Poison in the Pansies Read online

  He looked over at her.

  She shrugged. “Before,” she noted carefully, trying to explain how she felt, “he controlled everything, so I didn’t get to say things a lot of the time. Any natural ability I might have had to say the right thing at the right time from before I married him just became locked down into this really hard say nothing more rule, so I didn’t piss him off,” And then she frowned. “That’s not making any sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t. You might want to try again.” He stared at her.

  “Okay. You know when I was growing up …” She shook her head, stopped for a moment to gather her thoughts. “I mean, obviously you learn to say things, and you try hard not to hurt people, blah-blah-blah. But when I got married, I couldn’t say anything. It was that, you know, I was fed the lines I was supposed to say, and these are the things that I had to do, and these are the married people I had to meet, so I didn’t really get a chance to joke around and actually be me.

  “And now that that ruling influence is gone, it’s like I’m a teenager again, trying to figure out what to say, what not to say, and how not to hurt people’s feelings. And I keep messing up.” She turned to face Mack. “So I’m sorry.”

  He looked at her. “And what are you sorry for?” he asked quietly.

  And she knew this was momentous. “Because I think I just hurt you.”

  His eyebrows shot up, and she realized that the think part was the problem.

  “So I know I just hurt you, and I didn’t mean to.” She felt the tears gathering in the back of her eyes. “And even now I feel like I’m messing up.” She brushed away the moisture from the corner of her eyes. She stared out at the river, shook her head. “This is why I don’t do relationships.”

  “Why would you say that?” he asked. “You have to learn to walk before you learn to run.”

  She stopped, spun around, looked at him. “Is that what it is?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me,” he stated quietly. “I mean, you’ve just made it pretty clear that we don’t have a relationship, and I’m not sure if that’s what you’re trying to say or not.”

  “No, I was saying that I didn’t have a romance.” And then she frowned. “Is a romance a relationship?” He sighed. She was making things worse. “See? See? I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

  “I guess the question really is,” he added, “whether you feel like we’re on a relationship path.”

  “Of course we are.” She watched as relief crossed his face.

  “And are you okay with that?” he asked, but he studiously kept looking down at the barbecue.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” she replied equally quietly.

  He looked up, searched her face, and then a grin split his hugely handsome face in half. “You are, indeed, but that could be just because you live here and because you’re hungry.”

  She walked over, wrapped her arms around him in a hug. “I’m sorry.” She mumbled against his chest. “I feel so socially awkward. I feel like a gauche teenager again, but I would not want to hurt you.”

  “And I’m glad to hear that.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her up close against his broad chest. “I would not want to hurt you either,” he agreed quietly. “So, whether your grandmother or somebody else at the old folks’ home puts bets on our love life, you’ll ignore them because nobody gets to control who and what we feel about us—except us.”

  She leaned back, looked up at him. “You’re so much wiser than I am.”

  “No.” He shook his head at that. “Honestly, you say some things that make me realize that our experiences in life have just been so very different.” He shrugged. “You need a little more practice in some areas, and I need a lot more practice in others.”

  And just then she sniffed the air, and he returned to the grill and snagged the steaks. He took one look. “Whew, okay, that was a close one. Now it’s time to eat.”

  “Good, because that’s definitely one area I need more practice at.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” He laughed out loud. “I think you’re doing just fine on the eating part. Now the cooking part …?”

  She beamed, as she sat down to a plate of barbecued veggies, a large salad, and a grilled steak.

  “And shopping,” she added. “I still struggle. I don’t quite understand how anybody is supposed to live on this little bit of money that I make. I know that people have a lot more money than I do, but, wow, groceries are so expensive. By the time I pay for dog food, cat food, and bird food, it’s really hard to come up with enough money to feed myself for the rest of the week.”

  He looked over at her. “And have you considered that maybe the dog food, cat food, and bird food should come after your groceries?”

  She stared at him. “No.” Her tone was stiff. “My responsibility, my joy, is to look after them. I’m blessed to have them in my life. And, therefore, they get what they need.”

  “Even if you don’t get what you need?” he asked, his lips twitching.

  “I can go back to peanut butter and bread if I have to,” she replied calmly. “But I don’t want them to suffer.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment.

  She stared at him suspiciously and then realized that, for him, the topic was already over. He had asked; she’d answered, and he was good with that. “So, how was your day?”

  He looked over at her. “It was long but good, and, no, I’m not telling you about the case.”

  She looked at him with an injured air. “That’s not very nice of you.”

  “What? That I won’t tell you?”

  “No, that you jumped to assuming that I would ask you.”

  He burst out laughing. “It’s a given that you’ll ask. And it’s a given that I’ll say, I’m not telling you anything.”

  “Well, now that we’ve got that out of the way”—she grinned—“how about a cold case for me to work on?”

  “Don’t you have enough around here for you to fuss with?” He pointed at her backyard garden, which she had worked on in starts and fits, depending on what else was going on in her life.

