Goodnight Moo Read online

  Josh placed his brimming honey jars in the boxes.

  Brynn followed suit with her cheese.

  “Besides, you’ll scare away our newest member.” He looked at Brynn, and his green eyes twinkled as if in acknowledgment of Tom’s mischief.

  Brynn looked away. “No worries. I’m not so easily scared away.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to me, sweetie, I’m just an old guy with old ways,” Tom muttered.

  It had been a few years since a man had called her sweetie, other than Dan. It raised her hackles, but she stopped herself from telling him it was unacceptable. Just this once. If he said it again, she’d inform him. She was nobody’s sweetie—and certainly not his.

  A few more people entered the room. They made introductions, and Brynn was certain it would take her months to remember all their names. But she would remember their products. Lavender. Radishes and rutabaga. Persimmons. Apple butter. And to top it all off, the local Christmas tree and pumpkin farmer brought miniature Christmas trees, which gave the boxes a festive flair.

  She reached into a box and held up one of the tiny trees. “Adorable.”

  “Thanks,” the man standing next to her said. “It’s a great way to use up scraps on the farm, and people seem to like them. I’m Kevin.” He extended his calloused but warm hand.

  “Okay everybody. Listen up. We have a decision to make,” Josh said, after clearing his throat. “Some of us think we need to raise prices. We’re barely earning out.”

  “But earning out is just one of our goals,” Willow said. “We wanted to support the community by offering healthy products and exposing them to what we’re producing. More people have ordered from my website since I joined the CSA.”

  Which reminded Brynn that she needed to find someone to do a website for her. She planned to sell her cheese online and ship it. But first she had to find someone to create the site—she was not technologically astute.

  “I say we give it another year before we raise prices,” Kevin said. “You know the local economy isn’t that great. If we raise prices now, I’m afraid we’ll lose subscribers.”

  Mutters of agreement sounded from around the table, where they had gathered in a deluge of earthy-colored flannel shirts and wool sweaters.

  “Tom?”

  “Well, I suppose you’re right. It’s just that I sometimes feel like we’re giving our products away for nothing. I’m still teaching, so we’re doing okay, but if we were just trying to survive by our greens and such, we’d never make it. I wonder how some of you are doing it.”

  Willow spoke up. “We all have other gigs, Tom. You know that.”

  The group decided to table the issue until next year. After the meeting, they loaded the boxes into Willow’s truck, as it was her turn to make deliveries. If a member had a truck, they took turns. Brynn had thought about getting a truck, but she hadn’t followed through yet. A pang of regret plucked at her. There were a lot of things she needed to follow through with, but she had no time. Maybe Dan was right. Taking care of three cows on her own was too much for her, even if she was just milking one of them. But she could manage the cows—it was the rest of her life that fell away.

  “How’s that cow of yours?” Willow said. “Is she still giving you problems?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Brynn said.

  “I have a friend who specializes in acupuncture and herbs for animals. She’s a vet of sorts.”

  Acupuncture? Herbs? Petunia was too valuable to mess around with New Age pseudomedicine. “I don’t know if I’d trust any of that.”

  “I know what you mean,” Willow said. “But she’s got a great track record. It might be worth a shot.”

  “Complete and total mumbo jumbo,” Tom said. “What your cow needs is a muzzle.”

  Chapter 3

  Brynn didn’t expect people to understand how she felt about her cows. She was a cheesemaker, not a farmer. She didn’t see her Petunia, Marigold, and Buttercup as “agricultural,” but more as a part of the team it took to make the artisanal cheese. The reason she owned cows was because she’d become a freak with wanting to control every part of the cheesemaking process—right down to what the cows who gave her the milk were eating.

  She tossed and turned that night worrying about sweet Petunia. The cow had been blessed with such a sweet personality, a church at the edge of town had asked for her to be part of the local living nativity scene. Brynn thought it was an excellent way for the community to get to know her and her cows. But Petunia was mourning her calf. And her grief was taking longer than the vet said it would, so it worried her—and it broke Brynn’s heart. And it was starting to annoy the other two cows, who were avoiding Petunia. Somehow, she fell asleep, jolted awake by sirens screaming a few hours later. She glanced at her clock:

  3:03 AM.

