Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
EVERLEIGH
“H ow do I look?” I ask my mother when I step out of the bathroom wearing my ruffled baby-pink skirt and a smocked white gauze top with puffy short sleeves that tie in the back. “Mom,” I groan. “We’re supposed to be dressed the same.”
“We are,” she counters. “It’s literally the same shirt and skirt. I just had to add an extra layer, or else I would forget and bend over and give away the farm.” I look around the kitchen, seeing the six people we hired to help us today. “What time is the photographer going to be here?” she asks, looking around, shaking the nerves out of her hands.
“Any minute,” I reply, turning and capturing the people working in the back.
“You and that phone,” my mother hisses.
“Hey, this phone”—I hold up—“went viral last night.” I shake it. “The video of you coming into the bakery was seen over twelve million times in twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” she admits, smoothing down her skirt. “What if no one comes?”
“To the grand opening?” I roll my eyes. “I made five hundred donuts. They better fucking show up,” I say, and she laughs.
She doesn’t have a chance to say anything else because the door opens and the photographer for the local paper comes in. We sit at the table by the window, side by side, with the top of it overflowing with cookies, cupcakes, donuts, and cups of coffee. I look over at my mother, who smiles at me. “Proud of you,” I say, and she throws her head back and laughs.
“I’m the one who is supposed to say that,” she chides as the photographer tells me to look at him. Two days ago, the reporter called to tell me she wanted to do a story about how the town rallied around us to help rebuild the bakery after it burned down. She asked me a slew of questions, and today, the photographer came out to snap a couple of pictures before our big opening at noon.
He takes what feels like a million pictures before he finally leaves thirty minutes later. I get up and take one look around, seeing the display cases filled to the rim with donuts and cupcakes. The bottom shelf has platters of cookies we are testing out. Five platters of cake sit on top of the display cases, thanks to Harmony. Two platters are cut into slices and then three are full cakes ready to be sold.
I made them add gold hanging lights over the cases just for show, and I have fake white and pink flowers dangling so it looks like a garden. I snap a couple more pictures of the bouquet of balloons beside the front door. “Mom,” I call to her, holding up the camera, “what do you want to say about the opening?”
“I want to thank everyone in Montgavin for coming out and volunteering their time for us to be here today. We couldn’t have done it without any of them.” She smiles. “But most importantly, thank you to my daughter who put aside her life to come back and take care of me and the bakery when I got sick.” She blinks away the tears. “I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do this without her.” I stop taping her as the door opens, and I look up to see Saige and Brock come into the bakery.
“Ms. Maddie!” Saige shrieks, running over to her, wearing the sundress she picked out last night at dinner to wear today. Her hair is parted in the middle with two tiny braids on each side, tied in the back. “This is so pretty,” she says, looking around. My eyes go to Brock, who holds flowers in one hand. He is wearing his gray slacks with a white button-down shirt that is not tucked in, the collar open, and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Hi.” I smile big when I see him.
“Hi, baby.” He smiles back as he walks up to me, wrapping his free arm around me and pulling me to him. I think he’s going to kiss my cheek, but he bends his head and his lips softly find mine. I open my eyes big, looking over at Saige to see if she saw. We had dinner last night and there was no talk about who I was, at least not when I was there. I’ve been going since 3:00 a.m. today, so I haven’t had a chance to ask him about it. “You look beautiful.”
“Hi, Everleigh,” Saige greets. “We brought you flowers.” She grabs the flowers from Brock’s hand, holding them up for me to see the pink peonies. “They are the same color as the walls, so they match.”
“These are beautiful,” I compliment, grabbing them from her. “Thank you so much.”
“Dad says you’re sleeping over tonight.” My eyes shoot straight to Brock.
“Why don’t I go and put those in water?” my mother suggests, taking the flowers from me. “Saige, why don’t you come and see the new flavor of donuts that Everleigh made this morning.” She looks at her. “She told me you gave her the idea to put jelly inside and peanut butter frosting on top.” She puts her hand in Saige’s, pulling her to the back.
“You did not tell her that I’m sleeping at your house.” I don’t even think I wait for them to be in the kitchen before I start on him.
“Baby,” he soothes, putting his hands on my hips, “you’ll be moving in soon, and she has to be used to you being there.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I shake my head.
