That brought up another image and Hannah frowned slightly. She’d seen the legendary French mime, Marcel Marceau, perform his routine of a person inside a glass box. Now that her triangle had changed into a box, was she the person inside, trapped there until she chose the right man for her husband?

Chapter

Chapter

Thirteen

Lisa emerged from the kitchen less than ten minutes later. She was waving a piece of paper and wearing the broadest smile Hannah had ever seen.

“You got it?” Hannah guessed, already knowing the answer.

“You bet I got it!” Lisa announced sliding into her chair. “These are just perfect, and they’re hardly any work at all. They’re made in cupcake papers and they use store-bought vanilla wafers and cherry pie filling!”

Hannah took the paper and glanced down at the title, Jane’s Mini Cherry Cheesecakes. “Who’s Jane? I thought you got this recipe from Mary Hutchinson.”

“I did, but she got it from her cousin, Jane. What do you think of it?”

Hannah read through one of the easiest and cleverest recipes she’d ever seen. Twenty-four muffin tins were lined with cupcake papers and a vanilla wafer was placed in the bottom. The cheesecake batter was mixed, spooned in on top of the vanilla wafer, and then they were baked. When the mini cheesecakes were cool, they were topped off with three cherries from the can of pie filling and chilled for at least four hours before serving. “That’s certainly easy. But are they good?”

“Mary says they’re wonderful and everybody always asks her to bring them to parties. The really neat thing is the cherry pie filling.”

“Why’s that?” Hannah asked, feeling a bit like the straight man in a two-man comedy routine.

“You need three cherries for each little cheesecake and there are exactly seventy-two cherries in a can of pie filling. That means it always comes out even.”

“Really?”

“That’s what Mary says and she’s been making them for a long time. I want to try them now, Hannah. Is that okay?”

“It’s fine, but how about the cherry pie filling? We don’t have any.”

“I already called Florence and she said she’d let me in the back door of the Red Owl. She’s doing inventory.”

Hannah nodded and Lisa was off in a flash, fairly racing for the kitchen door. When her young partner got enthusiastic about something, she didn’t let anything stand in her way. Hannah knew Herb had figured that out early in his relationship with Lisa. When Lisa had made up her mind she wanted to date him, Herb had found himself asking her out. And when Lisa had decided she wanted to marry him, Herb had found himself proposing. Hannah had a feeling their whole marriage would be that way. And she was just as certain that Herb wouldn’t mind one bit.