Sweet Expectations (2 page)

She was our bakery's pastry chef and was considered a talent in the restaurant circles though she'd never been formally trained. She'd wanted to attend an upscale cooking academy in Maryland, but financially my parents couldn't swing it. So what she didn't learn from our father she'd taught herself with books and videos.

Beyond her baking skills, Rachel also had an annoying knack for reading me like one of her recipes. Her smile faded. “What's wrong?”

I cleared my throat and shrugged my shoulders. “Nothing's wrong, other than it's four o'clock in the morning.”

Blue eyes narrowed. “You're used to the hours.”

“I don't complain like I did in the beginning, but I refuse to become
accustomed
to a baker's life. Every sane person in this city is asleep now.”

She shoved out a relieved breath. “Irritated. A little bitchy. My Daisy. The smile was unexpected and it scared me.”

As I stepped into the hallway, I pulled my apartment door closed. “I'll try to remember smiling is bad.”

“Not bad, but out of character for you.”

“Duly noted.” We descended the narrow staircase.

The Union Street Bakery had been in business for over one hundred and fifty years. The original building had been located on Alexandria's shoreline along the large wharfs, but had burned in a fire in the 1880s. Our great-great-grandfather, Shaun McCrae, and his wife, Sally, had rebuilt the business and moved it to the current location on Union Street. They raised five children here, and there'd been a McCrae in this locale ever since.

Whereas fifty years ago a bakery had been a daily stop for most, that wasn't the case anymore. Most folks these days did their shopping at grocery stores and rarely made a side trip to a mom-and-pop operation like the Union Street Bakery. We had our steady customers, and in the last couple of months had supplemented our income with several catering jobs. But the retail business had not really grown. People loved us, but they just didn't want to go out of their way for us.

I'd come to realize that if we were going to survive, we had to reach out to some of the smaller grocery stores and get them to carry our goods. But to accomplish this we had to correct logistical problems at the bakery first. The kitchen was located in the basement. A manageable obstacle if you had a strong guy like my late brother-in-law or my dad in his prime to carry the hundred-pound sacks up and down the stairs. When Rachel had run the place alone, she'd gotten around the heavy-lifting problem by ordering small bags of flour and sugar, but small translated into expensive. If we were going to show a higher profit, we needed to move the kitchen to the main level. We also needed a freezer. Until now we made all our dough the day of or the night before. Fine for daily customers but if we planned to expand, we needed a freezer to stockpile dough and cake.

All this meant we needed a serious renovation, requiring that we close the shop for two weeks. It was a painful financial proposition, but necessary if we wanted to take the business to the next step.

“You're looking a little rough this morning,” Rachel said.

“How do you look remotely human this time of day?” And she did. Rachel had a way of springing out of bed looking, well, perfect. Strawberry-blond hair in place, makeup on and wearing T-shirts I'm pretty sure she ironed. “You make the rest of us look bad.”

She grinned. “I've made coffee.”

“Great.” The idea of my favorite brew had my stomach flip-flopping as I moistened my dry lips.

What I really craved was one of the ginger ales I'd hidden in the refrigerator downstairs. If I was lucky, I'd be able to stomach the ginger ale and a handful of saltines.

I'd not been sick until just a couple of weeks ago. And the more I thought about my upset stomach, the more convinced I became it wasn't morning sickness but the flu. The good thing about my sickness was that it lasted all day and I was fairly certain nausea associated with pregnancy was restricted not only to the mornings but also the first trimester mornings.

“Demo starts today,” I said.

Rachel somehow summoned a smile. “I bet it goes real smoothly.”

I held my index finger to my lips. “Shh. Don't speak so positively. You'll jinx us.”

She gently elbowed me. “You've got to learn to think positively.”

“Right.”

I shoved out a breath, already dreading the construction. To make room for the kitchen equipment in the basement we needed to knock out my office wall. My office would move to my apartment and the reclaimed square footage would hold the freezer and the basement ovens.

One of the selling points of the Union Street Bakery was our brick oven. Located in the basement, it gave our breads a fine crust a conventional oven couldn't duplicate. This old oven would remain in the basement, because as much as I wanted to move it up to the main floor, the oven was grandfathered in by the city, and if we moved one brick we'd have to demo it totally. And instead of building a new oven, we would patch the cracks in the side and hope it lasted a few more years.

