Out of the Ashes

by Cynthia Reese

  IF ROB COULD find his phone, he’d throw it out the window.

  With eyes that felt welded shut, he fumbled for the insistent buzzing of the cheerful xylophone ringtone.

  “’Lo?” he mumbled into it.

  “Rob? That you?”

  Daniel.

  “Who else would it be, bro? And why are you calling in the middle of the night?”

  “Middle of the night? Bud, it’s ten in the morning.”

  “What? No way.” Rob forced his eyes open—just a sliver. Sure enough, bright sunshine flooded through the apartment windows. He rocked forward on an elbow and peered at the bedside clock. The numbers didn’t lie: 10:05. No, 10:06.

  He collapsed back against his pillow with a groan. “Oh, man, I am too old for this.”

  “Too old for what? And what were you doing that meant you haven’t even rolled over until the middle of the morning?”

  “Wait, I wasn’t supposed to pull a shift at the station, was I?”

  “Nope,” Daniel answered.

  “Something for Ma?” Rob asked, racking his brain.

  “Not that, either. I figured something was up when you didn’t show up for supper again last night. Ma’s kind of worried about you. She has this idea that you’re turning into either a skeleton from not eating or a blimp from eating too many of Kari’s desserts.”

  Rob swiped his hand over his eyes, trying in vain to rub what felt like a gravel truck’s worth of sand out of them. That was two family suppers he’d blown off for Kari.

  And he’d kissed her.

  Blast.

  He didn’t need to be thinking about that, or his way-too-perceptive big brother would have guessed that Rob was in over his head.

  “So? What’s up?” Daniel pressed.

  “Uh...it wasn’t with the case. Not, er, exactly,” Rob evaded his question.

  “But...it was Kari.”

  “Yeah, she needed help. With Mattie Gottman’s cake.”

  Daniel snorted. “Like you know how to decorate a wedding cake.”

  “I’ll have you know I made at least half the roses that went on that thing,” Rob shot back hotly, and then realized his mistake.

  “Wait, you decorated a cake?” Daniel asked. Rob could hear interest humming loudly from every syllable. “You mean those little flowers and stuff?”

  “Uh, yeah. And Cornelli lace and Swiss dots.”

  “What the heck is that?”

  “The Cornelli lace is this scrollwork you do with royal icing—kind of like a lace doily on buttercream, or some people use fondant, but Mattie insisted on—”

  “Whoa, bro. I didn’t understand half of what you just said, but I’m thinking it means you got a crash course in cake decorating courtesy of Kari.” There was a beat of silence before Daniel tagged on, “Which, on the whole of it, is pretty cool because maybe you can save us some bucks when it comes time for me and Kim to have a cake. You know, when we get married. But...hey, it’s Kari. You know. Your suspect?”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Rob said. “What the heck has gotten into me? I keep telling myself I can’t keep doing this, and yet, I keep finding reasons to spend time with her.”

  “You ought to have her investigated thoroughly by now at least,” Daniel ribbed.

  Rob flashed back to the sweet feel of Kari’s embrace, the way she’d stretched up on tiptoe.

  Oh, yeah. He’d thoroughly investigated Kari Hendrix, all right.

  “Right. I get your point,” Rob conceded. He rolled over and reached for a pair of blue jeans from his dresser drawer—a benefit to having a cramped apartment bedroom. “So were you just checking to see if I was alive and kicking, or is there something you need help with?”

  “I could always use help around the farm, you know that. There’s okra that needs cutting and a few last green beans to be picked, and Ma says it’s time to plant turnip greens and kale, though for the life of me, it can’t be that late in the year and still be this hot—”

  “Whoa, wait—Mattie Gottman’s getting married today!” It hit him with a thud.

  “Yeah. You can’t be regretting that you let that particular barracuda get away—and please don’t try to save that fool she’s marrying from himself. The mayor likes him, and whatever makes the mayor happy makes me happy. He signed off on a full-percent increase over last year’s budget.”

