Live and Lime Die: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 8
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Authors: Summer Prescott
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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents
are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious
manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is
purely coincidental.
Copyright 2015
by Maven Publishing & Summer Prescott Books - All rights reserved.
All rights Reserved. No part of this
publication or the information in it may be quoted from or reproduced in any
form by means such as printing, scanning, photocopying or otherwise without
prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Table of Contents
Marilyn
Hayes groaned and tried to open her eyes slowly enough that it wouldn’t cause
her pounding head to hurt any worse. The petite brunette prided herself on
having a strong constitution and never coming down with the irritating, but
mostly harmless, illnesses that other folks endured. Right now, however, it
seemed that she was living proof that pride comes before a fall - the flu bug
had knocked the wind out of her sails so badly that she could barely get out of
bed.
After
spending the morning flinging the covers off because she was burning with
fever, only to draw them up around her neck, moments later, teeth chattering
with chills, she had tried as best she could to sleep through the misery. Her
head and body ached, her throat hurt and she was as weak as a newborn kitten.
It took seemingly superhuman effort to even reach over to the bedside table for
a drink of lukewarm water that had been sitting there overnight.
Her
phone was next to the water, and her headache was so profound that even the
innocuous chime, which indicated that a text had come in, shattered her cocoon
of silence and made her wince. Reaching over to pick it up, just so she
wouldn’t have to hear the chime again, she saw a message from Cort, the
handsome Key West detective whom she’d been dating for the past few months.
“Can
I bring you anything?” the text read.
Marilyn
was touched by his concern, and inadvertently smiled, causing waves of pain to
ripple over her face, forehead and skull. The headache tablets she had taken
didn’t seem to be doing their job.
“No,
thank you though. I just need to rest
J
” she replied, her fingers
hitting the wrong keys so many times that she nearly gave up.
Cort
obviously understood what she was going through, because he was kind enough not
to reply. Tiara, her lovely, golden-haired daughter, who was taking care of
Marilyn’s Key Lime pie shop,
SubLime Sweets
, in her absence, had left a
crock-pot of homemade chicken noodle soup warming on the counter. With the goal
of grabbing a bowl of the delicious soup, she slowly swung her legs over the
side of the bed, and rose gently to a sitting position. That simple act was
enough to cause her to feel lightheaded, and she took a moment to catch her
breath, swallowing painfully.
Standing
up, Marilyn felt as though she had aged a hundred years, but she slowly made
her way to the bedroom door and down the stairs, clutching the hand rail for
support and stopping to sit and rest more than once. Heading to the kitchen,
she hoped that she’d be able to lift the lid off of the crock pot, and once
she’d served herself, that she’d be strong and steady enough to transport her
bowl to the breakfast bar.
Slumped
over her bowl, one hand working the spoon, the other supporting her head,
Marilyn took nourishment from the piping hot soup that felt great going down
her sore throat, even if she couldn’t smell or taste it. She managed to consume
the entire bowl before succumbing to the exhaustion that gripped her. Unable
and unwilling to make it back upstairs to bed, she grabbed a chenille throw
that was tossed artfully on one end of the couch, and burrowed under it,
falling asleep almost immediately.
**
Marilyn
awoke with a start. The light in the room had dimmed, and after having fallen
asleep on the couch, it took her a moment to figure out where she was. She
heard sounds in the kitchen and sat up slowly to see what was going on.
“Hey
sleepyhead,” Tiara smiled, putting food onto plates. “I was hoping that you’d
wake up in time for dinner.”
Her
mother blinked sleepily, a bit confused. “Dinner? But I just had lunch and took
a nap like ten minutes ago,” she murmured. “What time is it?”
Her
daughter chuckled. “It’s just after seven. I came over to check on you after I
closed the shop and went home for a shower. I pretty much knew that you
wouldn’t have eaten dinner yet, so I made mashed potatoes, meatloaf and green
beans, with a hot-out-of-the-oven corn bread. I figured that those foods
wouldn’t hurt your throat too badly.”
“My
goodness…how long have you been here? And what did I do to deserve this kind of
treatment?” Marilyn gave her a wan smile.
