"You're not going to play, are you?" He sighed and reached for a cupcake.

"Nope," she said. "You'll have to get your thrills elsewhere."

"Listen, Sis, when you called me a few months ago and asked me to dinner, you told me that you didn't know what you wanted. You said you were going to break the engagement with Joe and ask for more time. Now it's been months and you seem to be in a holding pattern." Charlie paused to take a bite out of his cupcake. Mel waited while he looked momentarily blissed out and then swallowed.

"Yeah, I'm in a stall, for sure," she agreed.

"Well, if you won't give me any particulars, tell me this, are you happy?" Charlie asked.

Mel picked up a Salted Caramel. She wondered if this was going to replace the chocolate with coconut as her current favorite cupcake. Then she thought if she combined them she might have the mother of all cupcakes: salted caramel icing with coconut filling and chocolate cake. Her vision went fuzzy while she tried to picture it and she had to shake her head to get her focus back.

"I'm baking some of the best cupcakes of my life," she said. "I'm inspired like never before."

"Yes, but you always do that when your love life is a mess. The question remains, are you happy?" Charlie persisted.

Mel took a bite and chewed. Everything was better with the rush of cake and frosting, at least for the moment. Then she swallowed.

"Happiness is overrated," she said.

Charlie gave her a concerned look.

"All right, fine," she said. "My personal life is in the toilet. Joe and I are, well, it's complicated. And Manny? Ugh, he's made it very clear that he's interested, and I'm tempted but I don't want to ruin what I have with Joe, but if Joe keeps insisting on marriage . . . see? It's a mess. There. Feel better now?"

"Not really, no," Charlie said. "Well, you've got nothing but time."

"Not according to Mom," Mel said. "Since she's not speaking to me, I don't have to hear it, but I know she's convinced my biological clock is ticking like a time bomb."

"If she's not speaking to you, how do you know that?" Charlie asked.

"Because every time she sees me, she glances pointedly at her watch," Mel said. "And she's not trying to tell me I'm late for dinner."

"She does not," Charlie said through a mouthful of cupcake.

"She does," Mel said. "Ask Angie she noticed it, too."

"She just wants what's best for you," Charlie said. Unfortunately, he didn't sound as if he believed it, either.

"Well, marriage is not it," Mel said. "At least, not right now."

"Why not?" Charlie asked. "You've loved Joe since you were twelve years old. Why is getting married to him a bad thing?"

"I don't want to get married," Mel said. "It requires a lot of paperwork and I think there's even a blood test involved."

"Seriously?" Charlie asked. "That's your objection? Paperwork and a blood test?"

"I don't like needles," she said.

"Lame!" Charlie roared. "Do you even listen to yourself when you speak? Why can't you be like most girls and have the wedding of your dreams already completely planned out and all you have to do is insert the approved male?"

"Because I was always the chubette," Mel said. "Daydreaming about weddings when the only time boys ever noticed me was to mock and deride me was never as satisfying as eating an entire bag of potato chips."

"Your issues have issues, you know that, right?" he asked.

"I know," Mel said. She was quiet for a moment and then she sighed. "Here's the thing, what if Joe and I do get married, how long until I start packing on the pounds and he leaves me for some skinny young thing?"

"You won't and he won't and even if you did, he wouldn't," Charlie said.

"Okay, so we're happily married for fifty years," Mel said. "We have kids and grandkids and great-grandkids and then he up and dies on me."

"Most people would feel lucky to have had all that," Charlie said.

"Losing Dad was so hard," Mel said. She felt her throat get tight and her eyes were burning but she refused to cry.

"Aw, I know." Charlie held out one arm and Mel scooted under it and he hugged her close. "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss Dad."

"I just don't think I can go through that," Mel said. "I know it's wimpy and pathetic, but if I let myself love Joe as deeply as I want to, well, if he was taken away from me, Charlie, I'd die. I'd just die."

"So, you'd rather keep him at a distance and never know what it's like to be one with your true love?"

Mel pulled back and looked at him. He gave her a dark look and said, "If you ever tell anyone I said anything that sappy, I'll join ranks with Mom and never speak to you again."

