Sweet Expectations (3 page)

As Margaret welcomed a customer, I turned toward the saloon doors leading to the back. As I took a step, an odd wave of energy passed over me. Cold. Frigid. It took my breath away and for a moment I froze, not sure what was happening. Maybe more flulike symptoms but this didn't feel so physical. The sensation was dread mixed with a jolt of energy. As my head spun, I imagined the floor under me shifting. The sounds of Margaret and the customer faded and the loneliness enveloped me. Instinctively, my hand slid to my unsteady belly. I was going to be sick.

Stumbling forward, I pushed through the saloon doors and hurried up the back staircase to my room. I made it to my bathroom seconds before I threw up. After the nausea had passed, I sat on the bathroom floor, my eyes watering and my head aching. I leaned my head back against the tiled wall. “This is such bullshit. Such bullshit.”

Whatever was going on with me needed to stop. I did not have time to be sick. And I sure as hell did not have time to be pregnant.

I'm not sure what drew my gaze to the trash can, but there it went, catching the edge of the pregnancy test strip. Absently, I reached for it so I could stare at the light-pinkish window, which had refused to confirm a pregnancy this morning.

When I looked at the strip, the color was no longer a light pink. It was dark pink plus sign. A really dark pink plus sign.

I blinked, shook the test strip as if a hard jolt would dilute the color, and then looked at it again. The plus remained as bright and pink as before. Weren't these tests no longer valid after twenty or thirty minutes?

I fished out the box and read the back instructions thinking maybe, just maybe, the plus meant something other than pregnant.

Quickly I scanned the tiny type. I found in bolded letters
Results
. A negative sign meant no pregnancy. A plus indicated pregnancy.

The instructions had the good sense to remain neutral and oddly calm, though it could have said,
Daisy, you dumbass. You are thirty-four years old, and you are by no stretch a virgin. So how the hell did you get pregnant? You know better!

Clutching the strip in my hand, I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes. Tests like this weren't perfect. There was at least a 10 percent margin of error, I was fairly certain. The definitive test, according to Rachel, was a blood test.

Clutching the strip, I swore. “Why couldn't you have given me a straight answer in the time listed on the back of the box? Then I'd have a real answer. Not a maybe
yes,
maybe this is a bad test
yes
.”

Shit.

I thought about another drugstore test but I couldn't imagine doing this all over again tomorrow morning. No more dime-store tests, which could have been left in the rain, heat, or cold by a hapless delivery truck driver.

Yeah, the test was faulty. Yeah. Faulty.

The blood test would prove once and for all that I was not pregnant.

* * *

Rachel's smile was as brittle and fragile as spun sugar, which was as easily admired as shattered. As she boxed up assorted cookies for a mother with two toddlers screaming to be let out of their double stroller, she tried to imagine herself at a beach. Soft sand. Cool breeze. The sun on her skin.

But as hard as she tried to summon the image, she could not. She'd not been to the beach since high school, and when she'd been there it had been with Mike. They had barely started dating. She'd been a cheerleader. He'd been on the football team. They'd not had much money, but there'd been no worries for either of them in those days. Their biggest concerns were getting a base tan before prom, which was weeks away. She'd been so worried her pale skin would all but glow in her new black dress.

The lost, long-ago beach day had been magical. They'd had a beer or two. Soaked up the sun. Laughed with friends. No worries.

Perfect had ended during the car ride home when she'd broken out in chills. She'd sunburned. Badly. When they'd arrived home her skin simmered with heat. Mike had laughed and reminded her he'd told her so. Her mother had coated her skin with aloe vera.

“Could you throw in another dozen sugar cookies?”

Rachel glanced up toward the voice that sounded as if it were a million miles away. The woman wore her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, sunglasses on her head and gold earrings dangling. She looked annoyed.

“Another dozen cookies?” Rachel said. “Sure.”

“Sugar cookies,” she repeated as Rachel reached for the lemon bars.

“Right. Sure.” She carefully stacked the dozen in the box before sealing it with a gold Union Street Bakery sticker. “That'll be twenty-one dollars.”

The woman handed her a credit card. “I saw the sign out front. So how long are you going to be closed?”

If the woman had seen and
read
the sign she'd know. But Rachel summoned a smile as she swiped the card. “Two weeks.”

A manicured finger smoothed over a sleek eyebrow. “My son's birthday is August 12. I'd like to order a cake.”

