Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder (Happily Ever Homicide, #1)

by Gracie Ruth Mitchell

step toward me; her smile turns wicked. “Is this fate? Do you think this is my second chance to win you over?” Aaand she went there—reason number one why we can’t live together. Because there was a time, back when she was still just a kid, that she had feelings for me. “Absolutely not,” I say. “No.” “Hmm,” she says. “You had that answer all ready to go. Are you sure? I bet we’d be cute together. You’re positive you don’t want to date me?” “I’m positive,” I say dryly, sitting on the hood of her car.

Juniper rolls her eyes and puts her hands on her hips. “Might want to get off that high horse before you fall and break something.” “I think my high horse might be the safer option,” I say, still eyeing the car skeptically. “Could you reliably live out of your high horse for the better part of a week?” she says, pointing to the back of her car. I walk around the passenger side and lean down, cupping my hand over my eyes and peering into the backseat.

“How about this,” she says. She’s watching me with a serious expression on her face, her eyes fixed on where I’m massaging my temples. “I will do my best to follow the rules of common courtesy and consideration. You will do the same. If we have any questions or problems, we can talk about it calmly. Deal?” I hesitate for only a moment. “Deal,” I say.

Hamlet. The play. He’s just…reading it. At seven-thirty on a Saturday morning. I have no words. “I know I’m devastatingly good-looking, but please stop staring at me,” he says flatly without looking up, and I jump. “I wasn’t staring at you.” I was. I totally was.

“You walk around looking like someone who’s just checked the weather and discovered it’s supposed to rain for the next week.” “I love the rain,” he says blankly. Of course he loves the rain.

I will run a long con on his mother if it means I get a glimpse of straight-laced Aiden wearing an earring. “I can hear the wheels turning in that brain of yours,” he says, sounding distracted once more as he looks back down at his book. “The earring isn’t even the best part.” I all but choke on my own spit. “What’s the best part?” I croak. I am a rabid dog, salivating for this information. “What’s the best part, Aiden?” He looks up at me, his hand pausing halfway through turning the page. A spark of something devilish enters his eyes as the corner of his lips twitches. “There are tattoos,” he whispers. “Tattoos?” I squeak. No answer; he just steps into his room and then nudges me out, back through the doorway. Then he closes the door in my face.

He leans against the door frame, folding his arms. Why is that so attractive? It’s just leaning. There’s nothing sexy about leaning, is there? I take a step back, trying to get a better look at the full picture he presents. He’s changed out of his pajamas, sadly; gone are the t-shirt and plaid pants, replaced by jeans and an oatmeal-colored cable-knit sweater. He’s not a ridiculously ripped guy—not like Too Happy Gus from the yoga studio, for example—but nor is he puny; I can still see the breadth of his shoulders and the faint shape of his biceps when he’s standing like this— And I’m staring again. Crap. What were we talking about?

Any time your presence causes people to change, you’re making history. Sometimes small history, sometimes grand—always worth paying attention to.

“As long as you live in this house,” I finally go on, “I promise I will not let you go hungry. Okay?”

“You smell stupidly good.” Which somehow makes me feel worse.

“Next time you’re going to do research for a novel, tell me first,” he says. “So I can have the fire department ready.”

MY FATHER-IN-LAW IS INSANE, it screams. WHAT SORT OF FAMILY ARE WE MARRYING INTO? No. Focus.

“Hey. When someone is naked on the toilet, you don’t just burst in. That’s rude. It’s rude!”

“Hey!” she screams—and I do mean screams. “I am the fruit of your womb! You can’t stab me—give me that. Give me that!” She rushes at him, reaching for the blade with her bare hand, grabbing it and wrenching it from his grasp, which is clearly limp from shock.

I’m screaming at Juniper not to grab a knife by the blade with her bare hand, Juniper is screaming at Rocco about how good fathers don’t try to murder their daughters, and Rocco is looking more and more confused by the second as his head whips back and forth between the two of us.

“Absolutely support you in however you choose to involve your father in your life, but we do sort of need him to stay here until the police come.” “Oh,” she says, blinking at me. “Are the police coming?”

“William,” I say faintly to the blood-smeared bust, cracked in half on the floor. “Did you kill my father-in-law?” I’m not sure I’m completely in my right mind anymore;

You’re allowed to feel angry, my therapist has told me time and time again. You’re allowed to feel compassion for your mother while also taking issue with how she treated you. You’re allowed to love someone while also being glad they’re no longer part of your life. You can understand why someone treats you badly while also refusing to allow them to treat you that way. Those things are okay.