Born in a Barn (Clucks and Clues Cozy Mysteries Book 4) Read online

  Andrea peeked out the window to see what they were doing and rolled her eyes. “They might as well pound their chests out there.”

  I grinned at her. “I think it’s cute that they all made friends. It’s good for them to have someone to talk to.”

  “He can talk to me.” She meant Steve. She chewed her bottom lip pensively as she leaned back against the counter. “If he wanted to, anyway. I’m not sure he does.”

  “He can and he should—that’s something you can work out with your counselor, if you can’t figure it out yourselves. But sometimes he just needs to vent, right? Or shoot the breeze with an objective ear to figure out what he’s feeling. I was pretty wound up about it earlier this week when Eli was being so nice to your dad. I thought it’d turn into a bash-Leona party, with both of them comparing notes about why I’m impossible to love. But weirdly, I think talking to each other made both of them like me more, not less.”

  I sipped my coffee, thinking. I hadn’t given either of them enough credit. I assumed Peterson hadn’t grown since I left him, that his vision of me was still clouded by anger, like mine was of him. And I believed Eli’s view of me might be tainted if he learned about all the unkindness I’d dished out when things went wrong in my marriage. But somehow, through each other’s eyes, they both saw me more clearly.

  I turned to Andrea and smoothed her hair a little bit so she looked less like me and more like herself. “Steve loves you and respects you and wants to make it work just like you do, so the rest is just the details. You’re a brilliant woman and he’s a kind man. Between the two of you, you can work anything out.”

  Her eyes brightened over the rim of her mug. When she’d finished off her coffee, she set it down on the counter between us. “So when we come visit in the summer,” she began. She broke off, grinning at my stunned expression. “Yes, I said it—I love it here, Mom. It’s so good for the kids to let down their hair a little, get a little grubby, breathe some fresh air. I just wish you had a bigger guest room.”

  My heart swelled. If Andrea loved Oregon in the winter, she’d never leave after a summer visit. Oregon summers are one of the country’s best-kept secrets, in my not-so-humble opinion. “Oh, I do have a bigger one—just wait until you see how I converted the loft in the barn. You’ll want to move right in.”

  “If it’s good enough for your Porsches, it’s good enough for me,” she joked.

  After a chilly barn tour and a second round of cinnamon rolls and hot coffee, Peterson packed up the trunk of his Rolls Royce and distributed hugs to everyone in the house—Andrea, Steve, and Eli, who I swear teared up a little at the thought of losing his new roommate. Peterson even kneeled in his Brooks Brothers slacks to squeeze Izzy and J.W. close, with a warmth I’d never have guessed.

  He left my hug for last. I walked with him out to his car to say my goodbye. This one was so different than our last goodbye, the day I’d moved out of our Beverly Hills mansion for good. This one was full of comfortable humor and understanding, untainted by bitterness.

  I traced the scratch in the gold paint near the gas flap. “I guess you’ll have to take this in to get touched up when you get back to L.A.”

  Peterson’s mouth bunched in amusement. “I’ll probably just get a new one.”

  “Probably so,” I laughed, nodding. That sounded about right. He’d probably get a new eye to replace the one with the fading shiner, if that were something money could buy. It made me feel slightly less guilty for accepting his overgenerous Christmas gift, knowing he’d replace a whole car over one little scratch in the paint. It proved that money meant less to him than happiness—mine or his—which was really the core of what I’d wanted from him when we were married.

  On one hand, it hadn’t worked out between us. But on the other hand, when I considered our daughter and grandchildren and the holiday we’d just shared, it absolutely had.

  Chapter 23

  New Year’s Eve

  “Happy New Year!” Eli raised his glass of homemade eggnog and clinked it against mine, pulling me into the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, where the bunch of mistletoe hung tantalizingly from the doorframe. He took a deep draught from his glass, leaving a wide, creamy mustache on his upper lip, then tried to plant one on my lips.

  I giggled and dodged his kiss. “It’s not midnight yet!”

  “So? This is a warmup. We need to practice. Anyway, it’s midnight in other time zones.”

  As if on cue, a message from Andrea whooshed into my phone, buzzing the back pocket of my jeans. “Happy New Year, Mom and Eli! Love, the Flint Family in Chicago. P.S. Some of us didn’t make it until midnight.” A photo accompanied her text—Andrea and Steve snuggled up on the sofa, each cradling a sleeping twin. I held the phone out so Eli could admire it, too.

  A smile spread across his face as he wiped off his nog mustache. “I have to say, I miss those kids. I haven’t had so much fun since I don’t know when.”

  I remembered the way he’d crawled on the floor to play with J.W. and Izzy, taking on every role they dictated and letting them climb all over him. He was so kind and patient with them, even though he’d never raised children of his own. I was happy he had this chance to experience what it was like to watch a generation grow up. “Grandpa looks good on you, Eli.”

  His dark eyes twinkled mischievously. “No, Grandpa looks good on you.” He set down our glasses and pulled me into a tight embrace inside the mistletoe zone, and this time I didn’t try to get away.

