“You’ve been quite busy,” she replied, smiling at him in that knowing way only Susannah could. “Did I overhear that you’re going to expand Emma’s office?”
“It’s more like a closet,” he said, perching on the outside corner of her desk. “I think we’ll put that off until after we get back from Savannah. I don’t think she can take any more upheaval at the moment.”
“That’s probably a very wise choice.”
“You know,” he said, reflecting on the parade of replacements who had occupied that desk while Susannah was gone, “I am really happy you’re back. In fact, I can hardly express to you how much.”
“A little birdie or two has told me you had quite a few undesirable temporaries while I was away.”
“You have no idea. I can’t even remember how many.”
“Lauren sounded very competent when I spoke with her last week.”
Jackson got up and headed for the door. Rather than sharing the sordid details, he leaned into the doorjamb and simply said, “Not a good fit.”
“No? I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m sure I’ll be able to find someone before I—”
“Don’t say it! Can we please just not think about your retirement right now?” he interrupted, and he waved his hand at her over his shoulder as he walked away. Her laughter followed him down the hallway, and it seemed a little like music to him.
When he reached Emma’s kitchen, he found it bustling with people and activity. Fee directed a line of three at the worktable in the center of the room, and two others faced the sinks and loaded the dishwashers on either side of them.
“Emma around?”
“Nope,” Fee replied. “She’s been naughty. Sherilyn has relegated her to the courtyard with a sketch pad and a pot of tea. She’s not allowed to come home until she’s chosen a wedding cake design.”
Jackson chuckled and sang, “Thank you,” and he left in pursuit of the site of her punishment. He crossed through the lobby and stopped at the courtyard, his hand poised over the brass doorknob as he peered through the glass at Emma.
With her hair piled into a messy bun at the back of her head and fastened with what looked like a pen, she leaned back into one wrought iron chair with her feet propped up on another. She nibbled her lower lip as she busily sketched on the pad that rested on her bent knees. An assortment of papers covered the tabletop.
No way was he going to disturb her now. Jackson simply turned and sauntered away.
Welcome to the Gala Opening
of
The Tanglewood Inn
Your Menu
Award-Winning Chef
Anton Morelli
Celebrates Southern Cuisine
Starters
Proscuitto-wrapped Figs with gorgonzola and balsamic vinegar
Fried Green Tomatoes with buttermilk bleu cheese
Heirloom Tomato Salad with hearts of palm, candied pecans, and
citrus vinaigrette
Entrée Choices
Roasted prime rib of beef
Grilled salmon with pear vinegar
Shrimp & lobster cheddar grits
Petite ravioli with butternut squash
Shiitake mushrooms & caramelized shallots
Sautéed greens with shallots & Pancetta
White asparagus with pistachio vinaigrette
Candied cranberries with walnuts
Your Dessert
From this year’s recipient of
The Passionate Palette Award
Emma Rae Travis’s
Crème Brûlée Cake
Your Entertainment
Grammy Award-Winning Performer
Ben Colson
22
Emma scribbled the title underneath the latest iteration of her wedding cake and tossed the pencil to the tabletop. She yanked the pen out of the twist at the back of her head and dropped it there as well, using both hands to tousle her hair.
She groaned as she arranged the various sketches she’d been carrying around for so long. First, the Once Upon a Time cake, beautiful in its romantic simplicity. She pushed the Topsy Turvy cake next to it; more and more, that aptly described their lives. Possibly her favorite of them all, she placed the Classic and Simple sketch next to the others.
She started a new row with the Non-Traditional cupcake-cake; she and Jackson were nothing if not unique. Next to that one, the scrunched-up-and-ironed-out sketch she’d made on the paper towel at her slumber-shower: Pure and Uncomplicated. And to complete the pattern, she tore the top page from her sketch pad and set the newest contestant into place with the others.
“My, how lovely!”
She nearly shouted in surprise and jerked her neck as she looked up to find a woman standing next to her, inspecting the cake design offerings before her.
“I’m sorry. Did I startle you?” she asked. “I wandered out here to wait for my husband, and I couldn’t help noticing your project.”
Emma sighed and leaned back against the cool iron chair to inspect the tabletop. “Tell me, do you have a favorite out of these?”
“Hmm,” the woman said, adjusting her wire-rimmed glasses as she scrutinized the sketches, one at a time. “Are they all wedding cakes?”
“Yes. I’m a little decision-challenged, and my wedding is this weekend.”
“Oh, dear! I hope you have a very understanding baker.”
One corner of Emma’s mouth tilted upward, and she groaned. “I’m not just the bride. I’m the baker, too.”
The woman gasped, and she scraped the nearest chair close to the table and sat down. “Don’t tell me you’re Emma Rae Travis!”
Emma looked closely at her. “Do I know you?” she asked.
“No,” she replied, pushing her light hair away from her round face, grinning sweetly at Emma. “My name is Bonnie Cordova. My husband and I are visiting the area to celebrate our thirtieth wedding anniversary.”
“Then you’re a good person to talk to about a wedding cake, aren’t you?”
“I read about the award that you won for your crème brûlée cake. Will that be your wedding cake?”
