Baked with Love

by Peggy Jaeger

Just like Lucas, Cathy is exceptionally good at her job. But in my sister’s case, I was immune to her penetrating, tell-me-all-your-secrets expression. I’d had a lifetime living as her baby sister, and I’d apprenticed at her knee when she’d dealt with our grandmother by using diversionary tactics.

  “So.” She ambled toward me. “Lucas.”

  I blanked my face. “So Lucas, what?”

  She took a beat, then said, “Lucas and…you?”

  I kept my eyes steady on hers, knowing if I glanced away she’d take it as an affirmation of her unsaid suspicions. Or worse, weakness. Like I said, I’d watched her my entire life and knew exactly how effective she could be when she wanted information someone was unwilling to give. She was a master of the silent wait-out, an interrogation technique she used frequently when she was in court and questioning a witness. Nine times out of ten, her silence would get to the person and they’d blurt things they’d sworn to keep hidden.

  But we weren’t in the courtroom today, on Cathy’s turf. We were in my inn, on mine. And if I knew how to do anything, it was keep my own counsel.

  After several moments of noiseless staring, Cathy grinned at me. “You’re like a locked vault with a missing key. Not opening for anyone.”

  Since it wasn’t a question, I didn’t feel the need to answer her.

  Nanny’s voice rang out from the kitchen.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I said.

  “She’s just sparring with my man as usual,” Cathy countered. “Come on. Baby is hungry.” She rubbed a hand over her tiny belly bump. “And so am I.”

  Back in my kitchen we found Cathy’s fiancé, Mac, holding Nanny’s hand, a devilish grin on his face.

  “Number One,” she said as soon as she spied us, “tell this young man o’ yours it’s rude to tease an old lady, especially on her birthday.”

  “You’re the youngest person in this room,” Mac said in reply. He lifted her gnarled hand and kissed the back of it. “The youngest and the most beautiful, to be sure,” he added, mimicking her brogue to perfection.

  Nanny’s periwinkle-blue eyes softened. She clicked her tongue, then batted the hand he held with her free one. “Don’t be thinking ya can charm me now, Mac Frayne. Better than you have tried and failed. It’s ninety-four I am today and still as sharp as I was in me twenties.”

  “As sharp as a stiletto,” Lucas whispered close to my ear. While I’d begun plating more salad, he’d come to stand behind me. “And equally as deadly.”

  As I bit back a giggle, he reached around me and took the two plates I’d prepared, his hand brushing against mine. The snigger died in my throat, and I had to tell myself to breathe.

  “Robert, help Maureen. Take these inside.”

  I was all set to tell him not to because he was a guest today and not a worker, when I caught the challenging look Lucas tossed me. I bit back my knee-jerk response.

  “Thanks,” I said to the boy.

  “Why won’t ya tell me?” Nanny asked Mac. “ ’Tisn’t a state secret, after all, is it?”

  “Cathy and I agreed we want to go old school with this and not find out the sex of the baby. I’m not keeping any secrets; we simply don’t know and”—he pointed at her—“we’re not going to find out until the baby’s born, so there’s no use asking.”

  “Colleen and Slade know they’re having a girl,” Nanny stated, her lips pulled into a pout a teenager would have been jealous of. “Makes it so much easier to buy a baby present, knowing the sex.”

  “I wanted to know so we could paint the nursery, Nanny,” Colleen said from her chair. Her feet were elevated on the one opposite her and, for once, she’d worn flats.

  Slade rubbed her shoulders. “You know how obsessive Colleen is about things,” he told my grandmother.

  “I don’t think it’s obsessive to want everything ready when the time comes,” Colleen countered. “It makes sense from a time-management perspective. And from a health one, too. I don’t want paint fumes in the house with a brand-new baby.”

  “We all know time management is your middle name, babe.” Slade kissed the top of her head.

  “Well, whatever the reason, knowing the sex, I can shop effectively,” Nanny said. She nodded at Cathy. “I don’t want to give me great-grandchild a generic-colored gift.” Her beautiful blue eyes narrowed, and I could almost see the gears grinding in her head. “You know, I could die before your babe arrives, Cathleen Anne. It’s not young I am any more. Could go in a blink, just like such.” She snapped two of her fingers together.