  “Sure, but they aren’t Poison in the Pansies.” She waggled her eyebrows.

  “Current case,” he stated sternly, “not for you.”

  “What if I found another case that might have had poison in it?” she asked. “I could slide that into being connected.”

  He glared at her. “I don’t think so. We don’t get very many poisonings in town.”

  “Well, that’s good,” she replied, “because, honest to goodness, you know that Nan kept telling me about what a beautiful place this was to live, but, so far, I’m just seeing an awful lot of crime.”

  He smiled. “Some of it’s crime, not always though. One of your cold cases involved flooding.”

  “No, that’s true,” she agreed. “And, of course, in some cases, I’ve been really helpful too.”

  “You were really helpful in closing out some of the cold cases. You’ve done a lot of good for a lot of people, and whether everybody is particularly happy about it isn’t the issue,” he murmured. “What’s the issue is that you went ahead and helped them anyway.”

  She smiled. “I don’t think too many people think that what I was doing was actually helping.”

  “No. But you know, once you start finding bodies buried for a long time, and you realize how long some of these people have been at their evil antics,” he noted, “well, you know it doesn’t matter if people like it or not. We’re finding justice for the victims.”

  “And that’s the part that really bothers me,” she stated. “All these people who got away with murder for so long, and now I just want to make sure they all pay.”

  “Making them pay is one thing,” he replied. “Finding justice is something completely different, so maybe don’t confuse the two.”

  She frowned at that. “I guess I hadn’t looked at it from that point of view.”

  “Well, you do have some reason
s to want revenge on certain people,” he agreed. “And I’m thinking of your ex and of course Robin.”

  “And yet …” she answered quietly, “Robin’s dead, hoisted by her own petard—or whatever that saying is.” She waved her fork at him. “So it’s hard to want revenge. I mean, she’s paid the ultimate price.”

  “True,” he murmured. “And that’s one of the good things about you. You know when you can walk away. Now your ex? That’s a different story.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “And I did send your brother another email.”

  Mack nodded. “I connected with him today.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s getting ready to give you a call. So you can expect to hear from him in the next couple days.”

  “Or he just told you that to get me to stop texting and emailing him.” She laughed.

  “No, I think your ex is causing trouble.”

  “Gee, what a surprise,” she muttered. “Is that why you had to connect with Nick?”

  “No. Nick had asked me some questions earlier, and I had to get some answers for him.”

  She nodded. “It’s nice that the two of you can work so well together.”

  “It would also be nice if he moved back to Kelowna,” he noted quietly. “I know that’s something that he’s considering.”

  She stared at him in joy. “I really like your brother. That would be a good idea.”

  He looked over at her from the corner of his eye.

  “I like him as your brother.” She grinned. “I don’t like him instead of you.”

  “Good,” he replied, “because otherwise I’d kick his body back to Vancouver again.”

  She burst out laughing, and he just smiled at her. She nodded. “We’re very comfortable together.”

  “Yep, like an old shoe.” When she stared at him, frowning, he chuckled. “And that’s just another old saying.”

  “I don’t get all these old sayings,” she said, with an eye roll. “What could possibly be comfortable about an old shoe? There’s no support anymore. They’re broken. Probably really smelly too.”

  He looked at her, shook his head. “Let’s move on from this one. Obviously we’ll be at odds over it.”

  “And how can you be at odds over it?” she muttered. “It’s a stupid saying.”

  He groaned. “So can we move on from it?”

  “Sure, we can go right back to the Poison in the Pansies case.”

  “Nope, we can’t. Next.”

  She sighed. “Fine, I’ll start in on the Bob Small stuff.”

  He stopped chewing and looked over at her.

  She shrugged. “I need something to look at, and I know that’s a really big case, and it’s probably more than I can really handle, and, if I do ever solve anything to do with it,” she explained, “I was hoping you guys would get the backlog of these cases caught up so I could give a hand with it.”

  He slowly put down his knife and fork. “That one could be very ugly. Bob Small is considered a serial killer. We’ve discussed this.”

  “We have, and I know you’re worried about it,” she noted. “I can tell you right now that, so far, I haven’t a clue where to go with it and what to do on it. All I can tell you is that I got started at some earlier time, and then everything came to a dead stop.”

  “Un-huh,” he muttered. “And that dead stop, is it about to stay stopped or …”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I’d have to find all my notes and get back into it again. And that file was big. So I’m not exactly sure.”

  “Right,” he agreed, “it was suspected to be a big serial killer case, wasn’t it?”

  “Lots and lots of connected cases.”

  “Suspected cases.” He nodded. “I don’t even remember the details.”

  “No, I don’t either. So, I mean, an easier one would be poison cases.”

  “I don’t think I have any cold case files with poisons in them,” he noted.

  “Well, how about from the city of Vernon or from, I don’t know, Merritt? It’s not that far away. Penticton, Summerland? How about any of those places? I mean, surely somebody in Okanagan Falls might have killed somebody with poison, right?” She looked at him hopefully. He stared at her. “Okay, fine. Too gruesome?”

