The Bachelor Baker

by Carolyne Aarsen

  When she was done with Mr. Randall, he and Brian walked out of the bakery together.

  Curiosity had her poking her head around the edge of her office door. All she saw was Mr. Randall standing in front of the bakery and nodding at Brian. Then Mr. Randall pulled out a business card and scribbled something on the back. He handed it to Brian, who tucked it in the back pocket of his blue jeans, glancing around as if checking to see who might have noticed.

  Melissa pulled back, guilt from spying suffusing her. But she did wonder what that was all about, and why did Brian seem so furtive?

  When Brian returned, Melissa shot quickly back to her desk, pretending to be engrossed in writing down the instructions for Renee’s cake.

  Brian walked past her office, and for a moment she wanted to call out, to ask him what was happening.

  She couldn’t stop the faintest tremble of fear that something serious had shifted in their relationship. Not knowing what it was made her even more afraid.

  She couldn’t let him know that. It would give him control over her. She didn’t dare let that happen. So she said nothing.

  When Amanda came back to the bakery, Melissa told her she had to run some errands and wasn’t sure when she’d be back.

  She kept herself away from the bakery until just before closing time, dawdling through her appointments and taking her time at the post office. She stopped at the bookstore to talk to Amanda’s sister Allison and check on a book she had asked her to order. They chatted about business. Allison told her how much Amanda liked working at the bakery and asked how Brian was doing.

  Melissa chose to ignore the faint innuendo in Allison’s voice, then left. She stopped in at the This ’N’ That to say hi to Miss Ann, who was bustling about, hanging up some new clothes she had received.

  Then, when she couldn’t put it off any longer, she returned to the bakery fifteen minutes past closing time. Amanda was sweeping in the back, her brown ponytail bouncing with her effort. Brian had already left.

  “I’ll finish up here,” Melissa said to Amanda.

  “Awesome.” Amanda yanked off her apron with an alacrity that made Melissa smile. “Mom is teaching me and Amy to sew. Today we’re cutting out a dress.” She tossed her apron in the bin with the rest of the laundry, then stopped at the door, snapping her fingers. “Forgot to tell you, but Brian said he had to take off tomorrow. About ten o’clock. Something about a job he had to do.”

  Why hadn’t Brian told her himself? What was going on?

  “Of course,” she said with a tight nod, as if she knew exactly what was up.

  Amanda gave her a knowing grin. “I wonder if he’s planning some surprise for you. He’s been so secretive lately. Making phone calls in the back room and getting a ton of text messages.”

  Melissa brushed off her supposition, but all the same she suppressed a curl of unease. Brian had retreated from her and she doubted that what Brian was planning had anything to do with her.

  “You have fun sewing your dress,” Melissa said, forcing a light tone to her voice.

  Amanda left and Melissa returned to her office. Weariness clawed at her and she wanted nothing more than to go to her apartment, curl up in bed and sleep.

  She walked to the front of the store to double check everything was in order. Of course it was, she thought. Brian was meticulous in his cleaning and organizing.

  She walked around the counter, back to her office, and as she did, she brushed against an envelope sitting on a shelf beneath the counter.

  It fell to the ground and papers spilled out. Melissa crouched to pick them up, looking over them as she did. Where had these come from?

  As she scanned the papers, her heart plummeted into the soles of her feet when she remembered Brian had pushed an envelope this size under the counter.

  It held completed application forms for jobs in companies based in Concordia and Junction City.

  Filled out by Brian.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The back door of the bakery opened and Melissa felt her heart jump in her chest as Brian entered. Yesterday, after finding the application forms, she had wanted to grab them, chase down Brian and ask him what was going on.

  But, of course, she didn’t. This morning she worked alone in the silent bakery, her heart sore. Amanda had offered to come and help, but Melissa wanted time and space to think.

  She spun the cake around on the pedestal, smoothing the icing on the side with the wide spatula. She was trying hard to look in command of her wavering emotions.

  She set the spatula down and filled the piping bag. “Did your appointment go okay?” she asked Brian, keeping her question vague, hoping to give him a chance to tell her.

  “Yeah. It did.” He grabbed his apron and tugged it over his head.

  She piped the icing on the cake with swift, sure motions, then decided to stop dancing around the issue.

  “So, did you get the job?”

  She shot a quick look at him looming above her, his hands resting on his jean-clad hips, his cheeks still shining from his close shave this morning. His hair was tamed, brushed back from his face, emphasizing his blue eyes with their fan of lighter wrinkles holding hers with a look of surprise.

  “I know you were looking for another job,” she said quietly. “I thought I would come out and address it head on.”

  He pulled his hand over his face, sighed, then nodded. “Yes. I did get a job offer, thanks to Mr. Randall.”

  “Awesome.” She turned her attention back to her cake, but her hand wobbled and the bead of icing she was placing on the top edge of the cake dribbled down the side. She blew out a sigh of frustration and grabbed a spatula to smooth it out. But as she picked up the errant icing, one edge of the spatula dug into the side of the cake, ruining the smooth finish.

