Crepe Expectations, page 1
CREPE EXPECTATIONS
CROOKED BAY COZY MYSTERIES, BOOK 1
PATTI BENNING
SUMMER PRESCOTT BOOKS PUBLISHING
Copyright 2023 Summer Prescott Books
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying, or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.
**This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.
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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
Epilogue
Also by Patti Benning
Author’s Note
Contact Summer Prescott Books Publishing
CHAPTER ONE
It felt good to slam the front door behind her, even though a decade ago she would have taken her son to task about doing the same thing. It was petty, but there was no one else in the house for the noise to bother, and it helped her feel better, just a little bit. That was as much as she could hope for these days.
She dropped her purse on the side table and unclipped the name tag from her shirt with a wrench, tossing the plastic card that read Theresa Tremblay in the same general direction. The photo on the card showed a happier version of herself and had been taken five years earlier, before her deep brown hair started to turn grey at the temples and her blue eyes turned sad. She didn’t pause to look where it had landed—she was done.
For the day, at least. While she loved to fantasize about standing up at her desk in the middle of the workday and telling her boss she quit, a fantasy was all it was. She had worked payroll in the same office since she was twenty-five—two decades, now. She would probably work there until she retired. When she thought of the fact that she was only halfway through her working life at the place, the future seemed to spiral out in front of her in shades of depressing gray, so she tried not to think about it very often.
Theresa entered the kitchen and started the kettle. She always felt this way after work: frustrated, trapped, dull. It would fade once she got a chance to drink her tea and sit down in her favorite armchair with a good book, only to return when her alarm went off the next morning. She hadn’t minded the job so much when Nicolas was still here; then, life had been more than just work, sleep, and repeat. There had been light and laughter and something to look forward to other than retirement twenty years off. Then he died, and it seemed like most of what had made her life so bright, died with him.
She missed her husband.
Once the water boiled, she poured it over a teabag and carried the mug into the living room. She settled into her recliner, kicked her feet up, and sighed. It was good to be home, but already she felt the stresses of the next day creeping up on her. Maybe a vacation was what she needed. Maybe she should take some time off and go visit her parents in Florida.
Her cell phone rang. It was still in her purse, which meant she had to push the old recliner’s persnickety footrest down, set her tea on the table next to the chair, and walk all the way back to the front door to get it. It was a miracle that she made it in time, but when she saw whose name was on the caller ID, she almost wished she hadn’t.
Clare Bardot. Her cousin. If there was a black sheep in their family, it was Clare. Theresa had bailed the younger woman out of trouble more than once. She was almost tempted not to answer the call since she was already at the end of her rope today, but Clare was family. Theresa wasn’t about to ignore her family, even if the family member in question still owed her two thousand dollars from the last time she’d gotten in over her head.
“Hello?” Hopefully, Clare wouldn’t notice how wary her greeting sounded.
“Terra! I’m glad you answered. For a second, I thought the call was going to go to voicemail.”
“Is there an emergency?” She wondered if she had jinxed herself by thinking how much she hated her drab and dreary life. She would take drab and dreary over a family emergency any day.
“No, no, nothing like that,” Clare said, to Theresa’s relief. “But still, there’s no time to waste. I found the perfect place for you.”
“What are you talking about?” Her concern had changed to befuddlement. She hadn’t talked to Clare for a few weeks and wondered if she was out of the loop on something essential.
“Remember how you used to talk about opening a crêpe restaurant?”
“A crêperie?” Theresa laughed. “Sure, when I was twenty. How do you even remember that? You would have been, what, ten at the time?”
“You told me while you taught me how to make crêpes, of course I remember it. Those were very good crêpes. Besides, Nick always said he thought you should open your own restaurant. Don’t you remember?”
Of course she did. She was hardly going to forget her own husband’s compliments towards her cooking. But that was all they were: compliments. Sweet nothings any husband would say.
“Well, regardless, what does my cooking have to with anything?” she asked, steering the conversation away from him.
“Like I said, I found the perfect place for you. For your restaurant. It’s right here in Crooked Bay. The place came up for sale last week, and I finally got around to looking it up. The price is unbeatable, Terra. And it’s an adorable little building. You can see the bay if you step out onto Lake Street. It would be perfect for you.”
“Clare, I appreciate it, but opening a restaurant was only ever a dream. And a young person’s dream, at that.”
“Don’t you want to at least hear the price?”
Theresa sighed. “Fine. Go ahead.”
Clare told her, and despite herself, Theresa felt a spark of interest. Somehow, her cousin must have sensed it, because she said, “I told you; it’s a great deal.”
