Page 21 of How Sweet It Is

A customer comes in, and I slip into the kitchen. My biscuit muffins don’t take long to make, so I get out the ingredients. I decide to make a small batch, and I whip them up fairly quickly.

I put one on a plate, carry it to the office, and knock on the door. Amelia calls for me to come in. I enter the office and set the plate down beside her laptop.

She looks up at me. “What’s this?”

“I made you one of my famous biscuit muffins. I can grab some butter if you’d like.”

She looks from me to the biscuit and back again. “Wow. It smells delicious.”

I smile and rock back on my heels. Kiera was right. I’m so glad she thought about my biscuits. “Do you want me to grab the butter?”

She smiles at me. “No, it’s okay. I’m actually right in the middle of this calculation. I’ll eat it in a second.”

“Okay.” I back out of the room and close the door. She really did look pleased that I brought her one.

I walk to my counter and grab the muffin tin. As I place the muffins in the display case, Kiera walks over to me. “Did she like it?”

“She hasn’t tried it yet. But she said it smelled delicious.”

Kiera grins and clicks her tongue at me. “Nice.”

I slide one to her. “Thanks for giving me the idea.”

She snatches it and peels off the muffin paper. “Of course.”

I glance outside and see that same blue Corolla sitting across the street. I walk to the front window and squint, trying to see inside the car. There’s a man in the driver’s seat. He’s just sitting there. It gives me a creepy feeling, and I motion toward the window. “Was that blue car sitting out there when you came in?”

Kiera looks outside. “Yeah. Some guy was sitting in it.”

I peer out the window again, trying to make out the facial features of the man sitting in the car. Recognition hits me, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. It’s Rafe, sitting there watching my bakery.

Anger rises in me, and I pull out my phone and call my brother, Noah. He answers on the second ring. “What’s up?”

“What can I do if I think someone is stalking one of my employees?”

Kiera looks up from the register and mouths “Stalking?” at me. I run a hand over my hair and look back out the window.

“What’s going on?” Noah asks.

“There’s a guy sitting in his car out in front of my bakery. He’s been sitting there for at least an hour.”

Noah grunts like he can’t believe I called him because of that. “What makes you think he’s stalking one of your employees?”

“It’s Amelia’s cousin. Everything about him is fishy.” I feel a little bad saying that, since the only thing he’s guilty of is acting about as unlike a cousin as a person can act.

“Fishy how?”

Great. Now I have to say it out loud. “He was putting his arm around her the other night.” Yes, it sounds just as lame to my ears as I’m sure it does to Noah’s.

“Is he parked illegally?” I can hear the annoyance in his voice.

“No.”

“Then there’s nothing I can do. It’s not illegal to sit in your car on a public street or put your arm around your cousin.”

“So, he can come watch her at work, and that’s not creepy?”

“If he does something illegal, call me.”

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