Murder Down Under (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 17) Read Online Free Page B

bringing Darcy that page from the book.”
    The book!  Darcy had left it back home rather than bring it with her on her honeymoon, but she knew it was possibly the single most important book she had ever laid hands on.  In its pages, she was sure, were secrets about her Great Aunt Millie that she needed to know.  Secrets that had been kept from her for some reason.  “Millie—”
    “Not now, dear,” Millie said with finality.  “And you keep that tongue of yours in your mouth, cat.  We have more important things to talk about here.  Darcy needs to get back to her Jon.”
    “Wait, where is Jon?” Darcy asked, only now realizing she was standing in the bedroom of the suite and her sleeping husband wasn’t in the bed.
    “You’ll be back with him in a moment,” Millie promised.  “First, I need to tell you something important.”
    “You should tell me about the book,” Darcy pressed.  Smudge meowed in agreement.
    “The book will still be there when you get back home.  For now, you’re here, in a place that has a bad flower problem.”
    Darcy moved the towel away from her ear.  She couldn’t have heard that right.  “A bad…what?”
    “Have you seen any flowers since you’ve been here?” Smudge asked her.
    Well, no, she hadn’t.  Grass.  Trees.  No flowers.  “I haven’t really been looking.  What’s that got to do with, well, anything?”
    “Bad flowers bring bad rains,” Smudge murmured with a sleepy yawn, his tongue curling inside of his mouth.
    “No,” Darcy corrected him, “April showers bring May flowers.  Only, this is Australia and we’re moving into autumn, so maybe they bring May snowstorms.  I don’t know.”
    Millie shook her head, the brim of the hat flopping up and down.  “Smudge had it right, dear.  He’s a good cat.  When he wants to be.”
    “Darcy needed to know,” Smudge mewled.
    “Shush.” Millie scratched under his chin.  “I would have told her.  Eventually.”
    “No, you wouldn’t.”
    “Well.  Perhaps you’re right.”
    “Oh, for Pete’s sake!”  Darcy exploded.  “Would you two tell me what’s going on?”
    “Bad flowers bring bad rains,” they both repeated to her.
    And then she jumped awake, water up to her neck, splashing wildly until she remembered she was in a bathtub and had fallen asleep while relaxing and she wasn’t going to drown if she just kept her wits about her and sat up!
    There.  Half of her bath was now on the floor, but she had her bearings again.  The shower curtain was pulled back, like she’d done in her dream, and she could see herself in the tall mirror standing over against the wall.  She was breathing heavily, her eyes wide, the words from the dream still echoing in her mind.  Millie had a habit of showing up in her dreams when she needed to talk, and dragging Smudge along with her, but she hadn’t expected it to happen here, in Australia.
    How far away could spirits communicate with people, anyway?  Not that there was any real distance in the next world.  People simply were there.  They didn’t have to move feet, or miles, or even as much as an inch to be somewhere else.  Hmm.  She’d never thought of that before—
    “Darcy?”
    This time it was Jon’s voice at the door, and she put a hand to her throat to catch her heart as it threatened to leap out of her chest.  The white paneling on the walls all around her echoed with her embarrassed laugh.  “I’m here, Jon.”
    ‘Are you okay?  I heard a lot of splashing in there.”
    “I’m fine.  You could come in, you know.”
    “Are you decent?” he teased.
    “Jon.  It’s not like you haven’t seen me in my birthday suit before.”
    “Well,” he said as he opened the door enough to peek around at her, “we are married now.”
    “Get in here,” she told him, holding out one dripping wet arm.  “Want to join me?”
    “Yes,” was his immediate response.  Then he shrugged, reaching down to stroke her damp, dark hair.