It's a Wonderful Knife Read Free Page A

Antoinette Chloe.” Dan kissed the back of her hand, and she giggled like a fifth grader.
    Jud nodded like a bobblehead. “Darling ladies, the charitable goodness you promulgate is beyond reproach.”
    â€œWho said that?” ACB asked. “Shakespeare?”
    â€œJudson Volonade.”
    â€œIs he famous?”
    â€œNot yet. He’s me. I am Judson Volonade.”
    We waved good-bye to the professors and headed north to Sandy Harbor.
    I felt bad for dragging ACB out of the saloon. She was having fun, but I was cranky from pain.
    â€œSo, Antoinette Chloe, do you think that Jud and Dan are legitimate?” I asked, taking a bite of a chicken tender. It was still half-frozen, but I could eat around the frozen part.
    She shrugged. “I’d like to think so.”
    â€œI just hope they are really professors doing research and that we didn’t just give them a drinking binge that will last until Christmas,” I said.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œOh, I’m being negative, and I just vowed to stop whining and not to feel sorry for myself.”
    â€œTrixie, you’ll still have a great Christmas, and we’ll all help you fill your orders and deliver them.”
    Tears stung my eyes. I knew they’d help, but I wasconvinced my Christmas season wasn’t going to be the same that year.
    Though maybe, just maybe, it would be even better!

Chapter 2
    T y Brisco met us in the parking lot in front of the Big House.
    I bought the whole “point” from my aunt Stella when she retired. The point included the Silver Bullet Diner, twelve housekeeping cottages, which now total eleven (but that’s another story), and the Big House, all on the sandy shore of Lake Ontario.
    Ty was a real cowboy, and he used to be a Texas Ranger until he decided that he wanted to work in a smaller department. Ty had moved there about six months before I did because of fond memories of fishing there when he was a kid and his father rented one of the cottages.
    He’d thought he could pace himself in sleepy Sandy Harbor, but he’d been busier than he ever expected with a variety of crimes—mostly petty stuff such as directing traffic during the plethora of parades that Sandy Harbor loved, and some serious stuff during tourist season.
    Ty opened the door of ACB’s van and held out his hand to help me out.
    â€œTy, you would have loved the Ride ’Em Cowboy Saloon,” Antoinette Chloe said as she leaned over me.A plastic miniature turkey glued onto lime green netting on her fascinator in honor of the holiday fell onto my lap. “I rode an electric bull there named Cowabunga.”
    I handed her the plastic turkey, and she dropped it into her cleavage purse.
    â€œUm, I gave up riding bulls—electric or otherwise—a long time ago,” he said.
    I made a move to get out of the van, but suddenly became queasy from the crazy way ACB drove and the half-frozen, greasy chicken tenders from the Ride ’Em Cowboy Saloon.
    Ty had better duck at a moment’s notice!
    â€œLet me help you, Trixie.”
    â€œI’m not feeling all that great.”
    â€œI know. Antoinette Chloe called me from the ER. So, your leg and ankle are a mess, huh?”
    I shifted on my butt and pivoted in the front seat to get out of the van. Some French fries slid from somewhere and dropped onto the snow.
    â€œYeah. I’m a mess. And I have a couple of broken ribs.” I tried not to complain, but I throbbed in places that I hadn’t known I had. “And I’m missing a cap on my front tooth.”
    I put my hand in his and noticed immediately how warm and strong his grip was. Nice.
    Moving my casted leg to the running board of the van, I felt the snow seep through the sock that was keeping my toes semiwarm. When the wind gusted, the right side of my jeans, which the medical personnelhad cut for the cast, and which were barely hanging on by a thread near my crotch, flapped in