Taste of Romance

by Darlene Panzera

Kim stared at him for several long seconds, wishing she could travel the world with him, pack her hobo bag and her paintbrushes, and fly off to other countries, immerse herself in other cultures, and capture their essence on canvas. But her gut clenched into a tight ball at the thought of the airplane flights a dream like that would require.

  Avoiding Nathaniel’s expectant gaze, she lifted the binoculars to her eyes. No thief on the horizon.

  “I dated an Irish guy in college,” she said, her voice raw. “After graduation he asked me to fly off to Ireland with him. But I thought of my mother, crashing in the wilds of Idaho with my aunt and uncle in their plane, and I . . . I couldn’t go. He left me behind and flew off without me.”

  Nathaniel nodded, as if he understood her dilemma. “I dated a girl in college who asked me to stay. She didn’t have the spirit of adventure in her and asked me to give up mine. I couldn’t do it. Giving up who you are and who you are meant to be, giving up on your dreams, is a fate worse than—”

  He looked at her and broke off before finishing, but Kim knew what he was going to say. “Giving up on your dreams is a fate worse than death.” Suddenly she knew she had to change.

  “Can you take me up in your brother’s hot air balloon again?” she asked. “This time without the ropes tying it to the ground?”

  “I could, if that’s what you want. Or if you’re willing to try something else, he has a seaplane that can fly low to the water to make you feel safe.”

  “I’d like to try,” she told him. “I don’t always want to be afraid to fly. Someday, when I’m ready, I’d like to actually use my passport.”

  “Maybe when that day comes, you’ll visit Sweden,” he suggested.

  “Maybe,” she said and drew in her breath as his mouth drew near. “Nathaniel, we can’t let ourselves get distracted. We need to be on the lookout for the thief.”

  He pulled back. “Ja, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking except that you’re so very cute when your eyes are wide with anticipation.”

  “Me?” She gasped. “You think I anticipate—”

  “I find it very exciting,” he assured her and drew toward her once again.

  This time she didn’t protest. Okay, he was right. She had been struggling with the anticipation of his kiss the entire time he’d been talking to her.

  His mouth covered her lips with sweet promise, exhilarating temptation, and filled her with an intense urge to fly over the moon. Never had she lost her senses over a man so completely, not even with Gavin, whom she’d thought was the love of her life.

  Now she wondered if she wasn’t hurt so much by the idea that he had left her, but by the idea that he had left her behind. While he flew off to another country, she remained stuck in Astoria, where she feared she’d remain forever.

  Kim reached her arms up to wrap around Nathaniel’s neck and draw him closer. Then she abruptly tore her lips from his and scanned the area below. “What about the cupcake thief?”

  Nathaniel glanced at his watch, shook his head, and smiled. “I don’t think he’s coming.”

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

  —Jonathan Swift

  “WHAT DO YOU mean, he didn’t show?” Andi demanded. “How are we going to get Mia’s doll back?”

  “Trolls are known to run off with babies,” Guy interjected. “Maybe he mistook the doll for the real thing.”

  “Let’s leave a pair of size fourteen work boots outside our door,” Rachel suggested. “I read in a magazine it deters burglars if they think there’s a giant inside the premises.”

  “Makes sense,” the tattoo artist agreed. “A short little troll would be afraid of a giant.”

  Kim shot them each a look to let them know she thought they were crazy. “I doubt our thief is a real troll. And if we put a pair of boots outside our door, any poor person off the street would take them thinking we are offering them for free.”

  “So how do we catch him?” Andi asked.

  “Ink,” Guy said, his tone matter-of-fact. “You place an exploding dye pack under the cupcake box and leave it on the end of the counter as bait. When he steals the box and tries to head out the door, a radio transmitter triggers the pack, and it explodes, marking your culprit.”

  “I’ve heard of that before,” Rachel said with a nod. “Banks use it to catch robbers all the time.”

  “But how do we get an ink pack?” Kim asked their neighbor. “Your tattoo shop?”

