The Missing Party-Girl: A Rags-to-Riches Cozy Mystery Romance

still hadn’t grown used to the warmth and comfort of her new life. It was so shockingly different from the way she’d lived up until six weeks ago that it still stunned her when she thought about it.
Not that she had much time for thinking about her past. Her present was busy and engrossing. Every day gave her an opportunity to discover something new about her Aunt Minerva’s life. And few people had ever lived lives as fascinating as Minerva’s.
Padding to the door, she let the big, half-grown Rottweiler-cross out her bedroom door. She heard Cage clattering around in the kitchen below and knew he’d let the dog out, so she continued her trek to the bathroom next door.
For a moment she stared into the mirror above the sink. With days as busy as she had, she often fell into unconsciousness the moment her head hit the pillow. And exhaustion made getting her head off that pillow again harder and harder to do each morning. Looking at herself in this moment she could see the lines of exhaustion on her face.
Yet her exhaustion was nothing like what she’d experienced all the years she’d taken care of her dying mother. The mindless, empty routine tinged with panic over their dwindling funds was totally different to the fun and exploration—as frustrating as it could be—that awaited her every morning here at Beckside Farm.
Looking past the tiredness, she examined her face more closely. In the past, she avoided looking at herself in mirrors, horrified by the fat slob she saw there. But now… well, now, after weeks of better eating and plenty of exercise, those extra pounds were melting away. She could see it in her face and her neck. Her cheeks were less rounded and she no longer sported a double chin. Even her upper arms and breasts looked less full. Added to the fashionably streaked brown hair, she appeared less like a middle-aged drab and more like what she was, a passingly attractive woman in her twenties.
It amazed her how every aspect of her life had changed so quickly, even her appearance. It was like she was a completely different person.
After a quick shower, Adie headed downstairs to the kitchen. She could hear Cage talking to Jig as if he were a real person. Sometimes it felt as if he was. The animal was extremely intelligent; if you ignored the fact he’d eaten poisoned bait. Of course, changing the habits of a lifetime wasn’t easy, she should know. For the half-starved pup, whose sole source of food had been what was left in a bowl at the back door, it had been an understandable choice to eat anything left out for him, even poisoned meat.
But Cage had been working hard to break that habit ever since Jig came home from the vets. The silly man blamed himself for Jig’s near death. He was sure that if he’d just worked harder to train the dog to refuse food from unknown hands he wouldn’t have been poisoned.
Cage was a fascinating and gorgeous man. During the short time they’d known each other he’d also had his share of shocking revelations. Like the fact his adopted father was also adopted, and the subject of Minerva’s first Mystery. And what he’d believed was simply a case of watching over a downtrodden woman had turned out to be so much more. Jonathan Donovan, whose PI firm Cage worked for since leaving the marines, had been watching over his biological niece, Adie, for the bulk of her life. Without her knowledge. It had been a lot for Cage and Adie to come to terms with.
 “Oatmeal?” Cage asked, looking over his shoulder as she walked into the room.
His dark eyes lit up just a little at the sight of her, although his expression remained neutral. His short cropped, tightly curled hair was the only real indication of his African American heritage. The dark olive skin and hawkish nose gave him a Middle Eastern or Latino appearance. And maybe there was a little of those in him, too. His breeding was as mixed as Jig’s.
Not that his ethnicity worried her. Just as the fact his biological mother had been a drug addict didn’t worry her. All she cared about was that Cage was as beautiful on the outside—in an utterly masculine way— as he was on the inside.
“Sounds good. Will I mash the bananas?” she asked, coming to stand at his side to take bananas from the overflowing fruit bowl in the center of the counter.
“Thanks. Weather’s warming up a bit. And the rain seems to have passed,” he said companionably.
March was often cold and wet here in the northern parts of England, winter taking longer to release its stranglehold on the moors than it did in the southern climes.
“I think I’ll take Jig for a walk into the village. It’s about time I got to know a few of the locals,” she told him, feeling tension building inside her at the very idea of going off alone to intentionally meet new people.
But part of her new life resolution involved making friends. She was no longer the fat freak everybody in town avoided and ridiculed. She was now a slightly overweight rich woman people in the village were curious to get to know. Though they’d never met her aunt in person, the villagers of Stratherby had considered Minerva Reynolds one of their own, and therefore, by extension, she was one of their own as well. Dave, the electrician, had informed them of this fact on more than one occasion over the last weeks. And the steady flow of inquiries about Jig’s condition had warmed Adie’s heart more than anything else. It was as if they’d known how quickly the dog had gained a place in her heart.
She remembered reading somewhere that there were almost as many pets in the UK as there