Jasper offers a wry smile my way. It will be the same one.
A visual of Leo and me at Candy Cane Lane bounces through his mind, and I cringe at the sight.
“It will definitely be the same one,” I assure him and the room breaks out into a series of oohs and ahs.
Dad nods to the crowd. “Shall we begin?”
The mood shifts to something a touch more somber. This is a sacred event, and I can feel how special this is despite the fact I’ve lost count of how many wives my father has had.
Gwyneth shines in a winter white sparkling gown, encrusted with thick elegant beading, and I’m betting it weighs fifteen pounds at least. Her dark hair is pulled back into an elegant chignon, and her signature blood red lipstick looks less festive than it does dangerous.
“I have something to say.” She flexes a short-lived smile at the small crowd of friends and family. She takes up both of my father’s hands and looks lovingly into his eyes. “Nathan Baker, you are a prince among men. You are charming and wildly delightful and good in the sack, if I do say so myself.”
A hard groan breaks out from the rest of us.
There are some things I can go a lifetime not knowing about my father, and that little coital tidbit is one of them.
“But.” She tilts her head to the side. “After the rather enlightening and inspiring chat I had with Ree last night, I got to thinking.”
And here we go.
I shoot my mother a glance, and she shrugs my way, a slight look of panic taking over her features.
Gwyneth nods to my father. “Nathan, I have decided that it’s best we take things slow. I propose we report right back to this spot in exactly a year’s time.”
He jerks back as if she struck him. “You’re calling off the wedding?”
“I’m calling on the engagement,” she replies with a kind-hearted smile. “I’ve always wanted a long engagement, and you know what they say—there’s no time like the present. This way, we can get to know one another a bit better. Ree is right. There’s no need to rush down the aisle. It’s not as if this is a shotgun wedding.” She leans in close to him. “I’ve already had one of those.”
A nervous titter of laughter circles the room.
Dad holds up one of Gwyneth’s arms as if he were declaring victory.
“We’re engaged!” he shouts with that signature grin of his, and the room breaks out into wild cheers.
Sherlock rouses to life and gives a few barks as Fish bounds over with the kittens in tow and I scoop the three of them up.
Mom takes the adorable tiny twosome from me. “Give me those sweet babies.”
“You got it,” I say, touching my nose to Holly’s.
“No, I mean give them to me,” Mom is quick to clarify. “I just can’t stand the thought of these precious faces being without a good forever home. I’ll take them both.”
“What?” Georgie claps up a storm. “Now we’ve got a party!” She snaps her fingers and dances a jig.
“Mom, that’s great,” I say just as Hux and Macy come over. “Meet your new siblings,” I tease.
Fish lets out a sharp meow of approval. If they’re living with Grandma, that means I’ll get to see them. And I’m glad about it, too. She juts her head their way. Merry Christmas, girls. You’ve found a wonderful home. And tonight I get the bed to myself again. She purrs as she looks up at me. You’re still my favorite pillow, Bizzy.
Macy coos at the two perfect angels. “They’re the perfect crazy cat lady starter set. Congratulations, Mom.”
Nessa walks in with her tiny mixed breed puppy with his black and white spots named Peanut. She adopted him last October after his owner was killed.
“Bizzy, there’s a package in the lobby for you and Jasper. It sort of appeared out of nowhere.” Nessa gasps as she looks from me to Jasper. “I didn’t ruin some big surprise, did I?”
Jasper and I exchange a glance and shake our heads.
Jasper and I follow Nessa right back to the reception stand where she hands me a small red box tethered together with a black satin ribbon. I pick it up, and Jasper and I head over to the tree by the entry to open it.
“A gift to the both of us.” I hold up the small red box no bigger than the palm of my hand. “Go ahead.” I nudge it his way.
My blood runs cold as Jasper pulls back the ribbon and lifts the lid to the box right off it. Why do I get the feeling this gift is of a nefarious nature?
Inside sits a piece of paper, and Jasper quickly unfolds it and holds it out for the two of us to read together.
Dear Jasper,
You will have my undying affection until my last breath. What I’m about to tell you will be difficult to understand, but that won’t stop me from looking out for your best interest, and the woman you’ve chosen to spend your time with certainly doesn’t have your best interest at heart. She’s keeping a dark secret from you. Bizzy Baker has supernatural abilities.
Don’t believe me?
Ask Leo. He has them, too.
She may not be willing to tell you what they are, but I will.
Call me.
Yours forever,
Camila
It took far more fortitude than I have to resist from snatching that letter right out of his hand and tearing it apart, or eating it for that matter, so he could never tack the pieces back together.
But it’s too late. He’s read it.
The damage is done.
Camila’s Christmas gift to the two of us is a dagger to the heart.
It just so happens that the dagger is also known as the truth, or at least as close as I’d like to get.
Jasper balks and laughs. “Okay, it’s official. She’s delusional. She’s just trying to scare me off. Like I said, that would be impossible.”
“We’d better call the men with the big nets.” I force a dull laugh to evict from my throat, and it feels like a razor ripping its way out. “Would you like something to drink? I’m suddenly thirsty.” I stagger over to the water dispenser near the reception counter and struggle to fill a paper cup because my hands are shaking so hard.
