Recipe for Love (4 page)

“I’ve read that some cupcake shops have started serving ice cream, but we’d need more
freezer space.” Andi hesitated. “We’ll have to talk to Jake about that.”

“Done,” Rachel told her. “Look behind you.”

Andi spun around and spotted the man behind her. “Jake! What are you doing here?”

Jake Hartman, wearing a white dress shirt and brown khakis matching the color of his
hair, gave them all a welcoming grin.

“What if I told you I had a lead on a story about three obnoxious women wearing pink
head scarves and pink bakery aprons who are terrorizing the waterfront with cupcakes?”

“What if I told you,” Andi challenged, “the chief editor of the
Astoria Sun
said if we see a deranged madman reporter draw near our cupcakes to send him straight
back to the office?”

Jake laughed, wrapped his arms around Andi’s waist, and gave her a kiss. “I’m on lunch
break.”

Envy stabbed Rachel’s heart, and she glanced at Kim. Andi’s dark-haired younger sister
returned the look as if to say, “Yeah, I know.”

Kim hadn’t dated since her steady boyfriend in college took off to Europe without
her. She said she was concentrating on her career as an aspiring artist, but instead
of painting canvases, most days she was painting the tops of cupcakes.

Not exactly the happily-ever-after Kim had been hoping for. Or Rachel either. While
the two-date-only method was great at protecting a broken heart, it didn’t do much
mending.

Sometimes, although she’d never admit it, she wished she could find the kind of love
Andi seemed to have found. The kind that lasts forever.

B
ACK AT THE
shop, Andi placed sticker labels on the Tupperware bins and wrote the names of the
ingredients in each one with a blue marker. “This is so we don’t mix up the flour
with the sugar.”

“We sure don’t want that to happen,” Rachel said, a trickle of heat sliding into her
cheeks. She’d put cornstarch instead of baking soda in the batter of cherry cupcakes
earlier that morning. She thought her slip had gone unnoticed, but Andi caught her
dumping the mix in the trash.

Rachel took a new three-ring binder filled with notebook paper out of a shopping bag
and placed it on the counter. The cover sparkled with enough glittery images to grace
Hollywood.

“What’s that?” Andi asked, catching a glimpse over her shoulder.

“Our new Cupcake Diary. The other one was filled up.”

“It’s so glitzy I’ll be afraid of getting it dirty,” Kim said, coming around the counter
to take a look.

Rachel tossed her red curls over her shoulder and opened the new binder to the first
page. “We need to be more glitzy to outshine the competition.”

Andi nodded. “You mean improve our public image with advertising?”

“But not
false
advertising,” Kim warned. “We need to stay true to ourselves.”

Rachel laughed. “What does that even mean?”

“It means,” Kim said, giving her a direct look, “don’t get carried away.”

Rachel frowned. “Creative Cupcakes must have an effective promotion plan to fight
back against our new French rival and stay in business.”

“In addition to birthday parties, we now have three groups using the party room each
week,” Andi informed them. “Our children’s cupcake camp program is on Tuesdays.”

“Mia’s kindergarten friends waste more cupcakes than they make,” Rachel complained.
“They need constant supervision, and they get flour and sugar everywhere.”

“No wonder their parents are willing to pay to have them come,” Kim added. “Some of
them are monsters.”

“The kids have fun learning to bake,” Andi said, lifting her chin. “And the cupcake
camp brings in good money. Almost as much as the Romance Writers who come on Thursdays.”

“The Romance Writers are loyal customers,” Rachel agreed. “Those women absolutely
devour anything chocolate.”

“I don’t trust them,” Kim said, shaking her head. “They’re always leaning in as if
listening to what we have to say and writing in their little notepads. I’m afraid
they might be writing about us, and we’ll end up in one of their books.”

“A story about three women who run a cupcake shop in a small town and find romance?”
Rachel smirked. “Doubt it.”

Taking out a pen, she wrote in the new Cupcake Diary:

Kids camp (messy monsters): Tuesdays

Romance Writers (Chocoholics): Thursdays

“Who’s the third group we have coming in?” Kim asked.

“The Saturday Night Cupcake Club,” Andi replied. “More like a Lonely Hearts Club,
if you ask me. Whoever in their group doesn’t have a date on Saturday night can come
commiserate and eat cupcakes together.”

“Sounds pitiful,” Rachel said. “You wouldn’t catch me at one of their meetings.”

