Chapter Nine
“No!” Amy and Chet had been working the room, surreptitiously removing brownies from the trays, when Amy noticed Mary Beth offer a nibble of the treat to Robin. She pushed past the guests in her way and snatched the brownie out of Mary Beth’s hands.
“What?” Mary Beth asked. “I thought he was allowed special treats in small quantities?”
“This treat is a little too special,” Amy said, dropping it into the teapot in her left hand.
Mary Beth looked into the teapot, which was almost full of brownies. “What in the world are you doing?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Amy whispered. Larkin and her grandmother were looking at her as if she was crazy, but she couldn’t help that.
She sought Chet out in the crowd, and he gave her a thumbs-up.
All the brownies had been removed. What they didn’t know was how many had already been eaten by their guests.
Thank goodness everyone in the room—except for Robin—was an adult.
She tilted her head toward the foyer and Chet nodded back.
She worked her way through the crowd, offering only tense smiles to the people who tried to draw her into a conversation.
When she reached her husband, she was close to crying.
“How could this have happened? I helped the Carrigans unload all their food. There were no brownies.”
Chet’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Someone added them to the platters after they were already on the tables. I have no idea who would pull such a stunt.”
“Me either.” Her mind balked at the possibility that anyone in this room was capable of such an underhanded and potentially dangerous move. She would worry about that later. “The worst thing is we have no idea how much weed is in each brownie. Do you know how quickly the drug takes effect?”
“Not right away. I just checked online and generally the high takes a few hours and can last up to twenty-four.”
“Oh no,” she groaned. “What should we do?”
“I’m going to stay here by the door. As guests leave, I’ll ask if they had any of the brownies and if so, how many. Then I’ll warn them about the weed and suggest they get medical attention right away if they feel any ill effects.”
“Oh gosh, I hope no one had more than one or two.” Amy chewed at her lower lip. “I wonder what our legal exposure is on this?”
“Bag the brownies. We should take them to the sheriff. Maybe he can have them analyzed and find out how much THC each one contains.”
“Do you think he’ll be able to figure out who did this?”
“It seems doubtful. But I’ll ask the guests if they noticed anyone adding the brownies to the plates. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and someone will have seen something.”
“Okay.” Amy took the two brownie-laden teapots and made her way to the kitchen. Chet talked about getting lucky, but if they really were lucky this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
In the pantry she pulled out a heavy-duty plastic bag and emptied the first teapot’s contents into it. She was in the process of emptying the second teapot when the pantry door opened. Larkin looked in, her expression serious.
“What’s going on, Amy? Those brownies weren’t on the trays at the beginning of the event.”
Amy didn’t know what to say. She was all too aware that Larkin had been commissioned to write a story about Bramble House for the local paper. Was this latest mishap, along with the others, about to become public knowledge?
What option did she have, though, but to tell the truth?
“You’re right, Larkin, the brownies weren’t on the trays.
Chet happened to taste one—thank goodness—and suspected they’d been laced with weed.
We don’t know who put the brownies out or how much weed they contain.
That’s why we removed them.” She fastened the zip closure on the bag and held it up.
“We’re going to take these to the Sheriff’s Office. ”
“What about your guests? Shouldn’t they be warned?”
“Chet is going to explain the situation to them as they leave.” Lord only knew how they would take the news. Some might decide to rescind their donations to the rodeo school. Chet would be devastated if that happened. “We just hope no one ate more than one or two of the brownies.”
“There were only two on each plate. So I doubt anyone gorged on them,” Larkin said.
“Thank goodness for that. I’m impressed you noticed. Both that the brownies weren’t there at the beginning of the event and that there were only two on each plate.”
“I’m trained to be observant. Besides, everything on those plates was so delicate and carefully curated, whereas brownies are more of an everyday treat. To me they just stood out as not quite belonging.”
Amy wondered if any of their other guests had been so observant. It wasn’t until two hours later, when the event was over and all the guests had departed, that she learned the Carrigans had been all abuzz about the brownies too.
