Cinn full secrets, p.1
Cinn-full Secrets, page 1
CINN-FULL SECRETS
AUNTIE CLEM’S BAKERY
BOOK TWENTY-ONE
P.D. WORKMAN
ABOUT CINN-FULL SECRETS
life gets a bit crazy and a little dangerous for Erin and her friends ... I love this series as it never disappoints. There are interesting characters, intriguing mysteries, plenty of surprises, and a satisfying ending as justice prevails in each story. At the heart of the series, however, the brightest gem is a talented baker with a somewhat mysterious past who simply wants to see that everyone in her community is happy, healthy and well-fed.
KIM, GOODREADS REVIEWER
I truly love this series ... Another great cozy mystery with an intriguing plot!
ALICE HAZELBAKER, GOODREADS REVIEWER
Introducing Auntie Clem's Bakery Culinary Cozy Mystery Series Book 22: Cinn-Full Secrets, by award-winning and USA Today Bestselling Author, P.D. Workman — a delectable culinary cozy mystery novel that will have your taste buds tingling and your heart racing until the very last crumb.
Rolling in Dough?
When Simon hears about his wife’s recent windfall and comes into Auntie Clem’s Bakery looking for Adrienne, his estranged wife, Erin does all she could to protect Adrienne’s secrets.
But when she finds Simon’s lifeless body behind the bakery, convincing Officer Handsome and the rest of the Bald Eagle Falls police department that she and Adrienne are completely innocent will be no piece of cake.
Adrienne had always avoided anything to do with Simon's unsavory past, but now it's time to dig in and find the truth. Can they roll out the answer before they all get burned? The kitchen timer is ticking. Erin’s wits had better be as sharp as her cake knife.
With its tantalizing plot, mouthwatering descriptions, and surprising cinnamon twists, Cinn-Full Secrets is a feast for cozy mystery enthusiasts craving something new.
Don't let this scrumptious mystery slip through your fingers. Sink your teeth into Cinn-Full Secrets today!
Praise for the series:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “I just wanted you to know how much I adore this series. I can’t wait for the next one to come out ! I told my boyfriend that this series is my “Game of Thrones” and I don’t even know how to deal with my life while I wait for the next one!”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "It's a wonderful start and the cast of characters bodes well for future books."
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Delicious gluten-free baking, secrets and suspense - what's not to love?!"
Like baking mysteries? Cats, dogs, and other pets? Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling Author P.D. Workman brings readers back to small town Bald Eagle Falls for another culinary cozy mystery to be solved by gluten-free baker Erin Price and her friends.
Have your gluten-free rolls and eat them too. Sink your teeth into this sweet treat now!
Copyright © 2024 by P.D. Workman
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 9781774686751 (KDP Paperback)
ISBN: 9781774686768 (KDP Hardcover)
ISBN: 9781774686775 (Large Print)
ISBN: 9781774686799 (Lulu Paperback)
ISBN: 9781774686782 (ePub)
ISBN: 9781774686805 (Accessible Audio)
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To all of those in toxic relationships.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Preview of Muffin to Hide
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Also by P.D. Workman
About the Author
CHAPTER 1
All you need to do is tell me where she is,” Simon growled. “Come on, you can help a guy out.”
Erin shook her head. She continued to line up portions of cream cheese icing in tiny paper cups along the tray, deliberately avoiding eye contact with him. The rich, spicy smell of the freshly baked cinnamon rolls filled the bakery.
“Sorry, can’t help you,” she told Simon. As if she hadn’t already told him a dozen times. She would just keep repeating it calmly as if he were a child and, sooner or later, he would leave. At least, that was the theory she was operating under. She hoped that it would unfold the way she planned. She didn’t want there to be any trouble.
“You know where she lives,” Simon insisted. “Where she works. You know where in town she might be.”
Erin shook her head. “I don’t keep track of Adrienne, sorry.”
“Where’s the other one? Bella? She would tell me where Adrienne is. She knows that we’re back together again. You think you’re protecting Adrienne from something, but you’re not. We’re together; I’m just wondering where she is right now. I need to talk to her.”
Bella came out of the kitchen and stood back behind the counter with Erin. She was an older teen, still in high school. She had a brilliant business mind and wanted to own her own business after college. She was one of Erin’s most dependable workers and always came up with good ideas. She was slightly heavy, with wavy blond hair and a ready smile.
