Always the Baker, Never the Bride (24 page)

“My assistant makes a beautiful hyacinth out of sugar,” Emma told her. “We can match the colors, and we’ll work on creating something for the lilacs.”

Fee poked her head into the room at just that moment and, as soon as she caught Emma’s eye, she stated, “Sorry to interrupt. You have an important call.”

“You go ahead, Emma,” Norma said. “We’ll finish up here, and then Emma will call you, probably in February, to talk about the cake in more detail.”

“Thank you so much,” Rachelle said, shaking Emma’s hand until her arm hurt.

“It’s going to be beautiful,” Emma reassured her. “And having a sunrise wedding is very unique and symbolic of a new beginning. I love the idea.”

“Thank you again.”

Emma hurried around the corner, with expectations of hearing that Sophie had stowed away on a cruise ship or grabbed a flight to Bora Bora. She crossed the kitchen and skirted around her desk. But when she went to pick up the phone, she noticed that none of the lights were illuminated.

“They hung up,” she told Fee, who was standing in the doorway.

“There was no one on the phone.”

“What do you mean?”

“I lied.”

“Why?”

“He kissed you? Sit down because I want every detail.”

Susannah set a fresh cup of coffee down on the desk before quietly slipping back out again, leaving Jackson to continue his very important work.

At least he thought it probably looked quite important. But that spreadsheet had been up on his laptop screen for hours and, with his back to the door and his face toward the credenza, he probably appeared to be completely engrossed in the figures entered there. But the truth was … Jackson couldn’t have cared less about that spreadsheet!

He turned around and picked up the coffee and took a sip. Susannah never failed him. Every morning for the last however many years, she’d brought him two or three cups of perfectly blended black coffee. She was a genius about coffee. Not to mention the other thirteen thousand things she did for him every day. He couldn’t help wondering if such a genius also knew that he’d been sitting in his office for the last hour or more with his thoughts as far away from business as they could possibly be.

Those lips of Emma’s haunted him. All the way through the night, into the morning, and up to that very moment, he’d thought of little else. Not just her lips either, if he admitted the whole truth. The way she’d dropped that water kettle to the floor, dove toward him and tossed her arms around his neck like a tightening noose of velvet! The feelings those actions resurrected in him had become almost foreign to him now, after the years without Desi in his arms. But there he’d been, his arms wrapped around Emma, their lips locked, their hearts pounding.

Jackson leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He could almost taste the heat of it again; he nearly felt her pulse hammering against him. It had been such a long,
long
time since those paralyzed reactions had been awakened. If it hadn’t been such an amazing feeling, he might actually sense a little guilt over it. He couldn’t help wondering what Desiree would think of him kissing another woman.

Not just another woman
, he corrected himself.
Emma.

What was it about her?

Jackson swiveled his chair around to face his desk. He could hear Susannah’s fingers tapping on the keyboard on the other side of the doorway as he drank his coffee and sat there in silence. He wished he could talk to her about what he was feeling. Or talk to somebody, anyway.

His nephew Miguel tripped across his thoughts just then, and he was suddenly right back there on Norma’s veranda, the night that Emma’s parents came to town.

“
…only You can fully know the pain and suffering he’s endured since the loss of his wife, and only You can comprehend the amount of grace that is needed to heal his heart
.”

Jackson recalled the heartfelt prayers of the young Latino man of God who had married his niece. He also remembered how those prayers had brought to mind his late wife’s advice.

“Let Jesus heal you, Jackson,” Desiree had said. “Don’t harden your heart. He’ll bring you out of this toward someone new to love.”

He let those words pedal around inside of him for a few minutes, then suppressed an inward groan.

Love?

Jackson didn’t love Emma. It was just basic animal attraction.
Love. Bah!

He’d already loved the woman he was meant to love. And now she was gone. He wasn’t going to replace her. Desi was irreplaceable.

But he had to admit one thing, if only to himself.

Adorable Emma Rae Travis sure can kiss.

The Secret to Emma Rae Travis’s Award-Winning Crème Brûlée Wedding Cake

1. Emma’s special sour cream cake recipe is used for the layers.
   
2. Sugar syrup is created out of butter, dark brown sugar, and water.
   
3. The syrup is spread into the bottom of the cake pans, and the sour cream cake batter is carefully spooned over it before baking.
   
