13
Ashanti added a cup of pureed pumpkin to the stand-alone mixer’s bowl, locked the flat beater into place, and started it on a slow mix. She checked on the treats baking in the oven before filling a piping bag with icing and finishing up those that had already cooled.
“Only five hundred more to go,” she said.
When their website had crashed this weekend from being inundated with people inquiring about the doggy treats Duchess and Puddin’ were caught sharing, Ashanti’s first instinct had been to panic. She swiftly rearranged her thinking, choosing instead to count her blessings.
This is what she wanted, right? For everyone to clamor for Duchess Delights. National brands paid tens of thousands of dollars for the free marketing she’d gotten from that viral video.
For months she’d questioned whether pet owners would be interested in a full-size pet bakery. Well, she had her answer. What she needed now was inventory. And a bigger place for her business.
The doorbell chimed.
“One minute,” Ashanti called, setting the piping bag on the table. “Scoot, Duchess,” she told her dog. The cute little booger would try to escape in a heartbeat if given half a chance.
Ashanti opened the door and smiled in relief.
“At your service,” Evie said.
“Thank you.” Ashanti enveloped her in a hug. She stepped back and held up her hands. “And before you ask, yes, I’ve already put out feelers for a second baker. I know better than to even try to keep up this pace on my own. But, until I can find someone, I need as much help as I can get.” She motioned for Evie to follow her to the kitchen and pointed to the cookie sheets stacked up on the counter. “Let me get the set that’s baking out of the oven, and I’ll help you bring those to the car.”
“It’s three hundred fifty degrees for twelve minutes, right?”
“Yes. Not a minute longer,” Ashanti said.
“The only time I’ve taken advantage of the double ovens in my house is the year I hosted Thanksgiving. You’d better be grateful I haven’t had time to do the kitchen reno I’ve been wanting to do, because that double oven would be gone. Actually, thank Cameron for that. He’s the one who keeps putting it off.”
“Give your fiancé this kiss from me,” Ashanti said. She kissed Evie on the cheek before carrying the treats she’d just taken from the oven to the dining room table.
She heard the front door open a second before seeing a green-and-white jacket pass through the room in a blur.
“Was that Kendra?” Evie asked.
“Yes,” Ashanti said with a sigh. “I need to talk to her, but I’m not up for a fight right now.”
“Teenagers.” Evie shook her shoulders in an exaggerated shudder. “I want no part of it.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t really have a choice,” Ashanti said. “It was me or Atilla.”
Evie shuddered again. “Those girls need to thank you every day of their lives. Speaking of thanking you, why aren’t they in here helping you?”
“One of them doesn’t even talk to me most days,” Ashanti said, gesturing to the stairs. “And Kara has volleyball practice.” She tried her best to shake off the disquiet that filled her regarding Kendra these days. She had to figure out what was going on with that one. “I’ll help you get these in the car.”
It took two trips to cart all the cookie sheets and plastic containers filled with unbaked treats out to Evie’s SUV. Ashanti was about to put another two dozen in the oven, but thought better of it. She needed to check in on Kendra first, and if by some miracle she could get her sister to give her more than a few monosyllabic responses, she didn’t want to have to stop their conversation so that she could get dog biscuits out of the oven.
Before she could go upstairs, Kendra came back down. She had changed into the tracksuit she wore over her cheerleader uniform and carried a green-and-white duffle on one shoulder.
“Where are you going?” Ashanti asked.
“To the volleyball match,” she answered.
“You mean volleyball practice,” Ashanti said.
“No, I mean the volleyball match,” she said. “They’re playing Country Day Academy.”
“No,” Ashanti said, covering her face with her hands. “Please, don’t tell me that match is today.”
“Yes, it is. And, yes, Kara is starting at setter. I gotta go.”
Ashanti’s stomach dropped. Country Day was the girls’ volleyball team’s biggest rival. She had promised Kara she would be there.
“Kendra, we need to talk. Soon,” Ashanti said.
