by Holly Plum
WINNING THE BATCHELOR
A Patty Cakes Bake Shop Cozy Mystery
Holly Plum
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright
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
Also by Holly Plum
Thank You!
Copyright © 2017 by Holly Plum
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
Joy Cooke stood at the head of a long table covered in fine white linen. She and her baking assistant, Sara Beth, were arranging her beloved sugar cookies on a set of china plates.
“This is some of my best work,” Joy said, staring down at the cookies with a mixture of regret and longing. “It seems a shame to have to part with them.”
“True,” Sara Beth replied. “But you won’t be sorry to see them go if they help us win.”
The two of them stood in the grand banquet hall of the Diamond Shell Hotel, a five-star hotel with an extravagant rooftop ballroom. The two carved oak tables that usually stood in the center of the room had been removed temporarily to a storage closet in the kitchen, along with the antique jade vases that decorated them. In their place, the hotel staff had set up dozens of round tables, one for each participant.
“It’s kind of exciting, isn’t it?” Sara Beth continued, casting an eager eye around the room as she sipped on her sweet tea. “I heard from Old Joe that Florence has secured some rather interesting items to be auctioned.” Florence Thurston was the event’s organizer. It had been her idea to host a silent auction to raise money for the Senior Center, which had recently been damaged in a hurricane.
Joy couldn’t honestly say whether she thought it was exciting or not. She still vividly remembered the night she had been trapped in this hotel during a tropical storm, and she had been feeling tense and uneasy ever since they had entered the banquet hall.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said, half to herself. “There’s just something about this place—”
“Don’t tell me you’re getting superstitious,” Sara Beth said with a slight roll of her eyes. “I would expect that from my parents, but not from you.”
“Maybe it’s just the air of this place,” Joy went on. “It’s an old hotel, built during the days when pirates roamed the high seas in search of buried treasure. You can really feel the history some nights.”
“Maybe,” Sara Beth replied skeptically. “Or maybe you’re just worried that Maple McWayne’s cupcakes are going to beat our cookies.” Maple McWayne was the owner of The Sugar Room, a rival bakery, and Joy’s number one foe.
“Cupcakes?” Joy's face went pale.
Sara Beth pointed to a table not too far away. A single tray in the center bore about a hundred cupcakes in all varieties and flavors: vanilla, carrot cake, chocolate, rhubarb with honey cream frosting.
A savage look came into Sara Beth's eyes as they stared at them. “Oh, it would be just like her to steal the grand prize,” she said with a ferocity that alarmed Joy. “I wouldn’t care if anyone else won it, just as long as she doesn’t.”
Joy had a hard time believing this. Sara Beth had been talking excitedly about the grand prize ever since it had been announced. It was a date with Landon Park, the hotshot local celebrity and most eligible bachelor in Florida. Securing him had been a coup for Florence. Joy suspected that half the women who had signed up for the auction were only there in the hopes of going on a date with Landon.
“Just him being here is going to bring in so much money for the Senior Center,” Sara Beth pointed out. “I don’t feel remotely pretty enough to be ready to meet him, let alone go out with him.”
“Even if you win, you won’t be going out with him immediately,” Joy responded, who had repeatedly warned Sara Beth not to get her hopes up. “And anyway, there are going to be so many women clamoring for his attention that he probably won’t even notice us.”
“Hmmm.” Sara Beth took another sip of her sweet tea with a brooding look.
Joy had learned fairly quickly how dangerous it was to voice her indifference to Landon's charm. When she'd mentioned one morning to a line of customers that she didn’t much care for him, that had gotten her a smashed cupcake on the register.
Ever since then Joy had kept her opinions about Landon to herself.
Landon hadn’t arrived yet, but already there was a buzz in the air as a crowd of several hundred women awaited his arrival. Joy sensed the anticipation as a group of older ladies she recognized from the Senior Center walked past her table, fanning themselves excitedly and whispering his name. She wished she could have shared their excitement, but she couldn’t repress the ominous feeling that had been hanging over her like a cloud ever since their arrival.
“By the way,” Sara Beth added, shaking Joy out of her thoughts. “Isn’t that your friend Edith?”
She pointed to the edge of the room, where Edith Maxwell stood quietly looking over a clipboard like a watchful eagle. Edith lived at the Senior Center and was an old friend of Joy’s late mother, Patty. Their stories of camping together in the Grand Canyon during their college days had been legend in the Cooke household.
Sara Beth motioned for Edith to come over and she did so, looking slightly confused. “Are you helping out with the auction?” Sara Beth asked.
“I am, actually,” Edith replied in a distracted voice, setting the clipboard down on the table beside the cookies and opening her purse, which Joy could see was full of office supplies. She pulled out a fountain pen and scribbled a few words on the side of one page. At first, there was a thick stream of ink, but then it ran out abruptly. Cursing under her breath, Edith continued to dig into her purse until she found a pen that worked.
