“I appreciate that,” he replied, and she couldn’t help but notice what a picture-perfect man he was. The way he tilted his head and smiled, he looked like any one of his album covers. “Do you have a favorite song?”
“A favorite . . . Pardon?”
“Jackson tells me you didn’t get to hear one song all the way through tonight. We thought you might like to, now.”
Emma glanced at Jackson, then back to Ben. “Really?”
“What’s your pleasure?”
“Oh, I just love the classics from your second album. Anything. Really, anything would be great.”
Ben nodded, then he rounded the stage and climbed the stairs.
Jackson smiled at her sweetly, and she shook her head. “Thank you, Jackson. Really. What a nice thing to do.”
On the first note from the piano, Jackson offered his hand. “Dance with me?”
Emma’s heart thumped against her throat and she hesitated, but only for a moment before taking Jackson’s hand and moving into his arms. As Ben Colson serenaded them with “The Way You Look Tonight,” Emma leaned into Jackson and they swayed in perfect sync to the music.
It felt so good there in his arms, and she had the sensation of finally landing somewhere that she’d been struggling to reach for such a very long time. Emma nuzzled her face into his shoulder and closed her eyes, breathing in a deep whiff of the faint spicy wood and citrus scent that was becoming familiar to her now.
The music came to a gentle end, but the two of them remained in one another’s arms, swaying softly to the silent song in the very large room.
“What are you thinking?” Jackson whispered to her now.
“Remembering,” she replied.
“That first night? The night of the opening?”
“Mmm,” she hummed, and Jackson sighed.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“Any regrets?” she asked him, lifting her face to his.
He thought about it for a moment before replying. “Regrets? Yes. But only one.”
Her heart throbbed inside her chest. “Really?”
“Yeah. I went my whole life without appreciating hazelnut,” he teased. “It took some irritating girl behind a bakery counter pushing it on me—”
“Many times before you gave in, as I recall.”
“Yes! That’s what I mean. I missed out on thirty-some years of hazelnut before that. I regret it. I really do.”
“You’re a jerk,” she said with a giggle.
“I know. And you love me for it.”
Emma smiled and nuzzled her head against his shoulder. “Yes, I do.”
26
Emma, can we see you for a moment?”
She looked up at Susannah’s very serious face and wondered, Oh no. Now what’s happened?
“It’s nothing dire,” she said, as if she could read Emma’s thoughts. With a smile, she added, “In fact, it’s a good thing.”
Susannah offered her hand, and Emma excused herself from Carly and Devon’s table to accept it and curiously follow Susannah’s lead. When they reached the family cluster at the edge of the stage, the human sea parted for her, and Emma found herself at the center of the activity, standing next to Jackson. He slipped his arm around her shoulder.
“What’s going on?” she asked him.
“No clue.”
“Let’s all sit down,” Madeline suggested, and Emma followed them to the nearest table and sat in the chair between her father and Jackson.
Georgiann produced a small wrapped gift, about the size of a shoe box, and she slid it across the table toward them. Jackson nodded toward it with a smile, and Emma pulled the box the rest of the way.
“It’s just a little something from your families,” Norma explained. “Including Sherilyn, Susannah, and Fee, of course, because they’re family now, too.”
Emma’s eyes caught Fee’s, and her friend arched her eyebrows over the top of her small, rectangular glasses. “Have a peek.”
Emma lifted the lid with some degree of caution, but she didn’t quite know why. Inside, she found an array of folded cards in various pastel shades. She looked at her father and grinned, and he urged her on with a nod.
She picked up one of them, a mint green card that read, Madeline & Georgiann—Shared Administrative.
“What does this mean?” she asked Jackson in a hushed voice. He shrugged, and they looked around at the sea of eager faces. “I’m sorry,” she told them. “I don’t understand.”
“Keep going,” her mother urged her.
Emma pulled a lavender card from the mix.
Susannah—Delayed retirement.
Jackson, reading over Emma’s shoulder, looked up at Susannah. “What’s this all about?”
Emma unfolded a light blue card and recognized Fee’s slanted penmanship immediately.
Fee—Bakery & tearoom admin.
Poking through the rest of the cards, Emma recognized a United Airlines logo, and she pulled the envelope from the bottom of the box. Her pulse began to race as she unfolded it, and she glanced at Jackson. He looked as confused as she felt.
“Two open-ended tickets,” Georgiann explained. “Atlanta to Paris.”
Jackson and Emma stared at one another for a long and frozen moment before they broke free and scanned the crowd of people around them.
“What is this?” Jackson asked.
“Each card bears one of our names,” Madeline told them, “along with the role we will fill while the two of you go live out that dream you had of spending some time in Paris.”
“What?” Emma cried. “Are you—?”
“No, no,” Jackson interrupted. “You can’t . . . Susannah, postponing your retirement?”
“Just for six months or a year, Jackson.”
“And George,” he objected, “you could hardly wait to get out of here once the hotel was up and running. You can’t just—”
“I can, and I will.” She sliced her hand through the air with that no-nonsense, this-is-the-way-it’s-going-to-be expression Emma had come to know very well.
