Kneaded to Death

by Winnie Archer

  DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

  Olaya’s voice, this time full of concern, made me turn around. “That’s Jackie’s car,” she said to Consuelo and Martina. She took a step toward it. “Is she . . .”

  “Sitting in it,” Consuelo finished. Instantly, the three sisters started across the parking lot, headed for the silver sedan parked smack in the middle. It was in one of the darker areas, away from the light of the street lamps.

  The police officers had Randy Russell handcuffed and in the back of their cruiser, and were now talking to Miguel Baptista. He stood firmly rooted to the ground, his arms folded over his chest, hands pressed flat beneath his armpits. All that had changed about him was the fact that he’d grown from the attractive young man he’d been in high school to the ruggedly good-looking man who’d just single-handedly saved the day.

  My heart went from clenching to fluttering and I kicked myself. Getting involved with Miguel Baptista again was not going to happen. And yet—

  A blood-curdling scream broke through my thoughts.

  “Jackie!” Consuelo’s voice was raw and fragile.

  Even in the dark, I could see Olaya make the sign of the cross, touching her fingers to her forehead, the center of her chest, her left shoulder, and then her right. “¡Dios mio!”

  At the first scream, Miguel was running toward the women and Jackie’s car, the two police officers right behind him.

  Martina had backed away from the sedan. Consuelo had buckled over, looking like she was hyperventilating. Only Olaya seemed to have kept herself under control. “She’s dead,” I heard her say. “It’s Jackie. I think she’s . . . yes . . . she’s dead.”

  Books by Winnie Archer

  Kneaded to Death

  Kneaded to Death

  Winnie Archer

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

  Books by Winnie Archer

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Gruyère and Black Pepper Popovers

  Conchas

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by Winnie Archer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-0772-7

  First Kensington Mass Market Edition: March 2017

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0773-4

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-0773-7

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: March 2017

  Chapter One

  Santa Sofia is a magical town, nestled between the Santa Lucia Mountain Range and the Pacific Ocean on California’s Central Coast. I’ve always seen it as the perfect place. Not too big, not too small. Historic and true to its commitment to remain a family-oriented place to live. The town accomplished this goal by having more bikes than people, concerts in the park, and a near perfect seventy degrees almost year-round.

  I had been gone from my hometown since college but had come back when a horrible accident destroyed our lives as we knew them, taking my mother far too young and leaving my father, my brother, and me bereft and empty. We were still struggling to make sense of what had happened and how a nondescript sedan had backed right into her as she walked behind it in the parking lot at the high school where she’d taught.

  “No one saw anything. It was a hit-and-run,” my best friend, Emmaline, had told me sadly. “She never saw it coming, and the doctors say she didn’t suffer.”

  That made no sense to me. She was run over by a car. There had to have been pain and suffering, even if it was brief. I relived what I imagined were my mother’s last moments. The split second when she saw the truck backing up, realizing that it was coming too fast and that she couldn’t get out of the way in time; the impact when it first made contact, hurling her back against the asphalt; the force of the vehicle as it rolled over her. I caught my breath, swallowing the agony I knew she’d felt.

  The final result of the tragedy was the emptiness of being back in Santa Sofia without her. The place where I was born and raised no longer filled me with the comfort it used to. Things were different now; six months later, I was still trying to pick up the pieces.

  Since I was a little girl, taking photographs had always been my saving grace. Capturing the beauty or heartbreak or pure, unbridled emotions in the world around me showed me how small I was in the scheme of things. At the same time, it allowed me to revel in the moments I captured, treasuring each one as a work of art in and of itself. My mother had given me a camera when I was nine years old and constantly in her hair. “It’ll keep you busy,” she’d told me, and it had. I had picked up that camera and had never put it down again. Now I had a degree in design and photography. I’d started a photography blog to keep my creative juices flowing, posting a picture a day. I’d had a vibrant business in Austin. But I was floundering. Since I lost my mother, finding inspiration had become a challenge. My voice had been silenced, it seemed, and I had nothing more to say with the images through the lens.

  This lack of direction and the loss of my creative vision are what led me to Yeast of Eden, the bread shop in Santa Sofia. I might be able to end my dry spell if I could find inspiration somewhere. Somehow. But now, as I stood at the doorway, one hand on the handle, I wondered what in the hell I’d been thinking. Baking? A pan of brownies from a boxed mix? Sure. A batch of chocolate chip cookies, courtesy of the recipe on the back of the Nestlé package? Definitely. But from-scratch bread? Not in my wheelhouse. Baking was a far cry from finding beauty through the lens of a camera. The mere thought that I was even contemplating this bit of craziness clearly meant that I was under duress.

