Sweets Shop Cozy Mysteries Boxset

by Maisy Morgan

  “Mom, Dad, please!” Draco, their son and Tripp’s new friend, roared from the third-row seating, looking highly embarrassed that his parents had brought along show tunes for their car ride to the family’s cabin in Helen, Georgia.

  “I like it!” Sarah Jane, Draco’s little sister, who was seated beside Mary in the second row, exclaimed.

  “You would,” Draco said.

  “I like musicals,” Sarah Jane said.

  “Me too,” Mary said, winking at the little girl who had insisted on wearing a tutu during the duration of their car ride. They had been on the road for about two and a half hours, and from what Roy was saying, they were nearly there.

  “I can’t wait to get to the cabin,” Draco said. “We haven’t been all summer!”

  “I know, we’re sorry, hon,” Anna said, turning around a bit in her seat to look back at everyone. “Your dad has had a lot more jobs this summer than we expected. Once school starts back and you get settled in, maybe we’ll take a few weekends this fall to come up here more.”

  “That would be awesome,” Draco said.

  “You all are just too sweet to invite us along,” Mary said.

  “Well,” Anna said, beaming. “When Draco told us Tripp was going to be turning fifteen this weekend, we figured it would be a nice way to celebrate. You planning on getting your learner’s permit, Tripp?”

  “Definitely!” Tripp said. “Grandma said once we get back from Helen, she’s going to take me to the DMV to take the test. I’ve been studying.”

  “You got yours coming up too, right, Draco?” Mary asked.

  “Another month and a half,” Draco said. “Mom doesn’t want me to get one yet.”

  “That’s because you can’t even walk down the hallway without bumping into a wall,” Sarah Jane said, and Draco reached around and popped her in the arm—causing her to wail dramatically.

  “Draco, be nice,” Roy said, having caught him in the act through the rearview mirror. “Don’t start.”

  “She started it,” Draco insisted.

  Anna, eager to change the conversation, muttered, “It’s a shame Cindy and Hannah couldn’t come.”

  “They had some mother-daughter day planned,” Tripp said. “She sounded excited about it when I talked to her on the phone last night.”

  “What were you doing on the phone with Hannah last night?” Draco teased, and Tripp punched him in the arm.

  “Just talking,” Tripp insisted, and Mary found herself grinning and trying not to look back at Tripp. She was secretly rooting for the two of them.

  Hannah was a feisty young lady. Her mother, Cindy, owned the antique shop across the street and a few doors down from Mary’s dessert shop. Cindy and Hannah, along with her estranged father, had been in an accident a few years ago that had landed Hannah in a wheelchair. She had an enthusiastic personality type that always left Mary with a smile after any sort of interaction with the young girl. Mary was fairly certain that Tripp had developed a serious crush on her, but that wasn’t exactly something you shared with your grandma—especially one you hadn’t had the pleasure of knowing for too long.

  “Any luck on finding someone to work the shop with you, Mary?” Roy asked, suddenly changing lanes as their exit was coming up.

  “I wish,” Mary said. “I’m having to close down this weekend to come visit your cabin. Hopefully, I’ll have some employees soon, but no one is really responding to the help wanted sign in the window. I might have to put an ad out.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Anna said. “I’d send Draco your way, but I’m pretty certain you’re looking for someone to help you out during the day when the kids are at school.”

  “Yeah, I can help during the evenings and weekends,” Tripp said. “But she for sure needs some extra help for the weekdays.”

  “I know, and I’m cutting it pretty close with the kids starting school in less than two weeks.” Mary groaned.

  “I’m really excited,” Draco said. “Finally—high school. Middle school was so lame. I’m really glad we’re both going to Whitewater. And it’s even better that Hannah’s going to be there too.”

  “Next year you’ll be able to drive yourself to school, right, Tripp?” Roy asked.

  “If I can get that car running,” Tripp said.

  Mary smiled, thinking about the horribly hideous Volkswagen beetle they had discovered abandoned in the yard of their new home. The old homeowners had left it behind, and when she had called and asked about it, they had told her where to find the car’s pink slip and had ended the conversation with, “It’s all yours.” It was a horrid looking thing, but she had told Tripp that if he could get it running, he could have it when he turned sixteen.

