She cleared her throat, and made an uneasy laugh, but I was not about to give her a chance to deny it again.
"Help me brainstorm, a minute who else has been in the cafe today and given Azure something to eat? This person would have to know that he was allergic to rosemary as it's an odd ingredient to put in treats. . .my mine is drawing a blank, can you think of anyone?"
"Fiddlesticks," she cursed and then yelled into the distance. "Butter! That dragon will be the death of me. I am so so sorry Hailey."
"I can't imagine why?" I ramped up my utter disbelief at her confession. I mean it was dripping with sarcasm, but I doubt she noticed.
"Azure probably hasn't discussed this with you yet, but much like he will help you with roasting the beans, Butter helps me in the bakery. When I was making the batch of treats yesterday, he was passing me the ingredients. I'm such a scatterbrain, I can never remember the recipes."
"I see" I said as I heard her rustling around in what I assumed was a trash can.
"I trusted him, I mean the treats were for him too. But since the whole batch is here in the trash ... he and Azure have been on the outs for years. I am just beside myself that this happened."
"I might be the newest protector, but I wasn't born yesterday, Tori. You can't really expect me to believe that you had no idea?"
"Oh my," she gasped. "Azure is really laying it into Butter. Poor baby."
Dragons cannot use phones. Oh. Duh.
Of course, dragons can transmit to one another, even when they are far away. How else would they organize? I had so much left to learn about being a dragon protector.
"As I said, I will not be partaking in these childish games. Please prepare to discuss this further at the meeting," I said in my best boss voice. "Azure is formulating punishments as we speak."
I hung up the phone before she could respond. I was not sure I could maintain the act. Being a leader was never in my plans. My highest aspirations were running the cafe, but that should have been many years from now.
Now I find out I am bonded to a dragon who is the leader of his tribe. And somehow that means I have become a leader of the other women? This was not fair. Tona should have given me some level of a heads up, right?
My eyes were hot with tears. The stress of it all was too much. Instead of swallowing them down as I had been this week, I rolled into my pillow. How the tea was I going to do this?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wednesday, February 19th
These were scheduled for your aunt before . . ." John said as he held a bouquet of roses and yellow tulips. "Well, we felt it best to go ahead and deliver them to you."
"Oh, my."
I was not prepared for this at all. Who would send Tona a bouquet? I did not know that she was dating anyone.
"Did you know about this?" I transmitted to Azure.
He refused to answer me. That little tea-tart.
"Thank you, John," I took the bouquet as his arm shook from holding them out.
"Who is it from?" Aubrey came to stand beside me.
"I don't know," I read the card, but they signed it with initials.
Tona,
Thank you for joining me at dinner last Friday. It was one of the best Valentine's I've had in a long while. A night for the record books.
I look forward to our next date.
With Love, S.W.
"Ooh, Tona had a boyfriend!" Aubrey whispered—giggled.
"Shh!" I whispered back, meeting her wide-eyed grin with one of my own. "I had no idea she was dating!"
"The things you learn about people after they pass away." She shook her head and went to refill a few mugs of coffee.
"Hey, do you think you could cover for me?" I asked once she returned and started on brewing another French press.
"Of course," Aubrey patted my shoulder. "Take as long as you need."
What would I have done without her? Accidentally burned down the cafe, no doubt.
"You're the best."
"No Tona was the best. No one's ever told me I was a night for the record books," She giggled through the end of her words.
"Stop it!" I said, holding back laughter as I did my best to sneak the flowers to the storeroom without drawing attention from the customers.
All the locals knew Aunt Tona—and now I—lived upstairs, but it did not make it any less awkward to walk up to my apartment in the middle of the day. At some point I would have to deal with the apartment I had been renting, and Tona's hoard, but that was a battle for another day.
"Azure. You get your scaly butt out here," I transmitted as I stepped onto the top landing.
He slipped out from under the sofa. How he fit under there with his giant belly, I would never know.
"What do you know about this?"
"Tona wasn't just your great aunt, she also had an active social life."
"Active?" I sat on the sofa. "How active? I didn't know she dated. I always thought she was a homebody."
"Just because she chose not to share her evening life with you, doesn't mean she didn't have one. And I would appreciate it if you left me out of it."
He stretched between steps as he walked into the kitchen to eat.
"I see your stomach is back to normal," I teased as he nibbled at the wet food in his bowl.
"I see you're as clever as a lump of wet tea."
I stuck my tongue out at him and went to the couch.
"Could have been whoever sent this?" I said aloud, as much to myself as to Azure.
"No," he transmitted. "It was Victoria and Butter. They're a real piece of work."
"No really," I transmitted. "If not this suitor, maybe another. It could be an ex. It's always an ex."
"I'll not discuss Tona's personal life. But we shared a special bond, and if it had been some lover, I would know."
"How?"
"You'll soon discover for yourself," he strolled out of the kitchen. "As a dragon protector, we will share emotions and thoughts fluidly. For now, it's intentional, but as our bond strengthens, it will just be a part of us."