  “You’re gonna outlive us all,” Cathy said, while Lucas once again whispered from next to me, “Promises, promises.”

  This time my giggle blew forth. I shifted to find him staring at me, his eyes crinkled in the corners, his lips twitching.

  God, he was gorgeous.

  “Stop,” I mouthed.

  His grin grew.

  “Come on, everyone. Let’s get this party started,” I said to the room.

  “Fiona, I’d be delighted to escort you to your party.” Lucas extended his arm to her.

  “Delighted, are ya?” she asked, slipping her hand into the crook in his elbow. “Not worried I’m gonna slice ya to bits, seeing as how I’m sharp as a, what did ya call it, now? A stiletto?”

  Lucas had the grace to look sheepish, despite the cheeky grin on his face.

  “Deadly instruments, they are,” Nanny told him, “so you’d better mind yourself.”

  An hour later, after a lunch of salad, cold salmon (Nanny’s favorite), asparagus, and more laughter than my dayroom had seen in a while, it was time for presents and cake.

  I cocked my head at Robert, and he followed me into my kitchen.

  “Want to help me bring the cake out?” I asked. “You did, after all, help decorate it.”

  “Sure.”

  He went to the sink and washed his hands without being prompted.

  “Your hair looks great,” I said as I joined him. “How do you feel with it shorter?”

  “Lighter, like I’ve lost weight.”

  I laughed and bumped him with my hip while I dried my hands on a dishtowel. The local barber was known for his love of military crew cuts, and I’d been worried Robert would wind up looking as if he was off to boot camp. But he still had some length on the top and sides, even though a large volume of it had been sheared.

  “Well, now I won’t be pestering you to pull it back when we do food prep. Plus, I have to imagine it dries quicker when you get out of the shower.”

  “In, like, no time flat,” he answered.

  We lifted the three-tiered cake he’d helped decorate from my walk-in fridge and placed it on a serving tray.

  I lit the two numerical candles, a nine and a four, I’d bought knowing Nanny’s words were true: ninety-four candles all lit at the same time were a fire waiting to happen. I placed a single birthday candle next.

  “For luck,” I told Robert.

  We walked the cake into the dayroom.

  “Okay, everyone. Time to sing.”

  While we serenaded her, Nanny beamed from her seat. She loved being the center of attention and always had.

  “Make a wish, Nanny,” Cathy said when we were done. “And don’t waste it on wanting to know my baby’s gender.”

  When the laughter died down, Nanny’s gaze ran from Cathleen, to Colleen, and then settled on me. With a twitch of her lips and a twinkle in those wise eyes, she winked at me and then blew the candles out.

  “There now, I think that’s grand,” she said, smiling at us all.

  After the cake was cut and served, Nanny took a bite of the rich, dark chocolate sponge I’d made, filled with chocolate buttercream and a thimbleful of Bailey’s.

  “Magnificent as always, darlin’ girl,” Nanny said.

  I smiled while I went around the table refilling teacups.

  “Why three tiers, lass?” Nanny asked as she lifted her cup to me. “Looks like a wedding cake, and I’ve no one on me man-dar right no
w I’m looking to get hitched to.”

  From where I stood, I spotted Colleen’s face blanch and her eyes go wide. Her hand flew to her belly, and she started blowing out breaths through lips she’d pursed together.

  While I filled Nanny’s cup, I kept my attention on my older sister. Slade began rubbing her shoulders and caught me staring. A subtle headshake told me everything was okay. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure it was but kept my worry to myself.

  “I figured you could take the bottom tier back to the Arms and share it with your friends after dinner.”

  “Ah, now, you’re a thoughtful lass, you are, Maureen. They’ll love it. But then, they love everything you bake. Spoiled, they are, with your generosity.”

  The room slammed still. To hear our grandmother call us by our Christian names was tantamount to finding a leprechaun, and yet she’d referred to each of us that way over the past hour.

