Free Charleston with a Clever Cougar: A Dance with Danger Mystery #6 by Sara M. Barton Page B

way out of the bedroom. “Shake a leg.
That wedding cake isn’t going to bake itself, Fanny Farmer.”
    When I came down, dressed and ready for work,
Doc was at the fry pan.
    “Over easy or sunny side up?”
    “Put a little sunshine in my life, Doc,” I
found myself saying. He glanced at me with a look of surprise
before giving me a grin.
    “You’ve got it.” As he set down the plate in
front of me, I realized that something had changed between us. I
had never realized how much I mistrusted men. Not just some men.
All men. Doc was the only man who ever called me on it. And he
wasn’t afraid to poke at the scab.
    We got to the shop a little before nine.
Carole was sitting at the cash register, talking to Karl Schindler
about the upcoming book talk at the library, featuring Mona Dubiel,
author of Thunder in the Valley . If I didn’t know better,
I’d think he had the hots for my friend. And judging from the rosy
cheeks on Carole, it might be mutual. Darlene was icing pastries at
the counter behind her and she gave me a little smirk as she nodded
at the pair of them. I hid my own mirth as I passed by on my way to
my tiny cubicle of an office. Tossing down my pocketbook, I slipped
my coat off my shoulders and went through the mail. Walter was busy
in the kitchen and Doc went to help him. I could hear them talking
as they worked. I noticed that Doc treated Walter with respect,
asking questions about why he did certain things that way. The
experienced baker explained the processes to the novice, and even
as I listened, I found myself learning a thing or two. There was
more to Walter than just a reliable employee who always showed up
for his shift.
    “What branch?” I heard Doc ask.
    “Air Force. I was stationed at Phan Rang for
a while, later Korat in Thailand. Air traffic controller.” They
chatted about how stressful the job was of monitoring the comings
and goings of the larger aircraft on the base, and how there were
many close calls back during the Vietnam War. “You?”
    “Iraq, Afghanistan. Medic.”
    “Brutal,” Walter responded. “Those IED’s are
bitch. We didn’t have to deal with that crap in my day.”
    “You’ve got that right, buddy. You had other
stuff thrown at you, though.”
    “Yeah, we did.”
    The men worked side by side as the morning
went on. I paid the bills, put in supply orders, and by noon, I was
ready to roast coffee to replace our dwindling supply of beans.
    “Doc, can I get some help with this?” I
asked, my hand on the roaster.
    “No problem. What’s the plan?”
    I went over all the details of how the
machine worked and what to watch for, and then I gave him a formula
for the two-pound batches we would roast over the next several
hours. He would add the green coffee beans in the proportions I
gave him and each batch would go through an eighteen-minute
process. If we did it continually for the next four hours, we’d end
up with about twelve pounds of beans, enough to last about two days
at Cady’s Cakes.
    “You know, you could sell your coffee in
little bags, probably make some decent money,” he told me after he
complete three rounds with the roasting machine.
    “Enjoying the process, Doc?” I had to laugh.
I could see he was getting into it. No doubt he was still in search
of that perfect cup of coffee. By the time we had the Henslacker
wedding cake in the oven, baking, Doc was even more
enthusiastic.
    “You could sell the beans, Cady, in little
bags with your store logo. You could probably turn a good profit on
it.”
    “The coffee is really just a sideline for
me,” I explained. “I’m really a baker, Doc.”
    “But still....”
    We had our back-up cakes ready to go into the
freezer by two-thirty. Normally, I didn’t ever freeze my cakes, but
I needed to hedge my bets for the wedding, just in case we faced
another disaster. If I didn’t need them, I would frost them and
sell them as individual cakes or slices in the shop after the
wedding. Tomorrow, we