Murder at Buttermilk Café

Print length: 289 pages
Formats available: Ebook, Paperback
Dimensions: 6 x 9 inches 
Publisher: Thistledown Heights Publishing
Publish Date: June 29, 2025 
Language: English
Series: Windmere Cove Cozy Mystery, Book 1
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Setting: Windmere Cove, a fictional coastal town in South Carolina
Content: Clean read. No graphic violence, no strong language, no explicit content.

Copyright © 2026 Harper Burton. All rights reserved. This excerpt may not be reproduced without permission.

Chapter 1: Murder at Buttermilk Cafe

The espresso machine hissed judgment as Izzy sifted flour into the bowl. She had picked her recipe before the coffee finished brewing, working the box not by cuisine but by emotional emergencies, past "Brownies for When You Regret Googling Your Ex" and "Cookies for Jury Summons," to "Muffins for Moments You'd Rather Avoid."

She wasn't sure why the unease had crept in with the morning fog, but it had. And when that happened, she trusted her recipe instincts more than logic.

The air hung thick with late-summer heaviness, the kind that made everything feel slower, heavier, like thoughts wrapped in damp wool. The whole morning felt held in place, waiting.

The feeling in her chest wasn't dread exactly. More like anticipation dressed up in uncertainty. Whatever it was, it had weight.

Then came the knock on the window, startling her mid-sift and launching flour across the counter.

Her sifter clattered to the floor like it knew better than to face him.

Izzy stared at Spencer through the window, heat prickling her skin like she'd been shoved into an oven set to broil. Her hands trembled slightly as she brushed flour from her apron, leaving ghostly fingerprints that matched the color draining from her face.

Her hand went to her grandmother's jade pendant, a habit when she felt unmoored.

Fifteen years of building her reputation as New York’s most discerning palate had been wiped out by one review and one vindictive chef.

Marcelo Santos hadn’t taken her critique lightly. On live TV he’d stated: “Izzy Harper has tastebuds as astute as a brown paper bag.”

The industry had laughed. Her editor flinched. Her column vanished.

Now Buttermilk Café was her sanctuary, tucked away in this coastal town where nobody cared about Michelin stars or celebrity chefs. Where the sense of taste and scent that had once made her name could serve comfort rather than criticism.

Since opening, she'd been rebuilding herself through butter, flour, and sugar, creating recipes that matched moods rather than occasions.

The café had become her redemption, her customers a new family who didn't know about the food critic who'd fallen from grace.

Buttermilk Café had found its rhythm in the unconventional hours of noon to ten, Thursday through Saturday. Izzy had discovered that Windmere Cove didn't need another breakfast spot, but a place where late lunches melted into long dinners, where afternoon tea could become evening wine.

It was into this carefully crafted sanctuary that Spencer Reed now intruded, the kingmaker of culinary journalism, whose words could elevate a roadside stand to a destination or reduce a five-star restaurant to empty tables. The man whose recommendation had once earned her that coveted critic position, and whose silence had been deafening when she'd needed allies.

Izzy’s golden retriever, Noodle, nudged her leg. Whatever Spencer wanted, it couldn't be good.

"I know, buddy. He's trouble with expensive shoes," Izzy whispered, drawing comfort from Noodle's warmth at her side.

Noodle's honey-gold coat gleamed in the morning light streaming through the windows as he shifted his weight, his gaze steady on the man at the door.

Service training had taught Noodle to read the smallest tells in a person, the kind no one else would catch. Whatever he was reading in Spencer had stopped him still.

Noodle's ear twitched as if considering the question seriously, his amber eyes fixed on hers. An intelligence that sometimes made her wonder if he understood English perfectly well but had chosen a life unburdened by human conversation.

"What's he doing here?" Izzy glanced down at Noodle. "And why now?"

Izzy took a steadying breath and straightened her shoulders. She crossed the dining room, Noodle at her side, and opened the door. Her fingers left floury prints on the handle, letting in both the salt-tinged morning air and the man who'd once been her mentor.

"Spencer Reed." She managed to keep her voice level despite the anxiety churning in her stomach. "Bit far from Manhattan, aren't you?"

Spencer's smile stretched wide, flashing teeth so flawless they surely had a legal team. His tailored blazer and crisp oxford shirt looked ridiculously out of place in Windmere Cove, like a penguin at a beach party.

"Izzy Harper. Still hiding flour in your hair, I see." He gestured to what she knew must be a white streak above her ear. "Some things never change."

