Fa-La-La-La-Llama

By Erin McCarthy and Kathy Love

It’s time to deck the halls! The holidays have arrived in Friendship Harbor, Maine and pub owner Sophie LaFleur is eager for the extra tourism money to save her struggling business. With her pet llama the star of the school Christmas pageant, Fleece Navidad, and a pub holiday party in the works, it’s going to be a holiday to remember.

Especially when the out-of-town choral vocalist staying in Sophie’s guesthouse is found dead. She’s hit her last high note, and now it's up to Sophie to solve her murder while ensuring everyone in town is having a holly jolly good time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Oct 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094430591

Erin McCarthy

USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author Erin McCarthy sold her first book in 2002 and has since written over seventy-five novels and novellas in the romance and mystery genres. Erin has a special weakness for high-heeled boots, martinis, and Frank Sinatra. She lives with her renovation-addicted husband (he built her a bar, so it’s all good!) and their blended family of kids

Book preview

One

In my previous career as an actress, I had failed to receive the part of chambermaid because the director said I was too cheerful and upbeat for a servant. After hearing my phone buzz with yet another demanding text from Druscilla Carlton, I understood what he meant. No chambermaid was delighted to be serving diva-like employers. Druscilla might have the voice of an angel, but she was a demon disguised as a sweet singing housewife. The United Methodist Church of Friendship Harbor was paying for her stay in my guesthouse, having victoriously secured the vocalist everyone in Maine called the Silver Bell, for their Christmas services.

I was in Silver Bell Hell.

Druscilla was a demanding thirty-something who had already requested room-darkening blinds (I had improvised with bath towels), more towels (after I used half her towels to cover the windows), a fruit basket, my Netflix password, fuzzy socks, raspberry flavored sparkling water with a maraschino cherry, a down pillow, and a cat to keep her company.

I had achieved them all. Including the cat, Chipper, who I had borrowed from Dave, the bartender at my pub, Steamy’s. None of the staff there was too thrilled with Druscilla either, as she had been ordering room service and cups of tea with honey for two days straight, requiring someone to repeatedly traipse out the back of the pub and across my yard to the guesthouse to deliver her demands. With two feet of snow on the ground.

Eyeing my phone without reading what the text said I told Dean, It’s your turn to toss meat at the lion. I’m exhausted. I put my feet up on my coffee table and clutched my glass of wine to my chest like it was the Holy Grail. I finally understood why my mom complained the whole holiday season.

Christmas was a lot of work. I’d spent days decorating the guesthouse, and the pub, and I was finally getting to my own house. I was exhausted and Druscilla’s endless demands were the last straw. I was done for the night. It was just me, a glass of wine, and a little Bing Crosby.

She is mean, he said, sitting across from me in a club chair and making exactly no effort to reach for my phone I was pushing with my toe across the table toward him. To be fair, he’d been working on untangling and replacing bulbs on my grandmother’s strands of old-fashioned lights for over an hour. I didn’t even have energy to help with that.

She reminds me of a few stars I had the misfortune to work with back in L.A. It’s triggering for me. It wasn’t really, I was just tired and had no desire to go out in the cold to be ordered around by Druscilla.

What does she want this time, Sophie? he asked.

I don’t know. I refuse to look at my phone. I’m going to pretend it died.

He raised his eyebrows. In your own house your phone died? What’s your excuse for not charging it?

You’re supposed to be helping me here, not working against me, I said.

Dean Jordan, my tenant who normally lived in the guesthouse, my manager at my pub, and my cause of confusion for the last five months, just snorted. When I had first moved to Friendship Harbor, Maine after inheriting my grandmother’s Victorian house and pub, I had thought Dean hated me. It had turned out he had just been grieving the loss of my grandmother, who had been his friend, and it was just his general surly nature. Then I had thought he liked me, given the fact that he had won me a stuffed animal at the fall festival and appeared to want to kiss me.

But after we had done the books and concluded Steamy’s was operating in the red and he had suggested we rent the guesthouse he was living in to make money over the holidays, he had temporarily moved into my house. And had completely emotionally retreated. Sure, we were friendly and it was fine, but there was nothing romantic going on between us. At all. Which was disappointing. Probably smart, given our current living situation, but disappointing.

Maybe it’s nothing too demanding, he said as he tested the bulbs on the latest non-working string of lights. Maybe she just wants to say goodnight.

It was my turn to snort. That’s naive, and I know you’re not naive. I grappled with myself. I didn’t want to tick Druscilla off, obviously. Since mid-November we’d had a steady stream of guests staying in the rental, and the income had really helped pick up the slack at Steamy’s. Our reviews were fantastic on the rental website. Everyone loved the charm of the guesthouse, the holiday decorating in town, the food at Steamy’s, and my pet llama, Jack. He was the real star of our listing. Every single review mentioned his awesomeness. Which was nothing short of the truth. Jack was born awesome.

Druscilla is the only guest we’ve had so far who hasn’t liked Jack, I pointed out to Dean. What does that tell you about her?

That she doesn’t like a farm animal spitting on her? he said, shaking the string of unlit lights as if that would somehow make them work. I can’t say I blame her.

Whoops. He had done that. Jack can read people. He only spits on murderers and rude people.

Dean dropped his feet, which he’d had propped on the coffee table along with the infuriating lights I don’t think the Silver Bell is a murderer. He reached for my phone and glanced at the screen. She wants a crisp Chardonnay.

Ah ha! That text is meant for you, then. I’m not the bar manager, you are. I felt unreasonably triumphant. But it was Maine in mid-December and I was wearing cozy pajamas. I didn’t want to go outside at night. I really didn’t even want to go outside until April, but that plan seemed doomed to failure. My mother had warned me about the cold, and having lived my entire twenty-eight years in California, she had been right. It was bone-chilling and mind-numbingly cold in Maine. But beautiful, I reminded myself. I seemed to find myself repeating that a lot. To no avail--I was just darned cold.

You’re lucky you’re cute, he said, glancing from me to the lights scattered on the floor and then to the phone. He stood up with a sigh.

Was I? Cute, that is? I felt my cheeks grow warm. Text me if you need anything else, I said, which was just me being polite.

He laughed out loud. You don’t even mean that.

No, I admitted. Thank you for going over there. And for working on the lights. Seriously.

You’re welcome. Although I’d just ditch these old lights. They’re a fire hazard anyway. And I’ll let you know when I need a favor in return.

Hopefully it would involve my lips on his, but I wasn’t holding my breath for that. I’ll bake you cookies tomorrow. I would fill the entire kitchen with baked goods if it meant not having to deal with Druscilla anymore. And I wasn’t quite ready to give up on my grandmother’s lights. I still had fantasies of my live tree decorated with Grammy’s ornaments and lights. I wanted the house beautiful for my parents’ and Oliver’s visit. A magical Maine Christmas.

When is she leaving? he