You've Got To Be Kitten: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Cozy Mystery Page 3

  A rotund, bristly-bearded man with heavy spectacles leaped up, his girth straining his out of style suit.

  “You get up there and marry my niece right now, you worthless jerk, or I’ll give you a vasectomy with a set of lobster claws!”

  “Sit down, Ruckus,” illusion Aunt Jenny said.

  “Yeah, I’m a bad person for waiting this long, I know I am.” Roger didn’t even look at illusion Ruby, who seemed to be in shock, her bouquet falling to the ground from numb fingers. “I apologize to my lovely fiancé, but I’m just not ready to get married. You know? I want to…I want to climb mountains.”

  He turned passionately to one of the guests in the aisle. “I want to marvel at things! I want to travel the world, experience new things and new cultures. You understand?”

  A lot of people in the wedding gallery were nodding.

  “What’s he doing?” Rufus asked.

  “He’s being a slick son of a gun,” Rumpus said, shaking his head.

  “I’m doing my fiancé a favor, because I’m not a whole person yet. I need to stay in the oven a little longer, and finish baking.”

  The gallery, all except for the preacher, Ruby, and her aunt and uncle, stood up applauding Roger. They began chanting his name, then hefted him onto their shoulders and carried him out of the church.

  “F-father?” illusion bridal Ruby said, turning to the Preacher. “What…what just—”

  “That’s what you get for trying to trap a man into marriage before he’s ready,” The Preacher snapped. “You heard him. He wasn’t finished baking.”

  The illusion rippled as Ruby’s uncle tried to assault the preacher with the nearest weapon. Unfortunately, that weapon wound up being the altar cross. In a grotesque parody of Jesus’s stations of the cross. Uncle Rufus chased the pastor about the church. Illusion bridal Ruby sank to her knees and covered her face with her hands, body wracked with sobs.

  “That’s so sad!” Rufus rubbed his face all over the real Ruby as the illusion faded into mist.

  “Well, I got over it. Besides, at least he showed me what a jerk he was before we actually got married. But you can see why I had to leave, right?”

  “That was supremely humiliating,” Rumpus agreed.

  “What ever happened to Roger?” Rufus asked.

  “I don’t know. I assume he went and climbed those mountains he seemed to like so much.”

  “If we’re lucky, he fell off one,” Rumpus quipped.

  A knock came at the door. Ruby quickly dispelled any remaining wisps of magic and rushed to answer it.

  “Who could it be now? Nobody’s supposed to know I’m here.” Ruby threw the door open and her mouth gaped at the sight of the man standing in her doorway.

  Six-and-a-half feet tall, his thick arms corded with muscle. Deep, blue eyes stared out from under a heavy brow, and his square jaw made him seem as if he’d walked right off of a pulp adventure page.

  “Johnny Mumbles?” Ruby stammered.

  “Actually, it’s Chief Miller now,” he said with a smile.

  Four

  Ruby’s hand flew in front of her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have…that awful nickname…what can I do for you, Sheriff?”

  John laughed. Ruby decided it was a good laugh. Warm, genuine, his laugh filled up the entire room. She further concluded it would be a nice laugh to hear on a regular basis.

  “It’s alright, Ms. Rivers. I made peace with my awkward teenage years long ago.”

  “That makes one of us,” Ruby flushed red. Johnny had been sort of cute in an angsty, loner kind of way. She remembered him with his long hair, Nirvana T-shirts, and propensity for silence. It was hard to reconcile that image with the hulking, confident, smiling man before her. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t call me Ms. Rivers. I feel old enough as it is.”

  “I find that hard to believe. You don’t seem to have aged a day.”

  Ruby’s eyes narrowed. “Idle flattery won’t get you anywhere, Sheriff.”

  “Who says it was flattery?” John smiled, and it was a smile so devoid of guile, so direct in its earnestness, Ruby couldn’t help but feel her anger melt away. “Anyway, I won’t take up any more of your time, as I see you’re just fine.”

  “What prompted the welfare check anyway?”

  John pointed upward. “Everyone knows Big Ruckus passed on a while back. So, when the lighthouse sparked up brighter than a second sun, I thought I’d come and take a look.”

