Pancake Panic Read online

  A warm bout of laughter circles the table.

  Flip points to the young woman to his left, a brunette with short brown waves and eyes that glow like a crimson fire.

  “Lottie, this is my stepdaughter, Jennifer Norman. She’ll be moving to the city soon to join a dance troupe. I guess you could say this is the start of a long goodbye.”

  I look to the pretty brunette with the odd colored eyes. “Dance troupe? That sounds exciting.”

  She pulls a tight smile. “It’s not what I wanted. I was hoping for Broadway, of course.” She takes a moment to glare at Flip. “But since I’m flat broke, I had no option but to quit my private lessons and hop on the first goof troupe that would take me.”

  “Which city?” Everett asks with a polite nod.

  “New York.” She makes a face as she takes a sip from her coffee.

  I guess being so close to Broadway and yet so far from her dream leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

  Flip clears his throat. “And this is her mother, Lisa Alexander.” He lifts a hand toward the nearly identical brunette to Jennifer’s left.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say and she shoots me a look as if questioning if she feels the same.

  A thought hits me.

  Did he say Alexander?

  Wow. I guess that’s his ex-wife.

  That must be weird for Chrissy.

  Heck, it must be weird for everyone involved.

  Flip continues with the introductions as he points to a rather humble looking man with thin arms and frail features. His dark hair frames his scalp like a halo, leaving a bald patch in the middle.

  “This is Teddy Berman, my next-door neighbor. He’s a sommelier at Club Tropicana.”

  My smile quickly turns into a grimace. My ex-boyfriend Bear took me to Club Tropicana once. It’s a theme restaurant out in Leeds where they host a cabaret before they lure the entire restaurant onto the dance floor and teach you to shake what your mama gave you with the best of them. But unfortunately for Bear, he couldn’t hope to fake it till he shaked it and nearly snapped both our legs off in the process. Suffice it to say, it was a memorable experience, albeit one I hope to never repeat.

  “Nice to meet you,” both Everett and I chime in unison to the kind looking man.

  Flip’s chest expands as he glances to a woman in a pink sweater and short dark hair seated next to Teddy, but he points just past her to the final two people seated among them, one of which I know well. “And finally we have Chief McPhee and Orland Studebaker. Orland is Lisa’s friend.”

  Everett and I exchange an amicable hello with both of them.

  I’ve known Chief McPhee, better known as Scooter, for years. And he’s had the same dark hair and warm smile for as far back as I can remember. He started out right here at the fire department just before my father died.

  The man seated next to him, Orland, looks just a bit younger than Flip. He has a warm countenance with a square jaw, stalky shoulders, and there’s an air of familiarity about him.

  “Wonderful pancakes, Lottie.” Chrissy holds up a forkful of my fluffy delights and the rest of the table echoes her sentiment.

  The woman in the pink sweater smiles briefly my way and doesn’t seem to mind one bit that she was skipped over during the intros. I bet she doesn’t know Flip very well to begin with. But she’s a looker. Hard to miss with her dark hair cropped short in a stylish pixie cut and her luminescent pale skin. She’s beautiful. And now that she was passed over as far as the introductions go, she has an air of mystery about her, too.

  The entire table quickly gets back to noshing on their pancakes just as I give a quick glance to the entry and a breath gets locked in my throat.

  “What is it, Lemon?” Everett follows my gaze and is instantly apprised of exactly what has me unable to breathe, move, or think a single sane thought.

  Standing at the door is Detective Noah Fox, looking mean and lean and every bit the handsome creature his surname suggests. But as enamored as I am with what I see, I’m not so enamored with the two blonde bookends dripping off his shoulders. Draped on either side of him are Cressida Bentley and Cormack Featherby.

  And just as I’m about to frown at the egregious sight, the ghost of the man I loved as far back as I can remember walks through the door. His see-through flesh shimmers like a star, causing him to radiate a brilliant white light.

  “Daddy!”

