As Kate McGuire pushed the rolling rack out of the big bakery oven, the smell of warm chocolate blanketed the kitchen.

No matter how many kinds of cookies she made, Tollhouse would always be her favorite.

Although peanut butter with chocolate chips ranked a very close second.

The shop bell rang. She stuck her head through the swinging doors that separated the kitchen from the store just in time to see grocery store owner Amos Tully peering into the bakery cases.

“Hi there Amos, do you need a few things for the store?”

“Wouldn’t mind a half dozen loaves of that sourdough – sliced if you can,” Amos said, his eyes darting quickly back and forth across the glass cases.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Don’t see any of the oatmeal with raisin,” he said.

“They’re still cooling in the back.”

The grocer’s face relaxed. “Oh, well, if they’re just hanging around, I might be able to take a dozen off your hands. Don’t want ’em to go bad.”

******

As Amos exited the shop, Kate returned to the kitchen. Suddenly, she heard a scratching sound. At the back door.

A recent break-in had rattled her. Even though nothing had been taken.

She cautiously opened the door. No one was there.

But on the landing — a single red rose.

Kate filled a tall glass from the cupboard, set it on the kitchen table, and dropped the rose into it.

The next time she ducked into the kitchen – for a half-dozen challah rolls for Annie Kim — she stared at the door. Finally giving in, she walked over and slowly opened it.

One red rose.

Kate stepped lightly out into the backyard of the Cookie House and looked left and right.

She was totally and completely alone.

Flummoxed, she put the flower with the first one and gathered a half-dozen rolls into a wax paper bag for Annie.

“By the way, when you came up the front walk just now, you didn’t happen to see anyone heading into the backyard, did you?” Kate asked the pharmacist.

“Nope,” Annie said. “Not even Oliver. And I was going to ask, where is the little guy?”

Oliver, had become the talk of the town – and its unofficial mascot – when he’d mysteriously appeared in Coral Cay as a puppy, just three short months ago.

And since Kate had relocated to the South Florida vacation village a few weeks ago, he’d been spending a lot more time at the Cookie House. Bakery owner Sam Hepplewhite feigned ignorance, provided the pup stayed out of the shop when other people were there – and out of the kitchen permanently.

And the half-grown poodle mix followed the rules. Most of the time.

“He must be over at Maxi’s place,” Kate said.

Flower shop owner Maxi Más-Buchanan was one of Oliver’s favorite people. And she’d been one of the first volunteers to take Oliver home when he’d initially shown up in Coral Cay.

“You should have seen him,” Maxi had recounted over coffee one afternoon. “He was just this little ball of wheat-colored fluff. He loved everybody. And everybody wanted him. But he’d accept their hospitality for a couple of days. Then he’d move onto the next one. Like he was staying in a string of fancy hotels. And he’s been that way ever since.”

Kate handed Annie’s parcels carefully across the counter. “I haven’t seen Oliver all afternoon,” she admitted.

“Moms made some of those beef dumplings he loves,” Annie said. “So if you see him, send him our way.”

“Will do,” Kate said.

Once the shop had emptied out, she walked to the fridge for a glass of cold lemonade.

That’s when she heard it. Again. At the back door. A persistent scratching. Followed by a strange rustling.

Kate ran to the door, flipped the lock, and threw it open.

Oliver looked up at her with large black eyes, a rose clutched softly in his mouth.

“Is that for me?” she asked aloud, bending to pet his silky flank. “Shall we put this with the others?”

Oliver’s eyes sparkled with mischief. If Kate didn’t know better, she’d swear he was smiling.

“You really are a sweet boy, you know that?” she said, scratching him behind one ear.

He followed her into the kitchen, and turned around three times before settling himself underneath the table.

When the phone rang, Kate grabbed the handset. “The Cookie House, this is Kate.”

“Either I’m losing my mind or somebody in town has some seriously sticky fingers,” Maxi said. “I’m out on the patio assembling this super special arrangement for a party at one of the resorts. But every time I go inside to help a customer, I come back and – poof – flowers are missing. These folks are paying mucho dinero for fifty roses for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. But I’ve counted it so many times, and I swear I only have forty seven. What kind of a person steals three roses?”

Kate looked over at the kitchen table where the puppy was dozing in the sun and smiled. She could hear the soft snuffling sounds as his downy chest moved up and down.

“I think your flower thief finally wore himself out,” Kate said. “But stop by for coffee, when you get a minute – and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

---

You can read more about Kate in And Then There Were Crumbs, the first book in the NEW “Cookie House” cozy mystery series, released July 30, 2019.

She’s a talented pastry chef—with a secret recipe for solving crimes. . .

WELCOME TO THE COOKIE HOUSE
Kate McGuire’s life was sweet in Manhattan before she lost her restaurant job and fiancé both. But sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, and soon she finds herself starting from scratch in the island town of Coral Cay, Florida. It has everything she’s looking for: sunny beaches, friendly locals, and a Help Wanted sign in the bakery shop window. Once she convinces the shop’s crusty owner Sam Hepplewhite to hire her, Kate can’t tie on her apron fast enough. Little does she know that trouble, like warm dough, is on the rise. . .

WHERE CRIMINALS GET THEIR JUST DESSERTS
Stewart Lord is a real estate developer with a taste for a different type of dough: the green kind. He knows that he could make a killing by purchasing the Cookie House from Sam, who flat-out refuses to sell. But when Stewart turns up the heat on Sam—then turns up dead after eating a fresh batch of Sam’s cinnamon rolls—all eyes focus on the town’s beloved bakery. When the police arrest Sam for murder, Kate must somehow prove that her curmudgeonly boss is innocent. Enlisting the help of a team of lovable locals, Kate sets out to catch the real culprit with his hand in the cookie jar. . .before someone else gets burned.

Purchase Link
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Meet the author
A Florida native, Eve Calder contends that cookies always taste better when you eat them at the beach.

All comments are welcomed.