You Belong With Me (21 page)

              Layla stepped forward, noticing Max’s eyes turning red. “Oh Max, thank you for everything you’ve done for us and for our grandmother. She must have loved you very much,” she said, putting her hand on Max’s arm.

              Max burst into tears, completely horrifying herself. “That’s it. You had to do it. I’m out of here,” Max said and left the bakery with a slam of the door.

              Kit grinned and shook her head. “What a softie.
How embarrassing
.”

              Jane threw a towel at Kit, laughing, “I think its sweet. She was really starting to grow on me.”

              Layla nodded in agreement and walked over to the cupboard to grab the white binder that held all their recipes. She needed to double check her list of ingredients to make sure they were ready for Monday. “Max is one of a kind,” she said, standing on her tip toes to look on the shelf.
Nothing there
. She frowned and turned around, searching the counter for the white binder.

              “So do you have any interviews set up for counter help tomorrow?” Kit asked as she started doing an inventory of the pantry.

              Jane nodded as she added up the receipts from the booth. “Yeah, tomorrow I have four people coming in later after the bakery is closed.”

              Layla glared at the kitchen.
Where was the binder?
“Hey guys, do you think Max might have taken the white binder with her by accident?” she asked, turning in a circle while she looked up and down.

              Jane looked up and Kit paused to stare at her. “
No
, of course not. Besides, she already made copies of all the recipes she wanted for herself. That was last week. We’ve been using the binder every day since then. It’s always on the middle shelf,” Jane said, standing up and walking over to look at the empty shelf.

              Kit frowned worriedly. “Please tell me we didn’t just lose all of our recipes,” she said, hurrying into the front shop. Layla ran upstairs and walked through every room, looking for the large white binder.
Nothing.

              She walked slowly down the stairs and back into the kitchen just as Jane hung up her cell. “That was Max. She said she saw the binder on the shelf yesterday morning. She doesn’t have it,” she said quietly as Kit came back in the room, looking grim and angry.

              “Now what?” Layla asked feeling sick to her stomach.

              Jane tapped a pen on her chin. “I think we were robbed. Someone who doesn’t want this bakery to succeed just tried to sabotage us. Lucky for us, I’ve already transferred half of the recipes to my laptop. I thought it would be easier to have a large screen size recipe, instead of looking at faded pieces of notebook paper. Max has already agreed to fax me the other half of the recipes when she gets to San Antonio, but that’s at least two days away. Good thing today is Sunday which means, best case scenario we’ll only be one day without all of our recipes. It’s not like we baked everything every day anyways. And fortunately, I transferred my favorites.”

              Layla sighed in relief as she stood over Jane’s shoulder and watched her pull up a document list of all the recipes she’d transferred. She had over one hundred.

              “Email those to me Jane. That way we’ll have a backup in case someone decides to sabotage us again.”

              Kit leaned against the counter, frowning darkly. “Who would want to sabotage us?”

              Layla and Jane looked at each other. “Alex Foster,” Layla said quietly.

              Jane opened her cell and dialed 911, her fingers tapping madly on the counter top. Within ten minutes, Tate was standing in their kitchen with his partner, Officer Marquette, a short, dark haired man in his forties with a dour, serious cast to his face.

              Tate walked them through the events of the previous day, over and over before walking around the house, looking for a forced entry. Layla blushed bright red when he asked about the security system he had told them to get just a few days ago.

              “That would be my fault Tate. I had it on my to do list, but I just had so much going on this last week with the grand opening and the booth at Fircrest Days.”

              “There’s no sign of forced entry so that means one of you ladies must have left a door unlocked,” Officer Marquette said, looking at each sister one by one.

