Sweet as Pie Crimes by Anisa Claire West Read Free Book Online

man?  All I knew was the craziness that had transpired the previous day.  He was charming, yes, but that didn’t mean a thing. 
    “I’ll leave, Becca.  But I’m going to take a huge leap of faith right now to tell you where I’m going.  Or rather where I’m staying.  Ten miles south of here, there’s a lavender farm.  The farm is just outside Buttercup Valley, on the border of Crescent Falls.  It’s called Organic Lavender Fields.  Big, sprawling property owned by country bumpkins.  They won’t recognize my face from the news.  I don’t even think those folks own a TV.”
    “ Yes, I’m familiar with the place.  I’ve ordered ingredients from them for my Vanilla Lavender pie.  But I wouldn’t be so quick to stereotype.  Could get you in a lot of trouble.”
    “I’m already in a lot of trouble.  Hell, maybe they will recognize my mug and turn me in.  But that’s the chance I have to take.  I hope you’ll come to me there, Becca.” Marcus’s eyes lowered to my lips, as I feared that he would kiss me.  And feared that he wouldn’t.  His lips parted sensually as mine instinctively did the same.  But he just drank in the sight of my lips without making any contact.  I puffed my breath out slowly, trying not to be devastated that he hadn’t kissed me.
    “Come to me so I can kiss you and show you the man I really am,” Marcus implored as I nodded uncertainly.
    “You should go now,” I murmured, taking a step back.
    “I am going now.  And I hope this won’t be the last time I see you.  I’ll be at the farm until tomorrow at midnight.  If you don’t come to me by then, I’ll have to move on.  It won’t be safe for me to stay in Washington.  Soon enough, the cops will realize I’m not in Canada and start searching here again.  So before they can find me…come to me, Becca.”

Chapter 7
    I tried not to stare at the empty doorway as Marcus departed my shop, and an unseasonable draft blew in.  Shaking my shoulders as though I could physically remove the impact of the man, I grabbed my purse and headed to the market.  The simple act of shopping for fresh produce and dough ingredients would take my mind off that disturbing phantom of a man.  Or at least I hoped it would.
    Arriving at the open air market five minutes later, I took a deep breath and tried again to compose myself.  But Marcus’s voice and the sweet way he said my name just wouldn’t let me be at peace.  Tightening my lips in silent self-fury, I hurled myself out of the car and over to a grocer selling organic apples.  I grabbed a brown paper bag and stuffed it full of tar t green apples for my new Glazed Sweetheart pie.  Then I grabbed five dozen bananas and threw them with force into another bag.  Mortified, I watched as the bag split open and the bananas tumbled onto the blacktop.
    “Easy there, miss! Now you’ve gone and bruised all those ripe bananas!  You’ll still be paying for them!” The tawny haired merchant shouted more gruffly than I thought was necessary.
    Tempted to invite him to Deep Dish Delights just so I could throw a pie in his grimacing face, I merely smiled and picked up the bananas with as much dignity as I could muster.  “Of course I’m going to buy them sir.  Just ring me up.  I’m in a rush.”
    Scowling, he weighed my apples on a scale and calculated my total on an old fashioned adding machine wit h receipt paper.  “That’ll be $26,” he announced harshly.
    “Here you go.” I pieced together the exact change from my wallet and resisted the urge to throw the bills in his face.  If the curmudgeon knew what I had gone through the day before, he might have had a little more sympathy.
    I hurried back to the shoppe, all the while Marcus’s plea for me to come to him replaying in my memory like an endless roll of film of the same photograph.  Thinking of how appalled my sister---and any sane person---would be by the fact that I was entertaining any thoughts at all