Flourless to Stop Him (9 page)

“Yes, kiddo, you are.” Grandma gave me a look. “You think you don’t need your family. You do.”

I swallowed a lump that formed in my throat. “Of course I need my family. Everyone needs family.”

“Promise me if you need us, you’ll ask. Don’t let your business go under without asking for our help. Remember how furious you were with Tasha for not telling you about her troubles with the Welcome Inn?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“We feel the same about you.”

Well, that was certainly something to think about. Here I was embarrassed by my big family. I thought it was such trouble that they always were asking me to host this party. Cater that holiday. Investigate random crimes. It never occurred to me that they expected me to do the same to them.

A wave of guilt flooded me. I pushed it aside. “Why is Mindy here, Grandma? She keeps telling me about her perfect life in New York. If things were so perfect, why is she staying here? And another thing, her boyfriend that you told me about is nonexistent.”

“She’s here to visit her Grandma before I die,” Grandma Ruth said as she went back to her coffee. “Besides, she’s your cousin and you have room to house her.”

I grabbed my coat from the hooks by the back door and sat on the bench to put on my winter boots. The forecast was for four inches of snow today. “She thinks Brad’s cute,” I mentioned as I tied my laces.

Grandma raised her eyebrow and studied me. “What do you care? You’re not dating the man, although I have no idea why.”

“I don’t care.” I shrugged. “Except . . .”

“Except what?”

“I don’t want to see Brad get hurt.”

“Why would Mindy hurt him?”

“She’s only visiting. She’s made it very clear she’s not staying.”

“She works for a famous law firm.” Grandma shrugged. “She might be able to get him a job in New York City.”

“Oh . . .” I paused. “Do you think he’d leave Oiltop?”

“He’s a smart man,” Grandma said casually. “I would bet he would go for the right offer. What’s keeping him here?” She gave me the sideways eyeball.

I shrugged. “Sure, I can see that. He deserves the prominence of a New York law firm if that’s what he wants.”

“Exactly. You can’t expect anyone to put their life on hold just because you are.”

“My life is not on hold.”

“So you say. Have a good day.” Grandma concentrated on her coffee.

“Bye.” I walked out the door into the particular quiet of early morning snow. It was dark. The air was still. Snow fell straight down in big fat flakes.

I looked up to the sky and stuck my tongue out to try to catch a flake or two.

I didn’t have time to date. Why, then, was I so mixed up inside over the possibility of Brad dating Mindy?

“H
ow long has your brother been dealing drugs?” Candy Cole walked into the bakery. She looked gorgeous with her slender figure, her cool porcelain skin, and her champagne-colored bobbed hair. Today she had on a thick wool coat cut in the “fit-and-flare” style and a dark fedora with a gold bow. She wore ridiculous high-heeled boots that made the girl in me think,
Cute!
While the grown-up in me thought,
Really? How do you walk in the snow in those?

“Good morning, Candy,” I said and glanced at my assistant, Meghan. “What can I get you this morning?”

“Coffee, please, and one of your fruitcake muffins,” she answered. I didn’t know how she ate like she did and still remained slender. Some people were blessed with the perfect metabolism.

I grabbed a thick white oversized cup and saucer and handed it to her to pour her own coffee. Then I placed a gluten-free fruitcake muffin on a small white plate.

“Seriously, Toni.” Candy took the cup and saucer and
handed me her debit card. “How long has Tim been dealing? Was he able to keep it from you the entire time or did you suspect something?”

I made a face. “Tim has never dealt drugs. If he had, our mother would have whooped him and then sent him to Grandma Ruth for her to whoop.”

Candy leaned in over the counter. “Off the record, how long have you known?”

“Two seconds,” I whispered back. “Ever since you said so when you walked in.” I straightened and handed her back her card. “Seriously, Tim has never dealt and never will deal in drugs. No one in my family would do that. It’s not in our DNA.”

“Are you sure?” Candy raised one golden eyebrow. “The police have unearthed hotel records going back a year or more. It seems your brother ran an active business out of a variety of hotels.”

“What? That’s crazy.” I frowned at her. “Seriously, the only time I’ve ever seen Tim even the least bit high was when Chrissie Bale left him and he got drunk. The man hasn’t been high ever.”

“How do you know? You’ve only been back in town ten months. . . .” She stuck her chin out and picked up her dishes. “I have it from a good source that the police found a dealer’s bag of drugs in your garage. How do you explain that?” She poured coffee in her mug. Any outsider would think she was simply having a conversation with me. But I knew that Candy was smart as a whip and just as sneaky. Her phone might be recording our entire conversation. In the state of Kansas it was legal to tape conversations as long as one person knew they were being taped. In this case, Candy knew.

