Temptation Trails (The Haven Brothers #3)

Oh, no. Was that smoke?

Gasping, I ran to the kitchen.

Right as the fire alarm went off.

“Sugar cookies,” I mumbled to no one in particular as I scrambled to turn off the oven. “It’s not even that smoky back here.”

The mirror curse was rearing its ugly head again.

“Should I open the back door?” Owen asked over the sound of the blaring alarm.

“Yes, please!” I shoved on a pair of oven mitts and opened the oven. A cloud of smoke rolled out and billowed toward the ceiling. To the surprise of no one, the cookies were ruined. Not as black as you’d think, given the way the smoke alarm was being such a drama queen, but not fit for sale.

“The fire department’s here,” Beth called back.

I put a tray of ruined cookies on the island. “Are you kidding? How did they get here so fast? Is that thing monitored?”

“Mr. Bakerfield called.”

A man’s voice came from the front of the store. “You’re welcome!”

I groaned and took out another tray. Great. Now I had dozens of garbage cookies I couldn’t sell, and the fire department was going to evacuate the bakery.

Beth disappeared into the front of the store, and a moment later I heard voices directing people outside.

The stupid fire alarm didn’t stop.

“We get it, we get it.” I grabbed a clean baking sheet and waved it in the air in front of the fire alarm. “There’s no fire. You can shut up now.”

Owen opened and shut the back door, trying to fan out some of the smoke. Finally, it stopped.

“Hey, Owen. What are you doing here?” A firefighter dressed in full uniform—the yellow pants and everything—came into the kitchen.

“Oh, hey, Uncle Levi.”

“Wow, you really do have a lot of uncles.”

“Told you.”

A carbon copy of the first firefighter appeared in the back door. If it weren’t for the slightly different haircuts, I would have thought I was seeing double.

“What’s going on, bro-wen,” the second firefighter said.

“Another uncle?” I asked.

“Sort of?” Owen said, like he wasn’t sure how, or whether, they were related. “Logan’s my cousins’ uncle, and my uncle’s brother, so…”

I didn’t try to parse that out. I had bigger problems. “I’m so sorry someone called you guys. It was just burnt cookies.”

Logan walked over to the island and glanced down at the overly browned peanut butter cookies. “Yeah, I see that. Are you sure my wife isn’t here somewhere? She tends to burn cookies too.”

I sighed. “We were just busy and I didn’t hear the timers.”

“It’s my fault.” Owen’s voice was glum. “I was supposed to pay attention to the timers but Uncle Z came in and I forgot.”

“No, it’s okay,” I said. “Sometimes things like this happen when we’re busy.”

Levi jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the front of the store. “I’ll let everyone know it’s safe to come back in.”