Tart

by Lauren Dane

  Gillian finished every last bit of the seven layer. “I love that you didn’t even bother with fondant or any of that fake whipped frosting stuff.”

  “I know you, Gillian. You’re a buttercream girl.”

  Gillian laughed. “Fondant is pretty but it tastes like glue. If I’m having cake, I want it to be delicious.”

  Adrian held his hands up in surrender. “I vote the seven-layer chocolate with salted caramel. I want to be buried in that cake when I die.”

  “He’s right. Jules, this is all great, but this cake right here is perfect. Please make it for our wedding.” Gillian put her head on Adrian’s shoulder.

  “Are you sure? You haven’t sampled the others.”

  “I’m sure. Though I will sample the others as well.” Gillian winked and they all dug into the yellow cake slices on the next plate.

  “I guess that is that.” Jules sat back with a smile.

  “It was your favorite all along, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t want to unfairly influence you. It sounds heavy, but it’s really good. The flavors work well together. The cake will go with just about any type of food Mary creates.”

  Gillian nodded. “We’ve gone with an all-finger-foods deal. And I made her promise to hire all the staff she’ll need so she can enjoy the wedding like every other member of the wedding party. You will too of course. You’re the maid of honor; can’t have you working when you need to help keep me sane.”

  “Well, my job is simpler than Mary’s. The work will be done before the wedding. You’re doing it in the late afternoon so the delivery will be easy enough. I just have to swan around and accept all the love for it. Easy peasy.”

  “Let’s go into the living room. I need to lean back a little as I’m stuffed full of cake.” Gillian led the way into the other room where they settled on the couch while Adrian pulled the curtains closed.

  “What’s new? Other than cake and stuff, that is,” Gillian asked.

  “I hit some local businesses this week and spoke to a few in Seattle and outward. This ‘locally produced goods’ thing is working well. Mary and I are both already using some of the stuff in our products. We got Brindle Printery to do these little signs for the case that indicate what local products are used in which of our goods. We traded! That’s been fun and it’s enabled me to meet more people around the island. Oh, and an old friend is back in town. Patrick Carter’s grandson Gideon has moved in to help his grandfather run the farm. He’s also ridiculously tasty.”

  Gillian’s laugh was easy and affectionate. “Really? Do tell.”

  She did, including his visit to Tart that afternoon.

  “I like to hear this.” Gillian smiled. “You’re so pretty and fun and smart and special. I want you to have someone who sees that too.”

  “Whoa there, missy. I’m crushing on someone who flirted with me. That’s all. We’re not even dating. Don’t go getting ahead of yourself.”

  Adrian snorted as he brought them some tea. “If she can plan your life, she won’t be so stressed about the wedding. You really should let her do it. Don’t make the baby Jesus cry, Jules.”

  Jules laughed, loving how well Adrian had Gillian pegged.

  “Oy, you two.” Gillian attempted a prim look but neither Jules nor Adrian were fooled. “Easy to laugh. Don’t you think Jules is pretty, Adrian?”

  “Don’t answer that.” Jules rolled her eyes and turned to Gillian. “You can’t ask a man that. He’s going to explode trying to figure out how to answer without offending anyone. So anyway, it’s a fun thing, but it’s just that. I’ll let you know if we elope.”

  “He’d better be good to you or he’ll have a bucketload of ladies raining punches down upon his head.”

  “He’s like eighty billion feet tall. I kept looking up and then up some more.” Jules knew she was blushing but if you couldn’t be giddy about a new boy in town with your best friend, who could you do it with?

  “Thank heavens you’re not prone to overstatement.” Gillian said this soberly until they both laughed.

  “We chose a cake, Mister Brown.” Gillian turned to Adrian, who paused, his amusement softening into something else. Something so intimate and raw between the two of them Jules was nearly embarrassed to see it.

  He took her hands and kissed her fingertips. “Can’t turn back now, English. There’s cake to be paid for. Also my reputation is at stake. Imagine what people might do if they thought you had taken advantage of me.”

  Gillian blushed and Jules loved her friend very much right then. Her happiness was so well deserved. She and Adrian really were perfect for one another. And then there was a small twist of envy. Just a little.

  Jules wanted that too.

  She sat forward. “I should go before you two embarrass me with all your fast and modern ways.”

  Gillian’s eyes widened and then she laughed. “You’re having a go.”

  “Totally. But still, I’m trying a new cinnamon roll tomorrow. In case you wanted to stop in. I’m making extra for Mary and some deal she’s doing in the afternoon.”

  She stood and walked to the door. Her bags were waiting there for her neatly. Adrian and Gillian trailed behind. Miles had disappeared into the garage out back to practice with his friends.

  Gillian reached out to squeeze Jules’s hand. “You guys are really doing well. So fast out of the gate too.”

  “It’s only been two weeks but yes, it’s smooth so far, which is nice. It’s not hard to work with Mary or Daisy. My business is up. Mary’s business is up and Daisy sold two pieces last week.”

  “I like that Delicious is kicking butt.”

  Delicious was the name of Jules’s group of friends. Four women who were very different on the outside but who were close as sisters. Each artistic and vibrant in her own way. Loyal to the bone.