  True, I’d been to the local bread shop every day since I’d moved back to Santa Sofia. Truth be told, the place was becoming my home away from home, but that did not give me the right to think I could actually make the stuff. And it certainly didn’t mean baking would solve my problems. Grief had to run its course. I knew this, but the reality was that I’d never not feel the emptiness inside.

  An image of my dad popped into my head. “What did you bring today?” he regularly asked me. It was becomi
ng almost a joke, because I’d already cycled through nearly everything Yeast of Eden had to offer . . . twice. Baguettes. Sourdough. Croissants. Rye. Wheat pumpernickel. Focaccia.

  Check.

  Check.

  Check.

  Check.

  Check.

  And check.

  There were so many choices, and I loved them all. But I did have my favorites. The flaky, buttery croissant in the morning or a crusty sourdough roll at lunch—these were the staples. On a sunny day, the pumpernickel with sliced turkey and cheese hit the spot. When it was rainy, I bought a round loaf of French bread, turned it into a bread bowl, and filled it with homemade chowder.

  But this time I wasn’t here to buy bread; I was here to get my hands dirty, so to speak. To plunge them into a bowl of dough and knead, knead, knead. And somehow, despite logic and despite reason, I knew that it was going to be life changing. I had no idea how . . . or why, but as sure as I was standing on the cobbled sidewalk in Santa Sofia, and as sure as the breeze off the Pacific Ocean blew through me, I was 100 percent certain that the bread-baking class at Yeast of Eden was going to send me on a new trajectory.

  But was I ready?

  Before I had the chance to answer that question in my head, the door opened, and a woman in a colorful caftan and red clogs, hands firmly on her hips, emerged. Her iron-gray hair was cropped short and loose, playful curls danced over her head. Her green eyes, heavily flecked with gold, stared me down. “Ven aqui, m’ija,” she said to me in Spanish, as if I could understand her. Which I could not. “You have to come inside to change your life.”

  I jumped, startled. “To change my . . . what? I’m sorry. What?”

  “You don’t think I recognize you? You, mi amor, are here every day. You have discovered the magic of this place, and now you want more.” She smiled, her eyebrows lifting in a quick movement that seemed to say “I see this every day.” “Come in. We’re all waiting.”

  “You’re all . . . ?” I stared. “Who’s waiting?”

  This time the woman laughed. She threw her head back and gave a hearty guffaw that made me take a step back. Of course, I recognized her, too. Her daily authoritative presence had made it easy to deduce that the woman owned Yeast of Eden. “The rest of the bakers, por supuesto.”

  Her laughter seeped into me, and despite myself, I felt a smile tilt my lips upward, but I bit down to stop it from being fully realized. Being happy was simply not okay. How could it be when I’d lost my mother just a few short months ago, and when my dad, my brother, and I were hanging on to each other just to get by? My grief had become part of me. It was embedded in my soul. Trapped in my pores. Smiling felt like a betrayal of my sorrow. A betrayal of my mother.

  The woman watched me with a gaze that seemed to burrow through every bit of me. Her voice softened. “It will be all right, you know.”

  A flurry of goose bumps danced over my skin. I’d spoken to this woman no more than a handful of times, and the interactions were always superficial and cursory, and yet somehow she seemed to know exactly what I was feeling. I tried to school my expression. I tended to show every one of my emotions on my face the very second I felt them; I was working on that particular problem.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, my voice a little more indignant than I’d intended it to be.

  She considered me again and then gave a succinct nod. “Está bien, m’ija. Come in then.” She held the door open, letting me pass. “It is time to bake some bread.”

  “I’m not . . . I’ve never . . . I don’t cook, you know,” I said, already apologizing for the future failure I was afraid might happen once I got into the kitchen.

  “Perhaps not yet, but you will . . . ,” she said, letting the words trail away, and just like that, I felt as if I really might be able to do the impossible and learn this new, tantalizing skill.

  She flipped the sign hanging in the window to show CLOSED and locked the door. I followed her deeper into the bread shop, the scent of fresh-baked bread swirling around me and enveloping me like a cocoon. As I breathed in, letting it soak into me for just a moment, I felt the grief that was always with me soften around the edges. For the first time since I could remember, it ebbed and I felt my lungs open up.

  I followed her flowing caftan–clad body through the swinging doors, which led to the back room. “La cocina,” she said, gesturing wide with her arms. “This is my favorite place in the world. Settle in, m’ija. This is where you belong.”

  I didn’t know if she was right about that, but I let the comment go, instead looking at the other women gathered around the room. They had been chattering excitedly, but their voices had tapered off as we walked in.

  “It’s about time,” one of the women said, her gaze trained on the bread shop owner. “At long last. Lista? Are you finally ready?”

