Miranda Bliss - Dying for Dinner

“Good to meet you,” he told Peter. Like I said, Jim is a born pub keeper. Throwing a line of bull when necessary is part of the job description. “You’ve heard about us, eh? Stopped in to see what all the fuss is about?”

Peter scraped back his chair so that he could get a better look at Jim. “Actually,” he said, “I stopped in to see Annie. I was surprised to hear she’d left the bank, but I’m starting to get the picture.” He slid his gaze from Jim to me, and I was tempted to tell him that whatever picture he was getting, it was one he should erase from his mind. Like where I chose to work, who I chose to work with was none of Peter’s business.

“Well, I hope you don’t mind if I borrow Annie for a second.” Since Jim already had a hand on my arm and was piloting me toward the bar, this seemed an unnecessary statement. “We have business to discuss.”

“Do we?” I asked, as soon as we were out of Peter’s earshot. “Or was that a little caveman grandstanding?”

“Is that what you think?” There was a rag on the counter next to the sink where the glasses were washed, and Jim grabbed it and wiped off the bar. Even though it didn’t need it. “Actually, I do have something to talk to you about.” I could tell he was trying not to, but he couldn’t help himself; he looked over to where Peter sat with his back to us. “What’s he doing here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

Yes, it would have been perfectly legitimate if I had said that, but it wasn’t me talking, it was Eve. She scampered over to join us, her voice a harsh whisper. “Annie, that’s Peter. What is Peter doing here?”

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, gathering my patience. “I know it’s Peter. And I don’t know what he’s doing here,” I said, and when I opened my eyes again, I gave both Eve and Jim a laser look. “The two of you didn’t leave me alone with him long enough to find out.”

“It’s not that I’m jealous or anything. You should know that,” Jim said.

“But, Annie, honey…” This from Eve, who shot a look over her shoulder to where Heidi was taking Peter’s order. “This is peculiar.”

“As peculiar as Tyler showing up here to talk to you?”

Tyler had left the moment Eve came to stand behind the bar with us, and in Eve’s slightly warped way of looking at things, I guess that meant his visit didn’t count. That would explain why she clicked her tongue. “We have had dealings with Tyler in the recent past,” she reminded me. “We have not”-she repeated this with emphasis-“we have not had dealings with Peter. Not since the day we saw that weasel at the courthouse and you signed your final divorce papers.”

I didn’t need the reminder. I steered the conversation back to where it started. Or at least to where I wanted it to start. “Which doesn’t explain what Tyler was doing here.”

Eve could roll her eyes with the best of them. “Annie, are you forgetting? We keep tripping over him when we’re investigating our cases.”

“But he wasn’t here to talk about Greg’s murder. If he was, he would have asked to see Jim because Jim is the emergency contact for Très Bonne Cuisine. Or he would have talked to me if he wanted to know what I may have noticed at the shop last night. Or because he wanted to gloat about something he’d noticed that I hadn’t. Or just to tell me to keep my nose out of places where it doesn’t belong. He didn’t do any of that. He didn’t even order lunch, or a Pepsi from the bar. All he did was talk to you.”

“Why, yes, I suppose you’re right.” Eve tried her best, but it wasn’t good enough. A smile broke across her expression. “Tyler and Kaitlin have postponed their wedding,” she said.

This was a surprise, and while I processed it, I thought about everything it might mean. The implication hit like a Metro train. “Oh, no!” I backed away, both my hands out to keep the idea at bay. “You and Tyler… that doesn’t mean that the two of you… you can’t be serious.”

“You are such a worrywart!” Even though it didn’t need it, Eve smoothed a hand over the pink blouse that matched the stilettos that added three inches to her already towering height. “ Tyler stopped in. Just as a courtesy. He said he didn’t want me to hear the news through the grapevine. He said he thought he owed me that. You know, as a friend.”

“Uh-huh.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stepped back, my weight against one sensible, flat-soled shoe. “You and Tyler were never friends.”

Eve’s lips thinned. “Which doesn’t mean he can’t stop by for a chat now and then,” she said before she gave me that look only a best friend can get away with-the one that pinned me to the floor, demanded the truth, and pretty much screamed You ain’t getting away with nothing, girlfriend. “Is that why Peter is here to see you?”

“Now, now, ladies.” He really didn’t have to step between us, but Jim did anyway and I was grateful. This wasn’t a discussion I wanted to have with Eve in Belly-washer’s, not with Jim standing by and Peter in the wings. “We’ll talk about all this later, why don’t we. When there aren’t any customers about. For now…” He looked around, scrambling to find something for Eve to do. “If you could check with Damien and see if the crab cakes are ready for table five, that would be a godsend.”

Of course she agreed. But not before she raised her perfectly arched eyebrows in a look that promised we had a lot to talk about.

We did.

As soon as I could sort through what the hell was going on.

“I didn’t know he was coming,” I told Jim the moment Eve was gone. It wasn’t as if I felt obliged to provide some sort of excuse, I just wanted to be up front with him. “I’m not especially happy to see him.”

“Of course I know that, Annie.” His smile came and went. “And I’m sorry if I came across like some antediluvian throwback. You have every right to talk to anyone you like. More right to talk to him than others, I suppose.” Again, he looked Peter’s way. “He’s not what I expected.”

“Really?” I looked that way, too, and while I was at it, I elbowed Jim in the ribs. “You thought he would have cloven hooves, horns, and a tail, right?”

Jim grinned. “I didn’t think he’d be that nice looking. I mean-” Like most guys, he was embarrassed to admit he even noticed what other guys looked like. But then, Peter’s hard to ignore. Not that he’s drop-dead gorgeous or anything. He’s not. He’s not as tall as Jim. He’s not as broad in the shoulders. I suppose he’s technically not more than average looking, but somehow, for Peter, that’s more than enough.

He’s got dark hair and a great smile. He’s got a rugged, square chin that I used to think indicated strength of character, and a kind of swagger that has less to do with his opinion of himself than it does with self-preservation. When you teach chemistry to hormone-driven teenagers, you’d better be all about attitude. Or they’ll eat you alive.

“He’s a fine-looking bloke,” Jim finally said, because really, there was no way out of it. “You must have made a handsome couple.”

“Handsome is as handsome does.” Just so he didn’t forget it, I stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on Jim’s cheek. “What Peter did to me… no way does that qualify as handsome.”

“Neither would me marching over there and dragging you away from him. Not if I wasn’t telling the truth. I really do have business to discuss with you.”

Jim pulled a key chain out of his pocket and handed it to me. It held three keys and had a little corkscrew on the end of it. I recognized it as the extra set of keys Monsieur Lavoie kept at Bellywasher’s as a backup. “I need you to go over to Monsieur’s.”