Chapter 2
Chapter 2
“Did you know Calvin Flint is the acting sheriff now?” Daphne asked as she placed empty drink containers in the recycling bin in the corner of her parents’ living room by the side door.
Ellie glanced up from where she was scrubbing a stain out of the rug. “Flint? Really? When did that happen?”
“Two days ago,” their mother, Helen, said as she came in with a new trash bag, ready to pick up more of the remnants of last night’s party. “It was just announced in Friday’s paper. And don’t think we’ve forgiven you about sneaking away last night, Daphne.”
“If you can tell me what time I left, plus or minus one hour, I’ll admit that I was wrong,” Daphne replied.
When Helen just let out a dramatic sigh and bent over to pick up a crumpled napkin, Daphne shot a wry grin at her sister to hide her disappointment. She’d known no one would notice her leaving. Why did it still hurt to know it was true?
They’d all gathered to help their parents with the cleanup, since the revelry had gone on late into the night. Daphne had missed the part where Lionel, the old, grouchy, antisocial boat mechanic, had been coaxed into dancing with Faye, Hugh’s mother, and had accidentally tripped and knocked over a lamp before crashing through a side table. The table was still there, flattened into kindling, evidence of all the merrymaking Daphne had thankfully avoided.
She really had to shake this mood. She was too young to be this bitter.
“Since when is Calvin Flint on the force?” Daphne asked, the bottles in the recycling clinking as she added another one to their number. “Last time I saw him, he was pleading his case to not get kicked out of Fernley High for the second time.”
“He was serving over in San Juan County on one of the smaller islands and got the tap on the shoulder since he grew up local,” Helen said. “They wanted to bring someone in from outside the force after everything that happened last year.”
Daphne glanced at Ellie, who cringed. “Whoops,” the younger woman said.
Daphne grinned. “Who knew you’d be exposing all that corruption when you just wanted to avenge a few sheep?”
Ellie laughed. “It all sort of snowballed.”
“And now you’re engaged.”
Ellie’s smile softened as she glanced down at her ring. “Yeah. Now I’m engaged.”
Right on cue, the side door opened and Hugh stepped through. Tall, dark haired, and handsome, he filled the doorway and brought in a gust of fresh air while Ellie’s dog, Louie, darted in around his legs. Gaze softening as he looked at Ellie, Hugh kicked off his shoes and crossed the space to wrap her in his arms.
Daphne busied herself with scratching Louie behind the ears while the two of them kissed and spoke in quiet, private voices. She heard Hugh murmur something about Valentine’s Day and realized it was today. A wave of melancholy washed over Daphne as she stole another glance at the happy couple.
In the light of day, Daphne was even more ashamed of her feelings. She loved Ellie. She loved her parents and her grandmother. They were good, honest people who lived their lives with integrity. Sure, they expected a lot from her—more than they’d ever expected from Ellie. Wasn’t that a good thing? She could rise to their expectations. She had risen to their expectations her whole life, barring a few notable recent exceptions.
So what if Daphne felt like a square peg in a family of round holes? She was still a Davis. She still belonged here in some capacity. Maybe she just had to figure out exactly how.
“Ladies,” her father announced, sweeping into the living room. He spotted Hugh and added, “And gent. Breakfast is ready. The bread has cooled and is ready to slice.” He presented them with a perfectly round boule of bread like he was a sommelier at a fancy restaurant displaying a thousand-dollar bottle of wine, complete with perfectly folded white towel over his forearm. “Would anyone like a taste?”
“You’re such a dork, Dad,” Ellie said, pulling away from Hugh’s embrace.
“One slice for Ellie,” he said, nodding. “Daphne? Hugh? Helen? And where’s your mother, honey?”
“She’ll be out in a minute,” Helen said, planting a kiss on her husband’s cheek before heading into the kitchen in front of him. “Who wants eggs?”
“I’ll have some,” Daphne said, joining the family at the oval dining table shoved into the cramped kitchen. She sat against the wall on one of the long sides while her mother put a cup of fresh coffee in front of her. “Thanks.”
Her dad gave her the heel of the bread, generously buttered—the best part—with a wink and a smile. “For our favorite new arrival.” He was looking a little worse for wear after the party, but Claude Davis was a man who smiled through his pain.
“Coffee,” Grandma Mabel groaned from the hallway a moment before she appeared. She was made up and dressed, but she shuffled like her legs were made of lead. “I’m too old for parties like that.”
“Didn’t seem too old when you were tearing up the dance floor last night,” Helen said, a smile tugging at her lips. “I did try to warn you, Mom.”
“Quiet, you. Didn’t I raise you not to talk back to me?”
