The secret to a successful piecrust is not to skimp on the butter or shortening, whichever the recipe calls for. The key to a delicious crust is to not over mix the chilled water when adding the aforementioned ingredients to the flour. It is a delicate dance of well-timed, well-orchestrated ingredients that if done right will produce an amazing flaky crust that is guaranteed to melt in your mouth.

Some people choose to go for a run, get a massage, or even veg out and watch TV to help alleviate the stress in their lives, but for me baking has always been my solace. I’ve found that the ingredients need me to make a successful dessert a reality, and in a way I need them, too.

“You kissed him?” Lainey shouts with an undue level of excitement as she hops into her stilettos. My sister might work in a library, but she’s been known to glam it up on more than one occasion. By every definition, Lainey is the hot librarian.

Keelie leans against the baking counter, eager to hear once again all about that magical lip-lock, and I shoo her right back off. Thankfully, we’re in the rear of the Honey Pot’s kitchen, a safe distance from the prying ears around us. “Sorry.” She swipes a piece of a chopped apple from the mixing bowl, already drenched in thick, rich caramel sauce and moans as she bites into it. The entire restaurant is filled with the heavenly scent of warm caramel apple pie. “Of course, she kissed him. I didn’t raise no fool. That man is a force of nature to be reckoned with. She was simply showing him who’s boss.” Her lips curl, and I can practically see her undressing Noah in her mind’s eye.

“For the record, he kissed me first. And well, I didn’t want to be rude, so I kissed him back.”

The two of them sigh in unison.

“You’re both being ridiculous. It was nothing. It was just a kiss among friends, I guess.” It sure didn’t feel like nothing. My body still trembles just thinking about those oven-hot kisses we shared yesterday.

I shake myself loose from the thought. “Look, the Apple Festival is less than two days away, and I need to get these pies done and delivered by Tuesday. Holland called and said he wants the pies there early to help set up.”

Keelie and Lainey watch mesmerized as my fingers work slowly to lace the lattice over each and every cutie pie, and there are hundreds of them lining every surface area in the Honey Pot. I’ve only got a couple of ovens to work with, and, at that, it will take hours to bake all of these pies.

“Someone’s changing the subject.” Lainey puts down her purse for the first time in an hour and washes her hands to help.

“The subject should never be on me to begin with. Merilee was just buried hours ago, and her killer is still prowling the mean streets of Honey Hollow.”

Keelie scoffs at the analogy. “Please, there’s not a person who lives here who’s capable of carrying out an act like that. Have you considered that it might be a total stranger? Some crazed psychotic from the city coming in for a tour of the orchard? I spoke with my father. He said there was an uptick in foot traffic at the apple farm that day.”

“Your father still hasn’t crossed me off the suspect list.” I shoot her a sour look without meaning to.

“It’s a formality,” she over annunciates the word because she’s already repeated it to me a half dozen times.

Lainey stands across from me and ties an apron on. “So, who do you think did it?”

“I don’t know.” My mind swirls with the possibilities. “For sure I didn’t have a thing to do with it.” That long-departed orange tabby flits through my mind, and I give a guilty glance to both my best friend and my sister but don’t breathe a word. The last thing I need is for them to question my sanity. Lord knows I’ve done that enough on my own. “Mom got Eve Hollister to talk, and it turns out, it was Melissa Hagan, Coach Hagan’s wife. She’s pretty petite. I don’t know if she’d have the strength to plunge that knife in and out so fast and make a break for it. But then she did look fit. Coach Hagan was seeing Merilee. He all but confirmed it.”

“So strange.” Lainey tries to steal an apple slice from a cutie pie, and I bat her hand away. “I mean the fact you said Merilee potentially had two boyfriends.”

Keelie grunts, “The fact she had one and I have none makes me question everything. She was so angry and bitter all the time. Is that what men are looking for? Angry and bitter?”

“Nope,” a male voice rumbles from our left, and we look over to find a smiling Noah Fox. My heart thumps out a riot just for him as I smile back.

“Welcome to my kitchen, detective. We were just going over suspects and motives. I’m thinking Melissa could have been angry enough to do it.”

“I agree.” He leans against the wall and folds his arms over that enormous chest of his. Noah is pretty fit, too. It’s been mere hours since we last saw one another, and yet my mouth is already watering for more of those delicious kisses. “Anger can trump strength, I can assure you of that.”

That note crops up in my mind, but I submerge it once again.

“Then there’s Moose—Coach Hagan himself.” I think on it for a moment. “He’s determined to win on and off the field. He had that kind of a fire in his belly. Not to mention, his off-handed comment about people not being trustworthy still has me rattled.” I told them all about it. Lainey thought I should have reported that to the sheriff’s department right away, but I can’t help but think something isn’t clicking. “He’s got kids, though. I can’t see him throwing away his whole life just because he was scorned by a woman.”

