Pie A La Murder by Melinda Wells Read Free Book Online Page B

slim, but curvier than ultrathin Celeste. I knew she’d come from our shop this afternoon because she was wearing business clothes: a light blue cotton shirt tucked into a black A-line skirt, with her favorite navy blue blazer hung over the back of a kitchen chair.
    I looked over her shoulder. “How are we doing?”
    “Really well. If sales keep up, we’ll be able to pay Mickey back sooner than expected. The new sugar-free line for diabetics is selling beyond projections.”
    “You’ve just given me an idea. I think I’ll do a show on that subject. And a Mommy and Me class teaching that sugar-free can be delicious.”
    Eileen sat up straighter. Her shoulders stiffened and the smile on her face disappeared. “Speaking of ‘Mommies and Mes’—what’s she like?”
    “Who?”
    “Your future stepdaughter. We haven’t had a chance to talk since you met her at your show last night.” I was surprised to hear a slight edge in Eileen’s voice.
    Maybe it was my imagination.
    She said, “If you and Nick get married, and he moves in here, I suppose she’ll have my room.”
    It wasn’t my imagination.
    I sat down opposite her and put my hand over hers. “Honey, if you want to, you can live here until you have to start dyeing your hair to cover the gray. Or until we’re both old ladies with poodles and cats. Regardless of what Nicholas and I decide to do, this will be your home as long as you want it to be.”
    That un-stiffened her. She smiled at me and gave my fingers a gentle squeeze. “Thanks, Aunt Del. I’m so busy with the Sweet Dreams business that I don’t have time to even think about moving into a place of my own right now. And I’m banking every dollar I don’t have to spend so one day whether I’m alone or married I can buy a house, like you and Uncle Mack did.”
    I stood. “I’m going to change and take Tuffy for a walk, then I’m going to think about sugar-free recipes.”
    “Do you like her? Nick’s daughter?”
    “I don’t know her very well yet. She’s a bit prickly—but it’s probably been difficult for her to grow up without a father.”
    “Teenage girls can be the worst!” Eileen said.
    “It wasn’t so long ago that you were a teenager, and you weren’t any trouble at all.”
    “Ha!” Eileen gave me a wicked little smile. “You just think that because you don’t know everything I did.”
    It took a moment to process that statement, but then I gave her a hug. “Since you turned out so well, I thank you for keeping some things from me.”
    By midnight, twelve hours after he had dropped Celeste off so Liddy and I could take her to the luncheon, I hadn’t heard from Nicholas. With both his daughter and now his ex-wife in town, I was beginning to think that I was never going to hear from him again. I’d gone from being annoyed at dinnertime to downright angry by the time Tuffy and I came back from our bedtime walk and there had been neither a cell phone call nor a message on my landline.
    I was in bed reading Fiddlers , the last of Ed McBain’s fifty-five 87th Precinct novels. I’d bought it several years ago, but put off reading it because the author died and there would be no more. Settled against a backrest of pillows, with Emma curled up next to my waist and Tuffy reclining at the foot of the bed, I was on chapter two when Nicholas called.
    “I hoped I’d get back to the apartment in time to see you at least for a minute, when you and Liddy dropped Celeste off, but I got held up at the paper, having to add new information to my story on the Crawford murder.”
    “We offered to wait with Celeste until you returned, but she didn’t want us to.” I paused, then asked, “How are things going?”
    “Good. Better than I dared hope.” I heard happiness in his voice. “Honey, she’s sweet and smart. Surprisingly levelheaded in her approach to wanting to become an actress. But she’s not self-centered. She wants to know about me, my life here. She asked to read copies