by Maisy Morgan
Sweets Shop Cozy Mysteries Box Set
Maisy Morgan
© Copyright 2019 by Maisy Morgan - All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document by either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
Contents
Sweet Revenge
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Key Lime Killer
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Fudge & Murder
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Sweet & Deadly Endings
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Thank you!
About the Author
Sweet Revenge
Sweets Shop Cozy Mysteries Book One
Book Description
The pastor did what?!?! And who killed him?
After retiring from being a famous investigative reporter in LA, Mary is following her dreams of opening a sweets shop in the small southern town of Brooks, Georgia. What she didn’t plan on was bringing Tripp, her less than thrilled fourteen-year-old grandson, with her.
Soon after their arrival, things start happening fast. Tripp gets attacked by a cat named Sweet Feet. The town reveals some of it’s deep, dark secrets. Then Mary gets asked out on a date by Preston, a local police officer. But halfway through the date, they get interrupted…by a murder.
Turns out Mary and Preston make quite the detective duo. Even Tripp gets in on the detective work by figuring out a key piece of evidence. But now he’s in danger.
Will they get to Tripp in time? And how does Mary get that rainbow cake to taste so darn good?
Chapter One
Mary Hopkins was not a woman to be trifled with. She was far from your typical grandmother. For one thing, she really didn’t consider herself to look like one. She was only fifty-two years old, and while she had retired from her job as a news reporter, she was hardly one to simply lay back and enjoy retirement. Less than a month after leaving her old job, she had grown rapidly discontent. Now, she stood outside the sight of her future business—Lily Pad Snacks.
“Uhgg!” she heard a familiar sounding grunt behind her.
Mary spun around to see Tripp struggling with a large box that he was trying to pull out of the backseat of her Ford Escape. “Easy, Tripp!” Mary chastised him a bit, hurrying over to the fourteen-year-old teenager whom she would not put past to drop the box just so she wouldn’t ask him to carry anything else. “That box has my mixers!” She took the box from him. It was nowhere near as heavy as he had been acting. It had quickly become Mary’s mission to put a worker’s attitude in this child she had suddenly become responsible for, because it was certainly something that he was lacking.
Tripp huffed as Mary took the box from him. “Sorry,” he said.
“Well?” Mary asked him, nodding up towards the small building.
“Well, what?” he asked.
“What do you think? It’s your first time seeing the place,” she said. Since arriving in the small town in the middle of Georgia, Tripp had yet to leave the house for anything more than to check the mailbox or take out the trash. Mary had done most of the work herself on prepping the shop, but it wasn’t like she could blame the kid for his attitude. In fact, Mary was pretty sure she would have been a thousand times worse at that age if she had found herself in his situation, but that didn’t mean she approved of the attitude.
Tripp glanced up at building with a look of hesitancy, probably sizing up where he was going to have to be spending most of his summer. “It’s nice,” he said, obviously uninterested.
“Get the other box, and if you drop and break anything, it’s going to come out of your first paycheck,” Mary warned.
Tripp suddenly seemed very interested. “Wait, you’re going to pay me?”
“Oh come on Tripp, you really think I was going to force you to work in my shop and not pay you?” Mary questioned. “Go get the box.”
Tripp, suddenly filled with more enthusiasm than before, darted back towards the car to get the last box before following her inside. Once inside, Mary felt herself beaming with pride. She had painted the walls a soft blue color, and on the large wall on the far side she had created a mural all on her own that included pond-jumping frogs, and, of course, lily pads. In the center of the mural was a large black square where she had used chalkboard paint, so she would be able to draw and erase specials for the day, week, or month as needed. “What do you think of the name?” Mary asked, as she put her box down on the counter.
“I think you already know what I think,” he said grumpily putting his box down.
Mary rolled her eyes. She hadn’t expected Tripp to like the name, but he didn’t have to be so rude about it. “Okay, well, you’ll get used to it,” she said while trying her best not to sound snappy.
Tripp looked around curiously; he hadn’t seen the mural or anything at the shop yet. “You did do a good job with the mural though.”
“Was that an actual compliment?” Mary asked.
Tripp managed a half-smile. “We
ll, it is really good. I can’t draw like that.”
“Thank you, Tripp,” she said.
She set him to work on helping her put together the patio furniture she was planning on using for the inside of the shop. It had arrived the day before in boxes marked “some assembly required” – “some” being a major understatement. “Grandma, you must be joking,” Tripp said when he opened up the box.
“Grandma? Seriously?” Mary questioned.
Tripp glanced up at her from where he was now seated in the middle of the shop floor with an enormous instruction manual folded out in his lap. “Well, I’m not going to call you Gigi,” he insisted.
“I didn’t say you had to call me Gigi, but Grandma?” Mary asked.
Tripp rolled his eyes. “Fine, what do you want me to call you? I can go back to Mary if you prefer.”
Mary bit her tongue. She realized she probably should have taken the win of any grandparent term of endearment since he has refused any so far. However, it made her smile. “Let’s go with Grandma,” she said. “It’s growing on me.”
Tripp rolled his eyes and went back to work on putting the green chair together. “Why a dessert shop?” Tripp finally asked. “I mean, you were the Mary Hopkins of LA Local News Network. Now, what, you’re a retired granny running a cookie store in the middle of Georgia?”
Mary smirked. “I’ve always enjoyed baking, Tripp. And, I got a really good deal on this shop.”
“Yeah, because it’s in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Georgia,” Tripp complained. “I can’t believe you moved me here.” He didn’t say anything else but busied himself with the project at hand.
