“This is Hannah at The Cookie Jar,” she said in the flattest voice she could muster. “I’m sorry I can’t answer your call right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number, I’ll call you back just as soon as

” There was a click, and Hannah stopped speaking. Her caller, assuming Hannah wasn’t available, had hung up.

She was about to hang up on her end when she reconsidered. It was time to take a lesson from Lisa. Hannah stretched out the cord, opened the drawer, and hid the phone under the dishtowels again. Then she hurried through the swinging restaurant-style door to the coffee shop.

Hannah’s first task was to put on the coffee and she made short work of filling the thirty-cup urn and plugging it in. She set out cream, sugar, and artificial sweetener on each table and wrote the daily cookie specials on the blackboard behind the front counter. She had just gone back into the kitchen to fill the glass canisters they used to display the day’s cookies when Lisa came back.

“I’ll help,” she said, shedding her coat and heading for the sink to wash her hands. “Everybody at the school wanted to know why you turned both of them down.”

Hannah just shook her head. It was barely eight in the morning, but there were no slackers on the Lake Eden Gossip Hotline. “What did you say?”

“I told them I hadn’t asked you because it was none of my business.”

Hannah eyed her diminutive partner with new respect. “Being married is good for you. You’ve picked up some of Herb’s assertiveness.”

“That’s not all I picked up!”

“What do you mean?” Hannah asked and then wished she hadn’t as all sorts of dire possibilities ran through her mind.

“I picked up all of Great-Grandma Beeseman’s recipes. They were in boxes up in Marge’s attic, and she said I could have them. She couldn’t read them because they’re in German.”

“You read German?”

“No, but Herb found an Internet translation service and a woman from Germany is helping me.” Lisa reached out for a cookie on the baker’s rack and handed it to Hannah. “Try this. They’re called Kokosnuss Schokolade Kekse.”

“Coconut chocolate cookies?” Hannah asked, seriously draining the small cache of German words she’d picked up over the years.

“That’s right! Do you speak German?”

“Not unless you count Volkswagen and sauerkraut as vocabulary. I was just reacting to the cognates.” Hannah took a bite and smiled her approval. “These are good.”

“I know. Do you want to add them to our cookie list?”

“Absolutely, but let’s think of another name. The German is too hard for customers to remember and the English translation isn’t catchy enough.”

“How about Cocalattas?” Lisa suggested.