Mel smiled and then teased, "I won't, but gosh, that was sweet."

The tips of Charlie's ears turned pink, which Mel knew meant he was embarrassed. He cleared his throat and frowned.

"Do you think that all of this may be because you've had an unusual preponderance of dead bodies popping up in your life over the past two years?" Charlie asked. "I mean it's just not normal."

"Oh, 'preponderance'-big word," Mel teased.

"From my word-of-the-day calendar," Charlie confirmed with a superior look. "But seriously, do you?"

"Maybe, but it's not like I go looking for them," she said.

"No, but they certainly know how to find you."

She watched as Captain Jack hooked an empty cupcake liner off of the tray and then flicked it. As it fluttered to the ground like a butterfly, he wiggled his haunches and launched. He overshot and the breeze he created made the cupcake liner skitter across the floor. He skidded to a stop and turned around, giving the paper chase.

"So what should I do about Mom?" she asked. "I've tried talking to her, but she won't listen."

"I don't know," Charlie said. "She loves dear Joe."

Mel rolled her eyes. Her mother always called Joe "dear Joe," making it very clear how she felt about having an assistant district attorney dating her daughter.

"She's sponsoring a girl in the Sweet Tiara Beauty Pageant, which her friend Ginny wants us to make cupcakes for. Do you think I should do the pageant to force us together?" Mel asked. "Maybe if she has to be around me all the time, she won't be able to stay mad."

"Mom is a lousy grudge holder," Charlie said. "Frankly, I'm amazed she's lasted this long. I say do the pageant. You'll wear her down."

"Even though it goes against everything I believe in?" Mel asked.

"It's a bunch of girls in poufy dresses competing for a sparkly crown and some scholarship money," Charlie said. "How bad can it really be?"

Four.

Mel spent the afternoon and the next morning brooding about what her brother had said. Was he right? Was it silly of her to refuse to do the pageant, especially now that her mother was going to be helping Lupe?

There was no doubt this would make it pretty impossible for Joyce to keep ignoring her. Ugh, the things she did for her family.

"Mel, we have to go!" Angie called from the front of the bakery.

"I'm almost ready," Mel called back. She had just finished frosting a batch of Classic Chocolate Cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Yes, it was an old-school cupcake, but judging by her sales numbers, it was also the most popular cupcake, beating out every other exotic flavor hands down.

She hefted the tray onto her shoulder and carried it to the walk-in cooler. She was dreading today's meeting with Cici Hastings, the Sweet Tiara Pageant coordinator. She could not imagine what she would have to say to the woman. Even though she knew this was an opportunity to mend the rift with her mother, she really struggled with the whole pageanty thing.

"Come on!" Angie barked from the door. "We've got to go or we're going to be late."

"I'm coming," Mel said. She stood in the chiller for a moment to assess the array of cupcakes. Maybe she should stay and bake more and let Angie take the meeting.

"I've seen desert tortoises that move faster than you," Angie said, appearing in the doorway to the walk-in. She reached out and grabbed Mel's hand and yanked her out of the chiller. "Now come on."

"Fine," Mel said. She took off her apron and grabbed her purse from her office.

Together, she and Angie left the kitchen through the bakery. Tate and Marty were manning the counter. Three of the bakery's regulars, Wendy Resnik, Darenna Rainsdon, and Diana Welsch, were standing in front of the counter, debating flavors.

"What's the flavor of the day?" Darenna asked. She tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder as she leaned close to the display case, pressing her lips together in concentration as if willing a cupcake to call out to her.

"The Salted Caramel," Marty said. "It's to die for."

"I'll take a dozen," Wendy said.

Darenna and Diana gave her matching raised-eyebrow looks of concern. This was particularly intimidating coming from Diana, with her rectangular-framed glasses and close-cropped hair.

"What? I'm bringing them back to the library," Wendy said. The other two continued to stare at her and Wendy shook her auburn bob in exasperation and added, "To share with everyone."

"Uh-huh," Diana said.

Mel laughed. All three ladies worked at the Phoenix Public Library and she always looked forward to their book input.

