Sweet Masterpiece - The First Sweet’s Sweets Bakery Mystery

by Connie Shelton

By two o’clock Rupert and Sam were up to their elbows in cookies. He’d completely moved past the earlier little tiff and pitched in with his practiced ease in the kitchen. As Sam mixed each new flavor of dough he operated the press and filled cookie sheets with neat rows of butter cookies, chocolate spritz, butter-mint whirls and more. She shuffled them in and out of the oven and onto cooling racks. As he worked up the final batch she prepared decorator icing and began piping a variety of tiny summer flowers onto the cooled ones. She loved to see how many different styles she could come up with, customizing every order so the customer always received a surprise.

  A tap at the kitchen door caught her attention. Zoe turned the knob and came in.

  “Hey. You guys must be way into your own zone,” she said. “I knocked at the front door twice. Figured you had to be here since your truck is out front.”

  Sam gestured toward the counters and table, which were covered with racks of cookies at various stages of completion.

  “Quick question and I’ll leave you alone,” Zoe said. “Can I borrow your truck tomorrow, for the day? Darryl’s just informed me that he’s working and needs his truck, and I have some furniture to take to the library’s garage sale fundraiser. I told them I’d also help haul away anything that doesn’t sell by five o’clock. They donate it to the homeless shelter.”

  “Ooh. I have to get all these cookies delivered to Santa Fe.”

  She leaned against the counter, wheels turning. “How about we trade vehicles? Can you fit all the cookies into my Subaru wagon?”

  “That’ll work.”

  “Let’s just trade keys now. Sounds like we’ll both be done by early evening and we can switch back then.”

  Sam wiped frosting off her hands, fetched the truck keys from her backpack and got Zoe on her way. The rest of the baking operation went smoothly and she was surprised to see that it was only four o’clock as she started clearing the mixing bowls and putting the utensils to soak in the sink.

  “You, girl, sure know how to roar through an order,” Rupert commented, plopping into one of the kitchen chairs. “I’m beat.”

  She stared around the room. They’d accomplished an amazing amount of baking in a short time, and the results were stacked everywhere. “Thank goodness for triple-decked racks,” she said. “This kitchen is so inadequate.”

  “Hey, you’ll get your shop. My offer still stands.”

  He’d generously proposed to loan Sam the money to properly open Sweet’s Sweets. She had to admit that it was tempting to take him up on it. But she also knew that opening a retail store was a risky thing. There would be a lot of expenses that she couldn’t foresee, and she’d feel better if she could at least foot most of the bill herself, without the worry of repaying a loan. A flash of irritation, again, at her daughter for helping herself to the savings Sam had so carefully accumulated. She suppressed it and turned on a flame under the tea kettle.

  “I think we can spare a few of these little beauties and have ourselves a proper tea,” she told Rupert, handing him a plate.

  He chose an assortment of the cookies and she poured them each a cup of Earl Grey.