A Lime To Kill: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 1 Read online

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  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2015 by Maven Publishing - All rights reserved.

  All rights Reserved. No part of this publication or the information in it may be quoted from or reproduced in any form by means such as printing, scanning, photocopying or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 1

  There was a resounding crack as a bright red ledger flew across the room and thumped against the wall.

  Marilyn looked at the wounded notebook with satisfaction.

  “And you can stay there until you’ve learned your lesson,” She said into the empty living room of her turquoise bungalow.

  “Mom?” her 21-year old daughter peeked in the front door. Tiara looked around and frowned. “What was that all about?” she asked, flopping down on her mother’s velvety couch.

  “I was just disciplining the numbers,” Marilyn extended her arm toward the ledger and grimaced.

  “I told you I would balance your books for you,” the lovely young lady reminded her.

  “You have your own work to do,” Marilyn said. “I’ve decided that I’m definitely going to have a professional take a look at them this time. I’m a baker not an accountant.”

  “Mom, why would you pay a stranger to do the books when you could just pay me?” Tiara walked over and picked up the ledger that was the bane of her mother’s existence. “It won’t take that long and I can be back on the job search in no time.”

  “You make a valid argument. Let me chew on it a bit,” she nodded.

  Gazing at her daughter, she didn’t know how she’d raised such an amazing woman. Tiara was intelligent, talented, and newly graduated with honors. How was it that she hadn’t been snapped up by some engineering firm by now? It would be bittersweet for Marilyn when she did accept a job though, because when Tiara did find something, it most likely wouldn’t be in Key West. She had just come back from UCF, it would be painful to let her go again so soon.

  “Have we thought about dinner?” Marilyn asked.

  “I don’t know if we have but I brought home El Meson de Pepe,” her daughter lifted a bag that she had carried in with her and set on the coffee table. Now that it had been mentioned the savory smell of Cuban food wafting from the bag was undeniable.

  “My genius daughter thinks of everything. Just grab some cash from the Conch.”

  “I already did,” Tiara said, heading to the kitchen.

  “That’s my girl!” Marilyn got up to follow her daughter, the unmistakeable scent of arroz con pollo compelling her.

  Marilyn rubbed her temples, hungry but distracted, while Tiara reached for the plates and silverware that Marilyn would have ignored if she were on her own.

  “There, now isn’t that nice?” Tiara lit an ocean scented candle in the middle of the table. Marilyn smiled at the irony of having anything “ocean scented” when the actual ocean was only a block away…they could just as easily open the doors. Her daughter was a bit of the homemaker that Marilyn, after forty-five years on the planet, still wasn’t. Last week they had gone shopping and Tiara had firmly insisted that Marilyn buy a set of seashell napkin rings, which had seemed at the time like a superficial waste of money, but which actually did brighten things up a bit.

  “Have you talked to your dad lately?” Marilyn asked, always curious about Tiara’s relationship with her father.

  “No, not recently…I mean he called a few days ago but I forgot to call him back…” her voice trailed off while she pretended to concentrate on ladling food onto her mother’s plate.

  Marilyn’s ex-husband had been unfaithful before he left her and her young daughter many years ago. She had processed her grief and moved on but Tiara apparently could not. Having the business helped, SUBLIME SWEETS was what kept Marilyn getting up every morning. She held firmly to the belief that one of her pies could change a person’s life. They had certainly changed her life and she never looked back. Just thinking about one of her key lime pie’s made her mouth water.

  “Do you think we should have dessert before, during, or after dinner?” she asked with a grin, hoping her daughter would find it fun and carefree to indulge.

  “Mother,” she scolded, raising an eyebrow, but smiling.

  “Thank you for bringing home dinner, sweetie. It was really thoughtful of you.”

  “Yep, I’m just awesome like that,” she teased, sitting down at the table.

  Tiara promised to go into the shop with her mother the next day and begin her mother’s financial accounts. Business was good, better than good, actually, closer to great. Key West was small but there were always so many tourists that Marilyn was pleased to see new faces every day. She played music from The Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Journey, and Springsteen to set a carefree, festive mood, and loved the sheer nostalgia of it.

  Creating new and inventive recipes was her passion. She’d tested out key lime pie squares, pie on a stick, pie in a jar, mini pies, key lime pie stuffed strawberries, and key lime pie sandwich cookies. She’d tried making a key lime fudge but that hadn’t turned out as well as she had hoped.

  “So,” Tiara looked across the table at her mother. “Have you noticed any particularly handsome gentlemen lately?”

  “Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” her mother responded lightly.

  Tiara had been prodding Marilyn to date for quite some time, but she always managed to come up with a good excuse why it was out of the question. The thought gave her a chill and she shook her shoulders a little.

  “So, that’s a no,” she observed dryly.