  “No, no, bless him and may they be happy forever or for at least thirty minutes, but that’s not my interest in Mattie’s wedding. The cake, Daniel, the cake. It’s got to be delivered. I’ll bet Kari needs help with it. It’s pretty big, nearly two feet tall when it’s on the stand.”

  There was a long pause on Daniel’s end that Rob didn’t notice at first because he was throwing on clothes and raking a comb through his hair. He took one look at himself in the mirror, and decided that the reflection belonged to a sleep-deprived zombie.

  “Uh, Rob...did she ask for your help?”

  Rob gave up on trying to tame the cowlicks out of his hair and yanked on a ball cap from his closet. “What do you mean? You say it like I don’t have a stake in this here cake—didn’t you hear me? I made at least half of those roses, and they were irritating little suckers.”

  “And this has nothing whatsoever to do with you wanting to ride to the rescue of a damsel in distress?”

  Now it was Rob’s time to guffaw. “Buddy, that’s the pot calling the kettle black, since I seem to dimly recall a sibling of mine pulling himself in pieces trying to rescue, hmm, who was it? Could it possibly be my future sister-in-law Kimberly? Nah, because that would make my brother—”

  Daniel said something rude and reminiscent of the kid he’d been as a ten-year-old. Then in his more usual grown-up voice, he said, “Hey, no problem. It seems like I can’t save you from yourself. Go check on your roses and frosting.”

  “Icing. It’s icing. Frosting is what—”

  But Daniel was hanging up—laughing and hanging up. Rob threw the phone down, yanked off his cap. A minute later he was sticking his head under the shower, gasping at the cold water because he’d been in too much of a hurry to wait for the water to heat up.

  Five minutes more he was out the door, dialing Kari’s number as he slid behind the wheel of his truck.

  * * *

  KARI, TO HIS DISAPPOINTMENT, seemed to have the business of delivering the cake completely under control.

  “I’d ordered this box—it’s great. Keeps things from sliding around if I have to hit the brakes,” she said. “It was designed by an engineer for his wife, and I had a couple that got burned up in the fire. I knew I’d need replacements for them for this wedding, so I ordered new ones. They came in yesterday, thank goodness.”

  Indeed, the cakes were all boxed up in their plastic incubators, looking more like a museum display than parts of a wedding cake. Rob couldn’t quite hide his wince as Kari shoved the long metal probe through the center of the wedding cake. And he gasped as she tilted the box.

  “See? As long as you’ve got everything secured with the proper framework—”

  “Don’t do that!” Rob put a hand on the cake box. “It could fall apart.”

  Kari’s dimple deepened. “Hmm, you’re just a wee bit proud of this cake.”

  “I am. Also, my hand is still cramping from all those infernal dots and details.”

  She raised one brow. “Did you maybe want to see what the cake looks like all set up?”

  Rob’s insides went to jelly when her eyes twinkled like that—it was as if she had his number, but she was too kind to call him on it.

  “Uh, yeah,” he said. “I guess I did.”

  “What if I let you, with your big strong firefighter’s biceps, take the wedding cake box to the van for me? Feel brave enough for that?” She gave a final c
heck on the box’s various clamps. “And I’ll get my delivery kit put together.”

  “Your what?”

  “My delivery kit. Used to—before the fire—I had a separate bag of tools I used for wedding cake deliveries. Any cake setup, really. You want to be ready for the worst.”

  Rob gripped the corner of the box more tightly. “We are going to remember just how hard those roses were to make, and we are not going to mess up this cake. We are going to drive exactly ten miles an hour and avoid all potholes. I don’t care how safe that thing is supposed to make carrying cakes.”

  “But...” Kari’s lips came together in an adorable little pout that made him want to kiss her again.

  The cake, man. You’re just here for the cake.

  “But what?” he asked.

  “But what if we’re going so slow that someone rear-ends us?” There it was again, that same flirtatious teasing that had bubbled up the night before—and that had tempted him into kissing her.

  “Is this any way to treat a guy who learned how to make roses just for you?”

