When the Cookie Crumbles by Virginia Lowell Read Free Book Online Page B

miffed. Now his chiseled features were tinged with red, and she noticed his jaw work as he ground his teeth. Maddie flashed her a concerned frown. Even her wildly curly hair had deflated.
    “Maddie dear,” Ellie said, dumping her baking items on the kitchen table, “what has happened?”
    Olivia noticed the Mr. Coffee was empty and started a new pot. She could tell this was a time for cookies and coffee.
    “Lucas just called his team off the mansion renovation,” Maddie said. She hesitated a moment, turning to Lucas to tell the story. When he said nothing, she added, “Paine Chatterley demanded that Lucas renovate their kitchen and put in all new appliances, free of charge.”
    “What?!” Olivia and Ellie said at the same time.
    Lucas sprang from his chair and leaned against the kitchen counter, his muscular arms folded tightly across his chest. “Paine said it’s the town’s fault the mansion was in such bad shape. He said that Harold and Sally’s will made us responsible for upkeep, in exchange for the use of the house as a tourist attraction after their deaths.”
    “That’s absurd,” Olivia said. “Updating the kitchen has nothing to do with maintaining a historical building. If anything, the kitchen should be left as it was a hundred years ago.”
    “Tell that to his lordship,” Lucas said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He isn’t letting the town show the mansionthis weekend, so I pulled my guys off the job. I wouldn’t care except…well, I’ve invested a lot of time and money in that restoration, and so has the town. Now it’s all down the drain.”
    Maddie hitched herself up onto the kitchen counter next to Lucas. “Here’s the deal,” she said. “Lucas agreed to offer free labor and some of the materials in exchange for the opportunity to do a video of the restored house, inside and out. He wants to expand his business. In this economy, a plain old hardware store can’t really survive. Plus Lucas still has some debt from his parents’ medical care.”
    Lucas’s shoulders slumped as his spent anger turned to dejection. “Some of the guys I recruited for the project, they were working for free, even though they needed to be out looking for paying jobs. They were all counting on me to get some new business out of this. They’ve got skills; I could have put them to work.”
    Maddie’s arm wrapped around his waist as she leaned into him. “It’s not your fault, honey. None of this is your fault.” She caught Olivia’s eye and mouthed the word “cookies.”
    Olivia nodded her understanding. She and Maddie believed in the power of decorated cookies to smooth social relations and sooth an aching heart, so they always kept a small stash ready for any such contingency. Olivia slid a tin off the top of the refrigerator and opened it. Inside were a dozen cookies, carefully stacked. She could feel the tension in the kitchen ease at once.
    While Ellie handed out cups of coffee, Olivia arranged the cookies on a large plate and passed it to Maddie, who selected two heart-shaped cookies with marbled pink and red icing. Lucas attempted a faint smile as Maddie aimed one of the cookies toward his mouth.
    The kitchen door opened, and Olivia saw Sam Parnell’s hawklike face appear. Not a welcome sight. Sam was a Chatterley Heights postal carrier with a fondness for gossip, and he wasn’t particular about accuracy. Hence his nickname, Snoopy.
    “I’ve got this overnight priority package for you,” Sam said to Olivia. “I figured it might be important for the celebration, so I brought it right on over. That clerk of yours, Bertha, she’s real busy. I noticed she’s all alone out there.” When no one reacted to his barb, he slid through the kitchen door and shut it behind him. “Anyway, she said you were all back here.”
    As always, Sam wore his United States Postal Service uniform, complete with hat, but he wasn’t carrying his mail bag. Olivia suspected he’d seen The Gingerbread House