10. Lottie

LOTTIE

“ I want coffee,” I grunt as Lyla Nell and I enter the Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery. “ Real coffee,” I mutter to my sweet little daughter as I struggle to secure her to my hip. As of late she’s been using my big round belly as a slide and rather loving it, too. “And I want sushi,” I say, prompting Carlotta to laugh her head off.

“You’re not that big on sushi, Lot.”

“Well, I am now that I can’t have it,” I say. “I’ve been craving everything that’s on the naughty list.”

“The only thing on the naughty list you need to crave is Mr. Sexy. But then, judging by the size of your belly, you’ve had enough for a while.”

She takes off to the register and I crane my neck around at the place as I look for my mother.

The Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery has been my baby for the last few years and I love every last sweet little inch of it. Not only do the butter-yellow walls feel as if they’re giving me a hug, but there are branches that stretch across the ceiling strewn with twinkle lights that give the place an enchanted appeal.

Those branches just so happen to be connected to an overgrown resin oak tree planted next door in the middle of the Honey Pot Diner. I happen to be a partial owner of the Honey Pot along with my sister, Charlie.

Before our Grandma Nell passed away, she had the idea of floating the tree from the Honey Pot into the bakery, and considering the fact there’s an open wall between the two establishments, it seemed like a no-brainer.

I spot my mother sitting with her BFF Becca Turner, a sweet redhead who happens to be the mother of my BFF, Keelie, so I head on over. There are two highchairs set out between them, and one of them is already occupied with baby Bear, Keelie’s two-year-old son who just so happens to be noshing on an éclair, trying to peel it apart as if it were a banana.

“Oh, Lottie”—Mom takes Lyla Nell from me and lands her in the highchair—“Becca and I were just discussing how we might rectify last night’s fiasco. Ursula just ruined the baby shower.”

I take a moment to gape at the two women before me.

“Well, I’m sure if Ursula had her way, she would have stayed for cake.” A thought comes to me. “But if you did want to rectify it, maybe we could have a do-over. I mean, the gifts are still sitting in your conservatory. Maybe do another party in a week?”

If the killer was at the first party, who knows? They might just show up for the second. They must know that anyone absent, save for the deceased, would have the light of suspicion cast over them.

“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea.” Becca clasps her hands with delight as she says it. “We really need to wipe off all that bad juju lingering on those gifts as well, and I think another party is just the way to do it.”

The two of them begin to chatter amongst themselves a million miles a minute so I hand one of my mother’s croissants to Lyla Nell before making a beeline behind the counter.

The crowd is brisk this morning, the cinnamon rolls are disappearing faster than money in the U.S. Treasury, and the donuts aren’t doing so bad either. But the longest wait seems to be for the made-to-order crepes station which Suze is manning down on the other end.

I say a quick good morning to both Effie and Lily, a couple of my trusty employees.

Effie Canelli has been working for me for a few months and has been a godsend, despite the fact her uncle is a notorious mob boss. Effie has dark hair, coffee-brown eyes, and a sharp wit that’s a little dry in the delivery but lethal in the punchline.

Lily Swanson is a brunette stunner who used to be one of my high school tormenters, but she’s pretty civil to me now that I hand her some cold, hard cash every two weeks. She’s seeing Noah’s brother, Alex, and helping him raise his infant son, seeing that the biological mother is quasi out of the picture. And for that fact alone, Lily’s horns have turned into a halo in my book.

“How are you feeling, Lottie?” Effie asks as she hands a customer a latte and a scone.

“I’m feeling like I’m ready to have these babies. It’s not fair that Meg and Sam get to have their babies this month and I have to wait all the way until March. Of course, there’s Lainey who has to wait until February. But then, she’s always been lucky. She’ll probably have her little one this month, too. It feels as if I’ve got the gestation period of an elephant. And just FYI, an African bush elephant has a gestation period of twenty-two months. Noah informed me of that last week when I complained.”

“Men,” Lily huffs as she slides a box of chocolate crullers to a customer.

