Illegally Iced (22 page)

We finished eating, and as we were cleaning up, my cell rang. It was Grace, so I asked Momma, “Do you mind if I get it? It might be important.”

“Go on, take it in the living room,” she said.

“Don’t do all those dishes without me,” I said as I flipped open the phone and walked out of the room.

“How did it go, Grace?”

“Murphy is officially off the chief’s list of suspects.”

“He got confirmation of the class?”

“He did,” Grace said.

“Are you home now?” I asked her.

She hesitated, and then said, “Actually, I decided to go out for a while.”

“With Murphy?” I asked jokingly.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” she answered mildly, as though she was expecting some kind of reaction from me.

“Have fun, then, and don’t stay out too late,” I said.

“What? No cracks, comments, or laughter?” she asked.

“Hey, you’re a grown woman. If you think you can find happiness with a blacksmith, you shouldn’t deprive yourself of the chance.”

“It’s one drink, Suzanne,” she said. “It’s hardly a proposal.”

“You know what Momma used to tell us when we were teenagers,” I reminded Grace.

“Don’t date anyone you can’t see yourself marrying someday,” she quoted. “After all, who knows where that first date could lead?”

“Excellent. You get a gold star,” I said. “Seriously, have fun. Will you be by the shop tomorrow? You’re still off, right?”

“I’ll be there,” she said. “See you around eleven-fifteen.”

“Bye,” I said, and then rejoined Momma in the kitchen.

Of course the dishes were finished and drying in the rack by the sink by the time I got there.

“I thought you were going to wait for me,” I said.

“You offered, I declined,” Momma said with a smile. “I probably shouldn’t even tell you this, but I made a pie today, and it’s in the fridge right now.”

“Is it cherry?” I asked.

“Apple,” she replied.

“With a Dutch crumb topping?”

“Would I make it any other way with you here?” Momma asked with a grin.

“You know what? I could probably make room for a sliver,” I admitted.

“I’ll join you,” she said. We dished up two slices that were both considerably more than slivers, and then took them out into the living room.

As we ate, Momma said, “This is nice. I miss it sometimes.”

“What are you talking about? We have pie all of the time,” I said.

“I meant a quiet evening with just the two of us here,” she said. “What with Jake, Grace, and Phillip, there never seems to be enough time for just us.”

I touched her hand lightly as I said, “I know what you mean. We need to both make more of an effort to spend some time together. What should we do, have a date night every week?” I asked with a grin.

“I would agree, but I know that one of us would find a way of breaking it soon enough. Let’s just not let these moments slip away from us when they present themselves. We’ll take the opportunities as they come and be glad for each and every one of them. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said, and then I took another bite of pie. It was delicious cold, and I’d recently decided that I liked it chilled better than when it came hot out of the oven. The juices had a way of growing richer and sweeter if I could only keep from eating the pie the moment it first emerged. I had to admit that it
had
helped that I hadn’t been at home when Momma had made it.

I yawned after I took the last bite, and Momma said, “You must be exhausted, and you have to get up earlier than any woman should.”

“I’m okay,” I said. “What are you reading right now? Is it another mystery?”

“No, I guessed the last three killers correctly, so I’m going to switch to biographies for a while until my keen detective sense isn’t so finely honed.”

I laughed at that, and then admitted, “I’m glad you can figure out who the killers are. I always think I know, and then it turns out that I guessed wrong. I don’t know how the writers do it, do you?”

“It must help knowing who the murderer is ahead of time,” she said.

“That’s not what Elizabeth from my book club says,” I admitted. “She’s written to just about all of her favorite authors, and most of them have no clue who the killer is until they get to the very end.”

“How can they write like that, not knowing how it’s going to turn out?” Momma asked.

“She told us that one of her favorite authors once said that if he doesn’t know who did it until the very end, there’s not much chance that his readers will be able to guess the identity of the murderer.”

“It sounds rather risky if you ask me.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said. “But Elizabeth has a theory about that as well.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” Momma said.

