Always the Baker, Finally the Bride

by Sandra D. Bricker

  The subject line simply stated, “Hey.”

  J.R. had always been a man of few words, but this took the cake. Emma opened the e-mail and scrolled.

  Audrey doesn’t want you to worry about the delay in her return. We should roll in on Thursday. She has a very fine excuse, btw. See attached.

  She’d only just begun to wonder about Audrey’s return that morning when one of her brides mentioned faulty tailoring on her bridal gown. They’d tentatively scheduled a final fitting for that afternoon, but it looked like J.R.’s e-mail changed that plan.

  She clicked on the attachment, and a beautiful image filled the screen: a sweeping panoramic background . . . sunrise—or sunset?—beyond a stunning green hilltop . . . Audrey wore an exquisite beaded dress and held hands with J.R. as she faced him. J.R.’s uniform had always been jeans, a dark T-shirt and a leather jacket; however, in the photo he wore what appeared to be a tuxedo without the tie.

  Emma leaned forward, scrutinizing the photograph. They weren’t just holding hands, after all; they were . . . exchanging rings!

  J.R. and Audrey . . . got married!

  Emma popped to her feet and clanked open the door to her office. Fee jumped at the clatter and dropped the piping bag she was holding.

  “Dude. What the hey?”

  “Come in here, Fiona. You’ve got to see this!”

  Fee peeled the plastic gloves from her hands and tossed them to the stainless steel tabletop before following Emma into her office.

  “Look at the monitor,” Emma urged. “You’ve got to see this.”

  Emma remained in the doorway, watching with breathless anticipation. Fee adjusted her square glasses and cocked her head slightly as she gazed at the screen.

  “Is that—?”

  “Audrey and J.R.,” Emma finished for her. “They got married!”

  Fee slowly dropped to the desk chair and clicked the mouse for a zoomed-in look at the image on the screen. “I’ll be.”

  “I know! They’ll be back in two days. We have to give them a party!”

  Fee rushed past her. “I’ll call Carly,” she said on her way out the door. “You call Sherilyn.”

  Emma had only just settled behind her desk and reached for the phone, when it rang. She sighed, snatched the receiver and answered.

  “Emma Travis.”

  “Hello, Emma. This is Delores Troy.”

  “Mrs. Troy!” she exclaimed, quickly changing gears. “Are you calling about Hildie?”

  “I am. I wanted to let you know that I’ve found a very good new placement for her. A young couple out in Buckhead. They have two children, the daughter just a little bit older than Hildie.”

  “That’s . . . wonderful.”

  “I think it’s going to be a good fit for her. I’ll drive her over there this afternoon.”

  “I’m so happy about that,” Emma told her with a sigh. “Thank you for letting me know.”

  “Hildie is here in my office,” the woman added. “She’d like to speak to you, if you have the time.”

  “Of course!”

  “All right. Hang on for just a moment.”

  Emma held her breath as she waited, wondering if Hildie might try to solicit her help to form a plan of escape.

  “Hey, Emma.”

  “Hi, Hildie. Are you all right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Mrs. Troy says she has a great place for you. I hope you’re excited.”

  She sighed. “I guess.”

  “Hildie,” Emma said. “Try to go into this with the anticipation of meeting some great people and getting a whole new start. Can you do that?”

  After a long pause, the girl repeated her mantra. “I guess.”

  “Pretty soon, you’ll be in a new school and meeting other kids your own age. It’s going to be an adventure, Hildie.” For nearly thirty seconds, only the rumble of Hildie’s breathing sounded on the line. “I hope you’ll call me, if that’s allowed. Let me know about all of your new friends, and about the family? . . . Will you do that?”

  Another noisy silence followed. “Yeah. I guess. Is Fee there?”

  Emma craned to look into the kitchen. “No, she stepped out. But I’ll tell her you asked about her, Hildie. We both think you’re just going to thrive with this new family.”

  “Yeah. Okay. See ya.”

  And before Emma could say another word, Mrs. Troy came back on the line.

  “I’ll keep you posted, Emma.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  An unexpected wave of sadness washed over Emma as she hung up.

