Baby Bundt Cake Confusion (Murder in the Mix Book 31) Unknown (good beach reads .txt) 📖

relay. Noah will go first, then I’ll take the leg from Noah, and Everett will take it from me. Jen pops up and the music turns down a notch. She looks adorable with her blonde locks fringing her shoulders. She has on a slinky black dress and heels to match, along with a tiny black and white checkered scarf around her neck, giving a Parisian flare to her outfit.

“Attention, everyone! I want to welcome all of you to Hennifer’s brand new location!” she shouts and the room explodes with thunderous applause. “We are more than thrilled to be a part of the Hollyhock community. As a warm welcome, we’re holding our famed chicken relay race. Each team is playing for one bucket of Hennifer’s signature golden fried chicken, either in regular or extra crispy, delivered to your door every week for one whole year!”

The crowd thunders once again as teams of three head to the front of the establishment, and the sea of people parts as employees cordon off a clearing in the middle of the store for us to run back and forth. The establishment is about three times the size of your average fast food restaurant. It’s a lot deeper than it looks. I’ll have to cover some serious ground if I want to win, but with my mother’s B&B in the balance, I’m more motivated than I would be for any bucket of chicken. Besides, I plan on picking up a couple of buckets right after this anyway, so it’s a win all the way around.

“Lemon”—Everett pulls me close—“don’t worry. We’ve got this in the bag, or the bucket as it were. Noah is the weakest link, that’s why he’s going first. But you take your time. I don’t want you tripping on anything. I’ll make sure to finish with a win.”

Noah grunts, “He wishes I was the weakest link. There’s a reason they called me Flash Fox back in the day. I was fast on the field. He was fast in the bedroom.” Noah shoots Everett a look when he says it.

Jen pops up in our circle with a laugh caught in her throat. “Are you two still going at it after all these years? Come here.” She corrals the two of them into an awkward hug. “All right, we’ve got six teams competing. Play fair, no elbowing your opponents. Player one and three stand at the back of the store and player two waits right here at the front. My employees are stationed front and back and we see everything. And one more thing!” She holds up a finger and the room quiets down. “Each of the contestants needs to clear the entire length of the restaurant flapping their arms like a chicken!”

The crowd breaks out into a riotous laugh, and I catch Everett giving a slow blink.

“Think of it this, way,” I tell him. “It’s a necessary evil to combat evil itself.”

Everett shoots Noah a look. “As are most things that involve the Fox family.”

It’s true in a way. After all, Wiley Fox got my mother into this mess.

A familiar throuple steps up beside us and I gasp. It’s my bestie, her bear of a husband, and my own biological disaster of a mother.

“Keelie!” I snip as I head on over. “You can’t do this. You can’t compete. Cormack and Cressida said that if I won for them they’d give my mother back the B&B. You have to throw the race.”

Keelie has her hair pulled back into a ponytail, she’s clad in black yoga wear, and she’s got her running shoes on. It’s clear she came to play. Bear pretty much looks the same way I saw him this afternoon at the impromptu groundbreaking event. And boy, am I ever glad we finally broke ground.

“No way,” Bear says, turning his ballcap around so that the bill is facing the wrong way. I’ve known Bear long enough to understand that action alone signals the fact he means business. “It’s date night, Lottie. And Keelie and I came to play. An entire bucket of chicken is on the table, quite literally, for a solid year.”

“I’ll drive out to Hollyhock and pick up a bucket for you for the next solid year. We have to get those ditzes to surrender my mother’s inn.”

Keelie makes big eyes at Bear, and he makes even bigger eyes right back.

“Fine,” I spit the word out like a threat. “Have it your way. I’ll win fair and square.”

Noah and Everett take off for the back of the restaurant, while Jen and her staff outfit the first person in the relay with a chicken leg to tuck under their chin. The “Chicken Dance” music bumps through the speakers, and soon the crowd is laughing and cheering as Jen counts down from three, and just like that, Noah is barreling at me with fried fowl tucked under his chin. Bear is barreling toward Keelie, too, and I take a moment to look over at the woman who I thought was my bestie—okay, fine, she still is. I can’t let a greasy chicken leg or a hot pink B&B get in the way of a lifelong friendship, but believe me, I’m tempted.

“You’re going down, Fisher,” I say just as Noah flaps his wings in my direction as fast as he can.

“All right, Lot,” he says as he carefully lands his neck next to mine, and I carefully extricate the chicken leg from him. Two couples to my right drop their chicken and are automatically disqualified. I’m glad Keelie isn’t one of them, although from the looks of it, she and Bear are taking the opportunity to make out for a second.

Noah plants a kiss in the corner of my lips. “For good luck,” he says.

“I’m going to need it,” I mutter as I begin flapping my arms and walking at an even yet quickened pace. I’m neck and neck with Keelie, no pun intended, when a woman just outside the window catches my eye. The