As Gouda as Dead Read online

  “No, you goon,” Delilah said. “This party is about all of us giving you a fabulous sendoff into married life. Get with the program.”

  “Don’t worry,” Meredith reassured me. “None of us are artists.”

  “You are, Meredith,” Delilah chimed.

  “I’m not sure about this kind of art.” Meredith pinched me.

  “What do you mean ‘this kind of art’?” I cried, truly hating being in the dark . . . about anything. “Take off my blindfold. Now!”

  “Don’t get snippy.” Delilah released my hand and moved behind me. She started to untie the scarf she had slung around my head. “One, two, voilà.”

  “Surprise!” the other party guests yelled.

  When my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized each was wearing a cream-colored artist’s smock over warm winter clothing, and each held a glass of sparkling wine. A gorgeous spread of appetizers was laid out on a long table behind them: biscuits stuffed with ham, mini quiches, and one of my all-time favorites, a cranberry crusted cheese torte.

  “Turn around,” the women said in unison.

  When I did, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

  CHAPTER

  In the nook with the faux window that held a view of Providence stood the handsome yet darling Deputy O’Shea . . . wearing nothing but boxer shorts. The kid—okay, he wasn’t a kid, he was pushing thirty—blushed. He reminded me of something right out of a Calvin Klein ad. His skin was bronzed. His abs were perfectly formed. His hair hung rakishly across his forehead.

  Rebecca Zook, my slim assistant, traipsed to me and gave me a hug. “Hooray! You really are surprised. I was so afraid I would spill the beans. An art party!” Before coming to work at Fromagerie Bessette, Rebecca had lived a sheltered life in an Amish community. She left the fold to explore the world, and though she now considered herself worldly, she was still the epitome of innocence. She swooped her long golden hair over her shoulder. “Don’t you love it?”

  A flood of emotions—love wasn’t one of them—rushed through me. I did my best to curb a fit of giggles. We were going to paint a semi-nude man. My artwork would no doubt turn out looking like a glob. I could bake. I could sew. I could sculpt cakes made out of cheese. I could even refinish furniture. But paint? Most of my creations turned out to be bad Jackson Pollock imitations—splatter with no substance. Nope. I had no talent.

  Rebecca said, “Charlotte, cat got your tongue?”

  “It’s . . .” What could I say? When Delilah said we were on our way to a bachelorette party, I had expected a simple party. Chitchat. Cake. Nothing too extravagant. This? Every single woman in the cellar, including Meredith, Delilah, Rebecca, and four of my other friends, looked ready—no, eager—to sketch the deputy. My cheeks warmed; my heart thrummed with anticipation. I wondered what Jordan was doing at his bachelor party, kicking back a beer and watching sports? I couldn’t imagine any of his friends hiring a stripper. Perhaps I was too naïve for words.

  “C’mon, Charlotte,” Delilah said. “This will be fun. Here’s a smock. Put it on.”

  I shrugged off my coat and purse and threw the smock on over my sweater. The smock billowed around my corduroy slacks.

  “There,” Delilah said. “Georgia O’Keefe, eat your heart out. Party time!”

  The deputy drew near, and the aroma of suntan oil grew stronger. Had he just left the tanning parlor? “Sorry, Charlotte,” he whispered, using my first name instead of the more formal Miss Bessette. “I hope you’re okay with this. I got wrangled into the gig.”

  “Who wrangled you?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Your uncle Tim?”

  “Yep.” O’Shea’s uncle, who owned the Irish pub where my girlfriends and I occasionally spent our girls’ nights out, was a bit of a prankster. “Uncle Tim suggested it to Tyanne.”

  He nodded in Tyanne’s direction. Tyanne, a part-timer at The Cheese Shop and the town’s premier wedding planner, was currently dating Tim. They made a cute pair, he with his burly ruggedness and she with her Southern femininity. She caught me looking her way and buffed her fingers on her smock. I mock-glowered at her.

  O’Shea added, “The two of them thought it would be a gas.”

  “And you?”

  “I said, ‘Go for it.’ Granted, this is a one-time deal. If word gets out, it might . . . Well, you understand.”

