Chapter 12 Gracie
The front lights of Sugarfall were dimmed to a cozy glow, the cases polished to mirrors, the chalkboard menu wiped clean except for a single snowflake. Olivia had drawn that while Benny helped Marshall transport a partially made gingerbread house across the street.
Gracie never dreamed Benny would want to spend the evening here instead of at home with Red, but he’d insisted that he and Olivia could do homework while their parents worked on their own collaboration.
Honestly, Gracie was thrilled the kids were here. They added a level of excitement and had made the whole project more fun.
The initial setup of the house—which still needed an official name on the display entry card that sat on the counter next to them—had gone well.
The only mishap was a spilled bottle of inexpensive vanilla extract that Gracie had no idea was even in her kitchen.
Benny had accidentally dropped it, giving the air a slightly cloying sweet scent.
Once the whole structure was built, Marshall and Gracie started the decorating phase, which they’d been doing for well over an hour now, settled into a comfortable rhythm. In the front of the bakery, the kids were talking and laughing more than writing essays or doing math problems.
That had Marshall and Gracie joking about how even their little overachievers had “winter break-itis” and could barely concentrate on these last few days of school.
Olivia had made a Christmas playlist that Benny uploaded to the bakery sound system, filling the place with holiday music. Olivia’s choices had a surprisingly slow beat that actually relaxed Gracie as she concentrated on framing her doors in red licorice.
As she worked, the world narrowed to the hush of parchment paper crackling under her forearms and the clean, rhythmic squeak of a metal bowl turning against the counter.
Directly across from her, Marshall sat on a baker’s stool that Benny had kindly set up for him.
He wore an old Pittsburgh Steelers sweatshirt and jeans and piped a bead of royal icing—sweetened with honey and stiffened with whey—along the seam of their combo-structure’s roof, his handsome features drawn in concentration.
He hummed under his breath—not to the music on the speakers, but something soft from his chest, a steady, almost holy melody.
Every time he glanced up to check alignment, the overhead light caught his eyes, and the color reminded her of so many things she loved, like caramelized brown sugar, maybe, or a dark chocolate ganache.
Something warm and sweet and tempting.
Between them, the gingerbread replica of Sugarfall and Craving Clean rose and came to life, two separate buildings that had yet to be joined.
“So how should we do that?” Marshall asked as they paused their work to consider the baking and engineering challenge.
“How should you do what?” Olivia asked, appearing in the kitchen with Benny as if they had been hovering outside—were they listening to the conversation?
Probably, given the fact that they’d orchestrated this whole group project.
“We need to connect the two structures,” Marshall told them, waving the kids in. “Ideas are welcome.”
“Sure,” Olivia said. “Can we steal some strawberries and dip them in chocolate?”
A frown pulled as Marshall regarded her. “You don’t like strawberries, Liv. You said they make your throat itch.”
“Benny wants some,” she said. “And you two might like them, too.”
Gracie pointed to the walk-in fridge. “There’s some chocolate on the first shelf that’s easy to melt in the microwave, Olivia. And a basket of fresh strawberries. Help yourself.”
“Will you eat a few?” Olivia asked.
“Of course,” Gracie assured her. “But we need two giant brains to help us figure this out.”
The kids came closer and examined the work, oohing and ahhing over the marshmallow snowdrifts banked against pastel candy bricks on the Sugarfall side. Olivia gushed over the gumdrop topiaries marching down a walkway crushed from candy canes into rose-white gravel.
Of course, Benny—always wanting to be fair—complimented Marshall on his almond-flour walls in perfect plumb lines, sunflower-seed shingles with realistic texture, and the protein bar “pillars” flanking a fondant door stamped with CC in neat block letters.
“In order to submit this as an entry in Mistletoe on Main and get the PR benefit and foot traffic, we have to have one structure,” Marshall explained, pointing to the card Eleanor Locke had left in his mailbox earlier that day. “I was thinking a connector piece that we cover in icing—”
“Icing?” Olivia leaned into Gracie with a smile, whispering, “That’s what my dad calls whipped coconut cream with monk fruit.”
Gracie laughed. “We can just use good old fondant and sugar.”
“What about a bridge?” Benny suggested.
They all looked at him, interested.
“Full disclosure,” he added, “I’m trying to write a book report on The Wind in the Willows. The bridges over the river are symbolic, at least according to my research—”
“Yes, Benny!” Olivia gasped. “That’s exactly—oh, perfect! A bridge is a…a connection!” She cooed the word, drawing it out with just a little too much meaning.
