Hearse and Buggy by Laura Bradford Read Free Book Online

separating Heavenly Treasures from Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe. A crime had, indeed, happened. And judging by the chalk outline on the other side of the tape, it had occurred mere strides from her back door.
    Pulling her hand from her hair, she let the wind hamper her vision long enough to find a calming breath. It didn’ttake a genius to put a name with the outline. Jakob had essentially handed it to her the night before as he hurried from the parlor.
    Yet, somehow, despite a meaning that was suddenly crystal clear, she’d actually thought Walter Snow had been on the other end of someone’s fist rather than a murderous rampage.
    And she knew why.
    Heavenly had become her safe harbor—a place where all the heartache of her divorce and the constant feeling of social inadequacy had disappeared, a sense of hope and belonging rising from its ashes. It had been a battle well fought, and she didn’t want someone else—dead or otherwise—to come along and mess it up.
    Not now.
    “It is shocking.”
    Startled, Claire spun around, the unfamiliar voice accompanying a pair of oddly familiar and deeply penetrating blue eyes beneath the brim of a black hat. The man’s strong but callused hands rose into the air. “I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you.”
    Before she could speak, Eli Miller appeared on the porch to her left, tipping his own black hat a hairbreadth. “Good day, Miss Weatherly.”
    She pulled her gaze from the strikingly handsome man in front of her and fixed it, instead, on the object of Esther’s never-ending daydreams. “Eli. How’s that hand of yours today?”
    He lifted his splinted fingers into the air and shrugged. “Soon it will be fine.” Looking past her, Eli turned his focus to the stranger. “I have filled the case with Ruth’s desserts.”
    Like a lock yielding to a key, she looked back at the well-built man and inventoried the clean-shaven skin, the erectposture, the hint of dark-brown hair that escaped around the brim of his hat, the masculine version of Ruth’s high cheekbones …
    And just like that, she knew.
    “Benjamin Miller?” She thrust her hand in the man’s direction and felt the unexpected catch in her throat at the answered warmth and the tingle it sent down her arm.
    “I did not mean to scare you, Miss Weatherly.”
    She rushed to ease the worry etched in his brow. “You didn’t, really. It was more a case of me being so wrapped up in”—with a reluctance she vowed to address with herself later, she removed her hand from his and waved it toward the tape that sagged and snapped in the breeze—“
that
.”
    Her breath caught as his eyes left hers in favor of the chalk outline. “I feel the same way.”
    “I say, good riddance to the man.”
    A flash of something resembling disappointment skittered across Benjamin’s face. “You shan’t talk like that, Eli. A man is dead.”
    “Walter Snow was no man,” Eli hissed. “He was a crook.”
    “Hush, brother!” Benjamin’s words, clipped yet firm, brought a flush to the younger man’s face. “That distinction is to be made by no man.”
    Eli smacked his good hand against the porch railing, then stormed into his sister’s bakery, slamming the door in his wake.
    “I apologize for my brother’s rudeness. He has much to learn and a broken hand to prove it.” Benjamin glanced from Claire to the taped-off crime scene and back again. “Did you know Mr. Snow?”
    She drew in a breath and let it work its way past her lips once again. “Only what I’ve heard from others.”
    “What have they told you?”
    “That he stole money from your community.” It was a simple answer but true nonetheless. “Eli’s anger is understandable.”
    “It is anger he must learn to keep inside.”
    She shrugged. “He’s human, I guess.”
    “He is Amish,” Benjamin corrected, not unkindly.
    She considered his words and offered the only response she could. “I’ve only been here a few months, but I know this much. Your younger