Tinka stayed awake for as long as she could, but she gradually nodded off into a restless sleep. Sometime later a woodpecker tapping on a nearby tree woke her for good, and her eyes adjusted to her surroundings and the sunlight. She glanced over at Sam’s house. His pickup wasn’t there. Sam still hadn’t come home.
The sounds of birds chirping and people chatting floated on the air. The voices were coming from Sam’s house, where the back door was open. Tinka heard a “holy shit” from Harper, and then an incomprehensible bellow of frustration from a man.
Sam. Tinka’s heart started thumping. She pushed the blanket to the ground and ran over to his house, jumping over the hedge between their properties and bounding up the back steps to the deck. Matthew, Hakeem, and Harper were in the kitchen. Matthew was on the phone. Harper was pacing and grabbing her hair. Hakeem, in running clothes, stood stoically near the refrigerator. Tinka knocked lightly on the open door, and Harper, a hint of a sneer on her face, said, “What?”
“I heard someone yell.” Sam wasn’t here. He’d been in an accident. He was in jail. Dottie had decided to do a science experiment on him involving knives and/or acid.
Matthew, pacing with the phone, said, “Nancy, this is Matthew Anderson. Please call me back as soon as you get this. It’s an emergency.”
“Nancy?” Tinka asked.
“Gold,” Harper said. “The baker.”
“The baker? What happened? Where’s Sam?”
“Well, we have no idea where he is, and, frankly, why should you care?” Harper sized up Tinka.
Hakeem, who looked slightly—but only slightly—less pissed off at Tinka than the others stepped over. “I went running this morning, and I found this.” He showed her a picture of the bakery door on his phone, which bore a sign that said, “Gone fishin’. Closed until July 6.”
Tinka stared at it for a moment, then shook her head. “What does that mean?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Matthew’s phone buzzed and he answered it. “Nancy.” He put the phone on speaker and set it on the kitchen table. Everyone huddled around, even Tinka.
“Hi, Matthew,” came a woman’s voice from the other end. “What’s the emergency? I think we’re still on track for next weekend, right?”
Matthew’s jaw dropped and he looked from his fiancé to his sister. “Not next weekend. This weekend. The fourth.”
Nancy hesitated. “No…no…the eleventh. It’s been on my calendar for months. There’s no way I would’ve scheduled a wedding for this weekend. I’ve had my vacation planned since last September. I blocked off the dates in the bakery calendar.”
“Sam and I have been talking to Dottie about this all along, since March,” Harper said. “She’s known the whole time that the wedding’s been on the fourth. Like, she’s literally said the words ‘Fourth of July wedding’ to me, I swear it.”
“I…” Nancy stammered. “I…No. I remember the day she told me about the wedding. I was so excited, and happy that I’d be able to make the cake for Matthew. I adore Matthew. When Dottie told me the wedding was in July, I said, ‘Oh no! Tell me it’s not on the fourth.’ Dottie said, ‘Nope, the eleventh.’”
Harper glanced around at everyone, including Tinka, like she was part of the group now. Dottie was their shared enemy. “Shit.”
“I’m terribly sorry about this mix-up,” Nancy said. “I’ll make it up to you—”
“Well,” Matthew said, “what are we supposed to do?”
“Do you have cakes in your store we can use?” Tinka asked.
Hakeem mouthed, “Good question.”
“Maybe,” Nancy said. “But no. You can’t get in there. There’s no key. I had new locks put on to keep Dottie out during off hours. I really need a better assistant.”
“Yes,” Harper said, “because your current one is a vindictive weirdo who lives to cause trouble.”
“I can put you in touch with a friend—”
“That’s okay. We’ll figure something out,” Matthew said.
The answer was obvious. They needed cakes. Tinka knew cakes.
“Matthew, I’m so sorry,” Nancy said.
“I know. Have a good trip, Nancy.” He ended the call. “Well, what are we gonna do?”
“What about the French restaurant?” Hakeem asked. “Maybe we can do a pastry table or something.”
