“The kids or the nanny?”
“The nanny.” He sat back and dug into his treat. “Kids can come later or not at all.”
“You don’t have a preference?”
“I wouldn’t mind a few more Colbys flittering around, but I don’t think our biology works that way.”
That he held her up as his golden standard melted my heart faster than two scoops left out in the sun.
“Well, I hope you’re happy.” Clay scooted back from the table. “Now I’m too nauseous to finish.”
“You ate like four pints’ worth.” I gestured to his stack of empties. “Your stomachache is your own fault.”
“No.” He gathered everything and dumped it. “You did this to me. Both of you. You should be ashamed.”
Asa, polishing off his bowl, offered me the last bite on his spoon, which I took while holding Clay’s gaze.
“See?” He mimed gagging. “You’re both disgusting.” A shudder rippled through him. “So gross.”
As a sister figure, I could sympathize with him. As a woman in love for the first time…not so much.
“One day,” I promised Clay, “you’ll meet a nice woman who isn’t a homicidal maniac.” I rested my chin on my palm. “Then you’ll be the disgusting ones, and I’ll be ready to mock you every step of the way. Every kiss, every smile, every touch, every sweet word, I’ll be there. Complaining. Loudly.”
“I don’t mind homicidal,” Clay said philosophically. “It’s the maniac that always gets me.”
Sensing that line of conversation could only get worse, I asked Asa, “What did Wilbur have to say?”
“The Amherst family owned the Waffle Iron.”
“The Amherst family, as in the Amherst Inn.”
“Mrs. Amherst ran the restaurant, which they franchised, and Mr. Amherst runs the bed-and-breakfast, which he inherited from his mother, after she passed two years ago.”
“Mrs. Amherst must be the white witch,” I surmised, “since her familiar perished in the fire.”
“The Amhersts are a white witch family, but the familiar wasn’t theirs. Wilbur claims the Amhersts didn’t have much in the way of magic. The cat belonged to Mr. Amherst’s mother.”
“Odd that Mrs. Amherst brought it to work with her,” I mused. “That has to be a health code violation.”
“According to Wilbur, the cat was a sphynx.”
“One of those naked cats that look like a rotisserie chicken?”
“Yes.” Asa did a poor job of hiding his amusement. “Breed is beside the point.”
“Okay, okay.” I got sidetracked by that mental picture. “You were saying?”
“The current Mrs. Amherst is allergic, so they dumped the cat at the restaurant in the hopes it would become a mouser. It must have found a way in, maybe during the panic, and it couldn’t get out again.”
Locals must have recognized the cat as the former Mrs. Amherst’s pet and cobbled together the memorial.
“Did he have the inside track on the Boo Brothers?” Clay butted in. “Did he actually see them?”
“He did,” Asa allowed, his brow pinched. “He identified them from a photo I showed him.”
“What am I missing here?” I reached out and poked him. “You sound like you’re stumped.”
“Was that a dryad joke?” Clay snickered then smoothed his features. “If so, it’s in poor taste.”