I was not terribly sure how I could do all that. Not without help.
There was nothing I wanted more than to stay by Claire’s side but she would kill me if I let all her hard work go to waste.
I could either help her with it, which I doubted was a viable solution considering how out of it she was. Or, I could try to pick up the pieces and do my best with them. That meant I wasn’t going to be around to help Claire. The decision wasn’t terribly hard to make but I hoped it was the right one.
I knew Joanne and Claire were still a bit rocky. For the most part, Claire had forgiven her mother. But there was still a lot of lingering resentment.
Hoping that I was doing the right thing, I went to grab my phone from the nightstand in the bedroom. I dialed Joanne.
She answered in two rings. “Thomas? How are you?”
“Hi, Joanne. Sorry to bother you so early.”
“It’s fine, sweetie. What can I do for you?”
Sometimes it was hard to imagine this was the same woman who had run out on her family. The same person who had thought to sell her daughter for more drug money. “Claire’s sick-”
I didn’t get to say anything more. Either her maternal instincts kicked in or she was able to read the future. “I’ll be right over.” And just like that, she hung up.
That went a little better than I thought.
Not that I would have minded asking her. It was sweet that she wanted to help. I went back to Claire, knelt by her side and tucked her in, then went to the bathroom and got a damp washcloth to press to her forehead.
It made my heart ache to see her like that. But I wanted her to be proud of me. The only thing Claire should need to worry about right at that moment was getting better.
The business would be fine. She had taught me a lot in the last few days. All I needed to do was find her business plans.
While I waited on Joanne to get here I returned to the office and looked for anything that could hopefully hold the business plans she was going to use for the strategy meeting. It took me half an hour to find the thin black folder tucked away in a drawer.
There was a knock at the door.
Just in time.
Black folder in hand, I went to answer the door and welcome Joanne into our home. “You really didn’t have to come,” I tried to say.
In typical mom fashion, she steamrolled right over me. She had a small satchel with her. “It’s no trouble at all. Really, you would have had to bar your windows and doors to keep me away. I’ve missed so much of my daughter’s life. If I can help then let me.”
She looked me over, her eyes flashed to the folder then my face. “Well, can I?”
The answer was painfully obvious. “Definitely. I have a thousand things to do and absolutely zero ideas on how to do them.”
Joanne reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “Then let me do what a mother is supposed to do and take care of her child. All I need you to do is show me around so I know where things are.”
She rattled off a list of ingredients she needed and I showed her around the apartment. Towels, linens, hair ties, sprite, ginger ale, chicken noodle soup, and pain relievers.
When the brief tour was finished she hugged me with tears in her eyes.
My confused look made her break out into a small laugh. She was not the type of woman who laughed much and it was nearly as musical as her daughters, if rougher in timbre from disuse.
“What was that for?” I asked.
“You didn’t even flinch when I asked about the pain meds,” she said. “You didn’t think, not even for a moment, that you should hide them from me or that they might present a temptation. You treated me like a normal person and for that…” Tears shone in her eyes. “You cannot understand how much that means to me, Thomas. Thank you.”
She reached out for me and hugged me again, that time I had enough warning to reciprocate.
“I mean the strongest thing we have is ibuprofen,” I said attempting levity.
Joanne shot me a soft smile and then went to look over Claire. “She tried to cover up how bad she was feeling?”
I went around the couch and sank into the armchair nearby. The last thing I wanted to do was disturb Claire’s sleep. “Yeah, looks that way. She was gone when I woke up this morning, and I’m a pretty early riser.”
Her mother nodded thoughtfully, brushed back Claire’s hair with a tender touch. “She’s warm, have you taken her temperature?”
“Hundred-and-one.”
“She always had a strong immune system… when she was a little girl.” The pain was still raw in her voice. “She got ill fast but bounced back twice as quick as the other children.”
For a moment I held out a small fragment of hope that maybe I wouldn’t be needed to go to the meeting tomorrow. The signatures were easy enough to do. I could wait around reading the contract once it came and then when she was awake I could get her to sign it.
In the meantime, I needed to look over her business plan. Claire was a brilliant consultant, she thought several moves ahead. The problem being, I was not Claire. Her cunning plans flew right over my head and I often needed her to break them down for me.
Things that she took for granted as easily understood, I stumbled over.
“Thomas, sweetie.” I snapped back to the present, locked onto Joanne. “I’ve got this. If you need to go, go. I’ll be here as long as it takes.” She brushed her hand against Claire’s hair, muttering softly to her. “I’m not going anywhere. Not again.”
“Let’s go over this again,” I said sitting at a table set up in the back of the bakery.
Sam groaned. “Seriously, dude. I do not understand this legal fucking jargon.”
“Well you’re the only person around right now that can help me with some of this. I need to redraft what Claire’s written down in a way I can understand.”
“You need to dumb it down.”
“Yes, Sam, I need to dumb it down.”
