“I really did lose track of time.”
“Oh, and that makes it okay? If you’d just fixed the sink this morning it would’ve been done. Were you writing this morning, too?”
“No.”
Ha!
“I was working on arrangements for the band.”
“The band,” she growled. Of course, the band and his home-wrecking keyboard player came first. It was all Ella could do not to dump the pan of chicken soup over his head.
Her cell phone called to her from the table in the entryway where she’d dumped her purse and she hurried to dig it out. “I’ll bet that’s Axel. Maybe he’s talked that couple into making an offer.” She picked up just before the call could go to voice mail and said a breathless hello.
“Sorry, Ella, it’s a no-go.”
She was going to cry. She went back to the living room and fell onto the couch. “I thought they liked it. At least the woman did.”
“They did, but not enough to make a offer. Don’t worry, we’ll find you a buyer.”
At the rate they were going, that could be years from now. She scowled at the copy of Jake’s favorite book sitting on the coffee table. Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow. How about do what you promised and a sale will follow?
If she stayed here with Jake much longer she was going to kill him. They had to get the house sold and move on with their lives. “What can I do to make this place sell?”
“Keep it looking good.”
“I will,” she promised. “Anything else?”
“Have dinner with me tomorrow and we’ll brainstorm,” Axel suggested. “You need to get out, get away from that loser.”
Now Jake was in the living room. He was a loser. It would make her life so much easier if he looked like one.
“Dinner sounds good,” she said.
“Dinner?” Jake echoed. “With who?”
“I’ll make reservations at Schwangau for Wednesday,” Axel said.
“Schwangau sounds great.”
Jake frowned. “You’re not going out with that fatheaded wuss, are you?”
“Fine. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“Perfect,” Ella said.
“That guy is as far from perfect as a man can get,” Jake muttered.
“See you tomorrow,” Ella said, and Jake made a disgusting noise as she hung up. “Oh, very mature,” she said.
“Yeah, as mature as you going out with that twit just because you’re mad about the sink.”
“Yes, I am mad about the sink but that has nothing to do with why I’m going out with Axel.”
“Then why are you going out with him?” Jake demanded.
“None of your business,” she told him. “We’re not married anymore and I can do what I want. And at least I waited until we were divorced to do what I want.”
“So did I! But I’m still not getting to do what I want, ’cause what I want is— Oh, never mind,” he ended grumpily, and stomped off upstairs.
What had he been about to say? What did he want?
What did it matter? Ella picked up her magazine and stared unseeingly at it.
Tiny came over, sat on the floor and laid his big head in her lap. “I know,” she said as she petted him. “It makes you sad when we fight.”
Tiny belched and licked his chops. The belch smelled suspiciously like chili.
“Has Daddy been feeding you chili again?” Ella asked.
Tiny whined and thumped his tail.
She frowned. Tiny had been gaining weight. There could be only one person responsible for that and it wasn’t her. “He’s not supposed to give you people food. I’ll bet he’s been sneaking you cookies, too.”
Tiny wisely kept his doggy mouth shut. Instead, he just looked at her with his big brown eyes.
“Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” she told him. “I know whose fault it is.”
The same man whose fault it was that their potential buyers had decided to take their money elsewhere. Jake O’Brien was a thorn in her side.
A sudden memory of the two of them picnicking up at Lost Bride Falls the day he proposed made tears sting her eyes. She’d thought she’d seen the ghost of the lost bride, who was a local legend. It was an experience everyone in Icicle Falls knew portended engagement. And Jake had been ready with her ring in his pocket.
“Marry me, El. Make my day, make my life. Say yes.”
She’d said, “Yes, yes, yes!” and they’d sealed the deal with a kiss. That had been the happiest day of her life.
Now it seemed like a million years ago. Jake O’Brien wasn’t a thorn in her side. He was a thorn in her heart, and the sooner she pulled him out, the better.