At least, she usually had a smile on her face. Today, she was obviously not entertaining friendly thoughts about Simon.
“You and Adrienne are not together again,” she told him icily, “and Erin and I are not helping you find her or talk to her, or passing a message to her, or anything else. Why don’t you go back to Las Vegas or wherever you were? Adrienne doesn’t want anything to do with you.”
“My wife is in Bald Eagle Falls, Tennessee, so I am in Bald Eagle Falls, Tennessee,” Simon said in a sharp, flinty tone. “And I’m not leaving here unless she and the kids are with me.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Bella told him flatly.
Erin would never have had that kind of confidence as a teenager. She hated confrontation and would do just about anything to avoid it. But Bella was a dragon, standing up to a man twice her age, protecting Adrienne and her children.
Erin had been worried that Adrienne would get back together with Simon. Despite their efforts to keep Simon from tracking her down over the past few weeks, he had met up with Adrienne in town a couple of times. Bald Eagle Falls was not a big place; it wasn’t that hard to find her if she were in town instead of at Bella’s family farm, or wherever else she and her children might be squatting now. Erin wouldn’t be surprised if Adrienne had moved her family deeper into the bush. Simon could find out from anyone in town where the Prost farm was if he knew that was where his wife and children were. People were always trying to be helpful and put families back together, even when you told them there was good reason to keep them apart. Friends and family members were notorious for feeling sorry for a wrongly done husband and father who just wanted to make things right.
They had looked pretty cozy when Erin had seen them together. Erin worried that Adrienne would take him back and put the children at risk. Adrienne had told Erin that she didn’t want anything to do with Simon, but her actions didn’t bear that out. It was obvious that she was attracted to him. They had been together long enough to produce several children—Erin didn’t know if all of the children were his or not, but at least a few of them were—so the relationship was a comfortable place for Adrienne to return to. Being with Simon would feel natural. It would be easy to be seduced by his lies and believe that he was now going to support her. He was a changed man.
Only he wasn’t. A leopard didn’t change its spots.
Adrienne wanted to believe Simon would support her and her children now. That he wouldn’t abandon them again, or do whatever other stupid stuff he’d done in the past. Adrienne admitted they had already broken up and gotten back together more than once. Erin was reminded of Adele, the gamekeeper who lived in the woods behind Erin’s house and helped to keep them free of trespassers. Despite Adele’s saying that she never wanted to see her husband again—and hadn’t even told anyone she was married when she had first moved into town—Erin had s een how Rudolph Windsor had still persuaded her to take him in. He was bad for her and had a criminal past, but that had not stopped her from allowing him into her life again. Though, of course, it hadn’t lasted.
Erin had her own history too. Would she have fallen back in with Brandon if he had shown up unexpectedly in Bald Eagle Falls and tried to woo her instead of stalking her? She would like to think that she would not have been tempted. She had lived with him out of desperation when she hadn’t had anywhere else to go. It hadn’t been a matter of loving him. She supposed that was the difference between her and Adrienne or Adele. It was a lot harder to resist a man you loved.
As far as Erin knew, Simon wasn’t a criminal, just a lowlife. Someone who had abandoned his wife and kids one too many times. Gathering what she could from Simon’s and Bella’s words, Adrienne had finally decided to be tough and kick Simon to the curb.
And he was desperate to get back together with her now that she had money.
CHAPTER 2
If you’re not going to buy something,” Erin told Simon, “please move on. Other people are waiting to be served.”
Simon’s small, black eyes flashed. He wasn’t going to be put off that easily.
“Buy something? All of these empty carbs?” He looked over the items on display in the bakery case.
It wasn’t like he was an athlete, keeping his body in pristine condition. He was on the short side for a man, with skinny arms and a gut. Not someone who worked out or watched what he ate.
Erin didn’t bother to explain or excuse the preponderance of carbs in the display case. It was a bakery. Simon had known that when he had shoved his way through the front door.
“What are these?” Simon pointed to the sample cups Erin was preparing.
“Cream cheese icing for the cinnamon rolls. These ones are dairy,” Erin pointed, “and these are vegan. Non-dairy.”
“Non-dairy cream cheese?” he scoffed.
“Not everyone has the benefit of being able to eat dairy,” Erin said evenly. “There are a lot of people who are allergic or intolerant. And they would still like to be able to enjoy their cinnamon rolls.”
