Murder in Waiting - Lynn Cahoon
Chapter 1
Event planning is a talent that not everyone has in their DNA. No matter what they teach you in high school, it turns out not everyone can do everything. My Home Economics teacher had a section in our senior Family Living class on wedding planning. I would have been better at looking up airline tickets to Vegas. But no, you had to pick out your perfect dress. Set up a caterer. List out your menu. Find a venue for both the wedding—which should be religion-appropriate for you and your future husband—and the reception. She let us go wild. Whatever we wanted, we got.
Then we had to set a budget. And she’d tricked us early on by asking what the future version of ourselves and our imaginary husband did for a living. So the budget was based on the average salaries for those careers. Which she set for you, using some charts she’d found on the internet.
I’d always known that I wanted to be a lawyer. I had one path set for my life. Go to college. Get into a law school. Get my degree. Accept one of many offers for employment. Work and establish myself for five years. Then I’d get married and have two kids. A boy and a girl. In that order. We’d live outside of San Francisco and have a nanny. And maybe an old English Sheepdog. Just to make the family picture perfect. And since I’d chosen a high income lifestyle for me and my imaginary groom, my wedding planning came in underbudget.
In reality, I don’t live outside of the city. I live in an old cottage by the sea that I inherited from my friend when she was murdered. Her choices for heirs during her will planning were either me or the money-grubbing nephew. I’m nicer. I’m Jill Gardner, and I was an attorney in the city. But instead of that being my dream job, it turned into a nightmare. And I hit the glass ceiling as soon as I decided my specialty would be family law.
After a weeklong vacation here in South Cove that included a lot of iced tea and conversation with Miss Emily, my friend who later left me my house, I quit my first dream job. And then bought a bookstore-slash-coffee shop here in South Cove. That was almost ten years ago, and I’ve never regretted changing dreams or careers. But my hatred of event planning has continued. And I was getting pushed to the edge by my best friend’s wedding mania.
Today’s Business-to-Business meeting speaker was only adding to the whirl in my head. Amy had talked a local wedding planner into coming to talk to the local businesses about setting up South Cove as the perfect destination wedding stop. A topic the bed and breakfast and venue owners were loving. I, on the other hand, was bored out of my gourd.
Of course, not all speakers were going to speak directly to every member of our group of business owners, but it seemed like everyone except me was finding tidbits of gold to take back for their marketing dollars. All I was seeing was carafe after carafe of free coffee getting snatched up by our group.
Deek Kerr was on the clock as our barista for the morning. He sat back behind the counter watching for empty carafes or cookie plates. I’d set out a batch of cookies and gave Amy the invoice to charge the refreshments to the council budget, but when Deek held up an empty plate, I shook my head. If they’d already gone through five dozen, it was time to cut the high. We had to be responsible sugar dealers. He nodded and set the empty plate in the sink to wash later. Then he went back to reading The Hero’s Journey.
My full-time student, part-time barista was writing his first book. If it was as good as I thought it might be, I might be looking for a new staff member sooner rather than later.
Amy pointed to a note she’d written in pink sparkle ink.
I picked it up and tried to decipher her handwriting. Reading it quietly aloud, I stared at her. “Gunt Toddy?”
Amy shook her head. She leaned close and whispered, “Lunch today, silly.”
“Sounds good. If we can ever get out of here.” I leaned closer. “I didn’t really need to know all about the wondrous world of tulle.”
“You need to pay attention. Greg’s going to slip that ring on your finger before you know it. Then