9. Who You Say I Am
HILLSONG WORSHIP
9
WHO YOU SAY I AM
“I made a lemon bundt cake that would bring tears to your eyes, Sadie. I tell ya what!” Mrs. Emmerson shrieked over the sounds of espresso machines and chatter in the coffee shop. She fanned her reddened face, obviously in danger of melting thanks to the sweltering heat outside and her excitement over homemade baked goods.
“Is that right? Lemons are my favorite,” Sadie admitted, making what had to be the hundredth Blended S’mores Latte of the day—Good Start’s signature summer drink and perfect for the Sugartree Sunshine Festival.
“Oh you’d better believe it, young lady! It took fourth place in the Cake and Bake competition east of Columbus. Woulda been third if that snake in the grass, Betty Robertson, hadn’t made that bedeviled banana puddin’ cake. I was robbed.”
“Is that so?” Sadie had no idea what a Cake and Bake competition was, exactly, but it sounded cutthroat.
“Yup.” She leaned in close, cupping the back of her hand to her mouth and pinching her eyebrows together, preparing to tell a very loud secret. “Ya know, it wasn’t even her own recipe. I tell you what… I was fit to be tied! But I’ll get ‘em this year. Betty Robertson and her stolen recipes don’t stand a chance.”
“I’m sure you will, Mrs. Emmerson! I’ll just have to try to make it out for the cakewalk to get a taste of that lemon bundt for myself, won’t I?” Sadie caught Dakota’s eyes as he pushed through the kitchen door, looking highly amused and obscenely handsome in his Good Start tee, matching ball cap, and jeans.
Mrs. Emmerson, unfortunately, saw him as well. She audibly harrumphed and readjusted her purse as if it had offended her greatly.
Dakota beamed at Mrs. Emmerson, turning on his usual charm, completely unaware of her distaste for him, the man who’d desecrated her prize winning red velvet cake at the May Day Festival the year before. “Hey there, Mrs. Emmerson. You look mighty fine and festive today.”
Sadie smiled, taking in Mrs. Emmerson’s bright yellow sundress and then Dakota, who was completely oblivious to the fact that he was one asinine comment away from inadvertently getting himself banned from all Sugartree cakewalks from now through eternity.
“Please, do come on over, Sadie,” she pointedly emphasized, pulling her purse closer to herself. A defense between herself and the man who’d used her precious baked goods as a weapon of war. “And I want you to know, I voted for you in the Cordiality Count. You are a delight, young lady.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Emmerson,” Sadie called out, handing her a Blended S’mores Latte. “You try to stay cool out there and have a good start to your day!”
“Well,” Dakota slid up beside Sadie, placing both palms on the counter, “I gotta say it…”
“Ya probably shouldn’t.”
“She was less than amiable.” He turned fully, looking at Sadie, all playfulness and spunk.
“You ruined her cake, Kota. What else do you expect? Anyways, she said I was a delight…”
“‘Course she did. You are delightful, Edwin. She voted for ya and everything.” Dakota booped her on the nose, and she flicked his hand away. “But she was lookin’ at me like she was fixin’ to tan my hide and walk me straight to church. It gave me the shivers.” He mocked a chill and leaned in closer. “Now, when’s your break? I may not be welcome at the cakewalk, but I’d love to win ya a Sunshine prize elsewhere and add a tally to my count.”
He eyed the Cordiality Count, wordlessly noting that he was still winning by a mile, and smirked back at Sadie, leaning in too close. Sadie thought about stomping on both his feet in the name of women and cake bakers everywhere, but chose gracious maturity instead, and stuck her pointer finger deep into his cheek. Right where his smile line peaked.
“Not that I’ll accept that lazy bit of friendliness, Dakota Remillard, but as it happens… I am actually off right now.” She looked at her watch to verify and then confirmed with the staff, taking off her apron. “I’m taking my break, y’all. Be back in an hour.”
Dakota’s hand found the small of her back, gently leading her to the door.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
Dakota looked over his shoulder. “What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m hoping to get out on the street for the pie eatin’ contest before all the spots are taken.” He continued leading her, his hand glued to that spot. It was warm and solid and unassuming… and completely unacceptable. Especially given the way it made Sadie want to curl into it, just like a cat looking for a good scratch.
She wiggled forward, out of his reach.
“What are you doing?” Dakota’s voice hitched as they reached the street, nearly falling over at how quickly she’d danced away from him.
“Your hand was on me!” she screeched far too loudly for the audience on the street. Festival goers collectively paused near them.