  “No.” Guy told them and grinned. “Ebay.”

  TUESDAY EVENING, KIM left Creative Cupcakes two hours early for a sunset seaplane trip with Nathaniel. She glanced at him beside her in the small cockpit, and he gave her a quick kiss for reassurance.

  “You know how to swim?” he asked.

  She nodded. “But I’ve never parachuted.”

  “You won’t need to parachute. We’ll skim across the surface and then lift up a few feet, staying over the water the whole time. If something happens to the plane, you can jump out and swim with the fish.”

  Kim took a deep breath, her palms sweaty and her nerves zinging. “I’m ready.”

  The propeller on the front of his brother’s small single-engine seaplane spun around, picking up speed, and her heart beat faster and faster.

  You can do this, she told herself. You have to do this.

  As they moved forward, the high squeal ringing in her ears dropped to a low buzz. Out her side window a white wake followed the slender float as it cut through the water.

  “Okay?” Nathaniel asked, glancing her way as he worked the controls.

  “Yes.” She held tight to her seatbelt and gritted her teeth as the plane lifted higher. “I’m . . . okay.”

  And she really was.

  Youngs Bay stretched out before them, and she giggled with nervous relief, giddy as Theresa on too much sugar.

  “This is amazing,” she said, her voice soaring an octave higher than normal.

  Nathaniel laughed as if energized by her excitement. “There are many lakes in Sweden. My brother and I have been flying float planes since we were in high school even if our mother didn’t want us to.”

  “Was she afraid you’d get hurt?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “She was more afraid for the plane. It wasn’t ours, but a neighbor’s.”

  Kim urged Nathaniel to go a little higher and marveled at the scene below, images she never would have seen with her own eyes if she hadn’t agreed to fly.

  She thought of her mother and the risk involved. Since the crash, Kim had avoided all kinds of risk. She had even avoided risk in her relationships by keeping tight control over her emotions.

  Until Nathaniel.

  “Thank you,” she said, touching his shoulder.

  He grinned. “No, my dear Kimberly, thank you.”

  EARLY THE NEXT morning, Kim checked on the little blackbird by the side door in the party room. She’d placed leaves and birdseed in the box with it, along with a bowl of water. The song by the Beatles came to mind, as she checked its broken wing and urged it to fly. Instead, it fluttered around, hobbling, with only little jumps here and there.

  “What are we going to do when its wing heals and we have a bird flying around the shop?” Rachel asked, coming up behind her.

  Kim shrugged. “I’ll open the door and let it go.”

  She heard her name and looked through the connecting door into the main room of the shop, where Meredith was talking on the phone.

  “Sorry,” Meredith said with a conniving note in her voice. “She’s not available right now.”

  Kim walked toward her. “Is that for me?”

  Meredith glanced at her and grimaced. “Well, she might be here after all. Hold on.”

  Kim narrowed her gaze on the girl and took the phone away from her. “Why didn’t you call me over?”

  “You want me calling out across the shop?” Meredith asked, her hands on her hips.
/>   “If the phone call is for me,” Kim said, “then, yes!”

  Meredith rolled her eyes and walked away in a huff.

  “Hello?” Kim greeted the person on the other end of the line, hoping it was Nathaniel.

  It wasn’t. It was one of her friends from the Portland art show.

  “Kim, I’ve been talking to the others, and we really need to know if you plan to open the gallery with us. Mark, Ellie, and I are looking at possible locations, and as soon as we find one, we’ll need the money for the first month’s rent.”

  She hesitated, then glanced toward Andi and Rachel, who were filling the display case with fresh cupcakes. “Can I give you an answer by the end of the week?”

  “Sure, Kim, but the sooner you decide, the better. We need you.”

  Kim hung up, confident that by the end of the week, she’d know if there would still be a cupcake shop to stand in her way or if the choice would be a no-brainer.

  At least she had options. If Creative Cupcakes closed down, she didn’t know what Andi and Rachel would do.

