Cold Cut Murder: Book Three in The Darling Deli Series by Patti Benning Page A

delivery soon.
    “Oh, hi,” she said when she looked up and recognized Marcus. “How are you doing?”
    “I am doing well,” he said. “And you?”
    “Busy,” she told him with a tired smile. “But that’s a good thing.”
    “I can see that. I won’t hold you up for long; I was just in town and figured I would stop by.” He grinned at her. “Plus I wanted to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind about going to the dance with me.”
    “Of course not.” She smiled at him. “I’m looking forward to it.”
    “In that case,” he said, returning her smile. “I would like a bowl of your soup, and then I will be on my way.”
    “Which one?” she asked. “We have Tuscan bean chili, and creamy lemon chicken soup.”
    “Surprise me,” he told her. She was just turning away to go get the soup for him when she saw someone shove his way angrily out of line and stalk out of the restaurant, slamming the door behind him. It was Steven, the man who had asked her to the dance first, and who she had turned down. She felt bad that he had overheard her and Marcus’s conversation; even though she didn’t particularly like him, she didn’t want him to be hurt. Oh, well, she thought. There’s nothing I can do now.
    She returned a few moments later with a bowl of the chili for Marcus—it was her favorite of the two—and bade him a warm goodbye before turning to the next customer.
    Luckily, they had enough soup to last through the rest of the evening, though they ran out of cookies part way through the day. She entertained the idea of adding cookies to the list of things that she offered daily; they seemed to be popular. However, she decided that she just didn’t like baking enough to make a fresh batch every morning. Perhaps she could offer muffins on Sundays, or begin offering a wider assortment of freshly baked bread. She made a mental note to see if any of her employees other than Candice were handy with baking, and if they would be willing to put in a few extra hours a week to help with it.
    “Ms. Darling, someone left these for you,” Dante told her when she came out of the kitchen for the last time. He was holding a bouquet of red roses. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw them as she recalled the rose that had been on the food critic’s body and the one that David said had been dropped next to him when he was attacked.
    “Do you know who they’re from?” she asked warily.
    “No, sorry, neither of us saw who dropped them off—it must have been during the busiest part of the day, right before close. Darrin found them on one of the tables over there.” He inclined his head towards the front of the room where there were a few small bistro tables.
    “Are you sure they’re for me?” She took the flowers cautiously, half expecting something bad to happen. Nothing did.
    “Yeah, there’s a note with your name on it.” She looked and saw that there indeed was. It read For Moira in slanted handwriting. “Who do you think left them?” he asked.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “It could be Marcus. It’s probably Marcus. He must have gone to get flowers, and when he came back and saw how busy we were, he didn’t want to interrupt.”
    She was trying to convince herself as she said it, but the words didn’t ring quite true. Marcus could easily have walked up and handed the flowers to whoever was at the register, or at least put them on the counter. He didn’t seem like a shy man, and she thought he would probably have signed the note with his name. Besides, she hardly knew him; they were going to the dance together because they were both single and they had a friend in common. They seemed to get along well enough, but there wasn’t really any romance between them—not yet, anyway. They didn’t know each other well enough for that. She just hoped that they weren’t from Johan, in some misguided attempt to either apologize to her for his behavior the other night, or to try to woo her