“The garage hasn’t been locked in years. Anyone could have put that bag there. Besides, it seems pretty convenient that no one has ever found drugs on our property until last
night, when the police came on a ‘leaked’ suspicion.” I put air quotes around
leaked
. “Someone is working very hard to frame Tim.”

“If that’s true—and I’m still of the belief that Tim is a drug dealer, but if he’s not, it certainly seems like a lot of trouble for someone to go to in order to frame him. How do you explain that?” She set her dishes on the closest table, sat down, and tasted her coffee.

“Someone is out to get him.” I put my hands on my hips.

“Most criminals are too lazy to frame someone.” Candy took a bite out of her fruitcake muffin. “Wow, are these good,” she said. “Not only are criminals lazy, but they tend to not be very smart. If—and I say ‘if’ in a very nonbelieving way—if someone is framing Tim, they are not only smart, but one step ahead of Hank and Calvin.” She shook her head. “Frankly, I don’t see how.”

I tilted my head and studied her. “Perhaps the criminal is counting on you to be lazy and not pursue the reasons why anyone else would frame Tim.”

Candy laughed. Her laughter was lovely and loud like ringing bells. “Well, now you have me there.” Candy winked. She sipped her coffee and finished off her muffin. “I guess that means you aren’t going to help me investigate this one.”

“Not this time.” I put my hands in the pockets of my wraparound apron. “It would be awesome if you came up with something on your own, though. Keep me posted, okay?”

“I will. If you will.”

“It’s a deal.” I stuck out my hand. She got up and put her slender, perfectly manicured fingers in mine and gave them one firm shake.

“Deal.” She gathered up her things and waved good-bye. “Remember we shook on it. That means I get first exclusive when Tim confesses.”

“You can’t confess to something you didn’t do. Think
outside the box, Candy,” I shouted as she walked out the door into the whirling snow. I shivered and went back into the kitchen.

Meghan worked on cutting out sugar cookies in snowman and Christmas tree shapes. The ovens kept the kitchen warmer than the front with its big windows. It smelled of vanilla and spice and baking yeast breads.

Today Meghan had her black hair pulled up in a beehive bun. Her lips were painted candy-apple red. Her eyes were accented with black liner. Like me, she had short fingernails. Not only were they easier to keep, but they were more sanitary for a baker. We used spoons to taste test, etc., but we rolled out enough dough to know that clean hands free of decoration worked best in our environment.

The only time I missed having a perfect manicure was when Candy was in the room. Her nails were always camera ready.

“The snowmen give us more cookies per batch of dough,” Meghan observed. “I would have thought the Christmas tree would have.” She worked the metal cutters back and forth, cutting one cookie right side up and the other upside down.

I looked over her shoulder. She really was leaving very little scrap dough. I frowned. “Maybe I should get one of those rollers with the cookie cutters on it so that all you have to do is roll over the dough and it cuts with the edges so clean there aren’t any scraps.”

“You could.” She shrugged her white polo-covered shoulders. “I like how organic the cookies feel when you do them like this. It really gives it a home-baked feel.”

“True,” I agreed. “It’s why I originally used the metal cutters. I didn’t want anyone to think they’re getting factory cookies. Unfortunately, it takes more time per cookie.”

“I think people appreciate it when you take time.”

“Yes, I agree,” I said. “But it means there is less time for sleeping.”

“You know Grandma Ruth says there is plenty of time to sleep when you die.”

We both chuckled.

I went to the freezer and pulled out a long roll of cookie dough. Then I sprinkled sugar on the cold marble slab and unwrapped the roll onto the sugar. After I pushed up my sleeves, I pulled a fresh silver knife out of the knife drawer, cut even half-inch strips from the roll, and put the cookies on a cookie sheet. These were pistachio cookies—green for the season. After they were baked I’d frost them with chocolate or red buttercream. “Are we on schedule?”

Meghan glanced at the sheet I had put up in front of her, detailing minute by minute what had to be done in order for us to meet all our Christmas requests.

“Barely,” she said honestly and shot me a look. “You figured for some time to wait on customers, but I’m not as fast as you are when it comes to cutting cookies.”

“You worry too much about perfection,” I said and pointed with my chin. “Part of the homemade feel is an imperfect snowman or a wonky Christmas tree. The ladies who give our cookies to class parties or cookie exchanges don’t want people to know they bought them.”

“Huh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Meghan said. “I’ll be sure and put in an imperfect one now and then.”

“The colored icing will finish off any imperfections.” I popped a full cookie sheet of pistachio cookies into the top oven.

“That reminds me, we’re out of red icing,” she said. “I washed the icing bucket and prepped the ingredients.”

“Thanks!” I grabbed a bowl and wiped off the clean plastic bucket, then poured powdered sugar, water, vanilla, a pinch of salt, and red food coloring made from beets into a large bowl and put it on the mixer stand. I pushed the stand into the up and locked position and let the paddle wheel
blend the ingredients into a lovely red Christmas icing with enough substance to hold its shape when piped.

