The Sea Star Bakery: A Willa Bay Novel

by Nicole Ellis

  She’d been up late last night working at the Lodge, then had gone over to the Inn that morning to help Zoe with some last-minute changes to the kitchen renovation plans. There had been too many of these long days in the last month, and now she was paying the price.

  “You okay?” her boss, Taylor Argo, asked. While she’d been caught in a daze, he’d seemingly materialized across from her like a ghost.

  Meg jumped, causing the desk chair to lurch backward in an unsettling manner. Well, now she was fully awake. “I’m fine, just a little tired.”

  He grabbed a stack of books off his desk and moved them to a bookshelf in the corner of the room, then peered at her closely. “Were you out at the Inn this morning? You look like you could use more sleep.”

  She forced a smile. “I’ll be okay once I have another cup of coffee.” She didn’t want to complain too much because her boss had been incredibly understanding about the situation. He knew she’d bought a resort with her friends and would be leaving her position at the Lodge in a few months to open up a restaurant that would directly compete with his. He’d acted happy for her and assured her that her job at the Lodge was available for her for as long as she wanted it.

  “Hmm …” He stared at her with skepticism. “How about you go get that coffee now.”

  She pointed at the computer screen. “It’ll only take a few more minutes, I promise. I want to get this complete before I start the dinner prep.”

  “Okay, but let me know if you need help. I’m worried about you.” Taylor took a final look at her, then exited the room, his long white chef’s jacket swinging behind him, and his spiky black hair barely clearing the top of the doorframe.

  Meg finished the vegetable order for the weekend and submitted it online to their produce vendor. She got up from the desk and yawned loudly. Now it was definitely time for that cup of coffee, or she wouldn’t make it through the rest of the evening.

  Taylor was cooking something on the range but turned and smiled at her as she walked past. In the main part of the kitchen, her friend Cassie was carefully lifting sugar cookies in the shape of butterflies off a baking sheet and placing them on a wire rack to cool.

  “Hey,” Cassie said, without taking her eyes off the task. “I’m almost done here. Want to take a break with me?”

  “Definitely.” For Meg, the best thing about working at the Lodge having her two good friends working there with her. Now that Zoe had quit, it was only Cassie left. It still seemed odd that she wouldn’t see Zoe zooming around the Lodge as she effortlessly juggled multiple events at the same time. “I was going to pour myself a cup of coffee. Want one?”

  “Sure.” Cassie walked over to the dish sink with the empty tray. “A few of the cookies didn’t turn out quite right, so we can have them as treats.” She removed a container of light-yellow frosting from the refrigerator and brought it over to her worktable.

  Meg settled at the other end of the counter with two mugs of coffee, perching atop a tall barstool. Cassie quickly frosted two of the butterfly cookies that had lost a portion of their wings and slid them onto plates before joining Meg. “You look awful,” Cassie said.

  Meg was just about to bite into her cookie, but stopped and set it down on the plate. “I know. I feel awful. There’s just not enough time in the day to work here and at the Inn. I feel so bad leaving it all to Zoe and Shawn, though. I need to do my share.”

  “Didn’t the three of you decide that it would be best for you to keep your job until it was time to turn the barn into a restaurant?” Cassie reminded her.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think I’d feel this guilty about letting them do all the work.” She took a big bite of the buttery sugar cookie, her teeth sinking into the soft frosting. The infusion of caffeine and sugar was making her feel better, but she knew it would be short-lived. Something had to give. “Do you ever wish you’d taken Celia up on her offer to buy into the Inn too?” Meg asked.

  Cassie wiped a few crumbs from her mouth with a paper napkin. “No. I know it’s a great opportunity, but I don’t think it’s the right one for me at the moment. I mean, everyone’s been bugging me about taking the lease on Edgar’s Bakery, and I don’t even think I could make that work. I’m kind of in a weird place with everything going on at home and my cake decorating business. I don’t want to rock the boat with a huge business endeavor.”