  I was all set to ask her if she was feeling okay when Colleen moaned, then cursed. The quiet room exploded with a deafening silence again as everyone’s attention settled on her. My heart stuttered a bit as worry shot through me. Colleen had another few weeks to go in her pregnancy and shouldn’t be having contractions.

  “Sorry, Nanny,” she said, the pallor in her cheeks highlighted with the instant raspberry color of her blush. “These dam—er, darn Braxton Hicks contractions are driving me crazy today.”

  “False labor pains?” Cathy asked. It didn’t escape my notice she placed a hand over her own belly. “I read about those in the prenatal book Olivia gave me.”

  “Yeah. They started fast and furious a few days ago,” Colleen said.

  “The doctor says not to worry about them,” Slade told us as he continued to massage his wife’s shoulders. “It’s just her body getting itself ready for our special delivery.”

  “Which can’t come soon enough,” Colleen murmured. “Feels like snail mail, and I want overnight express.”

  Her cracking a joke went a long way in calming my anxiety. Since Colleen was the first of us to have a baby, with Cathy right on her heels, I’d done a huge internet search about pregnancy and all the complications that can go along with it, including at delivery time. I didn’t sleep for three nights after reading over three hundred thousand women still die in childbirth every year, worldwide. The implications of the statistic, especially when my sister was having her first baby at what was called the advanced maternal age of thirty-seven, had rendered me unable to sleep. I wound up baking eight dozen cookies, six loaves of bread, and three dozen muffins during those midnight hours.

  My guests had been delighted with the wealth of sugary carbs my insomnia rendered.

  Nanny reached over and grabbed Colleen’s hand. “Ah, darlin’, I wish I could take the pain for ya. I know how it feels. Your father was a real in pain in me uterus and va-jay-jay when me time neared. I couldn’t hardly sit without him banging his head against me girly bits to get out, and me thighs never touched from the sixth month on. Very impatient he was, even before his craggy face made an appearance into the world.”

  The heavy silence in the room was broken when Mac let out a belly laugh that had the chandelier chains trembling. Slade came next, a choked guffaw bursting through his lips, followed by Lucas who outright barked with laughter, his eyes almost closing with the effort. Cathy stared over at her fiancé and shook her head, a smirk pulling at her lips, while Colleen alternated between grinning and grimacing when the muscle cramps hit.

  I glanced over at Robert who stared at my grandmother as if she were an alien life form who’d just landed from a distant planet. Jaw slack with his mouth dropped open; eyes wide and filled with astonishment. His cheeks were fever-red, the tips of his ears crimson. The poor kid was probably horrified at hearing an elderly woman talk about her private body parts in such an offhand, easy fashion. I couldn’t blame him. While we were all used to Nanny’s outlandishness, Robert wasn’t.

  Nanny’s gaze touched each of us as she ran it around the table. An almost invisible twitching of her lips was all the evidence I needed she’d said what she had for the effect it would cause to lighten the mood and my sister’s predicament.

  I simply adored this woman.

  “Well, now…” She folded her hands in her lap. Moral indignation laced her brogue when she said, “You’re all laughing like hyenas, when the poor lass here is suffering. Ya should be ashamed a’ yorselves, you should. ’Tisn’t an easy thing to bring a new life into the world.”

  She reached over and squeezed Colleen’s hand again. “These’ll pass soon, lass. No worries. And you’ll have the gift of a beautiful baby girl when it does.”

  Tears glinted in my sister’s eyes. “Thanks, Nanny.”

  When her eyes narrowed Cathy’s way, I felt a come-to-Jesus lecture about to be unleashed. To avoid it, I brought the remainder of the cake back to the kitchen to remove the bottom tier and box it up for Nanny to take back to the nursing home.

  As I walked from the room, she said, “At least I know one great-grandchild is a girl. Little solace it does me, though.”

  “Your grandmother is the only person I know who can compliment and censure in the same breath,” Lucas said as he followed me into the kitchen.

  “ ’Tis a gift, to be sure,” I said, channeling the woman in question.

  “You do that well.”

  I lifted a shoulder. “Lifetime of practice.”

  He carried a few stacked plates in one hand and my teakettle in the other. “This is empty,” he told me, lifting the kettle.

