Taste of Romance

by Darlene Panzera

  “You scored big when Danielle offered you the trip tickets she won from the Crab, Seafood, and Wine Festival,” Rachel said, then burst into a big smile the way she always did when thinking about her fiancé. “As for me, I’m saving for my wedding. Mike and I decided to get married on Christmas Eve.”

  Andi gasped. “You set a date?”

  “Yes!” Rachel’s eyes sparkled. “And I’d like both of you to be my bridesmaids.”

  “I’d love to,” Grandpa Lewy agreed.

  Kim placed another dab of pink on the tip of one of her painted roses and laughed. “I think Rachel meant Andi and me.”

  “Of course I’ll be your bridesmaid,” Andi said, wrapping her arms around her best friend.

  “Me, too,” Kim added.

  “Grandpa, since Daddy’s gone, you can walk me down the aisle,” Rachel told him.

  Grandpa Lewy grinned. “I walked down the aisle once. Beautiful day that was. I’d love to walk down the aisle again.”

  Andi’s face took on a dreamy, far-off expression. “I’ll be able to buy new clothes for my trip, Rachel will be able to have an absolutely gorgeous wedding—with all the fanciest trimmings.”

  “Of course!” Rachel agreed.

  “And I bet Kim wants some new paints and canvases, right, Kim?” Andi asked.

  Kim hesitated. She wanted a whole lot more than art supplies. Since her paintings won first place in the Portland show the week before, she’d been offered the chance to open her own art gallery with a few of the other artists. But if she accepted, she feared she wouldn’t have time for the cupcake shop, a fact she was reluctant to tell them.

  “New paint and canvas,” Kim repeated and managed a weak smile. “Yeah, something like that.”

  A loud, tinkering clatter sounded from outside, and Kim turned her head toward the large front window in time to see the 1933 bread loaf−shaped antique Cupcake Mobile pull up to the curb. It was Mike returning from his latest delivery. He got out of the truck, and walked toward the shop. He nodded at an older man who was walking toward the shop, too—Sam Warden, the owner of their building.

  “He’s here!” Andi exclaimed.

  Rachel kept her eyes on Mike as he whisked through the front door, followed by their landlord. “Yes, he is.”

  “I meant Mr. Warden,” Andi corrected. “Today we sign the new lease.”

  Kim’s mouth fell open. How could she have forgotten? She should have told Andi about her possible future plans. Now their three-month trial lease agreement was up, and they’d sign another lease lasting a whole year. Could she work at an art gallery and Creative Cupcakes, too?

  Mr. Warden greeted them but avoided their gaze. Kim put down her brush and watched him glance nervously about the shop at all the customers. Something wasn’t right.

  “Where’s Jake Hartman?” he asked.

  “He’ll be here soon,” Andi promised. “He knows what an important day this is. We’re all very excited.”

  Everyone except the building owner, Kim mused and got up to follow them to the front counter.

  “Where is it?” Andi asked. “Can I see the new lease?”

  Mr. Warden shook his head and finally looked her straight in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

  Rachel and Mike exchanged a quick glance, and doubt crossed Andi’s face as she caught on to the landlord’s apprehensive mood.

  “What do you mean, ‘I’m sorry’?” Andi said, her voice dropping.

  “I have to sell the building,” he told them.

  Andi stiffened. Rachel pursed her lips, and Mike put a hand on her arm, as if to offer support.

  Kim glanced at each of them, then up to the long golden cake knife on the wall, the symbol of their shop’s success when they first opened.

  “What does this mean for us?” Andi demanded.

  Mr. Warden wiped his brow with one hand. “I’ll give you a temporary lease to continue the shop until somebody buys the building, but then you either have to close down or move to a different location. Unless you buy the building yourself.”

  “We can’t close,” Andi protested. “Not after all the hard work we’ve put into this place over the past few months.”

  “And there aren’t any other places available with a prime location like we have here,” Rachel said, waving one of her perfectly manicured hands.

