Scrappy Summer Read online

  “I just don’t know,” she managed to say. Suddenly, she felt as if there wasn’t enough air in her basement.

  “Give me the computer,” Vera said.

  “No,” Sheila said. “I’ll do it. I will. Just give me a minute.”

  She took a deep breath, brought her hand to the keyboard, clicked on the email and read aloud: “Dear Mrs. Rogers, we are pleased to inform you that you have won the grand prize. . . .”

  She looked up at Vera. “Vera,” she said and grabbed her. “I won. I’m a designer. It’s true.” Sheila’s vision started to blur, and she felt woozy.

  “Sheila! Get her some water!”

  But it was too late for Sheila, the new scrapbook designer, as all went black.

  Beatrice and Jon sat in the middle of the crowd in the fire hall, awaiting news of the winners. They watched as Vera came in with Eric and Elizabeth, who was sticky with cotton candy but grinning. Then came Annie with her boys. Lawd, they were getting big. One lugged around a wagon with stuffed animals he’d earned playing games at the fair. Sheila and Paige came into the hall together. Beatrice wondered where DeeAnn was. Surely, she would not let these folks keep her away from seeing who the winner was.

  Jon reached for her hand and winked at her. She smiled back at him, her old heart fluttering. Who knew that at eighty-three years old she’d find love again?

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to get started,” one of the judges said, then tapped the mike. “Is this thing on? Can you hear me?”

  “Jesus,” Beatrice muttered.

  “Of course,” Jon yelled along with everyone else’s replies.

  As if they even needed a mike.

  “Good,” the judge said, grinning. “First. I want to thank . . .”

  He went on and on. Beatrice wasn’t paying a bit of attention. She often tuned out these locals when they were speaking at an engagement. It was painful to hear them.

  She was thinking about time and the movement of it. The way her daughter and the scrapbookers tried to capture it. It was futile. Time rolled on. It was as it should be. She was also thinking about Emily McGlashen’s mother and father and was wondering how they were getting on back at the commune. Poor Emily had been killed about a year after she moved to Cumberland Creek.

  “Third place goes to Macy Freed,” the judge said. The words third place snapped Bea back to the present. She needed to pay attention to this.

  Lawd, she couldn’t believe how short Macy’s shorts were. If they came up any higher, everybody would get a good view of what was meant to be private. She hoped the woman would stop bouncing. Beatrice was afraid something would bounce right out of place and embarrass all of them.

  “Congratulations, Macy,” the judge said. “Your prize is a free haircut at Hair Cuttery. Now, on to the second place winner, who gets a free haircut, as well. Rachel Burkholder!”

  When Rachel stood, Bea saw the disappointment emanating from every pore of her body. A staged smile spread across her face as she accepted her prize.

  Goodness, Beatrice should not be taking so much pleasure in this. It was mean-spirited, and she was ashamed of herself. But at the same time, this woman had won three years in a row. She needed to get over it.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the blue ribbon and the Walmart gift certificate go to a new person in town. Nobody on the board had heard of her before. She made an exquisite red velvet pie. One of the judges said the pie is ‘a culinary culmination of creativity and delicious excellence.’”

  Jon grabbed Beatrice’s hand.

  Murmurs from the crowd. A sense of anticipation sparked through the crowd.

  “Ms. Dixie Smith!”

  Applause erupted, then quieted as people began to look around. Where was she?

  “Dixie Smith?” The judge spoke the name again.

  This was the first time the winner hadn’t raced up, squealing, to the podium in all the competition’s long history. The judges squirmed.

  “I’ve never heard of her,” someone in the crowd said.

  “She must not be local. What gives?” another voice said.

  “Dixie Smith?”

  Nobody came forward.

  Beatrice and Jon dared not look at one another, or else they’d erupt in a fit of giggles.

  Revenge was, indeed, a dish best served cold, and, as it turned out, as sweet as a perfect little slice of ol’ red velvet pie.

  Lovey-Dovey Red Velvet Pie Recipe

  Note from Mollie: This recipe is a perfect example of how versatile pie is. Once you have a good, solid recipe that works, it’s fun and easy to experiment with it. I call this pie my “Lovey-Dovey Red Velvet Pie” because I’m honoring my husband’s Southern traditions and tastes, while also acknowledging my own pie-loving Yankee family and traditions. Perfect for Valentine’s Day.

  Makes one 9-inch pie.

  Dough for 1 nine-inch pie crust

  1 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly

  cooled

  1 cup sugar

  ½ cup all-purpose flour

  3 eggs

  1 cup buttermilk

  1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

  2 heaping teaspoons cocoa

  2 tablespoons (1 ounce) red food

  coloring

  Preheat the oven to 325°F. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to form a circle that is about 11 inches in diameter. Line a 9-inch pie plate with the dough and crimp the edges.

  In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, and flour, and stir well. One at a time, add the eggs, mixing well after each addition. Pour in the buttermilk and vanilla, and stir until blended. Next, stir in the cocoa. Then add the food coloring, mixing until well combined. Red, isn’t it?

  Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust.

