Always the Baker, Finally the Bride (12 page)

I’m so grateful that you could meet with me this late in the day.”

“Not a problem,” Emma replied, passing a glass bowl of sugar cubes to the eager blond beauty across the table from her. “My fiancé is caught working too. You’re helping me kill some time before we meet for a late dinner.”

“Oh, good.”

Holly Norris had great bone structure. Her face looked to Emma like a sculpture in a museum, and the deep set of her blue eyes added intensity.

“So Kat tells me that you’ve officially nailed down all of the details except the cake,” Emma said, leaning back against the cool wrought iron chair and crossing her legs.

“Finally. Planning a wedding is far more complicated than I expected.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said on a chuckle. “I’m in the midst of planning my own.”

Holly’s eyes twinkled as she nodded toward Emma’s hand. “I noticed your ring. It’s breathtaking. When is your big day?”

“Just three weeks from tomorrow.”

“Are you having it here at the hotel?”

“Yes. This place is sentimental for us. It kind of brought us together.”

Holly wrinkled her nose and grinned. “Oh, that’s so romantic. Which ballroom will you use? I’m in The English Rose.”

“That’s the largest room,” Emma observed, and she picked up her pen and made a note. “So you’ll have how many guests then?”

“A hundred and fifty-two are confirmed,” she replied.

“Ours will be much smaller. Twenty or thirty guests,” Emma told her as she completed her notes. As she set down the pen, she glanced around. “Our ceremony will be right out here in the courtyard, and our reception in The Desiree.”

“I did sneak a peek at that room. It’s gorgeous.”

Emma’s heart fluttered slightly. She’d excitedly chosen the room Jackson had named after his late wife because it felt right to incorporate her memory into their wedding. If not for Desiree’s dream of turning the hotel where she worked into a full-fledged wedding destination, Jackson would certainly never have followed through and bought the place. And then he’d never have needed a baker, and they might never have met.

Although
 . . .

The hotel wasn’t where they had met for the very first time. It was the bakery where she used to work.

Perhaps we’d have found our way to each other anyway, with or without The Tanglewood
.

That lovely thought pressed Emma’s mouth into a soft smile that Holly noticed right away.

“You’re thinking about your future husband, aren’t you?” she prodded with a sigh.

“Actually, I was,” Emma admitted. “Sorry about that.”

“I think it’s so romantic that my cake baker is this much in love. It’s a sort of good vibe.”

“Well, speaking of your cake baker,” Emma declared, pen in hand once again, “let’s talk wedding cakes. Do you have any thoughts about what you want?”

“Something different,” Holly replied, and Emma grinned. Nearly every bride uttered those same two words when asked about her wedding vision. “Something in keeping with the theme of the wedding.”

“Which is Victorian?”

“Yes. Kat told you?”

“She did. We talked about your colors and flowers, and she showed me the photograph of your cake topper. It really inspired me. I was thinking about something like this.” Emma opened her sketch pad and nudged it toward Holly. “This one is four tiers, very ornate, with detailed floral elements and pearl beads around the edge of each tier.”

“Oh, it’s beautiful.”

“And this second idea,” she said, flipping over the page, “is less ornate, with slightly more whimsy to it. Each tier would be edged with very small roses, and then spiral ribbons would cascade down from the top tier.”

“Are those real ribbons?”

“No, everything on our cakes is edible. The flowers, the ribbons, the pearls, all of it.”

“Oh, my goodness.” Holly picked up the sketch pad and took a closer look.

“Kat showed you the photographs online of some of our cakes, yes?”

Emma’s meeting with Holly lasted another forty minutes, during which they covered flavor options, adding sparkle dust to the pearl edging, and making various tweaks to Holly’s final choice, the first cake with the pearl beads.

“I’ll have you and your fiancé back next week for a tasting, and we’ll decide on whether to go with one flavor for the whole
cake, or perhaps a different flavor for each tier. Kat will sync that up with our caterers so that you can do a tasting for the reception meal as well while you’re here.”

“That sounds perfect, Emma. Thank you so much. I’ll see you then.”