* * *
Jake kicked his pile of dirty clothes across the floor. He’d meant to get that sink fixed before Ella got home and before Axel the twit came over, but he really had been absorbed in a new song. Ella knew how he got when he was busy songwriting. Why hadn’t she believed him? Hell, why didn’t she ever believe him?
The answer to that could be summed up in two words. Her mother. Lily Swan had never liked him from the start. His family were simple people who hunted and fished and cleaned their own houses, and that didn’t make them cool enough for old Ms. America’s Top-Model-Who-Never-Was. She’d obviously wanted her daughter to marry some jet-setter and not a country boy from Eastern Washington, so she’d immediately set out to break them up.
And that was a downright sin because he and Ella had been happy together. They were meant to be together. He would’ve made it as a country singer in time and Ella could have lived that fancy life. He’d have been able to buy her anything she wanted.
She’d believed that once. She obviously didn’t anymore. Now, in her eyes, he was nothing but a skirt-chasing, lazy loser. Thanks, mother-in-law, for poisoning the waters. Thanks for ruining our lives. Thanks for putting that stuck-up nose of yours where it didn’t belong.
Too bad he hadn’t hit the big time yet. He’d have sent good old Mom on a nice long trip—to the edge of the world. And then pushed her off.
The thought made him smile. Then it made him think. Then it made him chuckle as he picked up his guitar. “Mama, I’m about to write you a song for Christmas.”
7
Dani still hadn’t found lodging for Mason and his child bride, and Cass was feeling the pressure. Every sigh, every accusing you-could-fix-this look from her daughter sent guilt and anger racing through her veins. She finally did what any sensible woman would do. She called her mother.
“And now Dani wants me to find room for them at our place,” she finished miserably.
“Well,” her mother said, “I think you have two choices. You can refuse, which will make you feel better…for about two minutes, or you can squeeze us all in and make your daughter happy.”
Cass sighed. “This is not what I envisioned when I thought of Dani getting married.”
“He would have been at the wedding, Cassie,” her mother said reasonably.
“I never dreamed she’d want him to walk her down the aisle!”
“Not want her father to walk her down the aisle?”
“Her mostly absent father.”
“Her father all the same.”
“Sad but true. So, okay, somewhere in the back of my mind I might have known that was a possibility, but I never figured I’d have Father of the Year and Bimbette staying in my house.”
“Life rarely goes according to plan,” said Mom.
Maybe that was why Cass had become a baker. Baking was easy. You followed the recipe and everything came out just as it should. Perfect.
There was no recipe for a perfect family, though. Unlike flour, sugar, butter and eggs, people were unpredictable and often uncooperative. Rather like she was being right now.
“It’s only for a couple of days,” her mother said. “If I were you I’d play nice.”
Play nice. Ugh. Cass ended the call and went back inside the bakery, where Dani was in the kitchen, putting the fin
ishing touches on a special-order gingerbread house. They’d been working together in strained silence since 7:00 a.m. Heck, they’d been working together in strained silence since Saturday. It was almost ten now, and in another few minutes, they’d open and be busy with customers for the rest of the day. Now was the time to settle this.
Cass’s heart began to race. She didn’t want to do this. She so didn’t want to do this.
She took a deep breath and plunged in. “Okay, I give. Call your father and tell him Hotel Wilkes has a vacancy.”
Dani’s expression went from glum to thrilled in a millisecond. “Really?”
Cass frowned. “Really. God knows where we’ll put them, but we’ll find a place somewhere.” Maybe at the bakery, in the walk-in fridge.
Dani dropped her icing bag and rushed across the kitchen to hug Cass. “Thank you! You’re the best mother in the whole world.”
Or the stupidest.
Dani grabbed her smartphone and made a call. It didn’t take a genius to guess who she was calling. Sure enough. “Daddy? I’ve got great news!”
For someone, but not for Cass. Oh, well. Onward and upward. “Now we can start planning,” she said after Dani ended her conversation with her father.