Tiara
put down the spoon that she’d been using to plop fluffy white mashed potatoes
onto their plates. “Every time I was sick, or sad, or just needed you, you’ve
been there for me. Now it’s my turn to stuff you full of comfort food. I even
snuck a pie out of the shop for us,” she waggled her eyebrows comically.
“Besides,” she continued. “The sooner I can nurse you back to health, the
sooner you can get back to the store and help,” she winked. “Business is
booming, and Kelcie and I can use all the help that we can get.”
“Well,
that’s good news,” Marilyn nodded. She’d been worried about sales after a video
food blogger had given them a bad review for not agreeing to the terms of his
bribe, but things seemed to have calmed down, finally, and business had picked
back up. “Oh my, this looks delicious,” she said, making her way slowly to the
table. Unfortunately, she was only able to appreciate the texture of the food,
but managed to eat a few bites of everything anyway, feeling much better
afterwards.
“Ready
for pie?” Tiara asked, clearing the plates and putting them in the dishwasher.
“It
would be a tragic waste for me to eat Key Lime pie when I can barely taste
anything,” Marilyn declined ruefully.
“Truth,”
her daughter nodded in agreement. “I’m actually too stuffed for pie, myself, so
I’m going to head out, now that the kitchen is clean. Do you need anything
before I go?”
Her
mother shook her head. “Nope, thanks for taking care of my honey,” she said as
her daughter came over for a good-bye hug.
“Anytime,” the lovely young woman grinned on her way out
the door.
A
well-groomed redhead walked into
SubLime Sweets
, her expensive perfume
announcing her arrival before she ever even reached the front counter. Dressed
in white capris with a cerulean blue silk top and matching kitten heels, she
seemed clearly out of her element in the casually cozy shop that was painted in
bright island colors. She held her designer clutch delicately in one highly
manicured hand and approached the front counter.
“Hi,
may I help you?” Tiara asked, smiling at the well-heeled stranger, who looked
to be her age, or maybe a bit older.
“I
suppose so,” the woman made a face, looking around uncertainly, as if she
thought a cockroach might come scurrying over her toes at any moment. She spoke
with her jaw thrust forward, as though she had perhaps been taught diction and
enunciation at a New England prep school. “I’m having a function on my father’s
yacht, and I have no idea why, but he has a strange obsession with Key Lime
pie. I think he anchored here specifically because he’d heard of the famous
pies,” she said, shaking her head at the strangeness of it all.
Tiara
grinned and nodded. “That happens more often than you might think. We have
tourists come in here all the time, telling horror stories about only having
access to Key Lime pie that’s actually green. They love finding the real deal.”
“Well,
what color are they supposed to be? I don’t eat dessert, so I never heard of
such a thing, but one would assume that it might be green because of the limes.
And I am in no way a tourist. Why my father decided to stop here, other than
his silly pie, I can’t fathom, but I can assure you that you won’t see us
wearing socks with sandals and drinking from a plastic straw stuck in a
coconut,” she snipped disdainfully.
Tiara
paused for a moment, taken aback by the woman’s negativity. Most of the people
who came into the shop were happy to be there, anticipating their dessert and
delighted by the whimsical designs on the walls and bistro sets. “Well…real Key
Lime pie isn’t green, because the inside of the lime isn’t really green, it’s
more of a light yellow with just a slight tinge of green,” she explained.
The
rude woman waved her off. “I’m aware of the color of a lime, they grace the
rims of my vodka tonics,” she said impatiently. “I just want to place an order
and get out of here. Can we do that?” she raised an imperious eyebrow.
Biting
her tongue, Tiara nodded and turned away to reach for an order form. “Of course
we can,” she responded coolly, ever the professional. “I’ll just need to get
some information from you.”
“Can
we make this quick?” the redhead grimaced, taking her phone out of her purse to
check the time.
“I
certainly hope so,” was the acidly sweet reply. “Name?”
The
woman sighed. “Jenna Winston.”
“Address?”
Tiara looked at the form rather than at the fidgeting redhead.
“Key
West Yacht Club. I don’t remember which slip, you’ll have to ask the DM,” Jenna
examined her flawless nails.