  Eleven years old. Such a young age to have to develop a game face.

  The kitchen door whooshed open and clacked back and forth behind Fee as she breezed through it with Kat in tow.

  “I can’t believe she didn’t even tell Kat!” Fee exclaimed, squeezing into one of the two chairs jammed against the back of Emma’s desk. “They only just called her this morning. Can you believe that?”

  “I sort of had a suspicion,” Kat said as she took the other chair. “She was very tight-lipped about this trip to Vegas. She only said she could hardly wait to catch up to J.R., but there was a little something more. I could see it in her eyes.”

  Emma chuckled. “Well, at least they didn’t get married in one of those Las Vegas quickie places.”

  “No,” Kat said, pulling up the same photo on her phone that J.R. had sent that morning. She angled the device toward them as she grinned. “This looks fairly well planned with that gown, a reverend, and a hilltop at sunrise.”

  “Her dress is beautiful,” Emma noted. “Is it one of her designs?”

  Kat nodded. “She told me this morning that they only decided to do this two weeks ago, and she designed and made the dress herself, in the midst of everything else she had to do.”

  “Well, it’s exquisite,” Emma told them.

  “Speaking of dresses,” Fee interjected, “weren’t you supposed to have the final fitting of yours today?”

  Emma shrugged one shoulder and smiled. “They’ll be back on Thursday and we’ll reschedule.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone take a wedding in stride the way you do,” Kat observed.

  “Everything but the cake,” Fee added.

  “Not yet?” Kat asked Emma.

  “I’m having a little stress over the final version of the cake. But everything else is in your capable hands, and those of my matron of honor.”

  “Sherilyn’s beside herself with excitement. She’s personally handling every last detail.”

  “While you bust your bundt cake here at the hotel,” Fee added with a chuckle.

  “I actually don’t mind,” Kat told them. “It’s nice to have a change of venue and shift gears for a while. I don’t have another show until the end of the year, so it’s kind of like cleansing my palette before I move on to the next course.”

  “Maybe that’s what you need, Emma,” Fee suggested. “A palette cleansing.”

  “How would I do that? We have six weddings, an anniversary, and a bachelorette party between now and my wedding. Cleansing my cake palette seems a little unlikely with all of those cakes and pastries I’m responsible for.” She jerked her head back and chuckled. “Oh! And now a party for Audrey and J.R. that we need to plan and execute in just a couple of days.”

  “That’s why God sent me,” Fee said with a sly grin, looking at her over the top of her square black glasses and wiggling her eyebrows. “You’ve got me and half a dozen interns to rely on. Take it easy for thirty seconds or so, huh?”

  Emma narrowed her eyes at her friend and clicked her tongue, ignoring the arrival of the four interns they’d requested to prep for Susan McBain’s bachelorette party. “Have you been talking to Jackson?”

  Fee’s gaze darted away as she replied, “Maybe.”

  “I knew it.”

  “But he’s right, you know. You need to slow down.”

  “I’ll add that to my To Do list right now, Fiona.” Pretending to tap at
the keyboard on her desk, she sang, “Slooooow dooooown. Got it!”

  “Is designing your cake on there?” Fee asked. “Because if it’s not, you know, maybe you should add that, too.”

  “Get out of my office.”

  Kat giggled as she followed Fee into the kitchen and closed the door to Emma’s office behind them.

  Typing a text with both thumbs, Emma shook her head at them.

  Guess who got married.

  A few seconds later, Jackson’s reply jingled at her. Did I sleep through our wedding? Sorry about that, kid.

  Audrey and J.R., smarty pants. E-mailing you the photo now.

  His response took a couple of minutes. They look happy.

  Don’t sound surprised. That’s why they call it wedded BLISS.

  Emma awaited his reply, but impatience finally took its toll and she picked up the phone and dialed. An unfamiliar voice greeted her.

  “Tanglewood Inn. Jackson Drake’s office.”

  “Hi. Who’s this?”

  “This is Lauren Franks, Mr. Drake’s assistant.”

