3. Harper
CHAPTER 3
Harper
There were few things that smelled as good as freshly baked bread. Sugar cookies were one of them, and both scents mingled in the bakery kitchen as I worked.
Horatio had already been in to bake the day’s batch of fresh bread. Although Angel Cakes specialized in cakes, cupcakes, and cookies, Aunt Doris had wanted to expand our offerings to include bread and dinner rolls. That wasn’t my specialty, so I was glad Doris had brought him on. He was a bread-baking genius.
I scooped more cookie dough onto a large baking sheet. This batch was very much an experiment and I wondered if customers would be willing to give them a try. I’d been dabbling with grain-free baking—I know, it sounds strange—and the snickerdoodles didn’t have an ounce of wheat flour.
Tilikum didn’t have a lot of options for people who were gluten free or just watching their carbohydrate intake, so I’d been refining this recipe for the last several days, hoping to find one that tasted as good as it smelled. I had a feeling I’d finally nailed it.
With its stainless-steel counters and appliances, four ovens, and plenty of shelves to keep everything organized, the bakery kitchen was a dream to work in. The walls were white with a scalloped pink border near the ceiling and the large island provided ample workspace. The motif carried into the front, with an exposed brick wall painted white and the same scalloped pink border. Wooden shelves displayed bagged treats to go, as well as the bread and rolls, and there were a few café tables with chairs, usually used for cake tastings.
But the crown jewel was the pastry case.
Every day, we filled it with a new selection of delicious creations. Our specialties were cupcakes and cookies, but we also dabbled with brownies, cake pops, and other treats. The classics were always popular—sugar cookies, chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin. I liked to offer seasonal specialties as well. It was spring, so we had strawberry cream cheese and lemon blueberry cupcakes, as well as frosted sugar cookies shaped like tulips.
I put the cookies into the oven and set two timers. I didn’t trust just one. Such was life when it was ruled by your bad luck.
The back door opened and my aunt Doris walked in. She greeted me with a warm smile and I was pleased to see she was looking energetic. Retirement seemed to be helping her recover.
“Morning!” Her voice was cheerful, but when she didn’t trade her beige knit cardigan for an apron, I knew she wasn’t there to work.
“Morning, Doris.” I tightened my low ponytail and adjusted the wide floral headband I wore to keep my long, blond hair out of my face. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine, more or less.” She knocked her knuckles against a door frame. “Knock on wood.”
I tapped a knuckle on a wooden cutting board in solidarity.
“What smells so good? Cinnamon? ”
“Snickerdoodles.”
“That will be a nice addition. We haven’t offered them in a while.”
I hesitated. “These are grain free.”
She raised her eyebrows, adding a few creases to her lined forehead. “Oh, honey. That can’t taste good.”
“Trust me. They will. I’ve been working on this recipe and I think I have it down.”
She made a noncommittal noise and I knew she wasn’t sure if she believed me. Doris had a hard time with change.
I glanced at the timers. “A few more minutes and you can try one. If you hate it, I’ll toss them all.”
But I’d keep trying to get the recipe right. I was determined.
She scooted a stool to the stainless-steel island in the center of the room and sat. “Fair enough. You have good instincts, I should trust you. So…” Her tone changed, taking on a conspiratorial note. “How was your date?”
“Oh, it was great.” I didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “I hung out by myself at the tavern, which was almost empty by the way, so I couldn’t hide or pretend I wasn’t pathetically waiting for a guy who was clearly going to stand me up. I babbled at the bartender so much, he gave me a free shot of whiskey, probably to get me to be quiet. Then Garrett didn’t show. Said something came up at work.”
Her mouth dropped open and she wrinkled her nose, as if in disgust. “That won’t do.” She started digging through her enormous red handbag. “I need to call Louise.”
“It’s okay, I’m not mad about it. It’s probably not even his fault.”
“What do you mean? He stood you up, of course that’s his fault.”
I shook my head soberly. “No. It was my bad luck.”
