Always the Baker, Finally the Bride (21 page)

Her aunt didn’t respond well to sugar these days, so Emma had carefully chosen treats from the tearoom shelf with the lowest sugar content and packed them in a small pastry box tied with white string. Shortbread cookies, zucchini bread, and just two brownie bites—minus the frosting.

“No latte cookies?” Sophie asked as she peered inside. “I love those little chocolate-dipped delights.”

“None on hand,” Emma told her with an apologetic shrug. “But I think you’ll find something in there that you like.”

“I adore everything you bake. You know that.”

Emma slipped out of her sweater and draped it across the back of the chair at the small dinette set in the corner. Slipping her arm through her aunt’s, she led her to the sitting area by the window and helped her into her favorite chair before sitting down across from her.

“I want you to tell me how you’re feeling, Aunt Soph. You gave us all quite a scare.”

“Did I?” she asked, and her lovely eyes glazed over a bit. “What did I do?”

“You fell. You don’t remember?”

Sophie squinted slightly, and Emma watched her scan the air for some memory of her accident. At last, she simply
shrugged and shook her head. “I think you must be mistaken, dear heart. But thank you for worrying about me. Your aunt Sophie is just fine. No need to fret.”

Emma reached over and stroked the paper-thin skin on the back of her aunt’s hands. “You’re a treasure to me. You know that, don’t you?”

“And you to me,” Sophie responded. Her eyes lit up as an idea occurred to her. “Can you stay for dinner? They’re serving pot roast in the main dining room downstairs. Helen says it’s the kind with the little red potatoes and baby carrots with rosemary. That sounds much better than anything I could make for myself, don’t you think?”

“I think it sounds scrumptious!” Emma exclaimed with a wide grin, broadened just for her aunt. “I’d love to be your date.”

“I just need to take a little nap before we head downstairs. Is that all right, dear?”

“It’s quite all right. I can use a little quiet time myself. Let me help you to your bedroom.”

“No, no. I’m fine right here in my chair,” she said. “If you’ll just help me put up my feet.”

Emma nodded, and she nudged the ottoman toward her. With extreme care, she gently lifted Sophie’s legs, one at a time, until she felt certain of her aunt’s comfort. Easing her head forward, Emma nudged a small pillow behind her neck and spread a daisy afghan over her body.

With a kiss on the woman’s cheek, Emma whispered, “I love you so much, Aunt Soph. Sleep well.”

“Wake me in an hour? I want to get downstairs before all of the pot roast is gone.”

“One hour,” she promised with another gleaming smile, again widened for Sophie’s benefit.

While her aunt dozed, Emma padded into the bedroom, gathered a small mound of dirty clothes into a laundry bag, and tugged on the drawstring to close it. She tossed it to the floor beside the door so she wouldn’t forget to take it with her. Gathering half a dozen bottles of prescription medicines from the shelf in the bathroom, along with a large plastic pillbox with section dividers for each day of the week, Emma spread it all out on the bed.

She proceeded to replenish the box for the coming week as her thoughts bounced around like a large rubber ball . . . from the whimsical cake in the shape of a teapot she planned to start the next day . . . to Fee and Sean’s ongoing hunt for a house big enough to consolidate his workout equipment and the contents of Fee’s massive closet . . . to poor Jackson’s administrative assistant train wreck of one animated disaster after another.

Audrey would return to town next week, hopefully with J.R. in tow. She wanted to talk to him about the cabinetry work he’d done in Anton Morelli’s kitchen. If he had some time available, she’d love to have him take a crack at her office.

Her thoughts flash-froze.

Will I still have an office long enough to care whether it’s got built-in shelves and cabinets?

Emma’s heart began to race again, the way it did every time she thought about leaving the hotel behind. Moving to Paris with Jackson induced a swoon every time she considered it. But selling The Tanglewood, moving to another country—even for just a little while—and saying good-bye to their friends and family . . . to Aunt Sophie! How on earth would they ever manage it?

When the time came to wake her aunt, Sophie simply nuzzled deeper into the afghan and sighed. Emma phoned Helen, the nursing assistant assigned to her aunt, and asked
that a dinner plate be sent up for her later rather than disturbing her now. Helen agreed, and they had a brief chat about Sophie’s medications, her follow-up medical appointments, and her recent mental decline.

“She’s in no way completely diminished,” the woman reassured her. “But I have noticed a decline in the last week or two.”

“You’ll keep a careful watch on her for us, won’t you?”

“Of course, Ms. Travis. You know I adore your aunt.”

“Well,” Emma said with a smile, “she’s hard not to love.”

Instead of heading home after she kissed Sophie’s forehead and tiptoed out of her apartment with the laundry bag slung over her shoulder, Emma decided to stop by the hotel for a bite to eat. If she felt like it, maybe she’d get a head start on tomorrow’s teapot cake, if Fee hadn’t already begun to construct it.

The instant she passed through the lobby doors, however, Emma’s focus on what she might order for dinner shattered into shards that spun in several different directions. While Anton Morelli’s voice in broken Italian bellows ebbed and flowed from his kitchen, a diminutive man in an expensive suit argued with the front desk manager about his bill. On the other side of the glass doors, the courtyard hummed with well-dressed guests milling about under the twinkling white lights strung through the tree branches as two violinists set the mood with beautiful classical music.

