Page 14 of Poison Apple Crisp
Lily smirks. “Don’t listen to her, Evie. Naomi is as vindictive as they come. She’s just trying to make Lottie think you’re going to grow up and dance at that fancy club Meg works at.”
“Pfft.” Evie averts her eyes. “I’m not waiting until I grow up. In fact, I’ve already got—”
Carlotta’s eyes bug out as she threatens Evie with a single heated look, and Evie buttons up so fast you’d think she knew what the brunt end of Carlotta’s warped wrath could bring.
I lean in hard. “What have you already got?” I ask, but Evie is mute as a church mouse. “Carlotta?” I look to the twisted version of myself. “So help me, if you lead Evie astray in some way…”
“Settle down, girls,” Lily says as she lays down a platter of donuts that I fried fresh this morning, and the entire lot of us attacks them like donut hungry vultures. I scoop up the apple fritter myself. Thankfully, my nausea hasn’t bothered to hit yet this morning. And I’m hoping it’s over with for good.
“Don’t get Lottie all worked up,” Lily says. “All she does is cry, yell, and talk to herself when she thinks no one else is listening. I’m afraid the men with the big nets are going to come around one day, and it’ll be up to Meg and me to run both the Honey Pot and the Cutie Pie.”
I make a face. It’s true, though. Meg is doing a bang-up job managing the place while Keelie is on maternity leave, and Lily basically runs the bakery more than I do these days.
“Hey, I just thought of something.” Keelie perks up. “Lottie, if you have a girl, maybe she’ll fall in love with baby Bear and they’ll get married? We’ll be family forever.”
“Wearefamily forever,” I point out. “I’m your cousin, remember?” I couldn’t blame her for not having it on the forefront of her mind. We just found out a year ago.
Evie nods. “That would mean he was marrying his second cousin, or his aunt, or his grand something. Who the heck knows? And who the heck cares? They don’t call this place Hillbilly Hollow for nothing.”
“Evie,” I step in close, “I thought you liked Honey Hollow.” Prior to moving in with Everett several months ago, she was living the high life at a ritzy boarding school. It took her a while to warm up to our small town, and now I’m wondering if it was all an act.
“Oh, I do.” She gives a frenetic nod before biting off a piece of her cheesecake. “I’m going to be the queen bee of Honey Hollow High. This is going to be the best time of my life, isn’t that right, Carlotta?”
My lips part with horror. “Carlotta?”
Evie looks startled before clearing her throat. “Say, have you noticed that all the women Uncle Noah and Dad have in common have names that start with C? Cormack, Cressida, and now thisCokiechick?”
Naomi leans my way and starts to sing. “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.”
Carlotta gives her niece the stink eye. “Oh, hush, you. My Lottie Dottie here broke the mold.”
“True,” I say. “Besides, I don’t think Noah was ever with Cressida.”
The bell chimes as the door swings open and in strides Noah Fox himself.
Evie hops up. “Let’s ask him.”
“Noah.” I can’t help but smile at him, and suddenly the urge to cry hits me all at once, too.
“Hey, ladies. Hey, Lot.” He gives me a hearty embrace, and I take in the woodsy scent of his familiar cologne. “Just coming by to see what you’re up to today.”
The bell chimes again, and in walks a girl from the flower shop across the street holding a giant bouquet of two dozen long-stemmed ruby red roses.
“Lottie Lemon?” she calls out. “These are for you.”
No sooner do I take them from her than she bolts out the door.
“Oh my word,” I say, putting them down on the counter and reading the tiny pink card attached. “Lemon, my apologies. Everett.”
Every woman in the vicinity coos on cue before getting back to the donuts at hand.
Noah grunts. “So what’s he sorry about?”
Carlotta zooms over with a giggle. “I doled out a little solid advice last night at that uppity shindig, and it sounds as if Mr. Sexy took to it. I’d ask if you had a big blowout once you got back to the house, but those walls of yours are made out of paper. That part when he said he’d knock your socks off if you said one more word—woo-wee! It got awfully quiet after that. Well, with the exception of a few slaps here and there.”
“What?” I buck. “Carlotta, that did not happen.” Okay, so some of it happened. Everett said that mytonewas knocking his socks off. And that slapping sound? It was me clapping like a trained seal when Everett threatened to show me a damn good time—egging him on,daringhim to do it.
Carlotta was right. After a few heated words, far more heated things ensued. And, oh my stars above Honey Hollow, was it ever the release my body needed.