"What do you want, Spencer?" The words came out sharper than she intended, but politeness felt beyond her capabilities at the moment.

Spencer stepped inside, taking in the vintage furniture and the handwritten menu board. His expression revealed nothing, but Izzy recognized the assessment in his eyes, the same look he gave restaurants before deciding their fate in his column.

"I'm here on business. Writing a feature on reinvention in the culinary world. Former critics turned creators." He crossed to the counter and set a business card on it. "I'd like to schedule a tasting. Tomorrow."

The request hit Izzy like ice water, a tasting meant judgment, criticism, everything she'd fled from.

"I don't do tastings anymore."

"Come now, Izzy. We both know that's not true. You read a plate down to the soil it grew in, it's your gift." His eyes narrowed slightly. "It was always the details that set your food apart."

Noodle let out a low groan beside her, as if warning her against what she was about to do.

"Fine. Tomorrow at seven. After the dinner rush."

Spencer nodded, satisfied. "Perfect. I look forward to it."

The door clicked shut. Only then did she realize she hadn’t breathed properly since the knock.

Izzy mentally filed the entire exchange under “Recipes for When You're About to Make a Terrible Decision”. The category was getting alarmingly full these days.

The bell above the door chimed. Mr. Thornton stepped inside, briefcase under one arm, round tortoiseshell glasses already in place. Bald, weathered, well past seventy, he wore tweed in defiance of the season and carried himself like a man who had corrected a great many people and meant to correct a great many more.

He was more than just a café regular. He read a room the way Izzy read a plate, cataloging every detail others walked past, and he kept the results in a journal he insisted was purely academic.

Despite the tension from Spencer's visit, Izzy smiled. A flicker of routine steadied her, and she slipped into hospitality like an old apron. "I'll put your coffee on right away."

She glanced down at Noodle, who'd settled beside her. The Noodle's Corner sign above his custom bed near the entrance wasn't just for show, it was practically a historical marker now.

As she reached for Mr. Thornton's preferred mug, the cardamom she'd ground for the muffins still hung in the air. The same spice had been on the plate the night Spencer offered her the magazine, and the scent could still take her back.

Conversations verbatim. Every ingredient on the plate down to the proportions. Who had been sitting at every table.

Her grandmother had called it scent memory.

Spencer had called it her superpower.

Right up until he hadn't.

Izzy set the mug down and reached for the coffee pot.

Mr. Thornton cleared his throat, pulling her attention back to the café. "He's becoming increasingly proprietary about that spot by the counter," he observed, his tone severe but his eyes softening a fraction when Noodle tilted his head. "One might think he owns the establishment."

"To be fair, he earned his place the day he read Mrs. Abernathy from across the street." Izzy reached down to scratch behind Noodle's ears. "Same instinct that ended his service career. He never could stay where he was needed less."

It had happened on a quiet morning not long after she'd opened the café. She had her keys in her hand, about to unlock the front door for lunch prep, when Noodle moved. He'd been beside her a moment before. Then he wasn't.

She turned and saw him crossing the street. On the far sidewalk, an elderly woman stood at her driver's side door, one hand braced flat against the metal, color leaving her face.

Noodle reached her before Izzy had cleared the steps. He shouldered into the woman's hip the way he'd been taught to brace a failing handler. As her knees gave, he turned his body into hers, lowering her in a controlled descent. Her head settled against the pavement.

Then he barked. Once, sharp and loud. His alert.

She was already running. Phone already at her ear.

The paramedics told her later that Mrs. Abernathy had been having a heart attack when she went down. Alone, she would have hit the pavement and lain there until someone happened past. Noodle had seen her before anyone else, brought her down safely, and called for help. He had saved her life.

The unanimous town council vote declaring Noodle 'Windmere Cove's Comfort Ambassador' had followed a week later, with it a standing resolution that the Ambassador be admitted anywhere he cared to go, escort or no escort.

Mr. Thornton had been the only abstention, not because he disapproved, but because "parliamentary procedure requires someone to play devil's advocate."

"His training was not wasted," Mr. Thornton conceded, drawing his journal from the briefcase. "Though I maintain that his selection criteria for whose table to settle beside remains scientifically opaque."

Izzy knew this referred to the fact that Noodle had chosen Mr. Thornton's table within his first week at the café and had been choosing it ever since, regardless of where Mr. Thornton sat. The fact that Mr. Thornton now carried dog treats in his pocket (a secret he thought no one had noticed) spoke volumes.