“None of us noticed who put the brownies on the trays,” Sage said. She and her sisters had packed up the remainder of the food and loaded it into Callan’s truck. Now they were gathered in the foyer, preparing to leave. “One minute the brownies weren’t there. The next they were.”
“I was annoyed,” Mattie said. “I felt they weren’t a suitable treat for high tea. When I noticed you and Chet removing them from the trays, I thought you had the same opinion. I didn’t guess they’d been spiked.”
“What did the guests say when you told them what happened?” Amy asked her husband.
“Most of them were amused. Not the mayor though. She said the matter should be investigated and I assured her we would be going to the sheriff.”
Sage nodded. “Dawson went home to be with the kids after helping with setup, but one of his deputies will help you.”
“The only good news,” Chet continued, “is that only three of our guests had one of the brownies and only one guest—Gibson Adlington—had two.”
Amy groaned. Gibson again. Just her luck. “I bet he was pretty annoyed.”
“He didn’t say much, but that’s a fair bet.
I asked if he wanted to get checked out at the ER just to be safe.
He said he’d let me know if he felt any ill effects, but this wasn’t the first time he’d had a little hashish fudge.
He made a point of saying that the other times, he’d known what he was eating. ”
Amy covered her face. This was so not the sort of thing that should be happening at Bramble House.
“Do you think this was someone’s bad idea of a prank?” Callan asked.
“I wish I knew.” It wasn’t a well-wisher, that was for sure.
“This wasn’t your fault, Amy.” Mattie squeezed her shoulders. “Try not to worry. It’s a matter for the Sheriff’s Department now.”
“Speaking of which, I’d better get going,” Chet said.
Amy handed him his cowboy hat, kissed him, then watched him leave. She was thankful that Carson had taken Robin upstairs to their suite, so he couldn’t see how upset his parents were.
“We’ll get out of your hair too,” Mattie said. “Let us know what the Sheriff’s Office says?”
“Of course.” Amy held the door as the Carrigans paraded out into the cold.
A mass of low-hanging clouds had moved in during the afternoon, and it looked like more snow was going to start any minute.
She glanced up at the ball of mistletoe gamely withstanding the stiff Arctic wind.
To think she’d once hoped for romance to bloom this Christmas.
Now she just wanted to survive the holiday.
The foyer and front rooms of the house now felt oddly empty and quiet.
There were linens to collect, tables to be disassembled, and furniture replaced, but that could wait until Chet returned.
Following the sound of quiet conversation and dishes clattering, she went down the hall to the kitchen.
Her left leg ached. She would have loved to sit down, but she really should go and help Shelley.
When she reached the kitchen, though, she discovered Marjorie and Peter scraping plates and loading them into the dishwasher, while Shelley hand-washed the finer pieces.
“Oh, you guys, you’ve done an amazing job. But Marjorie and Peter…you shouldn’t be in here.”
“That’s what I told them,” Shelley said. “But Marjorie is very stubborn.”
“We wanted to help,” Marjorie said. “I hope you’re pleased with how the event went? Peter and I thought it was just lovely.”
Amy dampened a cloth and began wiping down the island. “I take it you didn’t hear about the brownies?”
“Chet did tell us. Luckily, we didn’t eat any,” Peter said.
“A few spiked brownies shouldn’t be such a big deal,” Shelley said. “It’s legal in Montana, right?”
“It’s not the weed, so much as the fact that none of the guests knew it was there,” Amy pointed out.
Not to mention that this was the fourth mishap in so many days to happen at Bramble House.
First the burnt cookies, then the mix-up with coffee beans, and the dead mouse.
She’d asked Chet to tell the sheriff about all of those things too.
Though Chet didn’t believe that they were related events, he’d agreed to do it.
Something was amiss at Bramble House. And Christmas, and their stellar five-star reputation, were at risk.
*
“In all the years we were friends, including the two years we dated, we didn’t ever go out for a fancy dinner.” Larkin was soaking up the atmosphere at Rocco’s. The candles, the glasses of red wine, the classical music playing in the background.
