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“I can’t see anything.” Zoe peered at the screen again. “No new review for Gary’s burgers.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Lauren looked over her cousin’s shoulder.
“It could be.” Zoe sounded doubtful. “But this webpage doesn’t even mention Todd’s death.”
It was true. A photo of Todd still appeared at the top of the site, but so far there hadn’t been any new reviews posted about Gold Leaf Valley eateries.
“So it looks like Brandon hasn’t taken over Todd’s column – yet,” Lauren mused.
“Yeah.” Zoe continued to stare at the screen. “Unless the new reviews have been written and the website designer just hasn’t uploaded them yet.”
“Would a designer do that? Or would each member of staff?” Lauren asked.
“I have no idea.” Zoe shrugged, then brightened. “But so far it’s good news for Gary – no nasty review.”
“And good news for us as well,” Lauren pointed out.
“Yes – no review is better than a bad review.” Zoe shut down the computer and stretched. “I think I’ll go to bed now.”
“Me, too.”
“Brrt!” Annie trotted off toward Lauren’s bedroom. She’d been quiet while they scoured the newspaper’s website – in fact, she hadn’t seemed interested at all. Was that because somehow she knew there weren’t any new reviews posted online for the area?
When Lauren reached her bedroom, Annie was already curled up on the bedspread, her eyes closed. Lauren quickly got into her nightgown and slid under the sheet, careful not to disturb Annie. A sleepy “Brrp,” was the last sound she heard.
***
SATURDAY MORNING, 6.30 a.m. Lauren yawned as she crunched her way through a bowl of granola. Tomorrow she’d definitely sleep in.
“I’m going to crochet this afternoon.” Zoe grinned as she bit into a big, juicy strawberry.
“I might put my feet up and read a book,” Lauren admitted. “Oh! I can’t. I should mow the lawn.”
“Yuck!” Zoe wrinkled her nose.
“I know.” Lauren crunched extra hard on her cereal. “But Mitch pointed out that it needed cutting.”
“Then he can cut it!”
Lauren sighed. One of the joys of being a homeowner was taking care of the garden. She’d rather bake – or relax.
“I mustn’t be lazy,” she scolded herself aloud.
“Brrp?” Annie wandered into the kitchen, looking bright-eyed and alert. She’d already eaten her breakfast.
“Lauren’s going to mow the lawn this afternoon,” Zoe told the cat.
Annie gave Lauren a considering look, as if she didn’t quite believe the statement.
“Even Annie doesn’t think I’ll do it.” Lauren squared her shoulders and rose from the table. “I have done it before, you know.”
“Brrt,” Annie replied in a dubious tone.
“You two will see.” Lauren placed her dishes in the sink. “We’d better get going.”
The three of them walked down the private hallway to the café. Lauren baked raspberry swirl cupcakes – she’d mixed up the batter yesterday afternoon – and Zoe unstacked the chairs and made the space look inviting.
Annie sat in her cat bed, ‘supervising’.
When Lauren unlocked the front door, Brandon walked in a minute later. He wore jeans and a t-shirt with a fancy logo on it.
“Hi,” Lauren greeted him.
“Hi, Lauren.” He grinned. “You’re now looking at a bona fide food critic!”
“You got the job?” Zoe looked up from the counter.
“Yep.” He looked pleased with himself.
“I hope you’re going to give us a good review,” Zoe said.
“Can I tell you something in confidence?” Brandon leaned over the countertop. “Todd had written a rough draft of his visit here – and it was all positive – so far. He was just waiting to sample Ed’s pastries before he finalized it and posted it online.”
“Oh.” Lauren bit her lip. “Ed doesn’t work on Saturdays so there aren’t any pastries today for you to sample.”
“No worries.” Brandon waved away her concern. “My editor wants me to head back to Sacramento today, anyway. News is a 24/7 business. I’ll post what Todd wrote, and add my own observations as well.”
“I hope they’re good ones!” Zoe said cheerily.
“Brrt,” Annie added from the cat bed. She hadn’t gotten up to greet Brandon when he’d arrived. Was that because she didn’t think he wanted to sit at a table?
“Of course,” he assured them. “Your coffee’s great, and so are your cupcakes. I’ll just put in I was disappointed I couldn’t try Ed’s famous pastries because they’d sold out when we arrived.”
“That’s good of you.” Lauren smiled.
“We finders of dead bodies have to stick together.” He winked at Lauren.
She took a sudden step back, although the counter separated her from Brandon, blanching as the image of Todd’s body rose before her eyes.
“Brrt,” Annie said in a chiding tone.
“Sorry.” Brandon looked embarrassed. “That was in bad taste.”
Lauren refrained from saying, “Yes, it was.” Sometimes she wished she was outspoken like Zoe. She glanced at her cousin, who had her lips pressed together. Was Zoe resisting temptation to reproach him as well?
“Can we make you a coffee before we go?” Lauren hoped her tone sounded pleasant.
“A mocha would be great.” Brandon pulled out his wallet. “The newspaper’s put me on expenses, now that I’m taking over the column. Todd handled all that before.”
“That’s thoughtful of them,” Zoe said in a subdued tone.