Gasping, Doris froze with her hand still in her bag. “Oh, no. ”
“Oh, yes. That has to be it. I’ve had too many good things in a row, it was bound to happen.”
“That dratted mirror.” She gave up her search for whatever she’d been looking for. Her phone, presumably. “It’ll get you every time.”
“I know.” I nodded slowly. “It always finds me.”
Aunt Doris was the only person in my life who believed in my bad luck streak. Which wasn’t too surprising. I’d probably gotten my superstitious nature from her. I certainly hadn’t gotten it from my mom. She was far too practical—a very literal thinker. So was my older sister. I was the odd one in the family. The creative one. The weirdo with funny habits and rituals that no one else seemed to understand.
Except Aunt Doris. Like me, she’d been the odd one in her family. Odd enough to leave her family decades ago when she’d moved to Tilikum, a small town in the central Washington Cascades, and opened a bakery. Coming from a family of scientists, doctors, and at least one psychologist, choosing the life of a small-town baker had seemed downright radical.
Growing up, I’d spent time with her whenever I could. Despite having two children, my mom hadn’t married either of our fathers, shouldering the burdens of single motherhood and a busy career as a research scientist. Doris didn’t have children of her own, and had often made the drive to Tacoma to pick us up and taken us to stay with her in her quaint small town. It gave my mom a break and gave me my deep love of baking.
And probably my propensity to toss salt over my shoulder, always knock on wood, and never, ever walk beneath a ladder.
One of the timers caught my eye. It had stopped dead with one minute and twenty-seven seconds left.
And that was why I always set two.
“Anyway,” I said as I peeked into the oven to check the cookies. “Don’t worry about Louise or the date. It was for the best. I shouldn’t be dating until I’m sure the mirror curse is over.”
“And you shouldn’t be dating Garrett Haven at all. Standing you up on the first date is a red flag in my book.”
“True.” I put on two oven mitts and took out the cookies. They looked perfect—slightly browned with crisp edges. I set the baking sheet on the island and the scent of cinnamon and sugar wafted into the air.
“They do look pretty,” Doris said. “And they smell good.”
I tilted my head to regard my handiwork. They were perfectly uniform, just the right size and shape. “Let’s hope they taste as good as they look.”
“Doris?” a voice called from the front of the bakery. “Are you back there?”
“That sounds like Louise.” Doris eased her way off the stool. “Her nose must have been itching.”
“I thought it was ears burning.”
“I think it’s the nose. Itchy nose, someone is talking about you. Coming, Louise!”
Doris disappeared to the front and came back a moment later, ushering her friend Louise Haven into the kitchen. Louise wore a lavender velour track suit—I’d never seen her in anything else, although the colors varied—and her gray hair was in a loose bun at the nape of her neck. She was roughly my aunt’s age, but until about six or seven years ago, their friendship had been strictly clandestine. Doris had been friends with the Bailey family, the former rivals to the Havens.
Growing up, the feud had been a huge thing in Tilikum. Certain restaurants and stores had been forbidden to me and my sister Holly, like the Copper Kettle Diner and Home Slice Pizza. Holly had always declared it to be stupid, but I’d taken it very seriously. You didn’t mess with feuds.
Although nothing bad seemed to have happened to Doris or Louise on account of their secret friendship .
In any case, it was all in the past. And thank goodness for that, because Home Slice had the best margherita pizza I’d ever tasted.
And Doris and Louise could openly be friends.
“Oh good, you’re both here.” Louise set her purse on the island and fixed her gaze on me. A knowing smile curved the corners of her mouth. “How did it go?”
“He stood her up,” Doris cut in before I could reply, her tone clipped. “Of course it isn’t your fault, and I’m not blaming you, but he is your nephew. The boy needs a talking-to.”
“He’s a grown man,” I said. “I don’t think anyone needs to talk to him.”
“He did what?” Louise’s voice was filled with shock.
Doris gestured toward me. “Stood her up. He left her sitting at the Timberbeast all alone. Rocco gave her a free drink.”
Louise clutched her hands to her chest. “Scandalous. I hope no one was there to see it.”