  Kim bit her lower lip. If Creative Cupcakes closed, she wouldn’t feel guilty about telling Andi and Rachel she wanted to leave to open her own gallery. On the other hand, she’d discovered she had other artistic talents while working at the shop, like cupcake decorating, and she, Andi, and Rachel had had a lot of fun together. She wasn’t sure she could let it all go.

  “Can we afford to buy the building?” she asked.

  Their stooped, gray-haired landlord told them the price, and an unexpected stream of sadness seeped through her memories and left her hollow.

  Andi ran her hands down her apron. “Will you take payments?”

  Mr. Warden shook his head. “I would if I could, but my son is very ill. My wife and I have to move to Georgia to be with him and pay his medical costs.”

  Leaving the temporary lease papers on the counter for them to sign, he attempted a hasty exit and almost ran over the mail carrier on his way out.

  For several moments they were all silent. Even the chatter from the customers sitting at the white round tables eating their cupcakes seemed to turn into whispers.

  Then Andi raised her chin and her face took on that steely look of resolve Kim had seen so many times while growing up.

  “The shop has had great sales, and we can work hard this month to gain even more,” Andi declared. “We can do this.”

  “Buy the building,” Rachel repeated. She didn’t look as confident as Andi but shrugged and gave them each a mischievous grin. “Hey, why not?”

  “It’s a lot of money,” Kim warned. “We got turned down for a loan when we first opened, and I’m not sure three months of sales stats will be enough to change anyone’s mind.”

  Andi reached under the counter and pulled out the Cupcake Diary and a pen. “Do you remember what Mom used to say whenever we said something was too hard?”

  Kim nodded. “‘Faith can move mountains.’”

  “So we have a mountain to move.”

  “We’ll need to set up a stand at more fairs and festivals,” Rachel said, pointing to the calendar. “Book more outside events. I can initiate a promo blitz across the Internet.”

  “First we need to hire help.” Andi scribbled a note in the cookbook-style diary. “I’ve had to turn away at least a dozen catering opportunities over the past two weeks because we couldn’t produce enough cupcakes.”

  Kim agreed. Hiring other employees was a great idea. If she left, one of them could take her place.

  “I’ll give you money if you give me a cupcake,” Grandpa Lewy said, his memory box under one arm as he made his way over to the display case.

  “No, Grandpa,” Rachel told him. “You’ve already had one.”

  “I don’t remember having one,” he argued.

  Rachel laughed. “I think you do. You never forget about cupcakes.”

  “That’s because they’re so good,” he replied.

  “We could sell cupcakes at the Scandinavian Festival,” Kim suggested. “And maybe host a Father’s Day event. ‘Cupcakes with Dad.’ All the kids can bring their fathers into the shop, and they can eat cupcakes together.”

  Andi shot her a wistful look. “Do you think our dad would come into the shop?”

  Kim held her gaze, not knowing the answer. Their father hadn’t been there often for them in the past. Not since their mother had died.

  “I’ll be your dad,” Rachel’s grandfather offered. “I’ll eat a cupcake with you.”

  “Of course you would,” Andi said, squeezing his shoulder. “I also think we should sell our mixes online, make Creative Cupcakes a household name, and ship them all over the U.S.”

  Kim couldn’t bear to see he
r sister’s perseverance and hard-fought dream to run a cupcake shop crushed.

  “Why stop there?” she added. “Why don’t we ship worldwide?”

  “You’re right!” Andi exclaimed. “Creative Cupcakes, worldwide distributor!”

  Guy Armstrong, the white-ponytailed tattoo artist from next door, walked in and grinned. “You can distribute some cupcakes my way. I’m here to pick up my order.”

  “I put it right—” Rachel frowned. “I thought I put it on the end of the counter. Let me go check the kitchen.”

  As Rachel disappeared through the kitchen’s double doors, Guy’s face lit up, and he rubbed his hands together. “What are we brainstorming this time? How to defeat desperate cupcake-hating housewives? Or how to bring Creative Cupcakes to national TV?”

  “We need to buy the building,” Andi told him. “Then we’ll have the golden cupcake cutter, our trophy from the cupcake war, and the keys to success.”

  “Did I hear the word ‘success’?” Jake asked, smiling as he came through the door with an armful of yellow roses.

