Chapter 12
Twelve
CALLIE
TWO WEEKS LATER
“And what are those?” Mrs. Rankin asked, pointing with a look of distaste at my signature Saint Honorés.
I explained patiently what they were, even though I wanted to scream at her that they were the same pastries she’d asked about every day the bakery was open for the last two weeks.
Morag from Morag’s Grocery stood behind Mrs. Rankin and rolled her eyes.
We both knew Mrs. Rankin knew exactly what all the new pastries in Callie’s Wee Cakery were.
She was merely making a passive-aggressive point that she didn’t like the new changes.
And she didn’t like that I’d left Ardnoch for three years and thought I could waltz back into my mother’s bakery and village life like I’d never left.
“Hmm.” She sniffed and shot Mum a look, but she was too busy helping another villager out with her order. As were our customer service assistants, Angie and Cathy. “All of these fancy French things … There was nothing wrong with what your mother used to sell, you know.”
“There was nothing wrong with them, Aisla,” Morag said from behind her, “as there’s nothing wrong with Callie’s pastries. In fact, they’re divine, and I’d quite like to sample one before the end of time.”
I pinched my lips to smother a smile as Aisla Rankin shot Morag a displeased look over her shoulder. “Perhaps you should reconsider sampling any sweet treats, Morag.”
Morag raised a brow. “And what does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just that you might have been sampling a few too many lately.”
Oh, no she didn’t.
The customers crowded into the store sucked in their breath, appalled.
“Mrs. Rankin,” Mum called.
She turned her glower on Mum. “Yes?”
“I don’t take kindly to you insulting my customers, and since you’re clearly displeased with our new array of baked goods, I don’t think you’ll be too put out when I tell you I must ask you to leave.”
Gaping at Mum, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.
This was what I was afraid of.
Since my return to the bakery, there had been some hiccups with the new menu.
People were a bit disgruntled at first that some of the cakes Mum had been baking for years were no longer on offer, to make room for my new recipes.
I was gutted on day one when local customers left in a huff without buying anything, and I was so sure I was going to cost Mum her business if we didn’t return it to the status quo.
However, Mum remained calm and assured me that in a tiny place like Ardnoch, sometimes people weren’t eager for change. It took time.
As for tourists, they snapped photos of my pastries, oohing and aahing over them. That only made me feel slightly better because I wanted to win over the people who lived here.
Our kind friends and family heard about the terrible day and dropped in throughout the next week to buy the pastries and make a big show around the village about how delicious they were. When we opened on Saturday, customers returned and decided to give my inventions a try.
We’d stayed busy, but there was always at least one customer who bemoaned the lack of the old treats. I told Mum maybe we should put some of the old cakes back and take away some of the new, but she’d flat out refused.
“Yours are better,” she’d told me with blunt pride. “And only the best is served at Callie’s Wee Cakery.”
But now this …
It had come to Mum booting one of her regular, long-standing customers off the premises.
Mum had complained about Mrs. Rankin almost every day.
The older lady was really getting on our nerves …
but in my absence, I’d forgotten something.
No one messed with me and Harry while Mum was around to see it.
People always thought they should be intimidated and afraid of Dad …
but Mum was the biggest Mamma Bear around.
“What a way to treat a loyal customer!” Mrs. Rankin spat.
“It is.” Mum gestured to Morag. “Morag has been patronizing my bakery since the first day it opened, and I won’t see her insulted beneath its roof.”
“Wait until the rest of the village hears of this insult to me!” Mrs. Rankin fumed as she sneered at Morag.
Morag tilted her chin. “Don’t you be looking at me like that, Aisla Rankin. And you can forget about coming into the store for your Friday sandwich, too, until you apologize.”
“Huh! Keep your sandwich. It’s too vinegary, anyway.” She sniffed haughtily and started to push past the congregated and very entertained customers.
“That’s not the sandwich, it’s your sour tongue!” Morag called after her, getting the last word in.
