Read On What Grounds (Coffeehouse Mysteries, No. 1) (A Coffeehouse Mystery) for Free Online

“I’ve drawn up an offer, Clare. I want you to read it and then accept it.”
    The tinkling bell brought Madame’s personal maid with a silver tray. On it was an official-looking contract next to a small egg timer, a thermal carafe of steaming water, and a French press that I knew from the aroma contained perfectly ground Jamaica Blue Mountain.
    I nearly swooned.
    This full-bodied yet mellow and delightfully aromatic bean grown on the 7,000-foot-high Jamaica Blue Mountains has a limited harvest: a mere 800 bags annually compared to the 15,000 bags of the lesser Jamaican varieties (High Mountain and Prime Jamaica Washed). While importers and roasters have used Blue “blends” to cut the price along with the quality, true Blue has sold for as high as $35.00 a pound and more. I hadn’t tasted a drop in ten years. Not since I’d left the Blend.
    In silence, Madame placed the contract in my hands, then she poured the steaming water over the grounds in the press, replaced the lid, turned over the egg timer, and gave me a look that said—
    Five minutes.
    In the time it took to steep the coffee, Madame expected me to read the contract and agree to it.
    With a deep breath, I read the terms. If I signed on for five years, I would receive:
A piece of equity in the business to the tune of fifteen percent ownership right away with five percent more added for every fiscal year that came up with a ten percent or greater profit.
The keys to the furnished duplex apartment on top of the shop. (One cannot exaggerate the invaluable opportunity to live in a rent-free two-bedroom with a fireplace, balcony, and garden courtyard in the heart of the most in-demand neighborhood in Manhattan.)
    And finally:
3. The assurance by Madame that the Blend’s unnervingly charismatic coffee buyer would be consulting with me no more than one week a month.
    “You can’t control him with a contract. You know that. He’s still a pirate,” I found it necessary to point out when the timer ran down.
    “He’s his father’s son,” answered Madame as she pushed the French press’s plunger, squeezing the grounds to the bottom of the glass pot with a bit more force than necessary. She looked up into my eyes. “What else can I say?”
    “It’s all right,” I said as Madame poured the coffee into the simple cream-colored French-café-style cups that sat on the silver tray. “We’ve been down this road a few times before.”
    “Yes, my dear. It was a bumpy ride…for both of us.”
    There was a long pause, as there always was right before the painful subject of Madame’s son was dropped. Matteo Allegro, now in his early forties, was not only the Blend’s coffee importer and Madame’s only child by her late first husband, Antonio Allegro—Matt Allegro also happened to be my ex-husband and the father of my pride named Joy.
    I took a cup from Madame’s elegant tray, added a splash of cream, then sipped the freshly made Jamaica Blue Mountain. The sensual, sweet, full-bodied aroma of the coffee flowed over me as I considered Matt, along with Madame’s very tempting offer.
    “So, my dear, what is your answer?”
    I looked up and for the first time noticed that my ex-mother-in-law’s eyes were not quite the color I remembered. They seemed more gray now than blue since her second husband had died. And the elusive lines about her mouth and eyes—the ones that used to appear and disappear depending on her expression—now seemed to be permanently with her, like cruel, unejectable tenants.
    A dark thought occurred to me. Married couples sometimes died within a year of one another. The first would expire from a major disease, but then the second would go soon after—usually for some minor reason (like a cold that suddenly developed into pneumonia). Doctors diagnosed it clinically—a depressed immune system during a traumatic time. But it was still death due to grief. To loss.
    Madame did seem a bit frail today. Quite a change from when she’d first