Red Velvet Cream & Murder by Susan Gillard

Author:Susan Gillard [Gillard, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Guardian Publishing Group LLC.
Published: 2019-02-12T22:00:00+00:00

Briefing at the Bookshop

“Maybe I should just accept it,” Bernadette said. “The only romance I am meant to have is what I read.”

She walked around her shop, quickly shelving books. Heather and Amy were close by. They had decided to visit their friend at Bernadette’s Beachy Books to make sure she was okay, but they were soon getting dizzy from the experience. Heather suspected that placing the books in order wasn’t just something that Bernadette did as a chore for her business. In the same way that Heather baked both for fun and in times of stress, this must be an activity for Bernadette that was comforting.

“Don’t say that,” said Heather.

“And don’t move around so much,” Amy joked, sitting down on a bench. “I’m getting tired just watching you.”

“I’m not trying to feel sorry for myself,” said Bernadette. “I’m just trying to look at it objectively. People die when I try to date.”

“That’s a glib way to put it,” Heather pointed out.

Bernadette paused in her shelving and sighed. “I suppose that’s true, but I don’t know how else to look at it. I know people can be unlucky in love. I know it’s natural to find many frogs before you find your prince. But my bad luck seems so much more extreme than others. My dates are always lying about who they are, or becoming part of a murder investigation, or live on the other side of the country.”

“Are you talking about Spencer?” asked Amy.

Bernadette shrugged and turned back to her book. “There’s no point in talking about him. Even if he is smart and attractive and up on new book releases, he lives very far away. And he made it quite clear that he was not interested in a relationship.”

“That’s interesting,” said Amy. “Because he did mention you during his interrogation.”

“He did?” Bernadette asked, nearly dropping the stack of books she picked up. “What did he say? I mean, was he angry for telling you what I said? Did it seem like he really was a suspect? Or was it something to the effect of he might have liked me?”

“The last one,” said Amy.

“And we don’t believe he is the killer,” said Heather. “Based on an old arm injury, we don’t think that he would have been able to strike the fatal blow.”

Bernadette smiled and blushed. Then she shook her head and continued organizing the store.

“Not that it matters,” Bernadette said. “I mean, I am happy that he’s not a killer, but it’s not like anything would ever happen between us. Why would we start a relationship when we know that our lives are so far apart? I could never move to Seattle. My shop is here. And my friends. And why would he come here?”

“Besides it being a tropical paradise?” asked Amy.

“We’d be setting ourselves up for failure,” Bernadette said stoically. “We’d know from the beginning that we wouldn’t make it. It would be folly to try.”

“I don’t know,” Amy said. “This sounds like the beginning of a great romance novel.

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