  “Too ghoulish,” he corrected.

  She raised both hands, then sighed. “And speaking of things not happening yet, I still haven’t got that catalog from Scott that he promised me.”

  “The one with all your repaired furniture?” She nodded. “Yeah. Maybe tomorrow. And that should bring you a ton of money, right?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. Then she thought about it. “Nan seems to think it will, but I’m not so sure. And I can’t count on anything, not until it’s actually in hand.”

  “Good, that’s wise.” He nodded. “Because then you won’t be disappointed if it ends up being much less.”

  “Exactly,” she agreed. “That’s what I was trying to explain to Nan, but she didn’t see it from my point of view.”

  “But she’s got a different vested interest in this, doesn’t she?” he asked. “I mean, after all, she bought the antiques as an investment for you. So, in theory, she wants to make sure that you get the highest amount of compensation for them.”

  “Of course, and yet what she thinks it’s worth doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what it is worth at present,” she added, with a smile. “She more or less told me that today.”

  “Exactly. I’m glad you went down to see her,” he noted. “I thought you would have yesterday.”

  “Well, we were spending the day together, and then, when you got up and left so quickly like that,” she added, “I got into a bit of a funk. Just stayed around home and cleaned some. Thought about what else I want to do in the yard, attacked some of the weeds, you know? I just puttered. Maybe that was good. Maybe that was bad. I don’t know. Just doesn’t feel like I’m accomplishing much. But then when you said you would be late today, we went down and had a cup of tea with Nan.”

  “Good. Nan’s a special person.”

  “She is, indeed.” Doreen laughed. “And what about your mom?”

  “She’s doing pretty well,” he replied. “And, yes, she does want you to continue in her garden.”

  “Yeah, but you’re paying the bills,” she noted quietly. “How do you feel about it?”

  He looked over at her, smiled. “I got my brother to help pay now too, so we’re doing good.”

  “He’s okay that it’s me?”

  Mack nodded. “He’s absolutely okay that it’s you.”

  “Okay, good. Maybe I’ll take a walk over there one day soon and take a look and see what needs to be done again. I’ve been doing the regular maintenance, but it could use a bit more,” she admitted.

  “Like how much more?” he asked warily.

  She burst out laughing. “I don’t know. How big is your bank account?”

  He rolled his eyes at that. “Not very big. And it doesn’t lend itself to steak dinners all the time.”

  “I know,” she noted, “and this is fabulous.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He put down his knife and fork and finished the last bite in his mouth. He looked around. “You know that we’ll have to start doing something about desserts.”

  “Desserts?” she asked doubtfully. “When I was married, I was never even allowed to have desserts.”

  “Wow, what a total control freak he was, but you’re not with that loser anymore,” he stated. “And you could use a few extra pounds.”

  She protested. “Hey, I already gained a few extra pounds,” she replied. “Now I have to watch that I don’t gain too many more pounds.”

  He snorted at that. “A little bit of fresh fruit or something nice to end the day wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

  At the mention of fruit, she stared at him. “You know what? I might have a little bit of fruit.” She got up and walked into the kitchen and pulled out two peache
s. “I was hoarding these.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t hoard fresh fruit. It’ll go bad pretty fast.”

  She stared at him, looked down at the fruit, and then asked in a worried tone, “Are they bad?”

  He took them from her, sniffed them. “When they’re ripe like this, you have to keep them in the fridge to stop them from getting too ripe. Yet it really cuts back on the aroma.” He turned and inspected them. “They look perfect.”

  “Good,” she replied. “One for you and one for me.” He looked down at them, then at her. She raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “So did you buy one for me, or are you just willing to share?”

  She stared at him. “I think I bought one for you. I was thinking that two peaches would be perfect for either an afternoon snack or for after one meal together. But I wasn’t thinking of it as a dessert.”

  “Well, I’m thrilled. It’s not that I need you to buy meals or food for me,” he explained, “but it is nice to know that you thought of me.”

  “So you could return this favor,” she teased, chuckling. “How about you tell me about the Poison in the Pansies case.”

  “And how about not?” He held up his peach and took a big bite. Juice ran down his chin everywhere. He snatched a napkin from the table and wiped his chin. “These are perfect.”

  She ate hers much more delicately, using her knife to cut it. And by the time they were both done, she added, “You’re right. That was perfect.”

  He looked down at his watch, groaned. “And I have to go.”

  “Seriously?” She looked over at him, crestfallen.

  He smiled. “Well, I’ll take it to heart that you’ll miss me.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Somewhere.” He grinned. And, with that, he added, “I hate to eat and run.”

  She waved a hand. “Go ahead. I’ll look after the dishes. You cooked.”

  And, with that, he gave each of the animals a cuddle, and then he was gone.

  She sat here for a long moment, pondering why he would run back to work at such a late hour. Maybe something about another poisoning? And, boy, did Doreen know who she could ask.