A young guy who worked as a lineman for the electric company scoffed at that, said Freddie was an incel.

“What,” Brynne asked, “is an ‘incel’?”

“Involuntary celibate,” was the reply.

She turned to Miranda, who was delivering biscuits and gravy one table over. “I’m going to have to learn a whole new language. Forget English—nobody speaks it anymore.”

“Tell me about it,” Miranda replied. “My grandkids talk the same way they text. OMG. WTF—I tell them they ought to get their mouths washed out with soap for that one.”

And so it went, until the blessed lull between breakfast and lunch.

Doris Gilford arrived at five minutes after eleven, her elfin face hidden behind the massive bouquet of yellow and white roses she carried.

“These are for you,” Doris announced, coming to the table where Brynne was sitting, resting her feet and sipping coffee, and plunking down the enormous crystal vase in front of her. “From Sheriff Garrett.”

Brynne took a moment to breathe in the lovely scent of all those roses—twenty-four of them, unless she missed her guess—and to hide her smile from a beaming Doris.

She was a small, round woman with dyed blond hair, hit-and-miss lipstick, and very fancy fingernails.

“They’re beautiful,” she said. The card was tucked inside the bouquet, in a tiny envelope.

Brynne opened the card, read it, and smiled again.

The message read, “What happens at Bailey’s stays at Bailey’s.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A WEEK AFTER Brynne’s first and wildly wonderful night with Eli, her parents called, the old-fashioned way, reaching her by the landline in her father’s old office, behind the restaurant’s kitchen.

“We’re coming home early,” Alice Bailey announced, without a “hello” or a “how are you” to pave the way. “We’ll be there in less than a week!”

Brynne closed her eyes for a moment. She loved her mom and dad dearly, but she had a pretty good idea why they were returning to Painted Pony Creek two months early; they’d gotten wind that their only daughter was dating the sheriff, and they wanted to see what was going on for themselves, up close and personal.

“Brynne?” her dad prompted. “You there, honey?”

Brynne could picture them sharing a phone receiver, their heads touching, their smiles wide. “I’m here, Dad,” she said, late by a beat or two. “I’m just surprised.”

“I’ll call Hank and have him get the house ready,” Mike Bailey said. “Hope none of the pipes have frozen.”

Brynne suppressed a sigh, wondering who had clued the elder Baileys in that their daughter was involved with a man and how she could murder that person—or persons—with impunity.

Her money was on Miranda, but her parents had a lot of friends, having lived in the area for so many years, and they might have gotten the memo from any one of them. Or several.