Devil's Food Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #14)(9)

There was silence for a moment while Andrea listened. Then she said, “Okay, honey. I love you, too. See you tonight.” She clicked off her phone and dropped it into her purse. She took a sip of coffee, and then she picked up the list she’d made. “Bill wants us to keep an eye out for this stolen jewelry. The ring you heard me talk about is the most expensive piece, but they took a lot more. They’re sending him pictures, and I’ll make copies for you.”

Hannah felt like saying that people didn’t exactly get dressed to the nines to come into her coffee shop, and she was unlikely to see any antique rings worth bundles of money, but she was interested in seeing the pictures. “Maybe you’d better make copies for Mother and Carrie too, especially since that expensive ring is an antique. They can watch out for it at antique auctions.”

“Good idea.” Andrea glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “I’d better get going. I have to pick up the girls from school.”

Hannah was surprised. Her oldest niece, Tracey, was in the first grade, but Andrea and Bill’s youngest, Bethany, had celebrated her second birthday less than two months ago. “The girls?” she asked, turning to her sister. “Isn’t Bethie too young for Kiddie Korner?”

“Much too young. Janice isn’t taking anybody under three and a half, and they’ve got to be out of diapers. But I wasn’t talking about Bethie. Lucy Dunwright is hosting her cousin’s bridal shower tonight, so Karen’s sleeping over with Tracey. Grandma McCann’s making Karen’s favorite meal, and then they’re going to watch Bambi.”

“Better stock up on the Kleenex,” Hannah warned, remembering how Andrea had cried when Bambi’s mother was killed.

“I will. I didn’t want them to watch it. They’re only six, and it’s a really sad movie. But Grandma McCann says it’s practically a rite of passage.”

A rite of passage for a six-year-old? Hannah thought that was a bit of an overstatement, but as far as she knew, no first-grader had ever been harmed by watching Bambi. “Why don’t you do a double feature?” she suggested. “Show Bambi first and follow it up with Cinderella. All the kids love that, and it has a happy ending.”

“That’s perfect! Then they won’t go to sleep thinking sad thoughts. Thanks, Hannah. You really should think about getting married and having kids of your own. You’d make such a good mother.”

Of course Hannah sent Andrea off with cookies for the kids to munch while they watched the movies. Munchies were a necessity when it came to double features, and children were always hungry for snacks. Once her sister had left with a box of mixed treats including Molasses Crackles for Tracey, Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies for Bethie and Grandma McCann, Triplet Chiplets for Karen, and Lovely Lemon Cookie Bars for Andrea, Hannah cleaned up the kitchen, removed the pans of Butterscotch Bonanza Bars from the oven when her timer sounded, sat down at the workstation with a fresh cup of coffee, and thought about what her sister had said.

Andrea had hit the nail on the head when it came to Hannah’s dilemma. She wanted children, she’d always wanted children, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to get married. And if she did decide to get married, who would it be? She had two choices for a husband. One was Mike Kingston, chief detective at the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Department, and the other was Norman Rhodes, the town dentist. The way things stood right now, neither choice was perfect.

Mike wasn’t good husband material, and he was the first to admit it. He had a roving eye, and Hannah knew she’d always wonder if she was his only love. And then there was Norman, who’d been the clear choice two months ago. But things had changed and she was beginning to have doubts about him.

Hannah was well aware of the fact that she could be a single mother, but that wasn’t her cup of tea. She liked the concept of the nuclear family, and she believed that, if at all possible, children should have both a father and a mother. Extended family was even better. She wanted her children to know their grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles.

Last year she’d almost made a choice. Spending the night at Norman’s house, the house they’d designed together for a contest, had been a huge deciding factor. It hadn’t been romance, not that night. She’d been so exhausted by chasing down leads in Ronni Ward’s murder that Norman had made a unilateral decision and informed her that he wouldn’t let her drive home. He’d given her his bedroom, and in the morning, he’d cooked an amazing breakfast for her using her favorite recipe for popovers.

In moments of levity, Hannah admitted that the breakfast might have been the part that tipped the scales in Norman’s favor. No man except the cook at the Corner Tavern had ever made breakfast for her before. And then, just as she was seriously considering accepting Norman’s standing proposal, he’d dropped the bombshell.

The incendiary device had a name, and it had first appeared at one of Delores’s brunches at the Lake Eden Inn. Its name was Doctor Beverly Thorndike, Norman’s former fiancée, and she was a perfect size three with the high cheekbones and gorgeous face of a major starlet. Norman had lobbed the grenade into their midst by introducing her as his new partner, and Hannah’s dream of a happy and secure family life as his wife had exploded like a popped soap bubble.

And now Doctor Bev, as everyone called her, was here in Lake Eden, working with Norman at the Rhodes Dental Clinic and living in an apartment at Lake Eden’s upscale apartment complex, The Oaks. She’d moved here in January, and everyone in town seemed to love her…everyone except Hannah. Even Hannah’s own niece, Tracey, thought Doctor Bev was wonderful.