“We really don’t. I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
Kendra released an overly exaggerated sigh. “Do you really want to do this now? How do you think Kara will feel if neither of her sisters are there to see her first match as a starter?”
“Go,” Ashanti said. “But we are going to talk. And tell Kara I’m sorry I have to miss the match. I just have too many orders to fill.”
Kendra’s only response was to tell Duchess to get back as she left through the front door.
“Come here, girl,” Ashanti called. She reached into her mother’s blasphemous ceramic cookie jar of the cat from Alice in Wonderland and slipped Duchess one of the mini treats she’d made last week. Ashanti thought they would be a good addition to her offerings, but she would have to table that idea for now. This was not the time to experiment with new products.
She did a mental tally of how many dozens she still needed to make, and tried to figure out how long she would have to stay up baking tonight if she were to stop for a while and go to Kara’s match.
There was just no way. Even with Evie taking over some of the baking, she still had to decorate and bake at least another ten dozen before tomorrow. She would be lucky if she carried herself to bed before two a.m.
Her bottom lip began to tremble, but Ashanti closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath before things could get out of hand.
“You’re doing as best you can.” She whispered the words to herself a couple times more, until she felt a sense of calm come over her.
“Okay, now get back to work,” she said.
She was in the middle of adding edible sugar pearls to the crown-shape treats when her phone rang. Not recognizing the number, she let it go to voicemail. Two minutes later, the phone rang again. It was the same number. Ashanti frowned at the phone. The caller had left a voicemail, yet had called right back?
She waited for them to hang up, then immediately listened to the first voicemail.
“Oh my God!” Ashanti screamed.
Duchess came running in on her short legs.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” She rushed over to the junk drawer and pulled out a pen and notepad, then she put the phone on speaker and played back the voicemail so that she could write down the number.
“Okay, okay, calm down,” Ashanti ordered herself. She looked down at Duchess. “We got this. We’re professionals.”
She called the number.
“Hello,” Ashanti said the minute the man on the other end of the line answered. “This is Ashanti Wright, owner of Barkingham Palace.”
The words rushed out of her mouth.
Calm down.
She could barely contain her smile as the man repeated the same message he’d left on her voicemail, that he was a producer from one of the local television stations and that they were interested in doing a story about the daycare.
The minute Ashanti was done with the call, she FaceTimed Ridley and Evie.
“Don’t tell me, you got into a fistfight with Kendra,” Evie said.
“Yes, I would totally fist fight my sixteen-year-old sister,” Ashanti said. “No! I just got a call from Channel 6! They want to do a story about Barkingham Palace tomorrow for the morning news.”
“Get the hell outta here,” Ridley said. “I told you Duchess was going to put you on the map one day.”
She’d told her no such thing.
“This livestream video is blowing up way more than I could have ever expected,” Ashanti said. “I need to send that K-pop Instagrammer a gift basket for posting it.”
“Does the news station want you in the studio?” Ridley asked.
“No, they’re coming to the daycare.”
“I’ll be at your house tomorrow morning at five,” Ridley said.
“Why?”
“To do your makeup,” Ridley and Evie said at the same time.
“I can do—”
“Girl, don’t even try to go there,” Evie said. “You cannot be trusted to fix your own face.”
“Hey, I know how to put on makeup. I just don’t,” Ashanti said. The minuscule amount of makeup she owned was at least three years old.
“Okay, so maybe I can use a little help,” Ashanti said. “Be here at four thirty. They asked me to meet them at the daycare for six.”
“Four thirty? Now I’m sorry I offered,” Ridley said.
“I love you too,” Ashanti said. “I’ll talk to you both later. I need to make a call. Evie, I’ll swing by to pick the treats up in a couple of hours.”
“I can bring them,” she said. “You’ve got enough on your plate.”
“You’re the one I really love, Ev,” Ashanti said.
She laughed at Ridley’s obscenity-laced goodbye. She could not buy better friends with all the gold in the world.
