by Voss Porter
“Nice,” Devin extolled. “Any other insults?”
“You deserved it,” Tonya said, and then let her ire die. “Cady dreams of a home and a family.”
“I dream of neither,” Devin said, forcefully.
At that, Tonya, the elf operative of fate, eyed her from the side. “Who are you trying to convince, me or you? Because I can read your mind.”
Crap. Devin shoved her hands in her back pockets. “You don’t get it. It’s not that I don’t… I just don’t have time to think or dream. I don’t have any time to relax.”
“Believe me, I see it,” her operative lamented. “I’ve been following you for weeks. I’m just here to show you what could be.”
“If I stepped back from the bakery?” Devin demanded.
Tonya put her hands up. “I’m just here to show you an alternate version of your future, that’s all. I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. Your parents asked me to check on you, show you a few things—”
“And Cady Brown is one of those things?” As much as she wanted to believe this person, to believe that she could change her fate and open her heart and have a wife and a family, it just seemed, to Devin, to be impossible.
Seeing the doubt flash in her eyes, Tonya was instantly on guard. She put an arm around Devin. “Alright, fine,” she whispered. “Let me see what I have…”
Four
Okay, that time Devin didn’t even realize she had closed her eyes. That time, Devin hadn’t seen anything coming. She was cowering in a soap store corner, brooding about whether or not she could step back from the bakery and let her family legacy dwindle, and then she was standing in the middle of a tiny kitchen.
But it wasn’t a tiny kitchen, not really. It wasn’t quite a tiny kitchen. Technically, she was standing in the middle of a tiny living/dining room with a fridge and a stove and a miniscule counter that opened into a miniscule den bedecked with all of the trappings of homespun, rustic Christmas. There were window clings decorating the two clear panels on either side of a breakfast table. Popcorn garland hung down from the ceiling. A tree was in the corner, shining with colored lights blinking in time with music that acted as ambient sound. There were wrapped gifts piled up below and a dog was sleeping soundly on a cream-colored sofa covered in red and green quilts.
“It’s so small, I can barely move,” Devin hissed, realizing in an instant how close she was to Tonya.
The elf seemed displeased that her charge was more concerned with square footage and hope. “Happy people don’t need much space,” she directed. “Now pay attention.”
From a narrow hallway to the right, footsteps carried.
“I’m fine,” a female voice was convinced. “I really am. You always worry and there’s no real reason to worry. I’m healthy. I can walk. I’m just hungry.” A very pregnant Cady Brown waddled in then, teetering on swollen feet, wearing navy blue joggers and a Knight Bakery fleece. Her red hair was piled up on top of her head in a high bun. “I’m just going to make breakfast—”
“Is this the apartment over the bakery?” Devin queried. Something about the structure—the bricks and beams—hit home.
Tonya shushed her, but nodded almost imperceptibly. She desperately wanted Devin to watch the show unfolding, but Devin had other ideas.
“You think I’m going to move from a two thousand square foot townhouse into a one-bedroom apartment over the bakery? Where I’ll live, presumably, with my wife and a dog with a baby on the way? What sense does that make?” This was an idyllic vision, but it certainly wasn’t practical.
“Would you shut up?” Tonya swatted at her.
“You’re not fine at all,” Devin heard herself holler, in that moment. “You’re not fine at all. You have asthma, you don’t stop working—”
In a truly surreal turn of events, Devin watched her doppelganger come into the room then, wearing jeans and a sweater. She was clean, dressed for the day and wearing a thick, silver wedding band. Her air was compassionate and domineering and the way she doted on Cady, attending to her needs, reminded Devin of the way her father had been with her mother.
“Oh, I won’t stop working?” Cady protested. “You don’t stop working, either.”
She reached up her tiptoes, just as she had done in the store before, and pulled down a bowl from a narrow, whitewashed cabinet. Without intention, Devin noticed her socks were printed with Christmas trees and wreaths of red and white.
