Free Manic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 6) by Meg Muldoon Page B

I know that you were only trying to be nice earlier when you said for me to come at 8. Work at a bakery starts much earlier than that.”
    I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
    A teenager getting up this early had to be a damn sight rare on either side of the pond.
    It seemed to me that maybe I heard him wrong or maybe it was some sort of cultural misunderstanding.
    “So… you’re saying you want to get to work?”
    Ian nodded.
    “Well I’ll be,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “If that’s what you want to do, then I won’t argue. I’ll accept your offer gladly.”
    I held the door open for him and he stepped inside, nearly having to duck to get past the low overhang of the doorjamb.
    My quiet moment before the storm had come to an end.
    But that was okay, I reckoned.
     
    Because when it came to the Fourth of July this year, I was going to need all the help I could get and more.
     

 
    Chapter 16
     
    It wasn’t even 10 a.m. yet and the line was already clear out the door and beyond my view, meaning its end could have been anywhere between here and Rip Lawrence’s Back Alley Brewing on the far edge of town.
    The storm of the century, as far as Cinnamon’s Pies was concerned, had arrived. A storm that none of us had seen the likes of ever before. Not even during the Thanksgiving pie season.
    “I asked for the Moundful Marionberry,” a scrawny woman wearing an oversized, faded Hawaiian tourist shirt and wraparound sunglasses shouted over the patriotic brass music booming from the Main Street parade.
    She pushed her plate of half-eaten pie and melted ice-cream toward me on the counter.
    “This is some sort of mixed berry nonsense. Not the Marionberry I asked for.”
    I shot a quick look over at Ian, who had been the one to help the woman a few minutes earlier.
    It was the third such mistake he’d made in the last hour.
    “I am so sorry about that,” I said, shooting the ornery tourist my best smile before quickly wiping away the dribble of sweat that had tracked down the side of my face. “Let me get you a fresh slice of the Marionberry. On the house, of course.”
    “You know how long I waited in line for this?” the woman said, seemingly disregarding my attempts to make the mistake right.
    I took her plate.
    “Yes, I do know,” I said, getting her the slice. “And your patience is so very much appreciated.”
    I got her a brand new plate with a larger-than-normal slice of Marionberry and extra ice cream. I handed it to her, along with her money.
    “You have yourself a wonderful Fourth,” I said, forcing my smile so wide, my cheeks burned.
    “I’d rather just get what I paid for,” she retorted, turning and walking away, her tennis shoes scuffing across my dining room floor.
    Tiana looked over and rolled her eyes. And though it was a silly gesture, it went a ways toward making me feel better.
    I went back to ringing up customers. It wasn’t something I normally did, but we needed all hands on deck. And since most of the pies had already been made early that morning, I put the extra time I had into helping Tiana, Tobias, and Ian in the front of the house.
    “I’m sorry, Mrs. Brightman,” Ian said after coming back from the kitchen with a steaming stack of freshly-washed plates. “That was my fault. It won’t happen again.”
    “It’s okay, Ian,” I said, having a feeling that it would indeed happen again. “It’s your first day, and you’re doing really good.”
    He nodded, but he looked glum. As if he’d spilled a pot of hot coffee on somebody instead of harmlessly mixing up a pie order.
    “Why don’t you take your break?” I said to him. “You’ve more than earned it.”
    The line was long, but breaks were important. I’d always subscribed to what I called the Oregon Trail Logic when it came to my employees. Families on the trail in the olden days who took the Sunday Sabbath as a day of rest got to Oregon in the same amount of time, if not sooner, than families who hit