Dakota put both guilty hands in the air. “Gracious, Sadie. I didn’t mean to make ya all squirrely. I just want the pie, girl.”
Mrs. Emmerson, who’d joined what looked like her spades group on the street—including Dakota’s mama—put her perfectly manicured hand to her mouth and, as proper as a woman of her stature could, shouted, “Don’t let him near your pies, Sadie. He’ll ruin ‘em, to be sure!”
The spades squad surrounding her broke into giggles, and Sadie couldn’t help but laugh too when she saw the blush creep up Dakota’s neck.
She threw her hands to her mouth, trying her best to cover her pleasure at Dakota’s humiliation, but to little avail. “Sorry,” she said, through a snort.
“You’re not at all,” he said, shaking his head. His hazel eyes, sparkling and unrelenting. “Now,” he put an arm out, welcoming her to lead without any contact, “if ya don’t mind, my crazy competitive sisters are waiting on us at the pie eatin’ contest, and I’d really like to show ‘em who’s boss. Please?”
“Right. Pies. I like pies.”
“I know,” Dakota said, hands still outstretched but now wiggling like a jazz dancer. “Let’s go eat pie.”
“Yes. Great.”
“Grood.” He smirked.
Sadie flittered by him and his jazz hands. “But my money’s on Georgia.”
In retrospect, following Dakota to the pie eating contest may not have been Sadie’s smartest choice. The Remillard siblings and their cohorts had a funny way of finding mischief wherever they went. While Sadie loved them all to bits, she also didn’t want to get herself banned from a town-wide event. And at the time, she couldn’t have imagined the possibility of public indecency being thrown onto the growing list of Remillard infractions.
“You’re goin’ down, baby boy,” Caroline shouted at Dakota as soon as they came into view. Her son, Theo, raised his fists in the air and yelled a battle cry, obviously taught to him by the Remillard girls. “Ya-Ya!”
All the girls, including Sadie, echoed proudly, “Ya-Ya!”
Oh goodness, she was a cohort. If they were goin’ down, Sadie was too.
“I will never understand y’all.” Griffin put an arm around Caroline’s waist and pulled her close. “But, man, do I love your competitive side, Honey.”
Sadie laughed to herself as Dakota physically blanched at their PDA and then turned to see Lake, seemingly coaching Georgia in preparation for her role in the contest. Just a fighter in the proverbial ring, Georgia stood in front of Lake who rubbed her shoulders and neck while whispering instructions in her ear.
“They’ve been at that for a while now,” Ginny said, pulling Sadie into a hug then turning to the giant, notably good-looking man at her side. “Anyways, y’all. This is my friend, Danger.”
Sadie shook his hand, which engulfed her own, and heard the snickers of Dakota and Ryan—Georgia and Caroline’s long-time friend—nearby. “Nice to meet ya. How do y’all know one another?” she asked, pointing between Ginny and him.
Danger laced his fingers with Ginny’s. He regrettably sported a prominent man bun, its cringiness only counteracted by an achingly deep voice—fit for midnight radio, preferably where he read aloud classic English romances. It didn’t hurt that he bore a striking resemblance to Superman. But a very good-looking, long-haired, Clark Kent version.
“Virginia and I met in our Women’s Literature of the 19th Century course,” he said, all smooth and rich, like those caramel dark chocolates Dakota had given Sadie weeks ago. She’d taken her time eating those chocolates, enjoying every bite. Dakota probably would have had them down the hatch in one sitting, likely whilst drinking hot tea and playing with his miniatures. But Sadie dared to bet sweet, big Danger Man Bun would savor every morsel.
The man in question brushed a piece of Ginny’s hair behind her ear, like a dang movie star, and smiled down at her. Sadie wanted to applaud with approval.
Yes! Keep him!
“Anyway,” he said, “she was just too beautiful and intelligent for me to resist, so I asked her out the first chance I got, and here we are.”
Sadie blurred out for a moment, imagining Danger—who even cared what his last name was—reciting Bronte in his husky, bewitching voice. “Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad…”
He beamed at Ginny, and Ryan aggressively took his hand to shake, breaking the spell. “Nice to meet ya… Danger, is it? That really your name, man? Seems unlikely.”
He tilted his head to the side, still clenching Danger’s hand, and Sadie noticed both men’s fingertips turning white with pressure.
Was Ryan suddenly taller?
He looked like he was standing on his tippy toes so that he might stand eye to eye with Danger.
“Uh, yeah. It’s Danger. Danger McDuffy. And you are?”
