Wicked Whoopie Pies

  Wicked Whoopie Pies

  MURDER IN THE MIX 33

  Addison Moore

  Contents

  Book Description

  1. Lottie

  2. Lottie

  3. Lottie

  4. Lottie

  5. Everett

  6. Noah

  7. Lottie

  8. Noah

  9. Everett

  10. Lottie

  11. Lottie

  12. Lottie

  13. Noah

  14. Everett

  15. Lottie

  16. Lottie

  17. Noah

  18. Everett

  19. Lottie

  20. Lottie

  21. Noah

  22. Everett

  23. Lottie

  Recipe

  Books by Addison Moore

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2021 by Addison Moore

  Edited by Paige Maroney Smith

  Cover by Lou Harper, Cover Affairs

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This eBook is for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase any additional copies for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © 2021 by Addison Moore

  Book Description

  My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so I rarely see dead people. Mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety, aka dead pets, who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom.

  A dispute at the local church leaves someone in need of their last rites, and Lottie is caught in the middle.

  The mystery woman stalking Honey Hollow has been revealed, and Lottie suspects something wicked lies beneath the surface of that familiar face of hers.

  Lottie Lemon has a brand new bakery to tend to, a budding romance with perhaps one too many suitors, and she has the supernatural ability to see the dead—which are always harbingers for ominous things to come. Throw in the occasional ghost of the human variety, a string of murders, and her insatiable thirst for justice, and you’ll have more chaos than you know what to do with.

  Living in the small town of Honey Hollow can be murder.

  Lottie

  My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so rarely do I see dead people. Mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom. But right now the only thing I’m seeing is the entire congregation of Honey Hollow Covenant Church.

  It’s Sunday afternoon, and Everett, Noah, and I are standing up front just a few feet from the pulpit as I hold our two-month-old baby girl in my arms. It’s the beginning of May, the warm air from outside has seeped into the sanctuary, and the scent of new carpet from the latest renovation mingles with the copious amount of perfume in the room and lights up our senses.

  “Well, aren’t you just the cutest little thing?” Pastor Dave gives Lyla Nell’s hand a little wiggle. “Let’s welcome Lottie Lemon and her family with a warm applause as we close the service today with a special baby dedication.”

  The room ignites with an enthusiastic applause, but from what I can see as I squint into the murky-looking crowd, is that the most enthusiastic among us are women under the age of thirty. It doesn’t surprise me. They’re the same women who have been ogling the hot, single pastor for the better part of an hour. And as positive as I am that some of that enthusiasm has to do with the heart-stoppingly handsome men standing on either side of me like bookends, I’ve watched as the female masses have openly drooled for Pastor Dave since the moment he arrived at our cozy little congregation.

  Pastor Dave is relatively new in town, seeing that he’s only been here for about nine months, but his newness is usurped by a fact the women of this town find much more interesting—he’s single. And believe me, that little ringless detail hasn’t gone unnoticed by the unattached women of Honey Hollow—maybe all of Vermont.

  Pastor Dave had been preaching many wonderful sermons right up until three months ago when he stopped rather abruptly, and it’s been Pastor Cleary from there on out. So it was a bit of a treat to see Pastor Dave standing at the pulpit today.

  About a year ago, our head pastor stepped down and our congregation has been trying to winnow out a new one ever since. But with Junior Pastor Cleary at the helm, along with Junior Pastor Dave, the church has never seemed more content—that is, until it became clear we needed to make a decision between the two. Evidently, they can’t both be senior pastor.

  Lyla Nell coos up at Pastor Dave as if she were fascinated by his sharp features, his thick dark hair that sits over his head like a cap, and his dark eyes. She laughs and points up at him and the crowd melts just watching her.

  I glance out at the congregation, and despite the heavy floodlights pointed at us, I can see that just about everyone I know is here. I spot my mother, along with my bio mother, Carlotta, and all of my sisters, both the two I grew up with and the two I only discovered a few years back. I see Evie sitting with her friends.

  Evie is Everett’s sixteen-year-old daughter whom I’ve adopted as my own. Everett’s mother and sister are present and accounted for. Noah’s brother is here, too, and not too far from him are Noah’s absolutely insane parents—Suze and Wiley. They’ve been divorced for eons, and my own mother, Miranda Lemon, is now dating Wiley. A misfortune all on its own. The man is trouble. He was once actually married to Everett’s poor mother for five hot minutes before he bilked her for all she was worth then faked his own death. But he’s since resurrected himself and is taking up space in Honey Hollow—bilking my own mother for all she’s worth. It’s sort of a pattern with him.

  But the person who makes me look their way twice just so happens to look suspiciously like yours truly. I frown slightly as my own face stares back at me. The hair is darker, but that woman is a dead ringer for me.