Joy and Sara Beth exchanged nervous glances. Joy had known Edith for a long time but had never seen her so frazzled and irritated. She looked like she might blow up at the next person to tell her there wasn’t enough fresh mozzarella for the hors d’oeuvre trays. Members of the hotel staff tiptoed nervously past her. From the looks on their faces, Joy suspected that they had made the mistake of crossing her already and weren’t in a hurry to relive the experience.
“I haven’t seen any programs or schedules,” Sara Beth commented. “When is the main event?”
“Well,” Edith replied, picking up her clipboard and flipping through the papers, “first up on the agenda is the silent auction, and that was supposed to have started twenty minutes ago. But apparently, Landon Park is running late. He just called Florence.”
“Isn’t he always late places?” Joy asked, but Sara Beth shushed her and motioned for Edith to go on.
“The silent auction will probably last for about an hour,” Edith explained. “Then there will be a brief intermission before we move into the main event.”
; “The main event.” Sara Beth smiled throwing her arms into the air as though trying to catch a bouquet of flowers. There was no need for Edith to explain what she meant. Everyone present knew she was referring to the live auction at which Landon’s date would be chosen.
Edith shuffled away to inspect a table where a woman stood nervously clutching an antique ruby broach. The moment she was gone, Joy turned to Sara Beth and said, “I can’t say I would ever want to be in charge of organizing an event like this. I wonder how Florence is holding up.”
“At least Florence gets to have dinner with Landon regardless of who wins,” Sara Beth pointed out.
“Well, they were supposed to see each other today,” Joy responded. “So presumably that fell through. I can’t imagine Florence is too happy about that.” Florence had made no secret of the fact that her desire to meet Landon Park was one of the motivating factors behind the auction.
But before Sara Beth couldn't respond, they were interrupted by a loud cry from the next table.
“I won’t give it up!” cried the woman clutching the antique broach. She raised it to her chest as though seeking to protect it from Edith.
“But Georgette,” Edith responded, “that’s what you agreed to do when you placed the broach up for auction.”
“I made a mistake,” Georgette argued, beads of sweat forming on her brow. Her voice carried across the banquet hall. A hundred people stopped what they had been doing a moment before, and a hundred pairs of eyes turned to watch the drama unfolding. “I should never have given it up. It brings only ruin and destruction!”
In spite of her exasperation, Edith managed a thin smile. “If that’s the case,” she said, “then perhaps you’re better off without it?”
But Georgette was in no mood for jokes. “This broach belonged to my great-grandmother,” she said, holding it away from her body as though it was a poisonous snake. “And for decades it’s brought nothing but misery to her and the rest of our family. The day it was handed down to my grandfather, his factory in Horseshoe Beach exploded.”
“Did your grandfather survive?” Edith asked, one eyebrow raised skeptically.
“Actually … he wasn't there,” Georgette answered. “But the whole place was a wreck. Fizz everywhere.”
Edith chuckled and went on to the next table. The argument with Georgette seemed to have lifted her mood a little. Georgette, however, gave her a scolding look as she walked away. “Some people just don't get it,” she murmured.
Joy turned to say something to Sara Beth, but her words were cut short by impassioned shrieks as the doors of the ballroom were flung open.
A woman wearing a straw bonnet shouted, “He's here!”
There was no need to explain who she was referring to. Right away the room broke into a fevered murmur of excitement as the participants in the auction scrambled to put the finishing touches on their displays. A moment later, a group of impressive-looking men in charcoal-gray suits entered the banquet hall. There were at least five of them, all wearing dark sunglasses, and Joy felt sure they must be Landon’s security detail. They were surrounded by a flood of photographers, the bulbs of their cameras flashing.
“Where is he?” cried Sara Beth despairingly, craning her neck to peer over the heads of the restless crowd. “Do you see him?”
But her worries were put to rest a second later when the double doors parted and in strode the most eligible bachelor in the state of Florida.
Landon Park.
CHAPTER TWO
Landon wore a sleek looking suit, his golden hair neatly combed and slicked back. Six feet, one inch tall in his patent leather shoes, he seemed to tower above the reporters and cameramen who surrounded him. When he waved and flashed his immaculately white teeth, Sara Beth let out an audible gasp.
As she watched him smiling and shaking hands with the fans who pressed in on either side of him, Joy was forced to admit for the first time that there was something immensely appealing about Landon Park. He had the charm and charisma of a leading man from Hollywood’s golden years. With his left hand in his coat pocket, he placed his right hand on the top of a woman’s head as though offering a blessing. She shrieked and fell to the floor.
“I can’t believe it’s really him,” Sara Beth exclaimed with tears in her eyes. “He is even more handsome in person.”
“Very exciting,” Joy said without much conviction. Sara Beth, sensing her lack of interest, shook her head and muttered a few words that Joy couldn’t hear.