"Don't you already hear my every waking thought, how is that different?"
"Don't blame me for your inability to close your mind."
"Like I knew that was something I needed to practice."
"The jury is still out on if you have the capacity to learn such a thing, but even so, you won't be able to silence everything. Especially emotionally charged moments."
"You have emotionally charged moments?"
"Don't mistake my regal nature as cold."
"Regal." I snorted.
"Even now I still grieve the loss. If not for my obligations to the tribe, I may have chosen to follow her."
Sometimes I could really put my foot in my mouth. I picked Azure up and gave him a hug. I had been so caught up in my own loss and discovery of being a dragon protector, that I had forgotten Azure had just lost his closest companion.
"How long were you two bonded?" The potential murder and cafe craziness had been distracting me from the many questions I had about our bond.
"This year would have been fifty years. I handpicked her out of the dozen cafes this area had to offer at the time."
I could not imagine what kind of pain that would be. Would he feel the same when I passed? How would I feel if he passed?
"So Tona was the first person you'd been bonded to?"
"Yes, my homeland is within the cavern systems. Young dragons can study to become a tribe leader and guard one of the many cave openings around the world. Tribe Rune is in charge of Longhorn Caverns, and a few other small openings around this area."
"Fascinating. What about the dragons in your tribe?"
"I handpicked each of them because of their magical talent, and guard scores. Butter assured me he had changed his mind after failing his own leader training. We'd been friends since hatchlings. I trusted him to move past it. Grow into the guard role that he excelled at. But I guess resentment often festers in those we never suspect."
A deep sorrow lingered in the apartment as we sat in silence.
Dark conversations are best dealt with by a hot cup of coffee. Tea—I had my best friend in the universe, waiting on me downstairs.
"I have to get back to the cafe, but I want to continue this conversation later."
"Tona would be proud of the way you've handled this week." he transmitted as he drifted off to sleep on the couch.
I stood there dumbfounded, trying to blink dust out of my eye for a moment before I headed back downstairs.
Did he just give me a compliment?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wednesday, February 19th
What is all of this?" I asked in desperation as I combed through the boxes left in the living room. Maybe going through this crap after closing up for the night wasn't the most solid idea.
How my aunt managed to live in a house that always looked like it was being packed up for moving, was one of the many things that would forever be a mystery.
"Tona was a meticulous keeper of records," Azure transmitted as he stretched out on the sofa to watch me work.
"This is impossible," I transmitted. "It'll take months to go through all of these."
"Nonsense," Azure transmitted.
He hopped off the sofa and brushed against me on the way to the kitchen.
"It'll take you years."
I could hear him laughing inside my mind.
The next box felt like it weighed a ton. After wrestling it to the ground, I opened it to find it full of books.
"Who stores books inside boxes?"
"Your aunt?" he transmitted in his best sarcastic tone.
I opened the drawer of the end table that held the phone—between the couch and my aunt's chair—looking for a pen and paper to make note of the box's content. Inside was a little black book, and I recalled all the old movies we watched together. And how the detective always found the murder's number inside the deceased's "little black book".
Did Aunt Tona have the killer's number? Maybe she at least had the number for the man who sent her the flowers. Who signs a love note with only their initials?
I flipped through the book looking for anyone with a last name W and first name S. Sure enough, Samuel Wilcox. But I did not find anyone else. This was the smoking gun I had been looking for.
"It was Sam," I transmitted. "He is the only contact in Aunt Tona's little black book with the initials SW."
"That doesn't mean he killed her," Azure transmitted back. "S.W. isn't exactly rare, Sean White, Scott Whitmore ... or they could have been having a love affair? Who knows what your aunt did with her free time?"
"No way! They hated each other. And you should know! Mr. can't hide emotionally charged moments!"
"I never pried into her personal life. We all have our secrets."
He walked down the hall into Aunt Tona's room. No doubt to take a nap on the bed. If I did not know he was a dragon, I would think he was a cat. He sure slept enough.
The box before me was full of old books. Covers discolored from years of storage. The second to the top book caught my eye. It was an old yearbook from Tona's high school. Was it wrong to read it?
Regardless, I opened the front cover and flip through the pages of black and white photos.
When I arrived at the W section, tucked between the pages was a folded sheet of paper.
To my primrose,
Your eyes are like oceans, deep and calm.
Black is your hair, like the night sky.
Fiery is our love, bright as lightning bugs.
I'll always remember of summer!
Love,
Samuel
"Ha!" I yelled out to make sure Azure heard. "I told you it's always an ex. And eww."
"You're such a prude," Azure transmitted back. "Now leave me be to sleep in peace."
If he kept that attitude and tone with me, I would have one homeless dragon out of my hair.
"You could help, you know."
"If you wish to defile the belongings of the deceased, you can do it yourself."
"It's not as if we're robbing a grave," I transmitted. "Besides, Aunt Tona left everything to me. So, I'm actually defiling my own belongings. Thank you very much!"
Great retort, Hailey.
"My sentiments exactly."
"Your mouth is on thin ice, Mr.!"
