Up To No Gouda (A Cheese Shop Cozy Mystery Book 1) by Katherine Hayton

Author:Katherine Hayton [Hayton, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-21T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

When Amanda and Charlie arrived back at work, a line of people trailed out the door of the cheesemongers. Bocconcini had decided on the trek back down Conical Hill that he wasn’t in the mood for any more walking, so he was tucked inside the front of Charlie’s cardigan again. She hugged him even closer, at first thinking the crowds of people must be the protestors swollen to an enormous group.

Then she saw the eager expressions and saw a woman fumbling in her handbag to locate her purse and understood they were customers. Hurrying now, with her mind stumbling around in disbelief, Charlie pushed her way through the throng to reach the counter.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

Instead of answering, Noah threw an apron in her face. “Put the dog down and get to work,” he ordered with a laugh. “We don’t have time to stand about, chatting.”

Dumbfounded, Charlie obeyed his instructions and joined in the serving line. Soon, she’d fallen into a routine with Mia and Noah, getting the customers what they wanted as efficiently as any fast-food chain.

When the line diminished to sane levels, Charlie poked her baby sister in one of her exposed ribs. “I guess this is down to you,” she said. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mia said with her wide eyes feigning innocence. “And I can’t believe you took off in the middle of the day when you knew it’d be our busiest time.”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “At least promise me you didn’t hurt Gladys Philburton. The lady might be a busybody, but she deserves nothing more than a shouted wake-up call.”

“Nobody’s hurt. Nobody’s insulted.” Noah pushed Charlie on the shoulder. “How about you count your blessings instead of trying to find something wrong?”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Charlie shot back with a salute. “I’ll fall into line.”

Soon, a new line of customers forestalled her asking questions, anyway. Charlie fell into an explanation of their more exotic cheese ranges to those among the crowd who were interested.

The rush soon went through the stock of break on hand—including the emergency supplies in the freezer—and Charlie had to skip out on her sister and Noah again to make a dash over to the supermarket to top-up their stock.

If the man behind the check out counter was surprised at the armloads of bread Charlie dumped onto his counter, he hid it well. While handing over her company credit card, she tried not to think of the discounted price at the wholesaler.

Considering this morning her business had been running down the hill to rock bottom, Charlie shouldn’t nit-pick but her shoestring budget mind noted the discrepancy all the same.

With fresh provisions, the onslaught of new customers showed no signs of stopping. By the time Charlie flipped the store sign to closed, she thought it might be her biggest takings on a single day ever—including the time she’d sold a whole parmesan to a man ‘stopping by on the off-chance.’

“Wowee,” Noah said, planting his butt in one chair and his well-worn sneakered feet on another.

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