Landon took his hand out of his pocket and raised both hands over his head to call for silence. An expectant hush fell over the crowd as they waited to hear what he had to say.
“Now y’all know I don’t like to brag,” Landon announced, his southern accent adding to his charm, “but when I get a welcome like this, it makes me feel kind of important.”
There was an ecstatic burst of applause and laughter as if on cue.
Landon signaled for silence again before adding, “But don’t let me distract you from the real reason we’re all here today—”
“You are the reason we’re here,” came a voice from the crowd. The room erupted in more laughter.
Landon made his way forward, led by Florence Thurston, a woman in her mid-fifties with streaks of gray in her once jet-black hair. She had dressed for the occasion in a floral-patterned black and gray silk shirt, a purple skirt, and a pair of black leggings. Joy had never seen her wear lipstick before, and the effect was striking. “We’ll start over here,” she said to Landon as she led him to the opposite end of the room where Joy and Maple McWayne had set up their tables.
“We’d better get over there, quick,” Joy said to Sara Beth, and together they fought their way through the crowd of hundreds, each of whom was scrambling to reach his or her table before Landon got there.
For the next hour, Joy and Sara Beth stood next to their sugar cookies and offered samples to prospective bidders. Over at the next table, Maple McWayne eagerly kept her beady eyes on Joy. When Maple saw how favorably the bidders reacted to Joy’s cookies, she began offering samples of her own cupcakes.
“You know, you could have planned that better,” Joy called over to her as a pair of men in suits left Maple’s table licking frosting off of their fingers. “If you were going to offer free samples, you should’ve brought plates and napkins like I did.”
Maple lifted her head with a lofty expression. “I was going to bring plates and napkins, actually,” she said, adding in a quieter voice, “I just forgot …”
Joy couldn’t resist smiling, which infuriated Maple. She stood up even straighter.
“I think we should let the bidders be the judge of who is the better baker,” Joy added.
Maple returned her attention to her cupcakes. "Oh, I'm not worried about that. My sweets will rake in much more dough than those cookies. No offense, honey."
Joy nodded politely, although it was incredibly tough.
“Don’t let her get to you,” Sara Beth muttered. “She’s just jealous because your sugar cookies are spectacular.”
In due course, Landon made his way over to their table. He flashed a smile at Sara Beth, who mumbled a few words of introduction and then retreated shyly into the shadows as though worried she had somehow made a fool of herself. But because Joy hadn’t fallen under his spell like every other woman in the hotel, she was able to face him without fear of embarrassment.
“Sugar cookies?” Landon said loudly, sounding surprised. Whenever he spoke, he seemed to be addressing not just the person in front of him but the whole room. “You know, darling, I’ve never been a huge fan of these things?”
Joy’s face fell. It was the sort of comment that demanded some sort of response, though at present the only responses that came to mind were rude ones. However, as Landon bit into the sample she had offered him, his face slowly broke into a smile.
“You know what, though?” he said. “I think I would make an exception in your case. These are even better than the coo
kies my great-aunt used to make.”
Joy couldn’t figure out how he did it. She knew he was almost certainly flattering her, but she felt so overcome with appreciation she was tempted to offer him an entire plate for free.
Just then Sara Beth called out, “We made them together.”
Landon blinked rapidly, looking startled. It was as though he hadn’t noticed Sara Beth standing there until that moment.
“Excellent job,” he commented. “Though when it comes to testing sweet things, I’m an easy sell. I’ve had a wicked sweet tooth ever since I was a boy. Just ask my mama.”
“Where are you planning on taking your date?” Sara Beth shouted in an unnaturally high voice. Joy threw her a warning look.
“That’s a good question,” he said as he scratched his chin. "I guess I thought I was the prize that mattered." He smiled modestly, and the crowd chuckled appreciatively. “But to be honest with you, I’m open to suggestions. Where would y’all like me to go?”
The crowd behind him began yelling out suggestions, so many at one time that Joy doubted he heard any of them.
"There are too many gems around here," Sara Beth added.
Landon smiled good-naturedly and said, “Well, I guess I’ll keep all those suggestions in mind. And hey, if the date goes well, who’s to say it’ll be the last?”
He strode off to Maple’s table, leaving Sara Beth to fan herself before she overheated. “Did you see that?” she whispered to Joy. “He actually spoke to me.”
“Yes, and you didn’t faint, so I’d call it a win,” Joy replied, her eyes fixed on the next table over where Maple was forcing multiple cupcakes into Landon’s hand at one time.
“You know in all my life,” he said, “I’ve never had such perfect buttercream.”
“Have some more,” cried Maple, shoving almost an entire plate into his hands. “Anything I bake is yours for the taking.”
Sara Beth stifled a laugh. “At least I didn’t embarrass myself that badly,” she whispered to Joy.
