Page 33 of Twice Baked Risky Whiskey Cakes

In fact, Evie had Everett’s doctor do a home visit, and they prescribed a few days of bed rest.

And Lottie didn’t bother hiding her delight at that prescription. How the tables have turned—Mr. I Never Stop Moving finally forced to lie still while his very pregnant wife waddles circles around him. Poetic justice at its finest.

Regardless, getting Everett out of the picture for one night felt... wonderful. Necessary. Like coming up for air after being underwater too long.

Too bad there isn’t some specialist I could consult about making this a more permanent arrangement. Maybe someone with experience in, shall we say, removing moving obstacles.

I shake my head at my own dark joke. I’m kidding, of course.

Mostly.

A brisk knock interrupts my felonious daydreaming, and before I can respond, the door swings open. Eliza Baxter herself strides in wearing a long cream-colored coat, her dark hair swept neatly into a bun. Speaking of someone with a potential talent for problem-solving of the permanent variety—or at least that’s what the facts have determined.

“Eliza?” I stand, and she waves me to sit back down before doing the same across from me.

“Good afternoon,” I tell her. “What can I do for you?”

She frowns my way and sighs. “It’s not what you can do for me. It’s what I can do foryou.”

I inch back, amused and yet slightly alarmed. “What would that be?”

Eliza meets my eyes with her steely gaze. “I’m here to confess.”

LOTTIE

The bakery hums with the whir of the industrial mixer battling with the chime on the front door, along with the happy chatter of customers who can’t seem to start their day without a sugar rush by yours truly.

The scent of fresh cinnamon rolls mingles with the thick, heavenly scent of fresh brewed coffee, and it creates that signature Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery perfume that no department store could ever bottle. Although if it could, it would make a fortune.

I balance a tray of shamrock-shaped cookies with my forearm while my bump—now visible from space—keeps those sweet treats at a precarious distance from my body.

I make my way behind the counter and begin boxing them up for a custom order. Effie, Lily, and Suze are all busy as well.

Everything seems to be selling this morning, but those whiskey-glazed donuts have sold out twice already.

It’s sort of a known fact around here that if a body turns up with one of my sweet treats on or near the poor soul who lost their life, well, that sweet treat turns into an instant bestseller. And because of that fact alone, I can see why the conspiracy theories would fly about yours truly as well. Not only do Idiscover the bodies, but my desserts always seem to beat me to the punch.

“Good morning, Lottie,” Effie calls out while sliding a tray of chocolate muffins into the display case like the expert she is. “How is Bed Rest Boy holding up?”

I snort out a laugh.

Everyone was worried over the fact that Everett might have indeed been kidnapped, so I let them know exactly what happened in a group text last night.

“Poor Everett,” I say. “He’s taking it about as well as a soufflé with a slammed door. For someone who spent weeks lecturing me about taking it easy and staying off my feet, Everett has the bed rest tolerance of a toddler on Halloween night. He’s already threatened to go to the courthouse a half a dozen times, and it’s not even noon.”

Lily laughs as she puts the finishing touches on three shamrock shakes—two for a customer, and by the looks of it, one for her. That mountain of whipped cream sitting over pastel green vanilla mint ice cream is waking up my appetite—not that it ever went to sleep.

“Men are always the worst patients,” Lily insists. “My grandmother used to say a man with a cold thinks he’s dying, but a woman with pneumonia still makes dinner.”

“Amen to that,” Suze says with a nod.

“That’s the truth.” I nod, pulling another platter of my shamrock cookies out of the refrigerated shelves. “Thank goodness Evie came home. She has him properly terrorized into compliance. I caught her threatening to superglue him to the mattress if he tried getting up one more time. Thankfully, Evie doesn’t have any morning classes so she was able to ‘daddysit’ as she put it.”

“Like father, like daughter,” Suze quips from the register. “That girl is the only one who can tell a man like that what’s what. She must get that from me.”

Suze has certainly told a man what’s what before, but I’d like to think Evie gets her confidence around both men and women fromme—and, of course, Everett.

I bite back a response about what else Evie might have gotten from Suze—or rather her influence. No sense poking that particular bear before I’ve had my third cup of coffee of the day, even if it is decaf.

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