Always the Baker, Finally the Bride (32 page)

“For posterity,” Sherilyn said with a grin. “Now what would you like for breakfast? There’s a buffet fit for a bride on the counter.”

Emma perked up as she inspected the various plates and bowls. She grabbed a large strawberry and popped it into her mouth. “Where are Fee and Hildie?”

“They had to go,” Sherilyn told her. “Hildie has a soccer game today.”

“Wow.” Emma scratched her head beneath the tiara, making the tiara bounce up and down. “Those two are like peas in a pod, aren’t they?”

She moved into the kitchen to check out the omelets Pearl and Kat turned out in a yummy assembly line. Norma rushed by with oven mitts on both hands and pulled a pan of fragrant cinnamon rolls from the oven.

“Oh, hey,” Sherilyn said, tugging on Emma’s arm. “Come sit down. I want to show you something.”

Emma squeezed into the dining chair angled into the corner and folded one leg underneath her. Sherilyn scuffed another chair closer and held out her hand. A double ring box sat open on her palm, and Emma’s heart began to race as she gazed at the familiar wedding bands.

“I picked them up for Jackson. Andy’s going to take them to him, but I thought you might like to have a look first.”

Emma smiled at her friend. “You scared us half to death, you know.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I thought I was helping.”

Emma snickered, then turned her attention to the rings. “They’re beautiful though, aren’t they?” Emma lifted Jackson’s ring from the slot in the velvet box and examined the engraving on the inside of the band.

“I am my beloved’s . . .”

Sherilyn plucked Emma’s thin diamond band from the box and squinted.

“. . . and my beloved is mine.”

“I love that verse of Scripture.” Norma had moved into the living room with a plate of food and sank down on the sofa. “Song of Solomon, right?”

Emma nodded, joining her on the sofa to show her the rings. “Jackson and I took that couples class at Miguel’s church a while back. It was a study on purity and the sanctity of marriage. When we read that chapter, it just resonated for both of us.”

Norma ruffled Emma’s hair, then straightened the tiara on Emma’s head as she grinned. Grabbing the end of the boa around Emma’s neck, Norma wrapped it around herself so that it cloaked them both.

“I am so happy you’ve fallen in love with Jack,” she said softly, and Emma dropped her head to Norma’s shoulder. “You’ve changed him.”

“Have I?”

“He’s softer somehow, more in touch with his emotional side. And, of course, he’s found his way back to God. That’s all because of you, Emma.”

“No, it’s not,” she said on a sigh. “And, you know, if I changed him, Norma, he changed me right back.”

Norma squeezed her shoulder. “That’s the way love works.”

Jackson had no plans to work on Saturday morning. In fact, he’d intended to just stop by his office for a few minutes to pick up his laptop after leaving it behind on Friday night, but the avalanche of paperwork beckoning his attention closed in on his sense of time. Two hours after he’d arrived, he was still sitting at his desk.

“Mr. Drake? I wasn’t expecting you today.”

He looked up to find Lauren standing in the doorway in tight jeans torn at the knee and a too-tight pink tank top over an even tighter black one. A large patch of exposed stomach poked out from beneath them, this time adorned by a full belly chain connected to her navel by a pierced ring.

“Yeah. You either,” he replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Just as I was leaving yesterday, I got a call from Susannah Littlefield,” she told him.

“Oh!”

“She’s flying back to Atlanta today, and she’s planning to come back to work on Monday. I wanted to make sure to clear things up so her desk is ready.”

“Lauren,” Jackson said, and his chair creaked as he leaned back into it. “Will you come in a minute? Sit down.”

She ran a hand through her spikey hair and adjusted her butterfly barrette as she tentatively lowered herself into the chair across from him.

“What’s your situation, Lauren?”

“My . . . situation?”

“Yes. Are you working as a temp for a reason? Are you looking for a permanent job?”

“I haven’t been,” she answered. “I kind of liked the flexibility of moving from one place to another.”

“I see.” Disappointment simmered inside him, and Jackson sighed. “A bit of a free spirit, then.”

“Until I came here, anyway.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I like it here, Mr. Drake.”

“Jackson.”

“The people are so nice, and I enjoy the work. It’s something different all the time.”

Jackson snickered. “And that’s a good thing, huh, Lauren?”

She smiled at him and nodded. “For me, it is.”

“Susannah Littlefield has been with me for many years,” he explained. “Even before I bought the hotel. I don’t know how to get along without her. But she plans to retire later this year, and I hope you might be interested in taking her place.”

She looked stunned, a bit like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

“Really?”

“Really. Is that something that interests you?”

She nodded, but no sound emerged from her open mouth. He could so clearly see the wheels turning in her head that he thought he almost heard the grind.

“That’s a yes?”

She continued to nod, and then exclaimed, “Yes!”

“All right, then. Once Susannah gets back, I’d like to discuss it with her first. If she feels like it’s a good fit as well, I’ll contact the agency and talk to them about how to proceed. Then Susannah can begin training you, and you can stay on and work with her until she retires. How does that sound?”

Lauren stood up, looking down at him. “Thank you, Jackson.”

“You’re welcome.”

He stood up as well, and then jumped a little when Lauren rounded his desk and plowed into him with a clumsy hug. “Really, I’m so happy to hear that you felt it too. The fit, I mean.”

“Oh. Well. Good.”

Just as he pulled back from her, Lauren placed her hand on his back—a little too low for comfort, in fact—and she . . . 
squeezed
.

