An Axe to Rind (The Cheese Shop Mysteries Book 1) by Ally Roberts

Author:Ally Roberts [Roberts, Ally]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting at the kitchen table at Olivia’s house.

No, she hadn’t kidnapped me. In fact, she was finishing up making each of us a cappuccino, and she’d already set out a plate loaded with slices of homemade banana bread.

After dropping her bombshell announcement on me in the backroom of the store, Olivia had insisted on coming back to her house to talk. She didn’t feel comfortable in the store, she’d said. Not with what we were going to discuss.

I’d mentally debated whether or not to trust her, but she’d sounded and looked convincing enough. Besides, I really wanted answers.

So I’d locked up the shop and gotten into my car and followed Olivia to her house, a white clapboard home that, although old and a little shabby on the outside, looked as though she tried her best to take care of it. Despite the peeling paint around the windows, the cracks in the sidewalk, and a screen door that didn’t quite fit properly, she’d arranged flowerpots on the front stoop, bursting with colorful blooms, and had hung an assortment of windpipes that chimed merrily in the ocean breeze, which all definitely raised the cuteness factor.

“These are almost ready,” she told me.

I nodded, even though her back was to me, and checked my phone.

I’d texted Phoebe to let her know where I was going. Not because I felt like I had to, and not because I really wanted to, either. I was still stewing over the email thread I’d started to read but hadn’t finished. I didn’t know what had transpired between her and Eli’s initial flirtation to her final, terse message to him, but I did know my suspicions about her not being forthcoming with me had been confirmed. No, I’d texted my lying half-sister for one very selfish reason: I wanted at least one person to know where I’d gone just in case I’d completely misread Olivia and ended up missing.

Or worse.

“Here you go.” She set a steaming cup of cappuccino in front of me.

She popped back over to the counter, grabbed hers, and then plopped into the chair across from me. As if on cue, her little dog Pumpkin scurried into the kitchen and whined at her feet. She was far too tiny to attempt the leap up into Olivia’s lap.

“Come here, you,” she said and scooped the dog into her arms.

“No outfit today?”

Olivia smiled. “She only wears them around the house for special occasions.”

“Such as?”

“Holidays,” Olivia said. She carefully picked up her cup and took a sip, being careful not to spill on Pumpkin. “And she always wears a party dress on her birthday. Don’t you, little boo?”

I looked over Olivia’s shoulder, toward a room tucked at the back of the house. Under normal circumstances, I thought it might be used as a den or family room. But from where I was seated, I could see a sewing machine set up on a small table, and tons of tiny costumes hanging on garment racks.

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