After she rushed to the door, she threw it open and there was Jonas with a smile on his face. “Ready for another table and six more chairs?”
“Ready for something else first,” she teased.
Wrapping his arms around her waist, he brought her close and kissed her. “Is that what you had in mind?”
“You read my thoughts.”
“Not always an easy feat,” he joked.
She rapped him on the shoulder and took a step back. “Tessa and I will help you bring it all in.”
He frowned. “That’s not necessary.”
“We want to help. After we do, maybe you could go to the garage and bring in the box I set outside the garage door that has the flour, sugar, and canned goods in it. When I got home, Vi was coming down the stairs from the apartment and I just wanted to concentrate on her, not worry about carrying everything inside. And we needed to make pies.”
“Will do.”
Tessa joined Daisy at the door. “Where are Marjoram and Pepper? You won’t want them to get out.”
“They’re upstairs in Jazzi’s room, away from all the noise and bustle. They hate that their peaceful home is disrupted,” she said with a grin. “But I’m sure tomorrow when they smell the turkey, they’ll come down and greet everyone. Just call to Jazzi to go up and close her bedroom door. Then we’ll be sure they’re safe.”
Daisy could hear Tessa call to Jazzi as she went outside to help Jonas.
It didn’t take long to carry everything inside. Daisy showed Jonas where she wanted the table in her living room. It wouldn’t be far from her dining area, and conversations could roll around both tables with ease.
Once Jonas had set the boards in the table, he went outside to pick up the supplies at the garage.
“This is a beauty,” Tessa said, running her hand over the grained wood.
“Jonas told me it’s walnut with a dark chestnut finish. It is gorgeous.”
“Someday I dream about owning an old house with a dining room where I could use a table like this,” Tessa mused.
“My guess is you don’t want an open concept floor plan like I have here.”
“I prefer nooks and crannies and separate rooms.”
Daisy realized Tessa had put a lot of thought into this and maybe dreams too. “Do you imagine sharing that house with someone?”
“Maybe.” After she trailed her fingers over the table again, she admitted, “I’m a little nervous about Trevor coming tomorrow.”
“Why nervous?” Daisy asked. “You said dinner out went well.”
“I know. And he was nice enough when he did that interview with me in January after the murder investigation. I guess I never thought about dating him.”
“You don’t have to jump in with both feet,” Daisy said. “You could just dabble with one toe.”
Tessa laughed. “I suppose you’re right. Are you going to set the tables tonight?”
“No, I’d better not. I have two felines who might decide they’d like to be the centerpieces. I’ll wait until tomorrow about an hour before everyone is going to arrive. Hopefully, the fur kids will be taking their evening naps.”
Jonas brought in the carton where Daisy had put extra supplies that she’d purchased to bring home from the tea garden.
After Jonas kicked shut the door with his foot, he asked, “Kitchen island?”
“Put it on the counter,” she directed. “That way we can roll out the dough on the island.”
Jonas headed that way, but turned back to her to say, “You are going to give me something to do other than rolling out pie dough. I have a feeling I wouldn’t be very good at it.”
“I have two food processors,” she assured him. “You can help me keep those going.”
At the kitchen counter, he called, “Deal.”
Tessa leaned close to Daisy. “You and Jonas seem to be doing well.”
“I’m afraid to talk about it,” Daisy admitted. “I’m afraid I’ll jinx it.”
Jazzi and Vi stood at the stand mixer, mixing the chocolate mousse filling for the cake, when Daisy moved to the counter to unpack her carton. She’d ordered twenty pounds of extra flour—one tenpounder to use and the other to fill up her canister—as well as five pounds of sugar, two large cans of pumpkin, and three jars of Emma Zook’s tart cherry pie filling. With all of them helping, they might have time to make the cherry pies too.
However, as she lifted the first bag of flour out of the box, she realized there was a hole in the bottom of the bag, and flour started sifting out into the carton. She made a frustrated sound. Sidling around her girls, she picked up the canister and brought it to the carton. There she poured the flour into it. After she finished with that, she picked up the second bag and the same thing happened. All right, one bag could be a fluke. Two bags was no fluke.
Jazzi had turned off the mixer. Tessa was talking to Daisy’s daughters about the cake and what containers would be best to bake it in. Daisy was concentrating on the other elements in the box. When she picked up a jar of cherry pie filling, she couldn’t believe what was in front of her eyes. The glass had a crack along one side of the jar. Every jar did.
Trying to keep her mind from reeling, she turned to the island, where Jonas was assembling one of the food processors. “Jonas, did something happen to this box?”
He tilted his head with a perplexed expression. “What do you mean—did something happen to it? I just picked it up off the bench outside of the garage and brought it inside.”
“You didn’t drop it?”
The little quake in her voice must have alerted him that something was wrong. Quickly he crossed to her. “Why do you think I dropped it?”
“The flour bags . . .” She picked up one bag. “And the sugar,” she murmured, “have torn sacks. The jars of cherry
