The Missing Party-Girl: A Rags-to-Riches Cozy Mystery Romance by Nhys Glover (read after .txt) 📗

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Miss Reynolds and Cage Donovan! Welcome to our watering hole, as you Americans call it. And Jig! Isn’t he looking just fine!”

Cage clapped the older man on the back in greeting before helping Adie up onto a tall stool. Jig sat at her feet, seemingly happy enough to be somewhere familiar, if noisy.

Adie had to wonder if the dog remembered Rory and associated this place with him. Would the dog be waiting for his former master to come in the door at any moment? That thought made her sad, so she reached down to rub Jig’s ears.

“What’ll you have? What’ll you have? The first round’s on me!” Dave yelled.

The men and women sitting at nearby tables turned to look at them curiously. Adie saw no censure or distrust, just normal interest.

“A diet coke,” Adie said, trying to make her voice loud enough to be heard over the din.

“Beer’ll do me. Whatever’s on tap,” Cage said, edging closer to her protectively.

“A diet coke and a Black Sheep Ale!” Dave told the long-haired, trendy young man behind the bar.

When Cage took possession of his dark, frothy drink, he took a tentative sip. The impressed expression that followed didn’t go unnoticed by all those watching them out of the corner of their eyes.

“Not bad!” Cage judged, taking a more substantial swallow.

“North Yorkshire Brewery. One of the best,” Dave declared, as if he brewed the beer himself.

Cage took in the information with a nod and took a deeper swallow. Meanwhile, Adie sipped at her coke. Until she’d met Cage she’d never drunk soda of any kind. Her mom considered it unhealthy, which of course it was. But Adie had always felt as if her mother’s ban on soda was more about keeping the good things in life away from her daughter rather than for any health benefits. If she cared about being healthy they wouldn’t have lived on potatoes, greasy sausages, and grits. Money was her mother’s major concern. The more she had to give her church, the better.

The singer had stopped singing and the blissful silence that followed had Adie relaxing her shoulders and drawing in a couple of cleansing breaths. When she looked anxiously his way, afraid he was about start in on another noisy song she was pleased to see him setting aside his guitar for a break.

With the competition gone, the people around her started speaking more softly. Adie even managed a smile of relief.

“That’s Leon’s ‘friend’,” Dave explained, motioning with his head so they knew Leon was the barman. “He claimed he was great. No accounting for tastes. Or love, it seems.”

From that she gathered Leon was gay and the musician was his boyfriend.

“He’s not bad. But he’s pushing himself to get over the noise of the crowd,” Adie said, not really knowing what she was talking about.

“Yeah. He thinks we all came down here to listen to his caterwauling. People here came to meet up with friends and talk. If they want to listen to music they go home and turn on their stereo.”

“People don’t have stereos anymore, Dave,” a young woman said, coming to stand at his side.

“Well, whatever the hell they have. How’re you doing, Jayney?” Dave grumbled, leaning in to kiss the girl on the cheek.

Adie took stock of the girl, who appeared to be only a few years younger than Adie. With her long black hair and bright blue eyes, Jayney was stunning, in a laid-back, jeans-and-sweater kind of way. And Adie would have to have been blind to miss the admiring glances she was throwing Cage’s way.

Adie felt a mixture of possessive jealousy and humiliation. This Jayney was way better looking than Adie could ever hope to be, even after dieting and exercising herself into a thin body. It was girls like this one who could attract men like Cage, not girls like her.

“I’m real good, Dave. Who’re your friends?” Jayne said, although what she really meant was who was Cage.

She doubted the girl had even noticed Adie sitting there at his side.

“I s’pose you haven’t caught up on the local gossip since you got back from London. This is Minerva Reynold’s niece, Adeline.” Dave gestured to me and the girl sent me a frosty nod. “And this is her—”

“Friend,” Cage supplied. “Cage Donovan.”

Jayne offered her hand to Cage, who took it. “American. How lovely. I adore Americans. What on earth brought you to this little backwater?”

“Minerva Reynolds died and left Beckside Farm to her niece,” Dave informed her, oblivious to the fact the question had been directed at Cage. “Cage is helping Adie clear out the place so it’s habitable. Ms. Reynolds was a bit of a hoarder, as we all knew. Didn’t Rory complain about it often enough?”

Persistence was one of Jayne’s obvious traits. She again directed a question at Cage. “What do you do for a living, Cage? I can’t see you being a professional declutterer, or whatever those people on TV are called who help others downsize.”

“A bit of this and that. And no, decluttering is not one of my jobs, normally. I’m just helping out a friend,” Cage said, giving away nothing of his feelings one way or the other.

Did he notice Jayne’s very blatant interest in him? He’d have to be blind not to. Was he playing it cool or was he really not interested? This girl wasn’t in London. He wouldn’t have to dismiss her as he’d done the blonde, simply because of the logistics.

Adie had the strongest urge to place a possessive hand on Cage’s arm, staking her claim. But of course she couldn’t do anything of the sort. Cage was not hers, and she had no claim on him. This was not like the role-playing scenario in