  Chapter 2

  There are some people in your life that you can never get enough of—and for me, Joseph Lemon tops that wonderful list.

  “Lemon?” Everett sounds worried for me as I pull him along through the thick crowd crammed into the firehouse.

  I confess, I haven’t told a soul about seeing the ghost of my father last month. Not that I would. Only Noah and Everett are apprised of my gift to see the dead. Of course, Carlotta knows about it, but that’s because she’s the one that passed down the strange gift—which more often than not feels every bit like a curse.

  And not only can I see the dead, but as my powers grow so do the deads’ powers, too. For instance, they slowly garnered the ability to move things in the material world, a horrifying development if ever there was one. Then they gained the ability to speak. Yes, speak. Both dead people and long gone pets alike are now able to chat it up as often as they like. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to an animal speaking the King’s English perfectly to me, but, I’ll admit, it’s fascinating to witness.

  And just last month, the surly reindeer that paid me a visit was able to eat and drink alike—as in consume real food.

  It’s a serious game changer for the entire ghostly community—or at least as far as the hungry specters that are assigned to appear to me. But those fantastic phantasms at my mother’s B&B have no such dietary talent as of yet—and, believe you me, they’ve made their annoyance over the situation known on more than one occasion.

  “It’s my dad,” I whisper to Everett. “I saw him last month for a brief moment on Christmas Eve, and now he’s here again at the door standing in front of Noah.”

  We hit the entry, only to find Noah with his back straight, his lawn green eyes pinned to mine, and his lips still tight without a smile on them to greet me.

  But my father is nowhere to be found, and, just like that, my affect falls flat.

  Noah closes his eyes a moment. “I seem to have disappointed you with my presence.” His dimples dig in as he offers a wry smile. “I’m sorry, Lottie.”

  “Oh, Noah!” I wrap my arms around him tightly. “It’s not that at all. I’m so relieved you’ve come by.” His body remains rigid as he offers up a light pat to my back. It’s all so very cold and unfeeling compared to the warm reception he used to offer up without hesitation. “I just thought I saw someone else with you.” I take a moment to frown over at Cormack Featherby who’s standing less than two feet away, tapping at her phone.

  Cormack is a socialite gone awry, with straight blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a beauty pageant smile.

  Cressida Bentley, the girl who walked in with them, is a socialite as well—a socialite on solid gold Krugerrand steroids. She hasn’t missed an Essex-based beat and has already draped herself over her prime target.

  However, it’s Cormack who has caused the most grief in our lives.

  For a brief interim of time, Noah and Everett were stepbrothers before Noah’s father pilfered Everett’s mother out of a decent chunk of her money. And while they were living under one roof, Noah thought it was a good idea to swipe Everett’s then-girlfriend away from him. The girlfriend in question was Cormack Featherby herself—and she’s since made a reprisal in which she stalks Noah to no end.

  I glance down to find their hands conjoined.

  I guess at the moment, it doesn’t seem she needs to do much stalking at all.

  “It’s nice to see you, Noah,” I say coldly before turning and smacking into Cressida.

  Cressida Bentley is another blast from the ex-girlfriend past who seems to think Everett
doubles as a merry-go-round that she desperately wants to ride.

  “Pardon me.” I shake my head in haste as I bullet for the kitchen much to Everett’s protest.

  It takes all of the fortitude I have to navigate through the tight crowd and make my way into a far less congested hall where the shrill cry of an angry female echoes over the walls.

  My instincts take over and I peer in that direction, only to find it’s Lisa Alexander and her friend Orland.

  “And I told you I don’t have it,” she says, taking her hand out of his abruptly.

  They seem to be having a rather heated conversation, so I pretend not to notice and head to the kitchen, only to have my mouth fall open at the sight before me—and it doesn’t have a thing to do with preparing the never-ending stacks of deliciousness. My staff from the bakery seems to have the pancake production line more than handled.

  But I’m not focused on them. Instead, I’m staring intently at four rather disgruntled ghosts who are wildly out of their haunting element.

