Bossy Cakes: A Yellow Rose Cozy Mystery (Yellow Rose Mystery Series Book 3) by K. P. Hilton Page A

of yours. Let’s hear them.”
     
    “I don’t worry that much,” Brianna said, annoyed.
     
    “Sweetie, in sixth grade you wouldn’t sleep in your bedroom because you saw a spider in there who crawled under the door and into your closet. For six weeks you slept on the couch.”
     
    “Some of the most poisonous spiders in America live in Texas, Mom. It’s not my fault you chose to live here.”
     
    “You know, my brother-in-law was bit by one of them – what you call ems – that Brown recluse,” the driver said from the front seat, turning his head so his eyes were off the road. The smoke from his cigar traveled more easily into the faces of the women in the back seat. “Had to get his finger taken off. I’m not kidding. Rotted right away; they had to save the hand by getting rid of the finger.”
     
    “See!” Brianna practically screamed at her mother, her voice almost comically high pitched.
     
    “Great, now you’re going to sleep on the couch when we get home,” Betty teased.
     
    “And the only other thing I was thinking,” Brianna said, “was I don’t remember locking the door to the shop, and I was the last one out yesterday.
     
    The shop was Betty’s Cakes, the store Betty owned and worked with a pair of helpers, plus Brianna, who often lent a hand. Betty had always loved baking, and when her husband had passed away five years earlier, she had found ways to pay the bills until opening the cake shop months earlier, as baking was something she loved and was passionate about.
     
    She had done okay so far, developing a loyal customer base. And Fred, one of her employers, was working on an online site where she could get orders from all over the country for smaller specialty items. Baked goods that she could freeze, then send along in customized packaging, where her clients just needed to warm the product in their ovens.
     
    “I was last out, remember?” Betty said. “Fred and George with run the shop just fine without us for a week.”
     
    “You cook?” the driver asked, turning again.
     
    “Yes, I own a bakery,” Betty said.
     
    “Whatya make?” the driver asked. “Them cupcakes?”
     
    Betty didn’t know what cupcakes he was referring to exactly, but she nodded and the man saw her in the rear view mirror. She was amazed by the fact that they hadn’t yet slammed into another car, considering the man seemed to never watch the road.
     
    “Man, them cupcakes are the best. You got any of them pink ones? Pink ones with white sprinkles?”
     
    “Well, we make a lot of cupcakes,” Betty said, and she glanced at her daughter, who was trying to hold in her laughter.
     
    “But the pink ones with white sprinkles, those are the best, let me tell you.”
     
    Eventually they made it to the airport, though not before learning about five other desserts the cab driver liked to eat. The man pulled their luggage out of the trunk and left it on the walkway in front of the main entrance, and Betty paid him before turning and grabbing her two bags. That had been her rule, two bags for each of them. One small enough to be a carry on, because she knew if her daughter had free reign she was probably going to bring half her wardrobe. Brianna had her own closet, a large chifforobe, and half of her mother’s closet. Not to mention she had a bad habit of borrowing clothes and losing them in her own sea of outfits.
     
    “Oh no,” Betty said as she turned to her daughter. “I forgot the tickets.”
     
    Brianna’s eyes went wide. “I knew it!” she said. “See? This is why I worry all of the time!”
     
    Betty laughed and fished an envelope holding two plane tickets to Florida out of her pocket. Brianna knit her brow and shook her head, a short light brown ponytail swinging as she did so. “That’s not funny,” she said.
     
    “It was pretty funny,” Betty said, turning and leading the way into the airport. Ninety minutes later, Betty and Brianna were seated and their plane was