Devil's Food Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #14)(54)

“Well, I brought you cookies.” Hannah held out the bag of cookies she’d packed for Hugh.

“Hey! That’s nice of you. What brings you all the way out here, anyway?”

“Church work,” Norman said before Hannah could open her mouth. “We heard you were injured, and we wanted to make sure you had everything you needed.”

“Well, you sure came at the right time! Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. You’re not going to pray over me, or try to save me, or anything like that, are you?”

Norman shook his head. “It’s not that kind of church work.”

“We’ve got more visits to make, so we’d better go,” Hannah said, getting to her feet.

“Right. And don’t worry about a thing,” Norman added. “We’ll call Cyril and tell him what you need.”

When the door closed behind them, Hannah gave a huge sigh of relief. She waited until they’d waded several feet from the house, and then she reached out to tap his arm.

“Church work?” she asked with a grin.

“It is church work, in a way,” Norman said.

“Just how do you figure that?”

“We’re trying to solve Reverend Matthew’s murder, and it happened in the church office. If that’s not church work, I don’t know what is.”





Chapter Eighteen

“Ill help you bake,” Norman offered when they got back to The Cookie Jar.

“Okay, but do you really want to bake?”

“Yes. Ever since you showed me how easy it was to make popovers, I like to bake. I think I could be good at it if I follow your recipes.”

Hannah smiled. That was a compliment, and it deserved her acknowledgment. “How about starting with brownies?”

“That’s a great place to start! Is it okay if I make your Brownies Plus? They’re delicious.”

“That’s fine with me.” Hannah flipped through her sheet-protected recipe book and turned to Brownies Plus. “I think I have some Symphony bars in the pantry. Everybody loves those in the middle layer.”

Once she’d gotten Norman started with her standard-size bowl and pan, Hannah turned to the next recipe on her list. It was another bar cookie, and she couldn’t think of a single customer who didn’t like it.

“What are you making?” Norman asked her.

“Chocolate Euphoria Cookie Bars.”

“What are they?”

“Six-layer cookie bars with chocolate cookie crumbs on the bottom, semi-sweet chocolate chips next, miniature marshmallows on top of that, white chocolate chips sprinkled on the marshmallows, chocolate cereal layered on top with some milk chocolate chips over everything.”

“Wow! That’s a chocolate euphoria, all right!”

“You’d better believe it. I tested the recipe last week on Andrea, and she said that after eating only two, she felt like she was walking on air.”

“That’s a good testimonial.”

“Tracey’s is even better. She said her mother was in a good mood all day, even when she brought up the subject of a puppy again.”

“I think I should try one of those.”

“You got it. I’ll just assemble them, pop them in the oven, and we can try them when they’ve baked and cooled. And then I’ll help you with the Brownies Plus if you need it.”

Hannah grabbed the ingredients and several pans, and made short work of assembling the cookie bars. She put them into the oven, set the timer for twenty-five minutes, and turned to see how Norman was coming along.

“Done,” Norman said, gesturing toward his pan of brownies.

“You’re fast,” Hannah complimented him. “You finished at the same time I did.”

“But you made four pans and I only made one.”

“That doesn’t matter. I’ve been doing this at least four times longer than …” Hannah stopped speaking as Marge came into the kitchen with two empty cookie jars. “You need more cookies?”

“Yes. Everyone loves Lisa’s story. A couple of people have been here twice, and new people are coming in the door in droves.”

“What’s a drove, anyway?” Norman asked Hannah.

“Cowboys who went on cattle drives to take livestock to market were known as drovers,” Hannah told him. “I guess that means that the droves were herds of cattle.”

“Makes sense to me.”

Marge filled the cookie jars from the cookies on the baker’s racks and headed back out to the coffee shop. “I don’t want to miss this part,” she said. “It’s my favorite. Lisa’s really good today. Do you want me to stuff a dishtowel in the door so you can hear?”

“Yes,” Norman answered, and Hannah could do nothing but agree. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Lisa’s stories. It brought them lots of business. But she’d already found Reverend Matthew’s body once, and she wasn’t too keen on hearing it again.

“… knocked once, but there was no answer,” Lisa’s voice carried to the kitchen. “So our Hannah knocked again. Reverend Matthew? Are you in there? Hannah asked, but again there was no answer. So Hannah, whose heart was beating like a caged lion, turned the knob and inched open the door.”