Small-Town Cinderella (The Pirelli Brothers)

by Stacy Connelly

  But looking at the heat in Drew’s eyes, she couldn’t help wondering if the only one she’d been fooling was herself....

  “I might just beat you there.”

  Laughing, she was reaching for her purse when her cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number but swiped the screen to accept the call. “Hello?”

  “Debbie, this is Andrea Collins.”

  “Andrea, hello.” Debbie hoped her voice didn’t reveal her surprise. Andrea was the town’s Realtor, and while Debbie knew the older woman by sight and reputation, they weren’t close enough to have exchanged cell phone numbers. “How are you?”

  “How am I? I’m desperate, that’s how I am. I need your help.”

  “Help with what?” Catching her side of the conversation, Drew raised his eyebrows, but Debbie could only shrug.

  “Saving a wedding and the lives of my unborn grandchildren.”

  “Um, okay. Wow. How can I help with that?”

  “My lovely daughter is getting married. This weekend. And her husband-to-be, man that he is, gladly left all the details up to her. ‘It’s your day, dear. Whatever makes you happy makes me happy.’” Andrea quoted her future son-in-law’s voice with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Yeah, right.”

  “I take it he’s not happy?”

  “No, he is not. Evidently, he’s allergic. To strawberries—as is half of his entire, anaphylactic family.”

  Starting to get a feel for where the conversation was going, Debbie said, “Let me guess. Your daughter’s wedding cake has strawberries on it?”

  “On it. In it. With berries carved into tiny flowers topping the whole gorgeous, inedible thing.”

  “Did you contact the bakery?”

  “Oh, sure, as soon as we realized the problem. But it’s too late. They book their weddings months in advance, and while they are very sorry for our problem, it’s very much our problem and they have no solution to offer. Debbie, please, I am desperate. Caroline is my only child and she is thirty-five years old. My window of opportunity for becoming a grandmother is closing fast, and I will not have it slam shut because of a food allergy.”

  “I doubt your daughter and her fiancé would call off the wedding just because of the cake.”

  “You’d be surprised. Caroline has a serious case of cold feet. She’s looking at any negative as a sign that she’s not supposed to go through with this wedding, even though her fiancé, despite his allergies, is an amazing man who adores her. Please, Debbie. I tried telling my daughter we could get a cake from the grocery store, and I thought she was going to pass out. You are my last hope. I heard all about the cake you made for Nick and Darcy’s wedding. I know you can do this.”

  After asking Andrea to send her a photo of the type of cake her daughter had in mind, Debbie explained the trouble to Drew. “Jeez, I’m not sure who I feel more sorry for,” he said, “Caroline, her fiancé or Andrea.”

  “I can’t believe Caroline’s fiancé didn’t tell her about his allergy.”

  “Ah, give the poor guy a break. His mind was probably focused on the honeymoon.”

  “Not sure it was his mind,” Debbie muttered, but Drew only grinned in response. He climbed from the SUV and opened the door for her. A second later, her phone beeped and an image of the cake glowed on the screen.

  “Oh, wow.” She’d seen her share of amazing cakes—even made a few herself—but the photo was of a masterpiece. The graduated round layers were covered in white fondant and decorated with a diamond-shaped quilted pattern. Small gold sugar pearls dotted each point, and the dreaded, delicately carved strawberries waterfalled from one level to the next. And if all that wasn’t challenging enough, the tiers didn’t stack one on top of the other. Instead they were offset, almost defying gravity, with an impressive height.

  Even Drew let out a low whistle. “That is some cake.”

  “I don’t think I can do this. I mean, if I had days, maybe, but by tomorrow? I don’t know... And besides, we have...plans.”

  “It’s only one weekend, Debbie.”

  “But that’s just it. It’s not. It’s been every weekend for the past ten years,” she said with a sigh. “The bakery comes first and everything else is second.”

