Page 20 of Erotic Temptations 2

Estell had handed out the aprons first thing, lining us up in her kitchen like we were on a reality show that nobody wanted to watch. Mabel’s said, “Bite Me.” Sophia’s made me think ofgangsters. “This Is How I Roll,” with a little cartoon rolling pin. Mine was sugar-pink and scattered with gingerbread men, plus the whole “Taste My Cookie” situation, which I really hoped didn’t count as an invitation.

Last night’s Froot Loops binge had been enough sugar to last me a week.

Estell had her radio tuned to the all-Christmas-all-the-time station, which meant Mariah Carey was out for blood before nine a.m.

The scents of cinnamon, vanilla, and cheap coffee practically smacked me in the face. If you looked up grandparent in the dictionary, the accompanying photo would be this kitchen—pastel Tupperware towers on every flat surface, a tartan rug hiding every potential trip hazard, and about a hundred reproduction ceramic angels staring down their tiny noses at you from above the cabinets.

Outside the window, fake snowflakes clung to the glass. Sophia had insisted we tape them up before starting.

The three of them had spent most of the morning wedging battery-powered candles into every available nook, so now the place looked like Santa’s private chapel if Santa couldn’t see well in the dark.

The smells were dizzying. Brown sugar. Orange zest. A weird note of black licorice from Mabel’s “ancient family recipe.” I’d tried to help, but mostly failed at, separating eggs. Watching the three of them go at it was like something out of aNational Geographicspecial—predator instincts, territorial posturing, and a lot of swearing about who had the best method for creaming butter.

“Step back,” Mabel barked, elbowing Sophia aside. “You’ll bruise the dough.”

Sophia made a huffing sound and reached for her Lysol wipes, smothering the counter in chemical citrus. “Don’t touchmy pizzelles,” she warned. “You have no idea the work that went into these.”

Estell had flour down her front and a glint of holiday murder in her eye. “You call those pizzelles? They look like broken coasters from a nursing home.”

“Ladies, please,” I said, but mostly to myself, because even NASA couldn’t have stopped this launch. My job was to scrape the sticky stuff out of bowls, wrangle the mixer when it threatened to leap off the counter, and risk my life taste-testing suspicious doughs.

You’d think, with four grown adults, we would only need one batch of cookies per person. I think we were up to thirteen. The table groaned under trays of snickerdoodles, crinkly chocolate things, jam thumbprints with the jam leaking out like arteries, and something that looked like Christmas threw up on vanilla bark.

Estell shoved a tray under my nose. “Spritz cookies. Try one. Tell me if my star shapes came out even.”

I ate one. Butter exploded in my mouth. “Uh, yeah. They’re stars. For sure. Tastes like victory.” I wiped crumbs off my lips, which tasted like seven sticks of butter, but I wasnotcomplaining.

Mabel wasn’t going to be left out. “Bite into this. Chocolate ginger. Be honest.”

I did. The ginger hit like a slap to the face, but then came the chocolate. “If this was any better, I’d need a safe word.”

She patted my shoulder. “That’s how you know you did it right.”

I popped the rest of it in my mouth, already feeling the cookie bloat creeping up my ribcage. My stomach was going to mutiny before lunch, no question. “Are we sure we need to bake more?” I gestured at the oven racks. “If we keep this up, there’s going to be an incident.”

Sophia cackled, sliding a tray out and setting down her pizzelles. “Suck it up, buttercup. Some of us only get a thrill out of Christmas once a year.”

Mabel grumbled about store-bought jam. Estell said something rude about Sophia’s hand strength.

They’d had me up at the crack of dawn to help haul decorations out of the storage closet downstairs. Now every inch of Estell’s living room looked like one of those home make-over shows got inside a snow globe and never escaped. There was garland around every shelf and curtain rod, glittered deer on the table, and a tree that leaned ever so slightly left, mostly because Estell liked it that way.

I flopped onto a chair, a little powdered sugar trailing down my sleeve.

All at once, the arguing faded into background noise, replaced by music and the scent of Christmas and the clack of Mabel’s ancient measuring cups.

Funny, how much I liked this. I never had this growing up. My grandmother died when I was five, and my parents liked schedules and polite phone calls. I had the chaos of three women putting their souls into baked goods and wrangling me into the middle of everything.

Warmth crept up behind my ribs.

Maybe the day would rot my teeth and add two new inches to my waistline, but I didn’t hate it.

Estell appeared with a cooling rack. “Judge these. Now.”

Oh hell no. An idiot I was not. If I told one of them their cookies were the best, I would get strung up by my balls by the other two. “I can’t. You’ll murder me if I pick wrong,” I said, clinging to my dignity with one blue-tinted fingernail.

Mabel’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t be a coward. Eat it.”

Sophia grinned. “Sweetheart, you’re about to get diabetes, but you’ll die giving us the truth.”