  Taylor came into the kitchen, followed by a man pushing a dolly stacked high with boxes. He led the man to the walk-in refrigerator, then came over to where Meg and Cassie were talking.

  He sighed, then asked in a formal tone, “Meg, when you’re done, can I please have a word with you?”

  Meg almost choked on her cookie. She’d never heard Taylor so somber. “Uh, sure. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “I don’t mean to rush you, it’s not an emergency.” Taylor shifted in his blue converse sneakers.

  Meg and Cassie exchanged glances.

  “We’re almost done here.” Cassie stood and gathered their crumb-strewn plates.

  Taylor nodded. “I’ll be in my office.”

  Meg stared down at her coffee, then up at Cassie. “What do you think that’s all about?” Her stomach clenched. Very little fazed Taylor, but his expression had been so serious. Was he having second thoughts about her working at the Lodge?

  “I don’t know.” Cassie shrugged. “I’m sure it’s nothing, though. Taylor loves you.” She smirked. “Literally.”

  Meg glared at her. “This isn’t the time, Cass. He actually looked upset.”

  Cassie was fond of the idea that Taylor had a crush on Meg. Once in a while, he did something that made her wonder if Cassie was right, but she usually brushed off her friend’s romantic notions.

  “Well, good luck,” Cassie said. “I’m going to finish frosting these cookies and then head home, but let me know what Taylor says.”

  “I will.” Meg took a deep breath, walked to Taylor’s office door, and rapped on it sharply.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Meg opened the door and stood there awkwardly, something she hadn’t done since her first day at the Lodge when she’d had newbie jitters. “Hey. You wanted to see me?”

  His face was drawn as he gestured for her to sit down across from him. When she was seated, he said, “I hate having to have this conversation with you, but I thought you should know.” She held her breath as he picked up a stack of dinner menus. “The menus you printed out for tonight are from a month ago.”

  She stared at the menus he held out. Sure enough, the date at the top was May. “I’m so sorry. I must have printed the wrong ones.” She shook her head. “It won’t happen again.”

  He smiled at her softly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but this isn’t the first error you’ve made in the last few weeks – there have been several mistakes with customer entrées and an issue with the meat order last week.” He leaned across the desk at her. “Between the Inn and your work here, you’re exhausted and off your game. I’m worried about you.” Kindness and caring radiated from his eyes, and she breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to fire her.

  “I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say. At this point, quitting the Lodge didn’t seem like a viable option, and she couldn’t shirk her duties at the Inn either.

  He sighed. “It’s okay. I just wanted to make you aware of it and let you know that I’m here for you if you need me.” He peered at her. “I know the Inn is important to you, but when you’re here at the Lodge, I need you at your best.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  “If you need help, let me know,” he said, his gaze still focused on her.

  “Okay. I definitely will. Thank you again for telling me about the menus.” She pushed back and blindly stood from her chair, her brain numb. How was she going to make all of this work? She softly closed Taylor’s office door and walked back out into the kitchen.

  Cassie was leaning against the wall, facing away from Meg as she peeked around th
e corner. “Cassie, what’s wrong?” Meg asked.

  Cassie held a finger to her lips. “Shh.” She motioned for Meg to follow her a few feet, then pointed wordlessly at the partially cracked open door of the walk-in refrigerator.

  Meg cocked her head to the side. “Uh … I didn’t leave that open.”

  Cassie sighed. “Lara’s here to get a cake out of the cooler, and she’s full of ‘good’ news about her plans to lease the bakery space from Edgar. I think she just wanted to rub it in that she’s getting her own bakery.”

  “Oh.” Meg frowned. “I thought you didn’t want to start your own place right now. Do you?”

