In Hot Water (A Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade, Band 3) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

J. J. Cook is a pseudonym for a married couple who writes mysteries, mostly set in the South, with a touch of paranormal and romance. In Hot Water is the third Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade novel. As J. J. Cook, they also write the Biscuit Bowl Food Truck mysteries.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

Sweet Pepper Fire Chief Stella Griffin stood between a bulldozer being loaded off the back of a truck and the log cabin where she lived. Her temper was as hot as her mid-length red hair.

She’d spent more than a year living in the cabin—a perk from the town council for her service to the community. She’d always known it wasn’t meant to be permanent. The property belonged to the town. But she didn’t expect to be kicked out either.

Stella glared at councilman Bob Floyd, who’d purchased the property that day. She’d known it had been for sale, but until now, no one had wanted it.

Bob didn’t want it either. He only wanted to destroy the last remaining vestige of the first Sweet Pepper fire chief, Eric Gamlyn.

“I can’t believe the town council is sanctioning the cabin being demolished,” she said to the man she’d come to dislike. “It’s part of Sweet Pepper’s history.”

She was playing for time. They both knew it. Stella was hoping someone would show up and stop this from happening. She’d called everyone she could think of in town—from the police to local businessmen. So far they were all a no-show.

“I can do what I like.” Bob waved his deed in her face. The wind blew off the Smoky Mountains, moving his curly gray hair like an old mop on his head. “And I want this cabin down now!”

Stella had already looked at the deed. She knew she had to have some rights. Surely he had to give her time to move out.

“I have to get my things out of the cabin,” she stalled.

He laughed. “I’ll give you twenty minutes. Get out or get trampled.”

She ducked inside the old cabin and closed the door. She needed a minute to think, to come up with a plan. It wasn’t just her things and the cabin she was protecting. The actual, ghostly embodiment of the former fire chief was waiting in the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” Eric Gamlyn asked. “Can he really tear down the cabin?”

Eric was as tall as he had been in life, well over six feet. He was a big man with broad shoulders and narrow hips. His arms were strongly muscled from years of hard work. He’d built the log cabin and the original firehouse down the road. Then he’d created the Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade.

That had been more than forty years ago.

His longish blond hair would forever be held back from his face with a leather thong, as it had been on the day he’d died. He wore a red Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade T-shirt and jeans.

Stella had gotten used to her ghostly roommate after moving here from Chicago to help train the new fire brigade. It hadn’t been easy. Believing in ghosts, despite her Irish father’s tales of ghostly ancestors, hadn’t been on her bucket list. Eric had made a believer out of her first and then a friend.

“I don’t know.” She picked up the phone, glad that she’d had the landline installed. She didn’t have time to run back to the main road where she’d get cell service. “I’m not running away. He may tear this place down, but it won’t be without a fight. I’ve called everyone I can think of. Bob owns the property, but there must be some loophole or law that says he can’t show up here and force me out on the same day.”

She could hear the bulldozer out front revving its engine. No doubt courtesy of Bob’s impatience to get rid of the cabin, and Eric’s ghost.

Bob, and most of the people who lived in the Sweet Pepper area, believed the cabin was haunted. They’d warned her about it when she’d first moved there. It wasn’t a legend type of thing either—they firmly believed Eric’s ghost was there.

Stella knew she’d made a mistake threatening to send Eric’s ghost to get Bob. She could see that now. She’d only wanted the short, ambitious barber to back off. He’d hired someone to burn the woods around the cabin. She wasn’t going to put up with that.

Not like she could really “send” Eric anywhere. He was trapped in the cabin that had been his home. But Bob didn’t know that. He’d been terrified by the idea.

Before the old firehouse he’d built had been destroyed, Eric had at least been able to appear there as well. Not anymore. That was what worried her. What would become of Eric if his cabin was destroyed?

Part of the problem was that Eric and Bob hadn’t exactly been friends before Eric died. The other part was that the cabin was on valuable land that fronted the Little Pigeon River. Thousands of people came to go rafting and tubing every summer now that Sweet Pepper had become a tourist stop in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Stella had planned to buy the place herself after this year’s three-day Sweet Pepper Festival was over. Nothing went on while the festival was in progress—as it was now. It took over the small town. Bob must have heard something about that and decided to put a stop to her plans. Nothing was a secret here for long.

It had been a hard decision for her to leave her life in Chicago behind and stay here as the permanent fire chief. She wasn’t going to start by losing the cabin she’d come to love, and Eric.

“What’s that?” He nudged the blue ribbon she’d put on the table. “Did we win something in the recipe contest?”

“Not that it’s important right now, but yes, we won first place in the festival for the candied, stuffed pepper recipe yesterday,” she told him.

He’d done most of the cooking in that effort. She was a toast and Pop-Tarts girl. Eric loved to cook. It was weird watching bowls and pots whizzing through the air as he worked.

“Really?” He looked surprised. Sometimes he became stronger, more visible—more human in appearance. Most of the time, he was a little see-through and tended to float above the hardwood floor. But he’d been real enough to save her life when the old firehouse had been destroyed.

“Didn’t you think we’d win?” She couldn’t believe they were even talking about this when they were both about to be evicted.

“Not really. I never won while I was alive.”

It was her turn to be surprised. “I can’t believe it. And after all the ladies in town thought you were so hot. I assumed they’d let you win just to spend time with you.”

“My charms with the female population of Sweet Pepper have been greatly exaggerated,” he quipped. “You might’ve guessed that since I was still alone when I died.”

“Or I might’ve picked up on that from all the other greatly exaggerated stories about you. According to local legend, you single-handedly felled all the trees needed to build this cabin and the old firehouse in one day. You climbed mountains in single leaps. I think there was even a story about you changing the course of the river by wading into it.”

He laughed. Despite the fact that he was a ghost, Stella could make out laugh lines around his bright blue eyes. He had a hearty laugh too. He could scare the birds off the roof sometimes.

“Chief Griffin!” Bob Floyd yelled at the cabin. “I’m only giving you another five minutes.”

Stella looked out the window. Bob was careful not to get too close. None of her friends had arrived. No police officers had shown up either. Where was everyone? Were they afraid to deal with Bob?

“Don’t worry about it,” Eric advised. “Like I said before, if...