“That’s beyond a great deal. There must be something wrong with the place, for that price.” Her cousin’s silence told her all she needed to know. “Clare?”
“Well, the last owner—or maybe they were renting it, I don’t know—might have been murdered inside the building. But they caught the guy who did it! The price is just low because everyone around town knows the story, and you know how small-town people can be. They probably think it’s haunted or something.”
“Look, Clare, I really appreciate you calling me.” She did—she felt better, at least. Chatting with her cousin had chased that flat, dull feeling her job left her with away for now. “But I’m not looking to open a crêperie, let alone move halfway across the state to do it. It would be fun if I was younger, if—” If Nicolas was still here. “If things were different. But they’re not.”
“The two of you always talked about moving closer to one of the Great Lakes,” Clare said. “And I know you like Crooked Bay. You two used to come up here every summer. Are you really happy right now, Terra? Don’t you want a change?”
“I’m not leaving my home, Clare,” she said. It was the house she and Nicolas had worked so hard to get just the way they liked it. She hadn’t changed a thing since he passed. “I’ll try to take the time to visit this summer, but opening a restaurant, uprooting my life… I’m too settled for that. I’m … content where I am.”
It was a lie, and it tasted sour on her tongue, but she refused to let anyone in her family know how miserable she truly was.
“Well, that’s too bad,” Clare said. She didn’t sound disappointed; if anything, she sounded smug, which set off alarm bells for Theresa. “Because I already sent Jace the listing and mentioned just how cute a little crêpe shop would be there.”
“Clare—”
Her cousin hung up, but Theresa knew the damage was done. As if the end of the call had summoned them, her phone started buzzing with incoming text messages, all from her son. The first one was the online listing for the building, and the others were various versions of, This is such a great idea, Mom. You’ve got to do it.
Theresa did something she rarely did and ignored her son. She still read all his messages, of course, just in case something important came up, but decided not to respond until he’d had a chance to step back and realize how insane this idea really was. Her tea was lukewarm when she got back to it, and she had a hard time focusing on her book, but for the most part, she was successful in pushing the craziness her cousin and her son had involved themselves in aside.
Until someone knocked at her door. That was such a rare occurrence these days, when everyone called first, that she approached the door with a certain wariness, already planning how to politely tell whoever was on the other side that she didn’t want what they were selling.
Her words died on her tongue when she opened the door to see her son standing on the porch.
“Jace, what are you doing here? You didn’t tell me you were coming over.”
“I had a feeling you’d pretend you were busy if I asked, he said, raising his eyebrows. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” She stepped aside and pulled him into a quick hug once he was through the door, still glad she could do that again. He’d gone through a phase during his teenage years where he acted like any sort of affection from either of his parents burned him like acid. That had changed after Nicolas’s death, along with everything else. She was just glad Jace seemed to have adjusted to it better than she was; he was twenty-two, a fresh college graduate, and had so much to look forward to.
“Layla asked me to tell you hi.”
“Oh. Well, tell her I say hi back.” Layla was Jace’s long-term girlfriend. Theresa liked her, she supposed. She seemed like a nice girl, and a good fit to Jace, but sometimes she felt like they came from different worlds. “Is she working?”
“No, she’s off today, but I wanted to talk just the two of us.”
She rarely heard such serious words come out of her son’s mouth and wondered if she had somehow missed an important text. “Is everything all right?”
He gave her a strange, sad smile and ushered her into the living room. She sat down stiffly on the armchair, feeling her heart beat too hard in her chest. Why wasn’t he answering?
“That’s what I wanted to ask you, Mom.”
“What?”
“You’re not happy.”
“I … I am. Of course I am. Well, with your father gone, it’s hard—” She faltered. She didn’t want to lie to her son, but she didn’t want to tell him the truth either. “Why are you here? Is it just because I wasn’t answering your messages earlier?”
“Sort of,” he said. “Clare told me about the building for sale—”
“You know how Clare is—”
“Just let me talk, okay, Mom?” He raised an eyebrow. She mimed zipping her lips, and he continued. “She told me about the building for sale, then after she talked to you, she called me back. You didn’t even consider it, did you?”
“Of course not,” she said. “It’s a ridiculous idea.”
“It’s not. I’m not saying you have to open a crêpe shop, but I’m worried about you, Mom. Something needs to change.”
