Murder at the Tremont House (A Blue Plate Cafe Mystery) by Judy Alter Page A

they’ll have to feed them chicken nuggets.”
    “ I think you’re crazy to get into this,” he said, “but if you’re sure you want to and you’re not just doing it to appease Gram…”
    Does he know Gram talks to me? Or is that a figure of speech or whatever?
    “Depends on who signs up, but I do think it could be fun. I mean, I expect Mrs. Reverend Baxter and a few others from the church. We can only take ten or twelve. Donna says she’ll put up flyers in the café and an ad in the Wheeler Tribune. She’s even talking about advertising in Canton, though I can’t imagine anyone would come that far.”
    “ Is Sara Jo coming, since she suggested the whole idea?”
    “ Oh, I doubt that. She doesn’t strike me as the domestic type.”
    “ Me either,” he said wryly.
    It was a chilly night, even for March, and dishes done, Rick built the first fire I ’d ever tried in Gram’s fireplace. I guess he was a former Boy Scout because he knew exactly what he was doing—from opening the damper to laying the fire—and we soon had a nice but small blaze going. Granted, it was a little smoky, but he warned me it would be because the fireplace hadn’t been used in forever. I doubted Gram ever built a fire, but she’d had some firewood stored on one side of the house, now dry as could be from age.
    “ You need a man around here,” Rick growled. “Firewood shouldn’t be stored against the house. Bugs and termites and all kinds of critters. You need a storage shed.”
    “ One of those ugly prefab things?”
    “ Yep.”
    “ I have that old wood shed of Gram’s.”
    “ Yeah, the one that’s about to fall down on itself. Termites would eat it in a flash.”
    My first thought was if Steve Millican were here, he’d put a pre-fab one together for me, but he was in prison somewhere in Texas.
    “ So what else are you going to teach these ladies to cook?” he asked.
    “ Well, how about making veal piccata with chicken?”
    “ Good idea. And?”
    “ And I haven’t gotten any further. Maybe stuffed Cornish hens?”
    “ No man in his right mind will eat a Cornish hen,” he scoffed. “You’ve got to choose meals they can feed their husbands but don’t yet know how to cook.”
    “ That leaves out a lot of good things, like roast chicken and pot roast. These ladies already do that.”
    Our talk quieted, and we sat peacefully staring at the fire , Rick’s arm around my shoulders, resting lightly, but still I was much aware of it. Finally, he said, “Ten o’clock. Way past my witching hour, and I have to tell my deputy he can go off the clock.”
    “ Deputy? I thought you didn’t have one.”
    “ I don’t, but I told Tom I had special plans tonight, and he volunteered.” And with that Rick Samuels took me in his arms and kissed me, hard and deep, and I felt myself responding, though my first instinct was to push him away. He was the one who pulled away, saying, “Too tempting, Kate. It’s been too long for both of us.”
    Shaking, I stood when he did but I was speechless. In the kitchen, he made light of things, thanking me in a sweeping bow for a lovely evening. He planted a kiss on my nose, and then he was gone.
    Why did I think of David Clinkscales at that moment?

     
     
    C hapter Six
     
     
    I n the end, Donna and I decided on six lessons rather than the ten that had overwhelmed me, with a $100 fee for the course. We wouldn’t make much profit, and we’d have to have twelve students to make it work. We had studied the kitchen at The Tremont House and thought we could fit twelve women in there. They’d take turns cooking, but each would leave with portions for two.
    I ’d fix the Beef Wellington with oven roasted potatoes, chicken piccata with risotto, chicken enchiladas with refried beans and Mexican rice, shepherd’s pie with a spinach salad, quail with dirty rice and black coffee gravy (for the husbands who hunted), and pan-fried trout with home-style fries—the kind where you slice a raw