Read Online Town in a Blueberrry Jam by B. B. Haywood - Free Book Online Page A

just ripped you off for some free goodies.”
    “Wasn’t the first time today.” Candy smiled bleakly and held up the book. “Besides, he gave me this. It was sort of an exchange . . . I think.”
    Maggie looked unimpressed. “No one wants to buy his moldy old books of sappy poetry. He probably can’t sell the damn things. I bet he gets them for nothing and uses them to get free stuff from suckers like you.”
    “Go ahead, rub it in.”
    “I’m telling you,” Maggie went on, “you’ve got to protect yourself. There are vultures everywhere.”
    Candy gave her friend an appraising look. “You’re sounding a bit cynical. Been a rough day?”
    Maggie waved a hand at her. “Honey, you don’t know the half of it. That pet parade almost did me in. Got attacked by a goat with a tennis-shoe fetish.”
    Candy couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re making that up.”
    Maggie’s dark eyes twinkled as she made an X across her chest. “Cross my heart. Couldn’t keep him from chewing on my shoestrings.” She held out her left shoe as proof. The shoestrings had obviously been chewed on.
    “It wasn’t one of Sally Ann Longfellow’s goats, was it?”
    “The very one. She was all dressed up, with an old cowbell and a beat-up hat with a plastic flower in it, but she still looked raggedy, like she’s been sleeping outside all summer.”
    “The goat?”
    “No, Sally Ann. The goat actually looked in pretty good shape.”
    They both laughed at that. Maggie could always make Candy laugh, no matter what. They had met shortly after Candy moved into town. She’d gone to the local insurance office to check on Doc’s homeowner’s policy, and there Maggie had been behind the front desk. They hit it off immediately and had been close friends ever since.
    Maggie checked her watch, then flicked her eyes left and right. “So where’s that daughter of mine? I’ve got to get her to the hairdresser’s.”
    “I sent her and Cameron over to Duffy’s to get some lunch. My treat.”
    Maggie eyed her with horror. “What? Are you mad, girl? Do you know how much food that boy can pack in? He was born with a bottomless pit instead of a stomach. He practically lives at our place. He’s eating us out of house and home.”
    “They’re growing up all right,” Candy agreed, then added subtly, “Amanda seems quiet today.”
    Maggie rolled her eyes. “She’s convinced Haley Pruitt’s going to win the pageant. But I told her that’s crazy talk, that she has as good a chance to win as anyone. She just has to go up there and do her best, no matter what the competition does.”
    “That’s what I told her,” Candy said, and then grabbed Maggie’s forearm as she saw a woman approaching the booth. She lowered her voice. “Speaking of the competition . . .”
    “Oh my God,” Maggie muttered under her breath as a thirtyish, dark-haired woman wearing a cherry red, low-cut dress and white spiked heels stopped to talk to someone two booths away. “It’s Sapphire Vine, the queen of Cape Willington herself.”
    “She’s looking all prettied up today,” Candy commented.
    “Yeah, like an apple that’s waiting to be plucked off a tree.”
    “Or stuffed into a pig’s mouth. I’m surprised she’s not wearing blue. You know, with her name and the festival and all.”
    “Just wait ’til you see her outfit tonight.”
    “You’ve seen it?”
    Maggie shook her head. “No one has. Top secret, she says. Won’t even rehearse with the other girls. But she says she’s pulling out all the stops. From the rumors going around town, she’s got a presentation guaranteed to have you rolling in the aisles.”
    “Or win that crown for herself.”
    “Don’t even think that,” Maggie said, nearly seething. She tilted her head toward the oncoming woman in red. “You know what she’s doing, don’t you?”
    “No, what?”
    “She’s campaigning.”
    It took Candy a moment to realize what Maggie was saying. “You mean she’s trying to