by K. J. Emrick
Then he stopped, staring at her. When he cleared his throat Cookie knew that was all she was going to get. “Uh, I’m sorry, Cookie. I know the man died in your store and you’re probably worried and such, but I can’t really discuss an ongoing case.”
“Oh, of course not.” She backed away from the conversation altogether. “I understand. So, what do you think?”
“I think I’d like to look around the back, in the alley, just to make sure everything’s all right. I’ll come back for that rock after.”
“Do you think you’ll get fingerprints off the rock?” Clarissa asked.
The expression on Officer Jones’ face said it all. “Doubt it, Miss. Hard to get prints off a surface like that. Still, it’s evidence. There’s some shards here got smudges on them. Might get some prints from those.”
Cookie noticed that her granddaughter’s eyes followed the young police officer as he walked by the front windows outside, until he turned the corner to go down the alley. “What?” she said when she saw Cookie watching her. “He’s kind of cute.”
“A little old for you, isn’t he?”
“Not by much. He’s Black, too. Are you going to make a big deal out of that?”
“Young lady, I have never cared what color any man’s skin is and I will not have that questioned in my own house. Understand?”
Clarissa grumped, but she took the mild scolding Cookie had given her and stayed silent about it.
Cookie put on a kettle for coffee, and pulled out a tray of day-old cookies and cupcakes. The church had been getting more donations of food from her bakery than usual, considering the drop in customers she’d been experiencing. More bills kept coming in, whether money filled her cash register or not. What was she going to do?
Officer Jones came back, carefully stepping on broken shards of glass to grab the smiley face rock with the inside of a plastic evidence bag. Turning it over, he pulled the bag up over the rock and then sealed it tight. He did the same with a few of the glass shards. That was all he could do for now, he explained, suggesting that she use plastic wrap on the door for tonight, maybe some boards if she had them, and call to get it fixed in the morning. He’d make sure the patrols came by more often. Then he laughed, explaining the patrols for the town was only him tonight, but he’d do what he could.
“Thank you,” Cookie told him. She was disappointed. Somehow she had hoped there would be more that he could do. Well. The police weren’t superheroes, after all. “Would you like some coffee? I just took the kettle off boil.”
A knock sounded on the door, so out of place considering that there basically was no door now that the window was busted out. When Cookie turned to see who it was, she was surprised to see Jerry standing there. He was in plain clothes, not his uniform, and his shirt was only half tucked into his jeans, like he’d gotten out of his house in a hurry to come here.
Worry creased his face. He waited for Officer Jones to tell him he was done with the scene, and then he carefully let himself in across the broken glass, coming right to Cookie. “Are you okay?”
He was so intense and it took her a moment to find her breath. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine, Jerry. It was just a broken window.”
“No. It wasn’t,” he corrected her. “Because it was your window.”
His hand reached out, and his fingers touched her cheek, and if she was younger she would have sworn she was melting. That wasn’t something women her age did at the touch of a man.
Was it?
“It was, um, sweet of you to come by, Jerry.”
She caught the way Clarissa rolled her eyes. She’d have to have a talk with that girl later.
“I heard the call from dispatch,” Jerry was explaining. “I couldn’t stay away.”
“You couldn’t?”
“No.”
There was a moment when her heart skipped. And she liked it.
Then she came back to herself and remembered he had kissed her and then stayed away. He didn’t get to ride in on his white horse now, no matter how much she really liked that image in her head. Still. She was a grown woman. “Jerry, we’re fine. Whoever did this was gone when we came downstairs.”
Jerry looked at her, and if he was a little confused about her reaction, he kept it to himself. “You came downstairs? When you thought there was an intruder? Cookie what were you thinking?”
“Well, I had a bat with me.”
“A bat? Oh, that’s good. What if the guy had a gun?”
“Oh, so you do care?” she said, trying not to sound as sarcastic as she felt. “Well, if you care so much, then where have you been all day?”
He gaped at her, his eyes blinking, his mouth open with no sound coming out.
“I think,” Officer Jones muttered to no one in particular, “that I should get back on patrol. I’ll uh, yeah. I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”
Clarissa was a little less smooth about it, telling Cookie that she would be upstairs just in case anyone needed anything.
And then it was just Cookie, and Jerry.
“Well?” Cookie asked again. “Where were you? What, you thought you could just kiss a girl and then forget she even exists? Just ride in to the rescue when something was wrong and expect me to go all doe-eyed?”
“Was that a pun?” he asked, totally throwing her off balance.
“A pun? What are you talking about?”
“Dough eyed? Like, baker’s dough?”
Men, she thought in frustration. “Not cookie dough, you dope! Doe-eyed, like a deer? All big eyes and submissive? Like, deer in the headlights?”
“Oh. Huh. All these years I’ve been saying it wrong.”
Cookie threw her hands up in the air. “That’s not the point! The point is, you kissed me, and then you didn’t even come around for a day!”
“What are you talking about?” He was smiling, and it made her mad, and that made him smile even more. “Cookie, I was here earlier. The place was closed. I called you, too. On the bakery phone. Didn’t you check your messages?”
