A Gingerbread Romance

by Lacey Baker

  “What am I supposed to do now?” Brown Eyes asked the other woman.

  “Can’t you just reprint them?” It was the best suggestion Adam could offer even though she wasn’t talking to him.

  “Can’t you just move your cake?” She leaned over to push the box away so she could gather up her papers.

  He reached out to protect the cake and this time their hands collided against one side. They both pulled away with green icing on their fingers.

  The other woman giggled. Brown Eyes stared down at her hand and huffed. This wasn’t getting better.

  “Okay. On the count of three I’ll lift the cake and you can get your plans,” he instructed.

  Their gazes held for what seemed like eons. A weird tugging sensation in the pit of his stomach made it seem as if he were somehow being drawn to her.

  “Fine.” Her teeth clenched and Adam knew she was really annoyed.

  He was a little irritated that she was taking this so seriously, but he was more concerned with why he couldn’t stop staring at her.

  “One. Two. Three.” He lifted the box.

  She pulled the papers back. The papers were big and fanned back at her face causing a few curls of her hair to fall onto her forehead. She immediately reached up a hand to push them back…and smudged green icing over her forehead.

  The other woman giggled again and Adam knew it was time to get a move on.

  “I’ll be back with your cupcakes.”

  When Adam turned to leave the room, he heard Brown Eyes mutter, “Unbelievable.”

  He repeated her declaration, but was certain it wasn’t for the same reason she had. He couldn’t believe that after all this time being single, the first woman to elicit any type of reaction in him was this one with her sacred plans and frowning—albeit, still quite lovely—face.

  Two hours later, and just in time to avoid Brooke’s classification of him being late, Adam checked the temperature on the oven and sat down at the table to enjoy his dinner. This is what he looked forward to each night. Working at the bakery had him up and out of the house pretty early in the morning, so Jenny usually arrived around six and was the one to get Brooke started for the day. After putting in about twelve hours at Ray’s, Adam was usually the one to pick Brooke up from the aftercare program at school and they spent the evening together. The Christmas season had business booming at the bakery so his hours were a bit wonky, but this evening he was glad he’d made it in time.

  As Brooke had told him, tonight they were having box mac ‘n cheese along with chicken tenders. The moment he’d arrived home he’d put two trays of gingerbread cookies into the oven. They were cooling now. He’d already told them they could have one for dessert, but the rest were to finish decorating the tree—otherwise they’d attack him in the kitchen.

  As strange as that may sound, the thought made him smile as they finished blessing their food and began to eat.

  “It smells so good in here.” Jenny inhaled deeply and then forked mac ‘n cheese into her mouth.

  “Smells like being home for the holidays.” He didn’t know why he’d said that. Maybe because all the way home he’d been thinking about the fun and boisterous holiday celebrations his family had when he was young. Specifically, the Christmas Eve Adam and his siblings’ pleas to open one of their gifts turned into an offer to sing one of their mother’s favorite Christmas songs, “O Holy Night.” That one song morphed into a full-blown Motown Christmas concert that ended when Jenny took her dance moves too far and slid into the Christmas tree. Jenny wasn’t very fond of that memory, but to this day his parents brought it up every time the family was together.

  Adam had been so fond of his childhood holiday memories that when he and Cheryl had Brooke they’d begun a few traditions of their own, such as reading A Christmas Carol to her on Christmas Eve and, when she was old enough, ice skating on Christmas morning.

  Jenny made a groaning sound and nodded. “I know, right? Mommy would’ve definitely baked her homemade mac ‘n cheese with all those different cheeses she adds. That’s when a kitchen really smells divine.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Their mother wasn’t only a terrific baker, she could cook circles around all the women Adam had ever known.

  “Grandma’s mac ‘n cheese is really good. But I like this kind too ‘cause the cheese is so gooey when it first comes out of the pot.” Brooke simply loved cheese.

  His smile was genuine as he watched his daughter chew.

  “There’s fifteen days till Christmas,” Brooke announced after a few moments. She’d been counting down the days since Thanksgiving.

  “You’re correct. So we’ve got to get this tree decorated tonight. Santa loves seeing all the different trees as he goes from house to house, so we have to make ours very special.” He really wanted to make the tree special this year because he’d been late buying one. Their ritual had always been to visit the tree farm and find a tree to cut down the day after Thanksgiving. Brooke would wake up as early on that morning as she did on Christmas day, bouncing around and hurrying him and Cheryl to get ready so they’d be first at the farm and could get the best tree. This year had been the first year that he’d had to be at the bakery on that day to prepare for a huge order they needed to deliver. So he hadn’t been able to get the tree until two days ago.

  “Right! Me and Aunt Jenny already brought in all the boxes from the garage. So we’re ready.”

  “Yes we are! I love Christmastime.” Jenny loved any holidays that resulted in her receiving presents. As the youngest and only girl of the Dale siblings, she’d received more than her fair share of gifts in her twenty-one years.

  “Remember how we used to try and stay up and wait for Santa to arrive?” Jenny asked after eating another chicken tender.