  “You know how it goes. If you’re so interested in the topic, do you have something you’re dying to share…?” Marilyn inquired, hopefully. If Tiara had found a beau in the Keys, perhaps she’d consider staying closer to home in her job search.

  “Nope, nada,” she shrugged, munching a spicy bite of chicken. “ I’m just your sweet little baby girl with no one to love me but my mama.”

  Marilyn looked at her daughter, concerned. “You know your father loves you very much, right?” she asked softly.

  “Yes, mom, I was just joking, geez.”

  “—and nana?” she persisted.

  “Yes, yes, yes…everybody loves me. Your food is getting cold,” she eyed her mother’s plate pointedly, deliberately changing the subject.

  Marilyn took a large bite, with mocking flourish, and, much to her daughter’s relief, moved on to safer topics.

  Chapter 2

  Marilyn woke up early, to a glorious Spring morning in paradise. Birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the scent of the ocean blew breezily through the gossamer fabric covering the window. She didn’t have to keep normal baker’s hours since there was a large segment of the population that thought key lime pie wasn’t a breakfast food, so on mornings like this, she allowed herself the luxury of coffee on the patio,
with a good book, or the morning paper. She worked long hours when she did make it into her cozy little shop, and while12 hour days were not her favorite thing, she was doing what she loved and had a continual supply of luscious, dreamy pie.

  Tiara would be sleeping for a few more hours and this time of the day, so this exceptional morning time was all hers. Pouring herself a steaming mug of coffee with rich vanilla cream, she grabbed the paper from the front porch, headed for the patio, and curled up on a lounger, with her feet tucked under her, enjoying the scents and sounds of the morning. When she drained the last few precious drops of coffee from her mug, she stretched out her legs and curled through her toes. Today was going to be a great day, she could feel it in the air.

  Marilyn’s shop was her pride and joy. Six years ago when her marriage with Daniel blew up, she’d packed her bags and moved her daughter here, to paradise, where the sun shone brightly and pasts could be forgotten. They’d been scrunched into a one bedroom apartment and Marilyn began doing the only thing she really knew how to do - she made key lime pies in their tiny kitchen. She’d bring a pie to every school meeting, church service and community event that she could find, setting her pies out, with business cards next to them. In almost no time at all, she was struggling to meet the demand and opened her shop.

  Taking the biggest gamble of her adult life, she pulled every last dime of her savings and rented a tiny space near the beach. In one short year, she’d generated enough of a profit to move to a bigger, better space where she paid a mortgage instead of rent. Her very own little “piece of the pie” was on the corner of Duval street, sharing a block with such institutions as Fury Surf Shack, The Old Customs House Inn, Hogs Breath Saloon, and Sloppy Joe’s Bar.

  When SubLime Sweets opened at 10am Marilyn would pull open the large accordion windows that let the smells of her morning work drift out to passersby, luring them in to sample her delights. The scent of her shop was so incredibly powerful and delicious, she wondered about the possibility of launching a fragrance line out of it.

  There were bistro tables set up outside, facing the beach, for people who wanted to sit down and enjoy their treats immediately. For the “chillier” days, December through March, she also kept a fresh pot of coffee on and gourmet hot chocolate fixings because sometimes it was nice to enjoy “bad weather.”

  Walking up the block, Marilyn took great pleasure in seeing the bright yellow façade of her building coming into view. Although she was more than a bit biased, she truly believed her shop to be the cutest she’d ever seen. Tiara and Marilyn’s mother had helped with the interior, which was whimsically mermaid-themed. She’d had sculptures and 3-D wall art of mermaids with iridescent, mosaic tiled tails. Their tops were a bright lime green, much like the pies each mermaid was held, each in a different position, with looks of rapture on their faces. The ceiling was covered in a huge mural of lime trees, palm trees, ocean, seaweed, mermaids, and key lime pie…it was heavenly. Tiara had a young friend at the time, whose older brother was trying to be an artist. Marilyn made him a deal for a custom-painted ceiling, providing the enterprising young man with commercial experience and a lifetime supply of pie.

  It wasn’t unusual for Marilyn to sit down with customers, particularly the locals who were her weekly regulars, to have a slice of her delightful creations. She’d also been known to drop off pies to customers who were ill or infirm and couldn’t leave the house.

  She had just unlocked and opened the front door when she heard a sound that gave her pause. There seemed to have been a movement from somewhere inside the shop.

  “Hello?” Marilyn called, from the relative safety of the open front door. She tried heroically to keep any sound of panic from her voice.

  Another movement. Her mind searched frantically for an explanation or reason for the noise. Police might be investigating a break in, a break could be going on right now, someone with a crazy sweet tooth couldn’t wait until 10… Thoughts that ranged from plausible to bizarre whirled in rapid succession.

  “Mom?”

  “Heavens to Betsy!” Marilyn sagged with relief.

  “Did you seriously just say that?” her daughter grinned, mocking her.