  “His assistant. Really.” Emma grinned. “Well, Lauren, this is Emma, Mr. Drake’s fiancée. Is he available?”

  “Certainly. Hang on one moment, please, and I’ll put you through.”

  She sounded like a high school student!

  “Sorry. I got sidetracked,” Jackson said the moment he picked up the phone.

  “It’s okay. You have a new assistant?”

  “Oh. Lauren.”

  “Another temp?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How does she stack up?”

  Jackson chuckled. “Pretty well if you stand her next to the others. I mean, she’s letting me drink coffee, so that’s something. Hey, great news about Audrey and J.R.”

  “Yeah, we’re going to put together a small party for them when they get here in a couple of days.”

  Jackson’s pause pinched her.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “Can you come up to my office for a few minutes?”

  “Sure. Want something yummy?”

  “You are my something yummy.”

  “No, I mean a cupcake. We’ve got the interns icing a whole kitchen full of them.”

  “Well, you know I’m not refusing.”

  Emma giggled. “I’ll bring one for Lauren, too.”

  “Oh, well, you’d better hurry then.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just thinking about my track record of late. If you take too long, she might be gone by the time you get here.”

  “I’ll be right up.”

  Emma greeted the interns, then grabbed two of the finished cupcakes from one of the trays as she passed it.

  She called out over her shoulder to Fee, “I’ll be with Jackson for a few minutes.”

  “Hey!” Fee exclaimed as she reached the door, and Emma turned around to see her placing cupcakes on a massive acrylic stand. “How about a wedding cake made out of cupcakes, huh?”

  Emma stared her down for a moment.

  “Completely unexpected, right? Fee continued. “Very non-traditional. What do you think?”

  “I think I’m headed up to Jackson’s office. See you in a while.”

  On the ride upstairs, Emma leaned against the elevator wall and stared at the cupcakes she held, one in each hand.

  A cupcake wedding cake, she thought, and she tipped her head to one side as she imagined it. Not com-pleeetely out of the question, I suppose.

  15

  Jackson nodded and wished a good morning to several Tanglewood employees as he made his way through the lobby toward the elevator. He thought about stopping in the kitchen to see Emma, but he recalled that she had mentioned a breakfast appointment at Carly’s to discuss the cake for Audrey and J.R.’s reception, and to get a peek at their new baby. Carly and Audrey had been best friends since they were kids, Jackson thought he remembered, but now—since Audrey had married Carly’s husband’s brother—they were family.

  The glass-encased elevator groaned as it came to a stop on the fourth floor. Jackson turned the corner and headed to his office to find young Lauren seated behind Susannah’s desk, wearing a bright copper, cropped sweater that skimmed a massive brown leather belt with a crescent buckle. She wore her short hair pinned upward into an organized, if slightly wayward, mess. She hopped to her feet the instant she saw him, revealing a peek of skin beneath the short sweater when she did. The girl seemed to really enjoy showing her stomach to the world.

  “Mr. Drake, I am so sorry. I tried to—”

  The roar of several voices accosted him all at once from the doorway to his office, slicing Lauren’s apology right in two. His sisters Madeline and Norma, a seething Sherilyn, and a stone-faced Fee—all of them talking at once.

  “It’s all right, Lauren. Don’t worry about it. If you’re here long enough, you’ll realize sometimes there’s nothing you can do to hold back Hurricane Tanglewood.”

  She sighed and sat down again. “Let me know if you need anything?”

  “It’s going to be all about the cleanup crew afterward, I’m afraid,” he told her.

  He pecked Madeline’s cheek as he passed through the fray and headed for his desk.

  “. . . unreasonable . . .” “. . . thinking clearly . . .” “. . . unstoppable . . .”

  “Hey!” he bellowed, punctuating it with the loud Smack! of his briefcase against the desktop. They all snapped to instant silence and stared at him with wide eyes. “All right, then. I can’t hear a word any one hen is saying when you cluck like that. Pull up some chairs, have a seat, and tell me what you’re all worked up about.”

  Fee stepped into action first, dragging two chairs from the round table in the corner to the edge of his desk and lining them up next to the two already there. Jackson sucked in a sharp, deep breath as they all sat down and faced him.