  The memory had Adam laughing. “I sure do! You would always make noise. You could never tiptoe back into your room, and Dad would hear you. We’d all worry the moment we heard his footsteps on the stairs.”

  “Yeah, but when he came up it was just to tickle each of us and warn once again that Santa wouldn’t visit if we weren’t sleeping.” She laughed.

  Adam did too, until he met Brooke’s discerning gaze.

  “You and Mommy never let me stay up to watch for Santa.” Her normally cute forehead crinkled but there was a twinkle in her hazel brown eyes that never failed to touch his heart. Maybe because those eyes coupled with her tawny brown complexion made Brooke look just like her mother.

  There were moments when Brooke talked about Cheryl as if she were still here. Those were the times that broke his heart, but he knew it was his job to make things better for his daughter. His tone remained light and cheerful even though the pain of their loss was still evident. “Just like my parents warned me not to, I do the same to you. And you see, it works. When you go to sleep, you wake up the next morning and Santa has been here. Isn’t that right?”

  His arm extended and his fingers tweaked her cute little nose. Her chubby cheeks lifted and the bubbly sound of her giggling erupted. “Yes, that’s absolutely right!”

  “I was thinking,” Jenny said after a few moments of them enjoying their meal, “What if you put on your Christmas wish list this year that you would like to open your own bakery? Maybe that’s what Santa will bring to you.”

  How had they gotten on that topic again? Oh wait, he knew, because Jenny had been obsessed with it lately. He shook his head, but Brooke jumped in for the tag-team.

  “That’s a great idea. We can write your list before we go to bed tonight, Daddy.”

  “You wanted double stories tonight, remember?” He brought that up even though he hadn’t been late coming home after all, so he didn’t owe her an extra story. But Adam really didn’t want to put his wish in writing. That was almost as bad as making a plan. And one of his mother’s staunchest warnings was, “life is what happens while you plan.” He and Cheryl had
planned a wonderful life of having more children that she would continue to take care of at her daycare while he ran his bakery. In one night, that plan had been destroyed. Now, he was focused on living life for every happy moment he and Brooke could claim in the present.

  Brooke shook her head. “That’s okay. Your list is more important. That way you can get everything you want for next year, just like me.”

  Adam didn’t know what to say to that. If he told her there was a great possibility that he wouldn’t get something he put on his list, then she may stop believing in the magic of Christmas. Yet, how could he make the list when he didn’t believe in the dream he’d had most of his life?

  The timer on the oven buzzed, saving him from further discussion.

  “Gotta get the cookies.” He jumped up. “You two get in there and finish adding the garland. You left a few spots empty last night.”

  In the kitchen, Adam took a tray out of the cabinet and found his spatula. He moved the cooled cookies from the cookie sheet to the tray. If seeing the perfect shapes and smelling the delicious scent of molasses made him long to bake his specialty cookies and cakes on a daily basis, it wasn’t because of a dream, but simply because he was a baker. And as a baker, he was doing just fine working at Ray’s.

  Five minutes later, he joined Jenny and Brooke in the living room near the Christmas tree. Two stockings hung over the fireplace. Jenny insisted on hanging her stocking at her own apartment, even though she always met Adam and Brooke back at the house after they visited Santa’s Landing and went ice skating on Christmas morning.

  “All right folks, here they are. We have to put the hooks on them before we can hang them on the tree.”

  Brooke was just adding another candy cane to the tree, but immediately turned her attention to the tray of cookies when she finished.

  “But they’re good to eat,” she said after grabbing one and biting into it.

  “Hey. I left your cookie in the kitchen.” Brooke continued to chew and he could only shake his head. “Every year we have this discussion. Gingerbread are for decorating. Not eating.” He really did say this every year and nobody ever listened. There was a distinct joy in knowing that they never would.

  “You can’t blame us for liking them. They’re too yummy. It’s just more proof your talents are going to waste at Ray’s.” Jenny gave him that same look she’d been giving him since his meeting with the Brexley Group. It was the look that said she was tired of him not listening to her. Well, Adam was tired of explaining why he wasn’t listening.

  “Not all that again.” It was the last thing he wanted to discuss right now.

  “All what, Daddy? Your baking is always the best.” And as if that compliment should serve as permission, Brooke snagged another cookie from the plate before running up the stairs. “Be right back!” she yelled.

  Her ponytail bobbed up and down as she took to the stairs and grinned.

  “The kid’s right, Adam. You’re an artist in the kitchen. But at Ray’s you paint by numbers. It’s high time you opened your own bakery.” Jenny sighed at the exact moment his phone chirped with a text message.

  “Thanks.” He couldn’t look at her while accepting the compliment because he was reading the message. “That’s Ray and I’ve got a few thousand cookies to bake.”

  That meant he was going to be up late again tonight getting the dough ready at home to cut down on how early he needed to leave the house in the morning. He handed the tray of cookies to Jenny.

  “Adam.” She wanted to continue their discussion, or she wanted him to agree with her and collect recommendations from his satisfied customers to go along with his portfolio and meet with the Brexley Group again. Right now, Adam wasn’t going to do either.

  “Have a cookie,” he told her and hurried back into the kitchen.