Our new head baker, Jean Paul Martin, had arrived on our doorstep four weeks ago. He had proven himself to be a talented baker, but when he'd assured us he could tackle the renovation, I'd been skeptical. He'd fixed and built several brick ovens in his native France. He'd also framed several kitchens. Our project should take ten to fourteen days, he had promised. We'd lose one selling Saturday and would be back in operation by the second Saturday.

“Ne t'inquiète pas. Tout est en ordre
.
”
Don't worry. Everything is under control.

I remained skeptical when he told me his fees, which were dirt cheap. He'd barely make a dime off the job. But a dime was all I had to spare. So I'd agreed.

The bakery's accounts had tipped barely into the black and this downtime would land us back in the red. But ten to fourteen days was a survivable delay. We could do two weeks. But not a day more.

“He needs us to haul away all the pots and pans this afternoon, and then we remove the brick wall separating my office from the work space. The plan is to save the old bricks and then sell them. Jean Paul says people pay for old brick.”

It was a simple and straightforward plan.

Simple. I hate it when someone makes a
simple
plan. In my book, it's the equivalent of thumbing your nose at the Fates.

“Tell me what to do, and I'll do it,” Rachel said.

“First we sell today, business as usual. Then we tackle the rest.”

We moved down the back staircase toward the kitchen. The building stood three stories tall, not including the basement where the baking was done. The shop took up the first floor, Rachel and her two daughters lived on the second floor, and the attic was all mine. There were times when the girls were running and playing on the stairs so that the noise grew annoying, but I reminded myself this was how people lived one hundred years ago—several generations under one roof.

My dad had bought the building next door thirty years ago when the city had fallen by the wayside and land was cheap. His friends thought he was crazy. They had been encouraging him to leave Alexandria and he'd invested in more property. But Dad wasn't a quitter and about that time he and a handful of folks pushed for a new plan for Alexandria. It didn't happen overnight but these days the city enjoyed a steady stream of tourism. More For Sale signs had popped up on some of the retail shops and last week there'd been a bankruptcy sale, but the city seemed to be holding its own. And if the bakery could get back up and running, we'd do the same.

The sound of Jean Paul's hammer striking brick reverberated up from the basement.

Rachel cringed. “He said he'd wait until we closed at noon.”

Hammer hit brick. I winced. “Maybe he's testing the wall. Preliminary whacks.”

Her lips flattening, she shook her head. “He drives me crazy.”

My stomach tightened. “The man is a master. He could bake wonderful bread out of the flour he sweeps up off the floor.”

“But he doesn't stick to bread. He is telling me what pastries I should bake.”

Rachel had had issues with him last week over the menu. She'd wanted to keep several items her late husband had put in place, and Jean Paul wanted them gone. I agreed with Jean Paul but had yet to tackle the menu with Rachel. The renovation had bought me some time, but the battle would tee up again when we reopened.

We found Jean Paul, a tall wiry man with slicked-back dark hair, cigarette dangling from his mouth, poised over the basement brick oven. He had a chisel and hammer in hand, and he seemed to be studying the best angle of attack.

“Jean Paul, the city inspector will not let us alter the oven. If we do, then he will make us remove it.”

Jean Paul's gaze remained on the oven. “I am taking out a brick or two.”

“The deal was no bricks.”

“That is why I started early. I have never known an inspector to rise early, and by the time ours does, the repairs will be made and no one will be the wiser.”

The smell of cigarette smoke and the coffee sent my stomach into somersaults, forcing me to brace. “Jean Paul, no cigarettes in the kitchen.”

He raised his gaze, one eye squinting as the smoke trailed past. “It's not a kitchen today.”

“It's still a kitchen for a few more hours. Put it out!” My stomach tumbled as I moved to the large stainless steel refrigerator and pulled an ice-cold ginger ale from the back. I popped the top and sipped carefully. The cool liquid soothed my throat and for the moment my stomach handled it. Yesterday, I'd drunk the soda too fast, and it had come up within a matter of minutes. My stomach didn't love the first tentative sips but had also not rejected them.

Maybe my stomach's acceptance of the ginger ale was a sign. Maybe this was indeed the flu and my panicked trip to the drugstore last night was all for nothing.

