Dyeing Wishes (36 page)

Put chocolate chips and cream in microwave-safe bowl. Heat in microwave in 15-second intervals, stirring between intervals, until melted and smooth. Stir in butter. Let stand until spreadable, about 30 minutes. While cake is still on rack, spread ganache over top and sides. Transfer to cake plate. Chill at least 2 hours and up to 1 day.

Joe Dunbar’s Versatile
Squashed Squash

1 pound small zucchini, cut into large pieces

1¾ cups vegetable stock

1 onion, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint leaves

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Simmer zucchini in stock until soft. Drain and mash in colander to remove extra liquid (save stock for soup another time or just drink it).

In large frying pan, sauté onion in olive oil until golden. Add garlic and stir just until it begins to color. Add mashed zucchini, mint, lemon juice, salt, and pepper, stirring and mixing well for about 5 minutes.

This makes an excellent dip for raw vegetables or pita chips or a wonderful spread for flatbread or crostini, or can be used as a pizza sauce on a grilled vegetable pizza.

Read on for a sneak peek at the

next Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery,

Spinning in Her Grave

Coming in early 2014 from Obsidian

“W
hat do you mean, you won’t use your gun?” The incredulity in my voice should have scathed the ears off any self-respecting sheriff’s deputy. But the particular deputy standing in front of me did nothing more than momentarily stop staring at the heavy wooden door we were trapped behind and give me some kind of look over his shoulder. There wasn’t time to decipher Cole Dunbar’s look, though. The smoke was getting thicker and I heard an ominous crackling in the far corner. Scratch that. None of the corners in this misbegotten, soon-to-be-flaming outbuilding were far away enough. By then I didn’t care that it might be an early-nineteenth-century loom house—National Register-worthy status be hanged. “Take your stupid gun
out
and shoot the stupid door
down
!”

“You’re getting hysterical,” Deputy Dunbar said.

“I’m trying hard not to. I am also trying not to be critical or sarcastic, but I’d like very much not to become a smoked ham in here so
please use your gun
!”

“Look at me, Kath. Look at me. Am I wearing my holster?” He was using the infuriating tone of voice of someone who doesn’t know how to calm a two-year-old, let alone the woman with whom he’s about to become seared tuna. “Do you see my gun, Kath? I did not say I
won’t
use my gun; I said I
can’t
. I
can’t
use my gun because
my gun is not here. No gun. Besides, you obviously watch too much TV or not enough of the right kind of TV. Shooting a door, especially a thick oak plank door with iron hardware, isn’t the best way to get out of a building. Especially a burning building. Especially a burning building that also contains seven cans of gasoline.”

He had to mention the gasoline again. I spun around to see how close we were to being blown sky-high and following the seven cans, the roof, and the whole rest of the building to either North Carolina or Kingdom Come, Kentucky. I’d already dragged the cans from the back wall into the middle of the structure, but that wasn’t going to help much. The whole place was only fifteen by twenty feet. The middle of it wasn’t a safe distance from any other part of it, smoking, smoldering, crackling or otherwise.

“We’d better finish coming up with an alternative exit plan fast, then,” I said, turning back. “
Now
what are you doing?”

He had the palms of his hands on the door. He held them there for a few seconds, and then moved them to another spot, and then another area lower down.

“Testing for heat,” he said.

“Now the
door’s
on fire?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he straightened, reared back, and rammed his shoulder into the door. He made a good thump when he hit, and he let out a muffled “oof,” but nothing else happened. The whole sweet little loom house-turned-storage shed may be starting to smolder, but you couldn’t fault its stout materials and construction. Deputy Dunbar rubbed his shoulder and clamped his lips on anything further.

“Ouch,” I said for him. “Okay, now I
am
going to be critical. Why
don’t
you have your gun? What were you
going to do if you hadn’t found
me
snooping around in here? Did you think of that? What if I’d been someone else who
did have
a gun?”

“You know what the difference is between you and me?” he said, turning from the door to scrabble through a motley collection of yard tools I’d already searched. “It’s the difference between talk and action. You can’t shut up about the gun.” He swept aside leaf rakes and a snow shovel. “And I’m trying to get us out of here.”

“With that?”

He held a weed trimmer in his white-knuckled fist.

“No.” He tossed the trimmer aside and lunged past me.
“This!”
With a look of triumph, he grabbed a three-foot length of black pipe from the shadows against the wall behind me. He weighed it in both hands like a trophy fish. Then he moved his hands apart and I saw, as though he’d performed sleight of hand, that there were actually two pipes, one sliding in and out of the other, with the inner piece ending in a wicked-looking wedged tip, like a giant screwdriver.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Solid steel salvation.”

“Hang on a second, though—”

“No time.”

We were both coughing from the acrid smoke by then, and flames licked the back wall, but there was something there in the shadows…

“But there’s—”

“No buts. Wish me luck, little sweetheart—then stand back.” Before I realized what was happening, he swept me into a one-armed embrace, planted a kiss on my lips, and pushed me behind him.

And then Deputy Cole Dunbar, man of action but not so many listening skills, holding the whatever-it-was like a medieval pole-arm or miniature battering ram, charged
full tilt at the door. And in the split second before he smashed our way out of that fiery deathtrap, I knew I should be impressed, grateful, and possibly in starry-eyed love with a true hero.

Instead I felt like a complete heel. There I was, surrounded by smoke, threatened by flames and exploding gasoline cans, being rescued by a tall, fit, gung-ho deputy sheriff, and the only thoughts sputtering in my head were
A kiss? Little sweetheart? Well, this is a disturbing turn of events.