“Not now, but in the next month, you’ll be living with us.”
“Brock,” I hiss his name, “you didn’t tell her that, did you?”
“Of course not.” He rolls his eyes. “I said you were working all day and that you’d be tired tonight, so you are going to sleep over so we can make sure you relax.”
“She bought that?”
“Probably not with the smirk she gave me, and then she said ‘ohh you like her,’” he mimics how Saige must have teased him, making me laugh.
“And then I said, ‘no, I love her.’” I gasp. “That’s exactly what she did also. But then she said you were pretty.” He shrugs. “So I guess she approved.”
“I cannot believe you,” I say, but then the door opens, and Autumn comes in, her mouth hanging open when she sees it for the first time finished.
“Holy shit,” she swears, and Charlie snickers. “This is incredible.” Her eyes roam around the room, taking everything in.
“Wow.” He shakes his head and looks at Autumn. “You yelled at me this morning because I said you had a fine ass in front of Landon, but you are allowed to say shit?”
“Charlie Barnes, you are getting on my last nerve,” she hisses. “Like the last one.”
He grabs her around her neck and pulls her to him. “I love you,” he declares, and she melts in his arms, “don’t forget that.”
“How could I?” She wraps her arms around his waist and then looks at their son.
“Welcome,” I tell them and then look over to see Harmony and Brady walking in with Wyatt. “Hi.” I hold up my hand to welcome them.
I look back down when a hand slides into mine, and my eyes fixate on Brock’s fingers laced with mine. My eyes go back up to his as people come in. “I love you,” he whispers, and I don’t have a chance to answer him when more and more people come in.
I work the room with Mom, thanking everyone for all their help. Every time I look up, I find him looking at me; when I don’t, it’s because he’s right beside me. He doesn’t move far from me the whole day. The bakery is filled to the brim. The display cases have been refilled more times than I can count, with people leaving with boxes and boxes of donuts.
I think everyone in town comes in to say hello, and there are lots of new faces from nearby towns because of the viral video. The day flies by, and by the time it hits 5:00 p.m., we have sold out of everything.
“I can’t believe we have nothing left,” I state, sitting down at the table next to Brock, who puts his arm across the back of my chair. Autumn and Charlie are sitting here also, with my mother beside them.
“Can we have pizza?” Saige asks from the chair beside him, and he looks at her.
“How many donuts did you have today?” he asks, and she shrugs.
“I was taste testing.” She looks at me. “That’s what Everleigh asked me to do.”
I look at Brock, folding my lips together as Oliver comes over and hands me a glass of champagne. He pulls a chair from the other table to sit next to my mother. “I don’t know about you guys, but this is what I call a success.” He grabs my mother’s hand and kisses her fingers.
The door to the bakery opens again, and I’m about to say we’re closed when I notice it’s one of the deputies. “Hey there,” he says, looking at us. “Sorry to intrude.”
“Nonsense,” my mother says. “I’d offer you a donut, but we’re all out.”
“That’s okay, Ms. Maddie,” he replies. “I’m here on official business anyway.” I put my glass of champagne down on the table, my mouth going dry as I wait for what he has to say. “We just arrested two men in connection with setting the fire,” he announces, and my mother gasps. “We picked them up a couple of hours ago.” His eyes go to Brock. “We got a call that they were hanging around your shop.” Brock gets up. “Gotta say, they aren’t too smart doing it today with all these people here. Someone made a call that they seemed suspicious, gave us the plate number, and we picked them up not long after.” His mouth goes tight. “They both turned on each other as soon as we sat down.”
“Oh my,” my mother murmurs.
“That’s not the kicker,” he adds. “They worked for the Cartwrights.”
Brock’s about to jump out of his chair, and I put my hand on his leg to stop him. “Thank you for letting us know,” I say, then turn to look over at Brock. “They don’t get to have one more second from us.” I put my hand on his cheek. “They took too much from us already.”
“But they—” I put my finger on his lips.
“We’re here,” I remind him, “together.” I look around the table. “We won.”
“She’s right,” Charlie agrees. “They will get what is coming to them. They have all the rope they need in order to hang themselves.”
He nods at Charlie before looking back at me. “You coming home with us?” he asks, and I look at Saige.
“You bet,” I confirm, right before he leans over and kisses me in front of everyone, and I kiss him right back.