“They are cinn-fully delicious,” Vic intoned from where she stood at the register.
Simon barely spared the pretty blond a glance. Most men would have at least given tall, slim, Vic a look of admiration. But maybe Simon had learned from Adrienne that Vic was trans, so he ignored her.
“All this stuff about everybody being intolerant or allergic to everything these days is just a crock,” Simon asserted. “Sure, there are a few people who have celiac disease or will actually die if they eat something, but that’s just a few people out of thousands. Everybody else,” he shook his head in disapproval, “they’re just being trendy. Pretending they are doing it to be healthy when they’re just being difficult.”
Wasn’t he the one who had just complained about all the carbs?
“This is a gluten-free and specialty bakery,” Erin pointed out. “If you don’t want gluten-free, dairy-free, or another special diet, then there isn’t anything here for you.” Erin looked at the clock on the wall. “And I think it is time for you to go.” Erin leaned to the side to see who was behind Simon, even though she knew very well who was behind Simon and didn’t need to be so dramatic about it. “Mary Lou, what can I get you today?”
Mary Lou stepped forward, so she was beside Simon rather than behind him. She looked into the display case, smoothing her pantsuit over her hips.
“I’m sure Joshua would like to try some cinnamon rolls,” she said. “The regular icing will be fine.”
“Great,” Erin agreed. “Do you want just a couple?” She knew that Mary Lou was on a budget. She wished she could do more to assist the family, but they wouldn’t accept any “charity.” Mary Lou also didn’t usually eat any desserts and was very careful of the number of calories she ate to avoid putting extra pounds on her slim figure. Joshua, Mary Lou’s son, and Roger, her husband, would eat one. But six or a dozen was not in their budget.
“Yes, two should do it,” Mary Lou agreed. “And a loaf of bread,” she pointed to the multi-grain-crusted loaf she wanted. “And… maybe a pizza shell. The herb one.”
Erin proceeded to serve Mary Lou, ignoring Simon, who didn’t move out of the way.
“Do you know Adrienne?” Simon asked Mary Lou.
Mary Lou looked at Erin, raising her brows as if she didn’t know how to respond to his question. Erin gave an infinitesimal shake of her head. Of course Mary Lou already knew not to tell him anything. Erin was confident that she wouldn’t.
“I’m sorry, no,” Mary Lou told him coolly.
“You don’t know who Adrienne is?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Simon didn’t believe it for a minute. “In this small town? Everybody in Bald Eagle Falls knows everyone else,” he insisted. “If they’re not actually related to each other. I know who you are. You’re the wife of the man who tried to—”
“Simon,” Erin interrupted, trying to avoid a painful topic of conversation. “Did you want a cinnamon roll? You really need to buy whatever you’re going to and get out.”
Erin hated to be rude. She didn’t routinely tell people to leave Auntie Clem’s Bakery, but she was tired of Simon and his antics and didn’t want him harassing all of her customers.
“You’re the only one new here,” Simon told Erin. “I know everyone else.”
“I’m not exactly new,” Erin pointed out. She had been there for a couple of years now, longer than she had lived in most places.
“You’re new,” Simon told her flatly, shaking his head. “Families like mine and Adrienne’s have lived on the mountain for generations. We are real Tennesseans. Living here for a year or two doesn’t qualify you to make any judgments about me or my family.”
“I’m not making any judgments about you or your family,” Erin told him, bemused. “And my family has lived here for generations; I’m the only one who has not. I don’t see what that has to do with anything. You’re in a bakery. Buy something and move on.”
“You can’t talk to me like that.”
There were increasingly restless movements from the other customers. No one had come to get in the middle of some domestic situation. Mary Lou gave Simon a disapproving look and walked past him to the register to pay for her purchases.
Erin took her phone from her apron pocket, tired of dealing with Simon. She tapped the screen a couple of times to call Terry.
That is, Officer Terry Piper.
He and K9 would be happy to get Simon on his way. They were probably bored with a quiet patrol day and could use some excitement.
“Erin,” Terry’s voice was warm, but also concerned. She didn’t normally call him when she was on shift at Auntie Clem’s. “What’s up?”
“I have a trespasser at Auntie Clem’s who is causing some problems, Officer Piper,” Erin told him, her eyes on Simon. “I could use some help.”
“I’ll be right there,” Terry growled. He terminated the call.
Erin slid her phone back into her pocket. She looked past Simon again.