Ten days earlier…

“With guns?” I stared at the man standing on the other side of the sales counter in the Weaver’s Cat, my fiber and fabric shop in Blue Plum, Tennessee. I’d only just met him—Mr. J. Scott Prescott, as it said on the card he’d slid across the counter. He was slight and had a well-scrubbed, earnest face that at first glance put him anywhere from his early twenties to mid-thirties. He wore an expensive suit and tie, though, and had the beginnings of crow’s feet. Taken together, those details put him closer to the mature, successful end of that age range. He also came across as calm and operating on an even keel, despite the mention of guns. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to appear the competent, calm business owner so early on a Friday morning, I couldn’t help sounding more edgy than even. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Your town board already gave us—” Mr. Prescott started to say.

I interrupted, holding up my hand. “But you say they’re running through the streets with guns?”

“Only some of them will be running.” Again, the gravitas of his suit and tie helped.

“Okay, well…”

“Half a dozen. A dozen, tops, and we reconsidered the burning torches and decided against them. Most of the rest of the actual participants will be posted at strategic points around town.” He gestured right and left, fingers splayed in his excitement. Thank goodness for the suit—otherwise, he was beginning to look and sound like an eager Boy Scout. “We already have permission to use the park,” he said, “and the old train depot and the upper porch of Cunningham house. The main concentration of dispersal will be in the two or three blocks surrounding and centering on the courthouse.” His hands outlined several concentric circles, then came together with a ghost of a clap and he leaned toward me. “Oh, and we’ve been given access to the roof of the empty mercantile across from the courthouse. All of those places are for the visible men; the rest will be hiding. As I said, the plans and permissions have been in place for several months, but one of the property owners was recently obliged to back out, and that’s where you and the Weaver’s Hat come in.”

“Cat.”

“Pardon?” He straightened.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but we’re the Cat, as in ‘meow.’ Not ‘hat.’”

“Really? I’m embarrassed.”

“It’s okay.”

“Anyway, we’d love it if one or two of the men could sneak in here during the action and watch from the windows upstairs.”

“Hmm.”

“They won’t get in your way at all. They’ll watch at the windows and when they see the other men out there in the street, they’ll stick their heads out and shoot. They might also do the famous yell, but I’ll tell them that’s optional, sort of as the spirit moves them, if you see what
I mean. A bloodcurdling yell, like, that really whips up the enthusiasm of the spectators, though, and between that and the shots erupting from unexpected places, it’ll keep things off-balance in a realistic enough way that the whole reenactment will have an incredible sense of authenticity and it’ll be great.” He stopped, eyes wide. I took a step back.

“At this point I should ask you not to divulge any of the details we’ve discussed,” he said. “We’re keeping the program under wraps. Looking for the big reveal, if you see what I mean. The wow. Also, I forgot to ask, do the windows upstairs open? Because, you know, there wouldn’t be much point in anyone hiding up there and then trying to shoot out of them if they don’t.”

I’d processed his words and understood his gesturing hands, and it would have taken a harder history-loving heart than mine to ignore the excitement of a good-natured reenactment. The tourists flocking to town for our annual heritage celebration—Blue Plum Preserves—would no doubt love it, too. But my mind kept skipping back to my original question. “With
guns
?”

J. Scott blinked.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout,” I said. I surreptitiously wiped my mouth in case I’d also spit. “But the stories I remember hearing always made that whole episode sound more like a loud fuss between neighbors—with a lot of that yelling—than a feud. With guns.”

“But these days a feud is more fun,” he said. “Plus, think of the marketing possibilities. If it goes well this year, just wait until next year. And I can assure you it will be perfectly safe. No projectiles. No live rounds. No actual aiming at people. I think your mayor and aldermen were impressed by how thoroughly and carefully I’ve choreographed the event. It will be playacting at its finest. Verisimilitude and good fun. We’re taking Blue
Plum’s worn-out skit and giving it the life it should be living. We’re giving Blue Plum’s history the voice and resonance it was meant to have. Believe me when I say this will take your festival weekend to the next level. Blue Plum Preserves is going to be on the map and on every heritage tourist’s itinerary. The result will be more visitors, more fun, and more money in the merchants’ pockets. Win-win-win. And here’s something else that will interest you. If I’m not mistaken, one of the originators of the festival, a founding mother, if you will, was a knitter just like you.”

“Are you talking about Ivy McClellan?”

“Possibly.” He nodded. “Yes. Ivy. That could be the name I read. I see you know your local history. That’s wonderful. I think she might be the one who dabbled on the original skit, too. The records aren’t entirely clear on that.”

“Ivy McClellan was my grandmother.”

“You’re kidding. Is she still…”

“She died four months ago. This was her shop. She and a couple of friends wrote the skit based on their research.”

“I am so sorry for your loss.” He gave his sorrow half a beat. “But then, this will be especially wonderful. It could hardly be more appropriate for the shop to have a role in this year’s celebration. You will be honoring your grandmother’s memory and her vision by letting part of the action take place here. And that win-win-win I mentioned? It will go for you and the Weaver’s Cat, too. You’ll see. People eat this stuff up.” He smacked his lips and smiled. “Frankly, I’m surprised you aren’t already aware of the reenvisioning of what I believe is a cornerstone activity of Blue Plum Preserves.”

I opened my mouth—but to say what? That I’d been busy planning the shop’s own festival booth and related
activities? Maybe. To tell him my life had been upended and my mind otherwise occupied since Granny died? Probably not, but it didn’t matter, anyway. He was primed and ready and got in ahead of whatever I might have said.

“Also, if you stop and think, I feel sure you’ll realize that your focus is on the wrong component of the event.” He shook his head with a sad cluck of his tongue. “It happens, though. You aren’t the first by any means. You only have to mention guns and there are people who will misinterpret what you’re trying to do. But I think that, like the others, you’re missing the educational importance of this kind of event. You’re focusing on a small part of our toolset and missing the bigger picture of our message.”