“Yeah.” Brandon ran a hand through his slicked back hair. “Maybe I should get a cupcake to go too – for the road.”
“Of course.” Lauren gave him a raspberry swirl as well as the mocha. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” He gave Lauren ten dollars. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you.” Lauren plinked the coins into the tip jar on the counter.
Once Brandon left the café, Zoe blew out a large breath. “He certainly seems pleased with himself.” She tapped her foot.
“I know.” Lauren nodded.
“Brrt!”
They glanced over at Annie’s bed. The feline sat up, looking like she agreed with them.
“At least it’s good news about our review,” Lauren said slowly.
“If we can trust him.” Zoe frowned.
“I know what you mean.” Lauren sighed. “But let’s hope we can take him at his word.”
“Deal.”
A couple of their regulars came in. Annie hopped down from her bed and trotted over to greet them.
Mid-morning, Lauren had just sat down on the stool behind the counter for a second, when a dapper man in his sixties walked in.
“Brrt!” Annie rushed over to greet him, her plumy tail waving in the air.
“Ach, Annie!” The man bent down stiffly to give her a gentle stroke. “How are you today, Liebchen?”
“Brrt,” Annie replied in a chatty tone, slowly leading one of her favorite customers toward a table for two near the counter.
“Hi, Hans.” Lauren made her way over to the table. Annie had already jumped on the vacant seat across from him.
“Hello, Lauren.” Hans smiled, his eyes crinkling with good humor. “I hope you and Zoe have not had a nasty – how do you say – run-in with that food critic.”
“No.” Lauren shook her head. “He visited here the other day but I think it went okay.” Apart from finding his dead body the next day.
“That is gut.”
“But how did you know about it?” Lauren eyed him quizzically.
“It is all over the town.” He gestured to the large glass window near the door. Passersby strolled past the entrance.
“The food critic went everywhere. Here, the burgers at Gary’s Burger Diner, there, the steakhouse, the—”
“He went to the steakhouse?”
“Ja. Everywhere. Even to the restaurants a couple of towns over.”
“You know more than Zoe and I do.” Lauren looked at him admiringly.
“It is all anyone talks about at the senior center,” Hans admitted, a twinkle in his eye. “Did you see the food critic here? Did you see him there? I recognized his photo from his website.’ It is big news for a small town. And so many people my age now have phones or these tablets, so they can keep up with their grown-up children on email or social media. And the center has free WiFi.”
“That’s handy.”
“Ja.”
Lauren and Hans chatted for a couple more minutes, Annie joining in the conversation with an occasional “Brrt.” After taking his order for a cappuccino and a raspberry swirl cupcake, Lauren hurried back to the counter.
“Oh, no.” Zoe’s expression fell as she glanced toward the door. “Ms. Tobin.” A skinny woman in her fifties wearing a skirt and blouse in dull brown walked in.
Annie hopped down from her chair at Hans’s table and sauntered over to the Please Wait to be Seated sign. She glanced up at the tall woman, then led her to a secluded table near the back.
Ms. Tobin was one of their most difficult customers. Everything had to be just so. And if it wasn’t ...
But for some reason, Annie always led her to a table. Perhaps the Norwegian Forest Cat discerned Ms. Tobin was lonely, or unhappy, or perhaps both. But Lauren always sensed that Ms. Tobin preferred Annie’s brief company to hers or Zoe’s when they took her order.
That was another thing. Ms. Tobin expected them to come to her to take her order, whereas Lauren and Zoe usually reserved that special service for the elderly, infirm or otherwise indisposed customers, such as Claire and her toddler daughter Molly.
“I’ll go,” Lauren said. “You take care of Hans’s order.”
“Thanks.” Zoe flashed her a smile.
Lauren watched Annie trot back to Hans’s table. Ms. Tobin did not seem to mind that the feline led her to a table and then departed.
For some customers, the novelty of Annie choosing a table for them was all they wanted, while others enjoyed Annie spending time with them as they drank their coffee and munched on sweet treats.
“What can I get you, Ms. Tobin?” Lauren asked politely, pulling her order pad and pencil out of her apron pocket.
“I’ll have a large latte. Now, make sure you give me large. Not small, not regular. And I want two espresso shots in it. Don’t give me a large that’s full of milk and a single shot. It must have two shots of espresso.”
“Of course.” Lauren wrote down the order, wondering if this was the fifth or the fifty-fifth time Ms. Tobin had uttered those very words. All their large coffees contained two shots of espresso. She told herself not to take Ms. Tobin’s attitude personally.
“What sort of cupcakes and pastries do you have?” Ms. Tobin asked with a frown.
She asked that question every time as well.
“Just raspberry swirls this morning,” Lauren answered in a trying-to-be-cheery tone. “Ed doesn’t work Saturdays, so there aren’t any pastries.”
“Only one kind of cupcake?” Ms. Tobin looked horrified. “Really, Lauren.” She sighed in displeasure. “I suppose I’ll have a raspberry swirl.”
She watched Lauren’s pencil scratch on the notepad.
“I do hope you’re not interfering with dead bodies, Lauren.” Ms. Tobin tutted.