  “But you called me Ms. Rivers. How did you know it was me?”

  John smiled, and it could have been Ruby’s imagination, but it seemed as if he might have blushed a little.

  “Oh, I’d recognize you anywhere Ms.—I mean, Ruby. I’m glad to see you’re back in Fiddler Cove.”

  “Yes, well, I’m not sure for how long. I’m probably heading back to New York after I put my uncle’s affairs in order.”

  A micro flash of disappointment crossed John’s face. “Well, I can imagine there’s a lot to dig up for you, here.”

  “You mean, about me getting dumped at the altar by my supposedly perfect fiancé?” Ruby shrugged. “I’m so over it.”

  “You’re not over it, though,” Rufus said, “you just told us the story—”

  “Hey, a kitty.” John crouched down, the brim of his hat still level with Ruby’s chest. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

  “He’s kind of shy…well, what do you know?” Rufus walked right up to John and nosed his extended finger. “I’ve never seen him warm up to anyone that fast, before.”

  “I’ve got a way with animals,” John said. “Wish I could say the same for people.”

  John straightened up and tipped his hat. “Anyway, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call. Are you going to be at the Crab bake-off tomorrow?”

  “Crab bake-off—that’s tomorrow?” Ruby’s mind swam with images from the annual event, a Fiddler Cove staple. Her aunt had even won the competition one year in the Lobster division. “I—I don’t know, I’ve got a lot to deal with here.”

  “Well, I hope you change your mind then. Good seeing you, Ruby.” John tipped his hat, then suddenly crouched down and stroked Rufus’ fur. “You too, kitty.”

  John walked down the ramp to the gravel road. Ruby’s gaze drifted down to his tight bottom, flexing and unflexing as he trotted down the lane to his waiting truck.

  “Rufus, you chowderhead.” Rumpus sauntered—or perhaps waddled—up to the smaller cat and bopped him on the head. “When a stranger shows up, you hide in cover and prepare an ambush! How am I supposed to snap his neck if you’re not there for the big distraction?”

  “No one’s snapping any necks!” Ruby said. “That’s Chief John, and he seems like a very nice man.”

  “Yeah, really nice,” Rufus said. “I think he likes you, Ruby.”

  “Oh, stop,” she said, cheeks burning. “I’m not here to find a man. You know I’m the type who never settles down.”

  “Yeah, but then, once a month you get drunk and start crying about dying alone,” Rumpus said helpfully. “I’m just saying.”

  “You’re just saying what, Rumpus?” Ruby asked with a glare.

  “I’m just saying, we should visit the crab bake-off. You can reconnect with John.”

  “We never connected in the first place.”

  “Yes, but don’t you kind of want to, now?”

  Ruby smiled, and knelt down to stroke the plump cat’s impossibly soft, glossy fur. “You’re really sweet, Rumpus, to think of me so much.”

  “What are familiars for?” he asked, purring like a rumble.

  After a night of blessedly dreamless, quiet slumber, Ruby woke feeling refreshed with two cats pinning her to the bed. She cleaned the second level of the lighthouse, which had been converted into a kitchen.

  Uncle Ruckus had spent most of his time in the kitchen, so the only thing she had to move were stacks of newspapers dating back to the 1960s. Despite Rumpus’ vociferous objections, Ruby refused to dispose of them
, putting them in the separate igloo-shaped storage shed, instead.

  “Well, it’s just now noon,” Rumpus said. “The crab bake-off is just getting started.”

  “There’s going to be a lot of people there, Rumpus. I might not even get to see John.”

  “Ah, but isn’t the chance for true love and connection worth the effort?”

  Ruby put her hands on her hips and cocked an eyebrow at her fluffy familiar. “Why are you so concerned about me and John all of the sudden.”

  “Oh, he’s not,” Rufus said innocently “he’s just looking for an excuse to chow down on the food at the fair.”

  “That’s my cat,” Ruby grumbled. “Alright. What the heck? John and Devlin got lucky when they recognized me, right? I bet I don’t run into a single other person I know.”

  “Sure, sure,” Rumpus said, openly salivating. “Call the cab already.”

  “I guess I need to buy a car.”