“Yes. That’s the one decision I have made about it.”
“Ben and I know someone who visited the hotel when their daughter got married last year.” Her brown eyes twinkled as she leaned forward. “You’re the whole reason we’re staying here at The Tanglewood. We’re having tea right out here tomorrow afternoon, in fact. I can hardly wait to sample your baked goodies! . . . Probably no surprise, right? I wouldn’t be this fluffy without enjoying baked goodies.”
The twinkle in her eye charmed Emma, and she reached out and touched Bonnie’s hand. “My grandmother used to have an embroidered sampler in her bedroom in Savannah,” Emma told her. “It still hangs there to this day. A little round lamb, with cross-stitched words underneath that say, Ewe’s not fat . . . E.W.E. . . . Ewe’s fluffy.”
“I just think fluffy is a far friendlier word than any of the alternatives.”
“I have to agree,” Emma said on a chuckle. “So, thirty years, huh? How did you and your husband meet?”
“It’s kind of a funny story, actually,” Bonnie told her. “Ben worked with my mom, and he saw my picture on her desk. I was fifteen, and he was eighteen, and my mother set us up on a date. We went to the drive-in movies, and three years later . . . we got married! Would you like to see a couple of family photos?”
“I’d love to.”
Bonnie produced a burgundy wallet from her large leather bag and opened it to reveal several photographs. “This is my Ben,” she said sweetly. “And this is our son, Brandon, and his wife, Staci, our daughter, Brena . . . and here are Ceejay, Jayton, Kayla, and Leah.”
“They’re lovely. And they all resulted from a blind date to the movies,” Emma remarked. “That might be one of the most romantic things I’ve ever heard.”
“Our wedding wasn’t elaborate or anything,” she went on. “In fact, the pastor’s wife made my bridal gown, and a woman in our church made t
he cake.”
“And thirty years later,” Emma surmised, “you wander into the courtyard at just the moment that I’m trying to figure out which of these cakes best represents Jackson and me. So tell me . . . which one?”
“Tell me a little about your intended,” she prodded.
“His name is Jackson—”
“Not Jackson Drake,” she cut her off. “The owner of the hotel?”
Emma nodded. “The very same.”
“Talk about romantic.”
She chuckled as she continued. “He’s handsome and wonderful. Probably the most amazing man I’ve ever met. He’s thoughtful in ways that you just don’t expect. Do you know what I mean?”
Bonnie nodded. “I think so.”
“He’s so easy to be with, Bonnie. No demands or high expectations, just . . . easy. All of my past relationships have been so tangled, you know?”
As Bonnie grinned at her and nodded, Emma wondered for a moment why she felt so comfortable about sharing her personal emotions with a virtual stranger. Yet when Bonnie rolled her hand, inviting Emma to continue, she actually did!
“He really gets me, you know? He doesn’t want to change me or control me or anything like that. He just . . .” She trailed off and smiled.
“Loves you,” Bonnie finished for her.
“Yes.”
“He sounds wonderful, and the spirit of each one of these cakes seems to fit your relationship with him.”
“Welcome to my world. It’s impossible to choose.”
“Not really impossible, Emma,” she said. “The emotion behind what you’re telling me, well, it carries the message of one of these cakes, over and above the others.”
“It does?”
Emma planted both feet on the ground and leaned forward on her elbows. “Tell me, Bonnie. Please.”
Bonnie smiled at her and rubbed Emma’s arm briskly before tapping her finger on the newest sketch. “This one. Absolutely.”
Emma gazed at it for a long moment before she sighed so deeply that it felt as if she’d just taken her first breath in days. As a broad grin wound its way across her face, Emma began to laugh.
“Bonnie Cordova, you’ve saved my life!”
She jumped to her feet and frantically pushed the papers into a pile and held them against her ribs. “What time is your tearoom appointment tomorrow?”
“Two o’clock, why?”
“It’s on me!”
“Oh, no, that’s not—”
“Oh, yes, it is,” she cried as she hurried toward the door. “I’m sorry. I have to go. It was so great meeting you, Bonnie. Thank you so much!”
“You, too, Emma. Best wishes on your wedding!”
And with that, Emma scrambled through the door and took off across the lobby at a full run.
Emma could hardly wait to get to Sherilyn’s. But when she steered around the corner of her street, a familiar sight sent her foot to the brake pedal, and her thoughts to revving. It looked like a repeat performance of her slumber-shower with familiar cars edging the driveway and curb in front of the house. Georgiann’s BMW, Norma’s Camry, Susannah Littlefield’s Taurus, even Fee’s PT Cruiser. The only car missing seemed to be her mother’s.
When she reached the front door, Emma toyed with the idea of carefully turning the knob and tiptoeing inside to see what they had going on in there, but Andy’s dog had a keen sense of killjoy, and he began barking before the thoughts could take flight into actual plans. She pushed the door open and let herself in.
“All right, Henry, all right,” she said as she pushed her way past him. “They all know I’m here.”
When she reached the end of the hall, Sherilyn looked up at her as if she’d just been caught reading her diary. “Emma, what are you doing here?”
