Cookies & Candlelight: An Arcadia Valley Romance (Baxter Family Bakery Book 3)

by Elizabeth Maddrey

  “Hear that, Laura? We’re a bonus.” Carl shook his head. “It’s not like we flew out here from California for this or anything.”

  “Oh, Dad, you know what I meant.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Come on, let’s go back in the house and sit down. You can tell me all about what’s going on in L.A.”

  Gloria pressed the platters into Serena’s arms. “I’ve gotta run. I traded shifts so I could make this, and I need to get in and start on some paperwork. I was right about using A Slice of Heaven though, wasn’t I?”

  “You were. I guess I’ll see about their weekly deliveries. Fresh bread is always nice.” Serena pressed her lips together. Seeing Micah again, on a weekly basis, wouldn’t hurt any either. Not that she was looking for anything to develop between them. But there was no law against admiring God’s creation.

  “Or come into town and pick it up. Stop by and see your local police officer. Grab some coffee. Stop living like a hermit.” Gloria checked her watch again and waved before dashing out the door.

  Serena frowned. She didn’t isolate herself. She was just busy.

  “Are you being a hermit, dear? That’s unlike you.” Laura patted Serena’s cheek before scooping up an armful of dishes to carry back to the house.

  “You can leave those, Mom, I’ll get them later.” Serena sighed when her mother continued collecting mugs. It was so like her. Her dad just shrugged and grabbed what her mom missed. “Or not. Thanks.”

  She followed her parents across the driveway to her house, pausing for a moment to admire the glass and wood that made up most of the structure. Who would have imagined finding a house like this nestled near a river in Idaho? She would’ve gone wherever the house was. She hadn’t had a particular urge toward any location beyond getting away from L.A. Only bittersweet memories had pointed her in this direction to start her search. Her stomach knotted and she battled back the recollections. There was no point in opening that door. The past was the past.

  When the dishes were in the dishwasher or resting in the sink waiting for the next load, Serena curled up in an oversized chair while her parents cuddled together on the couch.

  “So what’s all the latest?”

  Her mom smiled. “We’re having a party for the Fourth of July. Can you come out? Your father’s convinced some of his costars to come, and I suspect most of the gang from my latest will as well. There are some big names.”

  Serena shook her head. Her dad had held a steady job on a popular daytime soap since before she was born. His costars were like family. A dysfunctional one, most of the time. But still family. Her mother said she was semi-retired, though she still managed to make a movie every eighteen months. “When did you wrap? I thought you had several weeks left?”

  “Oh, you know how it goes. There are still some bits and pieces to do, but we’re close enough to having it all taken care of that I could slip away for the weekend.”

  “And it gave me a chance to test the little plane I’ve been thinking of buying.” Her dad leaned forward and plucked a wide, shallow bowl from the middle of the coffee table. “When did you make this?”

  “A couple of weeks ago. I liked it too much to put it out with everything this afternoon. I’ll have to list it online, I know. But I want to enjoy it for a while. You’re serious about flying? I thought the lessons were just for fun.” Serena laced her fingers together as the tension in her stomach spread into her muscles. So much could go wrong in a little plane. People died in accidents all the time. Without thinking, she ran her fingers along the old scar that slashed along her jaw line from one ear to the corner of her mouth. Or they lived through them.

  And sometimes that was worse.

  “You know your father. Once he gets an idea in his head.” Her mother gave an elegant shrug. “So will you come? We could fly out and pick you up. Everyone misses you.”

  Serena shook her head. “I don’t think so, but I appreciate the invite. Send me pictures. And give everyone my love.”

  Her dad frowned. “Serena...are you sure? Is this really what you want? It’s been five years.”

  Five years. It could be a hundred years and she didn’t think she’d be any closer to being ready to go back.

  “That’s a long time—almost a lifetime—in the business.” Her mother’s smile was tight. “You’re risking your future.”

