Free Cupcakes and Killing: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Shoppe Mysteries - Book 2) by Cora Wilkins Page B

He’d been accused of the murder at the time and even charged with it, so that had thrown a bit of a spanner in the works, but it had been smooth sailing since then. He still lived in Boston, where his company was located, but he spent as much time here with me in York as possible….Except for this last week, come to think of it.
    He’d blown off our last two dates, saying something had come up at work. Seeing as I now ran two businesses of my own, I understood how hectic things could get, but it still stung a little that I’d gone from seeing him every couple of days to not seeing him at all for almost a week.
    I filled Kaye in on it, and she wrinkled her nose. “Hmm. Well, he’s probably just really busy with work, like he said. I wouldn’t think too much of it.”
    “Yeah, I hope so.”
    A while later, we left the Sweet Shoppe in the hands of two of our other new employees and then headed across the street to the cupcake store. I’d named it Kaye’s Cupcakes after Kaye seeing as she’d helped so much in running my first shop, and she’d certainly been thrilled at that. The store was painted a cream color on the inside, and we’d decorated it with white French-style tables and chairs along with pretty pink, red and purple flowers in pots along the windowsill.
    The cupcakes were especially popular amongst the younger crowd, and today I had several orders to fill for birthday parties and other such events. A lot of people I knew thought baking was just as easy as cooking a simple casserole; slap in the ingredients, give them a stir and maybe add in some extra sugar or salt if it tasted a little dull…and then they wondered why their cakes turned out flat in the middle or crumbled all around the edges.
    Baking was more like chemistry than anything else. The ingredients all worked together to create the perfect textures and tastes, as long as they were added in the right order and in the right amount. There was no guesswork or estimating like you could easily do when cooking dinner. It was a delicate balance getting everything right, and it took some trial and error to learn, but the scrumptious end results were always worth it.
    Today was busier than we had expected, so Kaye served customers out in the front end of the store while Tori helped me with all the baking in the kitchen, and a few hours later I was exhausted.
    “I’m about to collapse,” I said to Tori after frosting what felt like my millionth cupcake for the day. “I swear I’m getting repetitive strain injury from stirring so much of this frosting mixture.”
    Tori smiled and held up a pink spatula. “Go take a break! I can finish these. They’re for little Timmy Allen’s party, aren’t they?”
    “Yep. You’re a doll. I’ll be back in a bit.”
    I went out to the front of the store, where Kaye was finishing up serving two young ladies who’d ordered some of the cupcakes from the display case, complete with pale pink frosting and silver cachous.
    “Want to share a vanilla cupcake?” she asked, glancing at me as I sat down. “These ones at the front are going to go stale if they aren’t sold or eaten soon, and there’s still a few left.”
    “I won’t say no to that,” I said with a grin. “Ooh, grab the one with lavender frosting.”
    You’d think I’d get sick of eating sweet things after making them all day, but I had a sweet tooth that never quit.
    A few minutes later, we were both licking frosting off our halves when the bell tinkled.
    “Hello, dearies!”
    I looked up to see Mrs. Barnaby entering the store.
    “Mrs. Barnaby! I heard your news. Congratulations!” I said.
    She smiled, her cheeks glowing. “Oh, thank you…I’m so happy. And so lucky. Look at the size of this ring! Isn’t it just beautiful?”
    Kaye and I admired her sparkling diamond ring as she beamed.
    “Oh, wow. It’s lovely! So how did the whole proposal happen? Give us all the details!” Kaye said.
    “It was all so sudden. We went to Chez