Mary sighed and proceeded to head to the back of the shop where the kitchen was almost finished being set up. She pulled everything out of the boxes and began finding proper places for all of the equipment. Her frustration with Tripp was starting to reach an all time high. It’s not his fault, she reminded herself for the thousandth time that week. Tripp was worried about the things that every teenager was worried about. Moving away from his childhood home was scary for a fourteen-year-old kid. He was moved away from friends and everything he had known. He was probably worried about starting school that fall, making new friends, and whether or not he was going to be stuck with her all summer since he didn’t know anyone out this way. He could be worrying about fitting in and how to pass time, but Tripp had so much more than cliché teen problems.
For one thing, he had just lost his dad. Mary sighed deeply as she reflected on what this must be like for him. His father had raised him. For so long, it had just been Aaron and Tripp. A father-son duo. And, though Mary had her reservations about the man, she would never deny the fact that he had been an incredible father to Tripp. He had cared about and loved his son deeply. Tripp had already shared a few personal stories with Mary about his dad – not many, but a few. Enough for her to get a picture of a loving, caring father, who did what he could as a single parent to set his child up for a bright future. Tripp painted quite a picture of a dad who worked two jobs to send him to private school in LA.—a dad who encouraged Tripp’s creativity and desire to become a screenwriter when he grew up—a dad who attended all school functions, helped him with homework, and spent the weekends totally committed to spending time with his child. Mary was sorry she hadn’t gotten to know Aaron better. Frankly, she hadn’t spoken to the man in probably eleven years after he had given her family the boot and decided that what was best for his child was to keep Tripp away from the Hopkins family.
Mary thought he probably made the right call even though she had a sinking sensation threatening to overwhelm her. It had been because of Mary’s daughter, of course – a topic that Mary often tried to keep away from the forefront of her mind. Mary didn’t even know where her child was these days. The woman had messed up one too many times for Aaron, and the man had done his best to shield their son from the drama and the heartache his mother would have brought.
But now, Aaron was gone. A break-in at their home in LA had turned deadly, and just like that, Tripp had lost the only family he knew—Mary reminded herself. Sure, she had spoken to Tripp on the phone a handful of times in the past ten years after several attempts of pressuring Aaron into allowing a conversation, but that didn’t mean they knew each other. They might as well have been complete strangers. Every year, Aaron would send Mary a school photo of Tripp, but that was the most she had really ever gotten.
Mary’s own husband had left her shortly after Tripp’s mother had become pregnant. Between losing her husband and her daughter’s shenanigans, Mary had gotten rather used to being alone. Now, here she was, responsible for this fourteen-year-old kid she barely knew. She had, of course, stepped up the second she had gotten the call about Aaron. Unfortunately, she had already invested a huge chunk of her retirement on this shop and her new house for her move. Financially speaking, she didn’t have much of a choice other than to uproot Tripp. She knew it was cruel, but her hands were tied.
Mary finished getting everything together in the kitchen, and she stood back and admired her handiwork. The kitchen was finally finished and was even stocked full of all the ingredients and materials she would need – including a shiny new oven meant for mass baking and a functioning storage fridge. Now, they just had to get the store front up and ready, and it still had a long way to go.
She stepped out into the shop front and saw that Tripp had managed to get the seat of the chair and the back put together, but now he was grumbling swear words under his breath after realizing the instructions called for him to put the legs on first because otherwise it wouldn’t go together right.
“Need a hand?” Mary asked kneeling down next to him.
“I messed up,” he admitted, handing the confusing instructions over to her.
Mary laughed. “Yeah, I’d say you did. Don’t worry, we’ll fix it—together.”
It took them a painfully long time to figure out how to undo the damage he had done to the chair, but eventually they were back on track. “Sorry,” Tripp said half-heartedly after they had all the pieces laid out in front of them, ready for a second attempt at putting the stupid thing together.
Mary smiled. “It’s okay, Tripp. This time, let’s just make sure we follow the instructions carefully. Want to tell me what you want for lunch, and I’ll make sure to—”
“Pizza is fine,” he said grumpily.
“You’re going to turn into a pizza,” she said, because it seemed as though that was the one and only thing he had dined on since arriving in the Peach State.
“It’s just easy,” he said. “Especially if we’re going to be working on your stupid shop all day.”
Mary snarled her response. “That’s enough, young man. You better stop talking to me like that.”
“Why?” he asked. “What are you going to do?” Mary glared at him, and he quickly changed his tune. His shoulders slumped, and frankly, he looked rather sad. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I said all that.”
“Because I’m an easy target,” Mary said. “I get it, Tripp. This isn’t easy for either of us—especially you. It’s a… difficult and awkward situation.”
“I’ll say,” he griped.
Mary stood up. “Start with step one this time. I’ll run back to the house and get the leftover pizza. There’s no sense in ordering another one if we’ve got a pizza and a half left in the fridge, right?”
“I guess,” he said.
“Stay here,” she said firmly.
“Where am I going to go?”
“Good point,” she said, heading out the door. “I’ll be back in five.”
Chapter Two
Mary wound up taking significantly longer than she would have liked on getting the pizzas. She had gone inside after parking her car in the driveway only to exit the house and find that some genius had parked his car in the road, blocking her from exiting her own driveway. It looked like someone in the neighborhood was having a barbeque or some sort of get-together because the ro
ad was filled with cars. Mary, unwilling to drive her car through the grass, had to go searching for the car’s owner, eventually finding him at a neighborhood pool party.
Much to Mary’s surprise, the young man had been extremely apologetic. She went away from the moment feeling as though people in Georgia truly were as polite as everyone had told her before the move. When she at last arrived back at her shop, Tripp had finished putting together the chairs and was nearly finished with the first table. “What took you so long?” he asked.