Keelie waves me off. “Prison cells are full of men just like that.”

“She’s right,” Noah is quick to agree. “Then there’s boyfriend number two.”

Keelie shakes her head as she hurries to swallow down her next mouthful of caramelized apples. “Travis Darren? Naomi was wrong. I bet she mixed him up with Coach Hagan.”

Lainey holds up a finger. “I bet you’re right! Travis Darren could have been a code name for her real boy toy.”

I groan at the visual. “And then there’s—” I’m about to bring up one other name just as Noah interjects.

“Me.” He blinks a sad smile my way. “I just got a call. Captain Turner wants me down in Ashford in a half hour to interrogate me.”

“What?” the three of us cry out in unison.

“There’s no way,” I protest while struggling to remove my apron. “I’m coming along. You had nothing at all to do with this.”

“And that’s exactly why I’m not worried about it. And you shouldn’t be either. Stay here and bake pies. I’ll be back soon enough.”

“You can’t stop me,” I say, coming toward him, my fingers still fumbling to free me of the bird’s nest I’ve just turned my apron strings into.

“And you can’t change my mind.” He bows slightly toward Keelie and Lainey before waving his way out the door. “I’ll call you.”

“You don’t have my number!” I shout.

My phone bleats, and I head over to find a text.

I’m a detective, Lottie. I have my ways.

A laugh lives and dies in my chest. “He has his ways, indeed.”

I get back to the all-important task of baking, and before long, Nell is standing in our midst.

“Well, girls?” Nell casts those beautiful sparkling blue eyes my way when she says it. “A little birdy just told me there was a delivery next door this afternoon.”

“What?” I squeal so loud the head chef barrels over just to make sure an avalanche of apples wasn’t crushing me. “I didn’t even notice. How could this have happened right under my nose?”

Keelie gives a sly wink. “I made sure she didn’t set foot outside the restaurant today.”

Lainey offers a knowing smile. “And I made sure to be here for the big reveal.”

“Shall we?” Nell holds out her arm, and I thread mine through it as we make our way next door where a shower of light pours into the night.

A breath hitches in my throat as I look past the construction workers finishing up for the day, past the debris of boxes and plastic wrapping lying over the floors, and I can’t believe my eyes. In the back, I spot a bevy of gleaming stainless steel appliances as Nell leads us inside. The walls smell of fresh paint, glowing a butter yellow just the way I imagined. The refrigerated shelves are all more or less in place. And as we make our way to the kitchen, tears fall fast and furious as I take in the drop-dead gorgeous ovens, as I take in the size of the industrial mixer that is almost as tall as I am.

“It’s too beautiful to comprehend. I can’t believe you’re going to give me the run of this place.” I shake my head at Nell. “You won’t regret it. I’ll treat it as if it were my own. I’ll love this bakery as much as I love—well, Pancake.” We all laugh at that one, but it’s true and we all know it.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Nell pats her hand over mine. “But I’m afraid it will never open without one last thing, and it’s up to you to provide it.” She nods up at me solemnly. There’s something she’s saying with her eyes that I can’t quite grasp, something important that supersedes words, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. “It needs a name. And not just any name. A good one!”

Lainey and Keelie start shouting out all sorts of adorable monikers. Honey Hollow Bakery, Honey Sweet Treats, the Honey Jar Cookies and More, Honey Hollow Sweet Shop, Desserts First, Desserts to Die For—and I quickly veto that last one.

“I don’t know.” I look around the place. “Those are all great names, except the one involving death.” I shoot Keelie a look. “But none of them feel like this place.”

Nell pulls me in close, her sweet face inching toward mine. “I don’t want it to feel like this place. I want it to feel like your place. What means something to you, Lottie? I want this to be personal for you.”

“Personal.” I try to take it all in at once, and yet I can’t get my head to believe any of this is real. “I don’t know. This is all too wonderful for me. I don’t know anything about naming a bakery, Nell. In fact, my mind is so warped from baking all those cutie pies I can’t think straight. Everywhere I look I see a cutie pie. Cutie pie, cutie pie, cutie pie.” I blow out a hard breath at the place, feeling both hopeless in finding a name and undeserving of such a great honor.

“Cutie pie.” Nell feasts her eyes on every corner of this magnificent space. “I think it suits it, don’t you?”

Keelie claps her hands. “The Cutie Pie Bakery!”

“The Cutie Pie Bakery.” I try it out for size. “Oh my goodness, I think I love it.”

The three of them break out in cheers.

