Christmas At Swans Nest Read online

  Christmas At Swans Nest

  A Tori Cannon-Kathy Grant Mini Mystery

  Lorraine Bartlett

  Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  1. Christmas At Swans Nest

  2. Kathy’s Christmas Cookie Recipes

  About the Author

  Also by Lorraine Bartlett

  Copyright © 2016 by Lorraine Bartlett

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by Wicked Smart Designs

  * * *

  For more information on Lorraine’s books, check out her website: http://www.LorraineBartlett.com

  Other Books By Lorraine Bartlett

  The Lotus Bay Mysteries

  Panty Raid (A Tori Cannon-Kathy Grant mini mystery)

  With Baited Breath

  Christmas At Swans Nest (A Tori Cannon-Kathy Grant mini mystery)

  * * *

  The Victoria Square Mysteries

  A Crafty Killing

  The Walled Flower

  One Hot Murder

  Dead, Bath and Beyond (with Laurie Cass)

  Recipes To Die For: A Victoria Square Cookbooks

  * * *

  Blythe Cove Manor

  A Dream Weekend

  A Final Gift

  * * *

  Tales of Telenia (adventure-fantasy)

  THRESHOLD

  JOURNEY

  TREACHERY

  * * *

  Short Stories

  Love & Murder: A Bargain-Priced Collection of Short Stories

  Happy Holidays? (A Collection of Christmas Stories)

  An Unconditional Love

  Love Heals

  Blue Christmas

  Prisoner of Love

  We’re So Sorry, Uncle Albert

  Created with Vellum

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for joining Tori and Kathy on their first adventure. My thanks go to Linda Kuzminczuk, Amy Connolly, Debbie Lyon for proofreading.

  The Lotus Bay Mysteries are set in Western New York, by the great Lake Ontario. Be sure to check out my website to learn more about Tori and Kathy and the other books I write and to sign up for my emailed newsletter. www.LorraineBartlett.com

  Happy reading!

  1

  Christmas At Swans Nest

  A Tale from Lotus Bay

  by

  Lorraine Bartlett

  * * *

  Kathy Grant stripped off the heavy-duty work gloves that covered her hands, set them down on a piece of old newspaper, and pushed up the sleeves on her bulky sweatshirt. There was something to be said for a job well done, and she’d just finished stripping the last piece of molding in what had once been the front parlor of the old house she’d purchased just three months before.

  However, her admiration soon turned to despair. She’d been working like a dog for ninety-plus days, scrubbing, painting, stripping, and most of all planning, and had often had the help from her best friend forever, Tori Cannon, and her new friends Alissa Jackson, and Noreen Darby, and still there was an incredible amount of work that needed to be accomplished in order to make her deadline of a May first opening date for the Swan’s Nest Inn.

  She’d chosen the name because the summer before, a pair of swans had chosen a cozy spot in the marsh not far from her property to raise their cygnets. Unfortunately, the brush on that side of the yard precluded actually seeing the nest from her property, but clearing it was a job for the spring—not to be started on this first day of winter.

  As she picked up her tools, brushes, and buckets filled with the goop that had curdled and lifted the chipped and ugly paint to reveal the beautiful old wood beneath, she thought about how much she had already invested in what some in the area were referring to as Kathy’s money pit. Her grandparents had left her a tidy sum of money, but it had been twenty thousand less than she’d anticipated.

  The new roof and HVAC system had eaten up nearly half of it. Of course, she originally hadn’t intended to spring for the massive emergency generator that sat at the side of the house, but it seemed a prudent thing to have, since the power seemed to go out for sometimes an hour or two at a time every other week. She never wanted her guests to suffer from the whims of weather or other unfortunate circumstances.

  For the last six months, Kathy had been staying at Tori’s home across the street. Now that the house had been replumbed, she was determined to move in before the first of the year, just eleven days away. To do that, she needed to get a few more basics—like a working cook surface, microwave, and refrigerator. The kitchen was the next big project on the schedule, and she and Anissa had already started the demolition. Still, she was sure she could live with some kind of a make-shift arrangement now that she had a reliable water supply, and just as important: a working bathroom, even if the walls were covered with naked drywall.

  Kathy rubbed her arms, hoping to warm them. “I’m cold,” she muttered. Of course she was. She’d eked the temperature up to sixty-two for the stripper to work, but was going to have to lower it again to save on heating expenses. With no money coming in—and she hadn’t earned a dime since September—she was beginning to feel as miserly as Ebenezer Scrooge. Not that she didn’t wish her friends well, but she’d told them that there would be no presents from her and to please not buy any for her. Still, she had a feeling she was going to be embarrassed on Christmas Day none-the-less. With no money to travel to see her family—who were all heading to Disney World—Kathy was staying put right here on Lotus Bay, spending the day with Tori, who was nearly as broke. Their friend Anissa was planning to spend the holiday with her mother and brother in Rochester, and Paul and Noreen at the Bay Bar were heading in the opposite direction to Buffalo to be with friends.