No. She realized she hadn’t checked them, and now she felt foolish because she knew if she went and looked the little flashing red light would tell her that Jerry had, indeed, cared enough to check up on her.
She grumbled something under her breath, and he had better take it as an apology she thought, because it was the only one he was getting!
“So where were you when I stopped in?” he asked.
“I was…” Oh. “I was over at the mayor’s house, actually. Come in and sit down. I’ll pour you some coffee and tell you what I found out.”
“What do you mean? The mayor told you something?”
“No. Even better. The mayor’s wife.”
Before she could go anywhere, he took her by the hand, and pulled her into a kiss that was just as perfect as their first one.
The man was a seriously good kisser.
***
A new day dawned and it found Cookie and Clarissa in the kitchen. Her granddaughter was still a little spooked.
On the other hand, Cookie couldn’t stop humming to herself.
“So,” her granddaughter said, all innocent like, “you didn’t come back upstairs until late last night.”
“Oh? Were you keeping tabs on me?”
“Oh, no, Grandma. I just figured, you know, since you got to stay up late talking to a boy that maybe we could revisit whether or not I can go out by myself.”
“You can’t. There. That was a nice talk, wasn’t it?”
“Grandma…”
“Jerry is hardly a boy,” Cookie pointed out. “And we didn’t go out. We were right here, in this building, and we just talked.”
Well. And kissed. And held hands a little.
Clarissa wasn’t easily dissuaded. “So, if I have a boy over and we don’t leave here that would be all right?”
Cookie’s hands stopped rolling dough out on a board. “What boy?”
Her granddaughter’s eyes suddenly found other things to loo
k at. “Nobody. I’m not saying anyone specific. I’m just saying, if you get to do it, then—”
“Clarissa, I will not have you sneaking behind my back.” Then she thought about it. “But if you want to bring a friend over here, and introduce me to him, then we can talk about him visiting with you. Here.”
That earned Cookie a kiss on the cheek, and Clarissa went back to stirring muffin mix with a zeal that threatened to spill the whole batch out of the bowl and onto the floor.
Well. That was headway of a sorts with her granddaughter. She still had to wonder what boys—or any friends, for that matter—Clarissa planned on bringing around. She had only just moved to town, after all.
The sun shone in the window to the kitchen and on days like this Cookie felt nothing wrong could happen. Fate and the Good Lord had a habit of proving her wrong whenever she got to feeling like that, so she had learned to take things how they came. Besides, she had a gaping hole in her front door to get fixed today. Not to mention a phone call to make to Madison, and either of those things could ruin her day in a hurry, no doubt.
“Gram?” Clarissa asked into Cookie’s thoughts. “How did you get started in baking?”
It warmed her heart to hear her granddaughter ask that question. They were definitely making progress. “Well, when my husband… your grandfather, I suppose… when he walked out on me and your mother, I found myself all alone. I had to make money somehow and I knew I was good at baking. The very nice woman who owned this bakery took me on. I learned all I could, and then when it came time, I took the place over.”
“Why here?”
Cookie liked that Clarissa was interested in her story. “By the time I took over, Widow’s Rest was home. I mean, I came from somewhere else, but this town is the one I call home.”
When everything was in the oven to bake, Cookie clapped her hands together. “Now, let’s get cleaned up and wait for everything to be done. Would you fill the sink with hot water for me, please?”
“That I can do. Mom makes me do dishes every night.”
“A little hard work never hurt anyone.”
“Just makes life boring.”
“Oh. Is that a fact?”
“Well, somebody has to do it, I guess.” Clarissa started the water in the sink. “But why does it always have to be me?”
“Young lady, think of all the things that your mother does for the family. Your stepfather, too, don’t forget. Is it too much to ask that you pitch in by doing one thing?”
“I suppose,” her granddaughter grumped as she added dish soap to the huge stainless steel sink. “Whatever. But… do you ever think about retiring?”
“Maybe someday. Just not now. I love this place.”
The bell over the front door jangled, and the plastic she had taped up around the empty window crinkled, as someone came in. Cookie hurried out front to offer the customer a smile.
Benjamin Roth was looking around as if sizing up the place.
This was the last person she wanted to see. “May I help you?”
Roth glanced her way. “Not yet, Karen. Just looking around.”
How dare he! “You want a tour, is that it?”
“No, I have the plans.”
The plans? A chill went through Cookie. He wanted this building that badly. If he was the murderer, that would give him a great motive to hurt her or Clarissa, now wouldn’t it? Even if Jerry didn’t agree with her. She knew what was what.
She just couldn’t let on to Mister High-and-Mighty there that she knew.
“Well, I’ll have cupcakes fresh out of the oven in ten minutes or so. Care for some?”
“I’m not much for sweets,” he told her.
“So you plan on buying my bakery and doing what with it?”
“I want the land. It’s in the middle of where I want to build a strip mall. Just off Main Street, in a little town that sits between two major metropolitan areas. It will be glorious. I’m sure if we discuss it, we can come to some mutually agreeable arrangement.”
“No, we won’t. I don’t want to sell.”