I’m stalling, buying time. How do I look into the eyes of the man I love and lie to him? Thankfully, he thinks Camila is desperate and reaching, and he’s willing to laugh the whole thing off.
She is desperate and reaching, but right now that’s beside the point.
Hello, are you Bizzy Baker? a deep voice calls from behind.
Great. A new guest. Maybe I can submerge myself in work for an hour and Jasper will forget all about that vindictive note.
“Yes, I’m Bizzy Baker,” I call out, trying my hardest to compose myself as I take a moment to catch my breath. “How can I help you?” I ask without turning around. I can’t face Jasper. Not yet.
My name is R.C. Kellogg. And I’d love a moment of your time to speak with you.
I pivot on my heels, and the smile glides right off my face. It’s the two well-dressed men with dark hair and dark eyes who came by earlier this week—the men from the MRD.
Jasper’s head tips to the side. “That was rather intuitive of you. They didn’t say a word.”
Bizzy Baker. The younger of the two nods my way. We’d like to have a word with you in private.
I look to Jasper as his face bleeds of all color. It’s as if he fully understands what’s just happened, as if he’s seeing me for the first time as the monster that I am, and I wonder if I’ve finally managed to do the impossible—scare him off for good.
Recipe
Country Cottage Café
Gingerbread Whoopie Pies
Hello friends! It’s me, Bizzy Baker. As you may already know I’m a disaster in the kitchen, but lucky for the guests of the Country Cottage Inn, the Country Cottage Café has an amazing bakery that just so happens to have my best friend Emmie Crosby as the head baker. Emmie’s Gingerbread Whoopie Pies are not to be missed this holiday season. It takes the spice of a gingerbread cookie, and the softness of cake, and combines them into on
e cream-filled delight. Trust me when I say these will be a treat at any holiday party or to simply enjoy for yourself. Happy holidays and happy baking!
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
½ cup butter softened
¼ cup brown sugar (pressed and packed)
½ cup evaporated milk
¾ cup light molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon vinegar
Frosted Filling
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
3 ounces softened cream cheese
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups marshmallow cream
2 tablespoons of milk
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°
Add evaporated milk to vinegar and set aside.
In a mixing bowl, blend together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, ground cloves, and ground cinnamon.
In a large bowl combine butter and brown sugar. Cream together until light and fluffy. Whisk in the egg and molasses. Combine bowls of wet and dry ingredients. Add in milk and vinegar mixture, and vanilla extract, mixing thoroughly.
Drop one tablespoon of dough at a time onto a cookie sheet, spacing them about two inches apart.
Bake 10 -15 minutes until cakes are fluffy.
Cool to room temperature.
Filling
Blend cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add vanilla and powdered sugar, blending with a mixer on high speed for 5 minutes. Stir in marshmallow cream. If mixture is heavy, add in 2 tablespoons of milk until light and fluffy.
Dollop filling between two cakes.
Serve and enjoy!
Bow Wow Big House (Country Cottage Mysteries 4)
Read the next book in the series!
Pick up Bow Wow Big House (Country Cottage Mysteries 4) NOW!
An innkeeper who reads minds. An ornery detective. And a trail of bodies. Cider Cove is the premiere destination for murder.
My name is Bizzy Baker, and I can read minds—not every mind, not every time but most of the time and believe me when I say it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
A doggie fashion show is afoot at the local shelter and hopefully each cute pooch will find a home to call their own. I’ve been enlisted to help out with the endeavor and I’m more than happy to do it. But trouble seems to follow me wherever I go and that body I stumbled upon quickly complicates everything. Not to mention a certain someone is determined to out my ability to read minds—and this time, they just might succeed.
Bizzy Baker runs the Country Cottage Inn, has the ability to pry into the darkest recesses of both the human and animal mind, and has just stumbled upon a body. With the help of her kitten, Fish, a mutt named Sherlock Bones and an ornery yet dangerously good looking homicide detective, Bizzy is determined to find the killer.
The Country Cottage Inn is known for its hospitality. Leaving can be murder.
Pick up Bow Wow Big House (Country Cottage Mysteries 4) NOW!
Preview: Murder Bites
Murder Bites (Country Cottage Mysteries 5)
New York Times Bestseller, Addison Moore’s newest series written with USA TODAY bestseller Bellamy Bloom!
An inn keeper who reads minds. An ornery detective. And a trail of bodies. Cider Cove is the premiere destination for murder.
My name is Bizzy Baker, and I can read minds—not every mind, not every time but most of the time and believe me when I say it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Valentine’s Day is coming right up and the Country Cottage Inn is playing host to a bevy of romantic shenanigans. The very first love-inspired event on the agenda is a night for singles to mingle. But that mass blind date with cupid goes horribly awry when one of the hosts ends up dead as a heart-shaped doornail. It certainly doesn’t make things better when I’m found holding the murder weapon—because as any good homicide detective knows, that puts me right at the top of the suspect list.
The Country Cottage Inn is known for its hospitality. Leaving can be murder.