“She says it’s simple. They all have to be crazy to want to be writers in the first place, so a little more madness is just par for the course.”

CHAPTER 14

“Hello, sunshine,” I said to Emma the next morning when she came into Donut Heart’s kitchen. “You look as though you didn’t get enough sleep.”

“I didn’t,” she answered with a grin, “but it was worth it.”

“Is there by any chance a new man in your life?” I asked as I finished mixing a new orange marmalade cake donut I’d been experimenting with recently. So far I hadn’t had much success, but I still had hopes for it. I didn’t feel as though I was doing my job if I couldn’t offer my customers at least one new donut a month. That self-imposed rule had led to some frightful donuts in the past and I hadn’t always made my goal, but I’d come up with some really nice donuts over the years under pressure from the time limit, too, so it all worked out in the end.

“How did you know?” Emma asked as she grabbed her apron and tied it around her waist. “Is it that obvious?”

“Just for the folks who know you,” I said. “What’s his name?”

“I don’t want to jinx it,” she said. “Do you mind if I don’t say just yet?”

“Of course I don’t,” I said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Suzanne, it’s not like that. It’s just that he’s a little older than I am, and I’m a little sensitive about it.”

I put down the bowl and took her hands in mine. “Emma, I’m not going to judge you by who you date or don’t date. If you can find someone who makes you happy, I don’t care how old he is. Joy is too hard to find in this life to put age limits on it. Hang on a second. He’s not creepy old, is he? When you say older, you mean that he’s just older than you.”

“What do you consider creepy?” she asked.

“For you? Anywhere in his forties, I would say.”

“Oh, he’s younger than that,” she said.

“Is he in his thirties?” I asked. I still thought that might be a little too old for her, regardless of what I’d just said. Believing in something in generalities was one thing, but this was Emma, a girl I’d known her entire life, and I felt extremely overprotective of her.

She laughed. “Suzanne, stop digging. It’s nothing all that serious yet, anyway. We just ran into each other at the library last night by coincidence, and we found ourselves chatting about April Springs. He was very interested in everything I had to say.”

“I’m sure he was,” I said. And then a thought struck me. “Hang on a second. You’re not talking about Rome, are you?”

Emma looked at me and asked, “How could you have possibly known that? I realize that he was in the shop yesterday, but how did you put it together that he was the one I was talking to last night?”

“Call it a lucky guess,” I said, remembering how Emma had taken off after him the second I’d released her from work. “Do you really think you two might start dating?”

“Why not? He’s handsome, and it was clear after I spent two minutes talking to him that he was smart.”

“What exactly did he ask you about when you chatted?”

It was a delicate question, and Emma had every right to refuse to answer me, but I really wanted to know.

“He wanted to know how well I knew James,” she admitted. “Do you think that’s significant?” She frowned for a moment, and then said, “Of course it is. He’s not interested in me, is he? I’m just a kid, and he’s a grown man.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” I said. “I’m sure he was attracted to more than just your mind, as glorious as it is. Just be careful, though.”

“Why? Because he’s older than I am?”

“That, and because of his real name, too. Did he tell you what it was?”

She looked a bit surprised by the question. “Do you mean it’s not really Rome?”

“To his friends it is—I’m sure of it—but he told me that his driver’s license says that Romance is his true first name.”

“Are you making that up?” Emma asked.

“That’s what he told me when he was in the shop yesterday,” I said. “I meant what I said, though. We don’t really know anything about the man, do we? Just be careful.”

“I will. And you know what? I think you’re right. I’m pretty sure that he was interested in me romantically. And why shouldn’t he be? After all, I’m a catch.”

“Easy there, girl. You don’t want your expectations to get the better of you.”

“Why not? As far as I’m concerned, that’s part of the fun in it,” Emma said. “Besides, what girl doesn’t deserve a handsome and mysterious stranger in her life just once?”

I had to laugh. “Just be careful. I ended up marrying mine, and we both know how that turned out.”

“I’m not going to get married, at least not anytime soon,” she said. “Now, are we going to make donuts or what?”

