Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series) by Meg Muldoon Read Free Book Online Page A

river, right where the small town of Broken Hearts Junction sits today.  
    But when the wagon leaders awoke the next morning, Zerelda was nowhere to be found.
    One of the children later said they’d seen her standing down by the river early that morning, staring at those currents in the pale moonlight.
    The story goes that all the wagon party found of Zerelda Richmond the next day was a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the river bank, and a calico dress laid out next to it.
    Everyone knew that Zerelda waded in the river that night to join Joshua.
    And ever since then, this spot of land has been known as Broken Hearts Junction.
    Most people have forgotten the story. All that’s left to remind us is a rusted monument near the banks of the river.  
    But the story’s always struck a certain chord with me. I don’t know why, but sometimes I find myself thinking about Zerelda. The image of her wading into those dark waters, going after Joshua like that.
    Sometimes that image would drift into my head when I drove alongside the river, like this morning.
    Cold sunshine glistened off the rippling water, and it made it look almost cheerful. No traces of the tragedy that played out so very long ago.
    I slowed down and made a right turn onto Brush Canyon Road, heading for Sunny Banks Nursing Home a few blocks away.
    Thinking about Zerelda and Joshua.
    Thinking about all those photos up on my wall, of all the happy couples I’d helped over the years.
    Thinking about how it’d been so hard to take down that photo of Jacob and me the night before, even after three years had passed.
    Thinking about his voice on his answering machine last night. How my heart still did somersaults when I heard that voice.
    How helpless it made me feel.
    And about how he still hadn’t called me back.
     

 
    Chapter 13
     
    “You’ve rigged the deck, you sneaky old dog,” I said, picking up another Skip-Bo card. “How do you expect me to keep coming back here if you go on cheating the way you do?”
    Lawrence Halliday leaned back in his wheelchair, rubbed his full, white beard and smirked as he looked down at the few cards he was holding in his hands.
    “Because I’ve got under your skin, that’s why,” he said. “Once good old Lawrence gets in a lady’s head, she can’t help but keep coming back. Drives her wild to be away from him.”
    He winked at me.
    “No need to feel bad about it, Bitters. It’s happened to the best of women. Lawrence is just too much for the lady folk to han—”
    “You are one arrogant son of a gun, aren’t you?” I said, shaking my head.
    He laid the last of his cards down on the table.
    “A winning arrogant son of a gun,” he said, smiling at me.
    I sighed loudly, throwing down the large stack of cards in my hand.
    “You’re just lucky we’re not in the Old West,” I said. “I could have shot you for your cheating ways.”
    “Sure, but then you would have deprived yourself the pleasure of my company.”
    All I could do was shake my head some more.
    Lawrence Halliday, or “Law Dog” as he’d been known once upon a time, was an 85-year-old sneaky, low-down, full-of-himself old man who could be a real pain-in-the-ass to me and to the people who took care of him at the nursing home.
    But I loved him dearly anyway.
    He’d been in the assisted living home for about four years now, ever since he had the stroke that had put him in a wheelchair. But that setback didn’t stop him from cheating at cards or flirting with all the nurses on staff. No. Despite not being as mobile as he used to be, Lawrence was the same old scoundrel he’d been his entire life.
    “Well, that’s it for me,” I said, putting the cards back in the pack. “Being beat three times by you is quite enough for one day.”
    “Aw, don’t be sore, Bitters,” he said. “Most folks would lose their shirt to me.”
    We were sitting in the nursing home’s main dining room. It smelled of greasy mashed potatoes and old age, and like