  That woman would be Carlotta—Charlie Sawyer, my sister via my birth mother who, yes, also happens to be named Carlotta. Fun fact: My formal moniker is Carlotta as well, and I’ve passed along the carnage to my poor sweet daughter—even though she’ll forever go by Lyla Nell.

  Charlie has only been in my life for one week—or at least officially. I haven’t really seen her since the big reveal. But prior to that, she was becoming pretty proficient at stalking me. Nevertheless, a week has whirled by since our formal meet and greet. Every time I tried to get together with her she had somewhere she needed to be. Truthfully, I’m shocked she showed up for my baby girl’s christening this afternoon.

  “Lottie?” Pastor Dave leans my way with those dark chocolate eyes of his. “I’m afraid you didn’t hear me.” He looks to the crowd. “A touch of stage fright, I’m assuming.”

  The audience breaks out into titters on behalf of my nonexistent jangled nerves. Okay, so I’m a little nervous, but that’s only because I’m not comfortable having a spotlight on me—and the two men I’ll be raising Lyla Nell with. Believe me, I’m well aware of how this must look—to a room full of God-fearing people no less.

  Pastor Dave nods my way. “Go ahead and introduce the gentlemen standing beside you
.”

  “We all know who they are,” a female voice chirps from the back. “Hot Judge and Hot Cop!”

  A few catcalls erupt from the teen section, and I spot Evie sinking in her seat and rolling her eyes. Evie—Everly Baxter is a knockout, and she just so happens to be a knockoff of her father with the same jet-black hair and cobalt blue eyes. Evie is as smart as she is gorgeous, and she’s already giving Everett and me a run for our money in the parenting department.

  That whole hot judge, hot cop thing is sort of her fault to begin with. A few months back, she accidentally published a torrid picture of Everett and me on her social media site, and both she and her BFF thought they could fix the nightmare by adding the hashtag hot judge. Noah sort of earned hot cop on his own.

  “Right.” I clear my throat as I look to Everett. “First, I’d like to introduce you all to my husband, and Lyla Nell’s father, Judge Essex Everett Baxter.”

  Everett nods my way before kissing me on the lips and dropping a kiss to Lyla Nell’s forehead as well.

  “Hot Judge!” someone shouts from the back.

  Lord knows they’re not wrong.

  “Oh God!” a woman wails from the middle of the room somewhere, and she sounds as if she’s about to faint. Not an entirely unheard-of phenomenon when Everett is involved. It’s happened to women before in his presence.

  A robust applause breaks out from those same single women looking to mingle in his honor—and more to the point, with His Honor.

  I can’t blame them. Everett is tall and obscenely handsome with the aforementioned jet-black hair and cobalt blue eyes. His features are exceptionally comely, and his body is made of granite and put together in exactly the right way. He exudes monstrous levels of testosterone and manages to turn the head of every woman in a ten-mile radius no matter where he goes. I’ve even seen a few women drop to their knees in his majestic presence. He’s as serious as the sun is hot—ironically, he’s twice as hot as the sun—and he rarely ever smiles.

  “And to my left…” I say while bouncing Lyla Nell in that direction and she squeals, eliciting her deep dimples to sink in with her smile. Lyla Nell has dark hair that turns red at the tips and brilliant green eyes—just like her daddy. “This is Homicide Detective Noah Corbin Fox, Lyla Nell’s father as well.”

  I would have included the fact he was her biological father, but it sounds so cold. And the reason it sounds so cold to me is that’s how I’ve introduced my own biological mother, Carlotta, to the world ever since she’s come back into my life just a few years ago. And seeing that she abandoned me on the cold floor of the Honey Hollow Fire Department when I was an infant, I’ve never had a problem with the icy intro.

  “Hot Cop!” someone shouts as the room breaks out into another applause, this time just for Noah.

  I can’t blame them for that, either.

  Noah, too, is tall, handsome to a fault, and just like Lyla Nell, has dark hair that turns red at the tips, deep dimples, and eyes the exact color of a fresh cut lawn in springtime.

  The double doors in the back of the sanctuary snag my attention as something scurries across the floor of the foyer and quickly zips right out of my line of vision. It looked furry, with a black and white coat, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a skunk.

  My Lord up in heaven… Was that a skunk? My heart thumps hard at the thought of a skunk, of all things, bolting into the sanctuary and stinking up my baby dedication—quite literally. Trust me when I say, I’ve envisioned the things that could go wrong while we were up here, twelve ways to Sunday—again quite literally.

  Noah offers a dimpled grin my way before kissing me on the cheek, then kissing Lyla Nell as well, and half the crowd coos, and the other half gasps at the sight.

  “Oh, it’s okay.” I’m quick to offer up some comfort to those who appear to be dismayed. “Noah and I kiss all the time.”

  Another round of gasps circles the room, and this time it’s the majority of the congregation participating in the breathy endeavor.