  She stuffed a pillow over her head, but the sirens were getting closer. The girls would be frightened and on edge. So she untangled herself from her quilt and slipped on her jeans and sweater. She padded down the stairs, realizing the sirens were close indeed. As she peered out the window, several fire trucks were flying down the road—toward the Old Glebe Church. She looked off toward it and saw flames.

  “Oh my God!” She rushed outside, and then went back inside as the cold smacked her with an icy grip. She reached for her coat and slipped on her boots.

  While struggling to get her coat on, she raced toward the church, over the hilly field connecting her property to the church property.

  She almost tripped over several clumps of field grass as she made her way, heart racing as she came up over the small hill where the church came into view. Flames engulfed the old building.

  She continued to run across the field toward the church, now surrounded by fire trucks and ambulances, along with several cop cars with red lights flashing.

  Where is Nancy?

  As she moved closer, the fire’s blistering heat enveloped her and the flashing lights shot through her eyes. She squinted, examining each person she saw. The firefighters were hosing off the place, and the police had gathered in a corner. The ambulance was lying in wait.

  Where is Nancy?

  She ran toward the group of police officers. “Where’s Nancy?”

  One of them turned toward her, yelling over the roar of the fire. “Excuse me?”

  “Where’s Nancy? The woman who lives here?”

  “And you are?” He pulled her over to the side. “I’m Brynn, her neighbor. I live right over there,” she said. As if that makes a difference.

  The officer took in a breath and released it. “We don’t know if she’s inside.”

  That can’t be right. “Do you mean she didn’t call?” Brynn’s heart was pounding in her ears.

  “It was called in by another neighbor, up the road,” he replied, still yelling over the noise.

  A firefighter unraveled another fire hose about ten feet from Brynn. Tufts of wiry red hair sprang from the bottom of his fire helmet. His partner was the same large young man from the CSA meeting. The one who smelled of apples. The one with icy blue eyes. “Well, she’s inside.” Brynn tried not to scream.

  “Where else would she be?”

  “Our guys are inside. If she’s in there, they’ll find her.”

  Brynn took in the blaze. It was destroying the old church, the place Nancy wanted to renovate to make into a market, the place she lived in, the place she’d always dreamed of.

  A great gust of wind blew smoke in Brynn’s eyes and burned her throat.

  The cop reached for her and led her farther away from the smoke and fire.

  Her head was spinning, her heart was pounding, and a stream of hot salty tears ran down her face.

  “Calm down, okay?” the officer said, in a gentler voice. They were now farther away from the noise of men yelling, engines roaring, and fire consuming the church. “We don’t know anything yet.”

  “There’s no way she could survive that fire!”

  “You never know. I’ve
seen people survive fires all the time. Sometimes they’re hospitalized with smoke inhalation, sometimes with burns. But it happens.”

  Brynn’s stomach was churning now. She gasped for air. How could this happen? Nancy was always so careful.

  A wave of sick came over her, and she turned to wretch, dizzied, as her knees wobbled.

  The officer held her up as her knees resisted. The flames blurred as she fell forward onto the officer.

  “Can I get oxygen over here?” she heard him say.

  Another firefighter ran up to her, with a sooty, sweaty face and kind blue eyes, and he scooped her up in his arms right before she passed out. Her last thought was: So many blue eyes around here.

  When she came to, Brynn was in a warm ambulance with a cheerful paramedic. “Hi Brynn,” she said, smiling. “You’ll be okay. You passed out.”

  Brynn took the oxygen mask off. “What about Nancy? The woman who lives here?”

  Her smile vanished. “She was just taken away. Zach Flannery, the guy who carried you over here, said they’re taking her to Augusta Medical, weirdly enough. She’s burned, but not badly, and suffered a lot of smoke inhalation.”

  “Will she be okay?”