  “Keep your pantalones on, Consuelo.” The iron-haired woman wagged a finger at the one called Consuelo, and I noticed how alike they looked. Sisters. They had to be. Consuelo was a few inches taller and her hair was dyed a deep brown, but they had the same eyes, the same nose, slightly curved down at the end, and the same hollowed cheekbones.

  The other women in the kitchen were of varying ages. I placed the owner—I still didn’t know her name—in her early sixties; Consuelo, a few years younger; and another woman, who was wearing wide-legged black pants, a T-shirt with a cardigan over it, and slip-on sandals, somewhere in her late fifties. Three others were closer to my age.

  I stepped forward and gave a little wave. “I’m Ivy Culpepper.”

  The owner’s eyebrows flicked up again, as if something she’d thought had just been validated. “And I’m Olaya,” she said. “Olaya Solis. This is my shop. Bread baked the way it used to be made back in Mexico.”

  The comfort I’d felt when I’d walked into the shop and breathed in the scent of bread deepened. It almost seemed as if we were connected somehow, this woman and me. But the moment I thought it, I shook the thought away. It was ridiculous. I’d been away from Santa Sofia for nearly a decade, and before I started coming to Yeast of Eden, I’d never laid eyes on Olaya Solis.

  But still . . .

  Olaya stepped up so that she was even with me, and started pointing. “Consuelo is my sister. Y tambien. . . so is Martina.”

  The woman in the cardigan, Martina, lifted her chin and gave a slight smile and a shy wave.

  “Martina is the quiet one in the family,” Consuelo said, her own voice booming.

  Consuelo definitely was not the quiet one. They were three sisters who might be different from one another, but they had each other. I had a brother, and while we were close, it wasn’t the same as what I imagined having a sister would be like.

  “I’m Jolie,” one of the younger women said. She looked to be in her mid- to late twenties, maybe not around the corner from my own thirty-six years, but relatively close. She had long, straight black hair, which she’d pulled back into a careless ponytail. I inadvertently touched my own mop of curly ginger locks. I looked just like my mom, which I was grateful for, but as a result, I generally appear just a touch disheveled and not nearly as effortlessly put together as Jolie appeared. My hair looked like it had been shampooed with liquid paprika and made my green eyes sparkle like shiny emeralds. I’d pulled it up, wrapped it around and around, and tied it with a hair band.

  My whole childhood, I’d longed for the sleek look that Jolie had, instead of the free spirit presence that I’d inherited from my mother. I waited for that old, familiar feeling of envy to seep in . . . but it didn’t. Jolie was a beauty, but for the first time, I consciously realized that while I wasn’t gorgeous like she was, I was okay with who I was. More than okay. I loved looking in the mirror and catching a glimpse of where I came from. Of who I came from.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “There was a teacher—Mrs. Culpepper—at the high school. English, I think. Are you . . . ?”

  “She was my mother,” I said, glancing away.<
br />
  “Wasn’t she . . . was she . . . ,” Jolie began, but she trailed off.

  One of the other young women finished for her. “There was a hit-and-run at the school a few months ago.”

  “It was a horrible accident.” I managed to keep my voice from quavering.

  “Oh!” Jolie’s jaw dropped. “I’m sorry.”

  Olaya placed her hand on my back, a comforting gesture. “Let’s get to our baking,” she said, sensing that I didn’t want to talk about my mother’s death. She introduced the other two young women as Sally and Becky. They each lifted their hands in a quick wave, and we all found our spaces at the counter. Each station had a name tag with a name neatly printed on it. Next to the name was a drawing of an apron. From what I could see, each apron was unique. As Olaya directed me to my station, I saw that even I had a name tag.

  I spun around to look at her, raising my eyebrows in puzzlement. “How . . . ?”

  “I knew you’d be coming,” she answered.

  I couldn’t fathom how she’d known with such certainty that I’d come to this baking class when I hadn’t even known for sure. But there was my name, my station, a lovely petit four, and an apron, all waiting for me. Each baking station had been equipped with a large mixing bowl, a container of flour, ajar of yeast, and the other essential ingredients for bread making, as well as a glass of ice water for our own hydration. I immediately took a deep sip, steadying my nerves. Only one empty station—water and petit four untouched—remained. Everyone else seemed to have eaten their sweet treat. I followed suit and nibbled mine.

  Olaya took her place behind the stainless-steel center island and began talking. I’d detected a slight accent when she first met me at the door to Yeast of Eden, but now, as she spoke about the history of bread making in Mexico, it became more pronounced. “I know what you are thinking,” she said. “Tortillas, yes? The bread of Mexico has always been tortillas. And yes, I make and sell Mexico’s traditional fare once in a while. But bread . . .” She gestured toward the swinging doors, which led back to the front of the now closed shop and the display cases that were littered with what was left of the day’s baked goods. “I have been baking bread since I was a little girl. Once I started, I never stopped.”