Rachel handed her back her card and receipt. “I can take it now.”

“You are sure you'll be open on time? I've never known construction to go as planned.”

“We will be fine. We've built in extra days of cushion.”

“It's been my experience when there's a remodel days turn into weeks.”

“We'll be fine.” And they would. This was about knocking out one wall and moving kitchen equipment, not rebuilding the entire place. “Would you like me to take the order?”

She opened the cookie box and handed one to each child. “It needs to look like a ninja. A red ninja. Chocolate. Must feed twenty children.”

“A ninja?”

“You can do that can't you?”

“I don't see why not.”

“And he has to be red. Billy likes the red ninja. He has a red ninja doll and is obsessed with it.”

“I can do a ninja. And red. Vanilla icing. Chocolate cake.”

“Yes. But not buttercream. I like the icing made from Crisco. I know it's not the fancy kind, but I like the taste better. Tastes like the canned icing. I know we shouldn't like it, but we do. So do the kids.”

As Rachel wrote up the order, she pressed so hard with the tip of her pencil it broke and she had to fish another out of her apron. Ninja. Crisco. What else? Food coloring in the batter? “Sounds good. You'll pick it up on the eleventh?”

“Yes.”

She recorded the woman's information and watched as she left. “Why don't you go to a chain store at get your ninja cake? Why bother to come here?”

Margaret glanced up from the register. “What are you mumbling about?”

“People who come to a specialty bakery wanting their cake to taste like the ones in the grocery store.”

Margaret looked unworried. “Money is money. Does it matter as long as they pay?”

Rachel glared at Margaret. “I feel like a cake whore who mixes up whatever to keep the customer happy.”

“Cake whore?” Margaret cocked her head. “That doesn't sound like you.”

Rachel could see the surprise in her sister's gaze but didn't really care. “What am I supposed to sound like?”

“I don't know. Happy, I suppose. Daisy and I are the bitter, grumbly ones, remember? You are supposed to be the happy one.”

“Maybe I don't feel like happy. Maybe I'm a little bit annoyed in general today.” The bells rang on the front door as several more customers wandered in. Rachel watched as they absently searched the menu above for ideas, and she realized if she had to answer one more question about the difference between white chocolate and chocolate, she'd scream. Without a word, she left Margaret to deal.

She considered escaping to the kitchen and baking to burn off stress, but remembered the ovens had been unplugged and Jean Paul was downstairs dismantling them for the move.

She smoothed her hands over her hips and rolled her head from side to side, trying to work the kinks out of her neck. Margaret was right. She was the happy one. She didn't get pissed and didn't do bitter well. And yet here she stood, annoyed and angry living in skin tightening by the moment.

Daisy reappeared red-eyed and pale.

“Where have you been?”

The sharp edges on her words had Daisy raising a brow. “Bathroom.”

“Are you hungover or something? Gordon's been gone since Thursday night on his bike trip, and you're not the type to sit in your room and drink alone.”

Daisy moistened her lips. “It's less like a hangover and more like
something
. A bit of a bug, I think.”

Immediately contrite, Rachel struggled with her anger as if she didn't have the right to express negative emotion with anyone, especially Daisy, who had damn near ridden to her rescue months ago. “You need to hang back when we pack and move equipment.”

“No. I'm good. I already feel like I'm on the mend.” Daisy glanced at the clock on the wall. “T-minus fifteen minutes.”

“And the bakery closes for fourteen days.”

“Margaret out front?”

“Figured I'd leave it to her since she's abandoning us.” Bitterness melted into her voice.

“That's not exactly fair. She's hung in there with you.”

“Yeah, she has. And Mom and Dad helped her with grad school and last I checked the bakery pays her for her time.” She rubbed her hands over her arms, craving a beer. She'd had a couple since Mike died, always denying herself a second, fearing if she gave in to the grief she'd never stop drinking.

“You on the rag?” Daisy challenged.

Rachel shook her head. “Can't I be annoyed without being on my cycle?”

“You are only edgy during your period.”

“Well, today, I'm annoyed, and I'm not on the rag.”

Daisy's gaze narrowed as she studied Rachel. “How was the girls' sleepover with Mom and Dad?”

She huffed out a breath. “No one called so all systems must be go.”

