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  “That’s right,” came the reply.

  “My information says you were practicing witchcraft.” Johnny Jay and Lucinda would’ve been nose to nose if the chief raised his chin and stretched his body up a little. “Is that correct?”

  “Is it a crime to dance in this town? To celebrate the mystery of life? To bathe in the river?”

  Johnny was definitely confused. “Uh, no, not exactly, but—”

  “I don’t see what harm they caused,” one of the officers said, earning a hard look from the chief.

  “Were we disturbing the peace?” the attorney wanted to know.

  Johnny puffed up. “According to the neighbor’s complaint, you were disturbing the peace, yes.”

  “And where is this aggrieved citizen?”

  “I’m asking the questions here,” Johnny Jay said. “I had a legitimate complaint about inappropriate activity at this address, and after investigating, I found a bunch of you . . . all of you . . . how many are there anyway? . . . running around bare-ass naked. We don’t put up with that kind of behavior in my town.”

  From the safety of the pines, I saw the two warriors draw closer to each other while the rest of the coven kept a cautious distance. Pine needles from the trees that shielded me were poking into my arms, shoulders, and back end. One found its way into my big toe. I stifled a yelp and pulled it out.

  “And you, Aurora,” Johnny said after scanning the crowd more openly now that everybody was appropriately attired. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Nothing wrong with skinny-dipping,” Aurora shot back at him. “Didn’t you do a little of that yourself when you were young, before you turned into such a stick in the mud? In fact, I remember . . .”

  This time I stifled a snort. The good old days came rushing back. I’d forgotten that Aurora had moved to Moraine during high school, and had even dated Johnny for a semester before realizing what a doofus he was. They must have gone skinny-dipping.

  “That’s enough out of you,” Johnny barked at her, then paused to consider his next move. “I’m letting you off easy this time with a verbal warning,” he told the group, “but I’ll be watching all of you closely. If I were you, I’d get out of town immediately.” That last part he addressed more to poor Dy than anybody else. She’d been right to worry about her standing in the new community. Once Johnny targeted you as trouble, he went at you like a pit bull. I should know.

  Lucinda took the only step still between them, closing in. “Is that a threat, Chief?”

  “Take it any way you want, but it behooves you to follow my advice.”

  I didn’t stick around any longer, tiptoeing through stiff pine needles, then through a layer of crisp fallen leaves.

  My skin itched like crazy from the pine needle episode, so before bed, I whipped up a mix of sweet antiseptic honey, water, and a dash of cinnamon to fight any bacteria that might be lounging in my pores, and applied the paste to my angry, irritated flesh.

  I didn’t realize that Hunter never came home that night until I woke up the next morning and found his side of the bed empty.

  Six

  Luckily, Hunter had been thoughtful enough to leave a message on my cell phone around four o’clock in the morning, which I hadn’t even heard come in. “Don’t worry,” he’d reassured me, “I caught a case. Explain later.”

  Thursday morning the temperature plummeted into the middle thirties, something that happens on a regular basis in Wisconsin. Forty-degree swings aren’t uncommon. Because of the cold, my honeybees were clustered in their hives, fanning all those tiny wings to create warmth for the queen bees and each queen’s brood. I wished I could’ve hunkered down, too.

  I would have been snug as a bug in a rug, or rather in my fleecy robe, if not for the itching on my back and nether regions. The rash on my arms felt and looked better, but certain areas needed another treatment. Part of me was extremely happy Hunter wasn’t around to watch me with one of his amused smirks while I applied more salve to my butt.

  Waiting for the honey concoction to do its magic, I tried Hunter’s cell, but again got no answer. We needed to have a talk ASAP regarding his cell phone etiquette. Or rather, his lack thereof.

  I showered, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved tee, and abandoned my precious flip-flops for something sturdier and warmer. Summers are wonderful, but there’s also something special about that first crisp fall day when I pull on thick socks and a light jacket, and head out to breathe in the fresh smell of dried-out leaves. After a crumpet with honey and a travel mug of coffee, I strolled to The Wild Clover and began the process of opening for another day of business.

