She knew it would take some effort to get her into the world of a clever wolf, a dark forest and an adventurous girl with a picnic basket.
Kylie sank onto her chair, feeling unsettled, strangely out of her element. Had she made a mistake moving here?
But she knew she hadn’t. As fantastic as it was, the house she’d rented had made her think about what she didn’t have. This place worked fine, given her solitary ways and her bad luck with men.
* * *
She lasted twenty minutes at her worktable.
She was working on the perfect tree to go in front of the grandmother’s house in Little Red Riding Hood. She was doing sketches by hand, on paper. She stared at the last one. Not good. It looked more appropriate for a story about zombies than a classic fairy tale.
She balled it up and tossed it into the recycling bin under her table, on top of the other discarded sketches. She debated switching to her computer and drawing on her art board, but she knew from experience that wouldn’t work, either.
Her tree needed more time. It wasn’t there, and working harder and longer wasn’t going to make it be there.
Also, she was distracted.
She noticed Sherlock Badger tucked at the base of her task lamp and smiled. She’d put him together with bits of fabric, dryer lint, a few notions she raided from discarded clothes, a needle and thread and glue.
Now here was a guy, Kylie thought.
Never mind that he was only four inches tall.
He was a law enforcement officer in a series of picture books for young readers she’d created. He wasn’t in all the books. He didn’t live in Middle Branch, the fictional town where his Badger cousins had a house and a veterinary clinic on a river.
Kylie pointed her finger at him. “Not a word about my Little Red Riding Hood tree. Not. A. Word.” She tossed her sketching pencils in their basket, one she’d picked up in Paris, before that ill-fated bottle of wine with the sculptor. “I’m not stuck. I’m just thinking.”
She picked a piece of lint off Sherlock. He had a square jaw and a tough look about him, but he was solid, trustworthy and brave.
What would Sherlock do if a private investigator came to Middle Branch?
It would depend on what people had to hide, wouldn’t it?
Kylie felt her throat tighten. She sprang to her feet, restless, uncertain. Three years ago, when she’d had the idea for The Badgers of Middle Branch, the first book she would write as well as illustrate, she’d decided to work under a pseudonym and keep Kylie Shaw separate.
She’d chosen Morwenna Mills as her alter ego.
A year later, when the Badgers had debuted, they had been an instant hit with young readers. More Badger books followed. Instead of telling everyone she was Morwenna, Kylie had kept it to herself. Even her family didn’t know. Lila didn’t know.
Would Russ Colton, PI, want to know?
He didn’t have to want to know. All he had to do was start asking questions about the only resident at Moss Hill, and he could complicate her life.
Copyright © 2016 by Carla Neggers
ISBN-13: 9781460396384
Red Clover Inn
Copyright © 2017 by Carla Neggers
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Red Clover Inn--A Romance Novel Page 29