  Her laugh was infectious. “Come on, let’s get this cake delivered. I remember how nervous I was about the first cake I had to deliver—not the one I made for my friend, but the very first delivery, a three-tier wedding cake. I actually told my boss, no way, no how, I won’t ever do that again. I guess I’m not much of a risk taker.”

  Kari’s comment fell between them like a piece of hot lead, neither anxious to touch it. It just pointed out one more aspect of her character that didn’t jibe with her earlier crime.

  She could have learned her lesson too well.

  The devil on his other shoulder whispered in his ear, Even if she didn’t do that fire, she’s still lying. What’s she got to hide? Why can’t she trust you?

  Rob tried to ignore the awkwardness that had sprung up between them. Instead he put his hands on the plastic box.

  “And you’re sure this contraption will keep the cake in one piece?”

  “I’ve used one just like it for all my cake deliveries—never had a catastrophe yet. It works, as advertised.”

  He sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes nothing.” With that, he hefted the box up off the table, amazed at how much all that cake weighed. Shoot, half of it had to be pure sugar, as much icing had gone on it.

  He didn’t really breathe again until he’d set the box down in the back of her van, centered on the white tarp and the piece of slip-stop padded cabinet liner she’d put down.

  “See?” Kari told him as she slid the smaller box containing the groom’s cake in beside it and then dropped a large bag down from her shoulder onto the tarp. “No problem.”

  “That thing’s got to weigh close to fifty pounds. Just how would you have manhandled that cake to the van?” he pointed out. “Or into the hall?”

  She blushed. “Okay, so I was hoping you’d call. Because I couldn’t count on Jake showing up. I used to have a wheeled baking cart that I used...only...”

  “The fire,” he said grimly.

  He’d heard those two words the night before until he was sick of them. “The fire” had taken this tool. “The fire” had destroyed that piece of equipment. “The fire” had burned this ingredient.

  He knew the power of fire to destroy. It had, after all, taken his dad.

  And Rob had, in his work as a firefighter, seen the shock and desolation of families when they’d lost everything.

  But he hadn’t seen them in the aftermath, in the weeks following such a calamity, when they’d had time to need or want the things they’d lost.

  Man, he hated fire. He really, really hated fire.

  “It’s okay, Rob.” Kari put a hand to his arm. Her touch brought him back to the present. He looked down at her. “I’m okay. Even if I never get a penny of that insurance money, as long as...” She swallowed. “I can rebuild things, okay? I may have to make do. I may have to beg and borrow and rely on other people to help me. But...I can do this. I will do this. And you helped me—you have no idea how your help last night...”

  Her eyes were shiny, but this time she didn’t cry. She lifted her chin in that defiant way of hers and didn’t say another word. Instead, she waved him back and slammed the door. “Let’s go deliver Mattie Gottman’s dream cake, shall we?”

  * * *

  AFTER ALL THAT, setting up the cake was pretty anticlimactic. They hefted it up the back steps into the church’s fellowship hall, past all the teal ribbons on the banisters and doors that proclaimed a wedding would soon be taking place. Then they slid it onto the serving table, and Rob could actually breathe again.

  Even so, Kari fussed with it, turning it this way and that until it met her satisfaction. She took out her little bag of tricks and began doctoring all the imperfections that she saw—Rob couldn’t see any. Out came the last can of the pearl spray and the little pointy brush and even Kari’s pastry bag, which she used to pipe on some last-minute roses and leaves.

  The door to the fellowship hall swung wide and Rob heard the swish of fabric. There came Mattie, in full wedding attire, marching out to inspect the cake.

  She put her hands on her hips and bent down to stare at their creation. Rob felt a strange sense of defensiveness—on both Kari’s and the cake’s behalf—at such a hard scrutiny.

  “I was afraid it was going to be too dinky,” Mattie said, not bothering to greet them. “You said eighteen inches, and I just could not sleep last night because I was afraid it was going to be this itty-bitty cake.”