  Carrie Ann, my cousin and the store’s manager, arrived soon after, bundled up in a corduroy jacket and fashionable scarf. “Your mother asked me to help out with her wedding,” she announced.

  “WHAT?” Shocked didn’t even come close to describing my reaction.

  “I know,” my cousin said, just as stunned as I was. “Until the very moment she called to include me in her preparations, I thought she really didn’t like me at all.”

  That was an understatement if I’d ever heard one. My mother complained nonstop about Carrie Ann, even though my cousin had really cleaned up her act. Carrie Ann had had a wild side growing up and didn’t bother hiding it from public view. She’d also had an alcohol problem, but she’s recovering. Still, Mom isn’t exactly the forgiving, forgetting type—she prefers to remember all the bad and none of the more recent good. “Just give it more time,” Mom argues when I defend Carrie Ann. “She’ll fall right back into her old ways.”

  And here was my mother asking Carrie Ann to help, before asking her own daughter first!

  “What does she want you to do?” I asked, trying not to snort fire. Another jealousy episode threatened to erupt. Mixed with a pinch of resentment. And a dash of anger. “It’s not as though my mother has asked me for any assistance, and believe me, I’ve offered.”

  “Table decorations,” Carrie Ann said, with an expression that told me she was sorry she’d brought it up. Geez, was that pity? “I’m thinking crystal bowls in the center of each table,” she explained. “Filled with rose-shaped floating candles and scattered flower petals. What do you think?”

  “It’s okay with me,” I lied, stomping into the back room and punching Mom’s number into my cell phone.

  “How are the wedding plans coming along?” I asked, managing through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw to sound pretty much normal. Or at least as normal as I ever was around Mom, suspicious and edgy from years of blind accusations and hurtful comments.

  Judging by the upbeat pep in her tone today, though, I’d caught her in a good mood. “Everything is falling into place exactly as it should, thanks to your sister’s role as my wedding planner. My younger daughter missed her true calling. I’m trying to convince her to go into business. We could call it Weddings and Honeymoons by Holly.”

  I rolled my eyes. Holly had treated college like husband hunting ground, shot her prey (Max) right through the heart, and has lived a life of leisure ever since. That had been her calling, not wedding planning.

  I took a deep, cleansing breath and said, “I’d really like to help, you know? How about I go with you to pick out your wedding dress?”

  “I found one months ago,” Mom said. “Our wedding is only fourteen days away, and you think I don’t have a dress yet?”

  “Okay then, I know you are having trouble with the chapel for the wedding, something about a date mix-up or something. I could . . .”

  “Taken care of, in spite of last-minute problems with a double booking. As it turns out, it will work for the best, because Tom and I decided to accept Holly’s generous offer to get married at her house and have the reception there, too. But thanks for your offer, too, Story.”

  Okay, I need to deal with my disappointment once and for all. Granted, Holly has
a mansion on a lake. But I have the family house and really felt that Mom should want her wedding there. Geez! See how sibling jealousy can zap the sense out of a woman? Grudgingly, I realized that of course Mom wouldn’t want to get remarried in the same place she and Dad had raised us; she wanted a new start with Tom. Even I wasn’t that insensitive once I got past my initial reaction.

  “Holly and I could share the wedding planner role, then?” I wasn’t about to give up.

  “Holly has it handled, Story. Really.”

  “I could help her with flowers.”

  “Ordered yesterday.”

  “Food!” I run a market—of course I could handle the food.

  “Did I forget to mention? Milly is catering our event.”

  Milly Hopticourt, a retired school teacher, handles The Wild Clover newsletter and creates one delectable recipe after another to include each month. I knew she’d been toying with the idea of starting a catering business. Guess she’d finally taken the plunge.