“The
DM?” Tiara was puzzled.
“The.
Dock. Master,” the nasty woman pronounced each syllable in a slow, exaggerated
fashion.
“There’s
nothing wrong with my hearing or my level of understanding, thanks. I just
don’t happen to speak “yacht,” Tiara was beginning to simmer. “Phone number?”
she asked, hoping that the wisp of a woman in front of her didn’t have a
“catchphrase” for her phone number, like 1-800-IMADIVA.
“I’m
not giving you my phone number,” Jenna stated, raising her eyebrows.
“We
have to have a phone number in case we have questions about the order, or
there’s a delay, or…” Tiara began to explain.
“Well,
let me tell you something, there WILL NOT be any delays or problems with my
order, is that quite clear?” she put a hand on her hip and jutted her chin
forward even further.
Tiara
was using every ounce of professionalism within her to not throw this
impossible creature out the door bodily. She was not, by nature, a violent
person, but her patience with being treated like a lesser being was rapidly
dwindling.
“Fine,”
she replied with a shark-like smile. “I’ll just need full payment up front
then.”
“Absolutely
not,” the spoiled woman exclaimed, looking as though she were about to stomp
her foot. “You’ll get half when I order, and the other half when I have those
pies, that’s how this is going to work,” she insisted.
“If
you give me half payment, you’ll receive half delivery, that’s how it works,”
Tiara refused to budge. “Unless of course you want to give me your phone
number,” she crossed her arms and smiled sweetly. The truth was, she’d made the
full payment policy up on the spot, simply because she refused to allow this
vile woman to come into her domain and attempt to belittle her.
Jenna
clenched her teeth and glared at Tiara so hard, that for a moment, it seemed as
though she might just walk out the door, which would be a relief, but
unfortunately, such was not the case. A look of realization came over her, and
a slow, grinchy smile spread over her delicate, aristocratic features.
“You
want a phone number? Fine, I’ll give you one…my father’s. These are his stupid
pies, if anything goes wrong with something that’s so simple a monkey could do
it, you can just call him about it,” she sneered with a smile.
Tiara
forced herself to swallow her automatic response, and took down the number. She
recorded the number of pies needed, when they should be delivered, and other
details, before giving Jenna the price.
“That’s
for half, right?” the redhead asked, reaching into her bag for a wallet.
“Yes,
that’s right,” Tiara confirmed, not explaining the fact that she’d marked each
pie up by almost half, justifying it in her head as a hardship fee for having
to deal with the snotty socialite.
“Highway
robbery,” Jenna muttered, finally finding the right card in her stack of
several choices, and handing it to Tiara.
“Oh,
I’m sorry…is it that you can’t afford it?” she asked innocently, holding the
card.
“It
most certainly is not!” the incensed redhead huffed, offended. “How dare you
presume…”
“Oh,
wait!” Tiara exclaimed, interrupting the tirade. “We don’t take Carte Blanche,”
she smiled sweetly, handing the card back.
“You’ve
got to be joking,” Jenna’s mouth hung open in utter disgust. “Fine,” her
movements were jerky as she dug in her bag once more, pulling out a generous
stack of hundred dollar bills and placing them on the counter. “There, is this
primitive enough for you? Have you ever seen a hundred dollar bill before?”
Ignoring
the jibe, Tiara took her time counting the money, then inquired if she would
care to leave a tip, trying hard to hold back the giggles. She’d gone well
beyond furious and now found the woman sputtering in front of her like a wet
hen to be hilarious.
“No,
I would not like to leave a tip! I’ve never been treated so rudely in my entire
life,” she shook her head, astonished.
“Well,
fortunately, the day is young,” Tiara drawled as she slowly counted back the
insufferable creature’s change. “Have a nice day,” she grinned as Jenna slammed
the door shut behind her.
Marilyn
stood back to allow the flame-haired woman storming out of the shop to pass her
by as she made her way down the sidewalk.
“Who
on earth was that?” she asked her daughter, once inside.
“The
woman who just paid $40 dollars per pie for this weekend,” Tiara snickered.
Her
mother held up a hand. “As long as you’ve got it under control, I don’t want to
know.”