Taste of Romance

by Darlene Panzera

  She’d dreamed of Nathaniel but wasn’t sure if it was just wishful thinking. Dropping the flowers on her nightstand, she threw on a green tank top to match the color of her eyes and a pair of faded denim cut-offs for the Troll Run.

  Her gaze swung to the bulletin board on her wall with the maps, postcards, and brochures she’d collected of various places she wanted to go but would never see because they all required an airplane flight.

  She knew she should remove the photos and other travel paraphernalia so they wouldn’t taunt her. But that wouldn’t stop her from imagining herself walking the streets outside Buckingham Palace, or horseback riding across the green Irish countryside, or climbing into a Venetian gondola. No, taking away the items wouldn’t take away her dreams any more than taking away a framed photo could take away her memories of her mother.

  She reached out and picked up a photo of her mother standing beside her at the Port of Astoria West Basin Marina. It was the last one taken before her mom’s small-engine plane crash.

  There was a knock on her bedroom door, and a moment later, Andi entered the room.

  “Look at this article Jake wrote for the paper,” her sister said, handing her a copy of the Astoria Sun. “He tells about the fire and our thefts and has asked the public to help us identify the notorious ‘Cupcake Bandit.’”

  “Do you think it will draw people into Creative Cupcakes to search for our thief?” Kim asked.

  “Well, it’s a better idea than chasing down our mailman,” Andi teased. “I still can’t believe you did that. Usually, I’m the impulsive one. Must have had something to do with Nathaniel offering you a ride on his motorcycle.”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” Kim admitted. “The chaos with the fire, then the threat of losing all my paintings . . .”

  “And the fact Nathaniel showed up,” Andi added with a grin, “all worked together to discombobulate your sensible head?”

  Kim nodded and set the photo of their mother down. “The anniversary of Mom’s crash always drives me a little crazy, too. Next week marks ten years.”

  “I wish she could see us now, see Mia, and be at the wedding,” Andi said, her voice soft. “Jake and I have decided to get married in September.”

  “That gives me three months to find my own apartment,” Kim said, “or I’ll be sleeping in the Cupcake Mobile.”

  Andi laughed. “Guy said he did that before he opened his tattoo parlor and sold the truck to us.”

  “Not that I’d like to share his fate,” Kim said, and she meant the words in more ways than one.

  While sleeping in a drafty, rattling, antique hunk of metal on wheels would not be fun, going through life until she was old and gray without ever a taste of romance seemed far worse.

  NATHANIEL LOOKED FANTASTIC in his navy blue T-shirt and gray-striped board shorts. She should have pinned him as more of the surfer-adventurer type than the kind that works out in a gym.

  When he’d arrived in front of Andi’s small Victorian cottage on the hill to pick her up, his approval rating had skyrocketed in her heart higher than any of the previous men she’d ever dated, including Gavin.

  First, Gavin had never sent her roses. Second, he was the type who may have bought gym shorts. Third, his smile could never have out radiated the one on Nathaniel’s face when he looked at her.

  Goodbye, Gavin; hello, Nathaniel.

  To top off what was sure to be one of the most glorious days of her life, the sun was rising over the Columbia River without a single cloud to block its path.

  “Thank you for coming with me,” Nathaniel greeted her.

  “Thank you for asking,” she replied.

  Nathaniel grinned. “Thank you for giving me the chance to ask.”

  “No motorcycle today?” she asked, glancing toward his truck parked at the curb.

  “The pickup is better to transport the rosebushes to the festival,” he said. “And as delightful as it is to have you hold on to me from behind, I’d prefer you sitting beside me where I can look at you.”

  The Annual Running of the Trolls started at 8:30 a.m. from the Clatsop County Fairgrounds parking lot. They had chosen the 5.75-mile run over the shorter 1.5- and 3-mile paths to stretch out their time together before they’d both have to work the festival later that afternoon.

  “No fair,” Kim said, her voice coming out in a rasp. “Your legs are twice as long as mine.”

  “I could pick you up and carry you,” he teased.