  “Isn’t Officer Preston supposed to be helping you with that?” Draco asked, referring to the gentleman Mary had been casually seeing since moving to Georgia.

  Preston was a man near Mary’s age—a little past his prime but not quite willing to be put into the ‘retired’ generation. He had sort of taken Tripp under his wing, and the two of them had been working nonchalantly on the car together lately. “Yeah,” Tripp said. “So far we’ve added a battery. I’m having to pay for all of that myself, though.”

  Mary smirked. “I’m making you earn it.”

  “Did the battery help?” Roy asked.

  “Yeah, actually,” Tripp said. “But the oil has been sitting in that thing for who knows how long. Preston and I started taking the whole thing apart. We have to empty the gas tank somehow too because it’s all nasty. It’s a work in progress. It’ll be a long while before we get the thing up and running.”

  “Well, I think it’s a good learning opportunity for you,” Roy said. “I ought to get Draco out there helping you guys, too. He could stand to learn a little more about cars. I’m afraid I’m not great at that sort of thing. I suppose they should revoke my man card for that one.”

  Sarah Jane, almost as much as a little spitfire as Hannah could be, couldn’t help herself. “They revoked that after you made a Hello Kitty gender-bend cosplay costume.”

  The whole car erupted into laughter, and Roy looked rather embarrassed. “Wow. I just got burned by a seven-year-old… it was for a client! I was just… the model…”

  “I’m going to need to see pictures!” Mary exclaimed. “My goodness… a client for what?”

  “Remember, Grandma, I told you how they run a cosplay shop out of their barn?” Tripp said, still somewhat fascinated by the family’s geekiness. “They take specialty orders.”

  “Someone ordered a man’s costume for Hello Kitty?” Mary asked.

  “We get some rather unusual orders from time to time,” Anna said and laughed. “I’ll show you pictures.”

  “Don’t show her pictures,” Roy warned.

  “I’ll show you pictures,” Anna repeated and winked.

  At last, they were driving through Helen, Georgia. The cabin was on the outskirts of town, so they didn’t get an opportunity to see too much just yet. They drove up a winding road into the mountainous areas of Helen. Eventually, they stopped at a small service building, and Roy hopped out of the car and scurried inside, returning a few minutes later with a set of keys. Then they continued their drive up the hillside.

  “So, how does this work exactly? You own the cabin, but other people can rent it out?” Mary asked.

  “Pretty much,” Roy said. “This place here handles everything for us. All the cabins up this road here you can rent anytime. It’s nice because we get a share of the income that comes from anyone who rents out our cabin. We take care of the cabin for the most part, but the service building has people come in and drop off towels or any hotel supplies that people might need. It’s a great setup.”

  “But we can use it whenever we want—we can set up weekends we want to come up here, and we obviously don’t have to pay anything for that,” Draco said, “since we own the cabin.”

  “That is a really nice setup,” Mary said as they continued driving up the winding hills
ide.

  A lot of the cabins were incredibly close together, but after turning up another backroad, Mary was pleased to see that the Morris’ cabin was much more cut off from civilization. It was a two-story, blue cabin with an enormous brick fireplace on the side of the wooden structure. It was right up on the river, and it had a screened-in wrap-around porch.

  Sarah Jane bolted through the trees as soon as the car was parked, and Draco and Tripp weren’t too far behind. Roy tossed Draco the keys as he needed a moment to stretch his legs, as did Anna and Mary. “It’s beautiful,” Mary said.

  “Kids are going to share the loft,” Roy said, grabbing a few bags from the car. “The loft has two sets of bunk beds. Anna and I will take the master, and the downstairs guest room is all yours.”

  “You are too kind,” Mary said, and they walked up towards the building with their arms full.