“But wait, we’ll be serving a lot more than pies. I mean, there will be cookies, and strudels, and brownies, and cupcakes, and macaroons, and bread puddings, and cobblers, and you name it I plan on having it fully stocked. And cake! There will be lots of cake!”

Lainey lets out a breath as she cocks her head to the side. “How about a smaller sign that reads fine confections, coffee, and more?”

Keelie gasps, “That says it all!”

“The Cutie Pie Bakery,” I say once again, this time with the hope that those words hold in them. “Fine confections, coffee, and more. I love it!”

The four of us jumble together in one long, tangled embrace, and I never want to let go.

It’s perfect.

An hour passes and Keelie gets to the business of bussing tables. Lainey went home to feed Pancake for me as I finished putting in another batch of adorable little cutie pies into the oven. But there’s not one ounce of me that wants to sit around waiting for those cute beauts to finish up. Instead, I head next door to their namesake again and make my way inside just as Bear and his cousin, Hunter, finish up for the day.

“It’s coming together.” Bear takes off his hat and shakes his dirty blond curls loose. Emphasis on the dirty. Bear has always had the mind and mouth of a sailor. Not that I minded once upon a time, but times have changed.

“It sure is,” I say under my breath, just trying to soak it all in once again.

Hunter slaps Bear over the shoulder. Hunter has always been Bear’s doppelgänger. If you didn’t know better, you would think they were twins. The two of us have been on friendlier terms than Bear and me. “This guy right here is making it happen for you, Lottie. There were three jobs before yours and he sped you right through to the top.”

My mouth falls open. “Otis Fisher! You keep surprising me.”

He gives a quick wink. “And I don’t plan on stopping.”

The three of us head out into the cool night air and they take off for home, but I can’t seem to tear myself away from this place. This is home, mine anyway.

The sound of furtive voices rising to the sky drift this way, and I spot two shadowed figures standing in front of the Busy Bear. One of them has on a long velvet skirt that catches the light of the streetlamp from down the way. I sneak across the street and tuck myself close to the buildings as I try my best to listen in. It looks as if Noah’s eavesdropping disease is catching.

I lean out from behind the wall of the florist shop, and the figures come into focus. I squint over at the woman facing me and gasp.

It’s Mora Anne!

A low and slow growl emits from the taller woman before she starts in again on Mora, and I recognize that Cruella de Vil knockoff as none other than her twisted cousin, Cascade.

“Don’t you tell me what to do with my money,” Cascade snips as she gets right in Mora Anne’s face, and I’m half-afraid a fistfight might break out. “I don’t need you, just like I didn’t need your sister. I have all the authority I need to pull rank. You can’t even keep this glorified box of ribbons opened. Why should I trust you to do something much bigger than you’ll ever deserve?” She stalks off, and Mora Anne growls out a scream of frustration. My God, all of that on the day of her sister’s funeral? As if she didn’t have enough. Of course, the funeral itself was private. Gary at the funeral home was at the Honey Pot two days ago and said it would be small and that under no circumstances was I to crash it. As if. Although, admittedly I had thought about it. I did, after all, want to pay my respects.

Mora Anne starts stalking her way over, and I try my best to press into the woodwork behind me, but since that’s not happening, I bounce right out into the sidewalk and bump into her.

“Oh, sorry!” I say, pretending I hadn’t even seen her.

Spying and lying, both horrible traits I’ve taken on since my life has turned upside down. But I’m not the one who buried a sister today.

“I’m really sorry about Merilee,” I say just above a whisper. “Heck, I’m sorry about everything. Is there anything I can do?”

Mora Anne scoffs, and for a second, I see Merilee there hiding in her face. That must be so painful to see the one you love in plain sight every day, and yet knowing you’ll never speak to them again. Not in this world anyway.

“Please. You’re not sorry. You’re just like the rest of them. You hated my sister, and you hate me.”

“Not true at all.” I press my hand to my chest, pleading with her to understand. “I wish I could have been there to comfort you today. I’m very sorry you had to go through that. She doesn’t belong there. She belongs here with us. I bet you miss her like crazy.” I bite down hard on my lower lip to keep from spontaneously bawling. “What was that ruckus all about? I know that was your cousin, Cascade. I met her the day I left the apartment.”

“Never you mind.” She pulls on a pair of long black gloves in haste. “I’m sick and tired of you, and I’m sick and tired of my own family trying to steal what’s mine.” She stalks off down the street, alone and angry, and my heart breaks for her just a little bit more.

Merilee is dead, alone and in a grave. Mora Anne is dead on the inside, alone and in an isolative grave of her own making. She’s so hostile and angry she can’t even get along with her only living relation. But then, I have met Cascade. She’s so mean she could slit your throat with just one look.

A breath gets locked in my chest.

And I wonder what else she’s capable of doing with a knife?