“Dude, what are you doing here?” Fee asked as she and Kat raced past her. “There’s a cake emergency in the Victoria. Be right back,” she tossed over her shoulder as they passed the front desk and turned the corner, bound for the Victoria ballroom, where Diane and Raymond Butler had scheduled the celebration of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

Emma realized that she hadn’t moved an inch. She just stood there, in the middle of the hotel lobby, her feet firmly cemented to the glossy floor as the world inside those glass doors buzzed around her. The goings-on at The Tanglewood seemed like a ballet to her now, choreographed dancers moving to and fro, never quite intersecting with the others, but always threatening to do just that.

“Emma
Raaa-eee
.” Madeline’s unmistakable southern drawl tugged Emma’s attention toward the restaurant and she noticed that Jackson’s middle sister seemed to be floating as she approached. “What are you doin’ here,
sugah
? I thought I heard you were out of the line of
fi-ah
for a few days.”

“Oh, I’m returning tomorrow,” she told her. “But I thought I’d come in to have a look at the schedule and see if there’s anything I need to know for the morning.”

“Have you had your supper yet? Would you like to join Norma and me? Come on into Morelli’s and have something to eat with us,
sugah
.”

“You know, I saw Kat and Fee fly through here a minute ago. I think I’m going to hang out in the kitchen until they come back so I can find out what’s going on.”

“Oh, are you
shu-ah
?” she sang.

“Yes. But give my love to Norma.”

“I’ll do that, honey.”

Madeline turned and headed back to the restaurant, and Emma remained planted, still somewhat lost in the evening dance of The Tanglewood.

“Miss Travis, good to see you.” . . . “Oh, hello, Emma. How are you?” . . . “Emma, did you get my e-mail? I’d like to talk to you about moving the Hendrix bridal tea out of the courtyard and into the Desiree room on the thirtieth.”

She blinked her eyes, and the glaze of emotion resolved into a few lone tears that wound down her face. Suddenly, Emma
inhaled sharply and wheeled around, heading straight for the front door. Fee called out to her just as her hand touched the large brass handle.

“Hey, wait a minute. Where are you going?”

Emma quickly wiped her face with the back of her hand and sniffed. “Sorry. I have something I have to do,” she called out as she hurried toward the door.

“I just wanted to tell you I finally got Anton to part with his recipe for—”

“I’m sorry. I’ll see you in the morning, Fee. We’ll talk then.”

“—that fudge of his,” Fee finished, but the words dropped to the ground as Emma took off at a full run toward her car before the door had even closed behind her.

Anton Morelli’s “Secret Million-Dollar Fudge”

4 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons butter
¼ teaspoon salt
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
12 1-ounce squares semi-sweet chocolate
12 ounces chocolate chips
1 pint marshmallow cream
1 cup chopped walnuts

Grease a 12×8×2-inch pan.

Boil sugar, butter, salt, and milk for 6 minutes,
stirring constantly.
In a large bowl, pour boiling mixture over
the remaining ingredients.
Beat until chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

Pour into a greased 12x8x2-inch pan and cool completely.
Let stand for several hours before cutting into squares.
Store in a sealed container lined with wax paper.

That’s unexpected news, bro.” Huge droplets of sweat fell from Sean’s bald head as he shook it. “Does Fee know?”

“I think so. I mean, I know it’s radical, but I think it’s the right thing,” Jackson replied, as Miguel tossed him a bottle of water before joining him and the others on the floor.

Andy, Miguel, Jackson, and Sean leaned against the wall like a weary line-up, exhausted after two hours of nonstop basketball with their buddies from Miguel’s men’s group.

“Emma and I have been talking about this for months now,” he said, pausing to pour a stream of cold water down his throat. “It was just a pipe dream, really, until Rod called and made the offer. There’s some famous pastry school that accepted her last year, but she never went. So we go, we live in Paris, she attends those classes, I work on the book I’ve been spouting about for two years now—”

“You’re gonna write a book?” Sean interrupted. “What, like a novel?”

“Nah. A how-to kind of thing about building a business from the ground up.”

“Yeah, well, there’s not enough of those out there,” Sean quipped, and Jackson gave him a quick punch on the arm. “Sorry, man. I’m just joking.”

“And Emma hasn’t been feeling so great lately,” Jackson told them seriously. “I’m worried. I mean, she’s got three strikes against her anyway with the diabetes, but her doctor told her the other day that she either slows it down or her body is going to slow it down for her.”

“I had no idea,” Miguel commented.

“She’s funny about that stuff,” he said. “She doesn’t like anyone to think she’s
less than
, you know? She works hard to keep up with it, but lately . . .”

Jackson’s words trailed off when the gymnasium door exploded open, banging against the wall behind it. They all leaned forward and looked toward the back of the gym as Emma barreled in and ran toward them.

“Emma?” Jackson exclaimed, jumping to his feet just in time to catch her as she thudded into him. “What is it? What’s wrong? Is it Sophie?”

“No, no,” she cried, breathless. “I have to talk to you.” She folded in half, her hands propped against her knees, as she tried to continue. “I have to . . . talk . . . right now, Jackson.”

“Okay. Relax and catch your breath. Do you want some water?”

“No,” she replied, still struggling to regulate her breathing. “On second thought, yes.”

He retrieved a new bottle from the cooler, twisted off the top, and handed it to her. She downed about half of it before speaking again.

“I’m . . . sorry,” she said with a sheepish, uncomfortable stab at a smile when she noticed the others. “I interrupted. Sorry, guys.”

“It’s fine,” Miguel said as he stood. “We were just heading in to the locker room anyway. You two stay here and talk.”