Ellie snorted, and Grandma Mabel pinched her arm on the way by. She slid in next to Daphne at the table, resting her cheek against Daphne’s shoulder for a moment. “You’ve always been the sensible one,” Grandma Mabel lamented. “I should have followed your lead and gone to bed before things turned messy.”
“Except Daphne’s the one who got the police escort home,” Ellie noted, eyes sparkling above her mug.
Shock shot down Daphne’s spine like a jet of ice water. “How did you know that?”
Ellie laughed at Daphne’s outraged expression. “You were spotted on the way home.”
“By who?”
“I never reveal my sources.”
“This island is a fishbowl.”
“That it is,” Grandma Mabel cut in. “What happened? Did you get a ticket?”
“Got away with a warning,” Daphne replied. “Blown taillight. I bought one at the auto shop this morning. Was hoping Dad would help me fix it.”
“Course I will,” Claude said as he bustled to the table with toast, butter, and fresh fruit. “We can do it after we eat.”
“And then you can drive me to the Winter Market,” Grandma Mabel announced.
Daphne glanced at the gray drizzle outside. “In this weather?”
“What are you talking about? It’s a gorgeous day out there. Everyone will be out.”
And everyone was. Daphne parked on the street across from the elementary school, staring at the droves of raincoat-wearing people milling around the school’s parking lot. The doors to the gymnasium were thrown open, and a few tents had been set up outside. The Fernley Island Winter Market ran from November through March and was well attended every week. Anyone could apply for a booth as long as they were selling handcrafted goods.
Mabel was out of the car in a shot, her umbrella spread open above her head as she beamed at Daphne. “There’s a new coffee truck this year. Harry just texted me that their coffee is disgusting. I can’t wait to try it.”
Snorting, Daphne locked her car and followed, the hood of her jacket blocking the worst of the rain. It wasn’t pelting down, but it was a steady kind of mist that soaked right through to the bone. They jaywalked across the street and entered the market’s bustle.
Noise spilled from the open doors of the gymnasium, inside of which most of the booths were located. Outside were a few food stalls releasing steam into the rainy atmosphere, with people milling around holding warm drinks as they chatted, impervious to the bad weather. The coffee truck was near the entrance and the line wasn’t too long, so Daphne and her grandmother joined it and shuffled forward.
“Why do you want to try the coffee if you know it’s bad?”
“Harry could be wrong,” Grandma Mabel pointed out.
“She could be right.”
Grandma Mabel laughed. “Only one way to find out. Hello, dear,” she called out to the teenage girl inside the truck. “One black coffee for me and—” She glanced at Daphne.
“Regular latte, please.”
They paid and waited for their drinks, and Harry—full name Harriet—toddled up to them with a steaming paper cup in her hands. She was a few inches shorter than Grandma Mabel, with her gray hair wrapped in a plastic rain hood. She leaned on a butterfly-patterned cane and was accompanied by the third friend in Mabel’s trio, Greta.
“Swill,” Harry pronounced, lifting the drink. “They should get Vicky’s back. She knew how to make coffee properly.”
“You said Vicky’s coffee tasted like dog’s breath,” Greta noted.
“It did, but it was still better than this.”
Daphne heard her grandmother’s name called out by the teenager in the truck and went and grabbed their drinks. She took a sip and coughed. “It’s not the best,” she conceded.
Harry grunted in the affirmative while Grandma Mabel took her own sip. Her face was blank for a moment, and then she said “Disgusting” before breaking into a broad smile. “The worst I’ve ever had.”
The three ladies nodded and tasted their drinks again, grimacing to each other in the aftermath.
“Does the bakery still do those caramel sticky buns?” Daphne asked, glancing toward the gym doors. She could see two aisles of booths set up inside, with droves of people milling about.
“Usually sell out within an hour or two,” Mabel answered, nodding. “Let’s go see if we got here early enough.”
The Winter Market was another one of those strange déjà vu experiences for Daphne. Everything was the same but slightly different. Every second vendor was a familiar face, except some of them had more gray hairs and kids running around their booths these days. The kindly old man who made the best rhubarb jam Daphne had ever tasted smiled as she stopped by for a sample. She pulled out her wallet to buy a jar. The hot sauce table was as popular as ever. The woman who wove her own wool rugs was busy chatting with the man who made unbelievable wood-turned vases, their wares displayed for all the passersby to admire.
People walked with their friends, children, and partners, stopping at booths, laughing, talking. The noise echoed all around, giving the whole market a pleasant hum. A busker strummed his guitar on a small stage in the front of the gym and tapped his microphone.
Daphne’s shoulders relaxed. Fernley wasn’t so bad. The sameness was comforting, and the changes she saw in people’s faces and families made her realize that life had moved on here while she was gone, just as her own life had. Maybe she’d be able to find a place here, for however long she’d stay.
