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thing. I agree it’s a bit overdressed for a trip to Vista Del Mar, but I think it’s their everyday wear.”
    Lucinda knew about anything with a designer label. Everything she owned had one. But she knew how to dress so that she looked good but not overdone. She’d recently cut her hair and was wearing it short now, which only showed off her dangle earrings and great makeup job. She had on a sunny yellow shift-style dress with a white shrug. The daisy pin was the perfect accessory. It was like she’d brought some sunshine inside.
    The banana cream pie story was swirling in my brain. I didn’t have a good feeling about Cora’s fiancé and wished it had been tomato soup that had brought them together instead of something I’d baked. I hated to think I’d played any part in their matchup.
    I left the Blue Door with no solution to the no-show sheep, but amidst kudos for my baking. A woman by the door was eating a piece of the apple pie I’d baked the night before and her companion was having the from-scratch vanilla pudding with the chocolate walnut shortbread cookies I’d made as well. When Tag mentioned I’d made all of it, they showered me with compliments. Hmm . . . and that was all without any certificate from a fancy French cooking school.
    As I came down the short flight of stairs onto the street, the noonday sun bathed me with warmth. There was still a sharp edge of damp and cool to the air, but having the sun out changed everything. The tall trees that grew down the center strip between the lanes of traffic on Grand Street now cast shadows. The strong light brightened up the whole street and even the yellow Victorian house across the street that had been turned into a bed-and-breakfast seemed a brighter shade.
    Downtown Cadbury was a mixture of styles. Many of the storefronts were built in a Victorian style with bright-colored paint, bay windows and things like fish-scale patterns on the sides of the buildings. Others, like the post office, had a Spanish look, with white stucco walls and a red tiled roof. The unifying factor was that the buildings were all old. Some of them had plaques showing they were built in the late 1800s and gave their history.
    As I looked up and down the street at the cars parked on an angle, I noticed a Cadbury PD blue-and-white was one of them. Even from this angle I recognized my neighbor Dane Mangano as the officer standing at the front of the cruiser talking to a sullen-looking teen. The kid was all bad posture and an I-don’t-care attitude.
    Cadbury wasn’t exactly a crime capital and I knew Dane spent a lot of his time being proactive to keep things from happening. It was a small town with a bunch of bored kids, which was a recipe for trouble.
    I could tell by the upward movement of Dane’s chin he was giving the kid some kind of pep talk. He pulled out a card and wrote something on the back before handing it to the boy. The teen looked at it for a moment before shoving it into his pocket. He kept looking away and it was obvious he wanted to leave. Dane touched him on the shoulder in a supportive move and must have told the kid he could go, because the teen suddenly pulled away.
    Dane looked up as I headed down the street. His eyes lit with recognition and his angular face softened into a smile. All the jogging and martial arts he did served him well, and the midnight blue uniform fit him like a glove. In other words, he was definitely hot. “Are you a social worker or a cop?” I said, gesturing toward the receding figure of the teen. I knew that he had turned his garage into a workout studio and gave karate lessons to the local kids and let them hang out there.
    “You caught me,” he said. His eyes held my gaze a little too long and his smile turned into a teasing grin. “I’m always looking for a new recruit. I’d rather get them when there aren’t any handcuffs involved.”
    Dane had told me that he’d been a bad-boy teenager and gotten into plenty of trouble.