It was late in the evening, the shop had already closed and rather than run up home again for the fiftieth time that day to check on Claire I decided to give her and Joanne a bit of peace.
Besides, I needed somewhere I could try and study Claire’s elegant swooping handwriting and decipher what she was trying to accomplish with this upcoming strategy meeting.
Sam elected to stay and help. Something I was pretty sure she was regretting.
“How was Jemma, today?” I asked instead.
“She jammed up the register ten times.”
“Was she pressing nine then five in sequence?”
Sam nodded.
That was a common issue with old mechanical registers. They each had their own little quirks. I liked to think of it as a personality.
The reality was, with so many moving parts and older standards not being quite as reliably tight as modern ones, there were a few issues.
My register, for example, would lock up if the nine and five keys were pressed one after the other. The trick was to press them at the same time.
I never could figure out why that worked, but it did and doing anything else would cause it to jam up, as Sam put it. Which took about a minute to reset properly.
Once that was gotten used to, the register was a breeze. And if the power ever went out, we could still sell things. Not that it did much in Sunrise Valley.
“Aside from that, she was good?”
“Yeah, a bit slow on learning some things but once she learns them the girl has her shit on lock.”
“How’s she like it?” I felt a little nosy asking but it was part of my job now. I needed to know how my employees felt. Without being constantly on hand to see for myself I only had Sam’s word if there was any issue or problem I should attend to.
I had to cater to a lot of different people now and that number of preferences and tastes would only grow as I added more employees to A Game of Scones.
More than anything, I wanted my business to be a place people enjoyed coming to work to.
As much as anybody could enjoy that.
“I mean, it’s a job.” Sam made a face at me. “But she really enjoyed chatting up all the guests. I think that was her favorite part. She would often get distracted and continue talking so I started handling the register while she packaged up the orders. It went pretty smooth after that.”
“That was something I was meaning to talk to you about. I think we should change to a model like that. Especially once we get enough people we’re going to want to cut through the line we have. It’s a little ridiculous to have people lined up outside the building.”
Sam shrugged. “Not like there’s that much room inside. A dozen tables is all you’ve got and they only seat two people each. Three if you really crammed people in.”
What we really needed to do was expand. It had always been a pipe dream of mine to merge A Novel Place and A Game of Scones into one large store that served both. Like a boutique version of Borders or Barnes & Noble.
Not that I wanted to turn into something large like that. But I always enjoyed the rich, luxurious smell of books and coffee. There was something intoxicating about it that made me feel like everything was going to be okay.
Ideally, we would convert the entire two floors into a single shop and have books, coffee, and baked goods with a small eatery area upstairs and out on the sidewalk.
Though the way things stood now, that was pretty much impossible. While the bakery was doing well, it wasn’t doing well enough to suddenly pull out major loans in order to renovate. This was the first month I was able to pay on time without any issues.
Hard to think it hadn’t been much more than a month since Claire came back to town.
Sam snapped her fingers in my face to bring me back to reality. “Don’t you have some complicated work to get through?”
With a sigh, I bent my head back to Claire’s documents.
Between redrafting Claire’s business plan into something I could wrap my head around and sifting through the three-pound contract for any surprises, I was mentally drained by the next day.
Claire was still sick and I was bound up with so much worry over her and guilt for not being there that I barely slept at all. I kept getting up in the middle of the night to check on her only to find Joanne there propped up in the armchair, fast asleep.
I didn’t have the heart to ask her to leave and she barely seemed to mind that we didn’t have a spare bed for her. The only comment she had about that was a rather coy, “You’re going to need another room once you’re married.” I didn’t have the wherewithal to comment on it at the time.
I sat in Blake Dawson’s office at my wit’s end because I realized there was absolutely no way I could look over the contract and do everything else. Something had to give and he had once offered to help me as he had helped Richard.
I only hoped that the offer was still valid.
“From the looks of this, it seems a pretty straightforward contract,” said Dawson, thumbing through the brick of paper I dumped onto his desk. He gave me a wolfish grin at the face I pulled. “Granted, it’s so airtight you could send it into space. If you give me a day, I can comb through it properly and make sure there’s nothing in the language that’ll work against you.”
Relief washed over me like a cool breeze in the heat of summer. “I would really appreciate that, Mister Dawson.”
“Please, call me Blake.” He came around the desk and shook my hand as I stood. “And don’t worry about my fee, I won’t accept a red cent from you.”
“I really appreciate it, Blake. Truth be told, I’m floundering here without Claire.”
The effect on Blake was instant. He looked like somebody struck by lightning, everything locked up and the amiable shake tightened. He let go of my hand and gave me a shrewd look. “What do you mean?”
For the first time in the last couple of days, I laughed at the comical expression on his face and doubly so because I knew where his mind probably leaped to.
“She’s sick, with the flu I think. I’ve got a meeting to go to in her stead tomorrow that I am nowhere near prepared for, need to vet this contract - thank you again, by the way - and still have all my normal duties at the bakery.”