  “Let’s try this one at a time,” he suggested. “Madeline, would you like to go first?”

  “Oh, well, thank you, Jack,” she drawled. “But I think Sherilyn would be best suited to speak for us all since she’s the one who organized this meetin’.”

  Sherilyn. Well, that explains a lot.

  Emma’s best friend since her college days, Sherilyn Drummond lived up to the fire of her red hair. When she felt strongly about something, she let a person know it. And since the sale of the hotel seemed to be her cause du jour these days, Jackson prepared himself for what would surely follow.

  “All right then. Sherilyn, the floor is yours. Lay it on me.”

  She swallowed hard before she began. “Jackson, we mean no disrespect.”

  All evidence to the contrary.

  “It’s just that we’re all taking the sale of The Tanglewood kind of hard. We feel like you made a decision based on profit margin, rather than taking the feelings of the people most impacted into consideration.”

  “I can assure you—”

  “Jackson, honey,” Madeline said with a gentle smile, “you offered the floor to Sherilyn, sugah. I think it’s quite rude to interrupt.”

  He tried not to laugh right out loud. “You’re right. I apologize. Go ahead, Sherilyn.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and she cleared her throat. “I just felt like we should point out to you that, although you own the hotel and have every technical right to make decisions without our input . . . well . . . You’ve created a family here, Jackson. We’re more than your employees. We’re a family, and I just feel—we just feel—a little like orphans suddenly with the family home being sold out from underneath us. Don’t get me wrong here. Emma told me how you’re fighting for each of us to retain our positions and all that, and I know we all really appreciate that . . . but it’s about more than a job for us, Jackson. It’s the whole . . . atmosphere! . . . that you’ve created here at The Tanglewood. That can’t be recreated under corporate ownership, you know? And I just . . . well, I appreciate you hearing me out.”

  The corner of Jackson’s mouth twitched a little, but he held ba
ck the smile trying to push through.

  “My turn?” he asked her, and he looked to Madeline for confirmation. She gave it to him with a sweet nod.

  He propped his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands as he leaned forward and gazed into Sherilyn’s bright turquoise eyes.

  “I know you don’t think I’m listening, but I hear everything you’ve said. Surely you’ve gotten to know me well enough to know that I value the family feeling of this place as much as you do. Do you have any idea how proud I am of what we’ve built here?” Sherilyn lifted one shoulder in a reluctant shrug. “You people mean the world to Emma and me. But there are outside factors that don’t have anything to do with you, details that can’t be ignored, and that is what has spurred the decision to sell.”

  “Can you tell us what those are?” Norma inquired.

  Jackson found himself locked, eye to eye, with Fee, and he barely caught the minutest trace of the shake of her head.

  “I don’t think we need Jackson to do that,” she said, never breaking eye contact. “I thought the goal here was for him to hear us out, and I think he’s done that.”

  He wanted to kiss her for that, but, knowing Fee, he thought better of it.

  “I just think it will help everyone better understand the thought process behind this enormous decision,” Norma remarked. Leaning toward her brother, she added, “Just for a little closure.”

  “No!” Sherilyn said, and she stood up. “No, I don’t want closure. I want you to change your mind! I mean, come on. You’re selling The Tanglewood? Really?! Why would you do something like that? Why would you build something so phenomenal and unique, and then just . . . just . . . toss it out there to the highest bidder? Jackson, I don’t understand. You just can’t do this.”

  Jackson got up and rounded the chairs occupied by Norma and Madeline. He took Sherilyn by the shoulder and turned her around to face him. Looking her squarely in the eyes, he smiled. “We haven’t signed anything yet.” She perked up considerably, and he pressed his hand against her shoulder. “Wait. Listen to me.”

  “Okay,” she conceded. “Sorry.”

  “We haven’t signed anything yet, and we won’t until Emma and I are both convinced that this is part of the overall plan for our lives. We’re talking and we’re praying, and I give you my word, Sherilyn, that we are not making this decision lightly just to sell to the highest bidder. But we have to make a choice that is right for our future together. Can you understand that?”