Marriage and Murder (Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Book 4) by Dianne Harman Page B

so
patient with me, explaining all about the different wines. He’s really going to
be missed.”
                “Speaking of which,
you’re not at the coffee shop, and it’s noon. Something must be pretty
important for you to miss eating lunch here. Is everything okay?”
                “Yes, everything’s fine.
Somehow our scheduler here at the clinic overbooked me with patients, but I
would like to talk to you. I was hoping to do it at lunch, but that’s simply
not going to be possible today. There’s no way I can get out of here. I think
half the people in Cedar Bay have the flu. Any chance you could stop by the
clinic this afternoon?”
                “Sure. Can you schedule a
little time for me around 3:00 or so?”
                “I’ll tell the
receptionist to notify me as soon as you come in. I’ll make it work.”
                “Want to tell me what
this is about?”
                “No, I just heard
something I thought might be of interest to you. Don’t have enough to tell Mike
about it, so I thought I’d get your input.”
                “Sounds interesting. See
you at 3:00. Want me to bring you a doggie bag when I come?”
                “A little something for
me, and a little something for Lucky would be very much appreciated. Thank
you!”
                She walked into the
kitchen where Madison was refilling her coffee pot. It was a chilly day, and
Kelly had lost count of how many pots of coffee they’d made in the large
commercial coffee urn.
                “Madison, Charlie, I’m
making a little care package for Doc. He’s overloaded with patients and can’t
make it in for lunch today. I’m going to take him two of the chicken burritos
we’ve been serving. I’m writing ‘Hands Off’ on it, so neither one of you will accidentally
serve it to a customer.”
                “Got it, boss. I’ll keep
an eye on it for you,” Charlie said.
                “Thanks.”
                She took her cell phone
out of her purse intending to call Luke and went into the storeroom for a
little privacy.
                “Hi, Luke, it’s Kelly.”
                “You must have ESP. I was
getting ready to call you and offer my congratulations to both you and Sheriff
Mike. That was a beautiful ceremony. I just wish Scott could have been here to
see it.”
                “So do I, and I also wish
Amber could have been at the wedding. I’m not sure you ever met her, but she
was my godchild.”
                “No, I didn’t, but I
remember reading about her tragic death in the newspaper. As I recall, she was
an only child. How are her parents doing?”
                “It’s been terribly hard
on them. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of visiting them this afternoon.
Doc asked me to stop by the clinic and see him, and the book store Ginger owns
is only a block down the street from him. I want to thank her in person for
taking care of the wedding guest book at the church.”
                “I wondered who that was.
I’ve met a lot of people in Cedar Bay since I came to the Center, but I’ve not
met her.”
                “I’m not surprised. It’s
taken her awhile to recover from Amber’s murder. I think the wedding was really
her first venture out in public other than going to work at her book store. She
and her husband have pretty much been holed up in their house. I’ve gone over
to see them a few times and frankly, they’re not doing very well. They both
seem to be hopelessly overcome with grief and sadness from the loss of their
daughter. Jim’s handyman business has become almost non-existent, and you know
what’s happened to private book stores since people can buy a book on the
Internet a lot cheaper than they can buy the same book at a book store.”