Chapter Five
Julia had always been an optimist. A foolish optimist, according to her mother. A delusional optimist, according to her sister. Her brother Wolfgang thought she was a charming optimist. But still, an optimist.
That optimism lasted approximately fourteen minutes into her first day running the bakery.
The video had made it look so simple. Butter, flour, a bit of kneading. "Anyone can make buns," the cheerful presenter had promised. "Even complete beginners!"
The cheerful presenter was a liar.
Julia stared at the smoking tray of what could charitably be called "charcoal" and less charitably "evidence of arson." The smoke alarm shrieked overhead like an accusation.
She grabbed a tea towel and waved it frantically at the detector, which did absolutely nothing except make her arms tired. Finally, she dragged a chair over, climbed up, and yanked the battery out with more force than strictly necessary.
Silence fell.
Julia plugged the batteries back in and climbed down from the chair, surveyed the destruction, and wondered if it was too early for wine.
The door to the flat opened upstairs. Footsteps on the stairs. Elliott appeared in the kitchen doorway, hair sleep-mussed and expression cross.
"What," she said flatly, "was that?"
"Buns." Julia gestured weakly at the smoking tray.
Elliott looked at the tray. Looked at Julia. Looked at the tray again. "Those aren't buns. Those are… I don't actually know what those are."
"Mistakes. Those are mistakes."
Elliott made a sound that might have been a laugh if it had come from anyone less hostile. "You weren't joking. About being terrible at this."
"I really, really wasn't."
For a moment, Elliott just stood there, arms crossed, watching Julia with those sharp dark eyes. Then she shook her head and turned back toward the stairs.
"Good morning," Julia called after her.
The only response was the sound of the flat door closing.
Right. Fine. She could do this. She'd just… try something else. Something simpler. She just wasn’t really sure there was anything simpler.
By 8:15 a.m., the smoke alarm had gone off again.
This time it was bread. Simple, basic bread. The kind that literally required three ingredients and patience. Julia apparently had none of the latter, because she'd gotten distracted reading about proper kneading techniques on her phone and had left the oven on too high.
The bread was now a brick. A very dense, very charred brick that could be used as a weapon.
She was contemplating throwing it in the bin when the front door of the shop opened and a young woman walked in.
She was maybe twenty, with limp, shoulder-length blonde hair, and an uncertain expression. She stopped just inside the door, taking in the empty display cases, the faint smell of smoke, and Julia standing there holding what was definitely not bread.
"Um," the young woman said. "Is the bakery… open?"
"Yes! Sort of. I mean, technically. The door’s unlocked anyway. Not that there’s really anything to sell. I don’t know why I unlocked the door, actually…" Julia hastily set down the bread brick. "I'm Julia. I'm the new owner. Are you a customer?"
"I'm Tara." The young woman shifted her weight. "I work here. Or I did. I don't know if I still do?"
Julia's brain finally caught up. Right. There had to be staff, didn’t there. No one ran a bakery alone. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been quite so grateful to see another person.
"You absolutely still work here," Julia said firmly. "Please. I need all the help I can get."
Tara's expression flickered between relief and concern as she looked around the kitchen. "What happened in here?"
"I attempted to bake. It went poorly." Julia ran a hand through her flour-dusted hair. "Actually, that's an understatement. It went catastrophically. I'm terrible at this. I mean truly, genuinely terrible. I once set fire to—"
"An ice sculpture, yeah, I heard." At Julia's surprised look, Tara shrugged. "Small town. Word travels fast. Especially when Gabby Richardson's daughter moves in."
Of course it did. Julia sighed. "So you know I'm a fraud."
"I know you're new." Tara moved toward the kitchen area with the confidence of someone who actually belonged there. "The last owner, Milly? She taught me some basics. I can do simple stuff. Croissants, bread rolls, some of the easier pastries. If you want, I could…?"
"Yes." Julia grabbed Tara's hands with possibly too much enthusiasm. "Yes, please, whatever you can do. I'll pay you extra. I'll pay you triple. I'll name my firstborn after you."
Tara laughed, looking startled but pleased. "Regular wages are fine. Let me see what we've got to work with."
Within twenty minutes, Tara had organized the kitchen into something approaching functional and was rolling out dough with practiced ease. Julia watched her work, feeling both relieved and utterly useless.
"You're really good at this," Julia said.
Tara shrugged without looking up. "Milly taught me. She was patient."
Julia felt at least three kilos lighter.
SHE WAS MEASURING flour when she noticed movement through the shop window. A woman was watching them from across the street, arms crossed, expression sour. She was middle-aged, with bottle-blonde hair and the kind of fixed smile that suggested she was thinking very unpleasant thoughts.
"Who's that?" Julia asked.
Tara glanced up and immediately looked away again. "Candice Green. She owns the bakery across the street."
"There's another bakery?"
"The Sweet Spot. It's been here for years. They have a cafe too, which we don’t." Tara's voice was carefully neutral in a way that suggested there was definitely more to the story.