4. After baking, the pans are set atop wire racks for 15 minutes before the first layer is inverted onto the cake board.
   
5. Layers are stacked with a special creamy vanilla and caramel filling.
   
6. Each layer is inverted with the syrup side down.
   
7. After the cake is constructed, it is frosted with a special icing made of whole egg butter cream and sugar syrup.
   
8. The cake must be refrigerated overnight before further decorating is attempted.
   

15

E
mma hadn’t seen much of Jackson for the first few days of that week. They were in the countdown toward Friday’s reception launching The Tanglewood to Atlanta’s upper crust as a premiere wedding and event destination hotel. As NASA might say, it was
T-minus one day and counting.

She took the stairs up to the fourth floor, pausing at each level to breathe deeply and compose herself in preparation for the meeting to come. She wondered how Jackson would react to her now, or if he would have any reaction at all. And more importantly, how would she feel when she saw him again for the first significant space of time following that unbelievable kiss?

She’d spent far too much time drowning in the memory, lingering over the details of his soft lips, his strong arms, and his perfect height. He was just the right height for kissing a five-foot-eight-inch woman. It all fit together just the way it was supposed to.

On the landing of the third floor, Emma giggled at the memory of kissing Danny Mahoney back in high school. They were exactly the same height, and so they came at one another like bookends. Noses pressed against noses, smacking arms as they fumbled for a comfortable embrace. It was like roller derby kissing.

Stop thinking about kisses
, she warned herself.
This is a very important business meeting. Get yourself together.

Several more deep breaths outside the office door …
Okay. I’m ready.

One step inside Susannah’s office, and the whirlwind of activity nearly blew her right back out into the hallway.

“… hasn’t gotten the final menu to me yet, but I have the first draft from last week.”

“We need a final menu. Get him on the phone.”

“There are still twenty-seven outstanding invitations with no responses yet.”

“Susannah, we’ll put you on that. Can you call those people and try to get a head count?”

“Will do.”

“What time will the florist arrive?”

“Tomorrow morning at eleven.”

“Oh, no. You’d better call them. We need them earlier than that.”

Susannah, Madeline, Georgiann, Norma, and Jackson buzzed between the two offices, each of them carrying paperwork—Madeline’s on a clipboard—making notes and checking off items from several different lists.

“Oh, good!” Madeline exclaimed when she spotted Emma standing in the doorway like a deer caught in the headlights of a bus full of hunters. “Emma’s here.”

“I’ve made your tea already,” Susannah told her, shuffling her along into Jackson’s office. “We need to get started.”

“This isn’t started?”

Susannah didn’t respond, but her snicker and the pat to Emma’s arm answered for her.

“Good morning,” Jackson said when she entered, but he didn’t look at her so it could have been a general greeting to signal the start of the meeting. “Does everyone have Susannah’s agenda?”

Emma looked around, and everyone seemed to be holding a copy of it except her.

“I don’t … No, I don’t seem to—”

“Here. Have mine,” Norma said, and she handed over a single sheet of paper jammed with more words than white space.

“Why don’t we start with the decorations,” Jackson said. “Georgiann?”

“Florist will be changed to ten,” she responded with confidence. “The cleaners finished this morning. The linens have arrived. The china has been inventoried. We’ve added two hundred strands of lights to the courtyard and the ballroom and placed every available tea light in every available crystal holder.”

“Staffing?”

“Check!” Georgiann piped up. “Five bartenders, seventeen servers, and nine more to bus and wash dishes. Six valets, four housekeeping, and three desk clerks, including Philip.”

Emma glanced at Norma, who whispered, “Manager.”

“Silent auction update, George.”

“There’s going to be an auction?” Emma whispered.

“To benefit the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund,” Norma replied. “In memory of Desiree.”

“—celebrity donations, and some gallery pieces. Oh, and the Atlanta Falcons have donated a sideline experience package where someone will get to watch a game from the sidelines at the Georgia Dome.”

“What?” Emma asked. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

Without hesitation, Jackson moved on. “Music.”

Emma wondered if she stood a snowball’s chance of scoring that package. She loved the Falcons almost as much as she loved cake.

“He arrives tomorrow morning.”

“And his room is ready?”

“A suite on the top floor.”

“Whose room?” Emma whispered as she leaned over toward Norma.

“Ben Colson.”