  Through the large front window she caught sight of a motorcycle and ran forward—except it wasn’t Nathaniel’s blue Honda Shadow but a black Harley-Davidson.

  “Andi! Rachel! You have to see this,” Kim called as she headed for the door. “I think Guy Armstrong got his license back.”

  Kim remembered Guy telling them he’d never drive again after his DUI ten years before. That’s why he rode to work each day on his bicycle. Guess he changed his mind.

  Andi and Rachel followed her outside to the curb, where Guy pulled an old black helmet off his head.

  “What do you think?” he asked, pride making him puff out his chest like a prizefighter.

  “Very nice!” Rachel exclaimed.

  Andi agreed. “Looks great.”

  “Took a few hundred dollars to fix, but after seeing Kim’s friend on his bike the other day, I decided to go for it.”

  Kim’s gaze took in his short stature and pale white ponytailed head, and she frowned. “Where did you get the money?”

  “I sold a few things,” he told her and grinned, revealing his missing tooth, which gave him the appearance of a . . . troll.

  Could Guy Armstrong be their cupcake thief?

  A shriek sounded from within the shop, cutting into her thoughts and making her run back through the door behind Andi and Rachel.

  “What’s wrong?” Andi demanded.

  Theresa cowered in the corner, her hands covering half her face. Instead of answering, she pointed to the end of the counter, her finger trembling.

  Rachel gasped. “Where are the wedding cupcakes?”

  “The cupcakes for Nathaniel’s brother’s wedding?” Kim asked. She froze, staring at the empty counter where they’d stacked the luscious white sponge cakes with toffee icing she’d decorated all morning. “No!”

  “I didn’t see anything,” Meredith said, lifting her nose.

  “That’s because you were texting on your cell phone,” Theresa accused.

  “No,” Meredith shot back. “It’s because you were flirting with Eric.”

  “Meredith, we told you no cell phones while working,” Andi said, walking toward her.

  “Andi,” Kim said, counting to ten before she spoke so she wouldn’t scream, “the wedding is in two hours. What are we going to do?”

  “The thief must have slipped into the shop and taken them out the side door while we were out front,” Rachel said, and pursed her lips. “I wish the mailman would bring us the dye pack we ordered. The Cupcake Bandit has gone too far this time. We need the sales from this event to buy the building.”

  “I need the cupcakes,” Kim exclaimed. “What am I supposed to tell Nathaniel and his family?”

  “We’ll bake a new batch,” Andi said, pulling out a bowl from under the counter. “Quick! Everyone work together. With a little luck, we’ll have them baked, iced, and decorated just in time.”

  HOWEVER, TIME DIDN’T seem to be on their side, not with Mr. Warden calling to tell them he’d found a buyer for the building if they couldn’t purchase it themselves within the next three days. Andi and Kim’s father’s sudden appearance didn’t help either.

  “What’s going on in here?” he demanded. “I’ve never seen such chaos.”

  Theresa bent down to clean the icing she’d spilled on the floor, but Eric rushed from the kitchen with a tray of hot cupcakes in his hands, didn’t see the mess, and slipped. Andi’s cry of warning came a second too late, but she did manage to save the cupcakes by lifting the ends of her apron and using it like a catcher’s mitt.

  Kim let out a sigh of relief. “Great play by Andi Burke.”

  Then, careful to use potholders, Kim retrieved the tray from her sister and took the cupcakes to her workstation where she’d been creating white wedding doves out of a combination of fondant and piped sugar frosting.

  “We’re under pressure,” Andi told their father.

  “What pressure?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “How hard can it be to bake cupcakes?”

  “Dad!” Kim shouted, using a knife to ice a previous batch that had cooled. “Please.”

  “Kim, I didn’t mean you. I was talking to Andi. Everyone knows you always do your best.”

  “No, I don’t,” she shot back. “I make mistakes just like everybody else.”

  “Kim, stay out of this,” her father warned.

  “No, I will not stay out of it. I will not listen to you criticize Andi ever again. What we need right now, what we’ve needed ever since Mom died, is your support.”

