Chapter 5
As the week passed without the famed Triple Chocolate Fudge Caramel cookie, Chloe tried every possible combination of chocolate, fudge, and caramel in her vast baker repertoire.
And Rick had reported no luck at getting Bob to return his calls.
Either the Mortons were out to sea for an extended fishing trip or when they’d retired and sold Haven’s, they’d dusted the flour from their hands and not looked back.
Chloe had thrown herself at the challenge. When nothing was deemed good enough, she’d even called Gaspard Dupree, her old pastry mentor, for ideas. Everything he suggested earned a curled lip from Ruby.
“Darling, we’re simple folks from Hearts Bend, Tennessee, not fancy, schmancy people from Paris, France.”
Last Friday, Chloe gave away her version of chocolate chip cookies—which were amazing, if she could be so bold.
They were well received, especially being free and all, but no one in Hearts Bend was calling to put a fresh batch on reserve.
Fair enough. But what was she going to do this week?
She’d quizzed Ruby and Laura Kate, even a few customers, until Ruby threatened to strangle her, and Mrs. O’Shay’s friends avoided Chloe and turned their backs to her. “We don’t know! Stop asking.”
Nevertheless, she was developing a special bond with the crew as they found themselves in a cookie crisis—complete with frustrated and clipped answers.
So now here she was on a Thursday morning, still with no recipe, fighting the urge to knock her head on her scarred wooden desk. Searching for this recipe was beginning to feel like she was trying to catch fireflies with oven mitts. Fruitless, pointless, and a little ridiculous.
“Are you going to try again?” Ruby leaned against the door, twisting a dish towel. “Tomorrow will be the second week without them cookies. I’m not saying for sure, but I thought I heard talk of an insurrection in the grocery checkout line last night.”
“What?” Chloe sat bolt upright. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Of course I am…sort of…maybe…yeah, for sure I’m joking.”
“Ruby, don’t mess with me. Look, I’m shaking.
” She held up her quivering hand, which she tried to convince herself had nothing to do with the four cups of coffee she’d already swallowed.
This cookie thing was robbing her of sleep.
She’d called Donna after Sam texted the number to her only to learn she kept all the recipes in her head.
Oh yes, there was a recipe box…somewhere…
but she’d not used it since the Reagan administration.
“Okay, then just tell me what’s in the cookie and roughly, if you could, the ingredient measurements.”
Donna had laughed. “A little of this, a little of that, sweetie. Flour, of course, and butter. Cocoa and, oh! The secret is my homemade caramel sauce. After ten years, I started to believe the darn things made themselves while I slept.” Then Chloe heard Bob in the background telling her it was time to go—the special at the Golden Corral started in ten minutes.
So Chloe now spent each afternoon mixing up every version of a caramel sauce she could think of to add to a chocolate fudge cookie base only to see the disappointed expressions of her taste tasters—Ruby, Laura Kate, Mr. Petrella (who came in every day for his coffee and donut), and the afternoon counter girl, Robin, if she managed to clock in on time.
(Hint: She never did.) She even gave away free samples for honest opinions. But not one recipe compared to Donna’s.
Despite the devastation of the TCFC demise, the bakery was doing well.
Chloe was doing well. She’d made basic versions of donuts and crullers, muffins and fritters.
Laura Kate told her the few Haven’s secrets she knew for cakes and pies—a little vanilla here, an extra dash of cinnamon or nutmeg there.
If Chloe didn’t get it right, no one said anything.
In fact, one customer said, “Just like Donna’s.
” That pinched just a bit if Chloe was honest. Because…
her skills were just a touch better than Donna’s.
In other news, Janice Hardy loved Chloe’s ’60s-themed cake ideas: a classic Mustang, a Schwinn bike with a banana seat, or an Etch-a-Sketch.
But the woman had insisted on something reflecting her husband’s favorite hobby.
She’d chosen a four-layer chocolate and vanilla golf-based cake that promised to be a showstopper for Frank Hardy’s sixtieth birthday party in another couple of weeks.
“Chloe, my goodness, you have a gift. I never tasted such creamy icing.”
Chloe had designed a clever golf course made of frosting and piping. She planned to teach Laura Kate some advanced techniques when they did the actual decorating.