“Pizza was our go-to,” Carson agreed. “And we usually took it to go.”
“We were always in a hurry back then. We had school and part-time jobs and never enough time for adventures on our horses or bikes or just hanging with friends.”
“The fact that we both enjoyed being active probably kept us out of trouble,” Carson reflected.
“Though there was that time we hitchhiked to get to the ski hill. My mom was not happy about that.”
“Mine neither.”
He reached across the table for her hand. And just that simple touch made her catch her breath.
“There are advantages to getting older,” he said. “I like looking at you in candlelight.”
“It softens everything,” she agreed.
And thinking back on her life, she realized she had needed some softening.
Not in her appearance. This wasn’t about looks.
Her emotions had calcified in the years since she’d left Montana.
She’d developed a protective covering to prevent herself from ever getting hurt so badly again.
None of the men she’d dated in the intervening years had managed to dent that covering.
But it had only taken Carson a few days.
And he’d done it simply by being himself.
“You don’t need candlelight to look beautiful. I’ve missed you so much. I didn’t even know how much until I saw you walking into breakfast that first day. It almost killed me when you spun around and ran.”
“Can you imagine how shocked I was? Not just at seeing you again. But your…presence.” At eighteen he’d been athletic but skinny. And surely, he had been under six feet tall? “You’ve grown, haven’t you?”
“I didn’t stop until I was in my twenties. And I know I’ve filled out. We work hard on the ranch.”
“Your size kind of intimidated me at first.”
He laughed. “Sorry. Got to call bullshit on that one. Nothing intimidates Larkin Carrillo.”
“Not true. I just hide it well.”
“You have grit, Larkin—you always have. Remember that time we dove off 89 bridge into the Yellowstone River?”
“Oh Lord. I was so terrified.”
“You didn’t show it. As I recall, you were the one who dared me.”
“It sure was a beautiful spot though.” She remembered sunning on the bank of the river after, Carson running his hand down her almost naked back. How his touch had electrified her back then.
And still did. He’d let go of her hand, but her skin continued to tingle where he’d touched her.
“Do you want dessert, or should I ask for the check?”
Larkin glanced around the restaurant. They were the only ones still there. She realized she had hardly tasted the food. She hadn’t even finished her glass of wine. Being near Carson, having his undivided attention, had been so all-encompassing.
“Let’s go,” she agreed.
It was just a short walk back to Bramble House, but it had begun to snow, and the wind was driving the flakes straight into their faces. For more than one reason she was glad when Carson wrapped his arm around her back. Even through their thick winter coats, she could feel his warmth envelop her.
Looking ahead, to the golden lights outlining Bramble House, she thought how comforting the home appeared. Like a land-bound lighthouse, guiding her home.
“Amy and Chet must be exhausted,” she said.
“Yeah. Quite a day for them. But the tea was a success? It looked like it based on my brief appearance.”
“Well—there was a hiccup. Someone—Amy doesn’t know who—put out pot brownies with the tea.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I am not. Fortunately, Chet realized the problem early, and they were able to scoop most of them from the trays. But not before a few had been eaten. Hopefully none of the guests suffer any ill consequences. There could be legal ramifications for Amy and Chet.”
“All because of a few pot brownies?”
It wasn’t just the brownies, Larkin thought.
There’d been other problems this week, though none as serious.
The burned cookies and coffee mix-up could have been accidental.
But she suspected the dead mouse, as well as the spiked brownies, were the actions of some troublemaker.
But why would anyone want to cause problems for Amy and Chet? It just didn’t make sense.
She also felt conflicted about her assignment.
She’d been asked to write what amounted to a fluff piece on Bramble House.
But if someone was trying to sabotage the B & B, shouldn’t that be part of the story?
She couldn’t let her sympathy for Amy—and her feelings for Amy’s brother—influence the content of her article.
As they neared the driveway, however, worries about her article were overpowered by thoughts of the man by her side. They’d been dancing around this moment all evening. The previous evening as well. Was he finally going to kiss her? And how would she feel when it happened?