8 Sweet Payback Read Online Free

you up?” she asked as she
toweled off and reached for the fresh clothes she’d left on the vanity. “You
could have slept another hour, at least.”
    “Phone rang. I put Rico on patrol
last night and he spotted Jessie Starkey heading for Sembramos.”
    “Trouble?”
    “Not yet.”
    “And Rico couldn’t have waited
until eight o’clock to tell you this?”
    Beau shrugged and squirted
toothpaste onto his brush. “I better drive up that direction and keep an eye on
things. Warn Starkey not to start anything.”
    Wrapped in her towel, she combed
out her short, graying hair. He caught her eyeing him as he dropped his robe to
step into the shower.
    “You can join me if you’d like,”
he said with a teasing gleam in his eye.
    “Tempting. But we’re both running
late already.” Disappointment showed on her face. “Tomorrow’s a day off for
both of us. Let’s make it a romantic Sunday.”
    He gave her a kiss that almost
changed her mind. Then he stepped into the steamy shower.
    She ran through a list of things
she could do to make the weekend more fun. Morning sex followed by eggs Benedict
or strawberry waffles . . . maybe a walk in the woods or a picnic in a secluded
spot . . . She would have to give it some thought. Right now, all she could
concentrate on was the waiting stack of order sheets, the dozen or more
pastries that would be picked up today. Where would she find the energy for all
of it?
    Her glance fell to the wooden
jewelry box on the vanity. She reached out, tempted. No. She couldn’t rely on
its strange powers at every whim. She pulled her hand back and took a deep
breath, turning her back on the odd artifact and walking into the bedroom to
dress.
    Determined to tackle the long day
ahead, she picked up her baker’s jacket from the bedroom chair and slipped it
on. Grabbing her pack and keys, she went out into the chilly morning and drove
toward Sweet’s Sweets.
    Long rays of golden sunlight were
hitting the sidewalk in front of her shop by the time Sam stepped out of the
kitchen to place four finished Easter Basket cakes on the back counter, the
order forms attached to the boxes for easy identification. Eight o’clock and
she’d accomplished a lot, even without supernatural help. A picture of the box
flashed through her head. Julio was alert and sharp and he knew how long
certain tasks took. She’d been able to bluff her way through several times when
she’d used the wooden box’s power to achieve Herculean amounts of work, but one
day he would stop her and ask questions. Questions she wasn’t ready to answer.
    She still didn’t know what was
behind the power that the box conveyed, or why she had fallen heir to it.
Bertha Martinez, the old woman who’d insisted that Sam was meant to own the
box, hadn’t lived long enough to tell her anything. And there was the startling
fact that Sam’s uncle had owned the twin to this box—but then he, too, had died
before telling her about its history. The questions continued to nag as she
went back into the kitchen and started putting cute little chick faces on
cupcakes.
    Perhaps she could locate some of
Bertha’s old friends here in Taos, see if any of them could tell her anything
about the box and its origins. Later. For now, there were Easter egg cookies
and more of those delectable petit fours to make. She turned her attention back
to the work.
    Beau called, midafternoon, to ask
how things were going.
    “I spent half the morning up in
Sembramos,” he said, after Sam had stepped out the back door because the
clatter of pans in the kitchen, competing with the laughter and voices from the
sales room, made conversation impossible. The outside air had warmed by twenty
degrees.
    “Problems?” she asked, turning her
face to the sun.
    “Not that I could see. I went to
the Starkey house and talked to Jessie. Kept it friendly, let him know that I
don’t approach law enforcement in the same way that Orlando Padilla did, and
that he could call on me if