A Murder of Taste: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery Read Free

being kind and gentle when the high school crush ended. Somehow they’d even stayed friends, if she remembered right.
    “Now, how lucky can a guy be?” Bill McKay said, spreading his arms wide.
    “Probably not much more than this, Billy,” Kate said. Kate was a lowly freshman at Crestwood High when Bill McKay was the senior boy that every girl in her class fell madly in love with. And getting to know him on equal footing, teasing him now and then, was something Kate found enormously rewarding as an adult. She also thought he was pretty cute.
    “So you wrote a book, Billy.” she said. “About what?”
    “It’s nothing. It’s kind of an inspirational book for kids,” he said. “It’s about living in a small town and seeking your dream. Gus is making more of it than it deserves.”
    “Well, it sounds like you’re doing exactly that, Bill—seeking your dreams,” Po said. “Your parents must be proud.” The McKays had lived for years in Po’s comfortable neighborhood, occupying a large and stately brick home that was known by everyone in town as the McKay Mansion. Bill’s dad owned several companies in Crestwood and Kansas City, and commanded great respect from all who knew him, though word had it he wasn’t an easy man to work for. Nor, Po suspected, was he an easy man to have as a father. Though Billy had wormed his way into her life, she and Sam were never that fond of the elder McKays.
    “They’re in Florida most of the time now. Living the good life,” Bill said.
    “And their businesses?” Po asked.
    “I’m handling one—the commercial real estate.”
    Just then a young woman carrying one of Gus’s signature book bags stepped out of the book store and walked over to Bill, sliding into his side. She smiled at Po and Kate.
    “Kate and Po,” Bill said, “I’d like you to meet Janna Hathaway, my fiancé. Janna, Kate and I went to high school together, and Po is an old friend of my parents and a neighbor. She helped finance my first ten-speed by letting me mow her lawn one summer.”
    Janna moved closer to Bill, one arm wrapping around his waist. She smiled politely, her eyes lingering for a few seconds on Kate, then focusing back on Bill’s face.
    Kate observed the young woman with the plain features. Except for her Prada bag and elegant Italian leather jacket, she was the kind of person who could easily get lost in a crowd, her brown hair thin, her nose a little too short, and her eyebrows meeting too close together to emphasize her pretty brown eyes. But mostly she was the opposite of any of the girls Bill McKay had dated, except maybe the underclassmen with whom he flirted, then walked away, unknowingly leaving behind a pile of broken hearts. She was definitely not the beauties who openly sought out Bill McKay with his Kennedyesque aura.
    Po was asking about the wedding, and Kate half-listened as Janna explained that the preparations were nearly complete, though the wedding was scheduled for the next spring nearly a year off. She was describing an elaborate wedding that Kate suspected would highlight the social season. Bill seemed slightly embarrassed at the preparations, but listened politely as Janna talked
    “Janna’s from St. Louis,” Bill said finally, steering the conversation away from the wedding. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and Janna seemed to melt into the warmth of his body.
    “My father is a banker and investor,” she said. “In fact, he’ll be doing some business with Bill soon, helping him build his business.”
    “That’s nice,” Po said. She watched the three young people: Kate, who wouldn’t know a pedigree if it were wrapped around her neck; Bill, whose father had tried to mold his only son in his likeness—disarming good looks and a little too impressed with power and titles and attentiveness to who owned what. But Bill McKay seemed to have avoided some of that, and from all reports, had his head on straight. Janna might be another story, and Po