“McDuffy…” he smirked, uncharacteristically arrogant. “I’m Ryan Hood. Close, family friend. I’ve known Ginny forever. Could probably say I know her better than most.”
“You mean, Virginia? For someone who knows her so well, you don’t seem to know her name,” Danger said, a sneer lifting his cheek while his hand still clutched Ryan’s, slowly pumping it up and down in the longest handshake of all time.
“Nope. I meant Ginny. That’s what all her family and close personal friends call her. The people who know her best, ya know?”
Ginny watched them volley back and forth, hands now on her hips in what Sadie knew had the potential to turn into a sound, verbal lashing.
“My name is Virginia, Ryan,” she snipped. “And I’d thank you to let go of my date’s hand now. He has a pie eatin’ contest to win.”
Ryan refused to back down and maintained a menacing amount of eye contact with a man much more burly than himself. “Funny… I planned on winnin’ the contest today. And I definitely don’t intend on losin’ to a guy named Danger.”
Sadie elbowed Dakota who, up until that point, had been happily eating a Bomb Pop he’d acquired—from where, Sadie wasn’t sure—while watching the show, savoring it slowly like a container of popcorn at a matinee.
“Do something!” she whisper-hissed. “Ryan is gonna get a whoopin’.”
“Can’t.” Dakota gestured to the popsicle in his hands “Hands are full. Plus, that guy has a man bun and a name fit for a cartoon villain. Not to mention, he’s eight feet tall. He’s like a caricature of himself… Ryan’s on his own.”
Sadie ripped the Bomb Pop out of his hand and bit the entire red portion off the top. “You.” She chewed, swallowed, and bit the next section, ignoring the brain freeze quickly forming. “Are.”
“Hey!” he protested, snapping his own bite off the top in a battle all their own. “That’s mine!”
Sadie pulled away, shoving the popsicle into her mouth. Bite. Swallow. Bite. Chills. Swallow. “Useless!”
He wrapped his arms around her, in a bear hug from the back, overwhelming her with heat and that dang lemon zest he carried around.
Was it a strange lemon cologne, formulated to make her insane?
Dakota managed to bite a portion before she wiggled away and slipped the final piece off the stick, swallowing it whole and handing the trash to him. Standing open-mouthed and wide-eyed, hands held out in confusion, he was the very essence of taking candy from a baby.
Dakota pointed the empty, stained popsicle stick at her. “I can’t believe you ate my popsicle!”
“And I can’t believe you won’t help your friend!” she shouted just as the crowd let out a collective gasp. Dakota and Sadie turned heads in tandem to the commotion. Both Ryan and Danger had—for some most definitely, ill-conceived reason—ripped their shirts off and taken seats beside each other at the pie station, both maintaining the same haunting eye contact, and effectively forgetting the woman they’d quite obviously been going head-to-head over in the first place.
Ginny was positively livid. Arms crossed, hair a humid, rage-induced, curl-cyclone falling into her face. Looking as if she were one minute away from a Remillard family pie fight, she marched over to the table, slammed her butt in a chair, and pulled a pie in front of her.
A hush went over the crowd.
Georgia and Caroline took their places at the table with their respective Lovett men cheering them on, front and center, in the crowd. A few middle-aged men who, apparently after seeing Ryan and his direct competition take off their shirts, decided to follow suit and strip off their tops before taking chairs at the table. The women of Sugartree swooned and scoffed, alike. Cat-calls shrilled in abundance through the air.
Sadie heard a woman behind her say, “Someone call the pastor…” And another, “You hush, Nancy. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little snack in this summer heat.”
“Well,” Dakota said, throwing his popsicle stick in the trash and giving Sadie’s hair an irritating but gentle tug. “There’s no way I’m letting those two doofuses and my sisters show me up.”
To Sadie’s utter dismay and, yes, definite viewing pleasure, Dakota ripped the Good Start t-shirt right off his body, revealing a well-toned specimen underneath. She knew he worked out daily, of course. She’d seen him come home from the gym and through the shop every day after work and sometimes on the weekend. But Sadie had earnestly—admirably—attempted not to think about him or what blessed effects those efforts at the gym had afforded her friend. Her very physically attractive, overly confident, friend.
Dakota slapped the discarded shirt into Sadie’s hands, turned his hat backwards, and then, without hesitation, pressed his still chilled lips to her cheek.
Sadie froze. Maybe the whole world froze. She felt that touch from her cheek down to her toes. The cold pressure, a delicious contrast to the warmth of the sun on her skin and the scent of a lemon zest cloud surrounding her.
