Taste of Romance

by Darlene Panzera

  “Yes!”

  “Are you sure? Maybe you misplaced the ring, took it off while you were baking or to wash your hands?”

  “We watched the security camera footage. Plain as day it shows me take off the food handler’s gloves and the ring sliding off my finger and into the bowl of batter below.”

  “How could you let something like this happen?” Kim demanded.

  “It was an accident!”

  Kim took a deep breath. It was because of the Cupcake Bandit. If he hadn’t stolen the cupcakes, they wouldn’t have been in a rush. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You have to find it.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Think of something, Kim. You can’t let them eat those cupcakes. Mike, Rachel, and I are already on our way and will be there in three minutes. But if someone bites into the cupcake with the ring and breaks a tooth or swallows it and chokes, we could be facing a lawsuit.” Andi let out a choked cry. “Oh, please don’t let anyone swallow my ring. I might never get it back.”

  Kim hung up, but then her heart leaped into her chest as she saw that the bride and groom had each picked up a cupcake and were preparing to give each other a taste.

  Should she signal Nathaniel?

  There was no time. She had to do something, and she had to do it now.

  “Stop!” she called across the crowd. “Don’t eat the cupcakes!”

  No one heard her. The crowd had gathered in tight and were cheering the couple on, hoping to see them smash the cupcakes into each other’s mouths.

  Kim ran forward and shouted again. She pushed her way between two obese women and shoved past a man who didn’t want to wait for the bride and groom. He opened his mouth to take a bite of his cupcake, and Kim knew there would be no avoiding conflict this time.

  Stepping close, she knocked the cupcake to the ground. Five more steps and she knocked the cupcakes away from the bride and groom. Then she ran toward every person in the vicinity who lifted a cupcake to their mouth.

  Several people gasped, others screamed, and suddenly everyone was in an uproar.

  “I’ll sue you,” the mother of the bride hollered, her face contorted with rage. “You won’t see a penny of profit from this wedding. I’ll sue Creative Cupcakes for everything they’ve got!”

  The bride took a napkin and tried to wipe cake off her icing-covered dress. Then the bride looked up at her with horror-stricken eyes. “What have you done?”

  “I’m sorry,” Kim said, her throat aching with tension. “I tried to warn you, but you didn’t hear, and then there was no time. My sister lost her ring in one of the cupcakes.”

  “What kind of catering company would do such thing?” Nathaniel’s mother demanded in her heavy Swedish accent.

  Kim shrank back from the accusations, and her gaze locked on Nathaniel’s face, filled with as much shock as the bride and groom and the two mothers.

  “No one eat the cupcakes,” he ordered, moving through the crowd toward her.

  “We’ll make amends,” Kim added.

  “Make amends?” the bride asked. “You ruined my wedding!”

  The bride must have realized Caleb was capturing every second of the chaos on his video camera, because she picked up another cupcake and smashed it straight into his lens.

  Kim realized she hadn’t found Andi’s ring and ran from table to table smashing all the cupcakes with her hands, hoping to feel a piece of hard metal. After smashing over two dozen cupcakes, something poked the palm of her hand.

  Pulling apart the remains of the traditional Swedish wedding cake, she pulled out the diamond ring and held it up.

  “See?” she said, and looked at the bride. “This is my sister’s engagement ring. Imagine if your ring had fallen into the batter. What would you have me do?”

  “Leave,” the bride’s mother said, pointing a finger toward the parking lot.

  Nathaniel took her elbow. “I’ll take you home.”

  She nodded and headed toward his truck. His family would never welcome her now, never forgive her. Her stomach wrenched into fits of twisted agony. Would this change Nathaniel’s opinion of her as well? She shot him a quick glance, but his expression didn’t reveal an answer.

  She opened the passenger side door, ready to climb in, and a doll fell out. Mia’s doll.

  Picking the toy off the ground, she held it up and stared at him. “How did Mia’s doll get in your truck?”

  Nathaniel’s eyes widened. “I have no idea.”