  She sighed. Her parents meant well. Hollywood was all they knew. They’d both grown up in the movie industry. Her grandparents had been actors and then directors. There’d never been any question that her parents would continue the family business. Nor had there been an option for Serena. She’d loved it for many years. But that had ended five years—a lifetime—ago.

  “I’m happy here. This is my future now. I don’t expect you to understand, just to respect my choice.”

  “We do. You have to know that. We just miss you.” Her mother reached across to squeeze Serena’s hand. “And you had such a bright, promising career ahead of you.”

  “I think I still do.” Serena smiled and flipped her hand over so she could return her mother’s squeeze. “I’m grateful you care.”

  When her parents had left and the sun was beginning to sink in the sky, Serena carried a mug of tea out onto the deck. The summer evening was warm and full of insect noises. She leaned on the rail and looked out through the trees to the glimpse of river at the back border of her property. God had brought her here to Arcadia Valley. She’d never been able to explain that to her parents—probably wouldn’t if they continued to think she was insane for believing in Jesus in the first place. But she’d keep praying for them and maybe one day they’d be willing to listen with more than a polite smile on their faces.

  Serena pulled into the post office parking lot and scowled. Why were there never any parking spaces near the door? If people weren’t taking packages in to mail, why couldn’t they use the spots farther away? With another frown at the full rows of spots, she pulled her SUV into a space in the back row and dragged the dolly out of the trunk. When her boxes were loaded on, she started toward the small brick building. With this many cars in the lot, she was probably in for a long wait.

  “Hey, you.” Gloria Sinclair stopped her police cruiser and leaned out the window. “Those the mail orders from your kiln opening Saturday?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t see you at church yesterday. I was going to see if you wanted to hit up lunch somewhere.”

  Gloria tapped the steering wheel. “Had to work. I could catch lunch today though, maybe when you’re done here?”

  She didn’t have that much to do after she got the boxes in the mail. “Sure. That sounds good. Fire and Brimstone?”

  The radio in Gloria’s car squawked and she held up a finger as she cocked her head to the side. She grabbed her mic and spoke into it before turning back to Serena. “I gotta run. Text me.”

  Serena stepped back as the lights on Gloria’s cruiser lit up and she pulled out of the parking lot going a bit faster than seemed warranted. There weren’t that many big emergencies in Arcadia Valley. Or maybe there were. Serena lived outside of town. Far enough away that she probably shouldn’t comment on what was or was not common.

  She smiled a greeting to the middle-aged woman in front of her in line at the post office and carefully lowered the front of the dolly.

  “Those are some big packages.” The woman nodded to Serena’s stack.

  Serena nodded and reached into her purse for a business card. “I’m a potter. Most of my business is online these days, but I have events now and then. If you’re interested, you can follow my blog to be up to date with anything I have going on. These are orders from a kiln opening I did on Saturday. A couple of clients didn’t want to risk taking them in the car or on the plane with them. So I’m shipping them.”

  “Oh. How interesting.” The woman took the card. “Serena’s a lovely name. You know, there was an actress several years ago named Serena. But she had a fancy last name. Oh what was it? My daughters loved her—she did a TV
show about aliens and some of those teenaged movies. You know the ones?”

  Serena chuckled. The directors of those movies would be appalled to hear them categorized as such, but the woman wasn’t wrong. “I do. Are you thinking of Serena VanderMay?”

  “That’s the one. She was a lovely young woman. You look a little like her, actually. Tragic, though, how she died.”

  “Died?” Serena gestured for the woman to scoot up in line and inched her stack of boxes closer.

  “Oh, yes. It was five, maybe six years ago now. Some sort of plane crash. You know those tiny planes. And, well, Hollywood types. Probably the pilot was drunk or stoned. Still, I think she was eighteen? Just tragic.”

  She’d been twenty-one, and the pilot had a seizure as he was landing. There were no drugs or alcohol involved. Serena worked to school her expression.