As soon as the door closed on Mrs. Rankin, despite my concerns about the business, I tried but failed to smother a snort of laughter.
Morag stepped up to the counter, her eyes dancing with amusement. “She had that coming.”
“That sour tongue comment was perfect.” I bit my lip against more laughter. “But what if she tells everyone not to come to the bakery?”
I could feel Mum studying me, but I kept my attention on Morag.
“No one pays a lick of attention to Aisla Rankin. Or Ursula.” Morag referred to Mrs. Rankin’s daughter, who was in her forties but according to gossip still thought she was a high school mean girl.
Morag tucked a loose strand of teal-colored hair behind her ear.
“Now, just to spite the auld witch, I’ll take an Ardnoch Saint Honoré and an apple candy rose puff. ”
I boxed up her cakes with a smile and slipped a wee salted caramel macaron in as a thank-you.
The rest of the morning, as all mornings at the bakery since that fateful first day back, flew by and we were out of products before noon. Angie and Cathy immediately began to clean out front.
Phil no longer worked at the bakery.
Another reason I felt guilty and worried about my effect on the business.
Mum’s assistant had been working and learning from her for over two years.
He’d never made it known he was upset about my impending return, but two mornings after my trip to London, he texted Mum to let her know he wouldn’t be back.
He said he didn’t feel there would be much room for him at the bakery now, nor the attention he needed from her to become a professional baker.
That he couldn’t stay where nepotism flourished!
He was moving to Inverness to attend catering college.
Dad called him a spoiled man-child and told me not to worry about it.
Mum was upset by his defection, but also told me not to worry about it.
I worried about it.
For the most part, being back in Ardnoch was easy. Our friends and family welcomed me back like I’d never left. Yet there were some, not even as mean as Aisla and Ursula Rankin, who were a bit standoffish with me. Like I was new to the village all over again.
The worst was my own brother. I couldn’t tell if Harry was a moody, prepubescent almost-twelve-year-old who didn’t want to hang out with me or if he was pissed off at me for being away for so long.
Whatever it was, anytime I tried to chat or hang out with him, he either disappeared out the door and got on his bike or locked himself in his room to play on the computer.
Part of me wondered if leaving had been a huge mistake. Feeling unsettled and concerned about my effect on the business, on my brother, was an excellent distraction from the thing that plagued me more than any other part of my life.
My unforgettable night with Lewis.
Now and then, out of nowhere, I’d see Lewis moving over my body. I could hear my moans mingling with his groans. Feel his hands, smell his aftershave, remember his mouth …
I shook my head of the memories and pulled off my apron. Mum disappeared into the kitchen to start work on a commissioned wedding cake, and I crossed the bakery to lock up. As I was pulling the blind down, a tall figure appeared on the other side, accompanied by a familiar but not so familiar face.
Delight and shock shot through me. “Fyfe?”
He grinned and I quickly unlocked the door, stepping outside to embrace my old friend.
Fyfe hugged me, giving me a hard squeeze.
As I pulled back, I stared at him in wonder.
He looked so grown up … and manly. When we were kids, he was always shoving a pair of spectacles back up his nose.
There were no glasses to be seen. His face, while handsome, had been long and narrow, and despite the fact Lewis trained him in tae kwon do (because he couldn’t afford to take the classes with us), Fyfe had always been slim and wiry.
The same warm, dark eyes I’d always remembered stared back at me, but otherwise, I almost didn’t recognize him.
Fyfe had filled out. His jaw was now wide and strong and peppered with a short brown beard.
Thick brown hair was cut and styled to perfection and so obviously soft.
And broad, broad shoulders stretched out a navy silk cotton shirt that was rolled at the sleeves, revealing strong forearms. The shirt was paired with suit trousers and black dress shoes.
Fyfe Moray was a hot grown-up.
When did that happen?
And what was he doing here? I blurted out the latter.
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?” Fyfe teased with a flash of straight, perfect white teeth.