  Could Nathaniel be the Cupcake Bandit? Her mind raced to place him at the scene of every disappearance. He’d been at the fire. He’d been at the festival. The thief had not switched the doll for the cupcakes at the Astoria Column. Maybe because Nathaniel had been with her?

  The security camera had caught sight of someone with pale hair, and Nathaniel’s hair was blond. One of the women at the Scandinavian Festival had described the troll handing out cupcakes as “tall” and “handsome.” Of course, the little old lady had been rather short, so many people could be tall from her point of view, and who knew what type of man she thought handsome.

  “I’ve never seen that doll before,” Nathaniel told her.

  Kim wasn’t sure she could believe him. Instead, she feared that while Andi and Rachel had found true love, she’d lost her heart to a cupcake thief.

  A loud, familiar clanking sound could be heard coming around the corner, and when the Cupcake Mobile parked, Andi, Rachel, and Mike jumped out.

  “Did you find it?” Andi asked, her face lined with worry.

  Kim held up the ring. “Yes.”

  “You are not welcome here,” the mother of the bride yelled, running toward them. “Go away!”

  Andi, Rachel, and Mike glanced at each other, their mouths hanging open, as if not knowing what to do.

  “Kim,” Rachel called, holding open the Cupcake Mobile door. “Are you coming?”

  Kim hesitated, looked at Nathaniel for one agonizing moment, and then ran toward them with both the ring and the doll in her hands.

  “What happened?” Rachel asked, her eyes wide.

  “Andi told me to stop them from eating the cupcakes, and so I—I smashed them. Now the bride’s family is threatening to sue.”

  “Sue?” Rachel screeched. “Couldn’t you find the ring without smashing the cupcakes? Why do you always do what Andi tells you?”

  “I didn’t mean for you to ruin the wedding or cause a scene,” Andi said, taking the ring from her and slipping it back on her finger. “If they sue, they’ll shut down our shop.”

  “It gets worse,” Kim said, her stomach squeezing tight.

  “How could it be worse?” Mike asked, rounding a turn in the road.

  “They’ve refused to pay us for the wedding cupcakes.”

  “We won’t be able to buy the building without the profits from this event,” Rachel cried, turning around in her seat and bracing her hand on the dashboard. “Creative Cupcakes will be finished.”

  “Maybe that’s what Kim planned all along,” Andi said, a harsh edge entering her voice.

  Kim stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “While you were smashing cupcakes,” Rachel informed her, “one of your friends called the shop and said they’d rented a space in town to open your art gallery. When were you going to tell us? After Creative Cupcakes closed?”

  “I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t want me to leave,” Kim said, glancing around at each of them as they arrived at the cupcake shop.

  “You’d abandon us for an art gallery?” Andi opened her door and climbed out. “Is that why you haven’t been a team player this month?”

  “I’ve always been a team player,” Kim said, her throat burning as she followed them on to the sidewalk. “From day one I’ve worked long hours and backed you one hundred percent. But did you ever ask me what I wanted? No, you just assumed you could drag me into business with you. But the cupcake shop wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t my drea
m.”

  “Did you sabotage Creative Cupcakes on purpose?” Rachel asked, pointing to the doll in her hand. “Are you the Cupcake Bandit?”

  “No.”

  “Then where did you find Mia’s doll?” Andi demanded.

  Kim cringed, wishing she were anywhere but here at this moment. “In Nathaniel’s truck.”

  Their father had always condemned a show of emotion, especially when their mother died. Emotion was weak. That’s why he thought Andi was weak. Andi always gave in to her emotions, but not her. She kept her feelings under control.

  But she couldn’t control the stinging in her eyes, or the tightness in her chest, or the widening hole in her stomach now.

  Turning tail, she ran outside, stepped into the bushes . . . and puked.

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.

  —Erma Bombeck

  KIM CRIED. SHE cried for her mother. Cried for the loss of her dreams to travel the world. Cried over Andi’s and Rachel’s accusations. Cried over Gavin, whom she never really loved, and over the loss of Nathaniel, whom she feared she did.