“Hand me one of those thingamajigs,” Carlotta grouses from her seat at the counter and I pull a cream puff out of the refrigerated shelf and land it on a plate for her. I’ve yet to figure out exactly what a thingamajig is, but each time she says it, I simply hand her the first thing I see. “Go ahead and have those babies, Lot. Don’t let that body of yours tell you what to do and when. In fact, pop ’em out right here. It might drive up sales. You could sell tickets for the live entertainment.”

Effie and Lily chuckle, but I’m still contemplating the ludicrous idea.

“I’d rather not traumatize my customers,” I say with a sigh. “Although a part of me wouldn’t mind traumatizing anyone if I knew I could hold a couple of happy and healthy babies today. I’m really done being a human incubator. Everett keeps telling me that he wishes he could take over, and boy, how I wish that he could, too.”

“Oh, please, Lot.” Carlotta laughs. “You know the rules. The men get all the fun and the women get stuck with all the work.”

“Not in Alex’s case,” Lily is quick to say. “Cormack ditched out on little Levi long before she was shipped off to a mental institution.”

It’s true. Cormack Featherby was a trainwreck far before she was court-ordered to an insane asylum for stalking me.

“And don’t get me started on childbirth,” Carlotta goes on. “The most men have to push out is the footrest to their favorite lounger on a lazy Sunday afternoon.”

“You got that right,” I mutter as I grab a raspberry jelly-filled glazed donut for the twins. Who am I kidding? This one is for me.

Lily huffs as she plucks a pink frosted donut with sprinkles off the shelf for herself. “Alex had the nerve to say he was exhausted after waking up with Levi last night. I mean, sure, the kid screamed like a banshee, but Alex only got up once. I got up six times, and I stopped counting after that. How am I supposed to look refreshed in the morning?”

Effie gives a dark chuckle. “This is exactly why I’m sticking to dogs. Sure, there are more yard brownies to pick up but far fewer midnight feedings that don’t include me. And to your point, Carlotta, if men had to walk around with a watermelon strapped to their stomach, they’d be crying like babies themselves.”

A laugh bubbles from me at the thought. “If men had to go through a fraction of the things we do, the human race would be extinct by now. They’d give up after the first contraction.”

“Nah.” Carlotta waves it off. “They would have invented some doodad by now that would do all the work for them.”

“Yup,” Effie agrees. “Like some sort of a manly baby vending machine. You press a button and a baby pops out.”

“Hey, I think we’re onto something.” I glance over at Suze as she carefully flips a crepe for a customer. “Any news with Suze?” I ask Effie and Lily. “Has she confided anything to either of you regarding the bizarreness that’s enveloped her as of late?”

Effie snorts. “You mean the fact Santa opted to forgo the lump of coal and left her a dead body instead? Nope.”

“Ah, come on,” Carlotta belches out the words. “Suzie Q probably asked Santa for a drop-dead gorgeous man for Christmas. The big guy just got his wires mixed up. You can’t try to make every kid on the planet happy and not lose your marbles.”

She has a point.

Effie shrugs. “Whatever mess Suze has stepped in, she’s keeping the stench to herself.”

Lily nods. “That must mean it’s really bad. And if I had to guess, she’s still in danger.”

“I’d guess the very same thing,” I whisper mostly to myself.

“Speaking of danger, rumor has it, you found another body.” Effie shakes her head as she says it. “You’re not working for my uncle as a secret assassin, are you?”

I shoot her a look for even going there. “If I was, I’d be rolling in millions.”

“One would think,” she mutters.

Lily nods. “I heard Francine offed the woman. Apparently, Francine worked for her and the two of them had been butting heads as of late.”

I gasp at the breadth and depth of gossip Lily just doled out without me having to lift a finger.

“Where does Francine work?” I all but shout.

Lily shrugs. “Beats me. Wherever that dead woman had a place to put her.”

Another swarm of customers walks in and both Effie and Lily take off to tend to them as I make my way closer to Carlotta.

“Where does that woman work?” I practically spit the words out, but before I can shake an answer out of her, a spray of blue stars sparkles outside the front of the bakery and a glorious, big, fat, furry polar bear materializes as he rolls around in the snow.