miss fortune mystery (ff) - jewel of the bayou by amy jo belford Page A

needed a little more excitement in my life.
    Definitely the last one.
    “Hate to break it to ya, but scaring strangers wasn’t on the books for this morning.” He rubbed his nose gingerly, but there didn’t seem to be any permanent damage. In fact, now that I got a better look at it, it already appeared to have had a run-in with a hymnal or two in the past. “Come back later, maybe I’ll scare you then.”
    He grinned as he said it, and for some reason Little Red Riding Hood came to mind.
    “Come back later?”
    “Yep. It’s not time yet. Come back later. Go get some lunch.”
    That made me bristle. I may have a few curves, but that doesn’t mean that it’s OK to make a crack about eating lunch at 10:45 a.m.
    “It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?” I said. “Even for a gal like me.”
    “A gal like you, huh.” His grin got bigger. “I’ll bet you avoid a lot of good advice, second guessing what folks say to you.”
    I felt the tips of my ears get red, and tried to think of something smart to say. I knew I could come up with something. Probably in about twelve hours, while brushing my teeth before bed.
    While I stewed, he picked up some gold-colored plates from the floor.
    “So, is lunch what you’re planning to serve on those things?”
    It was the best I could come up with. Don’t judge.
    “What, these?” He looked at them as if he’d never seen them before. “A minute ago they were covered with little glasses. For communion, I guess. Turns out they scatter like crazy when they get knocked over.”
    “Ah,” I said. That explained the crash, although not what he was doing down on the floor in front of the pulpit in the first place.
    “As for lunch,” he said, “around these parts, they eat it at 10:00 in the morning. On Sundays, anyway.”
    “Really?”
    “Really. So it turns out it’s not all about you after all. It’s something about banana pudding, instead.”
    That was definitely a crack at me, but I let it slide. “Then church is already over?”
    “It is. And that means you’re out of luck. Or, maybe that means it’s your lucky day. It didn’t look to me like the sermon was doing much for the crowd. Guess you’ll have to try again next week.”
    “Oh, that’s all right,” I said lightly. “Really, I just needed an excuse to get away for the morning. My boss thinks that I should stick around 24/7, but even she can’t put up too much of a fuss if I go to church.”
    “Your boss?” He was crouching down again, picking up the itty bitty glasses that had rolled around on the floor. Someone was going to want to give them a good washing before they filled them up with grape juice again.
    “That’s right.” I watched him grabbing at the glasses for a moment, then I sighed and bent down to help. “Mrs. Langstrom, in the big Victorian? Outside of town? She hired me as her companion. Which sounds old-fashioned, I know, but it just means that she wants someone to be around in case she needs something.”
    I didn’t go into the details. If Mrs. Langstrom is too cheap to pay for real in-home care, but wants to make sure that she has someone around to shout orders at while she’s indulging in her hypochondria, who am I to stand in her way? Jobs for recent Art School graduates are few and far between, and at least by taking this job in Sinful I wasn’t too far from my family over in Purdee. And not too far from New Orleans, either. Not that I’d had a chance to get there, yet. Not with the short leash that Mrs. Langstrom uses. Which is why it was so nice to get out of the house this morning.
    “Right. Well, I can see you’re helpful,” he said as I accidentally kicked a glass under a pew. “Maybe too helpful. I’ve got this covered.”
    “And what is that supposed to mean?” I asked. “What exactly is it that you’ve got covered? If the church service is over, what are you still doing here, anyway?”
    I stood back up, set a few glasses on the communion table, and