Stirring the Plot (A Cookbook Nook Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

giving me a palm reading, I let slip that I’d stolen a car. That wasn’t entirely true. When I eloped with Alicia, I borrowed my father’s car. He reported it stolen. In the dead of night, I returned the car, and Alicia and I hitchhiked for a month. To look for America.”
    “Like the Simon and Garfunkel song.”
    “Pretty much. I don’t have a police record.”
    “Back to the buses, everyone,” Aunt Vera said. “Jenna, Rhett, don’t lag.”
    I squeezed Rhett’s arm and said, “At some point, you’re going to tell me about Alicia and any other ladies in your past.” My aunt had also warned me that Rhett was a
bit of a rogue
. What did that mean? Was I falling in love with a man who would one day break my heart?
    As we neared the bus, Rhett said, “Who’s that?” He pointed at a freckle-faced woman climbing out of a Corvette.
    Emma Wright jammed a witch hat on her short-cropped hair and blew a kiss to the driver, her husband, Edward. Whenever I saw the man, I winced. He was fairly attractive with his lean Nordic look, chiseled jaw, and rock-hard eyes. His blond hair was a little slicker than I liked on a man, but that had nothing to do with my reaction to him. No, I winced because he was a dentist. The sound of the drill. The masks. The smells. The phantom pain. Yes, I went to a dentist—not Edward—but only because I wanted good teeth and not dentures when I entered my golden years.
    Edward gunned the sports car and sped away. Emma watched him leave, her expression pinched, but she quickly put on a smile and joined Bingo and Pearl.
    “Don’t you know Emma?” I said. “She’ll be the newest inductee to the Winsome Witches. She owns Pet Taxi, the service that shuttles animals to the vet or the groomers.” Emma, like my pal Bailey, was blessed with boundless energy and enthusiasm. “She can talk a blue streak.” Maybe that was why she spent most of her daylight hours with non-human-talking pets. I wondered how her husband dealt with that. Dentists did all the talking in their profession. I’d heard Edward was a cave explorer in his spare time; maybe he communed with bats. “You’ve never used her service?” I went on.
    “I take Rook to all his appointments myself.” Rhett owned a Labrador retriever. He liked big dogs. “He won’t get into a car with a stranger. I’m not sure what happened to him before I found him at the pound, but I’m pretty sure it was something awful that involved cars.”
    “Poor pup. Do you happen to know Emma’s husband?”
    “Edward. Sure. He’s a weekend spelunker. He comes into Bait and Switch a lot. Long neck.”
    “Really? That’s all you remember? Edward has a long neck?”
    “I’m a guy. What more do you want?”
    Our next stop on the tour was The Enchanted Garden nursery, one of my favorite places to visit in Crystal Cove. I could spend hours browsing the plants and glazed pots. Recently I’d purchased herbs for my front porch: basil, parsley, mint, and thyme. Some weren’t doing so well, although the parsley was thriving. I supposed even I, who didn’t have a green thumb, couldn’t kill parsley.
    On the other hand, the owner of the shop, Maya Adaire, was skillful with a garden. Her shop, which was the first established in town, teemed with plants and beautiful ironwork sculpture. She offered many of her homegrown vegetables for sale: heirloom tomatoes, exotic mushrooms, zucchini, and pumpkins. A daily dose of mushrooms, she advised, could cure cancer. As if the rest of her accomplishments weren’t enough, Maya had also penned a cookbook of healthful vegetarian recipes.
    As we entered The Enchanted Garden’s main shop, I inhaled. The scent of fall flowers filled the air. The interior was aglow with tiny white lights. Strands of orange pumpkin cutouts hung from the coarse wooden beams overhead. A blessing broom, which was hand-wrapped with ribbon, leaned against the checkout counter. A sign posting the way to Salem and Sleepy Hollow stood in the