How many times was she going to say this to him? She had no intention of selling. No intention of retiring. He could come here with his hat in his hand for all she cared, and it wouldn’t make one whit of difference.
Then again, if he really had killed a man, in her shop… would she be wiser to step down and not be someone who was in his way? Safer, certainly. Probably smarter, too.
But she was not going to just roll over for Mister Benjamin Roth, or anyone else. This bakery was hers. The only way anybody would take it away from her was over her dead body.
Well. That might not be the best turn of phrase, considering.
“Karen, please,” Benjamin said to her with a smarmy smile. “Let’s be reasonable. You know that you need the money. You know I’m right. We’ll come to an agreement, sooner or later.”
Cookie crossed her arms. This guy was a piece of work. “I’m not selling. That’s final.”
“I’m afraid you don’t know me very well, Cookie. You will sell to me.” He ran a finger along the edge of the door, making sure to take his time examining the plastic hanging in place of the broken glass. “If you don’t, please know that I can make your life difficult.”
Cookie stared the man down. “Are you threatening me?”
“Not threatening. Promising. When I put my mind to something, I always get my way.”
“Oh really? Well. I do know something about you, Benjamin Roth, and I happen to know that you don’t always get your way. Like that pyramid scheme that you got involved in.”
His face darkened. “That was a misunderstanding. I was cleared of any wrongdoing.”
“That didn’t keep you from being sued, now did it?”
Cookie had to wonder, if Jerry had been rattled about her coming down last night with a baseball bat to defend her store, what would he think of her trading insults with a man she thought was a murderer?
Not that she didn’t care what he thought, but Jerry would have to get used to her doing things her way. She was a strong and independent woman, and she never backed down when she knew she was right. Baseball bat or no, Benjamin Roth was not going to get to threaten her in her own store.
Jerry would learn to love her like she was, or he could disappear the way the other men in her life had.
But she really hoped it was the first choice.
“I suppose,” Benjamin said, “that I should be going. After I purchase some of your fine lobster tails.”
Cookie threw her hands up. “If it will get you out of my shop, then fine. How many?”
“Four, please.”
“I thought you weren’t much for sweets. Isn’t that what you said?”
“I’m not. However, these are for a friend. She loves lobster tail pastries. Not sure why, but she does. That other bakery in town makes them, but… so expensive. Would you mind? For my friend, of course.”
Grinding her teeth together, Cookie stomped off into the kitchen to get the pastries.
Clarissa was staring out at Benjamin. “What is that man doing here, Grandma?”
“Being an annoying jerk, is what. The cupcakes will be ready in a moment, can you get them out for me when the buzzer goes off?”
“Sure, I can do that, but what—”
“For the moment he’s just a customer. After that, I hope to God I never see him again.”
She put the four lobster tails, fresh on their tray from this morning, into a white cardboard box and closed the lid, sealed it with tape, and then tromped out again to where Benjamin Roth waited for her. “There. That will be fourteen dollars.”
“Hmm. Can you make change for a twenty?” he asked, accepting the box from her.
Cookie took the money from him, grumbling that there would be one more thing that kept him in her bakery for even a minute longer.
As she took the crisp twenty-dollar bill, she noticed a red slice on the outside edge of his hand. A cut of some kind. She could
n’t help staring at it, wondering how he might have hurt himself. Glass could cut a person very easily, she knew.
He noticed where her eyes were looking, and quickly took his hand back, stuffing it into a pocket, while he balanced the box of pastry on his opposite hand.
He wasn’t going to get off that easily. “How’d you hurt your hand, Mister Roth?”
“That is none of your business.”
“It is, if you cut it on my window.” She inclined her head in the direction of the busted pane in the bakery’s front door. Roth didn’t even bother to look.
“Why don’t you just keep the change,” he told her, turning on his heel, and leaving as fast as he could.
She fumed for a long few moments, watching the closed door like she expected Benjamin to show up again. He didn’t, of course. He’d made his point. She was in danger if she stayed here. Her shop was in danger if she stayed here.
Well. She wasn’t leaving. Maybe Mister Benjamin Roth needed to watch out for her.
With a sigh, she took her cell phone out from the back pocket of her jeans.
She dialed her daughter’s number, and waited for Madison to answer. There was a lot that Cookie needed to explain, if Clarissa was going to stay with her for the rest of the summer.
Putting herself in harm’s way was one thing, but her granddaughter should be able to choose for herself.
Chapter Eight
After the cupcakes were decorated, Clarissa quickly lost interest again. It didn’t help that her mother had wanted to have a twenty-minute conversation about everything, asking Clarissa over and over if she was all right and if she wanted to come home. Cookie understood, being a mother herself. Sometimes you were just so worried about your kids that nothing else mattered.
For now, Clarissa was going to stay with Cookie. That had been more Clarissa’s own choice than Madison’s, and Madison had been none too happy about it. There was still too much going on in the teenager’s life that she needed to sort through, and if Cookie had been asked, she would have said that she could already see an improvement in her granddaughter’s behavior. She had not been asked, however, so she had been glad to hear Clarissa opt for staying out here in Widow’s Rest instead of going back home. For now.