Hell hath no cookie, p.1
Hell Hath No Cookie, page 1
Hell Hath No Cookie
Twin Berry Bakery - 6
Wendy Meadows
Copyright © 2021 by Wendy Meadows
All rights reserved.
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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.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
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Majestic Owl Publishing LLC
P.O. Box 997
Newport, NH 03773
Created with Vellum
Author’s Note
Hi reader! Thanks for grabbing my book. I hope you enjoy the twins, Rita and Rhonda, on their sleuthing adventures. :)
If you’re ready to grab more books in the series, you can click below to view them all. :)
Twin Berry Bakery Cozy Mystery Series
Oh, be sure to join my newsletter to stay up-to-date with new releases and other tidbits.
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Happy reading,
Wendy Meadows
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
What’s Next?
More from Wendy
About Wendy Meadows
Chapter One
Rhonda was a little shocked but happy that Zach asked her to visit his Aunt Lula with him. Aunt Lula, Zach explained over a bowl of homemade vegetable beef soup, was in poor health and insisted she see Zach before she took a six-foot-deep nosedive.
Why was Aunt Lula insisting on seeing Zach before she died? Zach wasn’t sure. “Last time I saw Aunt Lula I was…thirty or thirty-one,” he explained to Rhonda.
“You’re my age, so it’s been a while,” Rhonda replied, staring into Zach’s handsome face and hoping the lovely pink dress she had put on was making her appear pretty. It was no secret, at least not to Rita and Billy, that Rhonda was hoping Zach would take their friendship one step further and ask her out on a real date instead of just “friendly meetings,” as Billy called them. Rhonda wasn’t going to make a fool out of herself and step out into the lava flow first. No way. Instead, Rhonda used dresses, new hairstyles, and enticing perfumes to toss subtle hints at Zach. So far, the hook had caught only air.
“I know,” Zach answered in a confused voice. He raised his eyes from his bowl of soup and looked at Rhonda. Rhonda sure was beautiful. The perfume the woman wore reminded him of mysterious moonlight stars mingled with bight, romantic walks on the beach. The perfume complemented Rhonda’s soft, glowing eyes and beautiful features the way a poet takes a pen and complements a gentle kiss with tender whispers of love. And the way Rhonda looked in the pink dress she was wearing made Zach imagine her standing under a pillow of roses. There was no way Zach would—or could—express his thoughts to Rhonda. I’m a failed lawyer working for a farmer…real winner, he thought and looked back down at his soup. “I was never close to Aunt Lula. The woman was always…a little strange.”
Rhonda saw Zach lower his eyes. Before he did, she witnessed doubt, humiliation, and defeat snatch his courage down into a drainpipe. Zach felt like a failure—and a loser—because he could no longer practice law. The majority of the money Billy paid him was delivered straight into the hands of a greedy court that insisted he pay for his ex-wife’s crimes, leaving Zach with a few pennies he carefully placed under his pillow.
Zach, Rhonda knew, felt he was in no position to begin a relationship with a woman—and, to be honest, he was right in drawing such conclusions. Rhonda wanted a stable, handsome man with a steady income to come charging into her lonely heart and rescue her. Zach was handsome, yes…but stable and financially strong…uh…no. But for some reason Rhonda didn’t completely understand, the wild horse Zach was riding didn’t scare her.
“Strange?” she asked, standing up from her kitchen table holding a Bugs Bunny coffee cup. She walked over to the kitchen counter to get a refill. Rita was over at Billy’s farm and she had the whole cabin to herself. “More coffee?”
Zach studied his Snoopy coffee cup and shook his head no. “I’m sorry to throw this at you on such short notice,” he told Rhonda, feeling like a bum wearing a green and white flannel farm shirt and a pair of work jeans. “It was really Rita’s idea.”
Rhonda stopped pouring coffee into her cup. “Oh?” she asked, feeling the warm kitchen that smelled of fresh pumpkin pies and coffee suddenly take on the odor of a skunk.
Zach nodded. “Rita said you had some downtime because the bakery was a little slow and that you wouldn’t mind driving me to Alabama to see Aunt Lula for a couple of days.”
“She did, did she?” Rhonda bit down on her lip. In her mind she saw Rita tying wedding bells to the back of an old 1967 Volkswagen convertible she had recently bought. “My sister seems to think all I have time for is to read my collection of Charlie Brown comics. She seems to forget that I have been with her on every single murder case—including our recent adventure in Maine. And I’m still trying to figure that case out. The old man that went missing in the cave has yet to be found.”
“Uh…if you’re busy…I mean…Rita assumed—”
Rhonda sighed. “I’m not busy,” she assured Zach. “The truth is the bakery has taken the form of a slow faucet leak right now. Erma really doesn’t need Rita or me hanging around baking pies that aren’t going to sell.” Rhonda filled up her coffee cup and walked back to the kitchen table. “Where does your Aunt Lula live in Alabama?”
“A town a little south of Huntsville called Grayston,” Zach explained and then remembered, even though he had been sitting in the kitchen for close to an hour, that he was still wearing his baseball cap. The habits of a single man quickly returned when there wasn’t a wife around to tell him to take off his hat. “Guess I better take off my hat…sorry.”
