Buried In Buttercream

bigger tips.”
    Five minutes later, when Savannah left the office with Dirk, she had a new-found appreciation of at least some pit bulls.
    But in her book, Willy was nothing more than a flea-bitten mutt.

Chapter 19
    “ S o, where are you on the case?” Tammy asked as as she joined Savannah and Dirk at Savannah’s kitchen table.
    “Nowhere,” Dirk replied. “Absolutely, positively nowhere.”
    Tammy turned to Savannah. “Come on. It can’t be that bad. You have to have some clues, some leads.”
    “Oh, we’ve got clues up the kazoo. In fact, we have too many. Unfortunately, none of them lead to any solid subject.” Savannah shook her head and toyed with a coconut and macadamia nut cookie that was lying on a napkin in front of her. “I hope wherever she is on the other side, Madeline realizes how difficult she’s made our job. With the kind of life she led, there are just too many people who hated her enough to kill her.”
    “It’s bad,” Dirk said. “So bad that, at this moment, these cookies are the only thing making my life worth living.”
    Tammy was mortified. “You can’t let a cookie, especially one made with refined flour and white sugar, be your only reason for living.”
    Dirk bit into the cookie and closed his eyes when he chewed. “Yeah, well, you haven’t eaten Alma’s and Waycross’s cookies.”
    Tammy’s indignation evaporated. “Waycross bakes?”
    Savannah stifled a chuckle. “He bakes, restores classic automobiles, can fix any machine on the planet, plays piano for the kids’ Sunday school class, and plants Granny’s garden for her every spring. Oh, and he can bench press one and a half times his body weight. Twice.”
    “Whoa!” Tammy’s eyes were positively sparkling.
    “Yep,” Savannah said, “Waycross is a real Renaissance man.”
    To Savannah’s utter shock, Tammy reached over and took a cookie off the plate in the center of the table. She fiddled with it awhile, breaking it apart and examining each piece. Finally she popped one into her mouth and chewed.
    “Holy cow!” Savannah said. “I can’t believe my eyes! Did I just see Miss I Only Eat Healthy Food put some cookie in her mouth?”
    “It’s mostly just macadamia nut,” Tammy returned. “I don’t want him ... and Alma, of course ... to think that I’m rude by not eating their cooking.”
    “Why not? Lord knows you’ve turned your healthy little nose up at my cooking ten thousand times over the years!”
    Dirk nudged Savannah. “She wasn’t trying to impress you. In case you haven’t noticed yet, your girlfriend there’s got evil designs on your little brother.”
    “I do not!” Tammy said, nearly choking on her nut.
    “Of course, I’ve noticed,” Savannah told him. “I just didn’t think she’d go so far as to poison her own body to impress him.”
    Tammy’s eyes narrowed. “You know ... I don’t like you two very much.”
    “Sure you do.” Savannah pushed the plate toward her. “Here, have another cookie.”
    Tammy tossed her long hair back over her shoulder and lifted her chin. “I came here to see if I could help you with your case, not get insulted.”
    “Hey, you know the drill around here,” Dirk told her. “One comes with the other.”
    “Case? Insults?” said a voice behind Savannah. “Can I help with the case and get insulted, too?”
    She turned and saw Waycross, who had just walked in from the living room. “Sure,” she said. “No shortage of insults to go around in this place.”
    Tammy went from “perky” to “perkiest” in a heartbeat. “I love your cookies, Waycross,” she said. “You’ll have to give me the recipe sometime.”
    Waycross shot her a look that Savannah could only describe as blatantly flirty. “You don’t need the recipe,” he said. “I’d be happy to whip a batch for you any time you’ve got the hankerin’.”
    Oh, yeah, Savannah thought. Little brother’s definitely the one with the “hankerin’.”
    And she couldn’t blame him. Tammy was lovely as she sat there, a red flush to her cheeks, ducking her head shyly, her curtain of golden hair falling around her face.
    She looked across the table at Dirk and saw from his grin that he found the whole thing quite amusing.
    Tammy and Waycross? Sure, why not? she thought. They were two of her favorite people in the world. Both had hearts of gold and both deserved love if they could find it. Especially Tammy. After all she’d been through, she had a good guy like Waycross