  “Undermine your authority. Got it. It’s our secret.” I nodded. “Aren’t you cold in this chilly cellar?”

  “Nah. I go ice fishing and winter swimming. I can take it.”

  “Well, deputy—”

  “Tonight you can call me Devon.”

  “Devon,” the women in the cellar sang in unison. Exactly how much liquor had they imbibed already? Had all of them promised to keep the secret, too?

  “Devon, it’ll be my pleasure to attempt to sketch you.”

  A telephone rang insistently. O’Shea looked toward a gym bag that was sitting on the floor by the door.

  “Uh-uh,” Rebecca said. “No phone calls. It’s a rule.”

  He said, “But it could be business.”

  “And business could mean bad news. No.” She folded her arms. For a slight thing, she sure could look tough. “You’re officially off the clock. Stay right there. I’ll fix this.” Without asking his permission, she hurried to his bag and rummaged through his things. She swiped her finger across the face of the cell phone and dumped it back into the bag.

  She returned and drew me off to one side for a tête-à-tête. “Isn’t the deputy the yummiest?” For the past few months, Rebecca had been sitting on the fence, deliberating whether to choose her former fiancé or Devon O’Shea as a full-time boyfriend. In the end, she didn’t have to decide. Though her former fiancé had protested to the gods above, at his parents’ directive he had sold his honeybee farm and returned to Hawaii. Poor guy. Now Rebecca and O’Shea were an item. I had to admit they were cute together. “Well, isn’t he?”

  “Definitely. Yummy. You don’t mind him doing this?”

  “Why would I?”

  I had no answer for that. I would have been uncomfortable if a half dozen women were ogling my boyfriend with downright lust, but apparently she wasn’t. Maybe I needed to grow up.

  “All right, everyone.” Meredith clapped her hands. “Let’s get this party started. Maestro, music.”

  Jordan’s sister, Jacky, a willowy, dark-haired beauty who had given up her former life to live near her brother, was in charge of the iPod. She pressed a button and the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” started to play through a portable speaker.

  “Turn it off,” I yelped as a shiver shimmied up my spine.

  Jacky switched off the song. “What’s wrong?”

  “She doesn’t want Councilwoman Bell to hear the noise,” Delilah chirped. “You know how she can be. She complains so much, you’d think she could hear every single sound in town.”

  “No, that’s not it. I—” I hugged myself as a painful memory flooded my senses. I was back in the car with my parents. Pre-crash. “Sweet Dreams” was playing on the radio. The wind. My parents laughing. Then the screams. “Just pick another song, okay?” Talk about a mood killer.

  Jacky whisked her finger across a playlist, and sultry Latin music started to play. “Better?”

  “Thank you.”

  “That Mrs. Bell,” Rebecca groused. “I swear, I thought she was so nice when I first met her, but she complains more than our not-so-favorite dress shop owner.”

  Delilah tangoed to me with a flute of sparkling wine and a platter of cheeses that included one of my all-time favorites, Big Rock Blue, a creamy, teal-veined cheese with the texture of fudge. “Drink up, everyone, and have some cheese to fortify yourself,” she announced to all. “It’s party time.” Then she whispered to me, “Are you okay? Bad memory?”
r />   How well she knew me. “My parents,” I said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I took a sip of the wine. It was ice-cold and luscious, with hints of peach and apricot. The bubbles tickled my nose.

  Meredith waltzed up with a paintbrush in hand. She thrust it at me and gave me a nudge. Easels had been set up around the cellar. “You get to pick first. Deputy O’Shea, take your position.”

  “Call me Devon,” he said.

  “Devon!” the ladies chimed again like a group of giggly chorines.

  I laughed. Despite my earlier trepidation and the momentary upset with the music, the party was going to be fun.

  Devon moved to the center of the cellar and perched on a short ladder with one foot propped on the lowest rung.

  “Arms up,” Delilah ordered.

  O’Shea raised his arms overhead and offered a muscleman pose. His biceps flexed; his abs tightened. The women cooed their appreciation. After a moment, O’Shea shook his head. “Uh-uh, not a chance. I can’t hold this pose for longer than a minute.” He shook out his arms and squared his shoulders. “How’s this?” He angled his elbows and gripped his hands in front of his torso. If Jordan wasn’t twice as handsome, I might have found myself salivating.