  Adrian hugged Gillian to his side. “I love that you guys call yourselves that. Also, Levi is an art hog. I’m going on record with that. I wanted one of her large pieces for the new house and he used his relationship with the artist to get around me.”

  Levi was Daisy’s boyfriend. He also happened to be an art collector, an ardent admirer of Daisy’s art and the most breathtakingly alpha male Jules had ever met. Daisy was a lucky woman, but it must have been tiring to manage a man like that.

  “Commission something. That way she’s making it for you from the start. That’s what Cal does.”

  “You’re brilliant, that’s what you are, Jules.” Adrian grinned and hugged her before Gillian did the same.

  “Love you.” Jules squeezed Gillian’s hand.

  “Love you right back. I’ll see you soon. Thanks for making my cake for my wedding. I like that. Makes me feel like I’m totally surrounded by love.”

  “Stop that or you’ll make me sniffly.”

  But, as she drove home, she realized Gillian had been right. Getting married at her new home with her soon-to-be husband, surrounded by people she loved and who loved her, the food by Mary, the cake by Jules, the rings designed by Daisy. Hell, the music would be all Adrian’s friends and apparently Miles too. A family affair. Like it should be.

  • • •

  Every night before she went to sleep, Jules meditated. She knew some of her friends thought it was loopy, but it worked for her.

  Jules was not a naturally patient person. She could run toward bitchy sometimes. Meditating helped her manage her life, gave her time to reflect each day and think about the next. That appealed to the planner living inside her.

  Her life was busy. Full of friends and work. It was a good thing to make herself slow down. Even if it was just a few minutes at the end of each day.

  She took a shower and changed into her pajamas before settling in with her pillows. Her house was a rental, but it was perfect for her. Her brother had offered to sell their childhood home to her at a really great price. But she’d turned it down. She’d been given Tart and that was enough. And she didn’t want to live in the place where her mot
her’s heart had been so well and truly broken.

  She could have lived in the apartment upstairs from Tart, but it was important to leave every day. To walk away and have her work life over. She liked that division. Of course she baked at home, but that was different. That was for pleasure.

  She’d kept that apartment open just in case her mother wanted to come back and visit. She wanted her mom to always know she was welcome and had a place to hang her coat. Her mother had used it less and less as the years went by and lately Jules had been thinking of using it as an office space for Tart. Now that Mary and Daisy were there too, it would be good to have some desks with computers and phones.

  But doing that would be an affirmative step. She’d be admitting her mother probably wasn’t coming back for more than a brief visit once every year or two. And Jules wasn’t sure she was ready to do that yet.

  Growing up, Jules and her mother had been close, but something had shifted in their relationship when her father had made his declaration. When he’d stood up at the dinner table and announced he’d filed for divorce and would be marrying the girlfriend no one had known he’d had. Oh and that he’d knocked her up.

  Her mother, who had always deferred to her father, who had taken her commitment to be his partner and helpmate seriously, had been filled with so much anger it had been astonishing.

  It wasn’t that Jules didn’t understand why her mother would be so angry. She did. She’d been totally and utterly betrayed by her husband.

  But it was impossible not to feel like she’d lost her mother in a lot of ways. Her mother had divested herself of so much of her old life, sometimes even her children, who, as Jules reminded her brother, were adults anyway. She was proud that her mother had reinvented herself after a terrible thing. But Jules missed her.

  And in reaching out to try to bring her back into Jules’s life, their roles sometimes flipped and she found herself mothering her mother. Making sure she had enough money and was all right.

  She didn’t tell anyone that part. Jules knew Gillian would frown. Gillian, the fiercest mother Jules knew, would be angry that Jules’s mother had—what Gillian would perceive as—walked away from her responsibilities as a mother.

  Her brother had a relationship with their father that was even more strained than Jules’s own. Ethan had done the right thing, had given their mother half the money from the house sale and had used the rest for his own house in Oregon with his wife and their children. He’d retreated into his own family life. It wasn’t that he’d walled her out, but the distance did that anyway.

  He was angry. Angry at their father, even seven years later. Angry at their mother, who’d extended a few weeks’ trip to a lifestyle of sorts. And he had children, children their mother rarely saw, though she did send them presents. It wasn’t the same, and Jules understood his anger. Felt it on his behalf.

  So she’d taken that on too. Made sure she was part of her nephew’s lives. She called and Skyped, and at least every month or so headed down to Portland to spend time with them. In fact she’d be going down soon to celebrate her oldest nephew Connor’s birthday. Her mother was flying in to Sea-Tac and would be driving down with Jules.

  Jules was looking forward to that time with her mom and also to spending the weekend with those two boys she loved so much.

  It was good for her and her nephews, but she and Ethan had miles to go to get back to where they had been. And Jules wasn’t sure it was possible. He hurt and she couldn’t fix it.

  Ethan couldn’t let go of what their father had done. Jules got it. He was a father now and she knew that every time their dad pulled crap, Ethan knew he’d never do anything of the sort to his own kids.