Dawson nodded, the tension bled out of his shoulders.
He went back to his desk and dropped into the expensive leather chair. “I’m sorry to hear that. Give her my best, will you? And like I said, give me a day with the contract and I’ll tell you if there’s anything you might want to watch out for.”
“I appreciate it.” I was out of his office and back into the waiting room with his daughter’s eyes firmly latched onto me. I gave her a hasty wave goodbye, didn’t engage her any further and headed to my car in the parking lot.
“Weller!” I froze in my tracks.
Now what?
I recognized those shrill tones anywhere. Sandy Miller. She had a flower shop out of the same commercial space that Dawson had his practice.
We used to be friends, once upon a time. Then she got it into her head that I sniped the Main Street property she was looking at and we hadn’t really talked since.
Mostly, I tried to stay clear of her shop. Lately though, my avoidance of her was the last thing on my mind. I had so much else to do that I hadn’t even thought about her seeing me walk into Blake’s practice.
I turned around, saw the wiry young woman with fiery-red hair marching towards me, her freckled nose scrunched up. I really do not have time for this, today of all days.
“Miller,” I said by way of greeting.
When she got into range I thought she was going to hit me. Instead, she threw her arms around me and pulled me into a hug. I was so shocked by it that I nearly toppled into her.
“How the hell have you been?” she slapped me on the arm after she let go of the hug.
“Busy,” I answered truthfully. God, if that isn’t the fucking truth. “Everything’s really hectic today and I don’t have a lot of time, I’m sorry.” I raked a hand through my hair, pulled it back with the motion. “If you wanna catch up, you can come to the bakery. On the house.”
Sandy gave me a sour smile I thought was going to turn into something worse. Instead, she hugged me again. “That sounds lovely, I’m not a huge fan of the lines, however. Even though that has been one of the main drives to my business. So many people stop by after driving around looking for another bakery that they see my shop and stop in!”
That was the weirdest improvement I’ve heard yet about how the influx of people had helped another business. That reminded me to give Alice a call, I had been meaning to set up something with our two businesses.
“How about you swing by around seven some night, I’m usually there and there aren’t many people in the shop. It’s one of the best-kept secrets apparently.”
Sandy rolled her eyes at me. “That’s because most people come in for the morning and leave before it’s too late. There’s nowhere to stay in town so the trip for a lot of people is a few hours. I’ll take you up on that offer soon, don’t you forget about me and lock me out!”
My lips twitched into a grin at her brief tirade. “I would unlock the doors for you if I saw you out there.” I gave her a brief wave. “I really have to run, feel free to drop by anytime Sandy.”
Thoughts ran rampant in my head as I hopped into the Caprice and rolled out of the parking lot, heading back home. At least I didn’t have to worry about that damned contract now.
A quick check on my phone told me I had just enough time to swing by my place, take a quick shower, suit up, and get to the meeting. Thankfully, it was in the same place as before and I had paid enough attention to know where to go.
The GPS in the valley could be a little wonky at times. It didn’t have a good grasp on some of the country roads that we had to use and would often have the most circuitous paths mapped out for a simple two-mile trip.
I got back to the apartment, noticed Claire was asleep and gave her a kiss on the forehead. It was slightly slick with sweat, a
good sign her fever had broken I hoped.
When I straightened up to go, her hand reached out and grabbed weakly at mine. I was down on my knees beside her in a heartbeat. “Claire? Hi, how are you feeling?”
She put my hand against her cheek and nuzzled it. “I feel like death, which is better than I was feeling yesterday. At least… I think it was yesterday.” Her eyes glazed over and then snapped to mine, bright as broken glass. “The meeting! Oh no, no, no. I forgot about the meeting. You have to help me get up.”
Claire tried to pull herself up but I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and kept her there. I was already a lot stronger than her but this was just not fair. It was like trying to hold a baby bird down.
My chest hurt to see her so weak and sickly. All I wanted was to spend time babying her and taking care of her and I couldn’t even do that right.
What a great absent father I’d be. I thought sourly.
“It’s okay,” I said reassuringly. “I found your business plan and I understand enough of it to hold my own.” At least, that was my hope. Claire didn’t need to know how shaky I felt about the whole thing. “I took the contract to Dawson, you know your dad’s lawyer friend.”
There was a faint glimmer of recognition there.
I pressed on before she could interrupt and demand I take her to the meeting anyway. “He’ll look over the contract and get back to me by tomorrow. In the meantime I’m here to shower and change into a suit and tie for the meeting then I’ll be back. Once it’s all over I’ll spend all night with you. How’s that sound?”
A soft, lovely smile blessed her face. My heart swelled at the sight.
And then she threw up all over my shirt.
15
Thomas
It was a good thing I had to take a shower anyway. I helped clean Claire up, guided her to the bucket and held back her hair. Joanne rushed out from the hallway bathroom and was by our side in a moment.
Bun in Her Oven Page 11