Chapter Fifty-Two
Three weeks later . . .
I’d been back in Winston-Salem full-time for three weeks and no one tried to fire me. That might have been a new career record. Gram was good about stuff like employee retention. She had a few simple rules, the biggest being that I stay out of her kitchen except to eat. No cooking or baking allowed.
Today was a special day. Mags’ Desserts had gotten a huge order boost. Harlan didn’t take credit but the people placing the orders for their business meetings and get-togethers over the last week were his golfing buddies. His fingerprints were all over the rush of new business. Jackson said it was his dad’s way of apologizing and as close as we’d ever get to hearing the words.
Baby steps.
Harlan still viewed me with skepticism. That was fine. I wasn’t his biggest fan either. We had an unspoken agreement to get along for Jackson’s sake. Jackson and I had a similar agreement to hold firm on our boundaries when Harlan tried to shift the line. Since he was “exploring the possibility”
of running for office, he was busy elsewhere and I was grateful.
Tonight, Gram was making a special dinner to celebrate getting all the orders out the door on time. She didn’t divulge the menu, but I loved her cooking so knowing the entrée ahead of time wasn’t necessary.
Jackson wouldn’t be here for another hour. Even I could admit making him leave the office right at five might be too much. He loved his job . . . and whatever.
Now I just needed to find the cooks. Gram and Celia had been in the kitchen a few minutes ago. The delicious smell of roasting onion and garlic wafting through the room gave them away. I’d also heard them moving around and decided to visit in case there was a stray scone left over from this morning that needed to be eaten. I considered that sort of thing part of my job.
I looked out the window over the sink in time to see Gram and Celia walk around the side of the shed and disappear. The only thing back there was a mini greenhouse. Gram used the space for repotting and to experiment with a few plants she feared would take over the garden. She separated them to keep them from “cluttering up”
the lawn while she assessed.
Why have them if they could be trouble? I had no idea because I knew even less about gardening than I did about baking. I let Gram handle this and stuck to admiring the flowers she planted and moved to the yard.
Playing with plants and flowers now, so close to a meal, was a bit strange. I slipped outside to check if they needed help. I was perfectly capable of moving pots and bags of soil.
Celia’s voice stuck out. She said something about needing to be careful.
Her tone. The edge to it. The bit of panic.
Oh, shit.
The greenhouse door stood open. I took that as an invitation and walked inside. Purple and pink trumpet-shaped blooms in pots lined the floor. We had flowers like this in the yard but not exactly these. “Pretty.”
Gram and Celia jumped at the sound of my voice. They both wore gloves and masks over their faces. Gram also wore what looked like a pink velour sweat suit with purple flowers on it and a matching floppy hat.
Where would someone buy something like that?
“Oh, no,”
Celia said.
“No.”
Gram backed me out of the greenhouse and into the fresh air. “You should stay out of there.”
Celia joined us and closed the greenhouse door behind her. She stood in front of it, blocking my entry. She blushed while she talked. “We had some trouble with poison ivy. We have to be careful while we clean it out.”
Their faces. The spewing of unimportant information. The hazmat outfits. Gram had that sweet, could-never-harm-a-fly vibe. She looked all cuddly in her long-sleeved outfit. Never mind that it was eighty degrees outside. Not exactly weather that required being covered from head to toe.
They were lying their cute little faces off. “Try again.”
Celia started to say something about dinner, but Gram cut her off. “Can we really avoid this? She’s always snooping.”
Somehow me finding them sneaking around was my fault. Interesting. “Now would be a good time to explain.”
Gram lowered her mask. “Foxglove.”
Okay . . . Still confused. “That means what?”
“It’s poisonous.”
Celia rolled her eyes when Gram made a noise. “What? That’s why we’re doing this. Removing it so Kasey doesn’t live near it and stumble over it.”
Gram still grumbled. “She does have a habit of doing that sort of thing.”
They acted like their bickering answered all my questions. Not even close.
So many thoughts fought in my brain, begging for attention. I went with the scariest one. “How poisonous?”
“What kind of question is that?”
Gram had a habit of falling back on grouchiness if she didn’t want to give a real answer. Like now.
Nice try, Gram. “The kind I’d love for you to answer.”
Celia sighed but started talking. “Foxglove is dangerous to touch. It can cause skin irritation.”
Not fun but not scary . . . yet. The adrenaline coursing through me signaled trouble ahead.
“Headaches, vomiting, heart rate issues,”
Gram said. “And death.”
And there it was.
Oh my God. “Ladies.”
“We told you we never used arsenic and that wasn’t a lie.”
Gram smiled. “Never had to. We had foxglove . . . and other things.”
Celia peeled off her protective gloves. “This is nothing for you to worry about. We’re clearing it out now because Abigail called to say she’s leaving town tomorrow as planned and, well, we thought it would be a good thing for all of us to get a fresh start without foxglove nearby.”
There was no way they’d kept these flowers out here for years and, what, picked a flower every time they needed to kill some bad dude. Right? I looked at the greenhouse door. For the first time I noticed the lock matched the one on the shed.
“You’ve had a greenhouse full of deadly foxglove tucked away in the backyard just in case.”
Not a sentence I expected to say today.
Gram nodded at Celia. “I told you she’d understand.”
Oh, no. “I didn’t say that.”
“The important thing is that we’re removing all of it. You won’t need to worry about touching the foxglove by accident.”
Yeah, Gram. That was my issue with the poisonous flowers.
“Have you used this foxglove stuff recently?”
What was I saying? Of course they did. “Forget I asked.”
“We should have waited to start this chore. We’ll take care of the rest of the plants after we eat.”
Celia acted like it made sense to stop playing with poison so they could go work on dinner.
What did I even say to that?
“No more foxglove. We promise.”
Celia put up her hand as if she was making a pledge.
“Okay. Good.”
Not poisoning men seemed like a smart plan.
“We can always plant something else if we need it.”
Gram dropped that then started toward the house.
“Gram.”
“If men behave they have nothing to worry about.”
She gestured for me to follow her. “Come on. You know I like to eat at six.”
I watched Gram and Celia walk away from this perfectly normal conversation. Heard them arguing about the superiority of green beans over broccoli as a side dish. Smelled the lemony punch of magnolias in the yard. Thought about having a predinner doughnut.
Poison or not, it was good to be home.