Rhonda watched Zach remove his hat and then run a hand through his hair. The poor guy looked tired and worn down. “Billy working you hard?”
“Work?” Zach asked. “Billy pays me good money to move some hay around his barn, prune a few trees, and work on some farm equipment with Jose. A two-year-old could do what I do.” Zach shook his head. “I know Billy’s being a real friend, and I honestly appreciate all he’s doing for me, helping me keep my head above water, but…”
“You feel lower than a snail being run over by a steamroller?” Rhonda asked.
Zach raised his eyes and looked at Rhonda. “Lower,” he confessed. “Sometimes I wonder if I should go back to trucking. The money wasn’t great…wasn’t bad, either.”
“But?” Rhonda asked, hearing an icy wind howl around the kitchen window like a curious eavesdropper desperately trying to hear the scoop. It was nearly noon, and the frozen day outside, clothed with deep gray skies and bare trees, didn’t exactly offer an inviting hand to Rhonda’s imagination. She had planned to stay inside all day wrapped up in her bathrobe reading comics instead of hurrying to get all fancied up for Zach, pretending that the reason she had got all fancied up was because she had a chore to run later on in the day.
Zach picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, and then looked down at his hands. “Rhonda, I’m not a trucker. To be honest, driving those big trucks always made me nervous,” he explained. “I was always in a hurry to get from one destination to another, losing sleep, counting weigh stations, trying to figure out how to use the back roads to make better time, worrying about my logbook…traffic.” Zach glanced up at Rhonda. “Driving a truck down a crowded interstate isn’t easy, especially with the way kids drive today. They speed up, cut in front of you. I can’t tell you how many times I almost—oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“Does to me,” Rhonda promised. “I can’t imagine driving one of those semi-trucks through the Atlanta rush hour.”
Zach shook his head. “It’s a nightmare,” he acknowledged. He looked into Rhonda’s eyes, saw an authentic kindness that warmed his heart, and felt his mind relax. Being around Rhonda made him feel comfortable and…what? The word Home floated into Zach’s mind. Zach had married his first wife supposedly for love but soon learned after the marriage began that he had really married for image and stature—an error that had nearly destroyed his entire life. But now he was sitting in a warm kitchen looking into the face of a beautiful woman who whispered into his heart…whispered…hope. But why? Why was Rhonda so special? The woman was a retired cop who owned a bakery, nothing special…right? No. Rhonda was special, and Zach knew it; the very heart beating inside of Rhonda’s chest was special.
“I doubt the drive to Grayston will be a nightmare,” he tried to joke.
Rhonda smiled, took a sip of her coffee, and nodded. “We’ll take the back roads,” she joked back.
“The back roads,” Zach agreed. Feeling his palms become a little sweaty, he forced his eyes away from Rhonda’s lovely face. “I was thinking we could leave tomorrow morning around nine? The drive to Grayston is a great stretch and we should arrive in good time.”
“Works for me,” Rhonda promised an d then asked: “Uh, are there any hotels in Grayston?”
“I think there should be one or two?” Zach answered. “Grayston is a small town but the last time I was there I stayed at a little hotel called the Banana Peel Inn. Not sure if it’s still there or not.”
“The Banana Peel Inn?” Rhonda asked, picturing a giant wooden banana. “You’re kidding, right?”
Zach blushed a little. “The hotel was started by a man who spent years working as a clown. If I’m not mistaken, his name was Michael Potter…Pratters…something along that line.” Zach took some coffee down. “Anyway, this guy was supposedly famous in his time and when he retired from the clown business, he went back to the town he was raised in and built the Banana Peel Inn.”
“Sounds like Grayston, Alabama might be a colorful little place,” Rhonda suggested and then laughed. “The Banana Peel Inn? Sounds like my kind of town.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Zach warned Rhonda. Rhonda was the type of woman who enjoyed jokes and even pulling a practical joke a time or two. She was bright, brilliant, and beautiful as well as charming and funny—Grayston, Alabama, on the other hand, was a drab little southern town that had one red light and a Dairy Queen, as far as Zach remembered.
“Well, we’ll see,” Rhonda assured Zach. “Don’t underestimate a woman’s ability to turn a gray rainstorm into a rainbow.”
Zach studied Rhonda’s eyes and then heard himself ask without being able to catch his mouth first: “Murder doesn’t bother you, does it?”
Rhonda stared at Zach, shocked at such a question. “I—” she struggled to answer.
Zach quickly put down his coffee cup and shook his head as if he were on fire. “No—I didn’t mean for the question to sound like that. What I meant was…I mean…in Vermont…you handled that murder case. Very smart.”
“Vermont was a circus,” Rhonda told Zach and rolled her eyes. “Rita and I struggled to help a little town that was beyond hope, and because we stepped outside of the rules, we became tangled up in a giant mess.”
“But the killer was…well, justice was served.”
“Not the right way,” Rhonda told Zach in a disappointed voice. “You know, just because Rita and I were cops doesn’t mean we hit a home run every time we step up to bat. We’re not perfect detectives, and we sure make some lousy hits sometimes. But somehow we seem to come out of each murder case alive. Maybe a little scratched up, but alive.” Rhonda forced a pretty smile to her face. “I’m glad all of that ugliness seems to be behind us…lost in the fog.”