  The original buttermilk pie recipe calls for baking for 25 to 35 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted in the center comes out clean. But the pie filling takes 45 minutes to thicken in my oven. When you insert the knife in the pie, there will be a little filling on it, but it will continue to firm up as it cools.

  Transfer the pie to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes, or until the filling firms up.

  Serve the pie warm, at room temperature, or chilled. You can top it with just about anything. I once used a cream cheese icing, but it was a bit too sweet. I’m still searching for a better cream cheese icing for this pie.

  Ideas for a “Thing” Scrapbook

  In this story Paige is making a scrapbook about her carnival glass collection. The glass has meaning in her life, and there are stories about it that she wants to pass down. If you have a collection of anything, this kind of scrapbook serves many purposes.

  DeeAnn doesn’t have any collections, but she does have items she has hung on to through the years. They happen to have belonged to her children when they were small, so she makes a scrapbook chronicling each item and her memories. She also pulls in her journal pages from the time the children were born and adds the old to the new. If you have items like this, this approach serves as a way of gathering and sorting—and preserving.

  This idea is a natural tendency some children have, and I think it’s useful for adults, too. How about a “wish book” of the things you wish you could have? Why do you want them? What meaning would they give your life? Is it a goal to get these things? Or just a dream?

  If you are a crafter of any sort, start taking photos of what you make. A craft scrapbook serves as a good reminder of homemade gifts you’ve made. And it could be a sort of dream book, as well, as you could list the crafts you want to make.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks so much to my editor Martin Biro for his astute help and patience as I crafted the first novella I have ever written. It’s always fun to stretch, learn, and play with new forms. Much thanks to Kensington’s digital guru Alexandra Nicolajsen. Thank you to the whole Kensington crew for their support and professionalism.

  As ever, my heartfelt thanks goes to my agent Sharon Bowers.

 
; But mostly, thanks to all of you readers who love my pie-baking scrapbookers. I am honored.

  In gratitude,

  Mollie

  The ladies of the Cumberland Creek

  crop circle celebrate the holidays and solve a

  murder in Mollie Cox Bryan’s new mystery

  A CRAFTY CHRISTMAS

  A Kensington mass-market paperback and e-book on sale October 2014!

  Chapter 1

  Was that a person lying half in the shadows of the ship’s deck?

  When Sheila had tripped, her eyeglasses flew off her face. She’d stumbled and landed on her knees, groping around for them. On this, her second day of running on the deck of the cruise ship, images of disaster ticked at her brain. What if she couldn’t find her glasses? What if they were broken? She didn’t have a spare. Finally, she found them and slipped them on.

  Now, what was it that she tripped over? What was she touching as she groped around?

  She tried to get a better view as she struggled to get to her feet. But the sun hadn’t cracked the Caribbean sky yet this morning, and the ship’s lights were dim. The glasses weren’t helping, either. It looked like there was a sack shaped like a body lying on the deck, with an arm strewn over the path. That can’t be right. She pulled the glasses off her face. These were not her glasses.

  Just then a huge floodlight flicked on, and Sheila now saw that the object she was looking at was indeed a person lying there in a most uncomfortable position. Drunk, of course. Just beyond the person’s arm, she thought she saw her own glasses, and as she reached for them, a member of the ship’s crew came walking over.

  “Is everything okay here?”

  “My glasses. I tripped,” she said, stumbling backward over the person’s arm again.

  “What’s this?”

  “It looks like someone had quite a night,” Sheila said, smiling. She was no prude and enjoyed a drink or two, but she’d never seen so much drinking in her life as what she had witnessed on this cruise.

  The crew member’s expression grew pained as he leaned in closer, shaking the person gently.

  “Dead,” the man said.

  “What?” Sheila said with a sharp tone, dropping her glasses. Was he joking with her? What a sick joke.

  “Stay right there,” he said and pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call security.”

  “I’m in the middle of my run,” she said, dazed.

  “Ma’am,” he said. All business. Very stern. “I need you to stay here.”

  “Well, all right,” she said, slipping her glasses on. Her heart was thumping against her rib cage.

  As she stood next to the crumpled body on the deck, she crouched over to take a better look. She blinked. The side of a face was clear: mouth open and skin sickly blue. Sheila stood fast. Yes, that was a dead person on the deck. And she had been groping around the body. Touching the body as she searched for her glasses. As soon as it sank in, she proceeded to do what any normal, red-blooded woman would do. She watched everything melt around her, and she swooned.

  When she came to, she heard a familiar voice. “She runs every day,” the voice said. “Nothing unusual about that.”

  Sheila blinked her eyes. Where was she? She looked around. There was a CPR poster, a table with medical supplies, and she was lying on a cot, underneath a soft blanket. She figured she was in the infirmary—and, man, her head throbbed. She reached her hand to her forehead and felt the swollen area. It hurt to touch it. When she’d passed out, she must have fallen forward. Of course. She was such a klutz. Why couldn’t she have swooned with grace, like they did in the movies?

  As she lay on the cot patching together what happened in her mind, she began to feel sick. She’d tripped over a dead person, and what was more, she’d been pawing around the body to find her glasses. Where were they, anyway?

  She started to sit up, but dizziness overtook her. She wanted to cry.