His words filled her with guilt. The last thing she had ever wanted was to make her son worry about her. “You shouldn’t worry, Jace. I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” he said. “When’s the last time you took a vacation? Or went out to dinner? Shoot, Mom, you haven’t even hung new pictures or bought a new bedspread since Dad died. It’s like he died, but you’re the one who became a ghost. The two of you used to talk about moving to a little town by the lake or buying a cottage up north. You used to talk about finding a job that felt fulfilling, even if it made less money, once I was out of college. You guys had all these plans, things you were excited for. I don’t even remember the last time I saw you smile.”
“I smile whenever I see you.”
“I don’t mean just a smile in greeting. I mean a smile because you’re actually happy.”
She remained silent. She didn’t know what to say to him. He sighed and ran a hand through his short hair.
“It’s not like you couldn’t afford to move. I’m guessing you still have most of his life insurance money left over, don’t you?”
“I haven’t touched a penny other than what I set aside for you.”
“Why?”
She looked away, her eyes finding the picture of her and Nicolas on their honeymoon to France on the mantle. “Money can’t buy me what I want, Jace.”
“I’m not going to tell you to move on or whatever, because I know Dad was the love of your life. But even I can tell you aren’t happy. And it’s not just that you aren’t happy, but you’re not trying to be happy. It’s like you’ve given up. Do you really think he’d want that for you? He’d want you to take that money and use it to live the life you’d always dreamed of.”
“Neither of us know what he’d want. We can’t ask him.”
“I know because he told me, Mom.” Jace held her gaze. “He told me he wanted us both to be happy—he made me promise to try to find joy every day, and I know he wouldn’t want any less for you. You’ve got to at least try, Mom. If you won’t do it for yourself or for Dad, do it for me. Do you think I like knowing my mom’s so unhappy she barely even smiles when she sees me?”
Theresa swallowed against a lump in her throat. “I didn’t know you felt this way, Jace. You’re right, I’m not happy, but I don’t think that’s something moving or starting a business would fix.”
“It might be a start, though.” He looked around the house. “Come on, Mom, this place is like a shrine. You work in a basement office doing the same thing every single day. It’s no wonder you’re in a rut.”
“So, what, you think I should hare off to Crooked Bay to open a crêperie? Is this my midlife crisis?”
“Honestly?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Why not? Isn’t the thought at all exciting? Heck, Mom, you could walk into work tomorrow, tell your boss you quit, and have a completely different life within a month.”
For the first time, she ignored the gut reaction that this entire crazy idea was impossible and stopped to actually consider it. She tried to imagine waking up in the morning not to punch numbers under flickering fluorescent lights, but to make food and put smiles on people’s faces. She thought about what it would be like to take a walk along Lake Huron’s shore after work, to meet people who looked at her as something other than a widow. She wondered how it would feel to be excited about life again.
“You know what, Jace?” She took a deep breath and felt the beginnings of her first real smile in a long time. “I still think this whole thing is crazy. But maybe it’s time to be a little crazy. Why not give it a try?”
CHAPTER TWO
In the end, it took almost two months to turn her entire life on its head. She didn’t tell her boss she was quitting on the spot at work the next day, but somehow, knowing she wasn’t going to be going into that office every day for the next twenty years made her time there more manageable. She gave her two weeks’ notice, and on the last day, she almost felt nostalgic for all the years she had spent there. She hugged coworkers she’d barely said ten words to since Nicolas’s funeral and had to fight back tears when they told her how much they would miss her.
But that first morning she woke up and didn’t have to face going into work felt like the first breath of fresh air she’d had in a long time. Standing inside the small, empty building Clare had told her about and telling the real estate agent she wanted to put an offer in on it felt a lot like that time she and Nicolas had gone cliff diving back in college. It was exhilarating. It was frightening. She just hoped when she hit the waves, she didn’t drown.
Once her offer was in, things moved quickly. She listed her house, started apartment shopping in Crooked Bay—she asked Clare to visit the listings for her, since it was a good three-hour drive away—and started the long task of packing up her house. It was an emotional couple of months—she did a lot of crying, more than she would admit to anyone and certainly more than she would ever let Jace know about. A couple of times, she woke up in the dead of night, certain she had made a horrible mistake. Once or twice, she was on the verge of calling the whole thing off, but there was always something that held her back. Hope for the future, and a dream she had forgotten about for over twenty years.
Mostly, it was the determination not to be miserable for the rest of her life.
Before she knew it, the day had come. She had the keys to her new apartment—or rather, Clare did—she had accepted an offer on her house, she had closed on the little building that would soon become the first crêperie in Crooked Bay, and she could no longer put off the start of her new adventure.
Jace and Layla came to help her move. They had rented a big truck, and Jace had somehow convinced a few of his friends from college to come and help. He barely let her lift a finger—she stood back and watched as, box by box, her life was packed away.