  And she cried when she lifted the little blackbird into the air, and it flapped its healed wing and flew off into the early morning sky.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered. “I’ll never forget you.”

  “And we’ll never forget you.”

  Kim spun around and saw Andi and Rachel standing behind her, no longer angry, but smiling.

  “You were right, Kim,” Andi said, wrapping her arms around her. “I was so desperate to make my dream of a successful cupcake business come true that I didn’t realize you may have had a different dream. Rachel and I never asked if you wanted to go into business with us. And if you want to leave, then . . . we have to let you go.”

  Rachel came forward to wrap her arms around her as well. “We have to let you make your own decisions.”

  “Thank you,” Kim whispered.

  “We’ve decided to hold a ‘Save the Shop’ sale tomorrow to sell off whatever we can to raise money to buy the building,” Andi told her.

  “I’ll help,” Kim offered. “I never meant to harm Creative Cupcakes’ reputation.”

  Pop!

  Kim darted with Rachel and Andi from the party room into the main shop hoping they’d finally caught their thief. Guy had helped them install the radio-transmitted dye pack under the cupcake a few hours earlier.

  “Grandpa Lewy!” Rachel exclaimed.

  The old man stood by the front door with his arms, chest, and face splattered with red dye and frosting. In his hands were what looked like the remains of an Oreo brownie cupcake.

  Andi laughed. “Grandpa Lewy is the Cupcake Bandit?”

  Kim laughed, too. Like Nathaniel, Grandpa Lewy had also been at the cupcake shop every time there had been a theft. His white hair was pale, and older women like Bernice considered him handsome. And the assisted living center where he lived was located between the community park where Nathaniel’s brother got married and Nathaniel’s private property. It would have been easy for him to have dropped Mia’s doll into his truck if a door or window was open.

  And if Grandpa Lewy was the cupcake thief, then that meant that Nathaniel was not.

  “Grandpa,” Rachel scolded, her face flushed, “why did you steal our cupcakes?”

  “I didn’t steal. You said I could have one any time.”

  “Why did you steal Mia’s doll?” Andi asked.

  The old man shook his head as if confused. “I found a doll. It looked familiar, so I put it in that thing that holds my memories.”

  “Your memory box?” Rachel prompted. “Is that where you hid all the cupcakes?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, his eyes lacking focus.

  “You wrote a ransom note in the Cupcake Diary,” Kim said, handing him a towel to wipe his face.

  “Your poster said you’d give a cupcake to anyone who found a doll,” Grandpa Lewy said and frowned. “I found a doll, and I like cupcakes.”

  “But you didn’t show up at the Astoria Column,” Kim pointed out.

  “I forgot.” He wiped his face and stared at the smeared ink and icing on the white towel.

  The phone rang, and Andi went around the counter to answer it. “Rachel,” she said, holding the phone away from her ear, “the assisted living center says we need to bring your grandfather back right away. There’s been an incident they need to discuss with us.”

  “What kind of incident?” Rachel asked, gripping her grandfather’s arm.

  Kim smiled. “Maybe they found the cupcakes.”

  The nurses were not happy campers. Kim didn’t know who was worse—them or the bride’s mother at the wedding.

  “Do you see these boxes?” one nurse exclaimed, holding up a pink box with the Creative Cupcakes logo. “Last night we found half the residents on a sugar high that had them bouncing around like kids on a bouncy ball.”

  “The first batch of cupcakes for the wedding,” Kim mused.

  “Grandpa, did you have a cupcake party?” Rachel asked.

  He wavered on his feet, and Rachel reached out to steady him.

  “I made lots of friends,” he told her and smiled, as if loopy. “They helped carry some of the boxes.”

  Kim frowned. “Rachel, I don’t think he’s feeling good.”

  “He looks pale,” said the head nurse. “Let’s sit him down.”

  However, before he could sit, Grandpa Lewy collapsed, and they had to call the hospital for an ambulance.