              Layla groaned and felt like screaming. “I can’t be positive I locked the door after I came back yesterday afternoon to get the rest of the cookies and cupcakes,” she said, looking guiltily at Kit and Jane. Kit looked surprised and Jane looked crest fallen. “But I always lock up. I’ve lived in Seattle for the last four years and I lock everything that has a lock to lock. I don’t even take a step outside without my pepper spray. I must have,” she said, looking at her feet and wondering if she had been so stressed and anxious to get back to the park that she would have forgotten something so important.

              “My fault, I guess,” she said, wishing she could just disappear.

              Tate shook his head at her and reached for his laptop. “Okay, tell me everything,” he instructed.

              The sisters spent the next hour going over everything again including the people most likely to want to harm their chances at success. Since all of their valuables had been left alone up stairs and even the petty cash was still intact, that meant that someone had a very specific motive in breaking in.

              Tate and his partner left shortly after with promises to let them know if they found out anything. By Tate’s expression that wasn’t likely to happen.

              “Well, at least we have a police report on record, so if anything else funky happens they’ll have to take us seriously,” Kit said, massaging her temples.

              Layla nodded and sat down at the counter. “You know what the worst thing is? We don’t have even one bread recipe. We’re supposed to have a delivery of sour dough and focaccia ready for Rob tomorrow morning,” she said, looking at Kit wide eyed.

              Kit looked newly horrified and turned to Jane to verify. Jane nodded sadly. “We’ll look something up on the internet. All we have to do is Google the best sour dough recipe in the world.”

              Kit didn’t look so sure. “Well, I’ve made so many loaves of bread lately I can probably remember most of the recipe. If I have something to work with, I can make a few loaves right now, and tweak things here and there. It won’t be the same, but it might get us through tomorrow,” she said, pacing the small kitchen frantically.

              Layla sighed as she stood behind Jane, who was already clicking on Google and typing in the words:
Sour Dough Bread
. Within minutes they had a recipe from a mom blog, one from a restaurant in California and a gourmet online magazine for food and wine fanatics.

              “Let us help Kit,” Layla said, grabbing an apron.

              Kit shook her head. “No, you guys go to church. I need total quiet so I can concentrate. But thanks,” she said pulling her red hair back in a ponytail and looking as if she were going to war.

              Jane frowned but nodded. “Okay Kit. You’re awesome for trying you know. Even if it doesn’t work and we have to tell Rob what happened, you’re amazing.”

              Kit grinned quickly and then shooed them out of the room.

              Layla grinned as she and Jane walked up the stairs to get dressed for church. “You know I don’t think Kit’s been to church in years. She probably planned this just so she wouldn’t have to go with us.”

              Jane laughed and shook her head. “Nah, I don’t think so. I think she’s changing Layla. She used to be so wild and rebellious but now there’s something’s different about her. Haven’t you noticed? It’s like she’s really trying to be better. Well, not better. . .,
different
. Oh crud, what word am I looking for Layla?” Jane asked as she paused at the door to her room.

              Layla smiled and thought about her fiery little sister. “She’s becoming the woman she was always meant to be. That’s what I think,” she said, knowing it was true.

              Jane grinned. “You’re right. Beat ya ready,” she said and then disappeared through her door.

Chapter 18 – Snagged

              They went to church twenty minutes later and sat in the very back. After the service was over, Layla was surprised at how many people came up and introduced themselves to her and Jane. Everyone seemed to already know who they were too. She smiled at Jane and squeezed her arm. Jane was in her element. She’d spent so many years shy and reserved but she was making up for it now.

              As they walked home from church, Jane chatted about all the people she’d met. The sisters had been invited to go boating with all the singles next weekend. Jane was determined to be there. Layla was determined to be busy that day. She was done with the single scene.

              “Did you see Michael and Stella sitting with Ashley?” Jane asked her as they walked up the front steps to the bakery.

              Layla nodded trying not to let her smile slip. “I did.”

              Jane’s eyebrows snapped together. “The way she kept running her hands through his hair was kind of annoying and super inappropriate.
Hello,
we’re all in church,” she said irritably.

