All You Need Is Fudge by Nancy CoCo

laptop on the coffee table.
    â€œLadies don’t kiss and tell.” I headed to the bedroom to strip, shower, and get dressed for the day.
    â€œOh, you did more than kiss,” Jenn said.
    â€œI’m not telling,” I called over my shoulder.
    â€œWhen’s the wedding?” she called back at me.
    I blew out a long breath, slipped on my bathrobe, and stuck my head out into the hallway. “I’m taking this one day at a time.”
    â€œFine. Promise me I’ll be the first to know when it happens.”
    â€œI promise you’ll be the first to know”—I headed to the bathroom—“but don’t tell my mother you were first. She’ll have a fit.”
    â€œI won’t. I promise.”
    It was good to take a day off every now and then. My day was more of an evening and morning, but hey, time off was time off. Last night with Trent was magical and romantic and I would never forget it. The yacht club raised a record amount of money and Jenn and Sandy and I earned an extra two thousand dollars for our efforts. All in all it was not a bad day.
    * * *
    Luckily, I didn’t have any bets on the boats in the race. A squall had picked up and the high winds and waves cut the races short. People had pretty much stayed off the ferries, cutting their days of visiting the island short.
    I let Sandy go home at two o’clock and canceled the last fudge demonstration. It was pouring rain outside and only a small group of people had gathered indoors near the fireplace to drink hot coffee and use the Wi-Fi.
    I put my raincoat on and headed to Dodd’s market to pick up something for dinner. The streets smelled of rain and dust and were mostly bare. A few of the horse-drawn taxis waited out the storm under the trees near the fort. With their heads down, the animals looked miserable. The drivers sat with raincoats pulled around them and their hats dripping wet. The open carriage windows were covered by shades that were rolled down and tied to keep the rain off any customer that might flag them down for a ride.
    The bike shop had closed up for the duration of the storm.
    I opened the door to the grocery store, the bells jingling on the door. Mary Emry looked up from her trashy celebrity magazine to see who was coming in during the storm.
    â€œHi Mary.” I shook out my umbrella and left it next to the door.
    Mary simply nodded her head at my intrusion. I grabbed a basket and made my way to the produce section. I needed things for a salad and figured I’d fry up a chicken to go with it. The choice of fresh meat was nice considering the small size of the store. I grabbed a package of antibiotic free, organic, free-range chicken, a bag of salad along with cucumbers, red and yellow peppers, an onion, olives, carrots, radishes, and zucchini. Finally, I took a loaf of fresh French bread and took them to the register.
    â€œHeard you pulled Carin Moore’s dead body out of the marina,” Mary said as she rang up my dinner.
    I nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”
    â€œMust have been a terrible sight.”
    â€œIt was.”
    She squinted her brown eyes at me. “Are you used to finding the dead yet?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHow many has it been now? Ten?” Her dark head was bent as she rang up my groceries, making it hard to tell what she meant.
    Did she mean to imply it was my fault? Did she mean to imply that she felt sorry for me? “Four,” I corrected her. “Only four dead bodies and none of them were my fault.”
    â€œDidn’t say they were,” she said as she bagged my groceries. “Just wondered if you were used to finding them.”
    I realized then that was probably the most talkative Mary Emry had ever been. I leaned against the counter. “Did you know Carin Moore?”
    â€œEveryone on the island knew Carin Moore. That girl had the tongue of a wasp. Could sting anyone with her words and did so frequently