Confections and Confessions Read online

  “Nope. Can’t say I care, either. But I know who that lady is.” He pointed at Amelia. “And I know who that detective is. Now, you’re a little outnumbered. So, I’m going to ask you to play nice for just a few minutes. Then you can discuss all the business you want.” Robert clapped John twice on the cheek then nodded to Dan. “Your children are here. You wouldn’t want to do anything to upset them, right?”

  John looked at his kids, and the air visibly left his sails. His mouth hung open and words no longer came out. They hadn’t seen him sneak up into the truck. They didn’t even know he was there.

  Amelia didn’t want to get off the truck. It was like a powder keg out there.

  “Dan, why are the kids out of school? You can’t pull them out, only I can,” she asked, feeling tight in her chest.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. We called in sick. It’s okay,” Meg offered.

  “Called in sick? You lied?”

  “Just relax, Mom,” Adam interrupted.

  “I don’t think I like this.”

  Amelia felt angry toward John for bursting into her truck. She trusted her kids, and they were with Dan. Why, she didn’t know. But once again, John ruined everything.

  “Amelia, the kids and I have been talking,” Dan said.

  Amelia folded her arms in front of her chest. “You have?”

  “They have some serious concerns, and quite frankly, so do I.” Dan’s face was impossible to read. “Would you come down here? I don’t feel like shouting.”

  Amelia looked at Beatrice, who watched everything while fluffing her icing in a big silver bowl. She got no help from her, so she stepped off the truck. Robert kept John cornered. Lila was off at a picnic table with Hank, but they watched her instead of talking to each other.

  “Dan. It’s almost lunch time. We’re going to get slammed,” she said, trying to be patient. But it was hard to stay angry. Dan wasn’t John. He wasn’t even close to him. Dan was funny and decent and honest. He had broad shoulders and delicate hands and understanding blue eyes. When she looked into them, she saw… tears?

  She glanced at Meg, who looked like she was about to burst. Adam, too, smiled like he was biting his tongue to hold back a wave of emotion.

  “Amelia, I can’t promise I’ll be home every night for dinner,” Dan said. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, got down on one knee, and held up a small red box. “But I can promise to love you and only you for the rest of my life.”

  “What?”

  “I thought I’d better ask the kids first if they’d be okay with it.”

  “We said yes already, Mom,” Adam said.

  “You did, did you?” She looked at her children, and her heart burst open with love for them. “Well…”

  “Open the box, Mom.” Meg continued bouncing on her toes.

  Amelia’s eyes filled with tears, and she pried the lid open. A beautiful ring with four diamonds in a row sparkled back at her. She could barely see it through the ripples of water clouding her vision. It didn’t matter. She didn’t care what it looked like. It could have been from a gumball machine, and she would have said the same thing.

  “Oh, Dan. It’s beautiful.”

  Dan stood up, and to Amelia, he was taller than Robert at that moment. He was the tallest man in the city, and he was going to be her husband. She was going to be his wife. He took the ring and slipped it on her finger.

  “The kids helped me pick this out,” he whispered. “Meg said that there was a diamond for each of us.” A tear fell down his cheek.

  “How long did they know about this? I can’t believe they kept a secret this big.” Amelia chuckled as she sniffled and wiped the tears from her own cheeks.

  “A month.”

  “A month?” she squealed happily. As she looked back down at the ring, she laughed and cried all at once. “The four of us, huh?”

  “Amelia, the life of a policeman’s wife isn’t easy.” Dan gulped. “I’ll try not to bring the work home with me. I’ll try to keep you shielded from…”

  “Dan, you never did that before.” She put a hand up to his cheek. “You always told us how it was. Sure, you sanitized it when you had to. That’s good enough. I know I speak for the kids when I say we don’t want you to do anything different. We fell in love with you the way you are.”

  “Will you marry me, Amelia?”

  “Yes, Dan. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  Robert, who had let John go and slither back to his car and drive away, walked over to Lila and took a seat close to her.

  “What do you say, Lila? Want to give it another try?”

  “With you? Sorry, Robert. You try and tame the wind.”

  Robert chuckled. They turned back and watched Amelia and Dan kiss, right there in front of the kids and the customers and the other food truck owners.

  As you wait for book 10 in the Pink Cupcake Mysteries, read Harper’s other series, Secret Agent Granny.

  In book 1, Granny’s Got a Gun, Barbara Gold, a retired CIA agent, is bored out of her skull in Cheerville, a small town in New England—until a man is poisoned during a book club meeting for seniors. Everyone thinks Lucien had a heart attack, but from his symptoms, Barbara knows someone has slipped poisoned into his cake or drink. Even though she is no longer under cover, Barbara feels as if she’s only playing the part of a sweet grandmother, but this may just be her most useful cover yet.

  The clock ticks as she investigates who in the Cheerville Active Readers’ Society would want Lucien dead. It’s only a matter of time before his death is declared murder and the police start hounding everyone.