  Now that the stripping was done, Kathy figured she could get rid of the empty cans, gummy brushes, and nasty rags. She deposited the lot in a big black trash bag, and headed for the door at the back of the house and the trash can beyond.

  As she reentered the house, Kathy noticed the tiny corner of a yellowed piece of paper sticking up from a crack between one of the weathered boards. Soon the floor would be covered in ceramic tile to make cleaning a snap. She hadn’t seen it when she and Anissa had ripped up the various layers of old linoleum, but it intrigued her. She crouched down, and picked at the sliver of paper, but couldn’t get a good enough hold to yank it out. What she needed was a pair of tweezers—and there wasn’t a set in the house. She did, however, have several different sized pairs of pliers. Choosing the needle-nosed ones, Kathy gave the paper a yank, and felt it begin to tear. She didn’t want it to break off, so instead of pulling, she tried gently tugging it back and forth until she could ease the scrap out of its prison. She placed the pliers on the floor and smoothed out the paper onto her knee, reading it.

  To find what you seek

  Go to the attic so neat

  Look six paces east

  Under the beast.

  Kathy looked at the note quizzically. Was this someone’s idea of a joke?

  Pounding on the front door interrupted Kathy's musings, she picked up the pliers and stuffed the shred of paper into her pants pocket, got up, and ran to the front parlor. She peered out the window and saw Anissa's truck backed up in front of the steps. She hurried to let her friend in.

  “Merry Christmas early,” Anissa called from the bottom step.

  “What in the world?”

  “I brought your present.”

  “Oh, Anissa. I thou
ght we agreed we weren't going to exchange gifts.”

  “Honey, this is one item you will not want to return.”

  Kathy looked beyond her friend and into the truck's cargo area to see a huge, stainless steel six-burner Vulcan stove—reminiscent of what Kathy had hoped to buy for her Inn.

  “Holy cow! Where did you get that?”

  “I heard about a restaurant in Batavia that was moving to a better location. They were replacing a load of their appliances. I got this for a song. I checked it out. Nothing wrong that a good cleaning won't solve.”

  “I don't know what to say except—thank you a million times!”

  Anissa grinned. “If you want to repay me, I wouldn't say no to a batch of your cutout cookies to take to my Mama's house for Christmas dessert.”

  “I'll make you a batch of cookies every day for the next year,” Kathy said and laughed. “But how will the two of us ever get this thing up the stairs and into my kitchen?”

  “It just so happens there are six vehicles parked in front of the Bay Bar. I'll bet if you bought a round of drinks, the guys who own them would move it for you. I could hook it up today and you could be baking that batch of cookies tomorrow.”

  Her heart felt so large, Kathy wondered if it might just bust out of her chest. “I'll bet you're right.”

  “Go get your coat and let's go,” Anissa said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Kathy nodded, but before she went back inside, she jogged down the steps to give her friend the biggest hug she could muster, fighting back tears, sure that this would be a Christmas to remember.

  “Wow,” Tori Cannon said, her voice hushed. “I feel like a piker.” She took in the big stainless steel stove sitting in the ruin of a kitchen in the Swans Nest Inn with its six burners and double ovens. “I only got you a crappy case of mediocre wine.”

  “Oh, Tori—now you've spoiled the surprise,” Kathy said with a frown.

  “How can my lousy gift compare with this?”

  “I'm not keeping score,” Kathy said, sounding hurt. “Anissa knew buying a new stove would put my budget in the Twilight Zone. I don't know how I'll ever be able to thank her. But this means I can spend thousands of dollars on other projects. It'll help me get the inn open on time, which I was almost sure would never happen.”

  Tori nodded. She was glad of that. She knew her BFF had been kept awake at night worrying about her ability to make all the needed improvements to her house in time to open her business in the spring—her budget deficit being the heaviest drain on her soul.

  “Does this mean you can move in sooner than you'd planned?” Tori asked. Since her grandfather had relocated to Florida just three months before, she now owned his former home and she and Kathy had been roommates—just as they'd been in college. It was a blessing, because they got along well. Kathy was a great and inventive cook, and Tori had found enough substitute teaching in the county school district to keep them both afloat. Working weekdays meant that she couldn't keep the bait shop she'd bought for the enormous sum of one dollar open during the week, and the income from sales on the weekends weren't enough to float any kind of a boat, but she was in the black—if only by a thread—and that was all that really mattered.

  “Are you really thinking of moving into Swans Nest?” Tori asked, trying to keep her voice neutral. She knew Kathy fully intended to build an owner's suite on the back of the building at some time in the future—but who knew how long it would be before she could afford that. The truth was, Tori liked having Kathy as her roommate. She liked coming home from work to find a home-cooked meal, the house immaculate, and someone to share the woes of the day—and Kathy had a lot to say, as well. They spent a lot of time planning the future, as well as talking about the past. They both had plans that didn't necessarily include a significant other. Not that they wouldn't allow for that—but the phrase “unlucky in love” could very well apply to both of them.