  “That’s eighteen inches of cake,” Kari told her. “The flowers and the stand—not to mention your topper—make it taller. Do you like it?”

  “No,” Mattie said emphatically.

  Rob’s heart fell, and he fought the urge to snatch the cake off the table and take it to some other bride who would appreciate all the hard work that went into it.

  “You don’t?” Kari asked, her face white. “What’s wrong?”

  Mattie turned, grinning. “I love it! It’s perfect! It’s even better than I thought it would be!”

  Rob’s knees went as weak as they had when he’d succumbed to the urge to kiss Kari.

  “Oh, great, then! Now, your photographer will get me a photo, right?”

  Mattie nodded. “For that discount? Sure! I’m so happy—I know I was a witch when it came to planning, but I wanted it to be perfect.”

  Kari took Mattie’s hands in hers. “It’s your day. Of course you want it perfect. Now go. Spend some time with those bridesmaids and your mom. I’ve got this.”

  As Mattie departed in a swish of satin and lace, Rob bent down and whispered, “Do you ever get the urge to kill your customers?”

  Kari’s lips didn’t falter in their wide curve. “Only on days that end in y,” she said archly.

  She fussed with the groom’s cake only a little less than she had the actual wedding cake. By the time she’d satisfied herself with the setup and delivery and had stowed her gear into the van, strains of the prelude were wafting out of the church doors.

  “Come on,” she said, grabbing Rob’s hand. “Let’s go spy on the wedding. I know the perfect spot where we can watch without being seen.”

  But he didn’t watch Mattie Gottman tie the knot. He had no interest in how she did her unity candle or the vows she exchanged with the poor sap who was marrying her or the long flowing white dress she wore that had so much lace, it bore a striking resemblance to one of Ma’s tablecloths.

  He only had eyes for the girl beside him—the one peeking out behind the alcove wall, in her dark chef’s pants and her white chef’s jacket and her hair yanked back in a slick bun. Her eyes were bright and shiny as she watched the ceremony unfold. She was enchanted with the wedding.

  And he was enchanted with her.

  Monday and all of its cha
llenges would roll around soon enough. He’d be back at the investigation, trying for any lead.

  But when he went back to it, he’d go back with one sure instinct. Ma was right.

  Kari Hendrix, the girl who loved beginnings and was so optimistic about finding her way out of the ashes, had not burned anything. Not the downtown. Not that convenience store all those years ago.

  And he knew what that meant.

  Kari was covering up for the person who had really set those fires—and maybe, just maybe, that person had one more fire to his credit.

  The fire that had killed Rob’s father.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  AFTER THE CHAOS of getting Mattie Gottman’s wedding cake done, even a double batch of croissants seemed easy to Kari. She slept until noon on Sunday, her usual custom post-wedding-cake-delivery, and spent the rest of the day in an ebullient fog.

  One that, if she had to be honest, featured a lot of stolen thoughts about Rob.

  But of course it was the massive relief of having the cake done that had lifted a ten-pound weight from her shoulders. Because nothing had really changed between her and Rob.

  He was still an arson investigator.

  She was still a convicted arsonist.

  And Jake...

  Kari had pushed away that thought at least a thousand times by Monday morning when she’d tackled the croissant dough she’d mixed up Sunday in the hopes it would occupy her brain and her hands.

  By lunch, the croissants were well into the laminating stage. Her shoulders and arms ached from rolling, turning the dough, rolling, turning the dough, rolling.

  If Kari had thought the project would engage her wayward thoughts as much as it engaged her biceps and triceps, she had to admit she was wrong. She slid the laminated dough into the fridge for another rest period, and sat down at the table with a sigh.

  Okay, so she was a trifle blue. She was coming down from the post-wedding-cake high, that was all. It had nothing at all to do with Rob’s radio silence all day Sunday and—she glanced at the clock as her tummy rumbled for lunch—half of Monday.

  Maybe that kiss was just what she’d said—the product of exhaustion crossed with one too many turns at a buttercream bowl.