  Suddenly Barbara’s CIA training is useful again, and Cheerville is starting to seem not so dull after all…

  Read an excerpt at the end of this book.

  Catch up on all the books in the Pink Cupcake series here.

  Sign up for Harper's Newsletter and get notified when new books are on sale for 99¢!

  Recipe 1: Ginger Orange Cupcakes

  Makes 12

  * * *

  Ingredients:

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour

  • 1 tablespoon baking powder

  • 1⁄4 teaspoon salt

  • 1⁄4 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1⁄2 cup butter, room temperature

  • 1 1⁄4 cups sugar

  • 3 eggs

  • 1⁄2 cup orange juice

  • 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, thinly grated

  * * *

  Glaze:

  • 2 tablespoons orange juice

  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice

  • 1 cup powdered sugar

  * * *

  Preheat oven to 325°F. Prepare cupcake pans with liners. In one bowl, sift flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Beat in butter and sugar at medium speed until mixture is light and airy. Reduce speed to low. Add eggs. Mix well. Add half the orange juice and the ginger.

  Slowly add in dry ingredients, mixing until just incorporated. Add remaining orange juice, mixing until batter is smooth. Don’t overtax.

  Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until cupcakes are springy to the touch and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes.

  Glaze: Add orange juice, lemon juice, and powdered sugar into a small saucepan on low heat, mixing for about 2 minutes until liquids slightly evaporate. Remove from heat and glaze cupcakes with a tablespoon each.

  After glaze cools (about 5 minutes), you have the option to garnish it with a tangerine or mandarin orange slice.

  Recipe 2: Caramel Apple Cupcakes

  Makes 14–16

  * * *

  Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

  • 2/3 cup brown sugar

  • 1/3 cup granulated sugar

  • 2 large eggs

  • 1/3 cup milk

  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

  • 1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
>
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

  • 1 large apple, peeled and finely chopped

  * * *

  Salted Caramel Frosting:

  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter

  • 1 cup brown sugar

  • 1/3 cup (5 tablespoons) heavy cream, divided

  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

  • 2–3 cups icing sugar, sifted

  * * *

  Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare cupcake pans with liners.

  In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until combined. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth. Then whisk in the vanilla extract and milk. Set aside.

  In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir gently until combined. The batter will have a few lumps. Fold in the apples.

  Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full with batter. Bake for 20–25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Rotate the pan halfway through baking. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

  For frosting: While the cupcakes are cooling, melt the butter in a small saucepan. Add brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of heavy cream. Whisk over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Add salt. Allow to bubble for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat to cool for about 30 minutes.

  Beat in 2 cups icing sugar and remaining heavy cream. Slowly add 1/2–1 cup more icing sugar until you reach the desired consistency. Add a little cream or milk if you find the frosting too thick. Frost cooled cupcakes.

  About the Author

  Harper Lin is a USA TODAY bestselling cozy mystery author.

  When she's not reading or writing mysteries, she loves going to yoga classes, hiking, and hanging out with her family and friends.

  For a complete list of her books by series, see her website. Follow Harper on social media using the icons below for the latest insider news.

  www.HarperLin.com

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  A Note From Harper

  Thank you so much for reading Sugar and Scandals. If you were entertained by this Pink Cupcake mystery, please recommend it to friends and family who would enjoy it too. I would also really appreciate it if you could write a book review to help spread the word.

  You might also enjoy my other dessert cozy mystery series:

  • The Cape Bay Cafe Mysteries: When Fran moves back to her idyllic beach town to take over the family café, she also develops a knack for solving bizarre murders. Each book includes special recipes.

  • The Patisserie Mysteries: An heiress to a famous French patisserie chain takes over the family business, while using her status as a Parisian socialite to solve murders in high society. Each book includes French dessert recipes.

  • The Emma Wild Mysteries: a 4-Book holiday cozy series about a famous singer returning to her small Canadian town.

  I also have 2 other fun mystery series:

  • Secret Agent Granny: 70-year-old Barbara is a sweet grandmother—and a badass ex-CIA agent.

  • The Wonder Cats Mysteries: three witches and their magical cats solve paranormal murder cases in the mystical town of Wonder Falls.

  If you want to be the first to hear about new book releases and early bird specials, sign up for my mailing list.

  I’m also on Facebook, where I’ll be holding giveaways, sharing recipes, and posting about what I’m reading at the moment.

  Follow my Pinterest boards to see the locations and inspirations behind each book.

  You can also connect with me on Goodreads.

  If you’d like to get in touch with me directly, you can email me at [email protected]. I would love to hear what you think about the books. Do also drop me a note if you happen to catch any mistakes. While each book is edited and proofread by professionals, errors can still slip through sometimes. As an indie writer, I want to provide readers with the smoothest read possible.

  Last but not least, visit my website for my blog and a complete list of all my books, organized by series.