“I’m getting ready to drop these now,” I said. After Emma was out of the kitchen, I got started. As I swung the dropper and added perfect little round wheels of dough to the hot oil, I couldn’t help wondering if Rome was interested in Emma, or the information she had about James?

The next time I saw him, I was going to find out. She was too special, too important to me, to let an older and more experienced man take advantage of her.

And while I was at it, I was going to find out what he was really up to, and why he’d come to April Springs in the first place.

At just before six, the donuts were in the display cases and Emma was in back washing dishes. I started watching the clock, and then I decided to go ahead and open anyway. As I headed for the front door flipping lights on as I went, I saw someone already waiting out front for us to open. It reminded me of an old saying my grandmother was fond of, and she never failed to quote it whenever she thought that it was the least bit appropriate. “Speak of the Devil and he appears,” she’d always said, and sure enough, Rome was out front waiting patiently for me to unlock the door after Emma and I had been discussing him so recently.

The only question was whether he was there to see Emma, or ask me more questions about James Settle.

“We were just talking about you this morning,” I told Rome as I flipped the sign and let him in. “You made quite an impression on my assistant last night.”

“What did Emma tell you?” he asked.

“Only that you two met at the library and that you had a wonderful time together. She’s got the dopiest grin on her face you’ve ever seen.”

He looked clearly confused. “Why would she act that way?”

“Do you mean that none of it is true?” I asked.

“No, we had a nice chat, but there was nothing more to it than that. For goodness’ sake, she’s young enough to be my daughter. Well, I might not be that old, but she could at least be my niece.”

“So then you have no intention of asking her out on a date?”

He looked miserable when I’d asked him the question. “No, ma’am, I surely don’t. I’m sorry if she got the wrong impression.”

I nodded. “When you tell her, do me a favor and let her down gently, okay? She’s a dreamer who still believes in love at first sight.”

“I do myself,” he admitted. “Just not with someone as young as she is.”

“So then, if you aren’t here to see Emma, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company? Were you looking for more donuts?”

“Actually, I was hoping that you were able to find out something more about what happened to James Settle,” he said.

“As a matter of fact, I have,” I admitted. “Why is he suddenly so important to you, though? You said that you didn’t even know the man when you came in before.”

“No, I didn’t,” Rome admitted. “But from everything I’ve heard, I would have liked to meet him very much. Hasn’t that ever happened to you? You hear about something random and wonder why it ever happened in the first place.”

“There was nothing random about his murder,” I said. “It was intentional.”

“Listen, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sincerely interested, though. Would you tell me what you’ve found out so far?”

“I’m not sure that I should,” I said.

“I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important to me, though I can’t tell you why. Please?”

I was tempted—the man was as slick and smooth as could be—when Emma walked out. “I thought I heard voices out here.”

The moment she saw that it was Rome, her face lit up. She was clearly smitten, and I hoped that Rome would let her down gently. “Hey there, stranger. Did you come by just to see me?” she asked him as she ran her fingers through her hair.

“Emma, can we talk?”

Her smile faded. “It’s never good when someone says that to you, is it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry; you are truly a wonderful young woman, and if I were fifteen years younger, I can promise you that you’d have a difficult time getting rid of me.” As he said it, he smiled in a way that led me to believe that every word of it was true.

“Don’t be that way,” Emma said, trying her best to change his mind. “Age is just a number, after all, and we all have to take love where we find it. Can either one of us afford to limit it to numbers?”

Was she honestly quoting me now? This was not good. I hoped Rome had experience with this, because if he allowed her to persuade him that they could be together, she could talk him into anything.

Rome looked at her intently as he said, “Emma, I wish I could say that it was true for me as well, but I’m afraid that it matters to me.”

She took it all in, and then sniffed the air a few times. It seemed as though she was fighting back tears, but she got past the moment and said, “I’m really sorry you feel that way, Rome, and if you ever change your mind, you’re welcome to come ask me out later, but I’m not at all sure that I’ll say yes.”