  For over an hour, while my friends and I sketched, they plowed me with questions about Jordan and the wedding plans. Although neither Jordan nor I had been married before—both of us had been engaged in our twenties; my fiancé, let’s just say, turned out to be a bad apple, and Jordan’s fiancée had died tragically of a heart attack—we weren’t doing anything overly dramatic for our nuptials. We had planned a low-key ceremony at his farm. I would walk down the aisle to a solo French horn, to honor my father, and we would have Irish music and an Irish prayer to honor my mother. I’d also requested that a swarm of butterflies be released after we said our vows. I’d considered having Jordan come to my grandparents’ house and pick me up—it was an old French tradition—but we had decided against it; we were way beyond being kids.

  “What’re you wearing?” Rebecca said. “You’ve been so hush-hush about it. And what is Jordan wearing?”

  Freckles, a pint-sized, sunny woman who owned Sew Inspired Quilt Shoppe, waved a hand. “I can answer that.” She had designed my simple ecru dress, which was in need of hemming, and she had tailored Jordan’s light brown suit. She described them in detail. Bridesmaids were going to wear shimmering gold cocktail dresses.

  “I’ve advised Charlotte to keep her hair just as it is,” Tyanne said. She may have relocated from New Orleans a few years ago, but her Southern accent was still intact. “It’s very sassy.”

  I had touched up my hair with extra blonde highlights and had cut it shorter to frame my face, very much like Tyanne’s current hairstyle. Ever since she had started an exercise regimen, her entire look had changed. She had lost weight and toned up. Divorce, in her case, had been good for her overall well-being.

  In addition to the ceremony requirements, I had two other traditions that mattered to me. I would wear my mother’s pearl earrings, the same she had worn when she married my father, and I would carry a handful of daisies—my mother’s favorite flower. How she and my father would have loved to see me walk down the aisle.

  “How many people are coming?” Freckles asked.

  “Jordan and I have invited a few friends, including all of you and our immediate family.” At the last, my cousin had strong-armed us into inviting his ex-wife Sylvie; otherwise, she would crash the party. So be it. Who needed the aggravation? Fortunately, she had not been invited to the bachelorette party. I could only imagine what she would have been saying to taunt me.

  “And the menu,” Tyanne said. “Tell them about the menu, Charlotte. Y’all, it’s so delicious, you’ll die.”

  “I want the whole affair to be romantic,” I said. “We’ll have a winter salad with chocolate-dipped strawberries, roasted chicken with chocolate mole sauce, and a decadent chocolate cheesecake for dessert.”

  “That’s my recipe,” Delilah boasted. “I’ve been working on it for weeks. It’s got chocolate swirled throughout, and there will be a mound of whipped cream topped with shaved chocolate curls on top.”

  The others oohed their appreciation.

  Tyanne said, “Isn’t it thrilling? And how much more romantic could it be? The wedding is set during our town’s Lovers Trail festivities.”

  The Lovers Trail celebration was my septuagenarian, go-getter grandmother’s creation. She served as mayor of Providence. The festivities started tomorrow and would run for ten days, through the following Sunday. The celebration would feature sleigh rides, moveable feasts, and more. Many places, like the wineries, the ice-skating rink, and Nature’s Preserve, were hosting daily events. Otherwise, the town was divided up by main streets: east and west, north and south. On a specific day, shops and restaurants in town were to honor good old St. Valentine’s by offering candy, wine, and meals with a lovers’ theme. Fromagerie Bessette was preparing lovers’ baskets complete with heart-shaped cheeses. Next Thursday, in the wine annex, we were throwing a cheese and wine soiree. Tickets were required.

  “What could be more romantic than Providence in February?” Tyanne said. “The whole town is ablaze with twinkling lights. Everyone is in love or pretending to be.”

  “Some are totally in love.” Rebecca flushed pink as she ogled Deputy O’Shea. He did his best not to break his pose, but he couldn’t prevent a transcendental grin from spreading across his handsome face.