Tinka coughed, but no one heard her.
“That’s asking a lot of them on Christmas in July weekend. They’re probably strapped.” Matthew put a hand to his chin.
“God, I wish Sam were here right now.” Harper sent a frantic text. “Where the hell is he?”
Tinka raised her hand. “I can do it. I’ll make the cake and the stuff for the rehearsal dinner, and whatever else you need.”
Harper raised an eyebrow. “You? You know how to make a wedding cake?”
“No, but any cake can be a wedding cake, if that’s what you call it.”
Hakeem handed Tinka his phone again. “This is the cake we want.”
Tinka tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible, but it was difficult. “This cake?” This cake was hideous.
“It’s the same cake my parents had back in the day.”
Tinka stared at the photograph and disco music played in her mind. It was 1979 in cake form—three tiers resting on columns with a working fountain underneath. A plastic bridal party lined the miniature staircase connecting the top tier to a lone cake at the base of the display. The whole thing was topped off by a bride and groom surrounded by a tulle heart. The piping on the cake was fairly simple—white on white—but the structure would be an issue. “Where are we going to get a cake fountain in the twenty-first century?”
“Well, there’s one in Nancy’s bakery,” Matthew said.
“Plus she has all the people, the columns, the stairs, even a groom and groom for the top,” Harper added.
Tinka stared at the photo for a moment. “Okay. We can do this.” She glanced at the clock on the stove. It was six thirty on Thursday morning. “We have two days to make this cake.”
“And all the pies for the rehearsal dinner.”
Holy crap. What had she just agreed to? No matter. Tinka was going to make the heck out of this cake for Matthew and Hakeem. She reached into the drawer next to the stove and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. “Matthew, write down what each of the tiers is supposed to be and what kinds of pies I’m supposed to make.”
“I’m on it,” Matthew said.
“Hakeem, if you could start pulling out cake-related ingredients and supplies. We need to take inventory. I’m going to run over to my parents’ house and see what they have squirrelled away in terms of cake pans and whatnot.”
“And what do you need me to do?” Harper asked.
“Figure out a way to rescue the fountain and other cake decorations from that bakery.”
…
A sound jolted Sam awake on Thursday morning at…he couldn’t tell what time. He was in utter darkness except for the video screen on the wall in front of him, which was playing the DVD menu of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on a loop.
After he’d left Tinka last night, he’d driven into town and texted his sister. Harper had been at a party with Jane, Karen, Matthew, and a bunch of other people. She’d invited Sam to join them, but he’d said no.
A party had sounded terrible. Sam had not been in a party mood. So he’d let himself into Maurice’s store instead and holed up in the back room with an armful of Star Wars DVDs.
Now thunder shook the walls. Ah, so that was the noise that had startled him awake. There were no windows in the screening room, and Sam hadn’t even realized it was raining.
He hoisted himself up from the beanbag—the same beanbag he’d shared with Tinka during Die Hard last night. That felt like a hundred years ago.
Thunder rolled again, but it wasn’t the only sound. Someone was pounding on the front door of the video store. Sam held his breath. Someone, some g
irl, was calling his name.
Sam shut off the TV and cleaned up his mess, taking his time. It was probably Tinka, and he didn’t know what he wanted to say to her. He’d run through their last conversation in his mind all night long. She hadn’t sought Dylan out, not really. He’d happened to be at her house, apparently, and he’d been the only one there to talk to. It had been a conversation of convenience. Maybe Sam had been too hard on her.
But still. She’d basically told him he was a loser for standing by her. It’d make Sam even more of a loser if he were to go back to her at this point.
He pulled open the door between the screening room and the main part of the video store. Rain poured from the awnings in front of Maurice’s place. The sky was a dark, heavy gray, and Sam’s sister was standing at the front door. Harper was soaked through, like she’d been swimming in all her clothes.
“Open the door, damn it!” She hit the glass with her palm.
Sam sprung into action. He rushed over and pulled the door open for Harper, who dashed in and shook her head like a dog.
