“Mr. July should be here any minute,” I said, not even bothering to check my watch. Serrano always showed up on time for his rendezvous.
“Excuse me while I kiss the sky.” Eleanor inhaled as if already catching a hint of his intoxicating aftershave in the air. “Ah. The hot detective. Every woman’s fantasy.”
Martha shook her head. “No. Trust me, dear. At our age, it’s a fantasy to have someone cook for you every night. Like Joe does for Daisy.”
My husband had blossomed into quite the gourmet cook, seeing as Millbury didn’t have a restaurant, only a diner that closed at 3 p.m. He’d convinced me to take early retirement two years ago from teaching high school, and we’d moved into our former vacation home, a Greek Revival on Main Street. Joe had settled comfortably into country life, but it had been harder for me, and when I bid on a steamer trunk full of sewing notions at the local auction, it had been the inspiration to open my store. And my salvation.
So not only was I a resident, but as a store owner, I was doubly interested in what happened to our little village.
At that moment, the photographer, Alex Roos, strolled past our group, performing the habitual stretching moves that signified he was finished shooting in his crouching pose. “People, people, how’s it going?” He flashed a wicked grin at Eleanor, showing capped teeth that were startlingly bright against his tanned skin. She blew him back a kiss. Martha just shook her head.
Roos wore black jeans, pointed emerald-green snakeskin boots, and a black leather vest that showed off his wiry surfer’s body covered in myriad tattoos. His hair was cut in a Mohawk style, about an inch long, like the bristles on a silver-backed antique brush, and so blond it was almost white, the way some fair-skinned children get after a summer spent playing outside.
And like a soft brush, it seemed to invite the touch of your fingers.
“Today’s cock, tomorrow’s feather duster,” Cyril muttered. He would have probably spit on the ground if he was back in his junkyard and not in this garage that was nicer than a lot of people’s living rooms.
The lanky photographer had caused quite a stir himself around these parts during the week he’d been shooting. Even without knowing he was from California, it was clear to see he was an exotic bird among a flock of country fowl. It was rumored he’d had almost as many liaisons as there were months in the calendar, including a dalliance with one of the married women. There was more than one jealous significant other who would be glad to see the back of him when he left town.
I narrowed my gaze at him. Was he really wearing eyeliner? In spite of his affectations, I had to acknowledge that he did have some strange sort of charm. But give me Joe’s wholesome good looks or Serrano’s dark and debonair sex appeal any day.
Roos clapped his hands together. “Okay, peeps. Time to rock ’n’ roll. Next set, please.” While I swept the garage, and the others removed the pumpkins, Joe loaded the bales of hay back into Cyril’s truck.
“I’m going to catch a ride back to Millbury with Cyril, so I can let the puppy out,” he said as he kissed me good-bye and handed me the keys to our old Subaru station wagon. “See you later, babe.”
As I watched Joe and Cyril pull away in the truck, I blew out a breath against the guilty flutter in my chest for the imminent arrival of our next model.
Eleanor had borrowed a fake brick wall from the local theater, and the plan was to back the detective’s Dodge Challenger on an angle into the garage and create the illusion of a grimy alleyway with a couple of garbage cans and some moody lighting. Serrano would stand partway behind the open driver’s door, pointing his gun at an imaginary assailant.
“Now, aren’t you glad we talked you into joining the society?” Eleanor said as we maneuvered the wall into place.