Please, oh, please, oh, please.

Rachel poured herself a cup of coffee and eyed me over the rim. “So what is going on with you? You have too much to drink last night?”

I pressed the cold can to my head. “Yeah, too much to drink. I'll be fine.”

She sipped, studied, and looked ready to comment, when Jean Paul struck his hammer into the motor. The strike was hard and loud and made us both jump.

“How many more bricks?” I shouted.

“Six, maybe ten, no more than twenty.”

“Twenty bricks.” I pressed the cold can to my cheek. “That will ruin the oven.”

He shook his head. “This is for me to worry about. You two must get ready for the day.”

A heavy weight pressed on me and for a moment unbearable worry tightened around me. The old oven had served this bakery so well for sixty years, and he was dismantling it bit by bit. “Don't screw up my oven.”

He grunted, raised his hammer to a stone and then seemed to think better of it before moving to another section.

Since the spring, I'd had a lifetime worth of change. This might not be my dream life, but it was
my
life. I wanted this renovation done as fast as possible so that everything would settle. I wanted the bakery to keep growing and improving. I wanted numbers once red to stay black, and pink to remain white. Gordon to keep on loving me.

I didn't want more change.

Want.

Wanting could be as bad as planning. Both invited trouble.

Chapter Two

Saturday, 7:45
A.M.

14 days until grand reopening

Income Lost: $0

F
our hours later the sun had risen, and the store was set to open in minutes. We'd baked extra yesterday, knowing Saturday would be our last sales day for a couple of weeks. We'd carefully carried all the baked goods upstairs and kept them in covered bins for freshness. We'd intentionally finished the breads and dozens of cookies this morning so the bakery smelled sweet and inviting.

Jean Paul finished removing his bricks and had spent the next hours mixing mortar and replacing bricks. While visions of surprise inspections had plagued me all morning, he'd not been the least bit worried. And as it turned out, I'd worried over nothing. By seven, Jean Paul had completed the job. His smile had been smug and self-assured, and I'd wondered what other rules would get bent or broken over the next week and a half.

My stomach had settled by the time we opened, and I was really feeling sure I had just gotten hold of a bug. Give it a day or two and I'd be my old self. The pregnancy test could be chalked up to a moment of hysteria.

As Rachel arranged chocolate-chip cookies on a tray, I hefted a tray of pies destined for the front display case. We were putting out six today, though we normally did ten.

“Is Margaret here yet?” I asked. Our third sister, Margaret, was the oldest. She worked part-time at the bakery.

On cue, I heard the front door bells jangle and the door close. I glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to eight. Early. Margaret was never early. “Margaret?”

“That would be me,” she called back.

Rachel met my surprised gaze. “Sounded like her.”

“How can it be her? She's early.”

Rachel shook her head. “You were smiling this morning and she's early. This is all so wrong.”

I pushed through the double saloon doors separating the work area from the sales area and found Margaret putting her purse away.

“Everything all right?” I asked as I raised the back of the display case and slid the pies inside.

Margaret, like Rachel, had reddish hair, though hers was curly and wild and had to be tamed daily with a rubber band and bobby pins. “Life is great!”

I paused and glanced up at Margaret. Life was never good with my oldest sister. The glass always tipped at the half-empty mark.

Red ringlets framed Margaret's round face. Freckles peppered skin looking flushed with excitement. She wore a loose, pale blue peasant top and a full black skirt that skimmed her calves. Birkenstocks.

Margaret had a PhD in history and a master's in forensics. If there was one industry that was tougher than the bakery business it was forensic anthropology. Last year she'd had an opportunity to take a job out west, but she had refused it so she could stay close to Rachel. Family loyalty had her helping in the bakery, but she didn't love it. The customers never saw her frustration. She reserved those gems for me.

“What's wrong?” I said.

She actually laughed. “Why does anything have to be wrong, Daisy? Do you have to be such a downer?”

My stomach tightened, and for a moment I mentally traced the steps to the bathroom. “I'm a happy person.”

She laughed again. “Right.”

“I
am
happy.” Carefully I rearranged the pies in the case. I was happy. I had a lot to be thankful for.