  “No use in being upset about it now. But she was a pretty young woman. You should look her up online. You really do have a striking resemblance. Oh, that’s me. I’ll look up your pottery online.” The woman waved the business card before tucking it into her pocket on her way to the counter.

  Serena took a deep breath. Then another. She was working on a third, her stomach still a tight knot that showed no signs of loosening, when the postal worker motioned her forward. Push it aside. There’d be time to think about what it meant later.

  Much later.

  Serena dropped her phone on the table at Fire and Brimstone and looked around the crowded pizza place. When she’d let Gloria know that she was finished at the post office, her friend had texted that she should still be able to make lunch, but that was twenty minutes ago.

  The server stopped by the table again. “Need another soda?”

  Serena shook her head. “I’ll just go ahead and order.”

  “Okay. What can I get you?”

  “I’ll take the feta, spinach, and sun dried tomato. And I guess some water. If I drink another soda, I’ll be up all night.”

  The server chuckled. “I’ll get that right in.”

  Serena’s phone buzzed. She swiped it and frowned at the text. Gloria wasn’t going to make it after all. At least she got good pizza out of the deal, but maybe she should switch her order to carry-out. If she could catch the server’s eye.

  “Hey. Serena, right?”

  “That’s me.” She looked up from her phone into the face of the cute guy from the bakery. What was his name? It was a book of the Bible, but that didn’t narrow it down all that much.

  “Micah Baxter. We met Saturday? I—it’s crowded—I was hoping maybe I could join you?”

  “Sure.” She gestured to the empty spots at the table. “I thought my friend was joining me, but she just bailed. If I can get the server’s attention I’m going to get my pizza to go, then you can have the whole table. You’ve got someone coming, right?”

  He shook his head. “Just me. I needed a few minutes away from the bakery.”

  “So you came to a pizza shop?” Weren’t the smells basically the same, at the base?

  Micah laughed. “Sometimes you just need a slice. And if I don’t use my break to get lunch, I end up eating muffins or whatever’s sitting in the display.”

  “That’s not a bad thing, is it? I really liked what you brought on Saturday.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Try it for a couple days running.”

  She grinned. “Fair point.”

  The server stopped at the table. “What can I get you?”

  “I’ll do the feta, spinach, and sun dried tomato and water. Thanks.”

  Serena raised her eyebrows. He liked the same pie she did? “Well, you’ve got good taste in pizza. I’ll give you that.”

  “Yeah? It’s the first one I tried and I haven’t managed to convince myself to branch out since.”

  “It’s a favorite of mine, too. In fact, it ought to be out soon.” She tilted her head to the side and considered the man across the table from her. He was handsome and, if Saturday was any indication, a good sport. Maybe he was worth getting to know. “So tell me the top three things I need to know about Micah Baxter.”

  He laughed. “It’s like a job interview.”

  “Hopefully not quite as terrifying.”

  “Maybe a tiny bit less.” He held up his thumb and index finger about a quarter inch apart. “Let’s see. You don’t have my résumé in front of you, so I guess I’ll start with the basics. I’m twenty-nine and have three siblings, one of whom is my twin. But he’s younger. It’s important to remember that.”

  “Important to you or to him?”

  “Me. Obviously. You didn’t ask about him.”

  Serena laughed.

  “It’s just the four of us now. Our parents,” he paused and cleared his throat, but his voice was thick when he resumed speaking, “they’ve been gone a little over six years now.”

  “I’m so sorry.” What must that be like? As much as she struggled to relate to her parents, she knew they were there for her if she needed them.

  “Thanks. Let’s see, what else? I’ve been in Arcadia Valley for a little over a year and, for the most part, like it. Before that, I was in D.C. at an afterschool tutoring-slash-childcare center. I miss those kids.” He frowned and looked down at his hands before shrugging and offering a grin. “And that’s probably plenty.”

  The waitress appeared and slid Serena’s pizza and two plates onto the table before disappearing again.