              Layla shrugged. “If he didn’t like it he could have told her to stop,” she said dryly with just a hint of anger.

              Jane rolled her eyes. “I think he
was
telling her to stop. She just kept doing whatever she wanted to though. And poor Stella. She kept wanting to sit on her mom’s lap and Ashley kept pushing her off.
Who does that?
” Jane asked grumpily, opening the door.

              Layla sighed, able to see that maybe Ashley wasn’t very comfortable yet with all the physical affection that came with having a child. Jane was being a little harsh.
But still
.

              “Jane, she can’t just jump into motherhood within days of being around her child for the first time in years. It’ll take time,” she said calmly.

              Jane snorted. “That woman is a witch. Period.”

              The smell of fresh baked bread hit them in the face as they stepped through the door and Layla had to pause as she closed her eyes and breathed in. “If it tastes half as good as it smells, then Kit just pulled out a miracle.”

              Jane squealed in delight and ran back to the kitchen. Layla followed more slowly, walking in just as Kit pulled out a metal tray of bread, smiling triumphantly.

              “Check it out guys. This is what a masterpiece looks like,” she said, grinning proudly.

              Layla joined Jane at the counter as they stared at the beautiful golden brown loaves of bread. “They look perfect, but there’s always the taste test,” she said looking around for a knife.

              Kit pulled off her oven mitts and leaned against the counter. “I made a few experimental loaves, but I wanted to test the amounts in a bigger batch. We can test this one in a few minutes, but I can already tell you it’s going to be heavenly.”

              Fifteen minutes later as they tasted slices of the sourdough, Layla grinned in amazement. “The texture is incredible and the flavor is so intense. How did you do it?” she demanded.

              Kit shrugged. “My little secret. That way if anyone feels like stealing our recipes again, they’ll never get it as good as ours.”

              Jane smiled. “Well, can you at least write it down and email it to me or something, just in case you get amnesia or something and can’t remember?”

              Kit frowned and shook her head. “Nope. Computers get hacked all the time. My secret ingredient is going to stay secret. But the good news is, Rob is going to love us tomorrow. Well, me anyways.”

              Layla smiled at the five loaves lying on the counter. “You know we have five loaves of bread on a Sunday. After lunch let’s do some surprise deliveries. We could drop a loaf off at Rob’s house, maybe one at the police station for helping us out this morning, that kind of thing.”

              Kit nodded grinning. “I call Rob’s house.”

              Jane’s face bloomed into a sneaky smile. “I call the police station. And what about you Layla? Who will you deliver too?”

              Layla frowned. “I don’t have anyone to deliver bread to. I’ll just come with you guys. We can all go together. It’ll be fun,” she said smiling determinedly. If even one of her sisters brought up Michael she was going to throw something.

              Jane and Kit prudently stayed quiet as they went upstairs to eat a simple lunch of grilled chicken breasts, sweet potatoes and salad. Layla fed most of her chicken to Bubba under the table though.

              An hour and a half later they loaded up the bread and jumped in Layla’s Maxima. They ran by the police station first, walking in to find only two officers on duty. Tate wasn’t one of them. Officer Jefferson took three loaves of bread and promised he’d get them to Tate and his partner. Jane insisted that he keep the third for himself and his family. By the way the officer was grinning as they left, they’d just made a friend for life.

              Next stop was Rob’s house. Rob had mentioned to Kit that like them, he lived above the restaurant in his own apartment. Behind the restaurant, they found the stairs going up to the apartment, but felt strange intruding on him on his day off. So Kit just left the loaf of bread on his doorstep with a note. Which left them with a couple extra loaves.

              “You know, isn’t Michael’s house just a couple blocks from here?” Kit asked breezily, looking down the street.

              Jane nodded her head immediately. “Yep, it is. Layla, remember you told us how pretty it is. I would love to see it. Wouldn’t you Kit? I think you said it was the prettiest house you’d ever seen, right?” she said hopefully.