  “It’s not the same thing. This is your chance, sweetheart. You told me you wanted wedding cakes to be a bigger part of the business, and you know Andrea Collins. She has connections all over the place. You do this for her, and she’ll be all the advertising you need.”

  “Yeah, and if I blow it—”

  “You can do this.” Lifting her hand, he held the screen and the image of the cake in front of her. “You can do this.”

  “Drew...you don’t understand. I’ve never made a cake like that before. The cakes I’ve made have always stacked on top of each other with dowels or decorative pillars to support the layers above. This—this is—”

  “It’s a spiral staircase.” He pointed to the cake. “There’s a center column, just like on a staircase, and each layer of cake is like one of the treads. As long as the column is solid and secure to the base, it’ll support the treads with no problem. Or in this case, the layers of cake.”

  He was right, Debbie realized, and even if she wouldn’t have described the cake in those terms, the structures were the same. If she used a larger dowel in the center, could she attach the layers to create the same cascade effect as Caroline’s original cake? “I could always add extra support beneath each of the layers, too. Ones that would go down to the base at the bottom. You’d be able to see it from the back of the cake, but not from the front.”

  “And you could always scale this down a little, too. This thing has—what? Seven layers? You could cut back to five and still have the same look overall.”

  “No, I think I could still do all seven. Because, look, if I had the layers overlap a little more, I could still use regular dowels hidden inside the cake to support the tier above. And I—I can do this, Drew.”

  “I never had a doubt.”

  “But—what about tonight? I’d have to start baking right away to give the cakes time to chill before I can decorate and stack them.”

  “There will be other nights. I promise you that. But right now, it’s time for you to play heroine, to ride to the rescue and save Caroline’s wedding day.”

  * * *

  Fueled by half a pot of coffee and the challenge of recreating the original wedding cake, Debbie was up at four in the morning leveling the first and largest layer of the cake. She’d baked the seven layers of chocolate cake the night before after checking with Andrea to make sure the family had no chocolate allergies to worry about. The cakes had chilled in the refrigerator while she’d grabbed a few hours’ sleep, making them slightly less fragile and easier to work with.

  A soft knock at the back door took her by surprise. She wasn’t expecting Kayla for another hour, but it wasn’t her assistant who greeted her with a smile.

  “Vanessa! What are you doing here?”

  “My son has called me in for reinforcement. He says you have a wedding cake to make and no time to do your usual baking, so he asked me to lend a hand.” The older woman’s eyes sparkled, and Debbie didn’t even want to guess what Drew’s mother was thinking about her son’s request. “I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve never been paid for any of the meals I’ve made over the years—unless you count the praise and gratitude of my hungry family—but I can say with all honesty that I am an amazing cook.”

  “Of course you are!” Debbie readily agreed, but she never would have thought to ask for help. “Part of me can’t believe Drew did this, but the other part knows I shouldn’t have expected anything less.”

  “He is a rather remarkable boy, if I do say so myself.”

  Debbie might have argued the “boy” part, but as for the rest— “I couldn’t agree more.”r />
  “Now, Kayla and I are going to do the baking and run the front of the shop and finish all the prep work for tomorrow. You focus on making a dream wedding cake for that poor couple, and we will do our best just to stay out of the way.”

  Debbie wasn’t sure what it would be like to have another cook in the kitchen, but she was too grateful to Vanessa and to Drew for thinking about her to do anything but agree. She shouldn’t have worried. Kayla and Vanessa worked together as seamlessly as if they’d done so for years, leaving Debbie to focus solely on the wedding cake. She crumb coated the cakes with buttercream icing, adding a layer of Bavarian cream between, and covered each one with fondant. She used a diamond-shaped cutter to press the quilt pattern into the thick frosting. She built one tier on top of the other until all seven formed the perfect spiral. She replaced the strawberry flowers with ones made of fondant in the same pinkish-red color.