  Chapter Four

  There was nothing like a lunchtime holiday shopping run. Especially when she didn’t have to go alone. Taylor had done some shopping while she was in L.A., as she did whenever she traveled, but she really liked shopping with Josephine. And Josephine loved any reason she could get to visit the Shops at Liberty Place.

  “So you never got a chance to tell me what happened during your meeting with Annabelle.”

  Taylor didn’t have enough hands. Adding the bags she’d just received from the clerk in the department store to the ones she’d already had from the previous three stores they’d visited was like performing a juggling act.

  “Ah, yeah, right. We were interrupted yesterday when I was about to tell you.” And the last thing she wanted to think about was that interruption which had caused her to stay at the office until nine-thirty last night finishing the new drafts of her gingerbread house plans. Again, she recalled the baker who smudged green icing all over her original copies. His actions, coupled with his nonchalance about destroying her work, had infuriated her—so much so, she hadn’t stopped thinking about the guy all night.

  “Yeah, that was too bad about your designs. But the Christmas tree cake and those cupcakes tasted awesome!”

  Leave it to Josephine to be more concerned with the food.

  “Anyway, the meeting with Annabelle went very well,” Taylor said, wanting to believe it was true. “I watched her work a little and she seems like a perfectionist.”

  “I’ve seen her on TV before and she was pretty tough. Do you think you’ll be able to work with her?”

  “We’re a great match. Annabelle is a consummate professional and only puts out the best product.” Unlike the delivery guy yesterday. He obviously had no idea how to properly deliver a cake, let alone bake one. He did, however, have a certain appeal…“Annabelle Renard!” Josephine marveled. “I cannot believe you’re going to be working with her. And that design you did for the gingerbread house was fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Yeah, well, I had to start all over again, but I was able to copy it pretty accurately. I still can’t believe that guy.”

  A sly expression flitted across Josephine’s face. “Wait, you mean the cute bakery guy who couldn’t stop staring at you?”

  He definitely hadn’t been staring at her.

  “Probably wondering if I was angry enough to smash his precious cake,” Taylor said. “Which I was, by the way.”

  They turned toward the exit and Josephine shook her head. “I don’t know. He couldn’t stop looking at you, and he was nowhere near as upset as you were. In fact, I think he looked besotted.”

  Taylor laughed. “Nobody uses that word in everyday conversation.”

  Josephine shrugged as they walked through the door. “They do if they just watched the 1940s version of Pride and Prejudice.”

  That was one thing Taylor and Josephine had in common: they both loved old movies. While Taylor preferred the holiday classics, Josephine was all into the vintage romances.

  “Anyway,” Taylor said, “this project may not have been my first choice, but I intend to make the best of it.”

  She glanced up, hoping it wasn’t about to start raining; she’d left her umbrella at the office. The sky looked as if it might open up and let out a downpour at any moment.

  “That’s the spirit.” Josephine’s positive attitude continued. “And who knows? You may actually end up really enjoying the work. I mean, it’s so different from anything else you’ve ever done.”

  The best way to avoid getting wet in a downpour was to walk faster. “True. I just never thought after all of my studying that I would be designing a large gingerbread house. But hey, opportunities come in different places at different times. That’s what my mother used to say.”

  “That makes sense. And this is a great opportunity, especially if it makes you a frontrunner for the Paris position.”

  “And if I get Paris, I’m recommending you to Linda to take my job.”

  “Oh, my goodness!”

 
Again with the words nobody used, except maybe the children who starred in the Annie movie. Josephine was definitely one of a kind, and Taylor found her uniqueness endearing.

  “You’re a great architect, and it’s time you got the chance to spread your wings.”

  Josephine was no doubt about to gush with excitement, but Taylor’s ringing phone put a loose lid on it. She glanced down at the screen. “Oh. It’s Linda right now.”

  She answered. “Hi, Linda. I’m out doing some Christmas shopping. What’s up?”

  “My blood pressure, if you must know,” Linda snapped. She was clearly not in as good a mood as Taylor was.

  “Why? What’s wrong?” Taylor asked.

  “Oh, nothing much. Crestford poached our talent again. They got Annabelle.”

  Taylor stopped walking and Josephine looked at her questioningly. “What?” A sick sensation began swirling in the pit of her stomach. “How? She seemed so excited about the project when I met with her yesterday.” Annabelle had actually seemed a tad disinterested, but Taylor had chalked that up to her being busy with that winter wonderland table. Not that she hadn’t wanted to work with her or that she was entertaining another offer to be in the competition.

  “Well, apparently, she was even more excited when Crestford offered her top billing on all of their promotional items for the competition, and to feature her house in a separate ad campaign later.” The irritation in Linda’s voice said she was more upset that she hadn’t thought to offer Annabelle the same things.

  “She can’t…well, I suppose she can, but…where does that leave us?” Taylor didn’t know what else to say. This project had come out of the blue and was as far from what she’d been trained to do as she could imagine, but that didn’t mean she still didn’t want to win.

  “Chefless,” Linda quipped. “Any ideas?”

  “No,” Taylor admitted. “But you know what, don’t worry. I’ll figure out something.”