  “Oh, Jake, I’m so glad you’re here,” Andi said, a catch in her voice.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said, drawing close to her side. “I stopped to pick up these from Sjölander’s Garden Nursery.”

  “Sjölander’s?” Kim glanced from the yellow roses Jake held to the red roses she’d put in the vase by her easel.

  If she’d met the blond-haired, blue-eyed Swede in his garden shop instead of stumbling into his backyard, he might have thought better of her, maybe even asked her out on a date.

  Not that she needed a date. She was perfectly happy without one. One hundred percent happy.

  Andi took the flowers in her arms. “They’re beautiful. But, Jake, did you hear? We didn’t get the new lease.”

  Jake’s eyes widened, and a crease formed on his brow. “We didn’t?”

  Andi informed him of the landlord’s predicament and laid out their options. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “I did have one idea when I arrived,” Jake said and got down on one knee.

  “I couldn’t find your order, Guy,” Rachel announced, coming back into the front room. “But I boxed up a fresh—Oh my gosh! Jake, are you—Oh! I’m so sorry to interrupt—go ahead!”

  Jake grinned up at Andi’s startled face. “Andrea Leanne Burke, no matter what happens in this whole wide world, I promise to love you. I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a question. Will you marry me?”

  Kim gasped. Or maybe it was Andi. Or maybe even Guy. For a moment it seemed as if something had sucked the air out of the entire room.

  Then Jake held up a coconut macaroon cupcake with a glistening diamond ring sticking up out of the center.

  “Yes!” Andi broke into a huge smile. “Oh, Jake, I love you so much.”

  “And you already have tickets to Hawaii for your honeymoon,” Rachel reminded them.

  “I’d get married in Hawaii, but Kim’s afraid to fly,” Andi confessed. “And I can’t get married without my sister there. Oh, Jake, I can’t wait to tell the girls. Now Mia and Taylor will be sisters, too. And if we marry and move in together, we’ll save money on rent.”

  “That’s not why I proposed,” Jake teased, standing up.

  “I know,” Andi said, “but it will still help us save money to buy the shop.”

  Kim froze, her stomach turning as fast as her thoughts. If Jake and his daughter, Taylor, moved into the small house with Andi and Mia, there would be no room for her. She couldn’t move back in with her father. His new house in Warrenton didn’t have enough space for her either. She’d need to use the money she won from the recent art show to rent her own apartment, not open a gallery with her friends.

  And if Creative Cupcakes closed, how would she continue to pay rent? Instead of choosing between jobs, she wouldn’t have any job at all.

  Handsome, brown-haired, brown-eyed Jake, dressed like a modern-day prince in his tan three-piece suit, kissed her sister and swooped her up into his arms. “What if I told you I’ve wanted to propose since the night you first came up to me in the Captain’s Port and tried to buy my cupcake?”

  Andi brushed a long strand of her dark blond hair behind her ear. “What if I told you I’ve dreamed of marrying you since the moment you shared it with me?”

  Andi and Jake kissed again, and Rachel jumped up and down, squealing with delight. Her grandfather chuckled and hugged his memory box. Guy and the customers at the surrounding tables whistled and clapped.

  Kim clapped, too, and gave a start when she realized tears were running down her face. Happy tears. Of course they were happy. What other kind of tears would they be?

  Her big sis deserved to be happy. Andi had been through a tough time trying to support her six-year-old daughter without any help from her deadbeat ex. And Jake, whose wife had died and left him with a kindergartner of his own, was perfect for her. Absolutely perfect.

  Kim brushed another tear off her cheek, and Guy nudged her with his elbow. “Looks like we’re the Last of the Mohicans.”

  “The last what?” she asked.

  “The last of the ‘single’ tribe.”

  “I guess so,” Kim agreed, not sure she liked the forlorn way he said it.

  She watched Jake slide the ring on Andi’s finger, and her chest tightened. How she wished it were her! How she wished she could find a great, handsome prince and live happily ever after like Rachel and Andi.

  Maybe she’d watched too many Disney movies with her niece. But that’s what made the movies so special. Happily-ever-afters didn’t come to everyone. They were as rare as a full sun in an Oregon winter.