Emma walked Holly as far as the glass doors leading back into the lobby, and she returned to the courtyard to gather her things. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a bulky dark shadow rush across the brick, and her gaze darted after it.

The white lights strung through the trees had only just come on a few minutes earlier, and the flickering gas lamps in each corner of the courtyard didn’t provide enough light to clearly make out what it was. She moved toward the brick planter along the far wall as something rustled the flowering shrubs, and she hurried toward it and pushed back the branches. One chestnut eye peered out at her.

“Come here,” she said. “Hildie. Come out of there right now.”

The little girl who’d been discovered going through discarded food on a room service cart a few days before emerged from the bushes, stomped her feet hard against the brick, and looked up at her defiantly. “What?”

“Don’t you
what
me, young lady. Why are you always turning up in places where you shouldn’t be?”

“Who makes the rules about where a person should and shouldn’t be?” she asked. “You? Who are you, anyway?”

“I told you who I am. Now I want you to tell me who you are. The truth!”

“I did tell you the truth. I’m Hildie and I’m eleven.”

“Hildie what?”

“Now you’re
whatting
me.”

Emma shifted as she glared at the girl. “You have quite a mouth on you, don’t you?”

“Everybody’s got a mouth,” she snapped.

“Yes. But you’ll learn soon enough that it’s all about how you use it. Now tell me what room your parents are in.”

“Why? So you can call them and rat me out for getting into your precious bushes?”

Emma sighed, but before she could reply, the little girl’s stomach began to rumble noisily, and she grabbed at it in an effort to silence it.

“It sounds to me like you’re hungry.”

“So.”

“So . . . maybe I can do something about that if you’ll try being a little less disagreeable.”

“In return for what? Information?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then, no thanks,” she snapped, and Hildie shoved her massive mane of reddish-brown curls away from her face and turned to leave. When Emma grabbed her arm, the girl shouted. “Let loose!”

“I’ll tell you what. You come with me to the restaurant. I’m meeting my fiancé for dinner, but he won’t be there for half an hour or so. We’ll get you something to eat, and you and I will have a conversation.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’m going to march you up to the front desk, where I’ll ask the manager to send a message to every room in this hotel until your parents are notified to come down and talk to me.”

Hildie thought it over for a long moment before asking, “I can have anything I want?”

“Anything on the menu.” Thinking better of it, she added, “Within reason, of course.”

“Let’s go, then.”

Emma snagged Hildie’s arm before she went any farther. Leaning down to look the child in the eye, she said, “And if
you take off again when I’m not looking, I’ll still have a message sent to every room in this hotel. There won’t be anywhere for you to hide. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. Whatever.”

Emma let Hildie lead the way, and she followed close behind. The hostess met the child at the entrance with a curious glance.

“She’s with me, Lucy. There should be a table waiting for Jackson and me?”

“Sure, Emma. Right this way.”

They sat down right next to the window at a table with four place settings. Lucy handed them both menus, leaving one behind for Jackson. Hildie immediately peeled hers open and began to pore over it, giving Emma a chance to really look her over.

“What?” the girl asked without glancing up from the menu. “Are you checking me for fleas or something?”

Emma chuckled. “Why? Do you have any?”

“Ha. Ha. You’re
high-larious
.”

“And you so aren’t.”

Their eyes locked for a moment before Hildie shrugged one shoulder and returned her attention to the menu.

“Can I get you something to drink while you decide?” the waitress asked them.

“Iced tea, unsweet,” Emma replied. “No lemon.”

Before she could prompt Hildie, the girl jumped right in. “You got any chocolate milk?”

“I think we do.” The waitress grinned at Emma.

“Then I want a big one, and a glass of ice,” she told her. “Do you get that? An extra large chocolate milk, and a separate glass of ice on the side.”

“Right away,” she answered. “I’ll be right back to take your orders.”

Hildie shoved back her slightly matted mop of hair and sighed. “Everything on this menu is
frou-frou
. Don’t you have any plain old fried chicken?”

“There are chicken tenders on the children’s menu. Those are like—”

“Hey, you didn’t say anything about sticking to the children’s menu. You said I could have anything I want.”