  “Let’s walk.”

  “And chance being caught by a wandering troll? I’ve heard they can be quite nasty.”

  “I thought trolls were afraid of sunlight,” she countered.

  “Ja, but they still roam the shady forests.”

  “I trust you’ll protect me from being eaten,” she said, as they slowed their pace.

  “Eaten? No, they won’t eat you. On Midsummer’s Day they’ll club you and torture you into giving up your pickled herring, boiled potatoes, and strawberry cakes.”

  Kim laughed. “Maybe in Sweden, but I have yet to see a troll in the Astoria−Warrenton area. How long have you lived here?”

  “A year. I followed my brother. He came to the States and bought a house near our cousins. He urged me to visit, and when I did, I, too, decided to extend my stay. Sjölander’s Garden Nursery opened five months later and has seen steady business ever since.”

  “The roses are beautiful,” she told him.

  He grinned at her again. “As are you.”

  Kim didn’t know what to say. She’d never mastered the knack of flirting with men, like Rachel, or challenging men, like Andi.

  All she could do was continue to smile and say, “Thank you.”

  AFTER THEY RETURNED to the Clatsop Fairgrounds and crossed the finish line, Nathaniel made her promise to meet him during her lunch break at the Scandinavian Festival later that afternoon. “At vendor space number eight,” he insisted. Then he drove her home so she could shower before she had to help Rachel and Andi load cupcakes into the Cupcake Mobile.

  “How did it go?” Andi asked when she arrived at the shop.

  “We had to dodge the Viking encampment and the downtown Op Tog walking parade while driving back,” she confided. “And I think we almost hit a troll.”

  “Sounds like you had fun.”

  “I had an adventure,” Kim agreed. “How are things here?”

  Andi gave her a pensive look. “Sam Warden heard about the fire. He said if we can’t buy the building by July first, we need to leave. He won’t let us stay longer even if the building hasn’t sold by then.”

  Kim thought of her latest creations, sculpted from icing to decorate the tops of the cupcakes for the festival. “Let’s hope we sell lots of cupcakes today.”

  A short while later the Creative Cupcakes booth was up and running. Kim served magically minty grasshopper cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes with whipped cream and fresh sliced strawberries on top. She had cupcakes sculpted like trolls with big bulbous noses and pointy green hats. Cupcakes with wreaths of flowers. And cupcakes with large individual roses.

  “Meredith, that’s incredible!” Andi exclaimed. “I didn’t realize you were so talented.”

  Kim turned her head and caught the look on the teenager’s arrogant face. Was Meredith trying to take credit for her work?

  “I decorated them,” Kim corrected her sister. “Meredith mixed the different colors for the icing.”

  Andi gave Meredith a questioning glance.

  Meredith shrugged and replied, “I could have decorated them just as well.”

  Kim narrowed her eyes. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the teen had read her mind, knew she’d considered leaving, and aimed to replace her.

  “These cupcakes look exactly like a plate of vegetables,” Andi crooned. “So real I wouldn’t even know it was cake.”

  “Wait until you see my plate of spaghetti and meatball cupcakes,” Kim said, bringing them out to show her. “I used a fork to carve the frosting in
to spaghetti, round chocolate mini cakes for the meatballs, and raspberry syrup poured over the top for the sauce.”

  “Not good for my diet,” Andi warned. “You’ll make me want to eat them all.”

  “I agree,” said a plump woman stepping up to their booth. “I’ll buy both sets.”

  “I’ll take this tray of cupcakes decorated like a rose garden,” another lady told them. “I’ve never seen such artistic work.”

  Kim warmed to the praise and gave her wannabe rival, Meredith, another glance. Maybe using her artistic skills to decorate cupcakes could bring her as much satisfaction as painting. Maybe if Creative Cupcakes remained in business, she wouldn’t need a replacement.

  However, five hours later, she admitted she could use what Nathaniel termed a “fika break.” Sales had brought in more money than at any previous event they’d participated in. The line of customers was twenty deep, and Kim had been selling and serving cupcakes every second.