“Me either,” Kim agreed.

“They aren’t any different from us,” Andi said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Isn’t that how Creative Cupcakes started? With the three of us commiserating over
the fact we had no jobs, no money, and no men? Sometimes it’s good to open up and
talk about your feelings. The year after my divorce, I was alone. If I’d known about
such a group, I might have gone, but I had
you
.”

Rachel thought about their birthday tradition. Their birthdays were exactly four months
apart, so they split a cupcake three ways and made goals for themselves from one birthday
to the next, much easier than setting goals for a whole year. Their last goal was
to open a cupcake shop.

Back at the beginning of March, on the night of Kim’s twenty-sixth birthday, Andi
had convinced a guy sitting at a table in the Captain’s Port to give them his cupcake.
That’s how Jake and Andi had met, with Jake agreeing to split the cupcake in fourths
and sharing with them. Shortly later he became their financial partner for the cupcake
shop, and Andi’s Mr. Romance.

Rachel nodded toward the Cupcake Diary. “Okay, so we have three groups for the party
room, but what else can we do for promotion?”

“We could hand out a red carpet invitation to everyone at the Crab, Seafood, and Wine
Festival to visit our shop and sample Creative Cupcakes’ award-winning flavors,” Andi
teased.

“That’s good!” Rachel turned back to the Cupcake Diary and wrote in bold block letters:

Red carpet invites.

A chuckle greeted them from the doorway, and Guy Armstrong, the middle-aged tattoo
artist from the next building, walked toward them and leaned over the marble counter.
“Maybe offer a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Like ‘get a tattoo, get a cupcake.’ Or ‘order
two dozen cupcakes and get five dollars off your next tattoo.’”

Kim waved a hand toward her watercolor paintings adorning the shop’s interior walls.
“Buy a painting, get a free cupcake?”

Rachel shook her head. “We need to—”

“Think smarter?” Andi suggested.

“Be more creative?” Kim offered.

“Play dirtier,” Guy said, bobbing his white pony-tailed head and pushing the sleeves
of his black shirt up his tattooed forearms. “I love it when you women cook up a scheme.
Sometimes I miss having my shop in the back room, but you inspired me to go after
my dream and expand the business. And now I have more customers than ever before.”

“That’s it,” Rachel said, pointing her pen at him. “We need to expand. We need to
offer catering services for weddings and . . . and . . . get a cupcake truck!”

Andi’s and Kim’s mouths popped open.

“The Cupcake Mobile,” Guy mused. “Has a nice ring to it.”

“Where would we find a delivery truck?” Rachel asked.

Guy grinned wide enough to reveal his missing tooth. “I think I could help you with
that.”

R
ACHEL WIPED CRUMBS
off the table by the front window and heard an awful
click-clackity
commotion outside. Lifting her gaze, she watched in horror as an old blue-and-yellow
bread-loaf-shaped truck pulled up to the front curb. It almost looked like a trolley
car except there were also three silver trumpet-shaped horns attached to the roof.
This couldn’t be the truck Guy had been referring to, could it? She spotted Jake and
the tattoo artist sitting in the front seat. Andi arrived a minute later and parked
Jake’s blue convertible behind them.

“They’re here,” Rachel called to Kim.

Kim followed her out the door and stood by her side on the sidewalk. “Looks like an
antique.”

“I’m surprised it runs,” Andi said, getting out of the car to join them. “Guy says
it’s been sitting in his garage for decades.”

“More like a century,” Kim said, her expression doubtful. “What year is it?”

“Nineteen thirty-three.”

Rachel pursed her lips. “Eye-catching.”

“Don’t frown like that,” Guy said, climbing out of the passenger side of the vehicle.
“It’s a fully-restored Helm’s bakery truck, and Kim can paint colorful cupcakes all
over it.”

“I could,” Kim agreed, and her face brightened.

“She can also paint the name, Creative Cupcakes, in big swirly letters across the
back and sides with our phone number to advertise the shop,” Andi suggested.

“With a motto,” Rachel said, walking closer to the vehicle to look inside. “Creative
Cupcakes should have a motto.”

Kim laughed. “‘No time to bake? Call Creative Cupcakes!’”

“‘Sweet cakes for every occasion’?” Andi asked.

“‘One bite and you’ll know it’s right’ or ‘Tasty treats for toothless tattoo artists,’”
Guy joked. “Like me.”