  Here she was on a scrapbooking cruise, as the guest of honor, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and she couldn’t even sit up.

  “Mrs. Rogers? Please don’t sit up yet,” said a male voice coming from the side of the room. She couldn’t see without twisting her aching head. “You took quite a fall and have a nasty head injury. We don’t think it’s a concussion, but we need to keep an eye on you.”

  “Sheila!” a familiar voice said, and Vera’s face came into view. “How do you feel?”

  “Like hell,” she managed to say. “What happened?”

  Vera’s presence calmed her. She was her best friend. They’d known each other their whole lives. It was hard to imagine life without Vera.

  Vera’s mouth twisted. “I was hoping you could tell us. We were paged. They said you had an accident. We came rushing down here. And this security guy starts questioning me like I’m a common criminal. Then he starts questioning us about you.”

  “Vera, you’re babbling,” Paige said as she came up behind Vera.

  Paige was here, too. That was good. Another friend whom she’d known for a long time. And for some reason, Sheila felt like she needed as many as she could get.

  “I tripped and fell during my run,” Sheila said, nearing tears.

  “That’s not like you,” Vera said. “You’ve been running your whole life. I don’t think I’ve ever known you to fall.”

  “She said she tripped,” Paige said. “Anybody can trip.”

  “Yes, I fell over a . . . body,” Sheila said. “I’ve got this horrible headache. Anybody know where my glasses are?”

  “Here.” Paige handed them to her.

  “No, these aren’t mine.”

  “You fell over a body?” Vera asked, ignoring the part about the eyeglasses.

  Sheila nodded.

  “These are the only glasses I see here,” Paige told her and then turned. “Any idea where her glasses are?”

  “Those aren’t hers?” the male voice said.

  Sheila sighed in frustration. “No, they are not mine. I’m sure I had them when I passed out. I think. Maybe they fell off again. These glasses must belong to the . . . the deceased.”

  “Which means that the dead woman has your glasses on,” Vera said, smirking, then giggled.

  “What’s so funny?” Paige asked.

  Vera shrugged and laughed. “It just seems funny. I don’t think she has any need for eyeglasses if she’s dead, is all.”

  These two had been sniping at one another since they’d gotten on board. Paige was mad because Vera had brought Eric along on what was supposed to a girls-only trip. Vera became upset when she realized that Paige was mad, yet Paige’s son had joined them on board to surprise his mother. Yet another man.

  “Hi, Sheila.” The male voice suddenly merged with a face as he gently moved the two women away. “I’m Doctor Sweeney. How do you feel? Head hurt?”

  She nodded. A nurse brought her an ice pack.

  “Let’s keep the ice on that bump for a while. I’ll get you some pain medicine. Are you allergic to anything?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’d really like my glasses. Everything is a blur.”

  “We have someone working on that,” he said. The nurse brought water and some pills. “This should help with the pain. I hope your vision is just a blur because you don’t have your glasses. You really smacked your head.”

  “Well, here they are,” said another man, who walked into the room. He was tall, well built, and was wearing a linen suit. His long black dreadlocks were pulled back into a ponytail.

  He handed Sheila her glasses, and she slid them on her face. The world around her took on a familiar clarity.

  “Mrs. Rogers, I’m Matthew Kirtley, from Ahoy Security. I have a few questions for you,” he said. His voice was softer than what his body and his professional attitude would have led one to believe.

  “Can it wait?” the doctor said. “We’re not sure how she’s doing.”

  “Certainly,” Matthew said and smiled. “Whenever you’re up to it. My vic is not going anywh
ere. Well, nobody is. That’s one of the interesting things about security on a ship. Nobody’s going anywhere. Not even the murderer.”

  “Murder?” Sheila said. Her hand went to her chest. Paige and Vera rushed to her side; both paled at the word that stuck in the air and hovered around them.

  Finally, Matthew Kirtley cleared his throat in the quiet room, which made Sheila’s heart nearly leap out of her chest. They were on a cruise ship with a dead body and a murderer.

  Nobody’s going anywhere. Not even the murderer.

  Chapter 2

  Beatrice would never admit it, but she was also proud of Sheila. She wondered if Sheila’s mother, Gerty, was doing happy flips in her grave. She had scrimped and saved her whole life for Sheila to study design in college, and then she’d run off and got married right out of college, which nearly broke her mother’s heart. You just never knew about your kids.

  Still, there Sheila was, middle-aged and starting anew. It took guts. And talent. Sheila had always had plenty of both—she just needed to get her bearings.

  “Thinking about Sheila again?” Jon said as he walked into the kitchen.

  “How did you know that?” she said, looking up from her tea and cookies.

  “You always get a sort of happy, bemused look on your face when you think of her these days,” he said, leaning over, then kissing her cheek. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning to you,” she said. “But it’s almost supper time, ya know.”

  He’d just wakened from one of his long afternoon naps. He was French, and he claimed it was bred in him to nap. The fact that he was in his seventies had nothing to do with it, of course.

  “Have you heard from Vera?” he asked.

  “Not yet. I expect to hear from her today,” Beatrice said. “Lizzie will be home from day care soon.”