“What?” Lauren’s fingers froze on the pencil.
“I heard that you found the food critic’s body. Was he going to give you a bad review?” Ms. Tobin looked at her in disapproval.
For a second, Lauren was tempted to make up an outlandish tale just to see the prickly woman’s reaction, but she held back. Although she was grateful for every customer, sometimes she wished Ms. Tobin wasn’t one of them.
Instead, she forced herself to remain pleasant and to reassure the woman – or at least attempt to – that finding Todd’s body was just something that had happened.
“I thought you were going to murder her,” Zoe whispered to her as she returned to the counter. Lauren clattered a white china plate before reaching with tongs for a cupcake.
“Was it that obvious?” She glanced at her cousin. “I thought I was doing a good job of staying calm under pressure.”
“That’s why I hate serving her. I’m sure I’ll blurt out something rude.” Zoe looked at the order and started steaming milk for the large latte.
“I was tempted to this time.” Lauren sighed and looked at her white plastic watch. In a few hours she’d be in the cottage with a good book, Annie in her lap.
Wait. She had to mow the lawn.
Darn.
“I definitely need a cupcake today.” Zoe looked at the remaining cupcakes, pulled out a cardboard box, and placed two raspberry swirls inside. “There. Our lunch treat.”
“Good idea.” Lauren refused to feel guilty. After her run-in with Ms. Tobin, she definitely needed one.
The rest of the morning passed by in a blur. Luckily, Ms. Tobin was the only difficult customer. By lunchtime, Zoe was already stacking the chairs on the tables.
“Brrt!” Annie stood in front of the door to the hallway, looking eager to go home.
“Want to help me crochet this afternoon?” Zoe asked the cat.
“Brrp.” Annie tilted her head to one side, as if considering the question.
“Or maybe you want to watch me mow the lawn,” Lauren teased.
“Brrt!” Annie’s eyes sparkled as she looked up at Lauren. Her lips turned up at the corners, as if she were smiling.
“Oh, I wanted to pick a few leaves of sage for lunch.” Lauren hurried through to the kitchen and out the back door. She turned toward the herb garden on the left, then paused.
The shaggy green grass had transformed into a smooth, freshly mown lawn.
Lauren walked over to the waist high white picket fence separating her cottage from the café. The lawn had been cut there as well.
“What the ...?” The grass had been long this morning. But how had someone taken care of it without her knowing about it?
“Have you closed?” Mitch Denman asked gruffly. He wore faded blue jeans and a gray t-shirt that hinted at a muscular chest.
Lauren whirled around to face him. He’d silently come around the side of the building while she’d stared at the shorn grass.
“Yes.” She self-consciously touched her hair. “I just came out to pick some herbs and saw that—” she gestured toward the smooth lawn.
“Thought you needed a hand.” He rocked back on his heels.
“You did this?” She stared up at him.
“Yes.”
“But ... how?” She furrowed her brow. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
“My lawnmower’s pretty quiet. And I didn’t want to disturb you. It looked like you had plenty of customers.”
“So you just ... here, and my cottage.” She waved toward the fence separating the two Victorian buildings.
“Hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” She stifled a nervous giggle. “You’ve just saved me from a boring afternoon of lawn mowing.”
“Glad I could help.” His gaze captured hers, his dark brown eyes warm yet slightly guarded.
She glanced away, her gaze landing on the smoothly cut grass.
“I can’t believe you did this.”
“I know you’re busy running the café.” He shrugged. “I’ve got the weekend off, and I don’t mind yard work.”
“Thank you.” She smiled up at him. “You must let me repay you somehow. What about free coffee and cupcakes for the next month?”
“Deal.” His eyes crinkled at the corners and his mouth tilted upward.
Lauren gazed at him, her stomach fluttering.
“Lauren, are you okay? We’ve been waiting – oh!” Zoe stopped in her tracks, Annie skipping around her sneaker clad feet.
The spell was broken.
“Mitch mowed the lawn.” Lauren waved her hand toward the grass.
“Brrt.” Annie looked up at Mitch in an approving way.
Lauren glanced at the cat and then at Mitch. Had Annie somehow known this was going to happen? Was that why she’d looked like she was smiling when Lauren had come out here?
“He did?” Zoe grinned. “Awesome! Now I don’t have to feel guilty for wanting to crochet instead of helping.”
“Anytime.” Mitch shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “I’d better get going.”
“How’s the investigation coming along?” Zoe asked.
“Zoe!”
“We’ve been wondering.” Zoe blinked innocently.
“Mitch has the day off,” Lauren told her.
“It’s okay.” He broke in. “We’re working on it. That’s all I can say.”
“Of course.” Lauren nodded.
They watched him depart, Lauren sighing silently as he rounded the corner of the now neat yard. This might have been the first time a guy had done something like this for her without expecting anything in return.
“I told you he likes you.” Zoe beamed. “Way to go!” She punched Lauren on the arm.
“Brrt!” Annie chirped in agreement.
“Ow!” Lauren rubbed her forearm. “Not so hard.”
“Sorry. Now you can relax this afternoon, just like us.”
“Mm.” But she didn’t know if she could – she might be too busy thinking about Mitch.