Since his retirement from the university history department three months ago, Mr. Thornton had appeared like clockwork each morning, claiming to "inspect the premises for health code violations" while actually helping her prep for the week ahead.

"Your pruning shears left gouges in the rosemary again," he commented, accepting the steaming mug. "One must maintain a forty-five-degree angle for optimal aromatic oil preservation."

"Is that what they taught you in Persnickety Professor School?" Izzy asked, stepping back into the kitchen to the muffins she'd abandoned when Spencer knocked.

She folded the wet into the dry with slow strokes, the familiar motion calming her racing thoughts. The batter came together under the spatula, unlike the knot of anxiety Spencer's appearance had tied in her stomach. That particular tangle would require more than baking to unravel.

From his table across the dining room, Mr. Thornton's voice carried back through the pass.

"I volunteered at the botanical gardens for seventeen years," Mr. Thornton corrected, pulling a pen from his pocket. "Your menu board still lists last week's special. Unacceptable."

What he didn't say, what he never said, was that he'd been at a loose end since retirement, his restless energy finding no proper outlet until he'd started reorganizing her spice rack alphabetically (and by region of origin, and then by flavor profile).

"The blackboard is all yours," Izzy said. "But if you write 'lackadaisical preparation techniques' as the daily special again, we're going to have words."

Mr. Thornton's lips twitched in what, for him, constituted a broad smile. "Perhaps 'cavalier approach to citrus zesting' instead."

Noodle trotted over to Mr. Thornton's table and placed his chin on the man's knee, staring up with liquid amber eyes.

"Your animal is begging. Most unseemly." Despite his words, Mr. Thornton's hand disappeared beneath the table, and the rhythmic thump of Noodle's tail against the floor told Izzy exactly what was happening.

"He's not begging. He's supervising your handwriting."

With a soft chuckle, Izzy filled the muffin tin, set the tray in the oven, and turned the timer. She wiped her hands on her apron and made for the door. She needed to get some air after that encounter with Spencer.

Noodle padded out after her. Stepping outside, she left the quiet of the café behind and took a moment to appreciate the grounds she had made her own.

Even the garden felt quieter than usual, as if the breeze were waiting for her to speak first.

Buttermilk Café greeted visitors with its enchanting pale green cottage facade, adorned with crisp white accents that danced in harmony with the vibrant surroundings.

It sat nestled among several gently rolling acres, shaded by majestic oaks and stately magnolias, whose glossy leaves whispered on the wind.

As Izzy walked the herringbone-patterned brick pathways, each step took her deeper into a world that felt as intimate as a well-loved recipe.

The café's garden flourished with an eclectic blend of local flora. Whimsical water elements were tucked throughout the space, including a charming antique clawfoot bathtub fountain near the front door that greeted guests with the serene sound of flowing water.

A cattle watering trough, transformed into a tranquil pond, provided a home for an array of turtles, longtime squatters who'd claimed the mosaic stone island like a timeshare no one dared dispute.

String lights crisscrossed overhead, dark for now, waiting for evening to turn them into a canopy of stars. Morning sunlight dappled through the oak branches onto the round fire pit, quiet at this hour, where neighbors would gather after dark.

Noodle kept pace at her side, his golden coat warm where the light reached him.

Just a short walk from the café stood the 5,000-square-foot Buttermilk Pavilion with its soaring exposed wooden beams, paper lanterns, and crystal chandeliers. Flowing white drapes billowed gently in the breeze, transforming the space into an ethereal retreat.

Beyond the public spaces sat Izzy's pale blue cottage with its wraparound porch and vintage swing. The cottage was partially obscured by fragrant herbs and flowering plants, half of them ingredients for her porch swing potions.

It had stopped being just a café a long time ago. It was where the town gathered, and where she had quietly built a life worth keeping.

Izzy took a deep breath of the fragrant morning air, drawing strength from the life she had built here. Tomorrow at seven o'clock, Spencer Reed would be sitting at one of her tables, tasting her food, judging her new life with the same calculating eyes that had once elevated her career before standing by as it crumbled.

As she turned to head back inside, her fingers instinctively reached for her grandmother's jade pendant. The cool stone against her skin reminded her of the woman who'd taught her that food was more than flavor, it was memory, emotion, and sometimes even a weapon when wielded correctly.

Noodle stayed close, unwilling to settle.

Spencer Reed could close Buttermilk Café with a single column. She'd known that the moment she'd seen him through the window. But it wasn't the review that was sitting wrong with her.

It was the fact that he'd come at all.

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