Did I care when it came to Katy?
No.
“Riley Jefferson, you don’t take a bakery girl on vacation and then not let her answer questions.” Katy’s wrath rose, bordering irate. If I didn’t give her access to Cassandra soon, she’d probably start trying to break into my home.
I stepped in front of Cassandra and opened the janitor’s door. “She is not a bakery girl,” I said, staring down one of my closest friends.
Katy had her arms crossed over her chest. “Yes, she is.”
“No, she’s not,” I retorted quickly.
“What is a bakery girl?” Cassandra asked from behind me, but I didn’t have time to answer. Katy needed to be handled.
And she wasn’t alone. The blonde-haired, green-eyed woman, Vonnie, who’d been trailing behind her the last few months acted like she was memorizing the contents of the janitor’s closet.
“What are you two doing in the closet?” she asked, leaning forward to get a better view of the room. If she got any closer, she’d ended up in the closet with us.
“Nothing,” I answered before Cass.
“We know what happens in closets,” said Katy with an accusing tone and eyes that matched as she stared at me.
I walked out into the hallway, and Cassandra followed, still holding on to my arm. “I was just giving her a tour of the building.”
“And she needed to see the cleaning materials?” Vonnie asked, still trying to get a good view. I pulled the door closed the second Cassandra was safely out beside me.
I did not need any one of those women poking around and asking questions about what we had in the janitor’s closet.
“Yeah, I’m sure you were getting acquainted with the place,” Katy said, staring at me so hard it was like she thought she’d magically rip the truth from my brain.
“What’s a bakery girl?” Cassandra asked again.
That was an easier question to answer than any of what Katy or Vonnie planned to ask.
“The men in town have deemed any of the women who hang out at or work at the bakery as the bakery girls. We think they meant it to be derogatory, but we love it and have run with it. It’s a proud moniker,” Katy said.
“It’s also their name on the police radio because they get arrested so much.”
Cassandra’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell into a slight O. Just the reaction I wanted. She did not need to get mixed up with the bakery girls. They caused trouble.
“Don’t forget the fact we usually find ourselves in a life-or-death situation,” Vonnie threw in, adding the cherry on top to the danger sundae.
Cassandra leaned forward but didn’t drop her hold on my arm. “Arrested? Danger?”
Katy rolled her eyes and gave her friend a shut-up look. “Small kerfuffles here and there. Tabitha had a problem with an ex-boyfriend.”
“Who turned out not to be everything he said he was,” I said, trying to fill in more of the story while maintaining Tabitha’s privacy.
She didn’t like to tell many people the story of her past or what happened when she showed up in Pelican Bay. Honestly, the woman was lucky she ended up with Ridge Jefferson as her neighbor. Otherwise, things could have turned out very differently for her.
My words caught me a glare from Katy. “And Anessa, the owner of the bakery. She had a slight run-in with the previous renters of her building.”
“You mean when they tried to hunt and kill her after she found money behind her oven?” Anessa’s story was more widely known in town since it played out so spectacularly.
“Yes, if you want to gettechnicalabout things,” Katy said, emphasizing the word technical to let us know that she most definitely did not.
“That seals it. I can’t be a bakery girl,” Cassandra said, sounding like she considered it a sad revelation. She didn’t know I’d never let her become a bakery girl. “I don’t have any drama surrounding me.”
Katy’s expression fell into mock sweetness. “Oh, honey,” she said, reaching out to pat Cassandra’s hands. “Your brother is one of the most boring and normal residents in Pelican Bay. Hasn’t made a peep in years, but his house is now randomly broken into while you’re here visiting. That’s a mighty coincidence,” she said, letting us know she did not find it a coincidence at all.
