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    A Fifth of Luna City: Chronicles of Luna City, #5
    A Fifth of Luna City: Chronicles of Luna City, #5
    A Fifth of Luna City: Chronicles of Luna City, #5
    Ebook202 pages3 hours

    A Fifth of Luna City: Chronicles of Luna City, #5

    By Celia Hayes

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    About this ebook

    Welcome to Luna City, Karnes County, Texas … Population 2,456 … with the impending birth of a baby to Joe and Jess Abernathy-Vaughn. Things are nearly back to normal for fugitive former celebrity chef Richard Astor-Hall. The Luna City Café & Coffee is doing well, he has moved up from tending a single potted plant to a pet, and a flirtatious relationship with Kate Heisel, star reporter for the local newspaper. But his past may be about to catch up to him again, thanks to an old show-business frenemy … whose traveling cooking show is about to record an episode in Luna City! And the hurricane season is about to begin. Drama is in store for other Lunaites as well, in this this fifth volume in the Chronicles of Luna City.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWatercress Press
    Release dateNov 3, 2017
    ISBN9781386946212
    A Fifth of Luna City: Chronicles of Luna City, #5
    Author

    Celia Hayes

    Celia Hayes works as a restorer and lives in Naples. Between one restoration and another, she loves to write. Don't Marry Thomas Clark reached #1 in the Amazon Italian Ebook chart.

    Read more from Celia Hayes

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      Book preview

      A Fifth of Luna City - Celia Hayes

      Luna City & Environs

      Luna City Town Square

      Cast of Characters

      ––––––––

      A Sky Full of Stars

      Richard ... I have to tell you. I have bad news – the most appalling news. I don’t quite know how to say this, but ...

      That was Kate, his super-dainty Kate, her face expressing a mixture of horror and regret. Only his own sense of shock and possibly his own gentlemanly upbringing belatedly coming to his rescue – miraculously coming down from the heights of his prolonged classical venture into French cuisine on her behalf – kept him from blurting out his initial reaction: Jesus, Kate – you can’t be pregnant! We’ve never even slept together!

      Instead, he just looked at her as if pole-axed, and said, Well, tell it to me, Kate. I’ve had a long day, starting with being bullied in an open boat by an OAP with a bad attitude, and coming close to drowning in a flooded river. Frankly, I don’t think there is any more bad news you can tell me.

      Well then, Kate drew a deep breath. "My informant is one of the techies involved with A La Carte with Quartermayne. It’s a traveling TV food show. If you don’t know anything about it, Abuelita does, and so does everyone else who watches the Food Channel. They’re coming to Luna City at the end of summer, for a food showdown..."

      No, absolutely not, Richard was stone-faced. I will not participate in one of those travesties. I will not be a performing monkey on a lead for the entertainment of the masses. Again. If I see a TV camera within half a block of me, I will turn around and go home. I’ve been there, Kate. It’s Hell. I’ve learned my lesson – and won’t do it again.

      No, it’s not for the Café, Kate swiftly reassured him, those amazing beryl-green eyes huge with sympathy. The showdown will be between the Pryor’s Meats and BBQ, and the Mills Farm Country Kitchen. But the co-host of Quartermayne this season is someone that ... well, you know. And according to my informant...

      Your spy in the enemy camp, Richard amended, dryly.

      Whatever. You and he have a long history – Phillip Noel-Barrett.

      Richard broke out in a cold sweat, despite the residual heat in the kitchen. Stone the crows, not him – that unregenerate tosser! What malignant plan is that unmitigated arse-monger up to now? Nothing good, I’ll warrant. And those Quartermayne berks better be on their guard, because if he does half the damage to the immediate vicinity as he did with that wretched movie...

      I see that you remember him fondly also, Kate commented with just the faintest touch of acid. It looks like he will be up to some nasty tricks with regard to yourself. In a moment of ...

      Alcohol-fueled frankness, Richard supplied and Kate grinned.

      Exactly what I assumed. He is planning to reveal you as the Bad Boy Chef – not resting serenely sedated in some expensive loony-bin, but working happily away in an obscure little town café. My contact says that Noel-Barrett is practically slavering at the chops in his eagerness to do you a bad turn.

      He always was a malicious little git, Richard sighed. What a way to finish an evening – a beautiful evening, which had topped off a very long and fraught day. I’ll do my best to stay out of the way, Kate. I don’t want to be outed, much less by Pip Noel-Barrett. I like it here. I like the Café, my little caravan, Luna City and all. I don’t want to leave. But I cannot go back to the old life. I won’t go back. It wasn’t good for me. I know that now.

      Don’t worry, Richard, Kate shrugged her outsized overcoat over her shoulders once again. Her face bore an expression of adamantine determination, fearsomely like that of Abuelita Adeliza Gonzales when that formidable lady put her foot down. "We’ll see that you are kept safe, doing what you love to do, and doing it in Luna City. You have friends here, not just me ... although Acey McClain – he’s my boss, you know? At the Beacon. He might just begin to wonder about where my loyalties lie, if he ever hears about this caper."