“I’m back from school in France … but what are you doing here?” I repeated.
“Didn’t your mum tell you?”
I shook my head.
“I’ve been back for about eighteen months. Got my own cybersecurity company. We do work for the estate, the distillery, private customers …”
I couldn’t believe Mum hadn’t mentioned it.
Then again, where there was Fyfe, there was Lewis, and I’d made it clear I didn’t want to hear about the latter.
Impressed but in no way surprised by his success, I squeezed Fyfe’s arm and felt the hard muscle beneath.
“That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you.” It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him if Lewis knew he was back in Ardnoch, but I was afraid to say his name.
“I never thought I’d return, but it kind of lures you back, right?” Fyfe said, glancing down the quaint main street of the village, with its cobbled roads and Victorian-style lampposts.
“I never intended to not return,” I reminded him. “But I didn’t think you’d come back.”
“Aye, there are some memories here I’d rather forget.” Fyfe sighed. “But some I never want to forget. Like all of us together. We had fun, didn’t we?”
“We did.” Until we didn’t. “Where are you staying now?”
“McCulloch Farm. I bought one of the houses on your aunt Allegra’s development.”
Of course. Before I left Ardnoch, my aunt Ally (she wasn’t technically my aunt, but I’d always treated her as such) and her husband, Jared, were about to break ground on a small development of contemporary eco homes on a parcel of their farmland.
“Fancy.” I knew from Aunt Ally they were only building five houses, each with a generous plot of land, and sustainably developed so they were inexpensive to run. I also knew they were worth a pretty penny. “Do you like it?”
“I do. I’d love to have you over for dinner sometime.”
“Sounds great. I can’t wait to catch up.”
“Is there room for one more?” a deep, familiar voice said at Fyfe’s back.
Fyfe whirled, revealing his old best friend and my ex.
The man I’d disappeared on two weeks ago, when I awoke to find myself in his bed. After a night of whisky-fueled sex that had blown my mind.
Lewis Adair had grown up in more ways than one and had surprised the heck out of me.
He’d also scared the utter bejesus out of me because when I saw him lying there, asleep at my side, I’d felt nothing but crushing grief.
Aye, I’d given the appearance of moving on and dating other men.
Yet, I’d never truly let them get close to me.
And I didn’t know if it was because I’d given that part of myself to Lewis and there was no way to get it back, or if I was just afraid to try to give it to someone new in case I got hurt all over again.
Because the truth was, while I’d done a valiant job of pretending like I was okay after our breakup, I felt a physical hurt in my chest every day for months.
Months and months.
Then one day, long after he’d left Ardnoch, I realized it didn’t hurt every day anymore.
It only hurt sometimes. Mostly whenever someone mentioned him, or something happened to remind me of him.
Moving to Paris meant I experienced that hurt less and less until eventually, I went weeks without thinking about him.
And even then, it was a flicker of a shadow of a ghost of pain.
But lying in bed next to him two weeks ago, it felt like the first day after we’d broken up.
It hurt so badly.
I couldn’t give him that kind of power over me again, so I’d slunk off without waking him, thinking worst-case scenario I might see him at Christmas if he deigned to visit his family.
Yet, somehow, he was here.
Standing outside the bakery, staring at me as if he hadn’t seen me in years.
“You’re here.” Fyfe reached out to pull his friend into a hug and they made quite the picture, two big, handsome guys giving each other a manly thump on the back. “Are you all unpacked?”
Unpacked?
What?
Lewis looked at me. “Aye, the annex is mine until I can find somewhere, so I’ll be inviting myself to dinner whenever the chance arises.”
“Happy for the company, mate.”
“Wait.” I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. “Unpacked? Annex?”
What on God’s green earth was happening?
Lewis’s gaze was intense and searching. “I’m home, Callie. I took a job at my dad’s firm.”
At my gaping nonanswer, Lewis spoke again, this time over the rushing blood in my ears. “I’ve moved back to Ardnoch. Permanently.”