Mom and Dad had offered to take the girls on a beach vacation when Daisy had proposed the renovation. It had made sense to all, so her parents rented a cottage on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Sunday-to-Sunday rental began tomorrow, but Rachel had been worried about her aging parents chasing after very busy twin five-year-olds. She'd suggested sleepovers as practice. So far, they'd gone well. The girls had been happy and Mom and Dad hadn't died from exhaustion.

“The acid test will be the beach vacation. Ellie and Anna are going to kick their asses.”

Rachel loved her girls more than life but she needed this break. Needed a little time to reacquaint herself with Rachel.

“They raised us,” Daisy offered.

“You lose the stamina real quick. If I had to go back to the infant stage now, I think I'd die. All those sleepless nights. I thought I'd go insane.”

Daisy's gaze sharpened. “Mike helped, didn't he?”

“When he could. But he had to be up at three to bake, so for the most part I took care of the babies.”

“Yeah, but you had two.”

“True. But all it takes is one with colic and life as you know it is over. Gone. Dead in the water.”

Daisy untied her apron and carefully hung it on the wall. “Good to know.”

“What do you have to worry about? You're on the no-kid plan.”

“Right.”

The front door bells jangled, Margaret wished the last customer good day, and then she pushed through the saloon doors. “Mission accomplished. We are now officially closed.”

“So we pack up equipment now, right?” Rachel said.

“Sure,” Margaret agreed. “I'm about all packed on the home front, so you have me all afternoon.”

Daisy's smile made her pale features look a little ghoulish. “Great.”

Seeing the finish line brought with it a kind of euphoria and Margaret could see hers. Rachel had been robbing Peter to pay Paul timewise for so long, she'd forgotten what it felt like to be excited. Her finish line was so far off in the distance, she wondered if it existed.

Chapter Three

Saturday, 2:00
P.M.

13 days, 22 hours until grand reopening

Income Lost: $0

T
he three of us worked for several hours. While I cleaned out my office, Margaret and Rachel packed all the cooking supplies, pots, pans, and spoons. Jean Paul finished his repairs to the brick oven.

By four we'd cleared out the space, and we were ready to demo the wall of my office. The wall had been in place for as long as I could remember and was made of brick. Jean Paul had gone to the basement, studied the floor joists, determined the office wall was not load bearing and we were safe to remove it.

“Don't worry,” he said.

Hammer and chisel in hand, I stared at the wall. “You are sure about the wall?”

He shrugged and brushed back a lock of hair with his long fingers. “Of course.”

“If the bakery collapses, Jean Paul, I'm coming after you.”

He grunted, took the hammer and chisel from me and cut into a chunk of mortar. The first bricks were slow going, but after about the fifth or sixth removal the demolition went faster. Soon, my sisters and I were carrying bricks to the back alley behind the bakery and stacking them in neat piles.

Since Jean Paul's arrival I'd noticed whatever he did, he did very well. However, he could only do one task at a time, and he could not be rushed. So when we had no bricks to move, I swept mortar from the floor, Margaret texted friends, and Rachel paced.

It wasn't an efficient system, but like I said, Jean Paul wasn't charging more than his baker's salary, and I didn't have the money to hire a real builder. And so we moved slowly and carefully.

In a couple of hours, about 40 percent of the wall had been dismantled. We'd created a neat hole into the space that had been my domain for the last couple of months.

“I'm gonna miss this space.” Closing the office door had been a treat in itself. The space had been small, but it was a sanctuary of sorts. And soon it would be gone for good.

Rachel shook her head. “Not me. I always tensed up in the space. Balancing the budget made me want to cry.”

Margaret texted. “Maybe you can make an office in the basement. Other than the bread oven, space is now open, right?”

“Twelve hundred square feet.” We could use it as storage but the basement square footage needed to work for us to survive. I didn't know what we'd do with it yet, but we needed ideas.

An unlit cigarette dangled from Jean Paul's mouth as he studied his work. Hands rested casually on his lean hips. “Make it a wine cellar.”

“Wine. We are bakers,” I said

“Bread and wine are natural pairings,” Margaret said. “A loaf of bread, a bit of cheese, and a bottle of wine. Perfect for a day by the river.”

“I don't know anything about wine. I know what I like, but I wouldn't know how to sell it.”

Jean Paul shrugged as if this were a simple problem. “I might know a guy.”

“A guy?”

“He is selling his restaurant. He has wine to sell.”

“How much?”

Jean Paul straightened, as lazy as a cat on a hot day. “I will ask.”