  At least, not until I heard a curious sound from the back of the house. A sweet cluck, cluck, cluck was my first clue. The second was the soft sound of feathers flapping out of the laundry hamper. I left Eli’s arms and ran to the bathroom.

  Boots.

  She strutted across the tile, her feathers ruffled, and she clucked even more insistently when she noticed me enter the room. A chorus of tiny peeps answered her from inside the hamper.

  “They can’t get out by themselves, you silly goose,” I said. I plucked my T-shirt from the top of the laundry pile inside the basket, revealing six fluffy, yellow, perfect baby chicks amid a pile of empty eggshells.

  The chicks peeped loudly as I lifted them from the hamper to the bathmat next to their mama. Boots spread her wings and nudged them insistently beneath her warm feathers, clucking urgently all the while. Only when she had them safe and warm did she settle down on the mat.

  She’d pulled it off—she’d incubated her little clutch in the dead of winter, hiding in the hamper, defending against all marauders, and hatched them all herself. It was, in its own way, a little Christmas miracle. It was the perfect end to this year, one that also promised hope for the year to come.

  I gleefully showed off Boots’s chicks to Eli and then convinced him to sit by the fire and play checkers to pass the time until midnight, even though he always beat me when we had game nights like this. The point wasn’t winning, the point was enjoying the time we had together, because as usual, he had to work on the holiday. And speaking of time...

  “When does your shift start?” I asked him. All the sheriff’s deputies were on highway patrol tonight to keep an eye out for drunk drivers returning home after a little too much holiday revelry. I was proud of him for keeping the community safe even though I’d miss him.

  He grumbled in the flickering firelight. “Too soon. I have to leave right after midnight, like Cinderella, so we won’t have too much time to celebrate.”

  “That’s OK. I’ll still love you even if you bail on the ball.” I grinned at him. “I’ll track you down tomorrow and shove that glass slipper on your foot, and we can finish our celebration then.”

  “I’m hoping for a celebration all year, actually.” He slid the Honeytree Heroes calendar he’d given me for Christmas out from under the tree, where it was still resting on the velvet tree skirt. He handed it to me, flipping to the first month.

  There he was in full shirtless glory, a view I’d probably never tire of. “This must have been e
arlier in the year,” I teased. “You’re looking pretty tan.”

  “September,” he admitted, pulling up his sleeve and making a face at how light his arm was compared to the photo. He pointed to one of the dates on the calendar—January 17, my birthday. I noticed for the first time that he’d written on it.

  Happy Birthday, Leona! Our first date, way back when.

  “Remember? I didn’t know it was your birthday when I asked you out, and you didn’t tell me until we were already at the movies. I felt terrible that I didn’t get you a gift.”

  “You gave me a pack of Doublemint with one piece missing,” I said, smiling at the memory.

  “The other piece was in my mouth. Fresh breath was part of the present. You’re welcome.” He winked and flipped to the next page.

  The February model was the firefighter with two Dalmatians that I’d seen in thumbnail on the back cover, but Eli had glued a cut-out of his own face over the poor guy’s and taped a giant chicken head over one of the dogs’ faces. I cracked up.

  When I recovered, a quick scan of February’s calendar page showed that he’d filled in many of the squares. Some pointed out significant moments in our relationship, both from when we were high school sweethearts and since I moved back to Honeytree. Others were promises of new adventures.

  Trip to the coast to watch the whales.

  Winery tour.

  You, me, and a bathtub full of rose petals. That one was on Valentine’s Day, and I had to say, that sounded a whole lot better than putting on a dress and going to a fancy restaurant. He knew me so well.

  I made my way through the rest of the year, laughing at his face pasted over every hunky photo, savoring the memories he’d recorded, and noting the activities he had planned.

  “I want you to add things to the calendar, too,” he said when I’d reached the end. “Anything you want.”

  “Anything?” Now it was my turn to be mischievous.

  He nodded, his expression dead serious, for once. “Anything. Everything. Happy New Year, Leona.”

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading this book! If you enjoyed Born in a Barn, please consider leaving a review to help other readers find it, too.

  And if you want to spend more time with Leona, Eli, Ruth, and Boots, check out the rest of the series. The books can be enjoyed in order or as standalone mysteries.

  The Clucks and Clues Cozy Mystery Series:

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0844X3ZYZ

  COP AND A COOP (BOOK One)

  A Flock and a Fluke (Book Two)

  A Roost and Arrest (Book Three)

  Born in a Barn (Book Four)

  Pecks and Suspects (Book Five — Coming 2021)

  A Farm and Alarm (Book Six — Coming 2021)

  Stay in Touch

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  About the Author

  Hillary Avis lurks and works in beautiful Eugene, Oregon, with her very patient husband and a menagerie of kids, cats, dogs, and chickens. When she’s not thinking up amusing ways to murder people, she makes pottery, drinks coffee, and streams The Great British Bake-Off, but not all at the same time.

  Hillary is the author of cozy mysteries about smart women who uncover truths about themselves, their communities, and of course any unsolved crimes they happen to stumble across. You can read more about her and her work at www.hillaryavis.com.