“That’ll be fun,” Dani said.
Yes, it would, and the fun of planning this big event with her daughter would make up for the irritation of having to host her former husband. “To start, we’ll need to get invitations out as of yesterday. I’m thinking we should close a little early and run over to Wenatchee.”
“Oh, we’re not going to do invitations,” Dani said breezily.
“No invitations?” How did you have a wedding with no invitations?
“We’re doing evites.”
“Email invitations?” Was that tacky or was Cass just getting old? No, forty-two was not old. So that left tacky.
“It’s quicker,” Dani said. “Anyway, most everyone already knows.”
“Well, one less thing to do. Good idea,” Cass said, going with the flow. “There’s still the flowers, though, and the cake and of course—”
Before she could even mention the gown Dani said, “I was thinking cupcakes.”
“Cupcakes,” Cass repeated. Her daughter wanted cupcakes for a wedding in three and a half weeks. At their busiest time of the year. A cake Cass could do in her sleep, but cupcakes, the little devils, were much more labor-intensive. At least they would be for her, because she’d want to make each one special. And where one slice of cake was sufficient for the average wedding guest, cupcakes went down fast and easy and few people would eat just one, which meant she’d need to bake and decorate a lot of them. “Dani girl, you know what things are like around here right now.”
Dani bit her lip. “I really wanted cupcakes.”
She hated to disappoint her daughter, but… “I’m just not sure,” Cass began.
“Okay, fine,” Dani snapped, and marched off to unlock the door for their customers. “It’s my wedding, but do what you want.”
If Cass was doing what she wanted, Mason and his child bride would be off the guest list. Cass frowned, grabbed the icing bag and went to work finishing the trim on the gingerbread house.
Where had that outburst come from, anyway? She’d bent over backward for her daughter, practically turning herself into a human pretzel, but that hadn’t been enough.
Cass knew about the bridezilla phenomenon, but she’d never expected to experience it. Dani was a sweet-tempered (well, usually) cooperative, responsible girl. Correction: Dani used to be a sweet-tempered, cooperative, responsible girl. It looked like that was about to change. And they hadn’t even started talking about food, flowers or the bridal gown. Or the budget, which—due to the unexpected early advent of this wedding—wasn’t exactly going to be huge. What fireworks lay in store if they clashed over the budget?
The gingerbread house was now complete, temptingly decorated with icing and a lavish variety of candy. The stained-glass sugar windows gave the illusion of a cozy fire within. For a moment, Cass imagined herself safely huddled inside it, nibbling at its walls in peace and quiet.
Then the door of her gingerbread sanctuary opened and in came a gingerbread man who looked suspiciously like Mason, with a lady in tow. And here came a girl, stamping her little gingerbread foot and demanding her mother bake enough cupcakes to feed all of Icicle Falls.
Cass shook her head to dislodge the horrible vision. Ugh. Where were those sugarplums when you wanted them?
* * *
Wednesday morning Ella was just finishing her remerchandizing, putting back the blouses her last customer had left in the dressing room, when Charley came into Gilded Lily’s to browse.
“Are you shopping for any special occasion?” Ella asked.
Ella loved helping women look their best, and Charley, with her long legs and size-eight figure made that fun, rather like playing dolls on a large scale. Ella couldn’t say the same for all her customers. Some of them were a real fashion challenge. Still, she tried hard to help everyone find colors and styles that would flatter them, and women who entered Gilded Lily’s left feeling good about themselves.
“Not really,” Charley said. “I’m just looking. Maybe a sweater. Or a new blouse to wear with my black pencil skirt when I’m at the restaurant.”
Only a couple of weeks ago Charley was saying she didn’t need any new clothes. “Who’s there around here to impress?” she’d joked.
Who, indeed? “Um, you haven’t seen Richard, have you?” Ella ventured. Okay, that was none of her business.
