Fired and Inflamed

  Fired and Inflamed

  An Otto Viti Mystery

  Book 2

  Jen Carter

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © Jen Carter

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  About the Author

  ONE

  I need a dose of normal. Meet for lunch?

  I pursed my lips, trying to hide a smile as I read Nico’s text. A dose of normal. That was pretty hard to come by where he worked. It wasn’t even noon. The day’s drama must have begun early.

  I tapped out a response. Sure. When?

  Three dots rolled across my phone’s screen, indicating that Nico was writing back. I waited a couple seconds for the text to come through.

  It’s 10:55. How does 11:00 sound?

  Poor guy. I felt badly that he had to go through whatever drama was unfolding, but I was glad he texted me. The coffee and banana I had for breakfast were already a distant memory, and my stomach was growling like a bear waking up from hibernation.

  I’ll walk down in a minute, I wrote back before pocketing my phone and looking across the bar. My younger sister Holly was at the other end, pouring red wine for a group of middle-aged women who, upon arrival at our tasting room, declared that they were spending the weekend taking a break from laundry and husbands.

  Nico’s text had been timed perfectly—and not just because I was already getting hungry. I had just finished pouring wine for a couple celebrating their tenth anniversary, and no new customers had yet meandered into the tasting room. I pulled out a bowl of dark chocolates from under the counter and took it to Holly’s end of the bar.

  “A break from laundry really ought to include some chocolate,” I said. A cheer erupted from the women as I set down the goodies. Five hands dove into the bowl before I finished pushing it toward them.

  As laughter replaced the cheer for chocolate, I leaned over to Holly and said, “Nico says he needs a dose of normal. Is it okay if I meet him for lunch now?” Since Holly worked full-time at the winery and I only helped out when I wasn’t teaching high school English, I always felt compelled to ask her permission to take a break. I knew it annoyed her, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  “Sure. Can you bring a sandwich or something back for me?”

  “Of course. I’ll go see if anyone in the back offices can come help pour wine while I’m gone.”

  Holly scanned the room and scrunched her nose. “I think I’m fine on my own. The flow of customers is pretty light today. Most people are making their Christmas presents right now at the different workshops.”

  “Okay, I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  Holly gathered her thick black hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck and secured it with the band she had been wearing on her wrist. Then she grabbed one of the chocolates from the bowl for herself and unwrapped it. “Take your time. No rush.”

  I made my way around the bar and crossed the tasting room, noting that Holly was right about the flow of customers being light. Our family owned a winery, built by our grandfather Aldo’s bare hands decades ago, in the wine country of Temecula, California. Not too long after opening D’Angelo Winery, Aldo had the brilliant idea of inviting local wineries to open satellite tasting rooms nearby. Sprinkled in were some restaurants, specialty shops, and inns, and our one-street enclave Otto Viti was born. The name literally meant eight vines in Italian, an homage to the eight tasting rooms along the strip, though many called it OV for short. We weren’t as busy as the big wineries down the road and didn’t have space for party buses to bring droves of guests to us, but we were perfect for people who wanted a weekend away filled with good food and good wine.

  And we always had fun events going on. With Thanksgiving just having passed, we were in the middle of our annual Crafts for Christmas season. For three weeks between Turkey Day and the arrival of jolly old Saint Nick, local businesses teamed up and offered Otto Viti visitors opportunities to taste wine, eat, shop, and create Christmas presents all at the same time. We had jewelry-making workshops, candle-making workshops, all kinds of gift basket-making workshops—and of course plenty of wine to go around.

  I loved this time of year. People who came in declaring no creative talent often walked out with bags of beautiful presents just begging to be unwrapped by loved ones on Christmas morning. I liked to pop my head into different stores throughout the workshops to see what fun projects were happening, and my favorite part was seeing guests laughing and surprising themselves with talents they hadn’t used since fourth grade art class.

  Our winery didn’t take part in the Crafts for Christmas event, which was why the flow of customers was pretty light so far today. Our family did host the Feast of the Seven Fishes for all Otto Viti businesses, which was a traditional Italian-American celebration on Christmas Eve with lots of fish dishes. That kept us pretty busy. Well, it kept my older sister Stella, our winery’s event planner, pretty busy. Holly and I always offered to help, but Stella didn’t really need it. I couldn’t blame her. Our version of help normally included extensive complaining from Holly and ample cluelessness from me.

  Truth be told, I was glad we didn’t do Crafts for Christmas. I was still recovering from the annual 5K Turkey Trot we held on Thanksgiving. It was the only event I really helped plan each year, and it always knocked me off my feet afterward. It also made me appreciate Stella’s event planning skills and her nerves of steel.

  Since Otto Viti was less than a half-mile long and our family’s winery was smack dab in the middle of the street, it only took a couple minutes for me to reach Entonces Winery’s tasting room where Nico worked. Walking across its patio to the front door, I wondered what was going on inside. Nico, as the tasting room manager, had worked out a partnership with the local chocolatier to participate in Crafts for Christmas. Entonces would provide the space and the wine, and Chocolat, owned by Bradley Greer, would provide the makings for chocolate barks and other tasty treats. Bradley was pretty no-nonsense, so I doubted the day’s drama would be coming from him. More likely, the drama was coming from Elita Salizar—the adult daughter of Entonces’ owners.