With no further explanation we returned to work. As the day went on, the heat outside rose and the temperatures in the kitchen grew hotter. We had the back door propped open to allow a breeze because Jean Paul had shut off the AC so the intake didn't suck up the dust.

“This is BS,” Margaret said. Her good humor of the morning had faded. “I can't believe we are doing this ourselves. Why don't you hire someone, Daisy?”

I swiped sweat from my brow. “Can't afford a someone. We are it.”

“We are bakers, not construction workers,” she said as she accepted a brick.

Rachel had been silent through the afternoon, but it was clear she didn't like this any better than Margaret or me. Normally she found positive topics to talk about, but not today. Something chipped at her good humor as Jean Paul chipped at the mortar.

He set his chisel against a chunk of mortar and hit hard. The mortar fell free and he wrestled another brick loose. This was a maddening process. My head pounded and I considered calling it quits for the day when Jean Paul said, “That is unusual.”

No surprises, please.
“What?”

“There is a hole where the side wall meets the main wall.” He took a small, dented, silver flashlight, clicked it on, and peered into the crevice left by the missing bricks.

“Do you see anything?” Margaret said.

“Always the archeologist,” I said.

She shrugged. “Be nice to land a big discovery during this adventure. Makes the chipped nails and sore back muscles worth it.”

“Maybe it's buried treasure,” I teased.

Margaret's eyes brightened. “Now that would be totally cool.”

“I hope whatever it is,” Rachel said, “it's worth a ton of money. Then we can hire someone else to do this and we can go on vacation with Mom, Dad, and the girls.”

“Poverty is a drag,” I said.

When I'd first rejoined the bakery, I'd seen the income issues as an exciting challenge. I was sure I could come up with a scheme to turn this place around and make real money. I'd slashed costs and turned a very marginal profit, which was enough to pay the quarterly taxes and cushion us for fourteen days of downtime. Hardly setting the world on fire.

When I'd been in finance the money was been great. And I'd spent it freely, enjoying all the fruits of my labors. I'd assumed the job would always be there and the money would keep rolling into my bank account. I cringe now when I think about how much I'd spent on shoes and eating out and trips. If I'd saved 20 percent I'd have no worries now. But I'd pissed it all away on crap. And now the job had vanished and I was here, schlepping bricks in the heat.

Jean Paul ignored us as he always did, peering inside the hole. Finally he grunted, pushed up his sleeve and put his arm in the opening.

“Is that such a good idea?” I said as his arm vanished into the opening. “You don't know what's in there.”

He grunted and leaned deeper into the hole. And then without warning he screamed as if in agony. He thrashed. Screamed more. We all squealed. Rachel jumped up and down as I raced toward Jean Paul.
Please don't let his arm get bitten off.
The thought of blood made my stomach flip-flop.

“I'll call 9-1-1!” Margaret shouted as she reached for her cell.

I reached Jean Paul ready to do . . . I don't know what, but I was there ready to attempt a rescue. And then the anguished expression on his face vanished and he smiled. He pulled his arm effortlessly out of the hole. Clutched in his non-bloody fingers was a rusted metal box.

My heart racing, I stared at him through narrowed eyes as he laughed. “Women. So easy to scare.”

I took a step back and glanced at my sisters. The anger burning in their gazes mirrored mine. “Should we kill him fast or slow, ladies?”

“Definitely slow,” Rachel said. Her cheeks remained flushed and her eyes were wide with lingering worry.

“Super slow.” Margaret tucked her phone back in her rear pocket.

Chuckling, Jean Paul handed me the box and then glanced up at the clock on the wall. “It's five. Time to stop.”

Thank God!
I can now crawl into bed and focus on not throwing up.
However, despite my first reaction, I said, “What do you mean stop? We have hours of daylight.”

One of his thick brows arched. “It's a beautiful day. And I've plans with friends.”

“Friends. You moved here a month ago.” I'd lived here my whole life and had, well, no friends other than my sisters and Gordon. I wasn't sure if my current circumstance was my fault or the bakery's.

Another casual shrug lifted his shoulders. “It is not so hard to make friends.”

Instead of summoning a rebuttal, I glanced at the box. “What is it?”

“A box,” Jean Paul said.

“Thanks. I did figure that much out.”

He reached in his pocket for his rumpled pack of cigarettes and headed toward the back door. “Until tomorrow.”

As he vanished out the door, Margaret peered over my shoulder. “Open it.”

