Chapter Ten
Even with the late start, Maggie managed to open the shop on time. Sundays were big days for her. People liked to indulge their sweet tooth after church.
The bell above the door chimed. She glanced up to see Jamie coming in, a smile on her face, ponytail bouncing along with her steps.
“Morning boss. How was your slumber party date?”
“It was not a slumber party, nor a date.”
The teenager moved behind the counter, stashing her purse in the cubby under the register.
“Whatever you say.”
“Wipe that grin off your face. We have work to do.”
Jamie rolled in her lips to smother her grin. It didn’t work.
Sighing, Maggie went back to frosting a batch of Sinful Cinnamon cupcakes she had made first thing. Her employee started placing the three-dozen, already frosted cupcakes in the display. She always made sure to have a large variety, but with not opening yesterday and getting a late start today, the selection wouldn’t be as vast as most Sundays.
“Did you make any Macadamia Nut Madnesses? You know Bonnie and Mort always stop by after church for one.”
The sweet, older couple had been married for over sixty years and stopping by Cupcake Above the Clouds every Sunday since her Gran had opened the shop. They’d been the first people to offer their condolences on Gran’s passing when Maggie arrived in town.
“Oh shoot. I was so frazzled this morning I forgot. Can you finish frosting these? They usually don’t come in ’til ten. I can whip up a small batch before then.”
Jamie nodded, grabbing the icing piper from her.
Maggie didn’t want to disappoint the couple. They were so nice and loving. Watching them share a cupcake every Sunday, feeding it in little bites to each other, was one of the most romantic things she had ever seen. It didn’t sound like much, but just the simple act of sharing food, sharing a life for so long, caused a yearning in her. She wanted that from life, just something so simple—someone to share with, someone to be there to split a cupcake.
As the product of illegitimacy, she didn’t have much in the way of relationship role models. Her parents had been young, in their early twenties, and only dating for a few months when they conceived her. Her father hadn’t even stuck around to see her, and her mother’s family had all been gone before she was born.
She didn’t even know she had any family besides her mother until they had gotten news her father died in a car accident. Never having known him, she hadn’t known how to feel. The little girl who always dreamed of her daddy coming one day to pick her up and tell her he loved her, had been devastated. The girl who had never known what it was like to have a father had simply gotten on with her life.
Then word had come from her father’s mother, a request to know the child, a plea to spend time with her. At first, her mother was reluctant, but Maggie had been curious to know about the other side of her family. So, her mother had agreed to let her spend the summers in Peak Town. She had bonded with her grandmother, seen true love through Mort and Bonnie, and met Colton.
Maggie shook her head. She shouldn’t think of long term and Colton Denning in the same sentence. Why had she invited him to dinner? Oh God, she was going insane.
Opening the pantry, she searched for the macadamia nuts. They were on a high shelf, so she grabbed the footstool, but still had to stand on her tiptoes to get the bag. Being short sucked sometimes.
Once she got them down, she headed to the electric chopper to grind the nuts into a fine powder for the batter mix. It was one of Gran’s special recipes. She made it so much during her summers as a kid she had it memorized.
Dumping half the bag into the chopper, she closed the lid and hit the power button. Nothing.
She hit it again.
Still nothing.
Reaching back, she checked to make sure the appliance was plugged in. Yes. She hit the button again.
More nothing.
Frustration mounting, she wiggled the cord at the base. A small cracking sound and it popped off in her hand.
“What the hell?”
The cord had come clean off the base. Unplugging the device, she brought the broken end to her face and examined it closely. It was a clean break. Not frayed or worn out from natural wear and tear. No, more like someone had sliced clear through the cord and glued it back on, as there was some clear lacquer type material coating the end.
Who the hell would cut a cord and glue it back on?
“Jamie, could you come back here for a second?”
She didn’t want to accuse her best employee, but the part-time worker was her only employee. There was no other explanation. She hadn’t done it, and Jamie was the only other person who ever came back here.
The young girl came around back, the half-empty icing bag still in her hand. “What’s up?”
“Did you…accidently cut through the chopper cord and then try to fix it?”
Jamie looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe she was.
“No. Why the heck would I do that?”
No idea. But if it wasn’t her, then who the hell did it?
“Come look at this.” She motioned her over.
The teenager set down the icing bag on the counter and peered closely. “What the hell?”
“That’s what I said!”
Jamie took the cord from her hand, staring at it intently. “Uh, boss I hate to say this, but it looks like someone did this on purpose. It’s a clean cut, intentional.”
That’s what she was afraid of.
“There’s also something like”—short nails scraped the end of the cord—“glue? Someone cut the cord and tried to glue it back on? Why? Any idiot would know that wouldn’t hold a current.”
“Not everyone is a Harvard egghead,” she joked, but the college-bound girl was right. Even she knew that cutting a wire then gluing it back together wouldn’t work, and she had failed shop class. Twice. Whoever did this wanted her to know they messed with her equipment. “But who could have done it? No one is back here except for you and me. And why would they do it?”
“The delivery people are back here when they unload. Any of them got beef with you?”
The delivery people!
She had been fighting with her distributor lately. It was their mistakes, but perhaps they didn’t see it that way. Could they have gotten so mad one of them decided to mess with her?