“From what Billy told me, the murder case you and Rita solved in Maine was a hard bear to wrestle with.”
Rhonda sighed. “Zach, I spent most of my time wrapped up in a blanket coughing my brains out. Rita was the cop who tackled that case.” Rhonda bit down on her lip. “Billy wasn’t no slouch.”
Zach grew silent for a minute and thought about Rita and Billy. “I think your sister and Billy are going to end up married. Maybe not today…but soon.”
“I know so,” Rhonda said, allowing her voice to change from tired to excited in a flash. “Rita has completely fallen for that big old teddy bear. I can’t blame her. Billy is a prince.”
“Yeah, I guess he is,” Zach sighed. “The type of man I always thought was below me has rubbed my face into the dirt. I sure deserve it, too,” he assured Rhonda. “If I would have met Billy before I was kicked out of the courtroom, I would have considered him…mentally slow and…a burden on a civilized society. Why? Because I always judge people with my eyes and not my…well, not my heart, I guess you can say.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Rhonda asked Zach in a confused voice.
Zach shrugged his shoulders. “Because I’m jealous of Billy. I’m jealous of the way Rita looks at him…and the way he looks at her. Those two have something that I’ve always hungered for.”
“And what’s that?” Rhonda dared to ask, feeling her heart begin to race. Was Zach finally about to take a daring stance and move their relationship into a cozier corner?
Zach felt his thoughts return to his ex-wife. He saw a beautiful, cunning, intelligent woman appear before his eyes with a manipulative grin on her face. He saw the woman wave long black hair into the air and say “Together forever, Zach” as waves gently washed up on a tropical beach. “Together forever…that’s what she said,” Zach whispered in a bitter voice.
“What?” Rhonda asked.
Zach raised his eyes and looked into Rhonda’s beautiful face. Rhonda wasn’t his ex-wife, but weren’t all women the same? Of course not, Zach scolded himself…but as bitterness filled his heart, he wasn’t so sure. “Nothing,” he told Rhonda. He drained his coffee and stood up. “Look, maybe I should catch a bus and go see Aunt Lula alone.”
Rhonda felt confusion grip her heart. She slowly stood up. “I guess…if you want,” she began to reply but then read Zach’s eyes. The man was upset and hurting and needed a friend—not a romantic interest. “Nah, we’ll drive to Grayston together,” she quickly said and then smiled. “We’ll stop at greasy truck stops, get lost a few times, fight with a few banjo-playing crazy people, and then drop by and give Aunt Lula a big howdy.”
“Yeah…okay, sure.” Zach nodded and walked to the back door feeling like a jerk. He slowly turned around, looked at Rhonda, and felt his heart sink with guilt. “Rhonda, my ex-wife once told me that we would be together forever. She didn’t mean those words. Rita and Billy have never said those words to each other, but anyone with eyes can see they belong together forever. I guess…that’s all I mean.”
“I understand,” Rhonda assured Zach and then offered a tender smile. “I get lonely, too, and dream of having a husband and a family…a little girl and a little boy.” Rhonda waved at Zach. “I’ll be over to the farm bright and early to pick you up.”
Zach stared at Rhonda, waved back, and then walked out into the cold, gray day wondering if the sun was ever going to come out again. Rhonda began wondering the same thing. So much for a romantic morning—so much for romance period.
Rhonda hummed a song as she drove her Volkswagen convertible down a cold, rainy back road that was coated with a mixture of rundown trailers and houses that were—well—a mere step above the trailers. Zach glanced over at Rhonda and wondered how the woman could be in a good mood. They were lost and the cold rain was threatening to turn into ice at any second. On top of that, the heater was broken, and the interior of the car felt like an iceberg. But somehow Rhonda seemed cheerful.
“How are you not cold?” Zach asked, bundled up in a thick brown coat and wearing his baseball cap low on his head. “We’re lost…it’s freezing…and we’re both pretty hungry.”
Rhonda simply smiled as she focused on the rainy road. “One road leads to another. If you’re on a road, you’re not lost…just…out of place.” Rhonda turned her head, winked at Zach, and then focused back on the road. “As far as it being cold, well, I’m as warm as a polar bear in this thing.” Rhonda nodded at the thick blue coat she was wearing. The coat was thick enough to warm Antarctica. “I also have on my handy dandy blue muffler hat compliments of Billy Northfield. And these wonderful winter gloves, also compliments of Billy who, bless his heart, thought Rita’s and my birthday was last week. We didn’t have the heart to tell the big lug that we’re June flowers.”
Zach glanced down at the pair of brown work gloves covering his hands. The gloves were good for work but lousy for keeping a person’s hands warm. “I couldn’t find my gloves,” he explained. “Billy loaned me these.”
“You did seem like you were lagging when I arrived at the farm this morning,” Rhonda noted. “Tough night?”
“I barely slept a wink,” Zach confessed as he reached for a brown cup of coffee sitting between his legs. “I kept thinking about Aunt Lula and why she wants to see me.”