  And I was right.

  Pulling open the front door, I saw Elita standing right in front of the gigantic fireplace on the far wall, biting her nails and furrowing her eyebrows. She radiated nervous energy, and I hoped the guests making chocolate bark throughout the room weren’t paying any attention. The Salizar family owned three businesses in Otto Viti—a tasting room, a restaurant, and a bed-and-breakfast. Elita worked at all of them and yet none of them. She filled in wherever her parents needed her, probably because she couldn’t be trusted to follow through with anything important, so that meant she mostly hung around and got in the way.

  Of course, she did have one special talent: blowing things out of proportion.

  Nico stood behind the bar chatting with patrons who were more interested in wine than chocolate. His relaxed smile turned
into a sideways grin once he saw me, and I felt butterflies in my stomach just as I always did whenever I saw him.

  Yes, yes, I know. Butterflies. It sounds juvenile for a twenty-nine-year-old woman to say she still got butterflies. But it had only been a couple months since Nico moved to California—and not even two years since we met in Italy. It was all still pretty new. At least no one could say I was jaded. Plus, he was just so dang cute with those hazel eyes, olive skin, and buzzed hair.

  But there wasn’t any time for me to ponder the effects of love at nearly-thirty years old—not when Elita was beckoning me across the tasting room like a mad woman.

  I weaved through the high-top tables where guests were working with Bradley Greer’s assistant, Katie Foxx, making an assortment of treats. When I was halfway across the room, Elita huffed and redoubled her beckoning efforts with bigger hand motions. Subtlety was never one of her strengths, and apparently I wasn’t moving fast enough.

  “Elita, what’s wrong?” I asked as I approached her.

  “Look at this mess!” She gestured to the tables scattered across the tasting room. “This is absolutely unacceptable.”

  I scanned the area, not quite sure I understood what Elita meant. Yes, it was a little messy. After all, guests were working with melted chocolate. But Katie had set up stations of different mix-ins quite neatly. There were shakers and mason jars in the middle of each table with nuts and candies, and there hadn’t been much spillage as far as I could tell. While there was a wine glass in front of each participant, I didn’t see any big puddles of knocked-over wine. The floor looked reasonably clean as well. Katie had just picked up a tray of bark and walked it through the doors to the back of the building where I imagined she was putting it in the big refrigerator to set. I assumed she must have been doing that at frequent intervals because I didn’t see any just lying around.

  I looked back at Elita. She had coiled elaborate braids of her long hair around the crown of her head today, reminding me of a warrior princess in a sci-fi novel. And yet, the look of frustration and near-panic reminded me that she embodied no warrior princess traits.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Melted chocolate is going to be a little messy, but this is really well-contained. And look at what a great time everyone is having. Isn’t that what really matters?”

  Elita shook her head, her crown of braids staying firmly in place. “Bradley did it the first weekend, and it was perfect. Then last week he sent Katie instead, and it was a disaster. There was chocolate everywhere. She swore it would be better this weekend, and it’s not. I can’t take another day of this mess.”

  I patted her shoulder. “Okay.” There wasn’t anything else I could say. She saw what she wanted to see. “Nico and I are going to lunch. He’ll be back in 25 minutes.” I walked toward Nico at the bar on the other side of the tasting room.

  Elita gasped. “But he can’t leave me here alone!” I heard her scurrying after me.

  Over my shoulder, I said, “You are more than capable of pouring wine for Christmas-present-makers and anyone else who wanders in. Plus, you have to take over when he takes his breaks—it’s part of your job.”

  Sometimes with Elita, I felt like I was talking to a third grader who didn’t want to do math homework.

  Elita harrumphed, but she didn’t argue—not exactly. Under her breath, she said, “Ugh, this place with all its events and festivals. It drives me crazy.”

  I pretended not to hear.

  Nico walked around the bar as I approached with Elita on my heels. He pulled me into a sideways hug. At six feet tall, he had a good nine inches on me, and I fit quite nicely into his side.

  “Ready to go?” he asked.

  Before I could answer, Elita spoke. “Jill, I can’t host girls’ night. Not tonight, at least. There’s just too much for me to do—too much for me to clean up.” She shook her head. “Let everyone know, okay?”

  I turned and looked at her. Once a month a group of girls in OV got together for a night out. We took turns hosting, and this month Elita had volunteered her family’s restaurant, Deseo. I thought about arguing with her since the restaurant wasn’t going to be a mess—and since Katie was likely to clean up most of Entonces’ tasting room—but I didn’t bother. Elita was clearly too upset and wouldn’t be reasoned with.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll let them know.”

  And with that, Nico and I left the tasting room.