  Thank goodness no one knew what was really going on inside her at this moment, because it wasn’t pretty. And it wasn’t right for her to feel jealous or left out.

  It was her own fault she was single. She’d had the chance to make her relationship with Gavin work. She could have said yes when he asked her to fly off to Europe with him at the end of their last college semester. But she couldn’t. Her fear of flying had made it impossible for her to say anything but no.

  “Kim, can you believe it?” Andi asked, holding out her hand. The hand with the ring, of course.

  Kim forced her legs to walk forward, forced her arms to wrap themselves around Andi and give her a hug. Then, smiling past the hurt, she said the words she knew her sister longed to hear.

  “I am so happy for you.”

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  There is only one happiness in life: to love and be loved.

  —George Sand

  MONDAY MORNING KIM, Andi, and Rachel gathered around one of Creative Cupcakes’ round dining tables. Mia and Taylor joined them. Both six-year-olds were in the same afternoon kindergarten class and spent their mornings at the shop determined to lend a hand. Or two.

  Kim slid into a chair and took a new three-ring binder out of her paisley print hobo bag. “Time for a new Cupcake Diary.”

  “Why are there keys?” Mia asked, pointing to the cover.

  “Because,” Kim said, scooping her niece up into her lap, “we need Mr. Warden to let us keep the keys to this building.”

  “The keys can represent ‘the keys to success,’” Rachel added. “I like it.”

  “My turn,” Taylor insisted, as if playing a game. “Why do the keys have wings?”

  Andi shrugged. “Because the keys will fly away if we don’t make enough money?”

  Kim nodded. “With our dreams.”

  Taking out a pen, she opened and wrote in the new diary:

  Goal #1: Buy the building.

  “What’s that?” Mia asked, pulling a booklet out from under the diary.

  Kim looked above Mia’s head to meet her mother’s gaze. “The listings for apartment rentals.”

  “You don’t have to find one right away,” Andi said in a rush. “Jake and Taylor won’t be moving in until the wedding. You know I’d never kick you out.”

  “That’s g
ood,” Kim assured her. “Because I don’t think I can rent an apartment until I’m positive I’m going to have a job at the end of the month.”

  “I know what you mean,” Rachel said, bobbing her red curls. “How can I plan my wedding until I know if we can keep Creative Cupcakes? I won’t know how much money I’ll have available.”

  The door opened, and a delivery man in a brown uniform brought in a large bouquet of red roses.

  Andi smiled as she got up and met him halfway. “I bet they’re from Jake!”

  “You think Jake’s the only guy who sends flowers?” Rachel teased, scooting her chair back and hurrying to her side. “They could be from Mike for me. Especially since they’re red, and Jake knows you like yellow.”

  “They’re from Sjölander’s,” Andi insisted, “the same place Jake got the other ones.”

  “Don’t you think other people buy roses from Sjölander’s?” Rachel asked, reaching for the tag.

  Kim glanced at the two little girls left at the table with her. “What do you think?”

  Mia laughed. “I think they’re for me.”

  “Or me,” Taylor agreed.

  “They’re for Kim.”

  The note of surprise in her sister’s voice made Kim look up, and the expression on Andi’s face held a host of unspoken questions.

  Rachel smiled and read, “‘Dear Kim, why stop at one hundred? Sincerely, Nathaniel.’”

  Kim shot out of her chair and took a look at the tag.

  “Who’s Nathaniel?” Andi asked.

  “And what does he mean, ‘why stop at one hundred’?” Rachel added.

  Kim took the roses in her arms and drew in a whiff of their deep scent. “I met Nathaniel Sjölander at . . . the new park, or what I thought was the new park.”

  “And?” Andi prompted.

  She cringed. “It turned out to be his backyard.”

  “And?” Rachel encouraged, motioning with her hand for her to continue.

  “And nothing. I made a complete fool of myself. I told him I planned to smell one hundred roses, and he gave me that bouquet over there by my easel, probably hoping I would leave. He knows we’re booked to cater cupcakes at his brother’s wedding in a few weeks, and now he’s just poking fun.”