  Thanks and much love,

  Harper

  Excerpt from “Granny’s Got a Gun”

  I was at the weekly meeting of the Cheerville Active Readers’ Society, the closest thing to pass for entertainment in this sleepy little New England town. I found myself living here after I retired from the CIA.

  I’m Barbara Gold. Age: 70. Height: five feet, five inches. Eyes: blue. Hair: gray. Weight: none of your business. Specialties: undercover surveillance, small arms, chemical weapons, Middle East and Latin American politics. Current status: retired widow and grandmother.

  Addendum to current status: bored out of my skull.

  Like my retirement, forced down my throat by the government three years before, the book selection for that month was not going down well.

  Endless Beach was a classic romance novel from 1912 that had recently been reissued as part of a major publisher’s “Forgotten Female Authors” series. It should have remained forgotten.

  An obvious Jane Austen knockoff, written in an era when a wee bit more physical contact was permitted (Kissing! Gasp!) but lingering Victorian morals ensured a tepid read, it came off as old fashioned even in a reading group in which the youngest member was sixty-five, reading glasses were universal, and wrinkles had long stopped being a source of worry. Despite the story being a snore, it had managed to enthrall most members of the reading group, although for different reasons.

  The seven members sat around the coffee table in Lucien and Gretchen Rogers’s living room, a circle of gray hair, wrinkles, and persistent aches and pains. Gretchen’s prize-winning lemon cake sat on the table, with only one piece left.

  I stared at the cake with annoyance. As usual, Gretchen had used some delicious icing to write her favorite line from that week’s reading assignment. This week it said: Like the sand on the beach, our love is renewed with every crashing wave. That corny line, which didn’t make all that much sense, epitomized both the novel and Gretchen. A bit corny, a bit nonsensical, so it came as no surprise that it stuck out to her, a beach-obsessed hopeless romantic.

  She and her husband, Lucien, had both turned sixty-five that year, and while Lucien had settled into placid retirement, Gretchen was going through something of a late midlife crisis or a really late puberty. She dreamed of being whisked away by a handsome stranger to some gorgeous beach somewhere. Their house was adorned with photos of the Bahamas, the Seychelles, the Maldives, and other exotic locales, all taken by someone else. As far as I could tell, the couple had never been farther than Maine.

  Gretchen, as usual, had cut the cake into eight pieces. Why she did this, I could never figure out, because that last slice of cake always ended up sitting on the plate for the rest of the meeting. No one ever took it. Not that anyone was watching their figures too closely at this late stage of life; it was simply that taking a second piece would be rude, and rudeness was something that just wasn’t done in Cheerville. You wouldn’t want to irritate anyone, after all.

  But that extra piece irritated me almost more than I could bear. I hadn’t made it through a Cold War and several hot ones by being sloppy and wasteful, and leaving an extra piece no one had the gumption to eat was the epitome of sloppy and wasteful.

  So I frowned at it again. The icing spelling out the words “crashing wave,” the only words left, seemed to mock me. In a few minutes, Lucien would clear the table and toss out the spare piece.

  I had received the piece that read “renewed,” but Cheerville was doing anything but renewing me. In fact, I had developed a deep fear of fossilizing.

  I wished the reading group had continued with Behind Open Curtains, this month’s first choice until everyone cracked the cover. It had been billed as “romantica,” a
subgenre everyone thought was some new spin on romance. Nobody had bothered to Google it. If we had, we would have found out that it was an amalgamation of “romance” and “erotica.” Pearl, another member of our group, who at ninety-six years of age should have seen it all by now, had nearly had a coronary at the phrase “throbbing man root.”

  “Throbbing” was a word often seen in Behind Open Curtains, as was “pulsating,” “yearning,” “moaning,” and “clenching.” There were even a few yelps and ululations. Just who the heck ululates in bed, anyhow? And there was so much fire symbolism in Behind Open Curtains that those curtains must have been made of asbestos.

  I fully intended to finish reading that one. I needed to get to the bottom of this ululation business. Had I been doing it wrong all these years?

  “Barbara?”

  The voice sounded insistent, as if it had spoken my name before.

  I looked up to see everyone staring at me. How long had they been saying my name? How long had I been thinking about that stupid slice of cake and strange bedroom noises? I was losing my edge, getting soft. When I still worked for the CIA, nothing ever went unnoticed around me.

  “Yes?” I answered.

  “What do you think about Victor’s betrayal? How could he leave his wife after twenty years?” asked Pauline, a plump woman of seventy-two with thick cat’s-eye glasses. The ache in Pauline’s voice told me that she’d felt that same betrayal in her own life, meaning the question was loaded and couldn’t be answered the way I would have liked.

  Evon, Pauline’s best friend and a spinster ex-schoolteacher, reached over and pointed to my book. She had a bad habit of doing that, as if everyone was a slow pupil.