Dead Gingerbread Man Walking

Scottie Ramone’s new bakery is up and running, but she’s in desperate need of an assistant. Jack Lucas, a stranger with a troubled past, has moved to town. He also happens to bake cakes that are nothing short of sublime. His qualifications make him the perfect assistant, but Dalton Braddock, the town’s ranger and Scottie’s longtime crush, has advised against it. So, of course, she hires the man but with plenty of trepidation.

In the meantime, Scottie has another problem to grapple with. Someone has killed the gingerbread man the town mayor hired for the annual Ripple Creek Holiday Fair. Ranger Braddock is busy up at the Miramont Resort, so Scottie is on the case. As she goes through her list of possible suspects, she finds a name that causes her plenty of angst. It’s her new assistant, Jack. Has Scottie just hired a cold-blooded killer to bake cupcakes?

I was literally standing in the center of my life's dream. I wondered how many people ever got to say that. Robin's egg blue walls were lined with vintage, cream-colored cabinetry. Sparkling glass displays overflowing with fudgy brownies and gooey cinnamon rolls, surrounded me. Freshly baked sourdough loaves, ochre brown with a mouth-watering fragrance, nearly spilled out from the row of baskets on the side wall. The words Scottie's Bakery were scrolled across the blue walls in bright white paint.

My life had changed so dramatically in the past six months it was hard to remember what I'd left behind. Actually, that wasn't true. It was easy to remember. I'd left behind a hectic, stress-filled career as head pastry chef in an expensive restaurant to start a little bakery in the center of my quaint mountain hometown. Life was more laidback in Ripple Creek. My grandmother, Nana, the woman who raised me after my parents were killed in an avalanche, always joked that if Ripple Creek were any more relaxed, it would slip right off the mountainside like a blob of Jell-O. The other thing I'd left behind, the thing that still stuck out like a prickly thorn and produced almost a physical pain when I thought about it, was my engagement to Jonathan Rathbone. I came alarmingly close to throwing all my dreams away by marrying the wrong man. Not that I had the right man in my sights at the moment, and that was fine. After five years of being Jonathan's girlfriend and Jonathan's future wife, I'd found myself. I was Scottie Ramone again. It was nice not being someone else's accessory.

A truck ramp smacked the road outside the bakery causing the glass cake domes and antique chandelier to shimmy. The tables and kiosks had arrived. The usually sleepy town outside the bakery door was buzzing with energy as it prepared for the annual Holiday Craft Fair. Artists and crafters from up and down the mountainside would roll into the middle of town to sell their precious wares. It was Ripple Creek's last hurrah before the harsh cloak of winter swept in to cover us with a blanket of snow and ice. So far, there had only been powdered sugar sprinklings of the white stuff, and the ground was still warm enough to melt any flakes that were determined to land. The event always fell on the second week of December to coincide with the big season opener at the Miramont Resort, a posh and popular ski resort that loomed over us from the peak above. The opening of ski season, even with its mountainside of manmade snow, always brought a flurry of visitors through Ripple Creek. Twenty years ago, the locals, who were still mostly a lot of bohemian-loving artists and crafters themselves, decided to take advantage of the traffic going through town. They set up tables and big umbrellas and displayed all their wonderful creations. My Nana was always amongst them. Her beautiful oil-on-canvas landscapes were popular. Occasionally, she'd make a whole year's worth of art sale money in that one weekend.

This weekend would bring a flurry of activity, and Scottie's Bakery was open just in time. It wasn't full-steam-ahead yet, because I was still engaged in the seemingly impossible task of hiring an assistant. I knew it would be difficult given that the bakery sat in the middle of a very small, somewhat remote town high up in the Rocky Mountains, but it wasn't as if I was sitting on top of Everest or in the middle of the Sahara Desert. I posted the job on all the well-known job sites. I advertised in local papers. I even put a help wanted sign in the front window. I was sure I'd have an assistant by now. It wasn't from lack of trying. I'd interviewed at least half a dozen people. A few had embellished their resumés, insisting that baking a batch of cookies at home gave them the experience needed to work in a commercial bakery. One woman had a long list of qualifications, but when I told her the work hours were six until two, she laughed out loud and raced out of the bakery.