“I have a better question. Why is everyone I know sitting in your dining room?”
They glanced around the room like thieves caught red-handed, but no one appeared to have an explanation to share.
“I’m not kidding. What’s going on?”
“We’re event planning, sugah,” Madeline piped up from the kitchen. “One of Georgiann’s charity functions.”
Emma narrowed her eyes at Fee and asked, “You didn’t think it was worth mentioning to me?”
“Well, you’ve been stressed. Norma thought I could pinch-hit.”
“O-kay.” Emma moved closer and scrutinized the scene before her. “So why do you all look like you’re planning a bank robbery?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherilyn chimed in. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? Without calling. Just dropping in without any forewarning. It must be pretty important . . .”
Old Loose-Lips had resorted to an old mechanism: Anything could be avoided if enough fast words covered it.
“. . . and I’d love to hear what that is. Although if you’d like some tea, I can put on the water for you and make you a nice cup. Would you like tea, Em? Hmm?”
“No.” She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath, and it felt pretty good when she let it out. “No, thanks.”
“So what are you doing here, darling?” Georgiann asked her. “Is something wrong?”
She swallowed. Hard. Then she sighed. “I . . . uh . . .” And it hit her. “Oh! I wanted to dazzle Sherilyn!” She looked at her friend and grinned. “Brace yourself.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“You chose the cake.”
“I have chosen the cake!”
Sherilyn gave a little shriek before lunging at her, grabbing the sketch from her hands, and peering at it.
“Oh, Em.” She chuckled as she added, “It’s perfect.”
“Lemme see,” Fee said, and she got up and snatched the paper from Sherilyn. After giving it a once-over, she smacked Emma’s arm. “Dude. Way to go.”
“Can we all see?” Susannah asked, and Sherilyn took the paper back and held it up for everyone to have a look.
“It’s lovely.”
“Just right.”
“I think it says Emma and Jackson,” Norma added.
Sherilyn glanced over her shoulder and asked, “So how did you finally manage it?”
“I met this really sweet woman at the hotel, and she helped me pick it. Speaking of which,” she said, touching Fee’s elbow. “Her name is Bonnie Cordova, and she and her husband, Ben, are having tea at two o’clock tomorrow. I’d like to comp them. And could you find out if they’ll be around this weekend? If so, invite them to the wedding.”
“God bless you, Bonnie Cordova!” Sherilyn sang, and she hugged Emma around the shoulders. “We have a cake!”
“We have a cake,” Emma repeated with a sigh.
Stretched out across the bed on his stomach and surrounded by half a dozen books of poetry and verse, Jackson landed on something that snagged a heartstring. He pushed himself up and sat cross-legged, a book open to one of his old favorites balanced his knee.
When his cell phone rang, he had to search for it to answer.
“Guess what?”
Emma’s voice tickled the back of his throat, and warmth washed over him.
“You’re leaving me for a better-looking man.”
“There is no better-looking man.”
“Ah. Then what?”
“We have a cake.”
“Don’t toy with me.”
“Nope. I’m not joking. It was a perfect storm of the right conversation at the right moment and the right sketch. We have cake liftoff. What are you doing?”
“I am writing my vows,” he declared.
“We wrote the vows weeks ago, Jackson. We sat there and wrote them together.”
“I know. But Sherilyn said we each need to choose a passage of Scripture or a poem or something to read to each other first. Something that sums up how we feel. Did you do that already?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Oh.”
Emma chuckled. “And you’re just doing that now.”
“Well, I’m ju
st nailing it down now,” he corrected, cringing as he scanned the many books scattered around him. “I’m narrowing down the choices.”
“What have you been waiting for, Jackson?”
“Well, for most women,” he explained with a teasing tone, “the wedding is apparently all about the dress. For you, my love, the cake is the thing. Now that you’ve landed on a cake, I have full confidence that this marriage is going to take place, so I need to kick it into gear.”
“You doubted me? I’m wounded.”
“And I am happy.”
Emma giggled, and it sparked the flicker of a grin on him. A sweet silence followed, and Jackson’s smile melted into an expression of pure tenderness.
His voice went raspy as he told her, “I wish you were here.”
“I can come over,” she offered.
“No. I mean . . . I wish you were here to stay.”
“Ohhh,” she breathed. “Me, too.”
He pushed the book from his leg, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“What a silly question,” she replied softly, and he pressed the phone closer to better saver the earthy tone of her voice.
After another long silence, he remarked, “You sound tired.”
“I am. But it’s a good tired.”
“Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll see—”
“Hey,” she interrupted. “I walked in on the strangest thing over at Sherilyn’s tonight.”
Jackson chuckled. “Do tell.”
“Nearly every woman we know was there. All three of your sisters, Susannah, Fee. It was like I happened upon the meeting of some secret society of southern women that I hadn’t been invited to join.”
“Maybe your invitation got lost in the mail.”
“Or they’re up to something,” she half-whispered, and Jackson laughed.
“And this would be surprising? Our wedding is in a couple of days, Emma. Of course they’re planning something.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“No.”
Always the Baker, Finally the Bride Page 23