Bracelets jangled on her wrists. “You are as bad as I am. We are soul sisters when it comes to our innate unhappiness.”

I'd always known I had a bitter edge but wasn't comfortable with having a reputation as perpetually sour. Suddenly, unsettling images of me as an old, wizened bakery woman flashed. “So why are you in such a good mood today?”

She flicked away a lock of hair away from her eyes. “It's summer. The air is warm, not hot.”

I rose, stretching the tight muscles in my back. “If you say the birds are singing, I'll hit you.”

“But they are!”

“Rachel,” I shouted. “Come here quick!”

Rachel quickly appeared above the saloon doors, a look of alarm on her face. “What's wrong?”

I jabbed my thumb toward Margaret. “Margaret has been kidnapped. I don't know who this is, but it's not Margaret. She says the birds are freaking singing.”

Rachel's confused gaze danced between Margaret's smiling face and mine. “She looks like Margaret.”

I shook my head. “Look closer. There's a twinkle in her eye, and there's a grin on her face.”

Rachel's brow knotted. “You were smiling when I first saw you this morning.”

I shook my head. “Mine was fake. Hers is real.”

Rachel studied Margaret's face and when our sister grinned, retreated a step. “Should I call the cops?”

Margaret laughed and shook her head. “You two. You act like I'm never happy.”

“You aren't,” Rachel said.

“I can't argue,” I said. “We match each other foul mood for foul mood.” I folded my arms over my chest. “What gives? You meet a guy? This some kind of sexual euphoria?”

“No,” Margaret said. She didn't laugh again, but her eyes still danced.

“Really, Margaret,” Rachel said, all humor gone. “What gives?” Rachel, our cheerleader, could find a rainbow in a room full of manure. But since Jean Paul's arrival, her temper had shortened, and her smile had grown a tad brittle.

Margaret reached for her green Union Street Bakery apron and carefully pulled it over her head. We both watched and waited as she crisscrossed the apron strings in the back and tied them in a bow in the front. “I've kinda been offered a dream job.”

My heart slowed a beat. With the three of us, the bakery had run well. Rachel baked. I managed the money and Margaret handled customers.
We
were a three-legged stool.

I summoned a smile, swearing I'd not let my mind go to the disaster place it liked to scurry when change occurred. “So where is the job?”

Her eyes brightened. “It's an archeology dig up on the Chesapeake Bay in St. Mary's County, Maryland.”

“That's about an hour north of here.” I calculated the miles, the traffic, and the lost hours behind the counter.

An hour away wasn't the end of the earth, and I was thinking this gig like many of the other history jobs would be part-time. Good history positions were so rare. Basically, someone had to die for a slot to open.

“So what would you do?” Rachel asked.

Margaret rubbed nervous hands over her apron. “An old pre–Revolutionary War community has been discovered. The dig has already started, but they need extra hands.”

“So is this a volunteer job?” I said.

“Not exactly. The gal heading it up has to take a leave. She's pregnant and has to go on bed rest.” She shook her head. “Who in their right mind would get pregnant during the dig season? God, contraception anyone?”

I folded my arms over my chest. “So you'd be there for the dig season.”

“Or maybe longer.”

I knew enough about archeology digs to know the season had started in March and would extend to early December. “So you would leave when?”

“Today would be my last day.”

A rush of air escaped from Rachel's lips.

“I know this is very short notice.” Doubt mingled with Margaret's euphoria. “I know I'm leaving you in the lurch. I
know
that. But I swear this is the best job ever.”

I shoved back a pang of jealousy. I'd had a great job until the financial company I'd worked for had blown up. I'd made great money. Wore designer suits. People sat a little straighter when I entered a room. Now I worked eighty-hour weeks either in hot kitchens covered in flour and icing, ringing a register, or balancing a lopsided budget.

Sarcastic comments danced in my head, but I refused to unleash them. As much as I wanted to bust Margaret for her lack of notice, I didn't. Couldn't. This was a dream for her. “So can we at least throw you a going-away party tomorrow?”

Relief rushed past Margaret's lips in a rush. “I have to be on-site Monday morning.”

“Then it will be tomorrow afternoon.” I faced Rachel. “We can do a little something tomorrow afternoon, right?”

Unshed tears glistened in Rachel's eyes. Her bottom lip quivered, but still she nodded and smiled. “Great.”