  “Want a slice to tide you over ‘til yours gets here?” A guy who worked with kids—voluntarily—and missed them when he moved away? Definitely worth getting to know. Serena squashed the twinge of pain that the mention of kids always brought. She was always on the lookout for new friends. Just because she wasn’t in Hollywood anymore didn’t mean she didn’t need or want people around her. And her circle here in Arcadia Valley was still fairly small—and full of shallow relationships. Most people didn’t recognize her, and she didn’t go out of the way to clue them in. Of her friends in Arcadia Valley, Gloria was the only one she’d told. It was nice to have everything out in the open with one friend, even if she had a job that meant she wasn’t always reliable.

  “You sure?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t see why not. It’s the same, right?”

  Micah pushed his plate across the table. “Then yeah, thanks. It smells so good in here that I always end up starving long before my food gets here.”

  Serena slid a slice of pizza onto his plate before taking one for herself. She watched him for the space of several heartbeats before asking, “Do you mind if we say grace?”

  “Not at all.” Micah folded his hands in his lap and held her gaze. “Did you want me to do it?”

  “That’d be lovely.” Serena bowed her head, a tiny smile on her lips.

  Micah cleared his throat. “Dear Jesus, thank you for this food and for letting me find someone to share a table with. Bless this meal to our bodies, and our bodies to Your service. Amen.”

  “Amen.” Serena reached for her fork and knife. As prayers went, it was nothing to write home about, but it got the job done. What had she expected? Realistically, she wouldn’t have done anything different. They were, virtually, strangers sharing a table. It was enough that he was comfortable praying. “So you’ve been here a year, you said?”

  Micah paused, the slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. “About that, yeah.”

  “Where do you go to church?” It was a sneaky—no, subtle—way of probing more about his spiritual life. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to just ask if he’d ever made a decision to follow Jesus.

  “Grace Fellowship. I keep thinking I’ll try Arcadia Valley Community at some point, just to see how it is, but I like Grace. And my whole family goes there, which makes it nice.” He shrugged and bit into the pizza.

  “Small, though. You don’t mind everyone knowing when you miss a week?” Serena cut her pizza into bite-sized pieces before spearing one.

  He chuckled. “Not really. At least you know they care, rig
ht? It’s a nice change from the monster church I went to in D.C. I’d be surprised if anyone has even noticed I’m not there anymore.”

  “No way.” Admittedly, her church experiences were fairly new in the grand scheme of things, but there were small groups and ministries to plug into. “Surely someone noticed.”

  “Maybe one or two people. Aside from the friends I told, obviously. But I’m not what you’d call an extrovert. It’s not like I’m a recluse who runs away when someone tries to talk to me, but I didn’t make a point of searching out opportunities to join groups.” He shrugged and angled a glance at her. “You’re a joiner, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, that’s probably accurate.” She studied his face and laughed. “I don’t consider it a bad thing.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” Micah polished off the slice of pizza. “So. How’d you get into pottery?”

  “That’s a long story.” Serena waited while the server dropped off Micah’s pizza and their checks.

  Micah transferred a slice from his pan to hers and put another on his plate. “Which, as I have a sister, I know is code for ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ That’s fine. Tell me something you don’t mind sharing.”

  “It’s not that I mind. It really is a long story.” Serena took another bite and considered. She didn’t usually lead off with an in-depth retrospective of her life. And he hadn’t asked, as most people did, if she knew the similarity she bore to Serena VanderMay. It was refreshing to have the chance to just be Serena Johnson from the beginning. “My grandmother threw pots—that means she made them—in her garage as a hobby. I always thought it was neat to watch.”

  “That’s kind of how we got into bread. Although, it’s really more my brother Jonah and my sister Ruth who are the driving force. I help with the baking when I’m needed and otherwise run the front counter. My twin, Malachi, handles the business end of things and does deliveries.”

  “Deliveries? So why were you on delivery duty Saturday?”