  She tossed the spatula aside and spun around, her frustration, sorrow and anger building.

  “Were you going to tell me before or when you quit?” She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice, surprised herself at the anger that spilled out. “Why hadn’t you told me right away what you were doing? Why did you think you needed to keep this secret?”

  Brian took a step toward her, holding his hand out as if to placate her. “I was going to tell you today.” He touched her shoulder and for a moment she was tempted to lean into his touch, to let him support her.

  She pulled back. “Tell me why you needed to ditch working for me to find another job? I thought you liked it here.”

  “I’m not ditching you. I told my new boss I wouldn’t be able to start for a couple of weeks. I wanted to give you time to find someone else.”

  She absorbed this information, unable to stifle her feeling of betrayal. “So you were just leaving me? I thought we... You and I...” She caught herself there, stepping dangerously close to asking him about the status of their relationship.

  He sighed, shoving his hand through his hair, rearranging it, softening it. “I thought so, too,” he said quietly. “I thought things could work the way they are. But they can’t. I need some feeling of self-worth. Of pride.”

  As his words slid like icicles into her soul, she flashed back to that moment of tension between them when they talked about Gracie. Brian had figured she would have been happy to quit her job and stay at home.

  And before that, when they met another one of his old girlfriends, Lexi Ross. The perfect wife and mother who quit her job to take care of the children. Brian had commented on how commendable that was.

  She couldn’t be that kind of girl, and if Brian didn’t understand that, then he didn’t understand her.

  And the fact that he was willing to leave her and her bakery in the lurch also showed that he didn’t understand how important this was to her.

  The thought sucked the center out of her world.

 
She thought Brian was different. Thought that she mattered to him. But it was Jason and her father all over again. None of them saw her and what she needed. They only saw what they felt they had to do. But this time, she would be the one in charge. She would determine how things went.

  She looked away from him, her pain battling with her anger.

  You need to be in control. You have to stop letting men have the upper hand. You have to take care of yourself.

  “You don’t need to stay,” she said, keeping her voice low to overcome the tremble she was afraid would come into it. “In fact, if you’re leaving, you may as well leave right now. I don’t need your help. I don’t need you.”

  She heard the swift intake of his breath and she knew he understood exactly what she meant. She didn’t dare look at him. Didn’t dare make eye contact. Because if she did, she was afraid she would change her mind.

  In her peripheral vision she saw him yank off his apron and toss it onto the counter. “That’s just the problem, isn’t it?” he said, his words harsh with anger.

  Then before she could respond to that, he spun around and strode out of the bakery.

  Melissa winced at the slamming of the metallic door echoing like a shot through the room. She closed her eyes, gathering her scattered emotions, pressing her fingers against her eyes as the silence following his departure seemed to mock her.

  You’re all alone. Again.

  What choice did she have? Should she have asked him to stay? To not take the other job? Should she have offered him a raise?

  Could she have worked with someone who couldn’t recognize her needs? Her dreams?

  She couldn’t be the woman Brian wanted, and now Brian had gotten another job. He had left her.

  You told him you didn’t need him.

  Melissa raised her head, looking around the bakery and trying to get her bearings.

  Following Brian’s suggestions, they had rearranged some of the equipment to make a smoother workflow. Thanks to him they would be going full tilt making pound cakes, pies, squares and cake pops to take to another farmer’s market at the end of next week on top of their increasing business.

  She had taken his advice about the doughnuts, and they had sat down together and figured out which machine they should buy and how big it should be.

  She thought the fact that he was involved in the plans showed that he was as excited about working here as she was. Excited to be a part of what she was doing here. She truly thought she had found someone who wanted to share in her dream for a change.

  She thought she had found someone who was willing to consider what she wanted and to think of it as important.

  Guess she had been wrong about Brian.

  Sudden, overwhelming despair washed over her and she sagged against the table, her pain and loss swirling around her soul.

  But this time, her solitude had claws that clung. Brian’s leaving felt like a bigger betrayal than any she had felt before. She had sensed a true growing love between them. He had helped her strengthen her faith, and sharing that bond created a deeper relationship than she’d ever had with anyone before.

  And now what?

  You’ve got your bakery, she reminded herself. You’ve got what you’ve always wanted—a way of taking care of yourself.

  Despite her self-talk, however, it seemed pointless without Brian to share it all with.

  Somehow she stumbled through the rest of the day. She called and managed to explain to Amanda that Brian had quit without choking up as she was afraid she would.

  But when she got home, she sat down on her couch and allowed the tears to flow. Then, because she felt as if she had nowhere else to go, she picked up the Bible Pastor Garman had given her and opened it up to a page she had marked the other day.

  And she started reading.

  * * *

  “You’ve really let this flower bed go to pot.” Brian’s grandfather pushed the shovel in the weed-infested dirt and turned it over.

  “I’m not a gardener,” Brian muttered, plunging his own shovel into the packed dirt of the bed flanking the steps of the veranda. “Especially not a flower gardener.”