My evening dragged on in much the same manner. I shifted boxes around and made piles of book boxes to donate. The yearbooks I would hold on to. Especially the one with Sam's letter.
By the time I shut the lights off for bed, I was proud of the dent I put into the hoard. I just had to figure out how to get the donate pile to the Library Thrift Store down the street so I would have space to go through more.
A thousand trips on my bicycle did not sound like a well-spent day. Oh well, a problem for future me.
CHAPTER NINE
Thursday, February 20th
The shop was empty aside from Azure and I, just the way I liked it. There was always something magical about the cafe without customers. Almost as if the coffee was waiting just for me.
I needed to prepare for the dreaded meeting later, but first another busy day was ahead of me, I made myself an Aconite Affogato—freshly brewed espresso poured over two scoops of vanilla bean ice cream, and topped with a dash of chai spice. I must have tried close to a thousand different coffee drinks growing up with Aunt Tona owning Aconite Cafe, but an Aconite Affogato had always remained my favorite. Ice cream for breakfast was the best way to start any hectic day.
Next was to wipe down the counter and tables as I pulled down the chairs for the first customers. Usually older men who had long ago hung up their hats, but never quite shook off their routines of morning coffee.
"One of these days I'm going to train you to do some of this," I transmitted to Azure while I laid out the clean mugs and saucers.
Azure was curled up in the storeroom at the foot of the oven as it baked the morning croissants. And while I could not be one hundred percent sure, I thought he was purring to himself.
"You're not getting a croissant," I transmitted. "You might as well head back upstairs if that's all you're waiting on."
I checked the five-gallon bean container. Tonight or tomorrow I would have to make a fresh batch. Yet another task Aunt Tona always took care of, but it could not be that hard right?
"I'll have you know that Tona served me a pastry every morning. Besides, it's my magic that keeps this place thriving. It would behoove you to continue the tradition."
"Oh yeah?" I transmitted, Would his ego fit in the cafe after this conversation? Ugh.
"I'm only saying, the best coffee in Texas isn't going to roast itself into perfection."
"And you're responsible for that?"
"Me alone," he transmitted.
"Well, then."
The oven chimed, and I rushed over to pull out the sheets of pastries.
"Grace me with a croissant and I'll explain."
"Oh, geez. . . fine, let's hear it," I let a corner croissant fall to the ground.
By time I had them carefully set inside the pastries display, Azure had already devoured his own. The buttery pastry left a residue behind on the scales around his mouth. It looked as if he was wearing lip gloss.
"How about—"
"No sir," I cut him off. "You can't have another one. You gave your word, Mr."
"I'm a dragon. My word is golden," he let out a small burp, and curled back up in front of the oven to absorb the residual heat. "The roaster is mostly for show. . ."
"Okay?"
"Not too bright, are you? I thought that would be enough."
"Azure!"
"Oh all right," he yawned. "I use my magical fire to roast the beans. Comes out perfect every time, and infuses them with a little something extra. It's why people all across the state will drive back to get another cup. It's truly the best coffee in Texas."
The sound of a trash can falling in the alley caused him to jump into a fighting
stance. I ran to the back door and cracked it open to peer outside. I could not see anyone, but something had knocked our trash over. No doubt a loose herd of deer scared off by the street traffic.
William was working with the city council to do something about the overpopulation of deer. With mostly residents being retired, they spent their leisure time planting favorites for the deer. It had led to more deer than humans roaming the town.
Hunters wanted to develop an inter-town bow season—which had shown effectiveness in thinning the herds in neighboring towns—but William shut that idea down quickly. I could only imagine someone like Tanner running around the town with a bow.
"We need to discuss the murder before the meeting tonight," Azure transmitted, to put an end to my thought tangent.
"You really know how to kill a vibe," I transmitted.
"Classy,"
"Too soon?"
Azure shook himself out in response and walked to the front windows to soak up the morning sun.
"As I was saying, you will have to confront Tori at tonight's meeting regarding the murder. If she did it, we will handle it as a tribe, and then report it to the police."
"I'm just not convinced that Tori did it. Not to say she doesn't have the motive, it just doesn't feel right."
"We can't wait for you to have a feeling, it might be years before you come to terms with what happened."
I tried my best to transmit a blank stare.
"At some point you have to face the fact that dragons are superior to humans."
"Fat chance of that happening."
A silence lingered between us. I just didn't get why he was so dead set on Tori. All that I knew of her didn't equate to killer or leader material. "Tell me exactly why you are so sure it's Tori. Where were you that night anyway? Shouldn't you have been here with Tona?"
"For five decades Tona and I were bonded, we had a routine, and it included radio silence unless we needed to speak with each other."
"So you weren't at the cafe?"
"I will probably regret that for the rest of my life. If only I would have been here, maybe, just maybe . . ."
He went silent, and I heard sniffles from the windows. An overwhelming feeling of loss and heartbreak took over my emotions. His sadness at the loss of Tona differed vastly from the front he had been putting on.
A Fresh Brew Page 4