  “HE’S OKAY,” RACHEL assured them, returning to the shop a few hours later. “They hooked him up with an IV and are running tests.”

  “Maybe you should take him a triple-chocolate cupcake to cheer him up,” Andi teased. “Might make him feel better.”

  “He didn’t know what he was doing,” Rachel said, shaking her head.

  “It’s okay,” Kim assured her. “We can’t blame him for loving our cupcakes.”

  “No, we can’t blame anyone,” Andi agreed and nodded toward the door. “Looks like you have a special delivery, Kim.”

  Kim turned and met Nathaniel’s troubled, blue-eyed gaze.

  “I came to say I’m sorry about last night,” he said, handing her a large bouquet of bright red, heavenly scented roses. “I promise you, I didn’t take the doll or any of the cupcakes. I’m not your thief.”

  “We know,” Rachel assured him. “It was my grandfather.”

  “I’m sorry I ruined your brother’s wedding,” Kim told him.

  Nathaniel smiled. “You didn’t ruin it, you made it memorable. After you left, my brother and his bride looked at each other, realized their love for each other had nothing to do with cupcakes, and started laughing.”

  “They aren’t going to sue?” Andi asked, her face filled with hope.

  “No one is going to sue,” he assured them and set a piece of paper on the counter. “And here is a check to cover the cost of the cupcakes.”

  Kim shook her head. “We can’t accept this—not after what I did.”

  “The money is to help save the shop,” Nathaniel told them. “My new sister-in-law agrees with you. She would have smashed cupcakes herself if she’d lost her ring in the batter. But you didn’t smash all of them. There were plenty of cupcakes left for everyone to enjoy.”

  “Thank you,” Andi said, taking the check. “But I’m afraid we’re going to need a lot more than this to buy the building.”

  “Every bit helps, ja?” he asked.

  Kim nodded, and Nathaniel took both her hands and squeezed her fingers. “I also came to say goodbye.”

  Kim was afraid of that. “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

  “I would if I could,” Kim assured him. “But I—I can’t.”

  “I’ll call you,” he promised.

  Kim nodded, her stomach so tight she wondered if
she’d have to make another trip to the bushes. “Send me a postcard.”

  He looked at her with an expression so intense she could barely breathe. “Goodbye, Kimberly.”

  Her eyes stung, and her entire body went rigid with dread at the thought of being left behind again. Please don’t go. She wanted to scream the words at the top of her lungs but didn’t. How could she? What right did she have to even ask? She couldn’t tie him down like his previous girlfriend had tried to do.

  He couldn’t stay. And she couldn’t go. Once again, it seemed history was repeating itself, only with different players.

  “Goodbye,” she said, her voice choked, and then, all at once she flung herself into his arms, pressed her body to his, and squeezed him as hard as she could.

  His arms wrapped around her, and his head dropped down over her shoulder, as if the moment was killing him, too. Then he released her, gave her a parting grin . . . and was gone.

  THE SPECIAL “SAVE the Shop” sale brought in a crowd. Kim suspected that Jake’s newspaper story in the Astoria Sun titled “Identity of Cupcake Bandit Revealed: Grandpa with Alzheimer’s Has Craving for Cupcakes” had something to do with it.

  Andi and Jake decided to forgo their honeymoon and sell the Hawaii vacation tickets they’d coveted for so long.

  “I’ll get to Hawaii someday,” Andi said, her face full of determination. “But buying the building to save Creative Cupcakes is more important.”

  Rachel put her jewelry box into the auction, swung her red curls over her shoulder, and told them, “Looks aren’t everything.”

  Andi gasped. “I can’t believe you, of all people, said that, Miss I Won’t Leave the House without My Makeup.”

  “Mike tells me I’m beautiful every day,” Rachel assured her. “That’s all I need.”

  Mike had offered to sell off a prized miniature set model he’d worked on for a canceled TV series, and Kim decided to auction off all the paintings adorning the walls of the cupcake shop.

  “Won’t you need them to open the art gallery with your friends?” Andi asked.