“I think there were a couple of people there, plus the bartender guy,” I said. “Is that Rocco? The name fits.”
“You know how word gets around.” Doris shook her head sadly. “If something like this happens again, her reputation will be in serious jeopardy.”
“My reputation?”
Louise clicked her tongue. “We can’t have that.”
“What is this, Victorian England? How is my reputation going to be ruined?”
Doris blinked, as if just remembering I was standing there. “I don’t mean that sort of reputation. I just mean that people might begin to assume you’re…”
“I’m what?”
“Unlucky,” Louise said with a definitive nod.
“Shh.” Doris put a finger to her lips. “Don’t use that word in front of her. ”
I sighed. “I’m not that fragile. And I am unlucky. You know this about me.”
Louise produced a small notebook from her purse and thumbed through the pages. “I was going to consider Luke as a backup if things with Garrett didn’t work out, but now I’m not so sure. No offense, dear, but he’s unlucky enough as it is, at least when it comes to love.”
“He isn’t with Jill again, is he?” Doris asked.
“Oh my stars, no.” Louise waved that off. “Heaven forbid.”
“Didn’t you set them up in the first place?”
“Twice, but who’s counting?” Louise smiled, her voice sounding more chipper. “Of course, the second time I didn’t recall they’d dated before. And Jill has a way of hiding her… let’s say her eccentricities .”
Doris leaned toward me and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She’s a bit batty, if you know what I mean.”
I didn’t know Jill, or Luke, but I was beginning to wonder if Doris’s claim that Louise Haven was a matchmaking genius was a bit overblown.
“Well, thank you anyway for the attempt, Louise, but I’m going to be on a dating hiatus for the foreseeable future.”
Louise gasped again. “Why would you do a silly thing like that?”
My eyes flicked to Doris. I didn’t want to broadcast my mirror curse problem to everyone in town. She gave me a subtle nod. She understood.
“I’m still getting settled and there’s so much to do here. I have a list of new recipes to try. Speaking of.” I grabbed a spatula, slid it beneath a snickerdoodle, and set it on a napkin, then handed it to Louise. “Try this.”
While Louise took a bite, I gave one to Doris.
The two women ate with expressions of deep concentration. Doris took another careful bite, as if still considering if she should like it or not, while Louise ate the whole thing.
“Delicious,” Louise said around her mouthful of cookie. She wiped the crumbs from the corners of her mouth and swallowed. “Absolute heaven.”
I beamed. “Yeah? They’re good?”
My gaze moved to Doris. She knew the dirty little almond flour secret. Would that influence her opinion?
“She’s right. Soft and chewy in the middle, crisp on the outside. You’d never know they aren’t real.”
“To be fair, they are real, they just have different ingredients.”
“Well, that’s it,” Louise said. “I’m never making snickerdoodles again. I’ve been outdone.”
I laughed. “Do you want to bring some home with you? These were just a test batch.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
I went to the front to grab a to-go box while she chatted with Doris and noticed a teenage boy in a blue hoodie loitering on the sidewalk just outside. That was odd. Wasn’t it a school day?
He didn’t make a move to come in, so I took the box back to the kitchen and wrapped up some of the snickerdoodles for Louise. She took it and said goodbye, muttering about not giving any to Garrett as she left, this time out the back door.
“I suppose I should go home and put my feet up,” Doris said.
“Is your hip acting up again?”
“My hip, my knee, my back. You name it.”
“Go home and get some rest. I’ve got things covered and Beth will be here soon.”
“All right, honey.” She gave me a hug and gathered up her handbag. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will. See you later.” The front door opened, so I called over my shoulder, “I’ll be right with you. ”
I walked Doris to the back door and wiped the cookie crumbs off my hands before going to greet my customer.
The door was just closing as I came into the front, and I caught sight of what looked like the kid in the blue hoodie dashing up the sidewalk. I blinked once and he was out of sight.
What had that been about?
Then I saw it.
The display nearest the door, which had moments earlier been filled with bagged sugar cookies and other sweets, was empty.
I’d just been robbed.