Margaret pursed her lips. “I wouldn't have taken this, Rachel, if Daisy wasn't here. I know the two of you can manage.”

Rachel cleared her throat. “Of course.” She turned and vanished into the kitchen.

Margaret moved to follow.

I blocked her path. “It's okay. Let her go. She's been wound tight lately.”

Worry erased her happiness. “What's going on with her?”

“Jean Paul is insisting on changes, and it's upsetting her. And the renovation is not helping.”

Silver bracelets jangled from Margaret's wrist as she tugged at a key-shaped earring. “She's the boss. If she doesn't like it then she should tell him so.”

“That's not her style.”

“Maybe it should be.”

“I know. You know. But this is about more than changing menu items. The latest menu was Mike's.”

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Doesn't mean it was great. I mean Mike could bake, but he wasn't the expert. I didn't like all his choices.”

Mike had been a talented baker and seemed to be the perfect fit for Rachel. He liked to make decisions, and she was happy to let him. Their relationship wouldn't have worked for me or for Margaret, but it worked for them. Since his death, Rachel had been hurled out of her comfort zone and forced to make tougher choices. So far, she'd not done so well.

“Don't worry about it. I'm here, and Rachel and I will figure this all out.”

“I'm leaving you in a terrible spot.”

“Not really. You've done a lot to keep the bakery going, carried the load when I didn't. Let me worry about it for a while.”

Margaret tugged at the apron strings. “I didn't think I'd feel this guilty about leaving.”

“The place has a way of sucking you in.”

“So what are you gonna do? This isn't your forever kind of place. I figured sooner or later you'd job hunt in New York or on the West Coast.”

“I'm going to give the bakery a full year, see it through the renovation and the wholesale transition.”

“When did you decide this?”

I glanced around the shop at the cookies in the display, the cupcake clock on the wall, the blue trim needing fresh paint. “When we committed to the renovation.”

“So you're going to stop looking for another job?” Surprise and doubt wrapped each word.

My defenses rose. “A year isn't forever, Margaret. And if the right job came along I'd sure look at it.”

“You mean like opportunity knocking on the door?”

“Something like that.”

“Kinda Zen and kinda passive for you.” A frown furrowed her brow. “I remember Dad saying when he was a teen he'd never work in the bakery. That he wanted to be a pilot. And then his dad died and life locked him into this place.”

The comparison didn't sit well. I didn't resemble the McCrae clan but temperament-wise I was a lot like Dad. We thought alike. Mom said we both had type A personalities. “I don't think he has a lot of regrets.”

“He does, too. He never says, but those regrets are there. I don't want you to end up with regrets, Daisy.”

Dad said he was happy with his choices. Had he simply fooled himself like I was trying to now?

My stomach gurgled. Right now I could not think that far ahead. “Let me get through the next two weeks, and then I'll worry about the rest of my life. You take this job. In fact, consider yourself fired as of noon today.”

Margaret laughed. “Fired?”

“That's right. We want you out.” I wagged my finger at the front door. “Don't ever darken our doorstep again.”

Margaret tapped a ringed finger against her thigh. “And if it doesn't work out or last?”

“It will.” Better she think of this as a one-way ticket. Trap doors, outs, and nets had a way of making us not try as hard. “Now would you flip the sign to Open? Customers should be here soon.”

She moved toward the door and spun the sign around. “I thought I was fired.”

“Like I said, you are fired at noon.”

Margaret stopped and stared at me for a long moment.

“What?” I grumbled.

“Thanks.”

This time my smile was real. “You're welcome.”

I'd barely slipped on my apron before the first throng of customers arrived. Saturday was our busiest retail day. Folks who'd denied themselves sweets all week arrived ready to sin and enjoy. Some planned ahead for Sunday after-church meals and others were the random tourists who'd found us. Weeks ago, Rachel and I had visited all the area hotels within walking distance and handed out samples and offered a 10 percent discount to hotel guests. The ploy seemed to be working, which made me all the more frustrated by this much-needed closing. I'd planned to renovate and move the kitchen in September or October but when the wholesalers agreed to give us a try, I knew I needed to have the new operation in full swing by fall. Again, plans and me, we didn't fare so well.