“I can’t stop working,” she measured her own words and winced at how close to home they hit.
How many times have I said that to Miranda Day?
“Some things never change.” She leaned over to reaffirm to Tonya. “It doesn’t matter who I end up with, I’m always going to be this way.”
Her eerie twin didn’t pay her any attention, but instead reached out to skim the shoulder of her supposed partner. Cady beamed at the contact.
“Starting Monday, I’ll be out until after the baby comes,” Other-Future-Married Devin pacified. Slender fingers touched the swollen belly of the woman in her embrace and she kissed Cady’s forehead. “Miranda will step up to run things while I’m with you. Students from the technical college in Dunwoody will take shifts making bread and cakes. I put a sign on the door… I just need to get some things straight first.”
“And you’re okay with all of that?” Cady poked her bottom lip out. It quivered. “You’re okay not working?”
Not-the-Real-Devin smiled. “I don’t want to miss a single moment with you before my son is born. I don’t want to miss my son’s birth. I don’t want to leave the two of you.”
“We’re only one flight of stairs away,” Cady half-laughed.
Her partner traced the curve of her jaw. “And that’s too far.” When Cady wriggled lose, her bun jiggling, she reached for the refrigerator and Devin stopped her. “Sit down. Let me wait on you.”
Pretending to be bothered, Cady did as she was told, settling her weight into one of the plain brown chairs at the breakfast table. The salt and pepper shakers before her were Santa and Mrs. Claus and the placemats were printed with reindeer.
“I am perfectly capable of making a bowl of cereal.”
Not-Devin-Devin winked at her.
Real Devin balked. “I’ve never winked at anyone in my life,” she told Tonya.
“I know you can,” her shadow told Cady Brown. “But I thought you wanted cinnamon rolls?”
“You don’t have time to make me cinnamon rolls,” her partner jabbed. “You’re going to work, remember?” Her hand traced circles on her belly.
“Work is not more important than my wife.” Devin shrugged. “And what’s the fun in being married to a baker if she doesn’t bake to spoil you?”
“I make a mean cinnamon roll,” Real Devin let slip. She looked over at Tonya, but Tonya seemed not to have heard. Tonya was, rather, taking in the space with a look of judgment. “You don’t like it? You just said happy people didn’t need space.”
Tonya wanted to seem ambivalent but wasn’t. “Happy people don’t need space, but they also don’t require quite so much from the LL Bean catalog.”
Add a few Yule logs burning in the fire and she wouldn’t be too far off in her assessment. The overall effect wasn’t bad, not to Devin. It wasn’t over the top in the way some people can be. It was cozy. It was a mountain cabin in the middle of downtown, in a small southern town, smelling of seasonal delight and bliss.
“I like it,” she chided.
“You would. It’s your house.” Tonya snorted. “Well, it could be your house.”
“If I convince Cady Brown to fall madly in love with me?” Devin wanted to know. Her tone was inquisitive, but also tinged with bitter disinterest.
Things like this didn’t happen—not in real life and not to her. This was her dream, this was everything she wanted, but that didn’t make it plausible. Or real.
“He’s kicking!” Cady squealed, putting two hands on her stomach. “Dev, he’s kicking! Come here!”
<
br /> The words barely left her lips before Devin saw herself rush to Cady’s side, lean over, and smile like she had everything the world could possibly offer in the palm of her hands. No. That wasn’t it.
Devin saw herself rush to Cady’s side, lean over, and smile like everything that really mattered to her was right there, like nothing else in her life could come close to being as precious as her partner and unborn son were.
“You name him Robert, by the way,” Tonya tossed out at her, clicking her heels. “After your father. All Cady’s idea.”
“Oh, because Cady is so perfect?” Devin mocked.
Tonya huffed. “Not at all. She’s incredibly scatterbrained and clearly,” she looked around her again and thrust out an arm, “she has zero sense of style. She’s just perfect for you. Perfect for you is not perfect, overall.”