She slipped her jar of homemade rhubarb jam into her shoulder bag and hurried to catch up to her grandmother’s group. They’d joined the line for the bakery booth, peering over people’s shoulders to see what was left in the display cases. Daphne spied a fresh tray of sticky buns, so she was hopeful she’d get one by the time they got to the front.
“Long time no see!” the older woman behind the folding white table laden with baked goods exclaimed when she saw Daphne. “I heard you were back in town.”
There was a short pause, and Daphne imagined the smiling baker was thinking about all the other things she’d heard about Daphne’s less-than-triumphant return. Broken engagement, lost job, lost home, escort home from a certain scowling sheriff ...
“Hi, Adelaide,” Daphne replied, painting a smile on her face. “Business is booming as usual, I see.”
“We’ve been so fortunate,” she demurred. “What can I get for you?”
“Caramel sticky bun,” she said, then perused the selection of bread. “Don’t tell my dad, but I’ll get one of your multigrain loaves as well.”
“Claude still making bread, is he?”
“Nearly every day.”
“Maybe one day I’ll coax him to come work for me.”
Daphne grinned, sincerely this time. “I don’t think he’d want to give up his independence, even for the promise of unlimited baked goods.”
“Your grandmother, then. Have you gone near an oven lately, Mabel?”
“You know I haven’t,” Mabel answered with a grimace. “Not since ninety-two.”
“Shame,” Adelaide replied, wrapping up Daphne’s goods. “You had talent.”
Daphne tapped her card on the reader and glanced at her grandmother. “You used to bake? How did I not know this?”
“Sore subject,” Harry grumbled. “I’d let it be if I were you, girl.”
“She was my prime competition,” Adelaide said, handing two brown paper bags over. “Her losing that pot was one of the only reasons I was able to get this little business started.”
“It wasn’t lost,” Grandma Mabel said, getting heated. Her cheeks flushed red. “It was stolen .”
Adelaide was already greeting the next customer, so Daphne shuffled out of the way. She glanced at her grandmother, searching the older woman’s shuttered expression. “A stolen pot?”
Harry and Greta exchanged a long look. Greta was the one who patted Daphne’s arm. “A cast-iron Dutch oven. Perfectly seasoned. You threw a handful of flour in there with a bit of water, bit of yeast, and poof! Perfect bread.”
“There was a bit more to it than that,” Mabel mumbled. “It was my mother’s pot. She used it exclusively for bread. It was stolen at a potluck by a two-bit hussy who denied any wrongdoing, like the lying cheat she was.”
“You know who took it?” Daphne asked, eyes wide.
“We all know who took it! Stole it right out of the cupboard while everyone was outside,” Harry said, stamping her cane on the wooden floor. “But she denied it, and that was that. The police didn’t bother with an old cooking pot.”
Daphne glanced at Grandma Mabel. “Who stole it?”
The old woman’s teeth gritted as she met Daphne’s gaze. “Brenda Sallow.” She snarled and stomped away from the baker’s tent, the rest of the group following.
They wandered down the aisle as Daphne tore off a piece of cinnamon-swirled, caramel-drenched heaven. She chewed and frowned. “Brenda Sallow,” she repeated. “Who’s that?”
“An arrogant, self-serving hag who always thought she was better’n she was,” Grandma Mabel shot back, venom lacing her words.
“May she rest in peace,” Harry added solemnly.
“Apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” Greta said as the four of them stopped to admire some handmade jewelry. “Eileen wasn’t much better than her mother. And look what she made of herself.”
“Certainly moved up in the world,” Grandma Mabel agreed.
“Eileen Sallow,” Daphne repeated. “That rings a bell.”
“She goes by Eileen Yarrow now,” Mabel said, turning away from a tray of rings to keep marching down the farmers’ market aisle. She glanced at Daphne, brows raised. “But you would’ve known her as Eileen Flint.”
“Mrs. Flint,” Daphne said through clenched teeth. “Calvin Flint’s mother.”
“The one and only,” Mabel said, nodding to the man in question as he appeared silhouetted in the gymnasium doors. “Now, not only has little Eileen married up, but her son has landed on his feet too. And I still haven’t gotten my mother’s prized Dutch oven back.”
Daphne’s gaze flicked from the sheriff to her grandmother, then back to the sheriff. He walked inside, and most people swerved around him like a school of fish avoiding a shark.
Calvin Flint wore jeans and a black raincoat. He was off duty, Daphne deduced, but he still looked like a cop. He scanned the market with the look of someone who wouldn’t tolerate trouble, his gaze snagging on Daphne.