  “I could help Milly,” I suggested.

  “That’s between the two of you. I better go.” Mom signed off with that breezy, happy voice, the one that hadn’t included me in any of her wedding plans.

  “We’re out of apple cider,” Carrie Ann announced when I joined her up front after my disappointing attempt to worm my way into my mother’s wedding plans. “I called out to the farm for more, but Al can’t deliver until this afternoon.”

  Moraine’s business owners look out for one another. My store gives out little cups of cider from Country Delight Farm, after which we direct shoppers to the stand down the street where they can purchase quarts and gallons of cider as well as hot, buttery corn on the cob and caramel apples. Al returns the favor by promoting my honey products in a prominent display in his autumn shop, located adjacent to his wildly popular corn maze. The Mason family corn maze had been around for a long time, starting out as a little-bitty thing designed for their kids and the kids’ friends. Over time it grew into a full-scale production, with a new design every year, created with the aid of GPS and tractors to flatten corn into the desired pattern. I’ve heard that it’s best viewed from the air, but I haven’t found anybody with a plane to take me up there yet.

  “I’ll go get a gallon from his stand,” I said, slipping out and heading north, my mind on my mother’s wedding and what I could offer to get a tiny chunk of her heartfelt appreciation. Why I keep trying is beyond me, but it’s been ingrained since my formative years and I’m stuck with it.

  I had to come up with something.

  Maybe bride’s honey? To be eaten right before the vows to bless the union with fruitfulness and fertility. Uh . . . wait . . . fertility? Maybe skip the fertility part. Mom is way too old and crabby for more children. But the bride’s honey idea took root. I could use rosebuds from my backyard rose bushes, a little cinnamon, some cloves . . . I’d have to come up with a special recipe.

  My creative side was going a mile a minute, which caused me to walk right past the country stand in deep thought. When I came back to earth, I found myself just before the bridge over the Oconomowoc River, where I noticed some active construction repair going on.

  “Reinforcing the girders under the bridge,” a buff guy wearing a hard hat told me when I inquired. Then I made a U-turn to retrace my steps to the farm stand and spent a few minutes eyeing up all the beautiful caramel apples while Joan Goodaller waited on a few customers ahead of me.

  “Can you spare a gallon of cider for the tasting cups?” I asked after waiting my turn. “We’re totally out.”

  “Sure thing. You’ve been sending quite a lot of business over here,” Joan said. “You can have as many gallons as you need. Some excitement at your store. What was that all about?”

  “I have a new neighbor. Apparently, those are some of her visitors.” And that’s all I said about them, and I was pretty proud of it. Exposing myself to gossip on a daily basis makes it difficult to stay above it. As a professional, I try to resist.

  In her seventies, with a rosy, young-looking face, short and round like one of Country Delight’s Cortland apples, Joan seemed to be thriving on small-town life. Two years ago, she’d found herself a widow, moved from the city of Waukesha to start a new life, and before we knew it, she and Al, who divorced way back, had become more than casual acquaintances. The locals chuckled about that a bit, because Al was a good ten years younger than Joan, but then everyone realized age didn’t matter and forgot about it.

  Joan had pitched right in, working the stand when one of Al’s summer help couldn’t make it, and even designing the corn maze this year. Both of the lovebirds insisted that they liked their relationship the way it was and weren’t about to ruin it with legalities, so they kept their own places. I’d be much happier with someone more like Joan living on my street.

  Instead, I had a neighbor with “trouble” tattooed on her forehead. Trouble on both sides, come to think of it. I was wedged between a rabid dog (Patti) and a feral cat (Dy).

  Thinking of my neighbors reminded me of last night’s bizarre ceremony and Johnny Jay’s untimely appearance. Making a mental note to pick up the clothes I’d had to leave behind in my rush for cover, I took a moment to savor the Johnny Jay versus Lucinda Lighthouse bout. I thought she came out the overall winner. Although that would have changed if the chief had spotted me. He likes nothing better than to harass and bully me, and if he’d seen me, at least one of us would have been arrested.