  “Put it on the stove and give me those.” I stretched out my arms for the dishes. Lucas shifted away from me to prevent me from taking them.

  “I’ve got it. You want them in the dishwasher?”

  “I need to rinse them first. Put them down on the counter, and I’ll do it after everyone leaves.”

  He ignored me and proceeded to rinse, then stack, the dishes into the dishwasher.

  “Really, Lucas. You don’t need to do that.”

  With a side-glance first, he said, “What phrase does Father Duncan love to quote? Many hands make light work?”

  I hadn’t crossed a church door since Colleen had gotten married and hadn’t for two years prior to that, so I kept my mouth shut and let him work.

  Robert brought more things in from the table, Mac helping while I went back to boxing Nanny’s cake.

  “I can’t believe you left Cathy to deal with Nanny’s wrath,” I told my soon-to-be brother-in-law.

  “Your sister can hold her own against Fiona any day of the week.” He put the plates down on the counter and slapped Lucas on the back. “Saturday works,” he said. “Slade’s free, too.”

  “Unless Colleen’s labor changes to real from false,” the man said, as he appeared, he too carrying dishes and flatware. “Otherwise, I’m in.”

  Lucas continued rinsing and loading.

  I have to admit, having so much testosterone in the form of three gorgeous men and one gangly teenager in my usually female-laced kitchen was a little unusual and whole lot of exciting. Especially since one of those men starred in the lion’s share of my dreams every night.

  And the fact they were all doing kitchen chores was even more amazing.

  My sisters had each hit the partner-for-life jackpot with the men who’d claimed their hearts. Slade and Mac resembled one another enough they could have been cousins with their lean, runner’s bodies and handsome faces. While Slade was fair-haired, Mac’s thick black mane was threaded with gray. Ex-corporate executive and now full-time law professor, Slade oozed alpha from every pore, while Mac was the quiet writer and beta all the way. Both were, though, whole-heartedly in love with my sisters and had proven their devotion in so many ways. I could love them simply for the fact they loved my sisters, but it was more. They had each changed their lives to be with the women they loved. Slade had transferred his from the chaos of New York, as had Mac, both claiming they could work anywhere as long as they had the women they ador
ed by their sides.

  Cathy and Colleen were lucky women, indeed.

  How would it feel for a man to change his entire life because he loved me and didn’t want to lose me and what we had together? It was an unknown concept for me. The one man I’d ever considered a future with had grown jealous of the bond between my twin and me and had given me an ultimatum: choose. He hadn’t even put up a fight when I’d picked Eileen.

  In all honesty, I wouldn’t have chosen him even if he had fought for me. No man who professes to love you should ever make you choose him over everything and everyone else.

  “What were the three of you talking about?” I asked Lucas once the others left the kitchen.

  Before answering me, he closed the dishwasher and wiped his hands on a dishtowel.

  He leaned back across the sink ledge and crossed his arms over his chest. The material on his dress shirt pulled against the bulk of his biceps, and my mouth went dry as unprocessed baking flour.

  “Mac’s bachelor party. Cathy said she’s busy next weekend finalizing some wedding stuff with Colleen, so they’re both free. We’re gonna do something Saturday night.”

  “What? Heaven’s not exactly the place where three guys can run amuck as a last hurrah to bachelorhood. Not that you’d ever run amuck, but still.”

  His right eyebrow rose on his forehead. “Run amuck?”

  I shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

  When he dropped his chin to his chest, I got the distinct impression he was laughing at me and didn’t want me to see. When he shook his head, I was certain of it.

  “I should pay you to help Robert with his SAT prep. Amuck. Good word.”

  “And accurate. So, what are your plans? Getting out of town for the night? Driving into Concord or Manchester? Hitting a few bars and drinking your weight in beer?”

  He angled his head to one side as he regarded me through half-closed eyes. His entire stance as he leaned against the sink, arms folded, ankles crossed and pushed out in front of him, radiated a calm, cool, and disinterested façade. I knew he was anything but. Lucas Alexander was never so focused, so intense, or so stealthy as when he appeared exactly the opposite.

  His ability to remain calm and unreadable was another facet of his personality I loved.