But…she and Charley had become good friends since Ella joined Cass’s chick-flick nights. Didn’t friends watch out for one another?
Charley suddenly became busy inspecting a white silk blouse. “He took me to the Firs.”
“Oh.”
“He claims he’s sorry. He wants to try again.”
If Jake asked to try again, Ella wondered, would she give him a second chance?
“Of course I’m not going to.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Ella said. “If he cheated once he’d cheat again.”
Charley took the blouse off the rack. “Do you think people can change?”
If they could, wouldn’t Jake have dismantled his flirt mechanism? Wouldn’t he have been able to stay true to her? And wouldn’t he have proved he was serious about settling down by getting a real job somewhere when the music store closed instead of teaching a handful of students in the afternoons and playing in his band? Teaching teenage boys with dreams of getting on American Idol was barely letting him make a living, and in ten years he’d probably be doing the same thing—playing his guitar and helping his father in the family orchard during apple harvest season. By sixty he’d be playing on street corners in Seattle.
Or Nashville. He was still determined to write a hit song and get to Music City. Once upon a time they’d both dreamed of going there. He would make it big. They’d buy an old house somewhere in town that she’d decorate to the hilt, and when he went on tour she’d come along.
But then she’d grown up.
“Some people change,” she said. They put away their little-girl dreams and got practical.
Charley nodded thoughtfully. “I think I’ll try this on.”
It would look lovely on her, especially if she put up her hair and showed off her long Audrey Hepburn neck. Ella handed her a necklace of freshwater gray pearls. “This would accessorize nicely. Add that black skirt and some heels and you’ll be good to go.”
Charley took the necklace. “Why not?”
A couple of minutes later, she stepped out of the changing room to model for Ella. “Oh, yes,” Ella approved.
“That’s what I thought,” Charley said with a smile. “Sold. I’ll wear this to work tonight.”
Where Richard was sure to put in an appearance. Oh, Charley, be careful. Should she say that? Maybe not. But she wanted to. She bit her lip as she rang up the sale.
“I know what
you’re thinking,” Charley said.
“That I don’t want to see you get hurt?”
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of getting hurt.”
Ella nodded. Charley was a strong woman, and once she made up her mind it stayed made up. But the best of intentions could easily get lost in a romantic fog. She hoped Charley’s didn’t.
She left with her fashion finds and the store fell quiet. Ella treated herself to a ten-minute break and pulled a Vanessa Valentine romance novel out from under the counter.
She should’ve been able to jump right into the story because when she’d stopped reading she’d left Ophelia and the duke caught in a compromising situation. But the words on the page refused to register. Instead, Charley’s question kept repeating itself over and over in her mind. Do you think people can change?
She finally gave up on the book and decided she needed to make a new window display.
She’d just finished when her mother stopped by. Mims ran the shop on Sundays, so Ella could have the day off, but she also came in a couple of times during the week. Today she was all in black, except for the brown cashmere coat she wore over her V-neck sweater and wool pants. She’d accented the outfit with an Hermès scarf and gold jewelry. Between the outfit and her perfectly highlighted blond hair, she looked like a modern-day Grace Kelly.
“Nice display.” She nodded at Ella’s handiwork. “When did you do that?”
“Just now. It’s been quiet.”
“The calm before the weekend tourist storm,” Mims said. “I see someone bought the pearl necklace.” Mims saw everything. “You might want to put out another one so we don’t have a bare space.”
Of course, she should’ve done that right away. Good as she was, she always managed to forget something. She hurried to the back room to get another necklace out of their stock. This time she chose a multibead red one that was ideal for the holidays and bound to sell in a hurry.
Mims followed her. “I thought you might like to go to Schwangau tonight. I hear they have a new vegetarian menu.”
“I can’t tonight,” Ella said.
Her mother frowned. “Why not? You certainly don’t want to stay in the house with…that person.”
Merry Ex-Mas Page 7