  By the time she was done, her back and shoulders ached, but being tired and sore wasn’t enough to keep her from smiling at the cake—a darn close replica to Caroline’s original choice if she did say so herself, minus the offending fruit.

  “Oh, Debbie. It’s just beautiful,” Vanessa said, her proud smile once again reminding Debbie of her own mother.

  “I just hope Caroline likes it.”

  “How could she not?”

  Andrea had arranged for the caterers to pick up the cake in their van, and Debbie followed them to Hillcrest House, the site of the wedding and reception. The ballroom’s darkly paneled walls and rich furnishings made for a perfect backdrop for the white cake. She made a few touch-ups once the cake was moved to the serving table and then stepped back to let Caroline and Andrea see the last-minute replacement.

  “It’s perfect. Just...perfect. I don’t know how you did it, but it’s amazing. Thank you!” Caroline gushed. The blond bride looked gorgeous in a sheath-style gown with her hair caught up in a simple twist. Tears filled her eyes as she gazed at the cake, and Andrea quickly started to hustle her away before she could ruin her makeup.

  “You are a lifesaver,” the older woman vowed. “My future grandchildren thank you.”

  “Mom! Seriously?”

  Debbie laughed at the exasperation in Caroline’s voice even as she took another moment to look at the cake. She’d done it. Made a beautiful cake in a short period of time, but more than that, she’d silenced her own doubts. This was what she wanted to do. The creativity and challenge of making wedding cakes would never get old. Neither would seeing the joy in a bride’s eyes when she saw her cake for the first time.

  It was late by the time Debbie returned to the bakery, past closing time, so she was surprised to see the lights still on in the back. She hoped Vanessa and Kayla hadn’t thought they needed to stick around until she returned. The two of them had already gone beyond the call of duty to have taken over for her the way they had.

  But when she opened the door, it wasn’t the two women who were waiting for her. Instead Drew sat at the butcher-block island with a couple of disposable take-out containers in front of him. “Drew, what are you doing here?”

  “My mom told me that you worked all day with no more than a few minutes’ break. I figured you were probably starving but wouldn’t bother to eat if you had to make dinner for yourself.”

  “You’re right.” Debbie dropped onto the stool he pulled over for her and closed her eyes. The scent of barbecue teased her senses and made her mouth water, but she was so tired she didn’t know if she could stay awake long enough to eat.

  “Hey, come on, Sleeping Beauty. You’ve got to eat something. Brides are going to be beating your door down when word gets out about that cake you made, so you’ve got to keep your strength up.”

  Smiling, Debbie opened her eyes. “You should have seen the cake, Drew.”

  He laughed. “Do you really think my mom didn’t take a ton of pictures and send them to me? She was so thrilled to help out today.”

  “Thank you for that. She was a lifesaver. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”

  And she didn’t know what she would have done without Drew. He’d encouraged her to go after her dreams, to believe they could still come true. And if she wasn’t so exhausted, she would have loved to show him just how grateful she was.

  But she barely managed to eat half of the barbecue sandwich he’d picked up for her before her eyes started to close. After packing up the leftovers and stashing them in the refrigerator, Drew pulled Debbie up from the stool. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he led her up the stairs to her bedroom.

  Gazing with longing at her bed, Debbie sighed. She was torn between sleeping...and sleeping with Drew. A giant yawn came out of nowhere, seeming to give her the answer she needed. “I’m sorry, Drew. I’m just—exhausted.”

  “I know. Which is why I’m putting you to bed and not taking you to bed.”

  True to his word, Drew guided her to the bathroom and waited while she stumbled through changing into her pajamas, washing her face and brushing her teeth. He had the covers on her bed turned back for her, and Debbie had to smile as she remembered the night at his house when he’d sent her off to bed with nothing more than a kiss on the forehead.

  Exhausted or not, she wasn’t letting him get away with it a second time. Slipping between the sheets, she held out a hand to him. “Stay with me?”

  Drew froze for a split second before taking her hand. “Are you sure?”