Before Julia could ask, the shop door burst open and Candice herself swept in.
Up close, she was even more intimidating. Her smile was wide and false, and her eyes were doing a thorough inventory of everything wrong with the shop, which admittedly was rather a lot.
"The new owner!" Candice's voice was pitched for an audience, even though there was no one else there. "I simply had to come over and welcome you to our little community."
"That's so kind." Julia automatically extended her hand. "I'm Julia—"
"Richardson, yes, I know. Gabby Richardson's daughter." Candice shook her hand with the enthusiasm of someone handling a dead fish. "We were all so surprised when we heard. A celebrity chef's daughter, buying our humble little bakery. Such an interesting choice."
The way she said "interesting" suggested she meant something else entirely.
"Well, I'm excited to be here," Julia said, because she was incapable of not being friendly even when someone was clearly being awful. "It's such a lovely town, and the bakery has so much potential…"
"Potential." Candice's smile sharpened. "Yes, I suppose it does need quite a bit of work.
Milly let things slide toward the end, bless her heart.
Running a proper bakery is so demanding.
It takes years of real experience." She emphasized "real" in a way that made Julia feel very small.
"Not everyone is cut out for it, no matter what their family name might be. "
"I'm sure I have a lot to learn…"
"I'm sure you do." Candice was already turning to go.
"Well, best of luck. If you need any advice from someone who actually knows what they're doing, you know where to find me.
" She paused at the door. "Though I'm sure you'll be fine.
Celebrity chefs can always just buy their way out of problems, can't they? "
The door closed behind her with a cheerful jingle that felt deeply sarcastic.
Julia stood frozen, face burning.
"She's always like that," Tara said quietly. "Don't let her get to you."
"I'm fine." Julia's voice came out bright and false. She'd had years of practice at being fine. "She's probably just… protective of the community. I'm sure she didn't mean…"
"She definitely meant it." Tara's expression was sympathetic. "But her pastries aren't as good as she thinks they are. Milly always said so."
That was oddly comforting.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of minor disasters and small victories.
Tara's croissants came out golden and perfect.
Julia managed to burn two more batches of biscuits and drop an entire bowl of icing on the floor.
The display cases remained mostly empty.
A few curious locals wandered in, clearly hoping to see the celebrity chef's daughter fail spectacularly.
Julia smiled at all of them until her face hurt.
By closing time, she was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical labor.
She locked up the shop and climbed the stairs to the flat, every muscle aching. The couch she'd been sleeping on wasn't comfortable to begin with, and adding a full day of catastrophic baking hadn't helped.
Elliott was nowhere to be seen, which was probably for the best. Julia collapsed onto the couch, pulled out her phone, and opened YouTube.
The nursing education channel was waiting for her like an old friend. She clicked on a video about emergency trauma procedures and felt her whole body relax as the presenter began explaining the primary survey assessment.
"ABCDE," she murmured along with the video. "Airway, breathing, circulation, disability, exposure."
This. This was what she was supposed to be doing. Not burning pastries and dealing with passive-aggressive rival bakers. She was supposed to be helping people, saving lives, doing something that actually mattered.
"What are you watching?"
Julia nearly dropped her phone. Elliott was standing in the kitchen doorway, a mug of tea in her hands, watching Julia with an unreadable expression.
"Nothing." Julia fumbled to pause the video. "Just… relaxing."
Elliott raised an eyebrow. "You relax by watching videos about trauma assessment?"
"It's… educational."
"It's weird." But there was something almost curious in Elliott's voice, underneath the judgment. "Most people watch cat videos. Or cooking shows. You watch emergency medical procedures."
Julia shrugged, face heating. "It helps me calm down. I know that's strange."
"I didn't say strange. I said weird. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
Elliott took a sip of her tea, still watching Julia over the rim of the mug. "Strange implies you're unusual in a concerning way. Weird just means you're different. Different isn't always bad."
It was, Julia realized, probably the nicest thing Elliott had said to her since they'd met.
"Thank you?" she offered uncertainly.
Elliott just shrugged and turned back toward her room. At the door, she paused. "Congratulations on not burning the shop down on your first day, by the way. I'm impressed."
Julia felt a warm glow spread through her chest. "Really?"
"Mmm." Elliott disappeared into her room.
Julia smiled to herself, tucking that small bit of praise away like something precious. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Maybe Elliott wasn't as prickly as she seemed. Maybe they could even become—
"I set the bar extremely low," Elliott's voice drifted through the closed door. "Don't let it go to your head."
Oh. Right. Sarcasm.
Julia's smile faded slightly, but didn't disappear entirely.
She just knew there was more to Elliott than grumpiness and firmly muscled arms with tattoos. Not that she was paying that much attention.
She did wonder what had turned her into someone who kept everyone at arm's length and pretended she didn't care about anything.
Whatever it was, Julia found herself wanting to know.
Which was probably a terrible idea. But then, Julia had never been very good at avoiding terrible ideas. Case in point: her new bakery.