Other Devin knelt on the small red rug below the breakfast table and pressed her lips to Cady’s stomach.
“I love you, do you know that?” Her voice was hoarse with emotion. “I love you ridiculously.”
“That’s corny,” Devin 1.0 groused.
“You know, you’re taking all of the fun out of my Universal Time Out,” the world’s worst elf conjectured. “It’s Christmas Eve. Get in the spirit. We’ve barely got any time left.”
“But you—” Devin clutched her chest as she was flooded with a whole lot of light and a blinding pain, for the second time.
Five
“You busy?” a voice that was distinctly Cady Brown asked.
Devin pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to stave off the waves of nausea that threatened to send her to her knees. She was back in the bakery, standing beside the kitchen sink, sweating a little and left to consider whether her adventures with Tonya, an unwilling operative of fate, would leave her with any manner of permanent brain damage.
“I called but you didn’t answer?” Cady sounded tentative.
She came in through the open doorway, her feet making a gentle clicking sound on the cement floor. She was wearing a navy wrap dress that accentuated the freckles at her bare throat and the red of her hair. A small, amber pendant hung to her cleavage.
She had come from a Christmas party. Devin didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. She was lovely and she smelled of heaven.
“I, ah…” Devin tracked her own voice and found her doppelganger struggling with a roll of thin, croissant dough, a rolling pin in her hands at a nearby counter. “I guess I got a little overwhelmed with this order.”
“This again?” She looked around for Tonya but couldn’t find Tonya anywhere. “Watching myself suck is super weird.”
“Just wait,” Tonya’s disconnected voice snickered. “This version of Devin has some serious moves.”
“Moves?” Devin didn’t know what she meant, but was not looking forward to finding out.
“I figured.” Cady put her hands on narrow hips and approached Devin 2.0. There was no animosity in her voice. There was no anger. “Care to take a break?”
Her hand fell on Other Devin’s back and fingered the outline of hard muscle beneath the Knight Bakery T-shirt she wore, fitted to her frame. She was slow and deliberate in her touch, almost afraid to be shut down, afraid to lose the moment that bloomed before them. There was an understanding there, between two bodies, and Real Devin got the sense that they had come together some time ago.
“I don’t want to bother you,” Cady backpedaled. “I know you… I know you have a lot going on.” Tenuously, she let her lips graze New Devin’s cheek. Her teeth nipped at Devin’s ear.
Hissing, Other Devin jerked at the contact. Her pulse quickened.
But then she hung her head. “I’m sorry.” Her words were guttural. “I didn’t mean for you to go to Miranda’s Christmas Party alone. I just… The time got away from me.”
Cady shrugged and was unrepentant. “I fell in love with you just the way you are,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to Deviated Devin’s mouth. “I fell in love with a savage woman who works her fingers to the bone for her family, and I wouldn’t have her any other way.” They were so close now; their bodies flush against one another.
Devin was surprised to see herself take Cady’s neck with one hand and pull her down for another kiss. “I love you, do you that?” she asked. “Do you know how much I love you? You’re the best Christmas present I could ask for.”
The line that should have been the hallmark of cheesy somehow wasn’t. Shared from one woman to the other, it was heartfelt.
Sensuously, painstakingly slowly so that Other Devin felt every lush curve, Cady slid her body between her partner’s arms, between her partner and the stainless steel worktable. Her rear sat up just high enough and her breasts thrust forward. “Then unwrap me, Devin. Right now.”
She let her hands fiddle with the neckline of her dress, pressing the pattern from her skin.
“Right now?” Devin was a predator on the prowl, not hesitant or worried. “Unwrap you here?”
“Right here.” Cady licked at her.
In a fluid motion, she lifted her body up onto the table, not caring for the flour or the dough, and spread her legs apart, revealing—
New Devin laughed, low in her throat. It was a sound her twin, silent and still, knew very well. It was a sound she well-remembered making, many times, back when she was—
“Oh, baby…” Improved-Devin’s hands wandered to Cady’s stomach, much flatter now than it had been in the previous vision. She tugged the string of the tie and let the flaps of fabric fall open, baring her naked skin beneath.