Rachel pushed her hand through her hair. “If we're knocking off I'm headed upstairs. I want to make sure Mom packed everything the girls need.”

“Don't you want to see what's in the box?” Margaret said.

Rachel waved a tired hand. “Pass.”

“Suit yourself,” she said.

As I went to the refrigerator, peeled back the plastic now covering it, and pulled out a ginger ale, she opened the box. Rusted hinges squeaked and groaned. I popped the top and savored several small sips. “What's inside?”

“Looks like recipes.”

“Recipes?” As the liquid hit my stomach, it lurched. I refused to get sick again today. “No gold?”

She shook her head. “No gold, silver, or precious gems. Old recipes. And . . .” She fished her fingers into the box. “A set of dog tags.”

“Dog tags? For who?”

Margaret squinted and studied the embossed lettering. “For a Walter F. Jacob.”

“Who would put a box of recipes in a wall with a set of dog tags?”

“This wall must have been installed in the early nineteen forties. So this must have been put in as it was being built.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“A mystery.” Margaret handed the box to me. “Which I do not have time to consider. I've friends to meet for drinks at seven, and it would be nice to take a shower before I meet up with them.”

I traced my fingers over the dust coating the top of the box. “Sure, fine. Leave me alone.”

Margaret arched a brow. “Is self-pity lingering under those words? Really, Daisy, that's beneath you.”

Wallowing wasn't my usual way, which meant I should be entitled to it once in a while. “What if it is?”

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Whining does not become you, Daisy. You love solitude.”

“Not always.”

“Where's Gordon?”

I traced my finger through the dust on the box. “On a hundred-mile bike ride in the Shenandoah Valley with a group of tourists from Japan.”

“One hundred miles?”

“I know. Crazy. But he loves to ride, and his adventure/extreme tours are becoming popular.”

Margaret scrunched up her face as if she'd bitten into a lemon. “Popular with who? Masochists? That's not exercise. It's torture.”

“You're preaching to the choir.”

She shrugged off her apron and hung it on a peg by the door. “So are you two getting kind of serious?”

My smile masked my panic. “We're trying to be friends. A new and different approach for us.”

“I mean, I have guy friends, and I know you've had one or two, but you were going to marry Gordon at one point.”

“Yeah. But the engagement was rushed. We moved too fast.” Gordon had never considered our pace fast. The speed had been my complaint.

“He is cute.”

I smiled as I sipped more ginger ale. “Yes, he is.”

“Better grab Gordon, Daisy. He strikes me as a keeper.”

“Yeah.” I thought about the dark pink plus sign on the pregnancy test buried deep in my bathroom trash can. How would I explain this to him? How could I tell a guy I really loved I was pregnant with another man's baby. “He is.”

“When will he be back?”

“Monday.” When he'd left a couple of days ago I'd been sorry to see him go. Now I was glad for the break. I had to find a doctor and get a blood test so by the time he returned I knew one way or the other about the pregnancy. I tried to think good thoughts about flu and food poisoning.

“Well, if you two decide to take your relationship up a notch and tie the knot, call me. You getting hitched is an event I'd like to see.”

I imagined us standing by the Potomac saying our vows. “No one is getting hitched anytime soon.”

“Never know.” She gave me a quick salute. “So are we doing the going-away party tomorrow?”

“We are. Mom and Dad shove off with the girls in the morning so let's shoot for five. You, me, and Rachel.”

“We'll walk to a pub and drink like we did when we were teenagers.”

I offered a thumbs-up, already knowing if I drank a drop of wine I'd throw up. “Right.”

“See ya.”

Alone in the dusty kitchen I stared at the hole and thought about the wall that had stood guard here all my life and provided a refuge office for my grandfather, my dad, and me. And now it was gone.

The front door bells of the bakery chimed and I cursed Margaret for not locking the door. One fact I'd discovered about retail was that no matter what time of day or year, if the front door was unlocked someone assumed we were open.

I pushed through the saloon doors to find an attractive man dressed in dark, pleated pants, an ironed monogramed white shirt, and expensive tasseled loafers. I recognized him from my financial days and the five or six custom orders he'd placed with the bakery. Chocolate espresso cake. Simon Davenport. He was on the verge of launching a new development near the river, and the Union Street Bakery had done some catering for him in the last weeks. Nothing large yet, but the stream of business had been steady. And best of all he paid on time and his checks always cleared.