  “Let’s hope so.” The paramedic looked at her watch as she held Brynn’s wrist. “You’re good to go. But take it slowly, okay?”

  Brynn tried to sit up, and it turned out, the paramedic was right. She dizzied and lay back down.

  The paramedic smiled. “Let’s try again, shall we?” Brynn sat up and inhaled.

  “That’s better. Now, can we give you a lift home?”

  Brynn nodded. “Thank you. I live at the old rectory, next door.”

  “I’ve always loved that place,” she said. “The way it sits tucked in that long driveway against that green field and the hills.”

  “Yes, it’s lovely, but I’m sure I’ve got three upset cows to deal with.”

  “You’re the cheesemaker, right? I’m Casey, Doc Johnson’s daughter.”

  It was a cliché, but certainly true about small towns: everybody was either related or knew each other. In a community like this, it was difficult to be a newcomer, and it would be even more difficult to keep secrets, Brynn imagined. Everybody would be all up in everybody’s business.

  “Nice to meet you, I’m Brynn MacAlister.” She coughed. She tamped down the fear creeping into her guts about her girls. They must be nervous, with all the commotion from the fire. Petunia would need milking, and they all would need to graze.

  The vehicle’s engine started, and they crept along the road.

  When Brynn stepped out onto her driveway, the rank scent of the charred building invaded her senses. She tried not to think about the fire as she made her way to the barn. Cows were sensitive creatures. Her Granny Rose always said to approach them only with happy thoughts in your head. To some it might be a silly superstition, but Brynn had learned to take her granny’s advice about everything. She wished she had done so when saying yes to Dan’s marriage proposal. She remembered Granny Rose’s words vividly: “It’s not that I don’t like him. I just don’t think he’s good enough for you. And he’s not husband material.”

  Brynn had inwardly scoffed. Husband material. Who talked like that these days? Funny expression—but exactly right. Finding her fiancé with a woman named Jolene had just added salt to her gaping wound. Dolly Parton was Brynn’s personal country music guru, and she’d not been able to listen to any of her music since. Her stacks of albums and CDs sat unplayed.

  After milking and letting the girls out, she’d head over to the hospital to check on Nancy. At the very least, Nancy would be heartbroken. Brynn was certain the Old Glebe Church, which had been sitting there since 1835, was in ruins.

  But, ultimately, it was just a building, old or not. Nancy, on the other hand, was still alive, and Brynn was eager to see and comfort her—and find out what the heck happened.

  Photo courtesy of Christy Majors

  Mollie Cox Bryan writes cozy mysteries with edge and romances with slow, sweet burn. The first book in her Cora Crafts Mystery series, Death Among the Doilies, was a “Fresh Fiction Not to Miss” selection and was a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award. The second book, No Charm Intended, was named a “Summer 2017 Top 10 Beach Read” by Woman’s World. She also wrote the Agatha-Award nominated Cumberland Creek Mysteries. She makes her home at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, where she works as a researcher and fact-checker and writes in the early morning hours. Visit her and sign up for her newsletter at molliecoxbryan.com.

  MACRAMÉ MURDER

  As the head of a bustling crafting retreat, Cora Chevalier could use a break of her own. So she and her creative cohorts temporarily swap small-town Indigo Gap for the Sea Glass Island Craft Retreat, where they teach classes and create beachy crafts like shell mosaics and sea glass chimes. Cora and her boyfriend Adrian are enchanted by their surroundings—especially the stunning wedding and blissful newlyweds they encounter on the beach. But awe becomes shock when the bride turns up dead the next day . . .

  The woman’s death appears to be the result of a severe jellyfish sting. But when it’s revealed that she was murdered and Adrian becomes a suspect, Cora must hitch the real culprit to the crime—and fast. Because it just might take everything she has to crack a case more twisted than her most complex macramé knot!

  NO CHARM INTENDED

  Settling into her new life and career in small-town Indigo Gap, North Carolina, Cora Chevalier is preparing to host a “wildcrafting” retreat at her Victorian home. But a specter hangs over the venture when beloved local nanny Gracie Wyke goes missing. Amidst leading their guests in nature hikes, rock painting and making clay charms, Cora and her business partner, Jane, team up with Gracie’s boyfriend, Paul, to launch their own investigation into her disappearance when the local police prove unhelpful.