“Maggie?” Big brown eyes held unease.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it was just a mistake. Maybe one of the delivery guys was unloading something and accidently cut through the cord. Then worried I’d complain to his boss and tried to fix it.”
That sounded plausible. Farfetched, but plausible.
“Yeah, that sounds about right. No one likes getting in trouble with the boss,” the young girl joked, but her eyes said she wasn’t buying it.
Neither was Maggie.
“I’ll just use the hand chopper for now. Go finish with the frosting and open the doors. People should start arriving soon.”
Jamie turned and headed back toward the front. Maggie bent and grabbed the manual chopper from a lower cabinet. This was going to suck. The manual chopper was killer on her hands. She transferred the nuts and worked the hand crank, grunting at the force she had to exert to crush those hard nuts into powder.
Forty minutes later, she had just finished frosting the macadamia cupcakes when Mort and Bonnie came in. The day was busy, as usual for a Sunday. She smiled and made small talk with her customers, but in the back of her mind, she couldn’t get the image of that cut cord to go away. Was it really an accident? Had someone sliced the cord somehow and then tried to cover it up? Or had it been done deliberately? Who would do that, and why?
The only thing she could think of was her distributor, Pansy’s. But it didn’t make sense for it to be them. Why would they do it? Because she was a complaining customer? None of this made any sense.
Between the unanswered questions and steady run of customers, the day passed quickly. It wasn’t until she closed up the shop and headed through the back to the indoor stairs to her apartment that she remembered Colton was coming over for dinner.
“Crap!”
Rushing, she headed to her kitchen, opened the fridge, and sighed in relief. There was a package of steaks left in there for Friday’s and Saturday’s dinners. Well, now they would both be Sunday dinner. Whipping up a quick marinade, she placed the steaks back in the fridge. She had some carrots she could steam with a little butter and dill.
Opening the cabinet, she spied her rice cooker. Some wild rice would top off the meal nicely. Getting it down, she went to plug it in, but paused, glancing at the cord. Perfectly fine, no cuts. She shook her head; she was being paranoid. Great. She plugged the cooker in.
When the water in the rice cooker was ready, she poured in the rice and set it. The oven was preheating and the carrots were peeled and ready to be steamed. Now, for a quick hop in the shower.
She washed, using her lavender soap. There was no time to blow dry her hair so she kept it pinned up and out of the water. Five minutes later, she applied a little bit of eye shadow and mascara, then glanced at her makeup. This was not primping. Simply getting ready like she would for any normal dinner with a friend.
Another glance at her makeup, and she grabbed a tube of Sinfully Sweet red lipstick and applied it to her lips.
Okay, she was primping.
Before she could get too angry with herself for gussying up for her not-a-date dinner date, “We Are Family” blared from her cell. She smiled, picking up her phone. “Hey, Lizzy, what’s up?”
“I fired his ass, and now I’m screwed.”
Maggie laughed at her friend as she wandered over to her closet. What to wear, what to wear? “I’m assuming you’re talking about your pastry chef?”
“Ex-pastry chef, and yes. He ran out of rum for the pudding flambé so he used Everclear. Everclear!”
She winced. “Oh no.”
“I thought he was going to burn the restaurant down! The idiot. Who substitutes Everclear for rum? Can you believe it?”
She stared at the open closet. How could she have nothing to wear?
“Maggie? Are you listening to me?”
“What? Oh yeah, sorry. He’s a dunce. You were right to fire him.”
There has to be something in here besides jeans and T-shirts.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, nothing. Just…getting dressed.”
“Maggie.” Her best friend drew out her name in a no nonsense tone. Lizzy always could call her out on her bullshit.
“Okay, fine. Colton is coming over for dinner tonight, and I have nothing to wear.”
“Wait, back that train up. Colton the cowboy is coming over for dinner?”
She flopped down on the bed and proceeded to relay everything about the weekend in the mountains. Her friend gasped and oooh’d through the story, making it far more dramatic in her Hollywood-raised mind than it actually had been.
“So, you invited him over for dinner to thank him?”
“Yes. Just to thank him. One friend thanking another. Nothing more.”
“Mmmm hmmmm.” Lizzy made the agreement sound far too sardonic.
“Really. I just want to thank him.”
“Yeah and spank him,” her friend replied with humor.
“Ugh, what am I doing?”
“You’re having fun, and it’s about time. Miles was a total D-bag, sweetie. Not all men are like that. It’s been over a year. Time for you to start dating again.”
“I am not dating Colton.” But her best friend was right about her ex, Miles, being a D-bag. With a capital D.
“But you want to?”
She couldn’t lie to Lizzy. “Maybe.”
“Then put on those black capris that make your ass look fantastic and the green silk top that brings out your eyes. He won’t stand a chance.”
She laughed, but found herself going to her closet to grab that exact outfit.
“And call me tomorrow morning with the details. Or tomorrow afternoon if it goes really well.”
She smiled, almost able to see her best friend winking and elbowing her. “Goodbye, Lizzy.”
“Goodbye. Oh, and Maggie?”
“Yeah?”
A wicked giggle came over the line. “Save a horse, ride a cowboy!”