Miss Frost Ices The Imp: A Nocturne Falls Mystery (Jayne Frost Book 2) Read Free Page B

of the hammer and his meal area was totally swagged out. Okay, maybe not totally. I still needed to buy him a snazzy placemat to go under his dishes to complete the ensemble. “Spider, come see how pretty your dining room looks.”
    He was sitting on the new rug, swatting at one of his many catnip-scented toys that I’d tossed there.
    “Spider. Seriously. Come over here.”
    He ignored me, took the toy in his mouth and trotted off toward the bedroom. He liked to hide his toys under the bed. I’d found twelve of them under there last month while looking for a shoe.
    I gave up on him temporarily. It was time to hang the big picture over the sofa. That took more work than I anticipated. And I have to confess, this hammer-and-nails business is not my forte. The first time I attempted to put the painting up, my measurements were a little off and the bottom of the frame touched the top of the couch.
    I measured again, tapped the nails in, hung the painting and hoped for the best. The best being the picture hiding the extra holes in the wall.
    Fingers crossed, I jumped off the couch and stepped back. Yep. The mistake was hidden. I nodded at my handiwork. The place was really coming together. And now that I had the rug and the tropical landscape, I had a color scheme. Green and blue with tan.
    The magical snow globe I used to communicate with my dad looked completely out of place on the table next to the sofa, but that couldn’t be helped. It stayed. Magic was about the only way I could reach him since electronics were unreliable in the North Pole.
    But the hula salt and pepper shakers definitely worked. And I could order some more things, like a comfy throw for the back of the couch and maybe a runner for the kitchen table and even a valance for the big window that led to the fire escape.
    Look at me getting all domestic. And it wasn’t even nine A.M. yet. That had to be some kind of personal record.
    As impressed with myself as I was, I had yet to eat or shower, and at some point, I needed to get down to my office and take over the magic running the Snow Saturday. My office. If I can be honest, that still sounded odd to my ears. Odd in a good way. I grinned. I liked the ring of it, and after all the work that had gone into cleaning it up and organizing it so that it made sense to me, I was proud of the space.
    Toly, the previous manager (and one of my uncle Kris’s former tinkers), had used the office as a workshop space for his toy designs (in addition to usual office activities), and as a result it had overflowed with papers and drawings and half-completed models.
    But I’d put in the sweat equity and earned the right to call it mine. I’d cleaned it out, painted it and transformed it into something efficient and welcoming. A place I didn’t mind spending time. Which was why I was ready to go down there and get some work done.
    I gave Spider his second breakfast, grabbed a Dr Pepper and jumped in the shower. Yes, I drink pop in the shower. I’m a multitasker. I still hadn’t eaten, so I didn’t stand under the water as long as I would have liked. I dried my hair and dressed in what I liked to call business casual, which meant a sundress and sandals. I was getting the hang of summer in Georgia—no small feat for a winter elf.
    I was just finishing my makeup when I heard a loud crash. It was followed by a loud meow and then the thundering of little cat feet through my living room. I rolled my eyes. It was still too early for this amount of crazy. “I wish I had a never-ending supply of Dr Pepper. That would make this nuttiness easier to take.”
    But I didn’t and I was going to have to deal with whatever mess Spider had made in my current only partially caffeinated state.
    “Spider, what have you done now?” I called out. Shaking my head, I walked into the living room to survey the damage. The decorative box I’d just bought was on the floor. The top lay a few feet away, the hinges…unhinged. “So much for