  Another customer came up, and I let him go first. As I waited, I noticed that Joan wasn’t looking as rosy as usual. She looked a little under the weather, pale and tired.

  “You might be working too hard,” I told her when she finished up with the other customer. “You look like you could use a break.”

  “Hope I’m not coming down with that flu that’s going around,” she said.

  “You and me both.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to work the stand today, but Al’s summer employees are young and pretty unreliable.”

  “Try to take it easy. By the way, I saw Al’s son Greg yesterday. I didn’t even recognize him, that’s how much he’s changed!”

  “Al’s grateful that he came out to help with the maze. So am I. It takes some of the pressure off.”

  After Joan gave me a gallon of cider, I did everything in my limited range of power to resist the farm’s homemade caramel apples. My mind told me that corn on the cob was better for my waistline, but when the proper, healthy me also advised against all that salt and butter that I couldn’t help adding, it lost its edge to the apples.

  They were jumbo apples, bigger than I’d ever seen anyplace else. And they were covered with so many tempting options. You could get your apple:

  coated in either dark or white Belgian chocolate

  rolled with nuts (pecans, cashews, peanuts, pistachios, walnuts, macadamias, or a mix)

  covered in crushed candy (Butterfingers, Snickers, M&M’s, Oreos, toffee, or Reese’s Pieces)

  and drizzled with caramel or more chocolate.

  I caved to temptation and selected a walnut cherry caramel apple, and walked slowly back toward the store carrying the cider in one hand and eating the enormous apple with the other.

  My bliss was short-lived.

  I fear I conjured up Johnny Jay. Never again will I think of that man for one second if this is what happens when I do. Now, however, there he was out in front of my store, pacing impatiently with what appeared to be . . . oh no . . . my clothes from last night, tucked in a ball under his arm. He looked tired and rumpled, as if he’d been up all night, but when he spotted me he still managed to smirk.

  The smirk disappeared quickly and was replaced with pent-up anger when Hunter pulled up in his SUV and jumped out with Ben at his side.

  Thank you, my hunk. Your timing is perfect.

  “Wallace,” the chief said to Hunter, “I’m
going to tell you one more time since it doesn’t seem to be sinking into your thick skull. This is my town and my case.”

  Case? My clothes were a case? Not good.

  Hunter ignored him, came over to me, and gave me a kiss on my sticky lips. “You taste sweet,” he said, though I noticed that his usual twinkle was missing. “Did you miss me in bed?”

  “Every second,” I fibbed, although if I’d known he wasn’t there, I definitely would have missed him, and been worried sick that something had happened to him.

  “Wallace!” Johnny Jay bellowed. “I’m talking to you!”

  Hunter turned to give the chief more attention than he deserved.

  “What case is Johnny talking about?” I asked Hunter, really, really hoping it didn’t involve me or my clothes or my naked escape last night.

  “It’s Chief Jay to you, Fischer,” Johnny pointed out for something like the millionth time. “Have some respect.”

  “What did I do now?” I asked anybody who cared to answer.

  “That remains to be seen,” Johnny snarled.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Hunter specifically.

  That’s when Hunter said, “There’s been a death over at Country Delight Farm, very early this morning.”

  Seven

  It wasn’t an easy matter to discover the specifics of who was dead and how and why. I put the cider down on the sidewalk—I had a feeling I’d want to watch what happened next between the two men, and the gallon jug was heavy. Hunter gave me a lopsided, here-we-go-again weak grin.

  Johnny Jay and Hunter have gone more rounds about Waukesha law enforcement territory than professional boxers. Only without the physical part, up until now at least. The city of Waukesha is Hunter’s turf, no question about it, but Waukesha County encompasses numerous towns and villages, and that’s where things get murky between the local and county cops.