Bizzy Baker runs the Country Cottage Inn, has the ability to pry into the darkest recesses of both the human and animal mind, and has just stumbled upon a body. With the help of her kitten, Fish, a mutt named Sherlock Bones and an ornery yet dangerously good looking homicide detective, Bizzy is determined to find the killer.
Preview: Kittyzen’s Arrest
*New to the Country Cottage Mysteries Series? Start at the beginning!
Check out Addison Moore’s newest series written with USA TODAY bestseller Bellamy Bloom!
Kittyzen’s Arrest (Country Cottage Mysteries 1)
An inn keeper who reads minds. An ornery detective. And a trail of bodies. Cider Cove is the premiere destination for murder.
My name is Bizzy Baker, and I can read minds. Not every mind, not every time, but most of the time, and believe me when I say it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Bizzy Baker runs the Country Cottage Inn, has the ability to pry into the darkest recesses of both the human and animal mind, and has just stumbled upon a body. With the help of her kitten, Fish, a mutt named Sherlock Bones, and an ornery yet dangerously good-looking homicide detective, Bizzy is determined to find the killer.
Cider Cove, Maine is the premier destination for fun and relaxation. But when a body turns up, it’s the premier destination for murder.
Click Here —> Kittyzen’s Arrest (Country Cottage Mysteries 1) Read NOW!
Preview: Cutie Pies and Deadly Lies
Addison Moore
Love your books with humor, sass and murder? Love Janet Evanovich? You’ll devour the Murder in the Mix Series!
Start at the beginning! Cutie Pies and Deadly Lies (Murder in the Mix 1) Happy reading!
I see dead people.
Okay, so I don’t see dead people—at least not on the regular—I see dead pets. Yes, pets. At first, I had no idea what these hologram-like beasts were up to until after an unfortunate run of something akin to trial and error that I concluded each dead pet was some sort of a harbinger for its previous owner, a very, very bad omen if you will. Sometimes I see them floating around willy-nilly in a crowd and it’s hard to decipher exactly who the bad luck is coming for. But on occasion, I see them attached firmly to the side of whomever the incoming disaster is set to strike. I’m not sure why this is my lot in life. In fact, my lot in life hasn’t been so stellar in general. My birth mother thought it was a brilliant idea to leave me on the floor of a firehouse, and that’s where a brave and thankfully curious firefighter spotted me, swaddled up and squirming. It just so happens that I was adopted by that sweet man, Joseph Lemon, and his wife, Miranda, and gifted a book-loving big sister, Lainey, currently Honey Hollow’s lead librarian, as well as a feisty and shenanigan-prone younger sister, Meg, who is also known as Madge the Badge on the Las Vegas female wrestling circuit. And being that Las Vegas and all of its glittery wrestling venues are a good distance from Honey Hollow, Vermont, we don’t see her very often.
But back to that strange gift of mine, or curse as it more often than not feels—I have zero clue where it came from or why, or even the major significance of it. A part of me has always believed that something alarmingly supernatural occurred around the time of my birth, and that’s exactly why my birth mama decided she so desperately needed to offload a seven-pound chunk of bad luck.
The very first time I put the furry-dearly-departed and outright chaos together was when I was seven and I saw the flicker of a barely-there turtle swimming next to Otis Fisher’s ear. Later that day, Otis fell from a tree and broke his arm. At the time, I wasn’t too sorry about it either. That boy had a mad hankering for pulling on my pigtails. And as fate wou
ld have it, the boy who lived to tease me, one day admitted to having a mad crush on yours truly. And post that amorous admission we dated on and off for about three years. If I thought that boy was annoying in elementary school, he outdid himself in high school. In fact, Otis—or Bear as he’s affectionately known around these parts for having once chased off a black bear before it could invade and devour an entire herd of innocent tourists who were on a leaf peeping tour—is one of the reasons I left Honey Hollow to begin with. No sooner did my high school diploma cool off than I hightailed it to New York—Columbia University to be exact—where I’ve had the displeasure to ogle other people’s dead pets.
I’m quick to push what I’ve affectionately dubbed the New York Disaster out of my mind as I take a step outside of my apartment. It’s a duplex, actually, and my landlords, the Simonson sisters, live upstairs. They’re the primary reason I’m headed out on this unforgivably crisp September morning wearing my Sunday best, even though it’s smack in the middle of the week, Wednesday. Usually, I’d be happily snug in my favorite jeans, sporting my comfiest sweatshirt with my hair in a ponytail, and on my way to the Honey Pot Diner where I’m currently employed as the chief baker, not that there’s anyone baking underneath me but, hey, I like the title. Instead, I’m stuffed in a pencil skirt, two sizes too small, and a blouse that looks as if I swiped it off a mannequin at Goodwill, partially because I did. Okay, so I don’t own many Sunday clothes per se, but only because the local church is all about casual attire. They’re far more concerned with keeping your soul free from the flames than they are about your accruements, but I digress. I’m not headed to work or any holy house in the great state of Vermont. I’m headed to court—small claims court to be exact—all the way over in Ashford County.
Santa Claws Calamity (Country Cottage Mysteries Book 3) Page 16