“I’m not saying you have to stick to the children’s menu, Hildie. And lower your voice.”

“Sorry,” she blurted. “But I want a regular-size supper. That all right?”

“Yes. All I was going to say was that perhaps, if the chicken tenders appealed to you, we could request a larger portion.”

“Oh. Right. Okay. Can we do that with the spaghetti and meatballs?”

“Certainly.”

“Okay. That’s what I want. The spaghetti and meatballs. Super-size it.”

Emma stifled the chuckle that tried to pop from her throat. This girl was an odd combination of annoying, incorrigible, and adorable.

“What are you getting?”

“Just a salad for now,” she replied. “I’d like to wait on Jackson.”

“Is that your boyfriend? Jackson?”

“Yes,” she said with a nod.

“There was a girl in my fourth-grade class with that name. But it was her last name.”

“What grade are you in now, Hildie?”

“Fifth.”

“And where do you live? I assume you and your family are in town for—”

“Nice try,” she snapped.

“We made a deal. I feed you, you give me some information,” Emma volleyed back at her.

“Eats first. Information after.”

The waitress set their drinks down on the table. “What can I get you?”

“I’d just like to start with a house salad,” Emma answered. “Balsamic vinaigrette on the side. Jackson will be joining me for dinner in a while.”

“And you?” she asked Hildie, who was involved with the very delicate operation of pouring a portion of her chocolate milk over ice. “What can I get for you?”

“She’d like the spaghetti from the children’s menu,” Emma said.

“But I want it super-sized,” Hildie added without looking up from her project. “And don’t skimp on the meatballs.”

Emma sighed. “Can you increase it to an adult portion?”

“Certainly. I’ll speak to Pearl.”

“Thanks so much.”

“Hey, wait a sec!” Hildie exclaimed. “Can I get another straw? I like to have two.”

The waitress produced a second straw from the pocket of her starched apron and set it down on the table.

“Why two?” Emma asked once the waitress departed.

“I dunno. I like the way it feels.” Emma grinned as the girl poked the second straw into her glass and took a sip. “Wanna try?”

“No, thank you. But you enjoy that.”

Once Hildie had noisily slurped up the last of the milk in the glass, she poured in the rest and stirred it around with the straws.

“Listen, Hildie,” Emma began, but the girl didn’t even glance up at her. “I need to know what’s going on with you.”
Still no reply. “Come on. I think I’ve shown good faith here. Now you need to do the same.”

She shrugged one shoulder and stared into the depths of her glass of chocolate milk and ice. “Nothin’.”

Emma folded her arms and leaned back against the upholstered chair. “Hildie, look at me.” When she didn’t, Emma repeated the request. “Look at me.”

Hildie raised her eyes slowly. “All right already.”

“Your parents aren’t staying in this hotel, are they?”

Darting her gaze back into her glass, Hildie focused on placing the straws into her mouth.

“Hildie, answer me. Do you even have a room here?”

It seemed like forever before the girl spoke. “Will you still let me eat the spaghetti if I say I don’t?”

“Of course.”

“Then . . . I don’t.”

“Where are you staying?” Emma asked, her mind racing with a hundred different answers that might come next. But she never even imagined the one that finally did.

“In the chair room.”

After a moment, she repeated it, just to make sure she’d heard her right. “The chair room?”

“Yeah. The place where they keep all the tables and chairs and stuff.”

“Well . . . why . . . What are you doing in there?”

Then came the standard eleven-year-old reply. “Nothin’.”

“Hildie. Where do you live?”

“I told you. In the chair room.”

“No. I mean, normally. Where do you live normally?”

“Nowhere.”

Their eyes locked, and Hildie was the first to blink. Emma cocked her head and scratched it. “What do you mean, nowhere?”

“I mean nowhere. Are you dumb or something?”

Emma swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Hildie, you can’t always have been homeless. Where did you live before the chair room?”

The girl’s eyes glazed with emotion as she looked up at Emma. “Are you going to make me leave? Because I can’t go back where I was before.”

“Where was that?”

“A shelter in Atlanta.”

“Is that where your parents are now?”

“Nah. My dad left when I was two, and my mom died last month.”