LITMIR.BIZ

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You Margaret’s granddaughter? She was a Turner.” He peered at the card, then tucked it into the front pocket on his overalls.

      “Margaret was my Nona, yes.” Angie smiled at the man, thankful her grandmother had been well known in the community before her passing. “I’m Angie.”

      “Well, Angie, I owe your grandmother enough that I can give you a few minutes to talk.” He placed two bags of the cheese in a plastic bag that had seen better days. “We’ll finish milking about six tomorrow morning. If you wanted to bring out some coffee and Ding Dongs, I’d give you some time.”

      “Ding Dongs? Like the chocolate cupcakes? Do they even still make those?” She took the bag and handed him a twenty.

      “Of course they do.” Glaring at the bill, he pulled out a thick wad of paper money and put her bill in the middle, then counted her out ten dollars in change. One five, and five ones. “You can get them over at the market.” He nodded to the grocery store across the street. “They have lots of good stuff in there.”

      Dom woofed and waged his tail, apparently agreeing with the cheese guy. For the first time that morning, Angie saw a smile come across the old man’s face. A few missing teeth didn’t dim the real feeling behind the emotion. “You can bring him too. I bet he’d like to meet my blue heelers. Now, those are herding dogs.”

      “Dom’s more of a lap dog.” Angie tucked the cheese into her already overfilled shopping bag.

      “I suppose that Potter woman who lived next door to Margaret is still alive? Evil tends to live forever, yet angels like your grandmother go too quickly.” He paused, watching her reaction.

      “My neighbor? Mrs. Potter?” Angie felt confused at the change of subject. “Yes, she’s still alive.”

      “Too bad.” With that, he walked away to talk to the man in the next stall. The conversation was apparently over.

      Angie wandered through the booths, picking up a few more items, letting her mind work on the salad she’d been thinking about all morning. Good thing she’d brought Dom today. He’d been her good luck charm with the cheese man. She had accomplished both things on her must do list for today. Now all she needed to do was pick up some of the old man’s treats and head home to play with the salad recipe. She’d talk to Mrs. Potter and see why Old Man Moss didn’t like her one bit. Probably an old feud that neither one of them could remember how it started.

      Angie ran into the grocery store after parking in the front row and rolling down all of the windows halfway. She’d found the packaged cupcakes on an endcap and headed to the front to check out. Angie could see Dom sitting in the driver’s seat, watching her through the plate glass windows. The clerk rang up the two boxes and bagged them as she called out the total. “I don’t sell a lot of these except to the teenagers and Mr. Moss. He buys them by the case when he comes into town.”

      “I’m going to visit him tomorrow at the goat barn, so I was warned to bring treats.” She swiped her debit card and took the receipt and bag from the clerk.

      “I haven’t been out there since high school. Our FFA teacher took us out to show us the cheese making facility. The lesson was something about small businesses being worth supporting. My dad almost blew a fuse when he found out. We run a big dairy farm west of town. Apparently, goat cheese is too subsidized in the dairy guys’ minds.” The girl leaned against the checkout stand and pointed to Angie’s SUV. “That your dog? He’s going to be huge.”

      Angie laughed. “I might have to buy a truck just so Dom can keep going places with me.”

      The young girl shrugged. “Well, no one’s going to mess with your stuff while you’re gone. Even if he doesn’t bite, he could lick someone to death. Or sit on them.”

      Angie made her way out to the car. She put the bags in the back where Dom couldn’t get access due to the dog restraint she’d had installed between the back of the car and the back seat. Not that Dom ever went in the back, but at least she could buy stuff and get it home. The iron bars reminded Angie of her one and only time in the back of a cop car after joy riding with Brad Moore, junior year.

      She turned the car back onto Main Street, toward the restaurant. Felicia was living in the apartment on the second floor of the building. There was a chance she was home. And a slimmer chance that she was alone.

      Angie didn’t have to worry about meeting the latest man of the moment. Felicia sat outside on the benches they’d built for overflow customers to use while they waited. She’d wanted to set up café tables on the sidewalk but the city council hadn’t been swayed by her argument. Benches would have to do until she had the numbers to back up her need for more seating. Felicia opened the passenger side door and took Dom’s leash, leading him toward the bench.

      There wasn’t a lot of traffic on River Vista’s Main Street, especially not at ten in the morning, but Dom needed the consistency, especially since he ran free out at the farm. When he left the property lines, he was on the leash. Hopefully that would keep him from straying. Angie had only had the dog for a few months, but she’d be lost without him.

      “Come for a walk through? The kitchen guy is supposed to be here sometime this morning so I thought I’d take my coffee out here and get a little sun while I waited.” Felicia waved her hand at the travel cup sitting on the built-in end table along with one of those romance novels with the guy in the kilt. The cover made Angie think of Ian McNeal, and heat bloomed in her face. She shook the thought away and focused on the subject of the book. Lately Felicia had been reading anything she could get her hands on that had time travel involved in the story line. Angie’s reading had consisted of foodie cookbooks and memoirs, with an occasional murder mystery thrown in the mix.

      “Actually, I was in town at the farmers’ market. I’ve got an appointment to meet with Ian on Monday. I think he’s warming up to me.” Dom looked at her and barked his disapproval of the idea. “Okay, maybe not, but at least I have an appointment. Tomorrow, I’m meeting with our cheese supplier.”

      “So you’ve completed your to do list. Why don’t we head over to Emmett for the Cherry Festival later this afternoon? I’m sure we can rustle up a group to come along.” They were now in the kitchen. The main remodel had been finished, now all that needed done was to refurbish or replace the kitchen fixtures and appliances. She hadn’t kept much from the original building, mostly because the Mexican restaurant that had occupied the space had been closed for years. She didn’t know if she could trust any of the appliances. Besides, she had the money now, no need to be penny wise and pound foolish as Nona used to say.

      Angie brought her attention back to her friend. “Sorry, I’m going to play with some salad recipes for opening day. I bought the sweetest Bing cherries that are screaming at me to make them into some type of vinaigrette.”

      “If I didn’t know you better, I would think you were teasing. The kitchen guy’s going to be here until about five, but after that, I’m heading back out to play. That festival was rocking last night. Today, it should be amazing sauce.”

      “Just be careful.” Angie looked around the shiny, new, empty room. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

      “Again.”

      She turned toward Felicia. “What did you say?”

      “You said you couldn’t believe we were starting up a restaurant and I said, again. You tend to forget we made el pescado a success. We can do this. And before you mention our third partner’s name, you know Todd just showed up when the pictures were being taken.” Felicia crossed her arms, challenging Angie to disagree.

      “That’s not true, Todd was there at the beginning.” Angie tried to remember the work before the opening, but the only scenes she could wring out of her memories of that crazy time had her and Felicia scrubbing the old tables, down on their knees scraping the years of wax buildup off the floor. Where had Todd been? “Okay, so maybe not.”

      Felicia put her arm around Angie. “We can do this,

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