  “What are you doing here?” I hiss, ushering them all into the pantry nearby where I won’t look like a loon who is seemingly having a conversation with herself.

  The four glowing beings stare back at me, and each one has a glimmer of anger in their eyes. It’s Greer Giles, a girl about my age who was murdered last winter, her two-hundred-year-old boyfriend, Winslow Decker, who used to be a pig farmer right here in Honey Hollow, their quasi-adopted six-year-old daughter, Lea, and a black cat by the name of Thirteen.

  “You know darn well what we’re doing here.” Greer Giles is a leggy brunette with long dark hair and equally dark yet illuminated eyes that are currently glaring openly at me.

  “Yes, Lottie! You know.” Little Lea, Azalea if you want to get formal, but no one dares call her that, swings a silver machete in her hand. Lea, albeit small, is as terrifying as any ghost can get with her long dark hair combed straight over her face, her dirty pinafore from yesteryear, and her scuffed Mary Janes. Lea’s whole family was slaughtered at the site of my mother’s B&B hundreds of years ago, and she’s been haunting it ever since in an effort to avenge their deaths.

  “Well, I don’t know what you’re doing here,” I say, although I’m pretty sure I do. They’ve been irate with me ever since last month when the visiting spirit garnered the ability to wolf down a hot meal—not to mention all the whiskey that ghostly reindeer managed to guzzle.

  Thirteen hops into Winslow’s arms. Thirteen is the spirit of a black cat that belonged to one of the murder victims I was trying to bring justice to. But since that homicide wasn’t at all what it seemed, the powers that be allowed Thirteen to stay on at my mother’s happily haunted B&B.

  “We want food, Lottie, and we want it now.” Thirteen’s fur lights up in a spiral of onyx-colored stars when he speaks and his head twitches ever so slightly, giving him even more of an adorable appeal.

  Winslow nods as his dirty blond hair catches the light and gleams brighter than the sun. Winslow is handsome with his chiseled features and scruff peppered over his face. There’s a rustic appeal to him in general.

  Winslow sniffs in my direction. “There’s a ghost out there enjoying a short stack as we speak and we want to enjoy a short stack of our own, right there with him.”

  “What ghost?” I try to crane my neck past them, but little Lea floats up and blocks my view.

  “Don’t you worry about that ghost, Lottie Lemon. If I were you, I’d worry about the fact your mother’s bed and breakfast doesn’t have a single spirit on the loose in it any longer.”

  I gasp at the implication.

  “That’s right, missy.” Greer pokes her glowing finger right into my chest, and I don’t feel a thing. “We’re staging a protest. You get pancakes in our belly or else.”

  “Or else?” I gulp because I’m afraid I know exactly what else.

  Winslow nods. “Those tourists your mother hauls into the B&B will be mighty disappointed when there’s no one to knock the books off the shelves.”

  Greer nods. “Not to mention a swinging chandelier or two. We’re done, Lottie, finito—and so is your mother if you don’t figure this out, and fast.” Her voice takes on a deep, demonic tone and sends a shiver right up my spine in the process. She really is good at what she does. They all are. There’s no one better at the haunting game. The four of them are simply the best.

  And just like that, the entire lot of them begins to dematerialize.

  “Wait!” I call after them, but it’s too late. All I’m left with is a veil of ethereal blue fog in their wake.

  This is a disaster of poltergeist proportions.

  My mother has made it a regular practice to bilk tourists out of eighty dollars a pop as she hauls them in by the busload for what is now famously known as The Haunted Honey Hollow B&B Tour. Not to mention the fact, right after they’re done getting the socks scared right off of them, she sends the entire bus straight to my bakery for The Last Thing They Ate Tour, in which I regale customers with the final delicacy the current homicide victim in town happened to be munching on—and sadly each murder has somehow always included one of my tasty treats. Morbid, I know.

  I’m about to head right back out of the kitchen when I spot a handsome, unbelievably lovely man seated at the island filling his face with a stack of my fluffy pancakes and that stack looks anything but short.