Gavin reached around Emma and placed his hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “Don’t fight it, my boy. This is bigger than you are.”
“We’ve been planning it ever since the day you decided not to sell the hotel,” Sherilyn told them.
“That’s what I walked in on at your house!” Emma cried. Sherilyn nodded and grinned with sheer delight.
“We’re all so happy that you didn’t sell, Jackson,” Sherilyn told him. “But it occurred to us that . . . well, why can’t you have it all?”
“The Lord knows you deserve it,” Avery chimed in. “Both of you.”
Emma’s voice remained stuck in her throat. Even though she didn’t know in the least what she wanted to say, she struggled to push the random words up and out of her mouth.
“You need to take care of yourself, Emmy,” her father said. “Nurse yourself back to health. I know a little bit about that myself.”
“And Jackson has a book to write,” Andy added.
“And there’s pastry classes to take.”
“And walks along the Seine.”
“And a marriage to begin.”
Wow. They’ve really been paying attention!
Jackson turned to Emma, searching her eyes for some sort of solid reaction, and she felt as if she’d let him down a bit when she finally shook her head and groaned in exasperation.
“You’ll still go to Savannah tomorrow,” Avery offered. “Spend a honeymoon week there, just the two of you. When you get back, you can take whatever time you need to set up your plans for the baking school, somewhere to live in Paris . . .”
“And make sure it has a guest room,” Sherilyn chimed in. “Because if you think you’re going to completely miss out on the first year of your goddaughter’s life . . .” She paused, her turquoise eyes round as saucers. “Wait, we’re going to have to speed up the christening, Andy. We have to have it before they leave!”
Andy chuckled and ru
bbed Sherilyn’s arm. “Focus, honey.”
“The thing is . . . you don’t have to go for a whole year,” she told them, and she looked around at the others. “I mean, there’s nothing saying it has to be a whole year, right?”
“You can go for three months, six months, or even a year if you want to,” Georgiann added. “But you really must go.”
“This is . . . too much,” Jackson stated.
“It’s nawt,” Madeline corrected in her low southern drawl. “It’s our wedding gift, sugah. From all of us . . . to the two of you.”
Norma rounded the table and stood behind them, touching their shoulders. “Build your ‘Once Upon a Time.’ Let us help you do that. We so want to be part of it.”
Emma couldn’t help herself. Propelled by pure emotion, she jumped up from her chair and hugged Norma, rocking her from side to side. When they parted, she turned toward the group of them, tearful and emotional.
“Who does this kind of thing?” she cried. “Every one of you . . . you’re so precious to us. This is over-the-top ridiculous that you’ve put your heads together and done this for us.”
“So you accept?” Susannah asked them.
Emma’s gaze went straight to Jackson. As he looked up at her, she could almost hear the click of their eyes locking. It only took a moment for her to read his answer right there, swimming around in the warm, chocolate pools she knew so well.
“We accept,” she said.
Hugs and kisses and good wishes flowed around the table in a sweet wave, engulfing the new couple. She could hardly believe what had swept her away, and she finally turned to Jackson and asked the question without speaking a word.
Is this really happening?
“I know,” he replied, shaking his head. “We’re . . . going to Paris!”
Despite the wrinkles leading up to the day, Jackson had to admit that the wedding itself had bordered on flawless. All of the people they’d thought wouldn’t make it had somehow managed to come, and every intimate detail of the ceremony and reception had added to the overall perfection.
And this new surprise!—the raised hands of an entire family of support, holding back the challenges, stopping time in order to send them on the adventure they’d been dreaming about for so long—it was almost too much to believe. He wondered if he might wake up tomorrow morning and realize he’d been reading some fairy tale novel or dreaming about such a well-coordinated send-off.
His beautiful bride had danced with her father, who looked fairly good considering he’d left the hospital just that afternoon . . . The menu, if even possible, had turned out to exceed the original one on the night of the opening . . . Russell had sung to them from the stage, Ben Colson accompanying him . . . The exquisite cake had been cut and enjoyed . . . Most of the guests had said their good-byes, and just a remnant remained behind to toast the couple once more.
“It’s been a perfect night,” he whispered into Emma’s ear as she clung to him.
“A week in Savannah, just the two of us,” she murmured back at him, her face buried in the fold of his neck so that he felt the reverberation of her words against his skin. “And when we return, we’ll start making our plans for Paris. It’s like a dream.”
Her shoes had been discarded somewhere around the time that she’d danced with Russell to a cranked-up version of The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” from the variety of CDs Fee had brought along to play after Ben Colson packed up and left. And now, to the tune of “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” they swayed from side to side, Emma’s bare feet on top of his shoes while he took the steps for them both. He imagined it to be somewhere past midnight, but he had no idea how far past.
Emma moaned softly into his ear before humming along with the song. “I love you so much,” she cooed as the music faded to a close.
