Free Darlene Franklin - Dressed for Death 01 - Gunfight at Grace Gulch by Darlene Franklin

looked at Jenna’s shopping list. “The Shop ’n’ Save. They have the best produce.” I had no idea which store carried organic goods, and I didn’t care. I wanted juicy, plump fruit, regardless of how it was grown.
    We entered the store and headed down the produce aisle. I grabbed a bag of mixed salad greens instead of the requested iceberg and romaine lettuce. That would have to suffice. I studied the shopping list again, automatically alphabetizing the items: almonds, apple, avocado, apricot, celery, olive oil, orange. “Why not call it the A-plus salad.” I giggled at my own joke.
    Audie looked at the list. “Add an artichoke. And asparagus.”
    I pretended to gag. “Or how about this? It’s called araza.” I held up a round, yellow fruit. “I think I will.”
    “Tell me about Jenna. The two of you seem so different.” Audie stopped at the apple bins. “Which type do you think she wants? They taste so different.”
    I studied the varieties, the faithful red delicious, and softer Jonathans, and my gaze hit upon an A . “Let’s try the Ariane.” I dropped a couple of apples into a bag and twisted the top.
    Jenna. The orange that grew on the Wilde family apple tree. We rarely talked about Jenna’s past, although we didn’t make a secret of it. Anyone who lived in Grace Gulch twenty years ago knew the truth. I saw no harm in telling Audie the story, and it might help him understand the Wilde family dynamics better.
    “Jenna’s always been a bit wild.”
    “From birth,” Audie replied solemnly. “So have you.” Then he grinned to let me know it was a joke.
    “Oh, you know what I mean. She’s six years older than me. When I was a kid, it seemed like she was determined to break every rule Mom and Dad set down.”
    We left the produce section in search of slivered almonds and salad dressings.
    “When Jenna was fifteen, she became pregnant.” I said it matter of factly. At nine, I relished the idea of another baby in the family. The shame and despair that engulfed my mother at the time had washed over me without leaving a trace.
    “Mom and Dad decided to keep her child and raise her as their own. A couple of months after I turned ten, just two weeks shy of Jenna’s sixteenth birthday, she gave birth to a baby girl.”
    “Dina.” Audie understood immediately.
    “Dina, yes. She’s my niece by birth and my sister by adoption.”
    “That helps me understand why she’s so different from you. I thought it was probably because she’s the baby of the family.”
    The next aisle over, we stopped in front of the salad dressings. “I confess I’m not fond of olive oil.”
    Audie grabbed a bottle of Catalina dressing. “I’ve had this on fruit salads. It’s pretty good.” He added olive oil. “For Jenna’s sake.”
    “Dad handled Jenna’s wild streak better than Mom. She never seemed to recover from the shock. She died unexpectedly, a couple of weeks before Jenna graduated from high school.” The remembered pain of those days made my eyes sting. “Then Jenna left for college in the fall and never came back. To live here, I mean.”
    “You must have been lonely.”
    I appreciated that about Audie. He understood unspoken things. We grabbed a bag of almonds and headed for the check out. We continued talking while the clerk weighed each bag of fruit.
    “With Mom dead and Jenna gone, I took over with Dina. After high school, I stayed in town and went to Grace Gulch Community College for two years. The same school Dina is attending now.” Our community college attracted people from across Lincoln County.
    “Didn’t you graduate from some fashion design school in Houston?”
    I nodded. “I crammed my junior and senior years into three semesters and graduated early. It was wonderful. Then I came back home.”
    I paid the cashier. Audie grabbed the bags and headed out to the car. I followed, continuing the story.
    “To give her credit, Jenna has always supported Dina, even when she was in