“Well, what’re you going to do, shug?” Ruby said, interrupting her thoughts. “We might have to punt this one and invent a new Friday afternoon must-have.”
“I’m not surrendering yet.” Chloe rested her cheek against her hand and peered at Ruby, feeling more defeated than she cared to admit. “Let me think…keep working at it.”
“Don’t think too hard. Can’t have that pretty forehead of yours all wrinkled,” Ruby chuckled. “What would Sam say?”
Chloe gave her a look. Sam? “Why should he think anything about my forehead? He’s a friend, Ruby. No, he’s my boss.”
“Whatever.” Ruby waved off her comment and returned to the kitchen. Chloe was pretty sure Ruby didn’t even hear her answer. Selective hearing, that Ruby.
Chloe had learned a lot about her staff’s personalities this first full week—and fallen a little bit in love.
The staff ran like clockwork. Ruby, everyone’s mother, grandmother, or dear old aunt, manned the front counter five mornings a week.
Robin, the little sister who dashed in late three afternoons a week but was so sweet and eager to please that Chloe forgave her each time.
And she was a hard worker. Robin manned the shop after school, but she also opened Saturday mornings and again on Sunday afternoons after church for a few hours.
Chloe took Donna’s old time slot, arriving at three every morning to start the baking and opening the shop at six.
Then there was Laura Kate, her assistant baker.
Laura Kate closed up the two evenings Robin was off, and was in charge of the donuts and crullers, muffins and cookies, and simple decorating.
She was also sweet, very focused, and very unorganized. But oh, Chloe saw genius in her work.
In fact, she could hear LK humming right now all the way from the kitchen as she smoothed icing on a Styrofoam round for one of the display cakes Chloe planned to put in the front window.
Her first job in Paris had been a small bakery with over-the-top window displays, and since they did a cracking business, Chloe wanted to try the technique here.
Hopefully the display would expand the special-order department. Birthday cakes. Wedding cakes. Cakes for any and all occasions.
Chloe sat back in her chair and gazed toward the small office window.
March had arrived two days ago and the sunshine already seemed brighter.
But wow, this cookie recipe deal exhausted her.
She was a trained chef. Surely she could figure out a simple chocolate fudge cookie.
But homegrown bakers like Donna were tricky—they had recipes and tricks from their great-great-great-grannies that no one could imagine.
A super-secret homemade caramel sauce should be easy.
Think, think, think…
Chloe reached for her hair clip—the one with pearly beads that had become her trademark in Paris—and reclipped her hair to include a loose strand.
Might as well get to work. Office stuff today.
She picked up the stack of envelopes and fliers from the corner of her desk.
The mail consisted of bills and a magazine that promised articles on the prettiest Middle Tennessee hiking trails and the best diners serving banana pancakes.
She set the stack on top of Donna’s old leather scrapbook then nudged the computer mouse to wake up the machine.
Bob had managed to put all the accounting and ordering online in the last year, which made her job so much easier.
But she found herself staring at the open accounting program.
Besides the sideswipe of this cookie recipe, there was the issue of Sam Hardy.
He’d popped in twice this week after therapy sessions at Dr. Morgan’s office.
Ruby had served him a cruller and chocolate milk—for old time’s sake—as he chatted with the staff and customers.
Before leaving, he’d stopped by the office and told Chloe she was doing a good job.
“Am I? It’s only been a week and I’ve not figured out this famous cookie recipe.”
“You’ll come up with something. What about a new chocolate chip cookie?” He’d shrugged as if it was no big deal. But it was a huge deal. Of insurrection proportions, if Ruby was to be believed. Which she probably wasn’t. “What about a chocolate cookie with bacon?”
“Oh sure, here’s your box of cookies and a defibrillator, sir. Come back and see us when you get out of the hospital.”
Sam’s laugh—she could hear it now. So smooth and clean with some sort of deep echo that made her want to press replay.
He also had a killer wink, which he employed a lot when he was teasing.
Or flirting? Was he flirting with her? No.
Definitely not. He was her boss. Yeah, of course, that was just him.
The old playboy coming out. He’d winked at Ruby the other day and at Mrs. O’Shay.
But she was a stunning eighty-something-year-old.
Anyway, Chloe, gather yourself and get to work.