  “And park it where?” Rumpus craned his neck, looking all around. “This whole area gets inundated with waves during a storm. Your shiny new toy will be the world’s most expensive ocean buoy after the first good squall.”

  “Good point.”

  One cab ride later—thankfully given to her by a stranger—Ruby rolled the pet carrier down the blocked off main street of Fiddler Cove. Where cars normally traversed, booths and stands had been erected, most of them pushing some kind of seafood product or beer. Sometimes both.

  “Those beers look awfully good,” Ruby said, staring hungrily at a tall boy glistening with moisture.

  “You’ll get indigestion,” Rumpus said.

  “I know that. I’m just saying they look good, not that I was going to get one.”

  “There!” Rumpus said, pounding his paw on the edge of the carrier. “I see it! Crazy Sven’s Squid Shack! Hurry up! The line is really short but that won’t last! Mush!”

  “Did you just say mush?” Ruby asked, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, Rumpus, you lose all control. We don’t even know if Sven still runs the thing or not.”

  “It’s Sven. Where else are you going to find a seven-foot Swede in Connecticut?”

  Ruby noted it was, indeed, the same Sven running the stand twenty years later. He even remembered her favorite order, and a little on the side for her cats.

  Several stands later, Rumpus laid on his side in the carriage, contentedly licking his whiskers free of morsels. Rufus hadn’t gone as bonkers, but he was still a bit on the overfed side.

  Ruby smirked at her two familiars, feeling a warm glow looking at them so content. Maybe I haven’t had a steady boyfriend since high school, and maybe my hometown thinks I’m a laughingstock, but at least I take good care of my kitties.

  Suddenly Ruby realized she felt an odd, peaceful calm. Certainly, the crab bake-off was no less crowded than your typical New York neighborhood, but everyone just…strolled. In New York the pedestrians were always in a hurry, rushing about instead of keeping their mind on what was going on around them.

  Not so in Fiddler Cove. The relaxed atmosphere seemed to ooze into her pores. Ruby sighed in contentment, realizing she really had been missing Fiddler Cove after all.

  Her eyes fell on a tall man rudely shoving his way through the crowd. His frosted tips belied that his hairline had badly receded. A snide grin crossed his smug face as he hollered on his cell phone while, apparently, remaining oblivious to the people he nearly trampled.

  “I’m telling you, Troy, now is the time. Strike while the iron is hot.” Ruby stared, her jaw hanging open, as Roger Moore Abernathy strolled right past her without a glimmer of recognition. “Yeah, that’s what they said about cryptocurrency at first, too. Now, look what happened. Of course, it’s a good investment—”

  Roger passed out of sight. Numbly, Ruby followed him. He entered a narrow alleyway and jogged up a flight of concrete steps. He flung open a heavy glass door at the top. Ruby caught a glimpse of the business name emblazoned upon it. RMA’s Investment Futures.

  “You guys wait here,” Ruby said, pushing the carrier into the shade.

  “Where are you going?” Rumpus asked sleepily.

  “To see an old friend. I’ll be right up these stairs if you need me.”

  “I don’t need anything, now, but when you come back, I smell someone smoking salmon.”

  Ruby rolled her eyes and rushed up the steps. She peered in through the tinted, glass door but couldn’t make out much as her eyes hadn’t adjusted from the bright sunlight-splashed street.

  “Well, it’s a business,” she said, pushing the door open with her shoulder. She stepped into a blast of frigid, conditioned air. A young woman sat playing with her phone behind a reception desk. Through an open office door, Ruby could hear Roger’s boisterous voice.

  “Can I help you?” The receptionist said, noticing Ruby at last.

  “I’ll just show myself into Mr. Abernathy’s office,” Ruby said.

  “You can’t just go in—”

  “Relax, we’re old friends.” Ruby walked into the room and stared down at Roger.

  “Troy, I’ll hit you up later, Bro,” Roger said, his eyes widening as they ran up and down Ruby’s curvy form. “Some hot MILF just walked into my office and I’m not about to pass up this opportunity.”

  Roger turned off his phone and tossed it onto the desk, never taking his gaze off of Ruby. He rose to his feet and took her hand in his own.

  “Hello there. Welcome to RMA Investment Futures. I’m the president and CEO, Roger Abernathy. Absolutely at your service.”