  So she tried to be the buffer. Their mother wasn’t capable, their father wasn’t . . . well, she’d always sort of thought he wasn’t all the way formed as a person. Jules didn’t know if it made any difference other than giving her a headache and making her stomach hurt.

  She shook her head to get past it all. Going over this again and again wasn’t relaxing, and relaxing was what she needed right then.

  She blew out a breath and lit a few candles. There was no music but the sound of the rain on the roof.

  She couldn’t own anyone else’s choices.

  She had to accept her own path and walk it as honestly as she could.

  She had to be open to all the joy her life could offer and try to get past hurts and resentments because they were not useful.

  She had the family she’d made with Gillian and her other friends. She was loved and cared about. This was important to remember. Important to embrace and cherish because in the end, love was the perfect ingredient. Love was necessary, like oxygen.

  She thought of Gideon and smiled. She had to be open to new people and things.

  Cal’s face flashed through her mind. And she had to accept what people were willing to give if she was to keep them in her life.

  She kept her focus and her breathing calmed and slowed and by the time she was finished, she was feeling far better than she had before. She grabbed her journal to write in it and headed to her bed.

  4

  Gideon woke up early. Early even for his granddad, who was an up-at-four-forty-five-every-day sort of guy.

  He had too much energy. His dreams had been filled with her. With Jules Lamprey looking blonde and pretty. Of Jules Lamprey naked and sweaty as she rose above him, his cock deep inside her.

  Before he’d seen her approach the porch just a few days before he’d been fine. Relaxed. Happy and busy with his choice to move back.

  But now that he’d seen her, now that he’d spoken to her at Tart and flirted? Now he was restless. He wanted her. Wanted to put his hands all over her body, wanted to kiss her. Christ, he wanted to fuck her and wake up next to her.

  Need for Jules was hot like a fever and the novelty of how much she’d remained on his mind surprised him.

  He wasn’t a virgin. He’d had crushes and hot sexual flings here and there. But this thing he felt with Jules was . . . unusual. He’d known her for most of his life, though certainly he’d not been close to her as he had been with Cal. But he wanted to know her. There wasn’t the same sort of urge to court, but a hot, physical punch every time he thought of her.

  And her familiarity? It made this need he had greater. This wasn’t someone he’d bumped into at a party or met on an airplane. She’d been there all this time and for whatever reason, it made her appeal to him all the more.

  He headed out to milk the goats, grateful for the physical exertion. The opportunity to do some planning helped keep his focus. The year before he’d taken some cheese-making classes and it was something he was considering trying at Carter Farms.

  It would take some doing, some equipment updating and new construction so it was a long-term idea. Until then, they sold the milk to a nearby dairy and the goats kept the hillside to the north of the farm clear of the berry vines that were the bane of many in the area. He’d even been asked just the week before to rent the goats out to help clear some public land that had been overrun with blackberry bushes.

  They weren’t a big, giant agribusiness. They had to make their way in a world far different than the one his granddad had grown up in. He needed to be more than a farmer, he needed to be a businessman to take the farm into the next generation. Things like a farm stand and seasonal cheese making could very well make a difference.

  It excited him even as he hoped like hell he could make it work and not let his granddad down. The farm stretched out ahead of him. Neat rows of trees in the orchard to the north. Seasonal crops to the west. He loved working the land. And this land was his. Carter land where Carters had worked for three generations now.

  He could see the difference in the landscape each day. If they planted, there’d be a growing cycle. If they harvested, the farm changed then too. There was something intensely satisfying about it. About seeing the results of your work every single day.

  He’d taken a break from
life after he’d sold the Bar M. Traveled. Done whatever he wanted whenever he’d wanted to. But now he was back, fully in his life, and he felt better than he had in a very, very long time.

  • • •

  Gideon worked all day, showered, masturbated, showered again and by the time he got free of the place, Tart would be near closing and he had to hope she’d still be around.

  As he came up the block, he saw her inside, that pale fall of hair around her gorgeous face. He raised his hand in greeting and caught her eye as she stood at the door.

  The smile she gave him as he caught her eye while she locked the door and then unlocked it to admit him was enough to soothe nerves frayed from rushing.

  “Why hello. What brings you here?”

  He drew his knuckles over her cheek. “Don’t you know by now?”

  She blushed and he wanted her so much it was like white noise in his head.

  “I . . . yes, I guess I do.” She’d never been one for playing at being coy. She went after things she wanted. And as it happened, she wanted Gideon. But this sort of attention, this courtly, mannered wooing was dizzying. She really liked it.

  “Have you got plans for dinner?”

  “Why, Gideon Carter. Are you asking me on a date?”

  That sexy smile curved his mouth. “I am.”

  She licked her lips and his pupils seemed to swallow all the color in his eyes. Her heart pounded as her skin warmed. Oh, good gracious, he did all the right stuff to all her best parts.

  This . . . this moment when things were about to happen but hadn’t yet was one of her favorite things in the world. All that possibility laid out before her.

  “Good. I’ve been waiting. I’d decided earlier that if you didn’t call me by the end of the week I was calling you.”

  “I do like a woman who knows what she wants. I’ll pick you up at six. I know you have to be up as early as I do.”