days at Mum’s the Word now.”

  Natalie raised a fist. “I don’t steal. I have never stealed.”

  “Stolen,” Lola said, correcting her.

  Natalie seethed. She took an ominous ste
p toward Lola.

  “Mother. Don’t.” Natalie’s rail-thin daughter, a woman about my age and a regular at The Cookbook Nook, scuttled from the pack of lookie-loos, cinched the belt of her oversized sweater, and grabbed her mother by the hand. “Please. Stop. Let’s go back inside the diner.”

  Natalie shook free. “Let me go. You have no idea what’s going on. You never do.”

  “But—”

  “Ellen, I said back off.”

  Natalie’s daughter plucked at her pixie-style haircut; her China-doll cheeks blazed red.

  Her husband, a buff man in his early thirties with a fashion model’s smoldering eyes, took hold of her by the shoulders. “Let me handle it, honey.” Natalie’s daughter didn’t argue as her husband barged around his mother-in-law and blocked her. “Natalie . . . Mother . . . don’t make a spectacle—”

  “Out of my way, you fool.” Possessing more strength than I would have given her credit for, Natalie shoved him aside. Maybe all those years working at the diner had built up her core muscles. “I am standing my ground. With this liar. On my boardwalk.”

  “This is the town’s boardwalk, Natalie,” Lola said. “And the town’s pier. You do not have particular rights to it. You did not have the right to steal my chef, either. What did you do, threaten him?”

  “Threaten him?”

  “Tell him you were going to reveal some tawdry secret he was keeping?”

  “Don’t be absurd. I doubled his salary.”

  “There,” Lola said, playing the crowd like a jury. “She admitted it. He quit last Sunday because she lured him away.”

  Natalie sucked in a breath. Her face started to turn purple. I scanned the crowd for Sam’s wife, Mitzi. If she were here—which she wasn’t—she would be reveling in this public shaming of Natalie Mumford.

  “Uh-oh,” Sam said. “I think I should intervene.” He hurried to Natalie and tapped her shoulder.

  She pivoted and nearly punched him in the nose. When she saw whom she’d almost assaulted, she pulled her arm back, and quickly said, “I’m sorry.” In girlish fashion, and totally out of character, she swooped a loose curl back into her perfect coif. “I didn’t know you were here, Sam.” More twirling. Was she flirting with him? “Say, has something been bothering you lately?”

  “No.”

  “You seem distracted.”

  “I’m focused.”

  “Is your health okay?”

  “Everything’s good. Ticker’s ticking.” Sam knuckled his chest; he was definitely flirting with her.

  “Good to hear, because I sure don’t want you balancing the books if you’re a little off.” She winked.

  “Nope. I’m fit as a fiddle.” He grinned.

  “Well, then”—in a flash, Natalie’s girlie behavior vanished, and she became as icy as a cold front—“what the blazes do you want?”

  Sam flinched. For years, he had worked for Natalie. He assisted other business concerns around town, including a couple of the shop owners at Fisherman’s Village. Every time I’d run into him in the past, I had felt like he’d wanted to offer his services, but I hadn’t given him the opening. We didn’t need him, as well respected as he might be. My aunt was an ace bookkeeper. Bailey ran a close second.

  “Let’s go inside and talk, Natalie,” Sam said.

  “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?” She hitched a thumb at her adversary.

  “Lola is goading you. Don’t take the bait.”

  “I heard that, Sam Sykes,” Lola said. “I’ll have you know I am not goading her. I’m telling the truth. She did what she did to spite me. To hurt my business. She needed another chef like a hole in the head. And if you say anything to the contrary, I won’t serve you your favorite cheeseburger smothered in bacon and guacamole anymore.”

  Natalie gasped. “Sam, say it isn’t so. You go”—she clapped her hand dramatically to her chest—“to her restaurant?”

  Sam petted her arm. “I go to lots of restaurants, Natalie. So do you.”

  “Traitor.”

  “C’mon, enough of this nonsense,” Sam said. “Let’s go inside the diner. Tend to the customers. Do what you love. And let’s apologize to your daughter.”

  Natalie yanked away from him. “I knew it. I knew you’d turn on me.”

  “Natalie—”

  “Sam, I adore you, but I hired you to advise me on numbers not on relationships.”

  Ouch. I eyed Sam, who did his best not to react.

  “Hoo-hoo-hoo,” Lola cried. “Natalie, if you keep spurning family and friends like that, you’re going to burn every relationship you have.”

  “Stay out of my affairs, Lola. I’m warning you.”

  “Really? You’re warning me? I’m warning you.” Lola gestured to the rapt crowd again. “In fact, if you’re not nicer to everyone around here, someone’s going to hit you upside the head with a fry pan to knock sense into you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Nope.” Lola’s bright blue eyes glimmered with humor. “Just an observation. One diner owner to another.”