      Thank you, Kate, Richard wondered if he was being honestly grateful for the very first time in his so-called adult life. They stood very close, at the back door to the Café, near to the vast pot-washing sink and the industrial dishwasher, which smelled very faintly of dishwater and drains. But they stood so close, as he intended, somewhat reluctantly, to see her out – and he detected the perfume that Kate was accustomed to wear. On an impulse, he leaned down – not very far down – and kissed her, intending the kiss to land in a brotherly, even an avuncular manner. But the minx turned her head at the last second, and it landed on her lips. For a brief eternity, he was lost – Kate, his wonderful Kate of Kate Hall, his super-dainty Kate, before whom all his previous passions, or whatever they had been – were momentary shallow flirtations. Until she pulled back, grinned at him and said,

      That was a kiss to set all records, Richard – perhaps one day, we’ll set another one like it. But I have to go now. ‘Celi will wonder where I am. If I don’t get on my way this instant, she will call Joe to go and get me – and Jess will be furious. Good night, sweet prince; blessed angels see the to thy rest. I have to go.

      Indeed, Richard gave a wistful sigh for the night that might have been – but no, it wouldn’t have been right. He and Kate had worlds enough and time. The thought of a wrathful Joe Vaughn, the Luna City chief of police, bashing down the door of the Airstream to haul a weeping and half-dressed Kate into the cruiser was a thought to banish all erotic fantasies, right then and there. Do you want me to walk you to Patrick and Aracelis’? It’s not far.

      "No, mon cher Richard – you must be exhausted after all this. I’ll be all right. We’re in Luna City, after all. She stepped neatly out of his half-hearted embrace and opened the outer door. Outside, a shy quarter moon rationed silver light on the back of the Café and the buildings adjoining it on Town Square. A few small lights from the back windows of the Stein’s place, and from the rooms over the small businesses in the other direction, rented out on BnB to those who wanted a small-town Texas experience, cast a dimmer and more golden light. Oh, look – your cat is still here."

      I don’t have any pets... Richard insisted obstinately. It must be one of the Steins’ perishing little beggars. Wretched things – they pee all over the carpet inside, and crap all over the garden outside.

      Kate peered at the small, shadow-shape lurking in the depths of the hedge between the Stein’s garden – a garden groomed to a state of perfection with a Teutonic devotion to detail, in vivid contrast to the space of crumbling macadam interspersed with weeds and rubbish bins behind the Café. That space was currently interrupted with the Airstream, and a couple of timber-framed raised beds, in which Richard nourished cooking herbs and a crop of exotic salad greens.

      The small shadowy shape mewed at her. It sounded commanding, rather than querulous and pathetic, as Richard would have expected a lost or temporarily discommoded cat to sound.

      It’s too small for Beethoven, Bach or Mozart, Kate observed. The Stein’s musical trio were sheltered, spoiled, well-fed and of considerable size. Annise would never let them outside in this weather anyway.

      The flood brought in all sorts of animal flotsam and jetsam, Richard sighed, thinking on the outsized dog, miniature pony, bantam hen and stray goat, confined in a makeshift corral by the VFD. A stray, I suppose.

      Be kind, Kate said, and in the shadows behind the Café, Richard was sure that she was smiling at him. Give the poor little thing some of that lovely chicken, or whatever. Good night, Richard – sleep well.

      I will, even if lonely, Richard sighed. Quite suddenly, the burden of total exhaustion fell upon him, a burden which rocked him to his knees. Honestly, I couldn’t have done justice to the occasion if you had even wanted to spend the night with me. I’ve got some pride left in me, Kate.

      I know, Kate blew a kiss in his direction, and departed without another touch of her hand or lips, walking swiftly to the bottom of the desolate patch which was the Café’s back garden. Richard thought that she turned and waved at him, before she vanished around the corner of the Stein’s garden-shed/garage.

      The evening was over.

      And on the whole, it had been a success beyond his dreams, Richard thought, as he turned out the lights in the Café, and sent the last of the dishes and glasses into the commercial washer. A long day, and a hard day; a supper with Kate, and space enough and time to meditate upon where their mutual attraction should go. Bad news about Pip Noel-Barrett’s malicious intentions ... but that was consummation months in advance. Sufficient unto the day were the evils thereof, as the school chaplain used to say. Today’s troubles were enough for today.

      He got out one of the folding chairs from the Airstream, and sat beneath the inconsistent moon, with a glass of Sefton Grant’s marvelous elixir, contemplating the day, in all of it’s exhaustion and glory, obscurely grateful that he didn’t have to get up on the bicycle and pedal all the way back to the Age of Aquarius. Because of the flood and the good offices of Roman Gonzalez, the Airstream caravan that he called home had been temporarily moved from the campground and small farm where it had sat for at least three decades. His daily commute was reduced to a matter of fifteen steps ... and the cat suddenly interrupted these meditations. It emerged from the dividing hedge, and sat not five feet from him.

      Mrrow? It said. Startled out of his reverie, Richard answered.

      What’s that, old chap?

      Mrroow! replied the cat, one eye reflecting the pale moonlight. Mrroow! it said again, with added emphasis and air of cold command, which well those passions Richard read.

      All right, then! Richard set aside his glass, and went into the Café kitchen, to the walk-in cooler, where reposed the

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