  Cassie bit her lip, and her eyes glistened. “I don’t know. It’s a pipe dream. I would have loved to lease the bakery, but I simply can’t afford it.” She cast another glance at the refrigerator door. “It seems like Lara always gets what she wants.” A tear beaded in the corner of her eye, and she swiped it away with the back of her hand. “I know it’s irrational, but I can’t help thinking that life is so unfair. I’ve worked hard to build my cake decorating business in Willa Bay, and Lara just swoops back to town and immediately comes out on top.”

  “Ah.” Meg eyed her thoughtfully. “Could you still lease the space if you wanted to?”

  “I don’t know.” Cassie’s looked down at her shoes. “It sounds like she has it pretty wrapped up.”

  As if on cue, Lara exited the refrigerator with a rolling cart in tow. A tall cake sat atop the cart. Precise bands of forest green lace had been piped onto a bottom base of snow-white fondant. Little silver flowers were artfully arranged around each tier. However Meg and Cassie might feel about Lara, she did have talent.

  “Hi, Meg,” Lara said. “Nice to see you again.”

  Meg nodded and forced out a nicety. “Your cake is beautiful.”

  Lara beamed. “I know.” She eyed Cassie, tilted her chin up, and turned back to Meg. “This is for one of the biggest weddings of the year that’s happening tomorrow. For some reason, they wanted to get the cake a day early.”

  “Ah.” Meg wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t want to further inflate Lara’s ego or to upset Cassie, who looked like she was fighting hard to keep from saying something nasty to Lara. “Well, I’m sure it will be a beautiful wedding.”

  “It will.” Lara shut the refrigerator door. “It’ll be nice to have my own place soon. I assume you’ve heard I plan to lease Edgar’s old bakery space?”

  “Uh-huh,” Meg said.

  Lara wrinkled her nose. “It’s going to take a lot of work to make that place presentable, but it’ll do.”

  Cassie clenched her hands into fists, and Meg searched for a change of subject. “Do you need help getting the cake out to your car?”

  “I’m fine. I have a custom van to transport the cakes.” Lara checked the clock on the wall. “I’d better get moving, though. I have a new client to meet after I drop off this cake at the wedding venue.” She threw a smug look at Cassie, who shifted her gaze to the floor.

  When Lara was out of the room, Cassie crumpled against the wall. “I really hate her.” She sighed. “I know I tell my kids not to say ‘hate’ but it seems to fit how I feel about Lara Camden.”

  Meg loathed seeing her friend so miserable. “I’m sorry. If it makes you feel better, I think I saw a small flaw in the back of the cake.”

  Cassie’s face brightened. “Thanks. That does help a little.” Her face turned cloudy again. “But it doesn’t help with the long-term implications of all of this. If Lara leases the bakery, she’ll have room to expand her cake decorating business, whereas I’m about to lose my space in your mom’s commercial kitchen. There just isn’t enough capacity for both their catering business and my cakes. I don’t want to go back to using the Lodge’s kitchen because I can’t rely on it being available.”

  “So, lease the bakery.” Meg shrugged. “If you feel that strongly about it, beat Lara at her own game.”

  “I can’t.” Cassie straightened and strode forward a few steps. “I’ll just have to figure something else out.” She flashed a smile at Meg. “Thanks for being such a good friend and hating Lara along with me.”

  Meg grinned at her. “That’s not too big a hardship.”

  “I’m heading home now,” Cassie said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “See you later,” Meg answered. After Cassie left the kitchen, Meg realized that she’d never told her friend why Taylor had called her into his office. With how Cassie was feeling, though, it was probably for the best. She didn’t want to add any other worries to Cassie’s already full plate.

  Meg got to work on preparing produce for the evening’s entrées, taking even more care than normal to make sure everything was cut precisely. Taylor had been very understanding about her recent mistakes, but she didn’t want to give him any more reasons to find fault with her performance, or to make him feel conflicted between his roles as both her friend and her boss.

  4

  Kyle

  “Knock, knock.” Kyle looked up from his computer to see Dana Timonds in his open office doorway, her red manicured fingernails bright against the light wood of the frame. Unlike many of the younger employees at the CPA firm, she’d never taken to casual Fridays and was wearing some kind of black jumper-type dress with a red blazer over it.