  “Oh my God, Daddy.” I speed over and collapse my arms around him.

  Joseph Lemon stands up and pats my back, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear I could smell the scent of his spiced cologne. He’s just as tall and stately as I remember. His hair looks darker and his eyes shimmer in an otherworldly manner, but that warm smile and that tiny dimple by his left cheek, they are every bit the same.

  “Not yet, my precious little girl,” he whispers into my ear with his all too familiar baritone. “Not yet.”

  And just like that, my arms crash over themselves, holding nothing but air.

  I glance up in time to find both Lily and Alex staring at me with marked concern. Alex is Noah’s younger brother by a year, I think. They have the same winning smile, deep-welled dimples, and body wrought of steel. Although, Alex has always looked a bit more hulkish to me.

  My mouth opens to defend my questionable sanity, but I think better of it and head back out of the kitchen. No sooner do I come upon the darkened hall than I hear a male voice echoing inside it, this time saying something about luck running out.

  I turn to find Scooter, Chief McPhee, and Flip looking as if they’re having a heated argument, so I head back into the garage of the firehouse, only to stumble upon another set of angry looking men—Everett and Noah.

  The two of them are glaring at one another with a raging ferocity. They don’t even notice the fact I’m right in front of them.

  Everett steps in menacingly close to Noah. “Maybe if you’d grow up, you’d realize what a good thing you could have had.”

  Noah gives Everett a firm shove to the chest and the crowd around us gasps.

  “You’re the one exacting your revenge by way of the woman I love.” Noah doesn’t hesitate getting down to the nitty-gritty. “High school was a long time ago. Get over it. You can have Cormack, Cressida, or any woman in this room, but you came after mine.”

  Something stirs in me when Noah belts those words out, and I’m not thrilled that I loved how it sounded.

  The crowd gasps again, this time with my sisters, Lainey and Meg, being the loudest. Meg offers me a cheesy wink as she points to the dueling men and gives a thumbs-up. I can’t help but roll my eyes at that one.

  Poor Lainey looks about as green as Keelie did. And with good reason. She’s due to have her first child next summer as well.

  Everett gives Noah a shove right back and both Cressida and Cormack shriek with horror. Then the punches start flying and I scream, too.

  “Stop!” I shout at the top of my lungs, but it’s too late.

  Utter chaos breaks out, and soon Scooter is
on top of them, along with Lainey’s husband Forest and about fifty other men from the fire and sheriff’s department. But Noah and Everett prove unstoppable as they skid around haphazardly, kicking and punching one another while knocking over tables and chairs.

  Cressida tries to bat Noah away from Everett, causing Cormack to pull her hair, and before you can say disaster in the making, a girl fight has broken out, sending hair and earrings flying alike.

  It seems the entire kitchen staff has rushed out to witness the event, along with everyone in this building—but as for me, I can’t watch another minute.

  Since my demands for them to cease and desist have fallen on deaf ears, I bolt through the dark hall and straight to the nearly empty kitchen, save for a man slumped over the same stack of pancakes my father was enjoying not too long ago.

  A breath catches in my throat.

  “Daddy?” I shake my head as if refuting the idea because this man doesn’t look like him in the least ghostly bit.

  I offer the man a light tap on the shoulder and he tips right over, landing onto the hard vinyl floor with a thud.

  “Oh my goodness.” I jump back as I spot the blotch of crimson blooming over his white dress shirt. There’s a dark insertion in the middle where the bullet entered his body.

  It’s not my father at all. It’s Eugene Alexander, and it looks as if Flip has devoured his last flapjack.

  Eugene Alexander is dead.

  Chapter 3

  My screams don’t avail much, no thanks to the outright chaos taking place in the next room.

  But soon enough, after my lungs threaten to burst from the spontaneous aria I’ve all but belted out, Everett and Noah burst into the room with their hair mussed and their shirts untucked. Noah has a noticeable purple welt rising around his left eye and Everett’s lips are split on one side.