  Her father stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her. Then he turned and without another word went back out the door.

  Andi stared at her, too. “Thanks, Kim.”

  Kim nodded and watched her sister limp toward the kitchen. “Wait! Andi, what’s wrong with your foot?”

  Andi cringed. “I think I sprained it while trying to save the cupcakes from hitting the floor.”

  RACHEL AND ANDI cracked eggs, measured flour, sugar, butter and baking powder, and dumped them into the big industrial mixer. Eric and Theresa poured the batter into the cupcake wrappers lining the molded trays and put them in the oven. And as soon as they cooled, Meredith and Kim went to work frosting and decorating. Heather manned the cupcake counter and kept Mia and Taylor out of the way.

  “Ten minutes, Kim,” Andi warned, looking at the clock.

  “Finished,” Kim called out as she packaged the last dozen wedding cupcakes into the open boxes.

  Mike drove the Cupcake Mobile to the Riverview Community Park and Pavilion, and Kim was thankful they’d made it before the wedding ceremony started. She and Rachel jumped out and began to unload.

  “You can put the cupcakes over there,” a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman directed them. “My brother and his new wife will love these.”

  Kim remembered Nathaniel telling her his parents and younger sister were flying over from Sweden for the wedding and this young woman looked just like him.

  “Are you Linnea?” Kim asked. “I’m a . . . friend of your brother, Nathaniel.”

  “More than a friend,” he corrected, coming toward them and giving her shoulders a squeeze. “Kim is my date.”

  “I have to work,” she reminded him with a smile.

  “Only part of the evening,” he said. “The other part you can spend with me.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Linnea said, shaking her hand.

  “Are you sure you’ll be able to handle this by yourself?” Rachel asked, glancing around at all the people filling the gardens.

  “Of course,” Kim assured her. “Now that the cupcakes are here, all I have to do is serve them. You and Mike can leave.”

  “Call if you run into any problems,” Rachel whispered, and taking Mike’s arm, she headed back to the truck.

  KIM WATCHED NATHANIEL’S brother and his bride exchange marriage vows and imagined herself watching Andi and Jake’s wedding in September and then Rachel and Mike’s on
Christmas Eve. Watching, always watching, always alone.

  And with Nathaniel leaving in three days, she didn’t have any prospects of changing her single status any more than she could force herself to board a commercial jet.

  “Come with me,” Nathaniel coaxed, his voice low as they shared a dance away from the crowd.

  She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Where?”

  “To Sweden. My family has a big estate. You can room with my sister. She’d love to visit with you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. I know you can. I have faith in you.”

  For one moment she imagined sitting beside Nathaniel on the plane and touring Sweden with her paintbrushes in her pocket, but she grew weak at the notion of being thousands of feet up in the air, with no control over her safety.

  “Flying in the hot air balloon and flying in the low-flying seaplane with you helped, but I’m not ready to board a commercial airliner yet, especially one flying halfway around the world.”

  Nathaniel couldn’t hide his disappointment. It showed through his eyes and was etched in every muscle on his face. “Ja, I know. It’s too soon.”

  She loved the fact he didn’t pressure her or argue with her, like Gavin. Her ex-boyfriend hadn’t understood. Not like Nathaniel, who would be another ex, all because she wasn’t brave enough to fly.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, and hoped he realized how hard it was for her to say that, how hard it would be to let him go.

  BEFORE THE TRADITIONAL cutting of the cake, or, in this case, the bride and groom feeding each other the cupcakes, Kim circled around each table distributing cupcakes to each guest’s plate. Then she stood beside Caleb, the young man Jake had recommended from the local media crew to videotape the event.

  Her pocket buzzed, and when she took out her cell phone to answer the call, she found her sister in hysterics.

  “Andi, calm down and tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I lost my diamond engagement ring. It fell into the cupcake batter!”

  Kim glanced around at all the guests who each had a cupcake on their plate waiting to be eaten. “The batter for the second set of wedding cupcakes?”