  Andi switched with Rachel halfway through the day so she could take Mia back to the cupcake shop and Rachel could bring Grandpa Lewy and Mike to the festival.

  Kim glanced at the old man as Rachel led him toward their white, twelve-by twelve foot tented booth. He looked exceptionally pale, and his mouth was tight-lipped and grim.

  “Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

  “Can you bring me that thing I like to sit on?” he responded.

  “A chair?” she asked.

  He nodded, and Kim guided him toward a seat at the back of the tent.

  “I’m worried about him,” Rachel whispered to her. “He hasn’t spoken much today.”

  “Are you sure you’ll manage here without me?” Kim asked.

  Rachel waved her off. “Go have fun.”

  KIM FELT A flutter in her stomach, but it didn’t have anything to do with hunger. She couldn’t wait to see Nathaniel again.

  She hurried past the other outdoor vendors and counted off their numbered spaces as she went by. He’d said he had something special planned, something to do with his brother’s business, although she’d failed to ask what that was. She knew he had set up a booth selling his prize-winning roses.

  Five . . . six . . . seven . . . space number eight. She looked up from the spray-painted number on the ground and spotted Nathaniel holding a picnic basket and a bottle of wine. And there behind him was an enormous red-and-yellow hot air balloon.

  She froze, her stomach taking a ninety-degree dive straight into a pool of dread. Did he intend to take her up off the ground in that thing . . . and fly?

  Chapter Six

  * * *

  Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.

  —Helen Keller

  “WHAT’S WRONG?” NATHANIEL asked, his smile fading as she drew closer. “Are you afraid of heights?”

  “No,” she said, each step toward him heavier than the next. “I’m afraid of flying.”

  He gave her a hesitant half-grin. “Are you sure you don’t want to even try?”

  Her gut wrenched with indecision. Nathaniel had looked so excited when he first saw her. She glanced at the open picnic basket that he had placed on the ground by his feet and saw sandwiches, red grapes, cinnamon rolls, and two plastic glasses.

  Dear God, she didn’t want to disappoint him, didn’t want to ruin things between them before they even got started. Kim looked from him to the balloon, then back to the hope in his beautiful blue eyes.

  He pulled away from her gaze and shrugged. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I got the idea when I carried one of your paintings out to the Cupcake Mobile during the fire. The painting of the sky full of balloons, with the girl on the ground reaching out her hand as if yearning to fly over the trees and set off on a grand adventure of her own.”

  Kim stared at him. “That’s exactly how I felt when I painted it.”

  “Then what’s stopping you?”

  “My mother. She died in a plane crash when I was seventeen, and my plans to travel the world crashed with her. I tried to board a plane after college. I got my passport, bought my ticket, walked up the boarding ramp . . . and I panicked. All the memories of my mother’s death came flooding back, and I couldn’t go on.”

  “So you fear your own death?”

  “I fear being hurt,” Kim said, and tried to swallow the painful memory. “She . . . didn’t die right away.”

  “This is my brother’s balloon,” Nathaniel told her. “At festivals we take people up a hundred feet, but the balloon stays tethered to the ground the whole time. We don’t have to go up in the balloon if you don’t want.” He shrugged. “We can have our picnic right here on the ground among the other people waiting to get eaten by trolls.”

  Kim smiled and looked up at the balloon again. How she did yearn to fly!

  “Maybe we could have our picnic in the basket while it’s tethered to the ground?” she asked. “Or . . . as long as it’s still held by a rope, we could lift off the ground just a little bit? Like, maybe only a few feet?”

  The enormous smile Nathaniel gave her erased her doubts over the suggestion, and he replied, “Ja, we could do that.”

  Taking Nathaniel’s hand, she climbed into the wicker basket connected to the balloon above by a series of strong cables. The basket was large enough to hold sixteen people and open enough to keep her from feeling claustrophobic. If she wanted to, she could climb over the side and jump out any time she wished.

  Nathaniel sat beside her on a portable box with the picnic basket between them. Kim discovered the bottle she’d seen in his hand earlier wasn’t wine, but champagne.