  She smiled sleepily. “Stay.”

  * * *

  Two nights with too little sleep should have left Debbie feeling exhausted, but she couldn’t keep the smile off her face or a softly hummed tune from her lips as she opened the bakery the next morning. She wasn’t sure what time it had been when she and Drew had awoken and reached for each other, but the inky darkness only added to the intimacy as they explored each other using other senses—touch, taste, sound. And she hadn’t needed to see the satisfied smile on Drew’s face to know she’d put it there.

  She couldn’t recall a time when she’d been so happy, and if at times a worried whisper slipped through her thoughts, questioning how long such happiness could last, Debbie brushed it away.

  The bell above the door rang, and Debbie looked up to see Evelyn McClaren step inside. The fiftysomething woman owned and ran Hillcrest House, and she glanced at the Halloween decorations scattered throughout the bakery as if wondering if she’d entered the right shop.

  Debbie had only met the other woman a few times, and she was as stylish and businesslike as ever in her straight red skirt and matching jacket. Her auburn hair was caught up in a twist; her makeup and jewelry were understated and impeccable. She was also extremely thin and fit, looking at least a decade younger than her age, and not someone who normally—if ever—visited the bakery. “Mrs. McClaren, good morning. What can I get for you?”

  A small smile curved the woman’s lips as if she’d guessed Debbie’s thoughts. “I’ll have a cup of coffee, please.”

  Curious about the reason for the businesswoman’s visit, she lifted the pot of freshly brewed dark roast and poured a cup. After accepting the steaming mug, Evelyn got right down to business. “I have a proposition for you, Ms. Mattson,” she said, eyeing her over the rim once she’d taken a sip. “Hillcrest House has a reputation locally as the place to go for special occasions—engagement parties, weddings, anniversaries. But it’s always been my goal to reach outside of our little town.” The slightest hint of sarcasm touched the woman’s last words, giving away the fact that Evelyn McClaren clearly still thought of the big city as her home—despite living in little Clearville.

  “Now more and more of the couples who come to Hillcrest to get married are from out of town. And as many opportunities as that presents, it also can present problems—like what happened last weekend with Caroline Collins’s wedding.”

  “But Ca
roline’s from Clearville,” Debbie pointed out.

  “True. But the bakery she chose was up in Portland, and the flowers came from Sacramento and the band she hired was from San Francisco—” Evelyn waived a dismissive hand. “Getting married might be a wonderful, romantic event for the bride and groom, but for me, it’s business. And in business, the closer the relationship you have with those you work with, the better off you will be. Which is why I’m interested in offering all-inclusive wedding packages for tourists and locals alike. The resort will handle everything—from the music, to the photographer, to the flowers and the cake. And that is where you come in.”

  “Me?” Debbie kept her jaw from dropping, but just barely.

  “Andrea Collins thinks you are a lifesaver, and I agree. Her daughter was a tissue or two away from calling off the whole wedding, and the inn’s cancellation policy wouldn’t have come close to covering the losses at such a late date. The cake you made was gorgeous—and delicious, from the comments I overheard. I would expect that from any baker, but the way you worked under pressure and stepped up to help simply because someone asked, that’s what truly impressed me.”

  “I— Thank you. I was happy to help.” And Drew was right—it had felt good to ride in and save the day. She’d never imagined it would lead to this kind of offer from the biggest resort in town. A buzz vibrated beneath her skin, and she could barely hold still. And the more she and the other woman talked, the stronger that feeling grew until she felt ready to bounce off the ceiling like a kid on a sugar high from too many of her Halloween cookies.

  “I’ll want your input regarding the different flavors and fillings to offer in the packages, and I’ll need photographs of the designs that will be available. Of course, the size of the cake and number of layers will depend on the number of guests. Once the holiday rush is over, we’ll be ready to focus on spring weddings, so I’ll want everything finalized in the next few weeks. I assume that won’t be a problem.”