The door bells jangled and I looked up at the clock. It was 11:00
A.M
. This was usually our slow time, when most people had finished breakfast and were not yet ready to think about tonight’s dessert or this afternoon’s snack.

“I’ll get it; you keep cutting.” I wiped my hands on a towel and walked out into the shop. Standing in front of the pastry cabinet was a man who looked vaguely familiar. “Hello, can I help you?”

“Oh my gosh, it’s Toni Keene. How are you? I haven’t seen you in years.” He was tall with dark hair and pretty blue eyes. He had the look of a local rancher, with his shearling jacket and dark denim jeans. “You don’t know me, do you?” His grin widened. “It’s Lance Webb. I was in your brother Richard’s class. I thought you were in Chicago. What happened? Why are you working at this weird bakery?”

“Hi, Lance,” I said and tried to smile. “You look good.”

“You do, too,” he said with a wink. “You’ve grown up well.”

“Thanks,” I said. “What can I get you?”

“Seriously, Toni Keene. What are the odds?”

“The odds are good,” I said with a cheerful smile. “I own the place. Was there something special you wanted?”

“Oh, sure—wow, you own the place? Hmm, well, I was looking for donuts, and the donut shop was closed. Chris Walker said I should try this bakery.” He looked over the baked goods in the counter. “Do you have any real stuff?”

“It’s all real, Lance,” I said. “It’s just gluten-free.”

“So, like, no wheat?”

“No wheat.”

“What the heck is it made out of?” He took off his hat and scratched his balding head.

“Rice flour, corn flour, almond flour, to name a few
ingredients,” I said and grabbed a bakery tissue. I reached in and pulled out a plate of petit fours. “Taste.”

Lance made a face and took a step back. “Maybe next time,” he said and put on his hat. “I really was only looking for donuts.”

“I have those in the morning,” I said. “But they’re gluten-free, too.”

“Well, maybe I’ll come back in the morning,” Lance said with a wink. “Toni Keene. Go figure.”

“It’s Holmes now,” I said. “I was married.”

“Was?” he asked, his blue eyes shining with interest.

“Yes, was,” I said. “But not anymore. Anyway, Holmes is why the bakery is named Baker’s Treat.”

“I don’t get it.” He frowned.

“Sherlock Holmes . . . Baker’s Treat?” I hinted. Surely he’d get it now.

“Still nothing,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Sherlock Holmes and Baker Street . . .”

“Okay. . . .” He stepped back as if I had lost my mind.

“Never mind,” I said with a shrug.

“Cool,” he said and looked relieved. “You don’t happen to know where there’s a good donut shop that’s open, do you?”

“No,” I said.

“Okay, well, nice to see you again,” he said and put on his Stetson as he headed toward the door.

“You, too,” I said with a sigh as I watched him walk out. It was a shame to waste my time on people who came in and then refused to even taste the baked goods. I placed the tray with the tiny cakes back in the glass case as the door bells jingled. I looked up to see my favorite rancher step into the shop. Sam Greenbaum was tall, dark, and handsome in every sense of the word. He was older and it showed only in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the gray at his temples. He took his cowboy hat off the minute he walked
in. His thick corduroy coat was covered in snowflakes and his dark lashes held melted drops.

He had the broadest shoulders I’d ever seen, and that was saying something because Brad’s shoulders were pretty broad. He sent me a smile full of straight white teeth. It was a heart-melting smile that I swear he must practice in his mirror every morning. It certainly worked on me.

Not to mention his tight-fitting Levi’s, his brown cowboy boots, and the workman’s gloves sticking out of his back pocket. All in all he was one nice piece of eye candy in the standard cowboy uniform.

“Hi.” I smiled and tried not to melt too much.

“Hey.” He studied me until my knees threatened to go weak. “I forgot my gram’s got a poker game this afternoon.”

Sam’s grandmother was a social butterfly and a mover and shaker in Oiltop society. She also loved impromptu poker games and it was her love of entertaining that had first sent Sam out seeking treats for her get-togethers. He had stumbled upon Baker’s Treat by accident, but every time he’d come back it was purely on purpose. Like Brad, Sam had asked me out more than once. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get closer to those broad shoulders and that flat abdomen. It was that I wasn’t ready for any kind of relationship. Not even with a nice-looking cowboy who bought his gram treats.

Trust me. While not taking Brad or Sam up on their offers of coffee, dinner, and company was like passing up a triple-chocolate raspberry dessert with whipped cream and a cherry, it was as good for me as watching my gluten intake. For once in my life I had to consider my well-being first.

“What would Gram’s poker players like? Savory or sweet?” I asked. “I have both.”