  Natalie stabbed a finger at Lola. “Then let me advise you that you might be the one that needs some sense knocked into her.”

  “How so?”

  “You don’t pay your staff enough. You’re cheap.”

  “I’m what?” Lola’s voice skated up a scale of notes.

  “And you entered the Grill Fest. What were you thinking?”

  “I’m not following,” Lola said.

  Bailey whispered, “I’m not, either.”

  “You’re not using your noggin, Lola.” Natalie tapped her temple. “You know you’ll lose. Why on earth did you enter?”

  “Uh-oh,” Bailey said. “Look at my mother’s hands. She’s balling them up again.”

  Energy rippled up Lola’s arms. “You have some ego, lady.”

  “I should,” Natalie countered. “I’m the winner eight years in a row. Eight. Count ’em.”

  I stiffened. Even the top salesman at Taylor & Squibb, a proud peacock if ever there was one, couldn’t have looked as smug as Natalie.

  “Not this time,” Lola said. “You’re going down. If not to me, then to one of the other contestants.”

  “No way will I lose to you, unless you bribe the judges.”

  “Bribe? Me? Why you . . .” Lola was gritting her teeth so tightly her jaw muscles were twitching.

  “That’s my cue,” Bailey said and dashed to her mother. “Mom. Whoa. Breathe.”

  Natalie’s family and friends corralled her.

  At the same time, my cell phone buzzed. I whipped it out of my purse and glanced at the text from my sister: Sorry, I had to run. Another text quickly followed: On my way to set up Dad’s surprise party. See you there.

  Wretched, witless Whitney.

  • • •

  I WENT TO my father’s birthday party. Taking the high road, I didn’t chide my sister for forgetting to invite me. When we said good night at the door, she bussed my cheek and promised to keep in touch. I lied and said that would be nice.

  The moment I entered my cottage, which was a study in simplicity—one expansive room with a bachelorette kitchen, a bay window facing the ocean, a fireplace, a wall of books, a niche for my art supplies, and a beautiful wrought-iron bed—Tigger attacked me. Why was he so freaked out? I had only left him home for two hours. He leaped on my leg and slid down, digging his claws into my bare calf to slow his progress. Yeow.

  “What’s up, buddy?” Adrenaline pumped through me. I switched on a few lights, fetched a huge flashlight and hammer from the kitchenette drawers, and dashed through the cottage, checking behind doors and in all the closets. Intruders and I weren’t fast friends. Finding no one, I murmured, “We’re safe. We’re alone.” So why wouldn’t my pulse stop chugging?

  Choosing to do ordinary things to calm myself, I filled the kitty’s water bowl, fished a kitty treat from a jar, and picked him up.

  He yowled.

  “I understand,
” I said. “I need to be the leader in the calm department. I’ll work on it.”

  When both of us settled down, I gave him the treat and put him on the floor. Taking my aunt’s sage advice, I decided to cook. She guaranteed that the aroma of freshly baked cookies in the house not only soothed her but helped her sleep better. I gathered oatmeal, flour, sugar, eggs, and raisins for a simple dump-in-a-bowl cookie recipe, and then, instead of putting on Judy Garland music—many of Judy’s heartfelt renditions brought me to tears, and I didn’t want to cry—I set a positive-thinking tape into the CD player.

  After a minute of recorded ocean waves lapping upon the shore, an instructor began to speak. She told me to relax my shoulders. To loosen my jaw. To breathe deeply. She said, “Repeat after me: I will keep my head up and my heart open. Good things will come into my life.”

  As I measured the dry ingredients, I repeated the mantra.

  Next, the instructor said, “Good. Let’s continue. Repeat after me: To go upward, I must go onward. C’mon, say it loudly.”

  I started to giggle. The gal was a yoga teacher in Hollywood, but I figured she must have been a cheerleader at one point in her life.

  “C’mon,” she reiterated, as if she knew her listeners were breaking into hysterics.

  At the top of my lungs, I said, “To go upward, I must go onward.”

  Tigger, who had nestled into his comfy bed in the kitchen, leaped to his feet and dashed to my side.

  “Chill, cat,” I said. “I’m meditating. To go upward—”

  He dove at my sandal-clad feet as if they were monsters.

  “Cut it out.” I nudged him with the side of my foot.

  He tore away and pounced onto the red Ching cabinet. Before I could stop him, he careened into the ten-inch-tall, gold Lucky Cat figurine that David and I had purchased on a rainy day in San Francisco. The sculpture, a bobtail cat holding its paw upright, was meant to bring good fortune. Ever since I had brought Tigger home that first night, he’d had it in for that fake cat.