Rachel gave him a friendly poke in the shoulder. “‘If you like to flirt, try our hip
little dessert.’”

“Gaston Pierre Hollande would paint a picture of a sword like the one in the movie
Highlander
and use the main character’s quote, ‘There can be only one!’” Kim said with a grin.

“We have a sword,” Andi reminded them. “Our golden cupcake cutter. Maybe we can stick
it in a giant cupcake and put it on display like King Arthur’s sword in the stone
legend.”

“I have a better idea,” Rachel said and pointed to the side of the Cupcake Mobile
as if she could already see the image. “We can be like the three musketeers and borrow
their motto: ‘All for one, one for all.’ And over that a logo, with three cupcake
cutters like crossed swords sticking into a cupcake, dividing it three ways.”

“What about Jake?” Andi asked. “He’s part of Creative Cupcakes, too.”

Rachel nodded. “He can be the fourth musketeer in Alexandre Dumas’ story, who joined
them later.”

“Just like our birthday tradition!” Andi exclaimed.

Kim nodded her approval, a big smile on her face. “Just like
us
.”

O
N
F
RIDAY,
R
ACHEL
and Andi loaded the Cupcake Mobile, left Kim in charge of the shop, and headed toward
the Clatsop County Fairgrounds for the Crab, Seafood, and Wine Festival. Andi drove
the truck, and Rachel followed behind in her own car since they would be leaving at
different times.

They’d borrowed some folding tables from Guy for their booth in the main food tent
and brought hundreds of cupcakes packed in stackable plastic containers. Andi had
also found pink tablecloths to match their pink bandanas and aprons.

Upon arrival they were given their ten-by-ten space between a wine vendor and another
food vendor selling crab and melted cheese on thick, crusty bread. The aroma made
them salivate until Andi finally broke down and bought them each one.

“Now we’re down $10, and we haven’t sold a single cupcake yet,” Rachel complained.

She called out to the hundreds of people who packed the fairgrounds, and her face
hurt from smiling, but despite her efforts, their booth was humiliatingly ignored.

“Maybe people don’t think cupcakes go with crab or wine,” Andi suggested.

Rachel’s gaze drifted over to Gaston’s setup. His booth was located in the corner,
diagonal to their left. He looked up, caught her watching him, and smirked. His booth
had a line thirty people long. Some of them backed up to the end of their cupcake
table, all because he was serving crab chowder in fresh-baked bread bowls.

“Got to hand it to him,” Rachel said, her spirits sinking. “Gaston has a smart marketing
plan.”

Andi nodded. “His success is in the presentation.”

“He’s slanted his product toward the venue, while we didn’t.” Rachel chewed on her
lower lip. “Maybe we should have decorated the cupcakes to look like crabs.”

“Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for us to come,” Andi said and winced. “How much
did this booth cost us?”

Rachel didn’t even want to think about it. Thinking about money made her think about
her grandfather. “We’ll get some sales.”

But by six o’clock that evening they’d sold only a few dozen cupcakes, not enough
to cover a third of the cost. Rachel wondered what would happen the other two days
of the festival. Would it be worth coming back? Since they’d already paid, they had
no choice.

Andi glanced at her watch. “Time for me to pick up Mia from the babysitter’s. Are
you sure you’ll be okay here by yourself?”

“Go ahead,” Rachel replied. “We’re dead here anyway. And someone has to stay in the
booth till the end.”

Her feet were tired from standing all day. The chatter from the crowd droned in her
ears, giving her a headache. By the time she could leave and walked out to the parking
lot, she was emotionally weary as well. She couldn’t wait to get home and . . . what
was going on? Why was her car hooked up to the back of a tow truck? Her heart leaped
into overdrive, and despite her aching feet, she ran toward it as fast as she could.

“Wait!” she shouted, waving her hands.

The tow truck driver gave her a quick glance and moved even quicker. Jumping into
the cab, he started the engine.

“Where are you taking my car?”

“Ask the bank that gave you the car loan.” He pulled away before she could respond.

Her chest caved in, making it hard to breathe. She’d been two months’ late on her
car payment, but she didn’t think she was in danger of having it repossessed. And
how did they know she was at the festival? She scowled. Either someone had blabbed,
or the tow truck driver just didn’t have many places to look. One of the unfortunate
“benefits” of living in a small town.