After a moment of stunned silence, Better-Devin wrapped Cady’s legs around her waist and moaned as she settled her hips in the cradle of her partner’s womb. Hands were set to mark what they wanted and prove the need that was rising. Devin sucked at Cady’s earlobe and found the sheath she needed, tore at scraps of cloth that kept her from her beloved, like a beast on a chain. Swift, nimble baker’s fingers found the crest at Cady’s core and she screamed out, reaching for something to hold, something to scratch. Devin was all too obliging with her stronger frame.
“Oh, how I need you,” she pined, as she held her lover’s gaze. “I want you. I love you.”
She began to thrust in earnest.
Cady pulled a leg up and draped it unabashedly over Devin’s shoulder, without restraint in her pursuit. “Don’t stop, Dev… Please…”
“I’ve got you, baby,” Devin was rasping.
I could stay inside this woman for hours, Devin instinctively knew.
The orgasm that took hold of Cady was hard and fast and soul-shattering and watching it—watching it made Not-Being-Laid Devin feel something, the vice grip of uncertainty and fear that had somehow wormed its way into her heart, squeezing out the promise of a real future inexplicably began to loosen. She began to loosen. The deafening roar of pressure and work and the unceasing pursuit of profits and perfection were driving away as if she was becoming unmoored from the tenets of her existence.
Could she really have this?
Could she really be so lucky?
Could she, after all this time—?
“Yes.” Tonya sounded close enough to touch but was nowhere to be seen. “You still have time.”
“But I don’t even know where to start.”
Six
“Excuse me!” Cady Brown tapped her foot on the oak floorboards of the bakery and wondered, rather foolishly, if the frenetic owner had wandered off laden with baked goods, forgetting to lock up in her wake. She seemed like that type—always ten steps ahead, always busy. From her cursory observations, they at least had that bit in common.
“Hello?” Her voice carried in the lonely space.
She checked her watch.
She really didn’t have time to be doing this Good Samaritan bit. She was supposed to be manning her booth for the parade, handing out flyers and free samples, showing her jewelry and selling a few small trinkets in the landslide before the holiday finish line. She needed to be shaking h
ands and putting in face time. The first few months of running the store had been rocky and she needed to be in the black to keep the lease on the building.
But here she was, like an idiot, re-delivering mail that had come to her by mistake because she waited until the last possible minute to do it.
“Anybody home?” Of course no one is home, she criticized. No one lives here. It’s just a bakery.
That was a farce if there ever was one. Knight Bakery wasn’t just anything. It was Knight Bakery, as in the Knight Bakery. It was a pillar of the community. Knight Bakery did every wedding of note, every festival in town. Knight Bakery catered every holiday dinner. Plus, their maple and bacon cupcakes were to die for.
“What…?” Cady’s ears perked up when she heard a slight sound, something part-cough and part-word. “Hello?” she shouted again. “Are you here?” She put the envelope on the counter and walked around the cash register, inspecting the space. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m…” The voice seemed disoriented. “I’m in the kitchen.”
“In the kitchen?” There was no one in the kitchen that Cady could see through the pass-through. She pushed open the swinging, saloon-style doors and marched in, her hair getting tangled in a sprig of mistletoe someone had hung far too low for comfort.
The woman—the owner, Devin Knight—was sprawled on the floor just to the right of the doorway. Her hands were over her eyes and her brows were twisted in agony.
“Oh my goodness!” Cady sank to her knees, abandoning any pretense of reticence. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Her hands were delicate as she reached down to pull Devin into a sitting position.
Up close, she was… Well, my loins haven’t felt like this in ages. She tried to shake those thoughts away. The poor woman is on the floor, Cady. She may be having a stroke and here I am waxing poetic about my loins.