  “Tomorrow is my last day of work at the school until the new year. So I'm available to help with anything you need done until then.”

  “What about opening the bait shop?”

  “I haven't ordered any stock for more than a month. This is definitely not the busy time of year for sales. Why should I sit in a freezing cold shop for ten hours a day to sell ten bucks worth of bait when I can help you?”

  Kathy's eyes brimmed with tears. “Why, indeed.”

  Tori shook her head. “If it weren't for you, this would be the crappiest Christmas on record.”

  “I feel the same way. I dug through my totes and found my favorite Christmas DVDs. If nothing else, the two of us can binge on them and that case of wine you mentioned.”

  Tori smiled. “That sounds like a plan.” She looked around the kitchen, then over her shoulder back to the front of the house. “Have you decided what room you’re going to use as a bedroom?”

  “I don’t want to lug a lot of furniture up the stairs that won’t be staying in place, so I’ll probably just camp out in the parlor.”

  “You know you can stay with me for as long as you want.”

  “I know. But I feel guilty when I come over here to work until late at night and then come back to your place and wake you up—especially when you’ve got to work the next day.”

  “I’m not that light a sleeper.”

  “I know, but….” She said no more.

  Tori thought she knew the problem. They’d talked about spiffing up her grandparents’ former home, which still looked like it belonged to an older couple. Tori hadn’t had a lot of furniture when she’d moved in. Most of what was left in the house had been purchased when her father was a child. Neither she nor Kathy had had time to paint, so all they’d done was change the pictures on the walls—well, some of them. The TV worked great, but it was of the last generation of massive sets that took up an enormous piece of real estate in the living room. Instead, they’d spent all their free time working on the long-neglected house across the road.

  Tori didn’t resent being roped in to help, but renovation was tedious, as well as exhausting. Too many times they’d finished working at eleven or later, and she’d fallen into bed and it seemed almost immediately the alarm clock would ring for her to get up and go to work—at least when she’d had work. She’d stumble out of bed, shower and dress, and Kathy would have a hot pot of tea and breakfast waiting for her. And Kathy was no slouch. When Tori went to work, Kathy crossed the road and went to work on her house. But there was only so much one five foot six woman could do on her own.

  Tori watched as Kathy continued to scrub the inside of the oven. “You’re using a lot of elbow grease.”

  “I want to bake some cookies for Christmas in this beauty. I promised Anissa a few batches for her holiday dessert.”

  “I hope you’re going to make some for us, too.”

  “I sure am. And I’ll send Noreen and Paul off with a container, too. It’s the least I can do as a thank you for all they’ve done to help me.”

  “You weren’t thinking of working over here on Christmas Day, were you?”

  “I don’t know. It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how the day goes. Why, did you have plans?”

  “Just watching old movies on TV. You work too hard; you should be able to take just one day off.”

  But Kathy shook her head. “I have exactly one hundred and thirty-one days to pull off this renovation.”

  “You know down to the minute when you’re opening?”

  Kathy shrugged. “I downloaded an app that counts off the days. It keeps me on track.”

  “All work and no play makes Kathy a dull girl.”

  Kathy paused in her scrubbing, and looked over her shoulder at Tori, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’m sorry, Tori. I know I’m no fun to hang out with anymore. It’s just—”

  “I was kidding!” Tori cried, but deep down she knew she’d been speaking the truth. When Tori looked around, the chores left to do seemed insurmountable to her. “And if y
ou want to work on Christmas Day, I’ll be right here with you.”

  “You’re the best friend anyone could ever have.”

  “Don’t get mushy on me. Put me to work.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kathy said, in what Tori liked to tease her was her drill sergeant voice. “I do believe there are barges to be toted, and some bales to be lifted. But first—” she peeled off the filthy rubber gloves on her hands. “Help me up and we’ll christen this baby with its first pot of tea.”

  “Sounds great to me.”

  “Just one problem,” Kathy said as Tori pulled her to her feet.

  “And that is?”

  “My kettle is packed in a box in the basement somewhere, and I don’t have any tea.”

  “You go look for the kettle, and I’ll go get some teabags.”

  “And while the water boils, we can wash a few cups.” Kathy paused, smiling. “You know what, Tor? You’re the Swans Nest’s first guest.”

  “Hey, that’s cool.”

  “And I couldn’t wish for anyone better.”

  The crowd was sparse at the Bay Bar four days later on Christmas Eve when Kathy and Tori arrived about six forty-five. Officially, the bar would close promptly at seven, but Kathy, Tori, and their friend Anissa had been invited to join owners Noreen and Paul Darby for a soup and sandwich supper. Not exactly a party, but a small celebration, something Kathy had been looking forward to for days.

  “Sit down,” Paul called, indicating empty seats at the bar, but first the women shucked their coats and placed them on chairs at one of the empty tables. Then Kathy stepped forward with her contribution to their repast.

  “Oh, good,” Paul said, spying the treat. “I swear, nobody makes cookies as good as you do, Kath.”