“Between different worlds,” Benny added. “And businesses.”
“And people.” Olivia clapped. “Definitely a bridge. And while you make one, I’ll get those chocolate-covered strawberries ready. C’mon, Benny. Help me so these two can…create the connection.”
Gracie bit back a smile, looking over the prep table at Marshall. Did he see what they were doing or—
“How can we make a bridge?” he asked, far more pragmatic than his little girl.
“Umm…with spun sugar? It will look like ice.”
“Beautiful, but…” He lifted his brows. “Spun sugar is not in my wheelhouse.”
“Don’t worry—it’s at the center of mine,” she assured him, standing up. “I just need to reduce some sugar, water, and corn syrup—”
He flinched. “Corn syrup? Really?”
She just laughed and waved him closer to the stove. “Come on, I’ll teach you. And can I just say how great it is to have a couple of geniuses for kids?”
“It makes life interesting,” he agreed, standing to join her. “You sure there’s no substitute for that corn syrup?”
“Not in my kitchen, Mr. Hampton.”
Laughing, he followed her to the stove. As she brought out the ingredients to pour in a pan, Gracie marveled again at how comfortable she was in his company. Had she ever spent this much one-on-one time with a man and not blushed every second? He just made her feel so at ease.
“Didn’t you learn how to spin sugar in pastry school?” she asked.
“Pastry school?” He gave a noisy snort. “Self-taught, my dear. Well, mom-taught. But she was as good as any pastry chef. The health stuff came from years with trainers, but the baking? All credit to Germaine Lydia Hampton.”
“Really?” As she placed the pan on the heat, she looked up at him. “Tell me more about her.”
He leaned a hip against the stove, crossing his arms, a glint in his eyes. “My mother…” he started, a smile growing. “Well, she’s definitely where Olivia gets her…everything. Brains, relentless determination, and a spirit that I believe will conquer anyone and anything.”
Gracie laughed, fully agreeing with that take on Olivia. “All beautiful character traits, Marshall.”
“Amen.”
“You mom had time to bake, work in a hospital, and be a waitress?” She marveled at what that had to be like, especially raising a son alone in the inner city.
“She never slept, I swear,” he replied. “We had a tiny kitchen in an apartment but most days, if you closed your eyes, you’d think you were in a bakery as big and beautiful as this one.”
She smiled at the compliment, stirring the sugar and syrup mix, looking for the pale amber color she needed as he talked.
“Sweet and savory, she could make it,” he said. “Pound cakes with the tops cracked just right. Cornbread in a five-dollar cast-iron skillet she called the family heirloom. And, yes, I still have it. She seasoned that sucker to glossy perfection and I hope to give it to Olivia.”
She smiled at that.
“She always sang while she baked,” he added, getting her to look up.
“You hum.”
“I guess I do and probably the same songs—‘Come Thou Fount’ and ‘Go Down, Moses.’ To me, baking is deeply attached to Sundays after church where my mother was the loudest sister in the choir belting out gospel music.” He laughed, but she sensed a bit of an ache in the sound.
“She used to tell me baking was an extension of a good Sunday service,” he continued, clearly lost in thought.
“She said people showed up mad or sad or tired, and you fed ’em—scripture or sweets—and their hearts softened enough to hear whatever they needed to hear.
About grace. About being kind. About trying again tomorrow. Then she’d quote her favorite book.”
“The Bible?” she guessed.
“In general, yes. Matthew in particular. I think I had the Sermon on the Mount memorized before I knew my ABCs.”
From across the kitchen, the kids laughed and a spoon scraped against a metal bowl, but Gracie hardly heard it, mesmerized by Marshall’s voice and words.
“She sounds wonderful…” Her voice broke, and she swallowed at a sudden tightness in her throat. “Like the very best kind of mother.”
His eyes flickered with warmth. “I hope I can be half the single parent Germaine was.”
The words hit Gracie hard. “What happened to her?” she asked, as gently as possible.
“Heart.” He exhaled. “We’d moved her close to us, and I thought we had more time.”
“I’m sorry.” The words were a small thing to offer next to a three-year absence, but it was sincere. “My dad died six years ago, and I miss him every day.”
“Big loss for you,” he said. “And Benny, though he talks about…Red? Your grandfather, I guess.”
She nodded. “Red is his great-grandfather and the strongest male figure in his life.”
He was quiet for a moment, then shifted on his feet and gestured to the pan. “It’s bubbling.”