One dark brow arched. Daphne tore off a piece of sticky bun and stuffed it in her mouth. She turned around and led the older ladies down the next aisle.
She didn’t start her new job until tomorrow morning, which meant she didn’t need to entertain annoying, self-important sheriffs who were petty enough to pull out old high school nicknames just to needle her.
“Who’s Eileen married to now?” Daphne asked as she stopped to admire a stall full of hand-knitted baby clothes. Not that she wanted a kid anytime soon, but the tiny clothing was adorable.
“Archie Yarrow,” Greta supplied. “The former mayor.”
“The one whose house Mom burned down?” Daphne asked, glancing at her grandmother.
Grandma Mabel’s lips tugged at the corners. “Allegedly burned down. That was Archie Sr.’s father, Edward; Eileen married Archie Sr., who was mayor after his father, and the current mayor is his eldest, Archie Jr.”
“Not much creativity in the Yarrow family, in names or professions,” Greta noted.
“Never been prouder of that girl of yours than when she set fire to that man’s front porch,” Harry said, nodding at Grandma Mabel, who beamed.
Daphne’s mother had been as much of a wild child as Ellie, and judging by the stories that had filtered down from Grandma Mabel, the older woman hadn’t been much tamer. It was Daphne that was the odd duck in the family.
“Huh,” Daphne said, tearing into her bun once more. Her fingers were sticky with caramel, but it was too delicious to stop. “When I was in high school, people used to tease Flint about the fact that he was poor.”
“After her first husband died, Eileen wasted no time,” Grandma Mabel said, picking up tiny pink booties from the baby clothes stall. “Now she’s married into Fernley political royalty, and her son is sheriff.”
“Acting sheriff,” Daphne corrected. “He hasn’t won the election yet.”
Grandma Mabel grinned, her earlier moodiness dissipated. “Right you are, honey. Looking forward to working with him?”
“About as much as you are to reuniting with Brenda Sallow on the other side.”
The white-haired woman chortled and put the baby booties down, and they kept walking. Their shoes squeaked on the gym floors, and Daphne unzipped her jacket as she warmed up. She resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder to check where Flint had gone.
He probably wanted some jam. Or a sticky bun. Or maybe he was looking to arrest one of the peaceful Winter Market attendees, because he was a big bully who came from a family of lying troublemakers.
His maternal grandmother had allegedly stolen Mabel’s precious Dutch oven back in the nineties. And his mother had married the former mayor. And now he was acting sheriff.
He’d terrorized Daphne in her senior year, almost causing her to lose out on her college scholarships. Grinding her teeth, she tried not to get fired up about it. She had to work with the man, after all, and it had happened nearly two decades ago.
But why was it that the people who seemed to deserve it least always came out on top? Why couldn’t someone hardworking—Daphne, for example—see the fruits of their labors, for once?
Daphne sent out a quiet prayer that Adelaide had sold out of her buns before Flint could get any, because apparently she hadn’t matured since her late-teen years.
A shout distracted her from her less-than-honorable thoughts. At the other end of the aisle, a commotion brewed. A man—midtwenties, maybe, average build, above-average height—was sprinting down the crowded aisle, a metal cashbox tucked under his arm.
“Stop! Thief!” The jam salesman came hobbling into view, red faced and panicked. Wiry gray hair stuck out from under his cap, his arm flung out toward the man with the cashbox.
The thief vaulted over a small child and didn’t spare a glance backward. He dodged around a stroller and came pounding down the lane toward Daphne.
Normal, everyday, sensible Daphne would step out of the way and let someone else deal with the cashbox thief. There were dozens of people between him and the exit. Someone else could handle it. Hell, the sheriff could handle it. That was his job. She’d shake her head and watch, of course, but she’d stay far away from anything that might be trouble. Daphne didn’t get in the way of trouble. She avoided it at all costs.
But normal, everyday, sensible Daphne seemed to have forgotten to get on the ferry a few days ago, leaving a bitter, angry, vengeful Daphne in her place.
And that Daphne was unpredictable.
Things happened quickly.
The thief’s shoes slapped the gym floor as he sprinted toward the exit. His eyes were wild, his hair greasy and windblown, the gray cashbox tucked under his arm like a football.
Daphne had seconds to act, and no time at all to think. She dropped her baked goods on the ground and let her shoulder bag slide to her hand. The thief came sprinting closer. Five yards. Three. Daphne wound her arm back and swung.
The mason jar full of delicious rhubarb jam gave the shoulder bag decent heft. When it connected with the thief’s face, he gave a startled yelp, his feet running on while his head snapped back.
But Daphne had underestimated him. He got his feet under him and dodged her second swing. She let out a garbled yell, winding back once more.
Then his fist came for her face.