Looking up into his eyes with a strange and sultry smile, she cooed, “I just knew I wasn’t imagining it, Jackson.”

He narrowed his eyes and stared at her. It took about ten or twelve full seconds before it began to sink in, but then Jackson
pushed away from the girl, fumbling as he quickly removed her hands from around his waist.

“Okay. Sit down again. Right now, over there. Sit down.”

She shrugged, returned to the chair on the other side of the desk, and grinned at him as she wriggled down into it.

“Lauren.”

He almost wanted to laugh, but he knew enough to realize how wildly inappropriate laughter would be in a situation like the one in which he was now stuck. He swallowed and took in a sharp breath of preparation.

“Lauren,” he repeated.

“Yes, Jackson?”

“The fit I mentioned was purely professional. Do you understand what I mean?”

She thought it over and finally replied, “No. I don’t think so.”

“You realize I’m engaged to be married in a week, right?”

“Well. Yes. But when you said—”

“No,” he interrupted. “Not at all. I meant that I thought you might fit here as my assistant, Lauren. Nothing more.”

Again, she mulled over his words before responding. “Oh.”

“So in light of what just happened, I think we can look at this as your last day here.”

“What? Jackson, why?” she asked, fiddling with the chain around her stomach.

He sighed. “I think we both know why, but let me be clear. I’m flattered . . . and to be honest, a
little surprised
 . . . but I can’t hire someone who has feelings about anything other than doing a good job for me and for the hotel. Do you understand?”

“I . . . suppose . . .”

“So, thank you. And good-bye, Lauren.”

“Good-bye?”

“Yes. Right now. Good-bye.”

The girl stood up like a child who had just been sent to her room. She looked back at him from the doorway, and Jackson took care to keep his facial expression frozen and stern. But the instant after she’d grabbed her purse and marched out of the office, Jackson snickered unceremoniously.

“I just can
not
catch a break with assistants,” he muttered, shaking his head before he laughed right out loud.

It took two full shelves to house all of Emma’s prized recipes in their respective wooden boxes, labeled lovingly with a steady hand and a small bottle of white paint.

Cakes & Cupcakes

Pies & Desserts

Tearoom Fare

The laminated cards inside the boxes—many of them written in the shaky hand of her aunt Sophie or the round penmanship of her grandmother or scribbled by Emma and revised during trial-by-fire tests—were keepsakes that meant as much to Emma as that ring on her finger or her dad’s favorite leather chair; in some ways, they meant even more.

Sherilyn had insisted that they be transferred to a computer disk in case of a disaster like theft or fire, but Emma still lovingly pulled out one of the acrylic display stands and attached a recipe card to it whenever she baked, even though most of them she knew by heart without even looking.

This new recipe, however, she had never used before. Aunt Sophie’s Savannah Tea Cakes—cookies, in reality—had been staples of Emma’s southern childhood. For some reason, they’d danced across her mind that morning when she caught a whiff of Norma’s old-fashioned cinnamon rolls, and she arrived at
the hotel intent on pulling the recipe card and putting together a test batch.

The tearoom had been scheduled for a party of twenty-six the following afternoon to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Ellen Caldwell. The traceable Caldwell lineage reached back to the Civil War, and the family boasted Atlanta residence from then until now. In light of the fact that the tearoom had been chosen for the celebration, Emma thought the birthday girl would surely appreciate traditional southern fare such as Aunt Sophie’s tea cakes. If they turned out well, she might pack up a few and take them with her to Sophie’s when she went over later that day.

The original version of Nat King Cole’s song, “Unforgettable,” played on the small, bright-red radio on the recipe shelf, and Emma hummed along above the whir of her favorite commercial stand mixer.

Relaxation took many different forms for different people—for instance, her mother liked to paint; Aunt Sophie crocheted; Sherilyn munched on chocolate—but as for Emma . . . she spelled relaxation with a simple four-letter word.

B.A.K.E.

The textures, sounds, and fragrances of a baker’s kitchen came together to form the ideal playground. Emma couldn’t comprehend the thinking of anyone who didn’t appreciate the seductive and attractive language of baking.

She dumped the soft, wet dough from the mixing bowl on the floured worktable and formed it into a large disk with her hands before transferring it to a sheet of plastic wrap. As she lovingly tucked away the edges, the kitchen door flapped open and Fee breezed in.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, shedding her jacket and purse and tossing them onto the chair inside the door of Emma’s office.

“You’re not late. I’m early. How was Hildie’s soccer match?”

“Oh, I didn’t go. I just had to drop her off so she had time to get ready for it.”

Emma nodded, completing the secure wrapping of the dough as she walked it to the refrigerator.

“What are you making?”

“Savannah tea cakes,” she replied, and she carefully placed the dough on the top shelf. “It chills for an hour or two before I can do anything with it. I remembered the recipe this morning and thought it might be right for Ellen Caldwell’s birthday tea.”

“Yeah, okay. Sounds good.” Fee shrugged into an apron and fastened the ties. “I covered the red velvet in fondant yesterday. It should be ready for decoration. Want me to start there?”

“Sure.”

Emma approached the cake fridge alongside Fee, and they pulled open both doors. The gorgeous ivory cake appeared flawless, a perfect canvas for the delicate red scrolls that would soon cover every inch of it before the red chocolate roses, gracefully formed by the interns, surrounded the base of each of the three layers. It took both of them to lift the board and carry the cake to the stainless steel table.