  “I thought you were at home asleep. I nearly came in swinging.”

  Mother and daughter broke into giggles as they imagined vivid scenarios where Marilyn came in swinging.

  “What are you doing here so early?” Marilyn came in, locking the door behind her.

  “I couldn’t sleep last night so I stayed up doing some of your paperwork, then I still couldn’t sleep so I did more paperwork and eventually I needed to see the records you keep here. So I came over,” Tiara explained, stifling a yawn.

  “You haven’t been to sleep yet?” A concerned tickle scratched at Marilyn’s mind.

  “It’s fine, I’m taking these new diet pills and they’re like fifty percent caffeine so they just kept me up.” she shrugged, like it was no big thing. Marilyn couldn’t ever remember Tiara worrying about her weight or size, she’d never mentioned it before.

  “Why in the world would you be taking diet pills?” she asked, concerned. “You’re gorgeous. You have a beautiful body.”

  “I don’t know, I guess I just want to get a little better that’s all,” she said, seemingly nonchalant.

  “You mean skinnier they are not the same,” her mother raised an eyebrow.

  “Anyway, what I found out—”

  “Honey, I’d like to talk about this. I don’t like the idea of you taking potentially harmful substances…and when did this all start?” Marilyn refused to let it drop.

  “Mom this is not a big deal, I am an adult now and I can make my own decisions, end of story,” her headstrong daughter insisted. “Right now I want to talk about you and your finances.”

  Marilyn took a deep breath. She needed to detach temporarily so she could think through this with a clear mind, and address it later. Forcing a smile, she allowed the change of subject…for now. “Ok, let me have it.”

  “It’s amazing, mom. You are doing really, really well…your profits are solid,” she grinned her approval. “And just so you know, you are never allowed to crunch numbers again,” her daughter said. “You’ve just hired me to do it for you.”

  “What do you mean?” Marilyn was puzzled.

  Tiara’s face flushed with color the way it had when she was a little girl. For a minute Marilyn saw her baby as the precious child that she had been…and now she was ‘an adult who could make her own decisions.’”

  “What I mean is that you really need to hire some extra help, based on all of this,” Tiara held up a packet of papers and the red ledger. “Your business is ready to expand.”

  “But, what did you mean about hiring you?” her mother asked, cautiously excited.

  “Well,” she looked to the floor then back up at her mother. “I’ve been thinking…I think maybe it’s a good thing that I haven’t been picked up by one of my dream companies yet. It would be fun to spend a few months here, before I accept some great opportunity that will take me away from you.”

  Marilyn felt her eyes begin to well, but blinked a few times to avoid an overly emotional display. Tiara hated it when her sensitive mother choked up about life events that made it obvious that her little girl was growing up.

  “You want to come to work for me?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Well, when you say it like that…” her daughter made a face.

  Marilyn laughed, completely understanding. She had done everything she could to get as far out of reach from her parents as possible when she was Tiara’s age.

  “You don’t have to, you know. I understand that 21-year-old girls aren’t always dying to work for their mom…but if you wanted to…” she left it open-ended, concealing her excitement.

  “What I want is for you to stop trying to talk me out of it,” her daughter laughed. “I’ve already posted an ad for another baker.”

  Marilyn followed her when she headed to the ti
ny administrative office in the back of the shop. “I don’t know if I want another baker around. What if they want to change things? Or what if they’re terrible? I don’t want to be responsible for firing someone,” she worried, frowning.

  “Ok, I can’t possibly keep up with all of your roadblocks on so little sleep. I’ll go home and go to bed and we can talk about it later. I’m heading out. Love you, mom,” she breezed by, jangling her keys as she went.

  “Love you to,” Marilyn said to her daughter’s retreating back. She didn’t quite know what to think about what had just happened, but it was evident that life was about to become very interesting.

  Chapter 3

  The next few days were fun and productive. Tiara worked with Marilyn on finances, paperwork, and plans for expansion. The office was completely re-organized, and she’d made a list of necessary upgrades for her mother to look over, along with a strategic business plan for the next couple of years.

  The shop was closed on Tuesdays so that Marilyn always had at least one day off, and she was excited to be spending the day with Tiara after working so hard with her on getting the new expansion set up.

  “Honey, you’re really good at this. Where did you learn how to be such a gifted business woman?” she asked as the two women walked side by side on their way to their “Yoga on the Beach” class.

  “I would speculate that it definitely had nothing to do with my business owning, growing, and maintaining mother,” she gave her mother a mischievous grin.

  “You seem really happy,” Marilyn remarked, noting a new glow about her daughter.

  “I guess it’s because I’ve made the decision to stay here for a while, I feel good about it,” she shrugged nonchalantly. “Actually, mom, I wanted to talk to you about that…”

  “About what?” Marilyn asked, trying not to show her alarm.