  I tried to capture that grin with my paintbrush, but I failed. Miserably. I wondered whether I could convince everyone who looked at my artwork that I was trying to emulate Picasso in his cubist period.

  “Why isn’t your grandmother here, Charlotte?” Freckles asked.

  Delilah answered, “She’s busy with preparations for the weekend’s festivities.”

  Rebecca said, “Also, she has purchased the rights to the play Love Letters for the Providence Playhouse, so she’s busy building sets.”

  In addition to serving as mayor, my grandmother dedicated her life to making the Providence Playhouse a must-visit theater. Love Letters was a Pulitzer Prize finalist that focused on two people. The actor, who played a staid lawyer, and the actress, who played an unstable artist, sit side by side onstage. Though they are worlds apart, they read letters and cards that pass between them over the course of fifty years, in which they express their hopes, dreams, and bitter disappointments. Grandmère had asked me to read the play before she purchased the rights. By the final scene, I was a sobbing, hiccupping mess. During the play’s twenty-plus-year run, Hollywood stars like Kathleen Turner, Jason Robards, and Colleen Dewhurst had performed in it. Grandmère suggested that Jordan and I take on the roles, but I nixed that idea. I am not an actress in much the same way that I am not an artist. Yes, I acted in high-school plays, but I fumbled lines and generally stunk. Lately I’d heard Grandmère trying to cajole our local chief of police into taking on the male role. I would never reveal, not even after drinking sparkling wine with my dearest friends, that I was the one who had suggested him to my grandmother. Heaven forbid he discover I had. He and I could go head-to-head on occasion.

  Delilah instructed O’Shea to change his pose. At the same time, a cell phone buzzed. Everyone’s gaze flew to Deputy O’Shea’s gym bag.

  Rebecca huffed. “Sheesh. Didn’t I switch it off? No—”

  “That’s a message. Let me take a look, Rebecca.” O’Shea didn’t wait for her okay. He dashed to his gym bag and pulled out his phone. Crouched low, he pressed a button and listened. “What the—” He glanced at the readout.

  A shiver snaked up my spine for the second time that evening. It wasn’t related to my parents’ crash. Why was I on edge? What was going on? I’d been feeling so confident and settled lately. Was it just pre-wedding jitters?

  I rushed to O’Shea. “I
s everything all right?”

  The deputy had the phone planted against his ear. He jammed a finger into his other ear. A few seconds later, he snapped to a stand. “Dang.”

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  O’Shea didn’t answer. He stabbed in numbers on the cell phone and pressed Send.

  “Devon, talk to me.”

  “Uncle Tim—”

  “Is he okay? Did something happen?”

  “I’m not sure. He sounded flustered. He said he heard, no, he saw something.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He left a message.” O’Shea looked worried. “His voice cut in and out. He didn’t sound good. He sounded . . . scared. He said he was going to contact Chief Urso. Just as the call ended, something crashed in the background.”

  CHAPTER

  While apologizing, Deputy O’Shea threw on his shirt, trousers, and shoes. He seized his bag and dashed upstairs. Needless to say, my celebratory good vibrations flew out the window. I tore off my smock, asked everyone to clean up the cellar, grabbed my coat and purse, and raced after him.

  Luckily yesterday’s snow had melted and the streets were dry. The cold air stung my cheeks. “Where are you going?” I called.

  “To the pub.” O’Shea didn’t slow down.

  “Why are you so worried?”

  “It’s not like Uncle Tim to—” He shook his head once. Hard. “You know him,” he yelled over his shoulder. “He’s not the kind who panics. About anything.”

  “And he sounded freaked out?”

  “That’s the thing. I’m not sure. But I’m going to find out.”

  “When did he leave the message?”

  “An hour ago.”

  Timothy O’Shea’s Irish Pub was located at the north end of the Village Green, about a block from Fromagerie Bessette. Deputy O’Shea entered first. I trailed him.

  Invariably, O’Shea’s was crowded. The pub was the only place at night that had multiple televisions airing sports or highlights, nonstop. When it was time for the three-piece band to play, like now, all the televisions were switched to closed-caption mode. The walls were bare. Tim wouldn’t put up the St. Patrick’s Day decorations until March; they would stay up until May.