  “Is this a champagne brunch?” she inquired.

  Nathaniel took the bottle, popped the cork, and poured her a glass. “When people first began ballooning, the balloonist would carry champagne to soothe angry or frightened spectators at the landing site.”

  Kim smiled. “Perfect for me.”

  “These days a champagne toast is tradition upon landing,” he told her. “But since we aren’t going anywhere, we might as well have some now.” Raising his glass, he said, “To soft winds and gentle landings.”

  And to soft, gentle kisses. Kim glanced at his mouth. She wouldn’t mind if he kissed her.

  “Nathaniel—does everyone call you Nathaniel, or do you go by Nat or Nate?”

  “They call me Nathaniel. To reduce the name my parents chose for me would dishonor them.”

  Kim took a sip of champagne and smiled. “Why? Are you part of royalty or something?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “No. Not royalty. But my mother couldn’t love me any more than the most upstanding person, and this is how I show her respect.”

  Kim raised her brows. “I never thought about it like that. Everyone I know uses nicknames. Seems easier in a fast-paced world.”

  “What is your full name?” he asked.

  “Kimberly Nicole Burke.”

  “Doesn’t anyone in your family use your full name?”

  “My mother did.”

  “And your father?”

  Kim smirked. “He doesn’t call me much of anything, and when he does, it’s Kim. My father likes to keep things short.”

  “And sweet?” Nathaniel prompted.

  “No, just short,” Kim corrected. “My relationship with him . . . is difficult.”

  “Kimberly is a beautiful name. I like it very much.”

  He leaned close enough to take her breath away, and her heart pounded in her chest. But no kiss.

  “Would you like to go higher? Ten feet?” he asked, his hands already on the burner, ready to pump the flame.

  She nodded and gripped the edge of the box on which she was sitting. “Yes, I’m ready.”

  Nathaniel worked the burner and the fan, which directed the hot air from the short bursts of flame into the gaping mouth of the balloon. To Kim’s surprise, a thrill of excitement instead of fear shot through her, and when she looked at Nathaniel, she couldn’t stop smiling.

  “I’ve always wanted to go up
in a hot air balloon,” Kim admitted, pulling herself over to the edge and gripping the cable attached to the balloon. “Do you want to go higher?”

  Nathaniel’s eyes sparkled. “Do you?”

  “At least to twenty-five feet,” she suggested.

  The balloon lifted, and a great weight she didn’t even know she had been carrying seemed to lift with it, leaving her light and bubbly. Could it be the champagne? Doubtful. She hadn’t even finished one glass.

  “Oh, Nathaniel, isn’t it wonderful? Imagine flying over the hillside, past the cupcake shop, and across the Columbia River to the other side. Imagine the sights we could see!”

  “You don’t have to imagine, Kimberly. Some sights were meant to be seen firsthand.” He tied the rope to secure them at twenty-five feet and came back to sit beside her. “I could tell you about my homeland in Sweden, but if you were to go there and see it with your own eyes . . . well, it’s a different thing altogether.”

  She thought of her bulletin board in her room filled with pictures of all the places she’d like to travel. Thought of the empty pages of her blank passport, which she had renewed and kept current . . . just in case.

  Finishing the champagne, she handed him her glass and took the delicious-smelling gourmet beef and cheese sandwich on golden crusted bread he held out to her.

  “It must be hard for you to be so far away from the rest of your family,” she said and took a bite of the sandwich.

  “My parents are coming for my brother’s wedding, and then I’ll be leaving with them for home three days later.”

  Kim coughed, sputtered, but managed to squeeze out the words “You’re leaving?”

  Maybe it was better if he didn’t kiss her. She didn’t need a repeat of the past, didn’t need Nathaniel to leave her behind like Gavin. Sitting at the airport. Waving goodbye. Alone.

  “How long will you stay?” she asked and set the sandwich down in her lap.

  “Forever if my mother has anything to do with it.” Nathaniel shook his head and gave her a rueful grin. “My mother never wanted me to come here in the first place.”