“Took you long enough.” She paced the floor. Her feet made squelching sounds in her sandals.
“I was sleeping.”
Harper stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. “Why the heck weren’t you answering my calls?”
“Dead.” He held his phone up to prove it.
“Well, everything has gone to shit.” She started pacing again. “Dottie screwed us.”
Sam’s stomach lurched. This was his fault. One stupid text message had ruined everything.
Harper pointed to the door as if Dottie were right outside. “She’d been planning this all along. She wrote down the wrong date on the calendar from the get-go. She told her aunt it was next weekend, even though she kept telling us she knew it was on the fourth.”
“Okay…but my whole Dottie text mishap only happened a few weeks ago. Why had she been trying to ruin the wedding all the way back in March?”
Harper’s face flushed. “It’s possible that I neglected to mention something.”
Sam narrowed his eyes.
“I may have hidden her clothes after gym class one time.”
“Harper.” Sam was going to kill her.
She raised her index finger. “In my defense, she had it coming. She accused Katie Murphy of cheating on her biology test, which was total bullshit. Katie’s, like, an angel. Everyone knows that. But Dottie full-on framed her, and Katie got two weeks of detention.”
“This would’ve been valuable information weeks ago.” It might’ve saved him a lot of agony. He could’ve been more proactive, made Dottie show him the calendar and their order form. He could’ve dealt with Nancy directly.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve been stressing for weeks about staying on Dottie’s good side, but the whole thing was a mess from the start, Harper, thanks to you.”
Harper slapped on a massive, pleading smile. “On the bright side, there’s something we can do to fix it. We can rescue the fountain and other cake decorations from the bakery.”
“Are there cakes in there we can use?” There had to be some pies or cakes or, heck, bagels Nancy had left behind.
Harper shook her head. “Nancy didn’t seem to think so. I guess she probably cleaned out the shop before she left on vacation. But…it’s okay.” Harper grinned. “We’re making our own wedding cake.”
“We. You’re making a wedding cake.” Harper had once tried to make their dad a birthday cake and it came out like a concrete slab.
“Uh…” Harper grimaced. “Not just me.”
Sam hesitated. “Tinka.” Of course.
“She heard us fretting about our cake issues this morning and offered to help right away.” Harper nodded toward the door. “She’s out there right now hunting down ingredients. In the pouring rain.”
Sam knew what Harper was trying to say, that Tinka was doing this for him. “She’s doing this to help Matthew and Hakeem. She would’ve done this for anybody. She loves to bake.”
“Regardless,” Harper said, “I think you should call her, let her know you’re alive. She was worried sick about you this morning. I don’t think she slept all night.”
“Yeah, well, she can join the club.”
The two of them grabbed newspapers from behind Maurice’s desk and used them to shield themselves from the downpour as they ran to Dottie’s house.
“Why didn’t you bring an umbrella?” Wind and rain whipped Sam’s face.
“This rolled in out of nowhere. Besides, would it have made a difference?”
“Probably not.” Sam chucked the paper into the nearest garbage can and ran faster toward Dottie’s while the rain soaked through his hoodie.
He and Harper banged on the front door of the Golds’ little bungalow. Dottie’s mom answered and let Sam and Harper stand in the foyer while she retrieved her daughter. When she arrived, Dottie’s electric blue hair was hidden by a bandana, and she was wearing pajamas with little sheep on them.
“We need to get into the bakery,” Harper said right away.
No time for chitchat. Besides, Dottie didn’t deserve pleasantries at this point.
Dottie smirked. “Can’t help you. Aunt Nancy changed the locks.”
“Yeah, but you have a special way of getting inside.” Sam stared her down. She was letting them in that store. She owed them that much.
Dottie shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. You told me your aunt took your keys, but that wasn’t going to stop you.”
Dottie stared him down with another smug smile. She wasn’t going to cave easily.
Harper put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “We’ll find another way. Maybe Sheriff Parsons can let us in—”
Sam brushed her off. “No. Dottie is going to do it. She screwed this up. She’s going to fix it.”
