Chapter 9 Gwen
GWEN
As I drove to work, the windows rolled down, I focused on the cool Montana wind biting my cheeks. Rather than the memories, I flicked my eyes over pine trees and the yellow lines through the center of the asphalt and the blue sky.
If it got warm enough, any blood I had missed in the snow would melt. Once it dissolved into the soil, there’d be less evidence to—
No. Stop that.
Pretty blue sky. Look at the pretty blue sky.
If I didn’t shove it all away, I wouldn’t be able to work. I wouldn’t be able to function. I had to think about the trees or the sky or anything else. Anything that wasn’t what I’d done beneath it last night.
I made it to my usual parking spot in the rear of the bakery at 1:54 p.m. Six minutes to spare. Six minutes I did not want to spare. If I stared at the sky any longer, my neck was going to get stuck like that.
Keys in my pocket, I stepped from the car and pushed the door shut with my hip. My legs still felt like gelatin and my stomach rumbled as I continued down the sidewalk. A bit of snow stood in a mound at the street corner, but the cobblestone sidewalks were clear.
Black Pines wasn’t much of a town really.
Just a strip of small businesses in the middle of nowhere.
Still, all the buildings on each side were unique.
The first one on the left was comprised of red brick with a green awning and housed Maple & Thyme.
In the spring, a dozen potted plants accompanied the handful of wrought iron dinette tables we carted out there.
Straight ahead stood a stone structure topped with pretty gargoyles. The fire escape on the right was the entrance for the tenants who lived above the butcher shop. It had a classic, 1950s feel with a red retro sign overhead that read Bob’s Butchery.
The other dozen businesses that lined the street were just as quaint and cozy. The flower shop at the end by the gazebo, the church Sebastian had remodeled into his veterinary office, the diner across the street from it. Even the tavern at the end of the line.
Usually, walking down this street made me feel alive. I could see myself growing old in a place like this. The kind my kids would trick-or-treat at on Halloween and catch sweets and trinkets from the firefighters during the Christmas parade. It was somewhere I wanted to call home.
Today, it was just another pretty sight.
At the entrance to Maple & Thyme, I pounded my snow-covered tennis shoes on the rug before stepping inside, the bell jingling when I opened the door.
Beyond the glass, only a few customers sat inside.
One stood at the counter, chatting with Molly who rang up their order at the register.
She wore her usual uniform: black slacks, a black shirt embroidered with her name, and sneakers.
I closed the door behind me and unzipped my jacket.
The usual scent of yeast and cinnamon filled my nose, floating from the pastry cases at the checkout counter and the length of them against the right wall.
One step off the entry rug had me slipping across the mahogany laminate underfoot.
I grabbed the corner of one of the white Formica tabletops to keep from falling.
“We need a wet floor sign up here,” I said, carefully continuing toward the checkout counter. “Someone’s gonna bust their head open.”
“Get the mop and clean it up.” Andrew’s voice carried from beyond the swinging stainless steel door. “Then I need you on this cake. I gotta do payroll.”
Neither task was all that difficult or daunting. But I would’ve preferred to be up front today. Working on a cake alone in the back gave my mind too much time to wander. At the register, I’d be too busy talking to customers to think.
I’d be off at 6. Just needed to make it through four hours.
“On it, boss,” I said under my breath.
As I clocked in at the register, Molly leaned against the counter. She spoke barely above a whisper. “He’s in a mood today.”
“Isn’t he always?”
She snorted, tucking a blonde tendril behind her ear. “Usually. But this is so much heavier.”
I stopped tapping the keys. “Do I smell drama?”
“Julia left him.” A devious smile tilted the corners of her cherry red lips. “Engagement’s off. My sister drove past their house last night, and Julia was screaming bloody murder. She was throwing all his clothes into the yard. I don’t know what happened, but I know it’s juicy.”
“Probably got tired of him looking down our tops all the time,” I said under my breath.
“Had to have been bad,” Molly said. “You know why they were engaged, right?”
I’d only met Julia the handful of times she’d come into the bakery. She and Andrew were about even on the attractive scale. If anything, she was a few points higher. She was sweet though. Andrew was anything but.
“Because they loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together?” I shrugged off my jacket and tucked it on the shelf beneath the register. “Or used to, rather.”