  “Has she been like that all morning?” I asked once we were in the wintery sunshine. The breezy air was cool enough for a light jacket, but when the breeze died down, I could feel the sun warming my face. I loved that feeling almost as much as I loved seeing OV decorated for the holidays with boughs of holly and twinkle lights strung up and down the street.

  Nico nodded. “Yes. She was really upset last week when Katie showed up rather than Bradley to run the Crafts for Christmas workshops, and I think she’s just looking for a reason to keep being mad. I guess she and Katie don’t get along. I don’t know. Where do you want to get lunch?”

  I looked down the street, and as if on cue, my stomach growled. “We could get sandwiches at OV Marketplace. The deli is normally pretty fast. Sound good?” Nico nodded, and then I continued, “So, do you know why Bradley ran the first workshop but hasn’t been around since?” Personally, I’d choose working with Katie over Bradley any day. He was curt and abrupt, and his demeanor always made me edgy. But I kept that to myself. I was probably just imagining it, anyway.

  Nico shrugged. “It makes sense for Bradley to be at Chocolat and Katie to be at Entonces doing the crafty stuff right now. We’re six days from Christmas. The first weekend we did these workshops, Chocolat was probably as busy as it normally is, and Katie could handle the demand. Now it’s probably a madhouse with people getting last minute gifts. Katie’s a good apprentice, but I doubt she can work as fast or efficiently as Bradley when it comes to keeping up with demand.” Nico paused. “Or, maybe he just doesn’t like how Elita flirts with him.”

  “Yeah, a married father of two might be uncomfortable with that. She sure does love flirting.”

  Nico smiled at the sidewalk. “It only took about a day for her to stop batting her eyelashes at me. Now she just scowls when I’m around.”

  I chuckled. He had a point. Most people in OV let Elita get her way because it was easier than the alternative. Nico didn’t care much about keeping the peace—not if it meant Elita was slowing him down at work. Plus, he had nothing to lose. He hit it big in his early twenties with an online coupon company and, pardon the pun, cashed out by his late twenties. A richy-rich cousin from Silicon Valley had helped him get the company off the ground, and once Nico paid his debts and had enough money to live comfortably, he said goodbye to the rat race. After a couple years in Italy, he landed here in Temecula with me, and he really didn’t have to work. He did it because he liked meeting new people, and he liked wine, and he liked to keep busy.

  Plus, he was just finishing up his fourth month at Entonces as the manager, and that was the longest a manager had stuck it out at Entonces in two years. I doubt Elita’s dad, Eduardo, wanted to mess with that.

  We turned into the OV Marketplace and walked through the specialty cheeses, olive oils, and wine paraphernalia displays toward the deli counter in the back.

  “I’ll say this, though,” Nico said. He paused, waving to the store’s proprietor, Lorena Garcia, where she stood behind the counter. “I don’t envy you having to tell the girls about tonight being canceled.”

  I didn’t envy me either. Holly was the only one who legitimately liked Elita. The rest of the girls barely tolerated Elita’s dramatics, and we all looked forward to spending one night a month together. Why was it my job to tell them that she canceled? That responsibility should have been hers.

  But maybe it would be better coming from me—for the very reason that the others barely could handle Elita’s dramatics in the first place.

  Nico could tell I was mulling the situation over
in my head, and he draped his arm around my shoulders. “At least that means we get to hang out tonight, right? We can plan out our New Orleans trip.”

  I smiled. He was right. Instead of exchanging Christmas presents this year, we were going to Mardi Gras, and we could spend the evening working out some of the trip’s details. That would be fun.

  For a moment, I marveled at how days in OV never went as planned. I should have already learned to expect the unexpected.

  TWO

  I felt less annoyed with Elita after lunch. Of course she was being ridiculous, but a full stomach made me realize it didn’t matter. It was sixty-five degrees and sunny outside, I didn’t have to go back to teaching English for two weeks, and Christmas was in six days. Walking out of OV Marketplace hand-in-hand with my boyfriend, life was good.

  “Stella said she and her boys were making Christmas presents at Issley’s this afternoon,” I said as we neared the sidewalk. “I’m going to swing by there to tell Stella about girls’ night before heading back to D’Angelo with Holly’s sandwich.”

  Nico looked at his watch. “I’ll come in with you. I haven’t seen the boys yet today.” We walked past Domenica’s Southern Italian restaurant and then up the the path to Issley’s Jewelry shop. Twinkle lights had been strung across the shop’s burnt orange façade, and in the front window hung gold and orange ornaments. The Issley women—Shannon and her mom—were so good with decorating.

  Nico pulled open the front door, and I walked through. Three rectangular tables were set up in the middle of the shop with groups of parents and kids hard at work threading beads onto chains, wires, and in some cases, pipe cleaners.

  Stella, sitting between her sons Thatcher and Hudson at the middle table, looked up and caught my eye. I waved. She waved back as Nico and I approached, and then she whispered something to her boys. Promptly, they threw their hands over their jewelry projects.

  “Don’t look, don’t look!” Hudson said, directing his words at me.