  They entered the cabin and Mary couldn’t help but grin as she realized it was almost entirely decorated with black bears. A statue of a black bear in a fisherman’s hat sat by the fireplace, a few little ones sat across the windowsill, and there was a painting of a black bear hanging up on the far wall. “It’s so cute!” Mary said, and she could hear Draco, Tripp, and Sarah Jane shouting excitedly as they all tried to claim what bunk they were going to be sleeping in that evening.

  “Draco! Get down here and help unpack the car!” Roy called, and a few moments later, the teenage boys came fumbling down a set of stairs and hurrying past them to help grab their bags—Sarah Jane not too far behind.

  “Go ahead and go check out your room,” Anna told Mary. “I’ll have Tripp bring your bag in. I don’t know about you, but long car rides like that make me sleepy.”

  “Agreed,” Mary said and thanked her for her hospitality. She entered into the room and she laughed. This room, decorated entirely in Doctor Who paraphernalia, was a lot more of what she had been expecting a property of the Morris family to look like. The living room and kitchen were very cabin-esque, but it seemed that each bedroom had its own flair of geekdom.

  Chapter Two

  Mary squeezed in close to Anna, who was squished in the middle of herself and Roy in the front row of the horse-drawn carriage. Mary was all smiles. “I just love this,” she said, the boys and Sarah Jane all squirming and laughing excitedly in the back row.

  “Welcome to Helen, folks,” the elderly carriage driver said, tipping his hat.

  They had only just parked the car in a public parking space on the outskirts of downtown Helen when a carriage had dropped off some other tourists by the parking lot, and they had all been unable to resist. “Thank you,” Roy said, and the driver gently whipped the reins; his two white horses began to walk, the carriage bouncing as they went along the cobblestone path.

  “Now, you kids be looking as we go,” Anna sang. “We’ll take the carriage into town, and if you see anything you want to do this weekend, you better point it out now. Don’t want the weekend to get away from us, now do we?”

  The kids all took this to heart because as soon as they entered town, they started pointing out fudge shops, restaurants, and even an old-timey photo building. “That would be just too fun,” Mary said, practically giddy at the idea of having Tripp dress up as a cowboy. Tripp was slightly less enthusiastic about the idea compared to Draco, who liked to dress in cosplay on a regular basis. Today was a bit of an exception for Draco as he had elected just to wear jeans and a plain t-shirt. It was almost unsettling to not see Draco at least wearing his Doctor Who coat.

  “Oh, I know what I want us to do!” Draco exclaimed. “We have got to take the inner tubes down the river!”

  “Definitely!” Tripp shouted.

  “Yeah, I want to do that!” Sarah Jane agreed.

  “Well, it sounds like you are all in agreement about something,” Roy said, laughing. “Maybe after lunch, we could head back to the cabin, get our swim trunks, and head to one of the inner tube rental spots? Only three bucks a person from what I remember.”

  “That’s right,” the elderly driver said. “Though if I were you folks, I would wait until tonight. They’re doing a dance by the riverside.”

  “A dance?” Mary asked somewhat excitedly.

  “Oh, yeah, sounds like it’s going to be a real treat,” the man said. “They’re doing strobe lights and glowsticks in the trees. Won’t be able to go too far down the river, though. It’s just a small section of the river, but there’s going to be food and music and drinks.”

  “That does sound like a lot of fun,” Roy said. “Why don’t we just do a bit of walking around after lunch today, then? Go to some fudge shops and maybe do the old-timey photos? Then we can go back to the cabin and rest up before the party, and if it turns out to be kind of lame, we can go back and do the river tomorrow?”

  “Sounds like a good plan to me, Dad!” Draco said excitedly.

  “All right, well, I know where I want to go for lunch,” Anna said excitedly.

  “Old Heidelberg,” Draco and his father said in unison.

  “Because it’s the best German in town!” Sarah Jane added mockingly.

  Mary and Tripp both laughed, but regardless of the mockery, they still wound up asking the carriage driver to pull up out in front of the German restaurant, much to Anna’s satisfaction. The whole town was very German in nature—so much so that all the little shops on the main strip reminded Mary of something you would have seen in an old children’s book inspired by Brothers Grimm stories.