“Nope,” Molly said, eyes gleaming. “She’s pregnant. I don’t know what she’s going to do now.”
“Hopefully talk to a lawyer about child support.”
Mouth dropping open, laughing, Molly shoved my shoulder. “You’re horrible.”
“That’s not horrible. It’s just the logical thing to do.” Raising my hands in surrender, I walked backward toward the closet. “Tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing.”
“Actually, I wasn’t.” Molly said over her shoulder, lowering her voice. “Because the owner was here when I got in this morning. They were in Andrew’s office, and the tone didn’t sound good.”
With a huff, I grabbed the wet floor sign. “Like he was in trouble?”
“Like he was in big trouble.”
“I guess karma’s finally coming for him.” I nudged the mop bucket with my foot. “Wait, isn’t it Julia’s grandpa who owns this place?”
The stainless steel door swung inward. If Molly had taken two steps back, Andrew would’ve smacked her in the head with it.
Arms open at his sides, his bushy brows dropped deep into his gaze.
The dark beard over his jaw and chin covered their roundness, making his tiny nose and big lips look a bit less feminine.
Andrew was a stocky guy, just a few inches taller than my five foot five, but heavyset in the structure of his body.
His face, while pleasant enough to look at, was nothing special.
In another life, I would have found him attractive. In this one, he was just my asshole boss.
“Last I checked, I wasn’t paying you to gossip,” he said. “I told you I need you back here on cakes, Gwen.”
I held up the wet floor sign. “Also told me to mop first.”
He glared. “Molly, you handle the floor. Gwen, in the kitchen.”
Passing Molly the wet floor sign along the way, I gave a joyless smile. “Yes, sir.”
As I rounded the bend into the kitchen, my shoulders slumped.
At least a dozen crumb-coated cakes waited for me on the twelve-foot-long steel table.
A note card with customer’s requests accompanied each of them.
A hundred sticks of softening butter sat out on the white countertops along the walls.
One of the stand mixers whirred with buttercream.
Powdered sugar coated the countertop beside it.
It wasn’t unusual for crumb-coated cakes to greet me when I came in. Andrew often had the cakes baked, filled, and stacked. My job was anywhere he wanted me, but often back here. I was the best decorator on staff.
What was unusual was the quantity. Approaching the table, I counted eighteen. Eighteen cakes. On a four-hour shift.
Suffice it to say, I was not getting out of here at 6.
By 4 p.m., I was seven cakes down and had eleven more to go.
Thankfully, Andrew came in and got a few batches of buttercream ready for me.
I would still need a couple more before I was done, but it was helpful.
For as long as it lasted, anyway. His shift ended at 4.
He told me to—didn’t ask me to—stay until I had all the cakes done.
Just clock out when I’d finished. The overtime was approved.
As I decorated the cakes, sculpting each individual flower, writing happy birthday wishes or congratulations on each top, I didn’t have time to think about my night.
My eyes were heavy, neck aching from bending over for so long, and my stomach still growled.
But at least I wasn’t thinking about last night.
At ten ‘til 5, now with nine cakes under my belt, Molly walked into the kitchen. Gazing down at the table of unfinished cakes, she swallowed hard. “Andrew left already?”
“At 4, yep.” Focused on the drop lines on the side of the heart shaped cake in front of me, I only spared her a glance. “Why? What’s up?”
“He was supposed to work the counter,” she said. “My shift ends at 5 and I have a class that starts at 6.”
Molly was nineteen, in her sophomore year at the local community college. On Thursdays, she always got off at 5. Not like it was my job to remember, since I wasn’t the manager, but Molly was a friend. Unlike me, this was just a part-time job to her. Getting her degree was more important.
Grunting my annoyance, I laid my piping bag on the table. “Get outta here.”
She frowned. “I can’t leave you with all this. Don’t these all have to be finished tonight?”
“You aren’t leaving me with anything.” Arms stretched overhead, I rolled my neck from side to side. “Andrew did. But it’s fine. I’m getting overtime. I’ll finish the cakes after I close up.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice was soft, expression timid. “If you need me to stay a little bit longer—”
“I don’t.” I smiled. “I need a break anyway. I’ll drink some water and eat a pepperoni roll between customers.” I gestured to the ones I’d finished. “Just do me a favor and pop these in the cooler before you clock out.”
She returned the smile. “You have no idea how much I love you.”