“I screwed nothing up.” Dottie nodded toward Harper. “She did. She and her mean little girlfriends.”
“You accused Katie of cheating,” Harper said.
Dottie raised her brows. “Because she disinvited me to her birthday party.”
“Because you ruined Star’s cake.” Harper stepped closer to Dottie. They were almost nose-to-nose.
Sam shoehorned himself between them. “I don’t care who did what to whom when. At some point, Dottie, you have to accept your role in all this. I tried to be nice to you, but for what? You are a mean, vindictive, paranoid person who thinks everyone is out to get her. And you know why people are out to get you? Because you’re an asshole. Because you ruin their birthdays and treat people like garbage and the only way you can get them to be nice to you is by threatening to ruin things.” He pointed to the door. “Here’s your chance to be the bigger person for once. Go get my brother’s cake fountain.”
Frowning, Dottie hesitated for a minute. “For you, Sam. Not for her.” Sneering at Harper, she pulled on her rain boots and raincoat, and the three of them ran to the bakery where Dottie slithered in through a basement window with a broken lock and fetched them the decorations plus a few frozen French silk pies.
Armed with the cake paraphernalia, Sam and Harper ducked under awning after awning as they made their way through the rain to their cars. They stopped under the window outside Prince’s Summer Sports. Harper’s car was parked right in front. “I should text Tinka,” Harper said. “See if she needs anything.”
She handed her bags to Sam and pulled her phone out of her purse. “Damn it.”
“What?” Sam was juggling all the pies and supplies at this point.
“I never felt this buzz.” She glanced up at Sam, worry coloring her face. “Their car. The girls slid off the road. They’re in a ditch.”
“Crap.” Sam’s chest tightened. “Are they okay?”
“Doesn’t say.” Harper frowned. “Can you take this stuff back to the house? I’ll go pick them up.” She pulled the keys out of her purse.
Sam glanced at his sister’s tiny
car. It was so low to the ground, and there were bound to be puddles on the road that could swallow it whole. At least their house in the resort was close by. “Not in that car, you’re not.” Sam handed the bags to his sister. “You get home as fast as you can. I’ll get the girls.”
Chapter Fifteen
Karen banged her head on the steering wheel. “We’re never getting out of here.”
“Yes, we are.” Shaking, Tinka pulled out her phone again and held it up as high as she could in Karen’s car, which she, Karen, and Jane had taken to shop for ingredients. After working out a game plan with Sam’s siblings, Tinka had gone to her mom and dad’s to hunt for baking supplies. There she’d found her mom and dad sitting in the living room, half-dead. Their eyes were bloodshot and her dad had been massaging his temples. They looked like how Tinka felt when she got off the plane in Minneapolis at the beginning of the summer.
Ignoring her hung-over parents, Tinka had rummaged through every box she could find, looking for pans, bowls, or measuring cups. Down in the basement, she’d run into Karen and Jane, who were watching a movie on Jane’s iPad.
“What’s going on?” Jane asked.
Tinka had pulled a big cardboard box out of a closet. “The bakery screwed up Matthew and Hakeem’s cake. I’m going to bake them a new one.”
“Oh,” Karen had said.
Tinka had kept digging through the box, finding—yay—one set of measuring spoons. When she’d looked up, she found Karen and Jane standing over her. “Do you need help?” Jane had asked.
“You don’t have to,” Tinka had said.
“Sure we do.” Karen had nodded. “For Matthew and Hakeem.”
Suppressing a smile, Tinka had said, “I’m sure Matthew and Hakeem would appreciate the help.” Karen and Jane weren’t doing this for Tinka, but they were talking to her again. It was a start.
When the girls had left that morning to scour various grocery stores in the greater North Pole area, the sky had been bright blue; but it turned gray, windy, and stormy almost immediately after the girls had exited the golf resort.
Artificial Sweethearts (North Pole, Minnesota) Page 18