  “Hey! Roy!” a voice boomed almost as soon as they got off the carriage.

  Mary turned along with the rest of their group to see a man and woman near Anna and Roy’s age. Behind them was a young teenaged couple, the boy of whom looked quite like the man calling Roy’s name out. “Oh, Ken!” Roy said, smiling pleasantly and headed over towards them while Anna paid the carriage driver.

  Mary stood back, watching curiously as Roy shook the man’s hand and the two families merged on the sidewalk. “Anna, this is Ken. His construction firm helped out with a set I oversaw during filming last winter,” Roy said. “Didn’t expect to run into you all the way out this way.”

  “We love Helen,” Ken said. “This is my wife, Jaden. That’s our son Bradley and his girlfriend, Stacey.”

  Bradley smiled. “Call me Brad,” he said casually.

  Ken winked. “He thinks he’s all grown up now. Got onto the varsity football team this year and thinks he’s a hotshot.”

  “Nice, Dad,” Bradley said with an eye roll.

  “Good job, kid,” Roy said. “What school?”

  “Whitewater High,” he said. “About to start my junior year.”

  “Me too,” Stacey said with a big grin.

  Roy, evidently realizing he hadn’t introduced everyone, waved them over. “These are my kids, Draco and Sarah Jane. And this is our friend Mary and her grandson, Tripp. Draco and Tripp are going to be starting at Whitewater in a couple of weeks themselves. Freshmen.”

  “Cool,” Bradley said, smiling. “I’ll probably be in y’alls hair a little bit, then. Coach has got the varsity team doing some welcoming thing first week of school for the freshmen.”

  “That’s awfully sweet,” Mary said.

  “Yeah, Whitewater is a pretty cool school,” Bradley said. “Not too clicky. I’m on the football team and wrestling team, but I also geek out a little bit in our HOSA club. It’s for future nurses and doctors.”

  Mary noticed that this comment seemed to relieve some of the stress she hadn’t noticed Tripp had been carrying. He and Draco both seemed relaxed by this comment. “You two excited about high school?” Stacey asked politely.

  “Yeah,” Tripp said. “Kind of nervous, honestly. I’m from LA, so new state, new school. Kind of all at once.”

  “Sweet. LA?” Stacey asked. “Like, Hollywood?”

  “Kind of,” Tripp said. “But, yeah.”

  Both Bradley and Stacey seemed to think that this instantly made Tripp and Draco very cool, and soon the four of them
were chattering away about what high school was like and what they could expect. Bradley and Stacey told them about their favorite teachers, ones to stay away from, and about some of the extracurriculars the school offered. “You know, Bradley,” Stacey said, nudging him and winking at Tripp. “He’s kind of cute. I should introduce him to my sister.”

  “Is your sister kind of cute too, then?” Tripp asked, and Mary smacked him in the back of the head, causing them all to laugh a bit.

  “She’s your age,” Stacey said. “She’s going to be starting at Whitewater this year too. They’re here with us in Helen—my family I mean. We’re all going to that dance party tonight; maybe you guys should go too?”

  “We were thinking about doing that, actually,” Anna said.

  “We went last year; this is their second year doing it,” Ken said. “The kids love it. Lots of crazy lights, though. Feels like a roller rink from back in the day with all the glow sticks.”

  Anna laughed. “That really does sound like fun.”

  “You should definitely come, then,” Jaden insisted. “We’re up here with Stacey’s family and her friend Kara and her family too. Our three families are all old friends—we always rent a big cabin together and take a last minute trip somewhere before the school year starts back.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Roy said. “That and celebrating this guy’s birthday.” He clasped Tripp’s shoulder.

  “Sweet, happy birthday,” Bradley said.

  “Thanks,” Tripp said.

  “How old are you? Fourteen?” Stacey asked.

  “I’ll be fifteen tomorrow,” Tripp said.

  “Going to get your permit?” Bradley asked.

  “Definitely,” Tripp said. “Working on getting a car up and running for when I turn sixteen.”

  “Dang. Fourteen and he’s already got a car,” Bradley said with a smirk.