Free Back for Seconds by Ginger Voight Page A

price.”
    “Sounds good,” Lanie said as she took the bag of goodies Lillian handed her. All three of them smiled and waved at her as she left the restaurant. Joely was dumbstruck as she faced them.
    “What just happened?”
    Both Lillian and Xander chuckled. “I think you just found your new job,” Lillian finally said.
    Joely ended up staying behind the counter all through the dinner rush. Saturday was one of their busiest shifts, and she watched how both Xander and Lillian interacted with the familiar customer base with ease. They took turns minding the register and greeting the guests. Joely felt woefully out of place, especially when either of them decided to use her as the selling point for the cookies.
    Most customers only needed to hear that she was Lillian’s daughter to fork over the cash for the insanely priced goodies. Many didn’t wait to take a taste, and all of those who did raved about how good they were. “I will be back for seconds!” they promised.
    It was a little after nine o’clock when they sold the last one. She did the math in her head. Four dozen cookies at four bucks a pop… and all for roughly eight hours-worth of work? If she could keep that up five, six days a week for a few months, she’d have enough to move out into her own place. Not only could she could get the apartment they wanted, she could choose the furniture to fill it based on quality over price. She’d actually even manage a savings account. It was security, and it was all in her hands. She couldn’t think of a better Christmas gift for her children.
    This didn’t even take into account all the other jobs that were piling up on the side. Whether it was a birthday party, baby shower, a wedding reception or a church gathering, by the time the night was over she had at least seven customers promise to call her in the coming weeks to buy dozens of these cookies for their very own.
    Her mother and her grandmother opened a bottle of wine which they shared between the three of them at one of the tables in the back. The Saturday night crowd had finally dwindled to a few customers here and there, which gave them all a minute to relax.
      “Some crazy day, huh?” Lillian asked.
    “Craziest day of my life,” Joely agreed. “I still don’t understand what the hell happened.”
    “You just started your business,” Lillian said with a smile. “Welcome to the funhouse.”
    Joely laughed. “I do have to say that it’s more appealing to bake cookies eight hours a day than chase after executives refilling their coffee and answering their phones. I mean, I was going to make cookies anyway.”
    “Exactly,” her Granny Faye replied. “They say that success is that moment when preparation meets opportunity. We gave you the opportunity, but you’ve been preparing for this your whole life. You haven’t worked in an office for twelve years, but you’ve been cooking every day. You’ve been priming yourself for this. Sit back and enjoy it.”
    Joely jumped as two strong male hands landed on her shoulders. “She won’t have time to sit back and enjoy it,” Xander teased. “We’ve got too many orders to fill.”
    She shuddered again as he used the intimate pronoun that linked them together in this endeavor. “I guess I should get back to the house and get started,” she started, but his hands kept her where she was.
    “Actually I was hoping to speak to you before you left, go over a couple of things, show you how we’ve set it up to work for the time being. If that’s okay with you.”
    Lillian rose from the table, stifling a yawn. “If you’re going to talk boring business stuff, then I’m going to take Granny Faye back to the house. Six o’clock comes awfully early in the morning.”
    “I won’t keep her long,” he promised as he took a step backwards so that the two older women could rise from the table, hug Joely and get ready to leave. Joely stood as well, standing off to the side, wringing her hand as she