Always the Baker, Never the Bride (7 page)

Susannah leaned closer to Emma, and her floral scent tickled Emma’s nostrils. “She died of cancer, just a couple of years ago.”

Emma’s eyes widened, and then regret took the form of a salty glaze. “That’s awful.”

“In her final days, Desi told Jack that it was her one and only regret in life,” Madeline drawled, “that she never followed through on those plans.”

“So once she was gone and the grief was stranglin’ him like a weddin’ corset,” Georgiann piped up, “sure enough, this place went on the auction block for sale. Jackson hasn’t done three impulsive things in his whole entire life, but he snapped up The Tanglewood faster’n a gator snags meat.”

“I think he thought it was a tribute to Desi’s memory,” Madeline told her, scrunching up her nose and pressing her turned-down lips together. “But the truth is Jack doesn’t know two licks about romance, so him operatin’ a weddin’ hotel?”

“Well, that’s just about as crazy as tryin’ to milk a three-legged dog,” Georgiann finished.

Well, that IS crazy
, Emma thought. But she didn’t quite see the whole connection between milk and a handicapped canine.

“I think he’s just realized he’s up a creek without a paddle,” Madeline explained. “And we’re makin’ it our jobs to help him row.”

Emma nodded. Now
that
she could understand.

“He’s hired that crazy chef. What’s his name, Susannah?”

“Anton Morelli.”

“Morelli. That’s it. Well, you just meet that man for twenty-seven seconds, and you know he’s gonna spot Jackson as a fish outta water in nothin’ flat. He’ll slice and filet that boy before the first appetizer is ever served in this place.” Madeline placed her hand around Emma’s wrist and looked her hard in the eye. “We’ve got to get things organized before he comes on board next week.”

“What can I do to help?” she asked them.

Georgiann smacked her hands on the tabletop and grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

“We’ve got to make a plan for the opening gala,” Norma told them. “We need a theme and a plan.”

“And it had better be a doozy,” Georgiann added. “Atlanta needs to get the new and improved Tanglewood Inn on their radar, and fast.”

Two hours later, each of the women gathered around the courtyard bistro table had a list of responsibilities assigned to them. Even in the management of the meeting itself, Jackson Drake’s sisters were a well-oiled machine. Norma cleared the tea service while Madeline gathered their notes and Georgiann straightened the chairs. Emma was reminded of a synchronized swimming exhibition she’d once seen as they met up once again, said their hasty good-byes, and floated from the courtyard to the lobby before separating and going in three directions. The only thing missing were the swimsuits and bathing caps with matching rubber sunflowers on them.

Susannah’s focus dragged to the lobby as an awkwardly tall gentleman emerged and looked around.

“That’ll be Edward,” she said, gathering her notes and poking her pen behind her ear.

“Edward?”

“Jackson’s ten-thirty,” she replied as she scurried toward the door. Then she tossed her hand into the air and wiggled her fingers as she sang, “Hotel insurance.”

Emma folded her notes and, on her way back to the kitchen, tucked them into the file folder of impending weddings that Madeline had provided. She’d want to go over them with Fee when she arrived for her first official day in the employ of The Tanglewood Inn. Emma glanced at her watch and wondered what Fee’s take on the place would be.

Less than an hour. Not nearly enough time to file down the jagged edges around her.

Emma took a slow stroll down the wide hallway from the lobby that led toward the restaurant and kitchens. Two swinging doors stood before her, both of them freshly painted white, identical with their round acrylic windows and stainless-steel kick plates, not a smudge in sight. She smiled as she softly nudged the one on the right, taking such pleasure in the gentle whoosh as the door separated from the rubber insulation around the jamb. On the other side: Emma’s personal nirvana.

Two rows of stainless-steel work tables reached all the way down the length of the kitchen, like a shiny highway stretched across the desert at dawn. A perfect row of glass-paned cabinets framed with glossy hunter green trim sported brushed silver pulls. Bakeware was stacked inside a floor-to-ceiling cupboard, peeking out at her from behind a rectangle of streak-free glass. Emma tugged open one of the dozen drawers and brushed her hand along the variety of stainless-steel spoons positioned neatly like a museum display. She admired the bright apple-red tiles behind the deep porcelain sinks; a perfect match to the small diamonds of detail spotting the reflective black and white checkerboard floor.

At the other end of the kitchen sat an office (a cubbyhole really) open to the kitchen with one glass wall and three others freshly painted cream. The room was just big enough for a small desk, two upholstered chairs from the restaurant, and a mint green four-drawer file cabinet. It was small, but it was hers. She’d never had a kitchen
and an office
before. Just the sight of it made her feel all trembly and official inside.

“Ahhh-gguh!”

Emma turned just as Fee dropped two enormous canvas bags to the kitchen floor with a clunk and leaned against the doorway looking stunned. She shook her head slightly, and then clutched her own throat, propping her mouth open into a perfect round O.

“This is our kitchen??”

“It is,” Emma grinned. “Isn’t it just—”

“Yes. It is,” Fee replied on a sigh. “It really is.”

Fee hopped from foot to foot and then skittered across the length of the room toward Emma. The two of them smashed into something that resembled an embrace, and then they began to jump up and down in perfect unison.

“We are going to be
baking
here, Em,” Fee told her, as if Emma didn’t already know. “Here.
In this kitchen
.”

“Yes, we are!”

Both palms upright, two slaps, two more slaps returned, a couple of quick hip bumps, and “Hoo-yeah!” in unison. Their private language for celebrating the score.

