A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) by Darynda Jones

He shot out of his chair. “Oh, no, that’s okay. I mean, you are the sheriff.”

There.

That odd niggling at the back of her neck.

It was the way he said sheriff. As though her holding such a position was preposterous. Never mind her master’s degree in criminal justice. Or her ten years on the Santa Fe police force, seven of which she served as a detective. To him, she was a curvy blonde. End of story. She’d sensed it the moment his gaze landed on her.

And her breasts.

Mostly her breasts.

Curse her ability to read people like the ingredients label on a bottle of water.

Most people, anyway. Levi Ravinder? Not so much.

When she started to walk away, Carver called out to her. “Do you want me to get this?”

She stopped again, stunned. After a moment, she took a deep, calming breath. As slowly and methodically as she’d been planning her parents’ deaths, she pivoted around to him. “Not at all.” She walked back, took out a ten, and dropped it onto the table.

“Oh, yours was only a couple of bucks.”

She knew exactly how much her cup of coffee was. It was a freaking cup of coffee. With a nod, she gestured toward his triple espresso caramel soy macchiato with a dash of cinnamon and extra nondairy whip, and said, “It’s on me.”

He beamed at her, clearly impressed. “Well, thank you, Sunshine. Most women don’t take that kind of initiative.”

And she’d moisturized for this.

“I’d love to see you again.”

Wedging a smile between the hard lines that had marbleized her face, she turned and headed out the door. Not that she’d actually expected him to pay for her coffee. Going dutch was always best in these situations. But, seriously, it was a dollar fifty.

One.

Dollar.

Fifty.

A buck and a half.

Twelve bits.

She couldn’t rush off to her power outage fast enough. The fact that she’d lied about it was entirely beside the point.

She unlocked her cruiser and settled inside, thankful she hadn’t dressed so much to the nines as to the five-and-dimes. Sixes at best. Sure, she’d applied makeup, a rarity these days, but she wore a peach summery sweater, faded jeans, and pretty suede boots with just enough of a heel to make her a danger to herself and anyone within a ten-foot radius.

Making a quick U-turn out of the parking lot, she headed toward Quince’s house. She almost felt bad about abandoning her half-date soy latte with a splash of objectification and extra nondairy whipped misogyny. Carver was new in town, the owner and operator of the Four Cs, a.k.a. the Creepy Crawler Critter Control. And he—

Wait. She stepped on the brakes and frowned in thought. How did someone get an RV up three flights of stairs?

Sun had to make the arduous drive through the town of Del Sol to get to Quincy’s cabin. So, like, five minutes. Caffeine-Wah had opened the outdoor area beside their coffee shop. Both locals and tourists sat around a blazing firepit despite the sultry night, listening to an acoustic guitarist and drinking cappuccinos spiked with either Irish cream or Dark River Shine, Del Sol’s homegrown corn whiskey.

Even the newlyweds, Ike and Ida Madrid, were there, with their prize rooster, Puff Daddy, on a leash, much to the delight of the other patrons. Four months ago, those two had been mortal enemies, and yet marriage became them. Surely there was hope for the rest of humanity. And Sun. Eventually.

She glanced over at a couple of the locals as she passed, only mildly curious where one might obtain a leash for a rooster. Bernadette, the owner of Swirls-n-Curls, and Juana, the owner of Sun’s favorite Mexican restaurant, Tia Juana’s, sat at a high table having way too much fun for there to only be coffee in their cups.

The two women were Del Sol natives, born and raised, thus Sun’s mind meandered to the question that had been plaguing her since moving back. She’d been encouraged—a.k.a. blackmailed—into looking into a local myth that had been around for decades about the Dangerous Daughters, a group of women who, according to legend, secretly ran the town.

Because of that, she looked at every woman who’d been born and raised in the small hamlet as a potential Daughter. But she just couldn’t see Bernadette running a town. A bingo parlor maybe, or a speakeasy, but not a town.

Juana, however, was another story. That woman could run a battalion.

Sun took a right at the town square and spotted Doug, their local flasher, walking toward the illuminated park. Painfully thin and wearing his usual trench coat, thick glasses, and a headband with a feather in it, he made a U-turn when he saw her cruiser and headed down a dark alley. She’d clearly foiled his plans for the evening. Served him right. That man was a menace.

Feeling good about the fact that she’d saved an innocent pedestrian from a flashing that could never be unseen, Sun drove out to Del Sol Lake and parked down the street from Quincy’s cabin. Mostly because she had no choice. He’d taken her quite literally when she said to call in everyone.

Two deputies’ vehicles sat on one side of the narrow road leading to his house along with several vehicles whose owners Sun could only speculate. Though one did look hauntingly familiar. White Buick Encore. Cracked taillight. Sign that read HONK IF YOU LIKE THE TACO. Which did not mean what her mother thought it meant.

Sun spared a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose when a hand shot out of a bush and pulled her behind it. Thankfully, the hand was attached to a body. A body named Quincy Lynn Cooper.