Free Bossy Cakes: A Yellow Rose Cozy Mystery (Yellow Rose Mystery Series Book 3) by K. P. Hilton Page B

rolling slowly toward the runway.
     
    Betty’s knuckles were as white as bed sheets as she gripped the edge of her armrests. She had never enjoyed flying. She would have preferred driving to Florida, but her Explorer was having mechanical issues and she simply couldn’t afford a breakdown right now. There was simply no way she was going to miss a three-day cooking seminar with Johnny Dunbar, a man she had been watching on television for years. He was handsome, near her age, and one of the most popular celebrity chefs in the world. And when Brianna had heard her mother was going, of course she had convinced her to make it a week long trip, so they could take a vacation and hit the beach afterwards.
     
    The truth was, Betty needed a vacation. She worked every day of the week except for Sunday, and hadn’t had a vacation in over three years. She was really looking forward to the trip. There was just the matter of getting there in one piece.
     
    The plane reached the runway and turned slowly, and then it began to pick up speed.
     
    “It’s okay, Mom,” Brianna said, taking note of her mother’s face. Betty was biting her bottom lip, and her eyes were squeezed shut.
     
    “I know,” Betty said, repeating the phrase to herself quietly, just a whisper slipping past her lips. “I know, I know, I know.”
     
    The plane was speeding along now. Without warning, it tilted up and the wheels left the ground.
     
    “It’s just a cooking seminar,” Betty said to her daughter. “I don’t need to go. They can let me off.”
     
    Brianna laughed and looked to her left, gazing out of the window. “Uh, don’t look now, Mom, but we’re at least a hundred feet in the air, and not getting any closer to the ground.”
     
    Betty couldn’t look. She wouldn’t. Instead she reached over across her daughter and pulled the plastic blind down over the window.
     
    “Hey, I like to look out!” Brianna complained.
     
    “Keep it shut or you're walking to Florida,” Betty said. Her voice was enough to let Brianna know that there was at least a chance her mother would throw her out of the plane if she dared to open the blind again.
     
    “Fine,” Brianna said grumpily. She arched her brows in surprise and gripped her mom’s arm. “Oh no!” she said.
     
    “What?” Betty asked, opening one eye to look at her daughter.
     
    “I’m sure I left the water running in the bathroom.”
     
    Betty sighed. She knew her daughter had not left the water running, and it was just another thing for the poor girl to worry about. Between her daughter and the general notion that the plane could fall out of the sky at any moment, it was going to be a long flight.
     
     

Chapter 2
     
    Betty and Briana’s plane landed without incident, except for a small bout of turbulence that made Betty think she should have updated her will before going on the trip. The two women left the plane in a long line of people and waited for what seemed like years for their luggage to appear on the conveyor belt.
     
    The airport was massive. Both of the women were hungry, so it wasn’t difficult to convince themselves to stop for a quick bite to eat. When they'd finished, it was a short tram ride to another terminal, then out the front of the building where a sea of yellow cabs were waiting. It seemed like a thousand people were coming and going all at once, a stark contrast to the small town of Yellow Rose, Texas that Betty and Brianna were used to.
     
    Betty approached a parked taxi, but a large woman with splotchy red skin and big sunglasses shoved her out of the way and threw her bag into the open trunk.
     
    “Rude,” Brianna said, loud enough for the woman to hear, though she gave no indication that she'd heard the remark.
     
    “Over here!” Betty said. She took off at a half run, slipping in the flip flops she had worn for a comfortable flight. She saw an open cab and knew she wasn’t the only contender.
     
    “We’re coming!” her daughter