  Cora and her crafters take Paul in, believing he is in danger and not the suspect police have made him out to be. However, as they uncover new clues and a body turns up at a local abandoned amusement park, Cora and Jane begin to question their decision. With more questions than answers arising, is Cora crafty enough to untangle a knot that could put an innocent in jail—and permanently destroy her reputation?

  DEATH AMONG THE DOILIES

  For thirty-something blogger Cora Chevalier, small-town Indigo Gap, North Carolina, seems like the perfect place to reinvent her life. Shedding a stressful past as a counselor for a women’s shelter, Cora is pouring all her talents—and most of her savings—into a craft retreat business, with help from close pal and resident potter Jane Starr. Between transforming her Victorian estate into a crafter’s paradise and babysitting Jane’s daughter, the new entrepreneur has no time for distractions. Especially rumors about the murder of a local school librarian . . .

  But when Jane’s fingerprints match those found at the grisly crime scene, Cora not only worries about her friend, but her own reputation. With angry townsfolk eager for justice and both Jane’s innocence and the retreat at risk, she must rely on her creative chops to unlace the truth behind the beloved librarian’s disturbing demise. Because if the killer’s patterns aren’t pinned, Cora’s handiwork could end up in stitches . . .

  SCRAPBOOK OF SECRETS

  Having traded in her career as a successful investigative journalist for the life of a stay-at-home mom in picturesque Cumberland Creek, Virginia, Annie can’t help but feel that something’s missing. But she finds solace in a local “crop circle” of scrapbookers united by chore-shy husbands, demanding children, and occasional fantasies of their former single lives. And when the quiet idyll of their small town is shattered by a young mother’s suicide, they band together to find out what went wrong . . .

  Annie resurrects her reporting skills and discovers that Maggie Rae was a closet scrapbooker who left behind more than a few secrets—and perhaps a few enemies. As they sift through Maggie Rae’s mysteriously discarded scrapbooks, Annie and
her “crop” sisters begin to suspect that her suicide may have been murder. It seems that something sinister is lurking beneath the town’s beguilingly calm façade—like a killer with unfinished business . . .

  SCRAPPED

  The ladies of the Cumberland Scrapbook Crop are welcoming an eccentric newbie into their fold. A self-proclaimed witch, Cookie Crandall can whip up a sumptuous vegan meal and rhapsodize about runes and moon phases with equal aplomb. She becomes fast friends with her fellow scrapbookers, including freelance reporter Annie, with whom she shares shallow roots in a community of established family trees. So when Cookie becomes the prime suspect in a series of bizarre murders, the croppers get scrappy and set out to clear her name . . .

  Annie starts digging and discovers that the victims each had strange runic patterns carved on their bodies—a piece of evidence that points the police in Cookie’s direction. Even her friends begin to doubt her innocence when they find an ornate, spiritual scrapbook that an alleged beginner like Cookie could never have crafted. As Annie and the croppers search for answers, they’ll uncover a shockingly wicked side of their once quiet town—and a killer on the prowl for another victim . . .

  DEATH OF AN IRISH DIVA

  Spring is in the air, but the ladies of the Cumberland Creek Scrapbook Crop hardly have time to stop and smell the roses. Not when famed Irish dancer Emily McGlashen is found murdered in her studio just after the St. Patrick’s Day parade—and one of the Crop’s own members is the prime suspect. Vera’s dance studio may have suffered when Emily waltzed into town, but the croppers know she’s not a vengeful murderer. Lucky for her, co-scrapbooker Annie is a freelance reporter eager to vindicate her friend. What she discovers is a puzzling labyrinth of secrets that only add question marks to Emily’s murder. Just when it seems they’ve run out of clues, an antique scrapbook turns up and points the croppers in the right direction—and brings them face to face with a killer more twisted than a Celtic knot . . .