  “She’s flaunting her sinful lifestyle, right in our faces,” an irate woman shouts from somewhere to our left. And try as I might to make out her face, her identity remains buried in the shadows.

  Honey Hollow Covenant is more or less designed to look like a mega church, only on much less of a mega scale, with its stadium seating and interlocking plush chairs and a raised stage at the front of the room. People come from neighboring towns to attend services here because it’s just that beautiful.

  “We know what goes on behind closed doors,” another woman shouts.

  “She doesn’t even know who the father is!” a man joins in on the verbal tarring and feathering, and both Noah’s and Everett’s chests blow up in size as if they were about to dive into a bar brawl.

  “That’s not true,” I say. “We had a paternity test just last week on live television. And, well, even though the host read the wrong name during the big reveal, I can assure you we very much know that Noah Fox is the biological father. But make no mistake about it, Lyla Nell is every bit as much Everett’s daughter.” My voice spikes with both anger and frustration as I say it. I can’t help it. I’ve been dealing with this bull from everyone in Vermont for the last nine months, and I’m running off two minutes of sleep. “The three of us are raising Lyla Nell together—just like we do everything else together.”

  The congregation lets out a collective groan just as my fingers fly to my lips because that’s not what I meant to say at all—or at least imply.

  Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have laid so much emphasis on those last three words.

  Maybe I should have opted to dedicate the baby in private.

  “You will be judged for this behavior one day,” someone calls from the back, and I can’t help but roll my eyes at that one because it sure as heck feels as if that’s happening right here and now.

  “Time out!” Carlotta shouts as she crawls over, steps on, and shoves out of the way an entire row of gray-haired grannies, along with my mother, my sisters, Suze, and Wiley. She stumbles her way up to the pulpit, plucks the microphone from Pastor Dave’s hand, and looks out at the congregation with an ornery look in her eye that almost always spells out trouble.

  Trouble for the world—regret for me.

  Carlotta, my aforementioned birth mother, and I share the same caramel-colored wavy locks, same hazel eyes, and same penchant for seeing right through to the other side of the heavenly veil. The only major difference between us is the gray hair and crow’s feet she’s got on me—and I’m not looking forward to catching up to her in that department. She’s far zanier than me or anyone else I know, by a mile, and I don’t plan on emulating her in that department either.

  “Lookie here!” Carlotta belts out the words like a punishment as she gives the crowd the stink eye. She’s wearing one of my old floral maternity dresses and has it cinched at the waist with a belt. Carlotta’s been helping herself to my wardrobe for as long as she’s been living with me, and that seems to be going on for sixteen decades now. “Which one of you ladies is innocent enough to cast the first high heel?” she growls. “I would have included the menfolk in that equation, but I’ve been around the block a time or two and I know what you’re capable of. You can’t so much as throw a pebble at these fine folks up here. Sure, Lot Lot is my kin, but I’m not doin’ her any favor by putting on a dog and pony show. I mean what I say.”

  Kin?

  For some reason, the more agitated Carlotta gets, the more country-fried she gets as well. She not only grew up in Vermont, but she spent a fair amount of time in Arizona. The accent is an anomaly.

  “Now look at these men,” she shouts so loud her voice reverberates off the walls. “Take a good look at Mr. Sexy. And take a good look at Foxy here, too,” she says as she calls them by the nicknames she’s gifted them. Okay, fine. Sexy was the nickname gifted to Everett by the baristas of this world, but they weren’t wrong and neither is she. “Who in this room could blame the girl for t
rying to trap not one but two men into staying in her life forever? Why do you think she dragged out that whole who’s your daddy thing for nine solid months and then some? Lot Lot had to dig her claws into them somehow.”

  “Carlotta,” I hiss as I shake my head her way.

  “Not now, Lot. I’m getting to the good part.” She waves me off and knocks Lyla Nell in the head with that microphone in the process. A horrible whoomp goes off from the collision and Lyla Nell gasps as her mouth squares out and she starts in on one of those high-pitched wails that breaks my heart to hear.

  “Good going,” I mutter to Carlotta. Honestly, the microphone merely grazed the baby’s head, but that sound was enough to wake the dead.

  Lyla Nell’s entire body seizes as she starts in on a shrill scream, so I do the only thing I know that will calm her down. I unbutton my blouse, fiddle with my bra, and get straight to nursing her.

  Another round of gasps lights up the room and it takes a moment to register that my left boob is on full public display, right here in the heart of the holiest structure in all of Honey Hollow.

  Carlotta pulls the mic to her lips. “In the event you’re wondering, she gets that rack from me.” There’s more than a touch of pride in her voice as she looks out at the murmuring crowd. “Now who here wants to poke a finger at my Lot Lot’s udder and accuse her of doing the nasty with two of Vermont’s finest? You would be right, but that’s none of your beeswax, now is it?”