  He looked up from his computer and smiled at her. “Come in.” He and Dana had worked together for over ten years, both coming to Johnson & Associates as accounting majors fresh out of college. They’d always been competitive as they earned their CPA licenses and worked their way up in the firm, but had remained friends through it all.

  She came over to his desk, the spikes on her high heels catching on the thin pile carpet with every step. She pulled out the chair across from him and slid into it. “Promotions are coming up next week. Have you heard anything yet?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. You?” Their firm always issued promotions after the spring tax season, and this year both he and Dana were up for senior manager positions.

  She shook her head, then leaned across the desk. “I heard Andrew was being offered a shareholder position.”

  “Seriously?” Kyle asked. “He’s only been a senior manager for a year.”

  She shrugged. “It’s all about who you know and kiss up to, I guess.” She glanced at the silver watch on her wrist. “I have a client meeting in a few minutes, but I’ll catch you for happy hour tonight, right?”

  He smiled. “Yep. I’ll be there.” Now that he didn’t have Cassie and the kids to come home to at the end of a long day, he’d found himself hanging out more often with the single crowd at work. It wasn’t that he necessarily liked going out with them, but it was better than the alternative of returning to an empty apartment at the end of the work day.

  After Dana left his office, Kyle shot a furtive glance at his office door, then opened the top drawer of his desk. He looked down at the framed photo he kept in there of Cassie, the kids, and him out at the beach. His mom had taken the photo about two years before the divorce, back when things between him and Cassie were good. He kept school photos of Jace and Amanda on his desk, but after he and Cassie split up, it felt weird to keep this picture out in the open. He’d thought of taking it home, but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it.

  He focused on Cassie’s cheerful smile. She’d always had a way of making family events so much fun for everyone. He missed that. Although they’d recently made an effort to do more as a family, it was bittersweet, because it made memories of happier times between the two of them seem not so distant. At the pizza parlor, however, Cassie had made it quite clear that she didn’t need a man in her life, especially him. Her comment about not wanting to be dependent on anyone for a while had stung. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and slid the drawer shut.

  When she’d announced that she wanted a divorce, it had seemed to come out of nowhere. To be fair, they’d attended a few couples counseling sessions, and while she didn’t
seem as happy as she used to be, he’d thought everything was still fine between them. Maybe not like it had been before, but change was a normal part of marriage, right?

  He’d been so focused on building his career as a tax accountant that he hadn’t paid enough attention to what Cassie needed. He hadn’t noticed her becoming more distant or expressing interest in pursuing a career in cake decorating, although she claimed she’d told him several times.

  He pushed his chair back from his desk and ran his fingers through his hair. Apparently, there had been a lot of things he hadn’t noticed, both with Cassie and with their kids. He intended to change that, though. It was too late to save his marriage, but he could still make an effort to be there for his kids.

  He glanced out the frosted glass wall in his office as blurry shapes made their way down the hallway. Did he even want the promotion? It was the next natural progression in his career, but it would mean an increase in hours and possibly more travel. Thinking about the partners at the firm, a few were happily married, but a greater percentage were older men on their second or third families. His stomach lurched. When he and Cassie were first married, he could never have predicted that they’d eventually divorce. He’d already made the mistake of letting this job come before his family in the past – would a promotion make things even worse?

  He looked at the small photos of the kids. Jace had recently been diagnosed with autism, and Cassie wanted to get him into some of the therapies the nurse practitioner had recommended. Their insurance would cover part of it, but not all. Amanda was getting older and was asking for gymnastics lessons. Judging by their crooked teeth, both kids would need braces soon. He needed the money this promotion could offer.

  Kyle’s desk phone rang and he picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Call from Mr. Andreas,” announced the receptionist in a chirpy voice. “He wants to talk to you about quarterly taxes.”