Ashanti’s grin quickly turned into a frown as she considered the call she desperately needed to make.
“Just remember, you’re a professional,” she said. Although, there was nothing professional about what she was getting ready to do. She shrugged. It couldn’t be helped.
She used the remote access on her laptop to log in to Barkingham Palace’s system and pulled up Puddin’s account. Later, she would examine the ethics of using the customer database to get a client’s personal cell phone number for nonemergency purposes.
She called Thad before she could talk herself out of doing it.
“Sims,” he answered.
No hello. Just Sims.
“Um, hi,” Ashanti said, actively ignoring her body’s reaction to his voice. My goodness, she could feel the texture of his smooth, deep tone on her skin. “This is Ashanti Wright from Barkingham Palace.”
“Puddin’ is right here with me,” he said, a hint of leeriness in his voice. “On my damn lap, as a matter of fact.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I didn’t know he was on your lap, of course. I’m not peeking through your window or anything.”
Oh my God! Shut up!
“Look, I need a really big favor,” Ashanti said. She would need wine after this call.
“From me?” Thad asked.
No, from the ice cream man. Who did he think?
“Yes, from you,” Ashanti said. “I was contacted by one of the local television stations. They want to do a story about Puddin’ and Duchess going viral on the livestream.”
He paused for a long, uncomfortable moment. “Okay,” he finally said.
A man of so few words.
“They’re meeting me at the daycare at six tomorrow morning. And, well, since it is a story about Duchess and Puddin’ they kinda expect…”
Another pause. “You are not asking me to bring this poodle to the daycare at six in the morning, are you?”
“Five thirty, actually. Just to be on the safe side.”
He groaned. Even that sounded nicer than it should. Low and husky and resonant.
“I know it’s asking a lot,” Ashanti said. “But…” Should she go there? Yes, of course she should go there. “But you bought my building out from under me, so you owe me one.”
She regretted the words the moment she said them. The only person responsible for her not getting her hands on that building was her. Thad had no idea she’d had her heart set on buying it, and even if he did, he was under no obligation to just sit back and let her have that gorgeous house when he wanted it for his business. He didn’t owe her anything.
Yet, instead of calling her on her outrageous take, he said, “Okay.”
“Really?” Ashanti was ready to do a backflip.
“For a price,” he added.
Nix on the backflip. She should have known it wouldn’t be this easy.
She was almost afraid to ask. “What’s the price?”
She could hear him shifting a moment before mumbling, “Move, dog.”
“You know, he may respond to you better if you used his name.”
“I hate his name,” Thad said. “And I do use it sometimes. It doesn’t make a difference. This dog is hardheaded, and he doesn’t listen. Now, about my price,” he continued. “I’m gonna have to put in some long hours at the Bywater house over the next couple of months to get it renovated in time for our grand opening. I want a week of free—what do you call it when you have to keep the dogs after six p.m.?”
“After-care,” she answered.
“That’s it. A week’s worth of free after-care. Take it or leave it.”
She did quick math. “So you’re charging me three hundred dollars to bring Puddin’ to the daycare a couple of hours early tomorrow?”
“Take it or leave it,” Thad said again. She heard the amusement in his response and hated how much she didn’t hate the sound of it. It added another layer to that already decadent voice.
“I’ll take it,” Ashanti said, as if she had a choice. Puddin’ was the other half of the story.
“I’ll make sure his rhinestone collar is nice and shiny,” Thad said. “See you in the morning.”
He disconnected the call before she could, which irritated her even more. The least he could have done was given her the satisfaction of hanging up on him.
She wished she was in the position to throw his offer back in his face, but Thad held all the cards here. She counted herself lucky he hadn’t demanded a month of free after-care. She would have agreed to it.
“He’s so annoying,” she said, setting the phone on the counter. Ashanti caught herself grinning and immediately stopped. There was no space in her life for grinning like a schoolgirl because she had just talked to Mrs. Frances’s exasperating, yet outrageously fine, grandson.
So maybe she should stop grinning and get back to baking.