“And not a comb-over in sight,” Fee added, referring to their former boss’s questionable hairstyle.

“Nope. Our new employer has a full head of gorgeous hair,” Emma beamed. “Wait until you—”

The kerplunk of the swinging door drew them to immediate silence as they both spun around and faced the man standing in the doorway. His comb-over inspired a wayward snicker from Fee, and Emma punched her in the ribs with her elbow.

“Can I help you?” Emma offered.

“Don’t bother telling me who you are,” the man demanded. “Just leave my kitchen
at once!
”

The smile Edward Beemis had pasted on his face melted away the instant he swaggered out the front doors of the hotel. Jackson felt pretty certain Beemis thought he hadn’t spotted it, but he caught it all right. Insurance guys and realtors—they all had the same air about them as far as Jackson was concerned. Unfortunately, they both were quite necessary in his new world.

Just as he turned back with the intent of heading toward the staircase and back up to his office on the fourth floor, an explosion of voices erupted and the kitchen doors flew open.

“
Come osarla
!”

“Chef Morelli, please come back!”

Jackson looked on as Anton Morelli skidded to a stop a few yards ahead of him, followed by Emma and a strange-looking character out of a gothic nightmare he’d once had.

“
Sono uno dei massimi chef nel mondo!
” Morelli shouted at them, waving his arms, his face turning a scarlet shade of frustrated.

The Goth with the silver hoop through her nose whispered something to Emma, and then Emma responded, telling Anton, “I know! You are!”

Her helpless, hopeful eyes landed on Jackson, and he asked, “What did he say?”

“Oh,” said the Goth in monotone, “he’s appalled. And he’s the greatest chef in the universe.”

“Oh,” he replied. “
WHO
are you?”

“Fee Bianchi,” Emma said. “Meet Jackson Drake.”

Fee nodded at him with limited interest.

“Bianchi,” Morelli repeated. “
Il suo nome è Bianchi?
”

“Yep,” Fee answered. “That’s my name.”

“Italiano?”

“Si.”

“
E lei parla la lingua?”

“Yep. I’m fluent.”

Morelli moved in on the woman as if she were his long-lost daughter, grabbing her with both hands and dragging her into an awkward embrace. The two of them began chattering unintelligibly while Jackson and Emma looked on.

“Fee is my assistant,” Emma told him.

He blinked hard and swallowed his initial impression. “She any good?” he asked in hope.

“The best. I met her straight out of cooking school. She applied at the bakery, and I snapped her up. She’s been my right hand ever since.”

Jackson lifted one shoulder into a shrug. “Good.”

“I know!” Fee exclaimed. “But your kitchen is even better than ours. We’re just pastry chefs. You’re The Big Cheese.
Il Formaggio Grande!
”

Morelli clanged like a fire engine, and then he tugged Fee toward him again and kissed her cheek. As an afterthought, he held her away from him and looked her over.

“You look very interesting,” he told her in English, with only a slight Italian accent. “Do you do this on purpose, this look?”

“Oh yeah,” Fee told him. “It’s my personal style.”

Morelli considered it, shrugged and then laughed again. “
Si.
You do have the style. Now you show me my kitchen, Fee Bianchi.”

Fee looked back at them over her shoulder. Softly, toward Emma, she asked, “His kitchen
is
better than ours, right?”

Emma looked at Jackson, and he nodded.

“Yes!” Emma reassured her, and Fee disappeared around the corner, swept along by Hurricane Anton Morelli.

Jackson sighed. “Have you got this?”

“Well,” she said, glancing down the hall toward the kitchen. “Fee seems to.”

“Good.”

He started to turn away when Emma reached out and touched his arm. “If you have a minute?”

He didn’t, but he didn’t tell her that. “What’s up?”

“I was thinking about the opening. Your sisters mentioned that you want to have some sort of party to introduce the new Tanglewood to Atlanta.”

He sighed again. “It seems to be the consensus that this is a necessity.”

“I have an idea about that.”

“You do?”

He looked at Emma, and collided with the excitement sparkling in her stormy green eyes.

“I was thinking, since this is going to be a wedding destination hotel and everything, maybe we could have a sort of wedding reception. You know, following the marriage of the new Tanglewood with Atlanta. We could have a live band and dancing, and we could send out wedding-type invitations to everyone on the social register. It could be a sit-down dinner to show what Anton can do for a really elegant reception, and I can make an elaborate, one-of-a-kind wedding cake to—”

“You know, that’s a pretty great idea,” Jackson admitted, a little surprised to feel his own enthusiasm kicking in. “Could you run that by my sisters?”

“Sure,” she said, and a smile peeled across her face, from one apple cheek to another.

Jackson started away from her, and then stopped in his tracks. Turning back, he said, “Thank you, Emma. And welcome to The Tanglewood.”

The grin deepened across her fresh face. Something about it pinched him, and in that moment he was reminded of Desiree.

“Thank you, Mr. Drake.”

“Jackson.”

“Thank you, Jackson.”

He nodded before heading for the stairs. Emma Rae Travis was quite a surprise. She hadn’t turned out to be at all like his first hazelnut impression of her, and he was relieved about that. He could only hope her
assistant
turned out to be a surprise too. Black eyeliner, a nose ring, and fluent in Anton Morelli. The big picture didn’t compute, but it didn’t have to, as long as she lived up to Emma’s confidence in her.