Before he could reply, the first beats of the next musical selection elicited a wail from Sherilyn, and the next thing Jackson knew, they’d been mobbed to the tune of Bob Seger’s “Rock and Roll Never Forgets.” He recalled that Russell had sung it to Sherilyn at one of her wedding receptions, not long after they’d first met.
Every member of the group of stragglers hit the dance floor around them—Sherilyn and Andy . . . Devon and Carly . . . Audrey and J.R . . . Kat and Russell . . . Fee and Sean—now dancing solo around them, just one large band of merry partygoers, most of the women barefoot, all of the men with their ties loosened and jackets strewn over random chairs.
The joy on Emma’s face as she hopped from atop his feet thrilled Jackson to the core. He watched her as she danced with J.R., then Fee, then moved on to Sherilyn. The two women embraced, and their laughter rang like bells accompanying the melody of the music.
These people had somewhere along the line become their own inner circle. These were the people they had come to love, the people they trusted the most, would probably grow old alongside. Each one of them had wandered through the doors of The Tanglewood at some point, preordained, destined to become their . . . family. His heart surged into the depths of it.
Emma found her way back to him and wrapped her arms around Jackson’s neck.
“Hey!” she exclaimed.
“Hey,” he returned as she pressed against him.
“Remember when I told you . . . that I’d be . . . worth the wait?”
Jackson pulled back slightly and looked into Emma’s brown eyes. “Yeaaah.”
“Well, here’s the thing. Your wait is over, my friend.”
He stared at her blankly until she offered him her hand. And the instant that he grasped it, she took off running for the door. No need to think twice. Jackson joined her, stride for stride, as they flew from the ballroom and raced down the corridor, all the way to the elevators.
But as the elevator doors slipped open, they paused and looked at one another seriously.
The image of Morton and his pig, Justin, flashed before Jackson’s eyes. But Emma said it first.
“Yeah. Umm, let’s take the stairs.”
Epilogue
Bonnie Cordova flipped through the afternoon’s mail while sitting at her kitchen table.
“Bill. Bill. Advertisement. Bill.”
The final envelope in the pile bore a familiar crest. It had come from The Tanglewood Inn back in Roswell, Georgia.
She tore it open and removed an engraved notecard, one of those specialty cards people used to thank their wedding guests. But she hadn’t given them a gift . . .
Bonnie,
Jackson and I were so happy you could attend our wedding and share in our joy. And I can’t thank you enough for appearing at just the right moment to help me make the decision about our cake! The choice had been dogging me for weeks on end, and your input helped punctuate a perfect day for us.
I’ve enclosed a little thank-you gift . . . but remember . . . it’s a secret. You’re only the third person on the planet who knows this secret, and I’m trusting you to keep it.
All my love,
Emma Travis Drake
Bonnie unfolded the piece of paper tucked inside and immediately began to laugh. And the laughter morphed into a full-on shriek as she called, “Ben! Ben, she sent me the recipe! . . . Ben!!”
Emma Rae’s Award-Winning
Crème Brûlée Wedding Cake
A 6-Step Process
Step 1of 6: Crème Brûlée
Note: Prepare 24 hours ahead of time.
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste (Lorann Gourmet)
2 cups heavy cream
8 egg yolks
¼ cup granulated sugar
Stir vanilla bean paste into the cream in a
heavy-bottomed saucepan.
Bring JUST to a boil and remove from heat immediately
to cool slightly.
Note: The cream must still be somewhat warm for the next step.
Whisk egg yolks and sugar together until mixed well.
Note: The fewer bubbles, the better.
Whisking constantly, VERY SLOWLY pour the
hot cream
into the eggs.
Line two pans (the same size as your cake will be) with
non-stick aluminum foil (nonstick side OUT).
Note: It is essential to get a smooth, bubble-free lining
on the bottom and to make sure the wrap stays up on the sides.
Divide and pour the custard mixture into the two
prepared cake pans.
Bake at 210 degrees for about 40 minutes,
until the custard is BARELY QUIVERY in the middle.
Note: The mixture will be firmer than a regular crème brûlée
mixture, and it will not need a water bath.
When the layers have cooled, stretch cling wrap across the
tops, and freeze in the pan.
Step 2 of 6: Brown Sugar Crunch “Brulee” Layers
½ stick (¼ cup) unsalted butter
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
Cut two parchment paper rounds to line the
bottom of two pans,
the same-size pans that the cakes will bake in.
Leave the parchment liners in the pans.
Combine the butter, brown sugar, and water in a
heavy-bottomed saucepan.
Boil to a temperature of 260 degrees.
Immediately divide the molten sugar mixture onto the
prepared parchment,
and quickly spread to the edges.
Allow the sugar to cool and harden.
Once it is cool, use a heavy spoon to tap the sugar, cracking
it into small pieces.
Note: Take care NOT to disassemble the circle. The smaller the pieces, the better.
Step 3 of 6: Sour Cream Cake
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
3 cups granulated sugar
7 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Always the Baker, Finally the Bride Page 27