  Ruby yanked her hand away and scowled. “Really, Roger? You don’t recognize me?”

  “Should I?” He grinned. “I think I’d remember someone as sexy as you, Hot Stuff. So what can I do to you…I mean, for you?”

  He smiled more widely as if he’d not just uttered something utterly cringe. Ruby sighed.

  “It’s me, Roger. Ruby. The woman you left at the altar?”

  Roger’s eyes went wide, his jaw slack, and she saw the glimmer of recognition in his gaze.

  “Ruby, oh my God! You, you look—amazing!”

  “You look like crap,” Ruby said, crossing her arms over her chest. She cast a disdainful gaze about his office. “And what is this RMA Investment Futures? It’s a pyramid scheme, isn’t it?”

  “That’s not a fair assessment,” Roger says. “Anyway, that’s the kind of thing someone who doesn’t know how chain referral systems work.”

  “What happened to climbing mountains? To finding yourself?” Ruby felt a stab of agony in her heart. “Oh my God. You never left, did you? You never left Fiddler Cove.”

  “I—I fly down to South America once in a while,” Roger said, loosening his collar with a stiffened finger.

  “That doesn’t count. You never had a problem. You weren’t still ‘baking.’ You just didn’t want to be with me.”

  Roger’s smile faded. “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it, though? Besides, if you weren’t done baking then Geena Mitchell was eating raw cookie dough! I heard all about your fling, jerk.”

  Roger’s face twisted into a scowl. “Fine. You want to know the truth? It wasn’t me; it was you. I’d groomed you, brought you up from the gutter, made you cool and socially relevant. After all that work, you still had the audacity to whine for my attention constantly.”

  Ruby blinked back tears, trying to will them not to fall. What Roger said wounded her to the core.

  “I just wanted to spend time with you. You were always more interested in hanging out with your friends than spending any time with me.”

  “That’s just how guys are, Rubes. That’s just how guys are. You never got that. You were acting like some trust fund chick from the Hamptons instead of orphan gutter trash—”

  Ruby slammed her knee into his crotch.

  Roger’s eyes bugged out as he collapsed onto the floor, brushing against Ruby on the way down. Something heavy in his pocket smacked into her wrist hard enough for her to cry out. Roger
went down into a crumpled heap, grasping his groin and groaning in misery.

  “You know what, Roger? I should thank you for leaving me at the altar, as humiliating as it was. Because, looking at you now, at what you DIDN’T do with your life? You did me a favor after all.”

  Ruby strode out of the office, rubbing her sore wrist. She collected her two cats and rolled back into the sun.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s over,” Ruby said, sad but somehow, hopeful. “I finally got to confront him. I finally got my answers.”

  “And, how do you feel?”

  “Like going home and crawling into a bottle of wine.”

  “Hey, you said home, and not Uncle Ruckus’ place.”

  “Shut up, Rumpus,” Ruby said without venom.

  Ruby did just as she intended to do. She went back to the lighthouse, drew a steaming bath on the third floor, and then nursed a bottle of wine with two cats sprawled on her lap.

  As much as Roger’s words had hurt her, Ruby felt as if she’d just cleaned out a long-infected wound. Though it hurt, it hurt in a way that promised to be less and less every day, instead of festering for twenty years.

  She dozed off and on while occasionally doom scrolling her phone and sipping wine. A sharp rap at her door came just before ten in the evening. At first, she thought it to be a wine-conjured dream djinni.

  Then, the knock came again, harder than the first time. Ruby gathered her bathrobe about herself and hustled down the spiral staircase.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she shouted, racing to throw the door open. Her face split in a confused grin when she saw Chief John standing there. “Chief John. What brings you out here in the middle of—”

  “You need to come with me back to the station,” he said icily. “Now.”

  Five

  “The station?” Ruby blinked in surprise. A strong breeze blew in off the Sound, stirring her hair into a dark nimbus about her head. She pulled the robe on a bit tighter. “Is that really necessary? I was just about to go to bed.”

  John glanced down at her, seeming to notice her state of undress for the first time. Ruby’s bathrobe terminated some inches above the knees, and the body-hugging fit put her curves on full display, just at intended. It was a bit too much for poor John.