“For good luck,” he laughed against her skin.
He winked and ran before she could yell. Or stomp her feet. Or—thank goodness—ask him to even things up on the other side.
“I hope you’ll make him pay for that one later, Sadie Girl.” Mrs. Remillard put her arm around Sadie’s waist and pulled her close, affection she’d seen her shed on her daughters countless times before.
“Oh… he’ll pay,” Sadie promised.
“He always has been a live one, my son. Always light-hearted and excitable. But, whew, Sadie…” She chuckled as the Colonel joined his children on stage and ripped his shirt off, high-fiving all the local men. A band of brotherhood, rooted in nudity and a love for pies. “Sadie, you bring out something in Dakota that I’ve rarely seen… He’s positively befuddled by you, girl.”
“And that's a good thing?”
Sadie bit her lip, fighting laughter and a love for their crazy family she felt so deeply it hurt—in the best and sweetest of ways. In a way that made her afraid to lose them. To lose everything all over again would be horrible, but to lose the Remillard family? Unbearable.
Mrs. Remillard squeezed her waist. “Oh, yeah. A little inner turmoil could do that young man some good. Make him pray and really figure out what’s what. Where he should be spending his time and efforts, and where not to.”
“And you think he should spend his efforts on…” Sadie could barely look at her, instead focusing on the table of participants inhaling as many pies as they could in a three minute timespan.
Danger ‘Man Bun’ McDuffy had already upchucked after his very first pie, to which Ryan stood—fists raised high—and shouted, “Ya-Ya!” in victory. When Lake and Griffin echoed his battle cry, Ryan promptly ran to a trash can and lost his pie, as well. A few other men gave up quickly, too. The calories and sugar intake at rapid speeds, a dangerous combo in the summer heat.
Georgia, Caroline, and the Colonel all bowed out with grace after at least two pies each.
Now the battle was down to Dakota, Ginny, and Mrs. Emmerson’s son, in his late thirties and showing no sign of stopping. His stage mama stood, just ahead, championing her grown man-child and whisper-yelling about vengeance for her red velvet cake.
“Look at those two,” Mrs. Remillard said, gazing proudly at Dakota and Ginny. “Ya know, Ginny has always gone after what she wants. Even as a child, she was stiff-necked and headstrong. No just wasn’t in her vocabulary. But, my Kota…” She tipped her head at Dakota, who showed no sign of stopping but was eyeing his sister warily. “He usually knows exactly what he wants, but he’s more prone to make sure everyone else is taken care of… his sisters, his friends, even me and his daddy. He’ll give everybody grief for it, sure, but deep down, I think maybe he’s afraid to go after what he wants.”
Mrs. Emmerson’s son started to look green, throwing a hand over his mouth and closing his eyes as if in prayer. The twenty second warning sounded and Ginny shoveled pie into her mouth like a madwoman bent on proving a point. But Dakota, taking one glance at each of his opponents, slowed down. He didn’t seem sick or the least bit bothered by the pie intake. On the contrary, Sadie knew he was trained after a lifetime of eatin’ his mama’s homemade baked goods each and every day. But he stopped and put his hands in the air just as Mrs. Emmerson’s son curled in on himself beside the table.
“He threw the fight,” Sadie whispered, hands coming to her cheeks where the imprint of Dakota’s kiss lingered.
“He sure did.” Mrs. Remillard leaned in closer to Sadie, speaking over the crowd cheering for Ginny’s valiant victory, “I think I’d like to see Dakota pursue what he wants to pursue for a change. And I’d like to see him win, Sadie Girl.” She kissed the top of Sadie’s head. “I plan to bring your mama and daddy some scones next week when they’re in their new place. Let me know if y’all need anything?”
Sadie nodded her head in agreement, taken aback and studying the man now lifting his sister on his bare shoulders and celebrating her. Championing her. He pointed his finger at the two men who’d foolishly thought something as commonplace in Sugartree as a pie battle could win Ginny over and shouted, “In your faces! Virginia Maple Remillard loses to no one!”
Sadie wanted to laugh. Wanted to cheer along with the rest of the Remillards who’d joined the crowd and were chanting, “Ginny! Ginny! Ginny!” as they handed her a giant check, good for unlimited Duke’s Barbeque all year long.
Instead, she hung back and wondered what it would take to be the one lifting Dakota up and chanting his name…
But, in the next breath, she could only stand there shaking her head in befuddled wonderment as Dakota and the other men accepted charges for public indecency from the local sheriff, holding their tickets up in the air and cheering as if they’d won as big as Ginny.