  The late midday sun was pouring down and Brian wondered about the wisdom of working in this heat, but his grandfather was adamant they clean the flower beds while Brian had time off. Thankfully they were working in the shade thrown by the ash and maple trees that his grandfather had planted aeons ago.

  After they were done here, they would drive to the community garden to help with the weeding there.

  Though Grandpa hadn’t said anything when Brian showed up in the middle of a working day, he figured his shrewd grandfather knew exactly what was going on. Of course, Brian was sure his frustration and anger was on display for anyone who had eyes to see.

  Now, the hard, physical work helped him release some of his frustrations with Melissa. Some of his worries.

  “Gardens take careful nourishing,” Grandpa said, turning over another shovelful of dirt. “They need tending every day, and that’s not easy to stick with.”

  Brian grunted in reply, wiping the sweat flowing down his forehead.

  “I remember your grandmother working every day on the flower gardens and the vegetable garden,” Grandpa said, stopping to take a drink of water from the bottle sitting on the stair of the veranda. “She’d be plucking and pruning and weeding, and sometimes it seemed like she was wasting time and often she’d come into the house with scratches on her hands and broken fingernails, but the garden always looked tidy. The flowers always bright and cheerful.” Grandpa released a lingering smile. “Maintenance, she always said. Steady, daily maintenance is the key to good gardens and good marriages.”

  Brian bent over and pulled out a particularly pernicious thistle. “Wouldn’t know about the good marriage part,” he said, tossing the thistle on the pile of other weeds on the grass. “Probably never will.”

  Grandpa was quiet a moment, then stopped again, leaning on his shovel. “You and Melissa have a falling out?”

  Brian shrugged his grandfather’s question away and shoved his spade in the dirt again, narrowly missing a rose bush.

  “Because I kind of thought she and you were, you know, sweet on each other.”

  The old-fashioned phrasing made Brian smile in spite of himself. “Not so sweet anymore,” he said, turning over the dirt. “I quit at the bakery.”

  “Why would you do that? I thought you enjoyed working there.”

  Brian broke up the clump of dirt with his shovel, surprised at his grandfather’s bewilderment. “I did, but it was just a job until the factory opened again or I could start up my mechanic shop,” Brian responded.

  “You still want to do that? Have your own mechanic shop?”

  Brian shrugged, testing the idea. To his surprise, since working at the bakery he hadn’t thought much about mechanic work or pursued getting more.

  “I’m not sure. I think it was a dream and maybe I was counting too much on the factory opening again to focus on it.”

  “Or maybe you were having too much fun working at the bakery to focus on it too much.”

  Brian shot his grandfather a frown, but Grandpa ignored him, limping past him to the stairs of the veranda.

  “We can quit, you know,” Brian said.

  “I’ll take a break. You can keep going. I think you need to work a few things out,” his grandfather said, dropping onto the wooden stair and mopping his face with an oversize red hankie. “Did you truly think the factory would open again?”

  Brian set his shovel aside, squatted down and worked the clump of weeds loose from the dirt. “It was something to hang on to while I was working at the bakery.”

  “Did you love that factory job?”

  Brian sat back on his haunches, frowning at his grandfather�
�s question. “It was a good job. It gave me security. Paid me enough that, when the time came, I could support a family.”

  “And that’s important to you?”

  “It is. That’s why I just took a truck driving job in Concordia. So I could take care of my family.” Not that he had any prospects for said family anymore.

  Thinking of Melissa created a sudden instant of pain so intense he almost bent over. But he pulled in a breath and focused on what he was doing. He had to keep moving. Keep working.

  “If you take that job, you won’t be around much,” his grandfather said, thankfully still dealing with mundane reality. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  Brian attacked the tangle of weeds and dirt, his mind trying to sort through the questions his grandfather was throwing at him. “Though I’ll be on the road a lot, it’s a good paying job. A man should be able to take care of his wife. His children. To pay the bills and give them a roof over their head.” He released a cynical laugh. “I couldn’t do that on what Melissa was paying me.”

  Behind all of that were the words that stung the most, though.

  I don’t need you.

  Those four words could still create a booming hollowness in his heart.

  “Did you want to support her?” Grandpa asked.

  Brian jerked another weed loose. “I did, but she’s too independent. That bakery is important to her and I get that. But I can’t be with someone I can’t be on equal footing with. It’s...well...”

  “Humiliating,” his grandfather finished for him.

  “I guess I have too much pride,” Brian said. “It’s who I am. I think a man should be proud to be able to take care of his family the way Dad took care of us. Mom never had to work. She could stay home.”

  “She chose to stay home. I think if she wanted to work your father wouldn’t have cared.”

  “Oh, I know that,” Brian said. “I’m not a chauvinist who thinks a woman has to stay home. I think it’s a privilege to be able to do that for your wife.” His mind ticked back to the disagreement he and Melissa had when talking about Gracie and Trent. How she thought Gracie should keep her job as a backup. Some kind of insurance against a possible breakup.