"Hello, ladies," she said. "So, fire away, what's on your current recommended reading list?"

Angie glanced at her watch. "We are officially late. Stop stalling."

"I am not stalling," Mel protested as Angie pushed her toward the door. "Besides, it isn't like the beauty pageant needs our cupcakes today."

"Beauty pageant? You're doing a beauty pageant? In that case, read the Sweet Potato Queens," Darenna said, raising her voice as the door began to shut. "They'll get you in the right frame of-"

On the sidewalk, Mel frowned at Angie. "That was rude."

"So is being late for a business meeting," she said. "Now move it."

Mel drove her Mini Cooper to the upscale resort where the pageant was taking place. She parked in the small visitor's lot and she and Angie crossed the circular drive in front of the main doors to enter the lobby.

The resort was an older one, converted from the shell of a ranch house. It was all whitewashed stucco and thick wooden beams. A fire was roaring in the huge stone fireplace and the furniture was the sort of thick pine log and leather stuff you'd expect to find on a ranch in the middle of the high country.

A smartly dressed Native American woman with long black hair and pretty features greeted them.

"Welcome to the Lazy J resort," she said. "My name is Lydia. What can I do for you?"

"We're here to meet with Cici Hastings," Mel said. "About the pageant."

Lydia nodded. "I believe she is in our main ballroom. If you'll follow me?"

She came around the counter and Mel and Angie fell into step beside her. She walked in long, loping strides that were easy for Mel to match but left Angie doing double time, as she was much shorter than the other two.

They crossed through an opulent lounge that featured a cozy bar, which opened up to an expansive poolside patio, and through a set of large French doors into a cavernous ballroom. Several of the hotel staff were scurrying around the room setting up tables and chairs while a camera and sound crew rigged their equipment. At the far end of the ballroom was the stage, where several men in work attire were erecting a spectacularly glittered backdrop that featured a tiara the size of a Cadillac floating in the air.

In front of the stage, a slight woman stood with her back to them. Mel noted that her platinum hair was done up in a fancy cascade of curls. She was dressed in an aqua chemise with a black jacket that had matching aqua piping along its hem. Her shoes were black platforms that made Mel's feet hurt just to look at them.

"Mrs. Hastings," Lydia said. "I have some young women here to see you."

The woman turned to face them and Mel heard Angie gasp beside her. She was not surprised. From behind, she had expected Cici Hastings to be somewhere in her thirties or forties, but when she turned to face them, Mel saw that Cici had the well-preserved good looks of a woman who knew how to apply makeup after about eighty-odd years of living.

Instead of the thick spackle that a lot of older women used, Cici seemed to have a light hand with the foundation and her eye makeup was soft, making her pretty blue eyes sparkle. But there was no denying the wrinkles that creased the corners of her eyes and around her lips.

"Thank you, Lydia," Mrs. Hastings said and Lydia departed with a nod.

"How can I help, y'all?" Cici asked. Mel noted there was a southern flare to Cici's speech and she wondered where she came from originally.

"I'm Melanie Cooper and this is my partner, Angie DeLaura," Mel said. "We own Fairy Tale Cupcakes, the bakery."

"Oh, yes, Ginny told me about your little shop," Cici said. Mel decided that Cici wasn't trying to insult them by using the word little. It was just the way she talked, making everything sound cute and lovely. Mel had met her type before.

"I'm not sure how we'd work it," Mel said. "Having us bake cupcakes that the contestants come up with. We generally just provide cupcakes for venues."

Cici gave Mel a sharp look and Mel had the feeling that Cici could hear the disdain in her voice for the pageant even though she was quite certain she had buried it way down deep.

"You could do both," Cici said. "If we could have a tower of cupcakes on each day of the pageant, well, that would certainly be special, and with live television coverage, it would give your little shop quite a surge of publicity."

Mel frowned. Now she was pretty sure the little comment was intended as an insult. She glanced at Angie, expecting her fiery friend to jump into the fray with her hot temper, but no. Angie was staring at the huge floating tiara with something akin to wonder.

"Is that where Miss Sweet Tiara is crowned?" Angie asked.