Chocolate Chip Cookie Conundrum (Murder in the Mix Book 32) by Unknown (romantic love story reading txt) 📗

of the taunting iceberg, and the only name she could use in mixed company. So once I saw she had her sights set on her new tutor, I made sure he tutored me, too. And then I tutored him in a subject or two. And along came you, Lot.”

“Wow,” I muse. “I was basically born of vengeance.”

“That’s right.” Carlotta ticks her head to the side. “And boy, did I best her. Not only did I gain Harry’s attention, I struck a pot o’ gold in my belly.”

Everett lifts a brow her way. “A pot of gold you deposited at the local fire department.”

“You’re one to judge, Sexy. You and I both know Ellington is just rich people speak for fire department.”

Ellington is the boarding school where Cressida dropped Evie off and promptly forgot about her.

“You’re not wrong about Ellington,” he says. “But you’re wrong about me. I would never abandon my child.” He stares at her a moment too long and she’s staring right back at him with large, dare I say, threatening eyes.

“He wasn’t judging you, Carlotta.” I give Everett’s hand a squeeze. “He was just making a point.” I smile up at him, and yet there’s a dark look in Everett’s eyes that makes me wonder if I read the situation wrong.

Cluck Norris goes nuts clucking and flapping his wings, and I take up Noah’s hand, too, so he can hear whatever the poultry-based poltergeist has to tell us.

“Hens!” he clucks so loud my skin vibrates. “We’re close! Hold on, girls, I’m coming! Let’s head that way, Carlotta. How I miss the sweet chicks I used to tend to. I had about three dozen or so to keep me busy.”

“Hear that, Sexy?” Carlotta’s chest vibrates as she laughs. “Cluck Norris here had three dozen chicks at a time.”

“Just three?” Noah asks. “I’m pretty sure Everett has him beat by at least six dozen. Everett has been sentencing women to hard time in his bedroom as far back as his college days. Rumor has it, he was juggling two sorority houses at a time.”

Cluck Norris howls out a clucky sort of laugh. “You would have made a fine rooster, Everett.”

“He’s cocky, all right,” Noah says without missing a beat.

But I choose to ignore the cocky conversation as I take a good look at the miles of food booths they’ve got lined up on either side of the midway that cuts through the fairgrounds, and my eyes light up.

“Check it out,” I say. “Both Mangias and Wicked Wok are here.” Both places have become restaurant staples for us back in Honey Hollow.

“It looks as if Hennifer’s Fried Chicken is here, too,” Everett points out.

“Chickens!” Carlotta calls out and we veer left toward a bona fide petting zoo opening up to us. A large coop holds hundreds of birds, and up above them there’s a sign that reads Hollyhock Chicken Egg-cademy.

“Aw, that’s cute,” I say.

“There’s nothing cute about it,” Cluck Norris caws out. “Why are all these lovely ladies cramped in those tiny quarters? There are so many of them, they’re practically forced to hop over one another in an effort to stand.”

“It’s just a temporary display,” I tell him.

Here’s hoping.

“Darn tootin’!” he yodels, doing his best impersonation of Carlotta.

He floats up and appears to be whispering something into her ear.

A canoodling rooster? I can’t say I like this at all.

Carlotta purses her lips my way a moment. “Look, Lot!” She points hard in the opposite direction. “A booth that sells cheesy jalapeño cornbread, and there’s no line!”

“Where?” I shout in a panic, dragging both Noah and Everett with me in that direction.

We don’t get ten steps before the crowd around us enlivens with cheers and screams, and before we know it, the ground is covered with chickens of every size and color. A flotilla of fowl are running loose, trying their level best to fly, and squawking up a storm—heck, it sounds as if they’re downright screaming—but then, the crowd is doing a lot of that, too.

“Carlotta!” I shout as I turn around, only to find her doing that bowlegged waddle in my direction.

“Don’t just stand there, Lot—run for it!”

Carlotta leads the charge, and it seems the entire right side of the fairgrounds is chasing after her, as they should be. But they’re not. They’ve somehow mistaken Carlotta as their leader. And to make matters worse, more than a dozen of those people make themselves at home in the line for cheesy jalapeño cornbread muffins.

“I’ll never get a cornbread muffin now,” I grunt.

“Maybe not,” Noah says. “But you’ll get a suspect.” He points in the distance where a film crew looks to be set up. Just past them there’s a long table with about six to eight people seated at it and a few empty seats yet to fill and strung up over their heads is a banner that reads The Great Chili Pepper Challenge.

We head that way, and about halfway there we’re met with Evie as she runs over to us.

“You guys!” Her eyes are wide with excitement, and she can’t seem to stop hopping up and down. “Conner and Kyle are both participating in the competition! The guy who’s organizing it said only real men and women need apply.”

Carlotta looks back at us. “Well, Foxy and Sexy? Which one of you is a real man?”

“Me,” someone shouts from behind, and we turn to find that Mayor Nash has finally made it. He’s still in his dark suit. That jovial smile that never leaves his face seems ten times wider. “Well? Lead the way, Evie. I’ve got a pepper eating competition to win.”

“I don’t know.” Carlotta gives him a wavering look. “Tonight’s five-way restraints night. I don’t know if I want to go risking some risqué fun just to prove you’re a man.”

“I’m such a man I can eat my way through a pound of the hottest peppers in the world and get hogtied with the best of them.”

“I’m a man, too.” Noah winks my way as his