Baked Alaska (5 page)

“Is everything okay between you two?”

“Everything’s fine with
us
,” Breanna said. “Hang on.”

After another minute, Breanna typed one last message and then shut her computer, dropping her head on top of it dramatically. Sadie moved to the end of Breanna’s bed and brushed her daughter’s hair away from the back of her neck. “What’s going on, sweetie?”

Breanna let out a heavy breath and sat up. She looked exhausted. “Liam’s mother has ordered carriages for the wedding party.”

Sadie raised her eyebrows. “Carriages?”

Breanna nodded. “She’s also ordered $8,000 worth of flowers.
Eight thousand dollars!
I know Liam is her only child, an heir and all that, but his mom is turning our wedding into a circus.” Tears came to her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away. “I hate it so much, Mom.”

Sadie pulled her into a hug. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.”

There was more. Liam’s mother had reserved an ornate church for the ceremony and had e-mailed pictures of an eight-tiered cake, even though Breanna had already found a cake she liked at a quaint little shop not far from her London apartment. Seeing the cake had overwhelmed Breanna, so she sent an instant message to Liam about it, but he was having a hard time understanding why it was such a big deal. He’d promised to talk to his mom, but Breanna didn’t feel like he really understood where she was coming from.

“He thinks it’s about the cake and the venue and the stupid carriages, but it’s about so much more than that,” she said. “It’s
my
wedding—don’t I get to have some input?”

“Has she planned everything?” Sadie said, trying to keep her emotion in check. Breanna was Sadie’s only daughter, and she had looked forward to helping with her wedding all of her life. This trip was supposed to be
their
opportunity to plan Breanna’s special day. Sadie had known Liam’s mother would have a part in it—like Breanna had said, Liam was an only child and the heir to an earldom—but Sadie had still expected that as the mother of the bride, she’d be on the front lines.

“Pretty much,” Breanna said with a nod. “And while I’ve accepted that Liam comes with a lot of...trappings, this kind of thing throws me back into those old concerns about maybe not being ready for this. I moved to London to be closer to Liam and to get more comfortable with his lifestyle, but I’ve kept my independence. I’ve paid my own way, worked, and created a life for myself. It’s made me think that when Liam and I get married, I’ll still be able to have some power, you know, but here I am losing control of my own wedding day. What will my marriage be like if I can’t have a say in the beginning of it?”

“Are you reconsidering?” Sadie asked with her heart in her throat.

Breanna looked at the floor and tucked her hands underneath her thighs. “Why can’t I just have Liam?” she said quietly. “Why does it have to be so complicated?”

“I could talk to Liam’s mother for you, if you want. Maybe if I said I wanted to be involved, it would help soften her.”

“Maybe Liam and I should run off to Monaco and get married on a beach.”

Sadie’s heart stopped for a split second, and she gripped Breanna’s hand. “So help me, Bre, if you get married without me there, I’m not sure I’ll survive it.”

And that’s when Breanna started to cry. Sadie’s comment was supposed to be a joke, or at least a teasing truth, but it opened the floodgates instead. Over the next twenty minutes, Sadie came to realize just how stressed out her daughter really was—not only because of Liam’s mother and her expectations, but because of Sadie’s expectations too, and the difficulty of having to merge lives taking place on two different continents. By the end, Sadie was practically begging Breanna to elope if it meant she’d be happy.

“I need to go to bed,” Breanna finally said when the tears subsided. “I’m such a mess right now. Thanks for letting me vent.”

“Of course,” Sadie said. Even with her swollen eyes and red nose, Breanna was lovely. “Tomorrow we can put together a plan. I’ll back you up any way you need me to.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mom,” she said with a nod. “Go to the show. I’ll be fine, I promise. I’m going to take a shower to wash the day off and then go to bed. Maybe I’m still jet-lagged and that’s making me overreact. I’m sure things will look better in the morning.”

Only after Breanna was in the shower did Sadie let herself out of her room. She felt overwhelmed by the weight of her children’s problems. Knowing what Breanna was facing made her wonder whether or not she wanted to know what Shawn was dealing with after all. She wondered when her respect for his boundaries would lead him to open up to her, and she worried that when the moment arrived she might not be as much help as she wanted to be.

Sausage Wontons

1 pound sage-flavored sausage (lean works best; hamburger can also be used)

1 egg, beaten

1 (4.5-ounce) can tiny shrimp

1 (4-ounce) can water chestnuts, finely chopped (or 1/2 of an 8-ounce can)

1 celery rib, finely chopped

3 green onions, finely chopped

2 (12- to 16-ounce) packages wonton skins

Vegetable oil, for frying

In a medium-sized skillet, brown sausage, breaking clumps into small pieces as it cooks; drain fat. Add beaten egg, shrimp, water chestnuts, and onions. In a frying pan over medium heat, heat 2 inches of vegetable oil.

Put rounded teaspoonfuls of sausage mixture in the center of each wonton skin. (To keep skins from drying out, keep them covered with a damp cloth while working with them.) Dip finger in water and moisten edges of wonton skin. Fold wonton skin as desired to seal in filling. When oil is hot enough that a corner of the wonton immediately floats to the top, add uncooked wontons and cook 1 minute, or until golden brown. Turn wontons over and cook an additional minute (reduce heat if necessary to prevent overcooking). Remove wontons from oil with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel-lined cookie sheet. Once fried, keep wontons warm in a 190-degree oven until ready to serve. Serve with Saundra’s Sweet and Sour Sauce.

Makes approximately 48 wontons.

Note: Wontons can be fried ahead of time and reheated in a 450 degree oven for 5 minutes.

Note: Shawn likes 2 ounces of softened cream cheese added to the sausage mixture.

Sandra’s Sweet and Sour Sauce

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated (or 1/4 teaspoon dry ginger, ground)

5 tablespoons ketchup

6 tablespoons pineapple juice

Mix all ingredients in a medium-sized saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Simmer 1 to 2 minutes until mixture thickens and becomes clear. Serve warm.

Chapter 4

Because of her discussion with Breanna, Sadie had missed the first half of the one-hour show. But she was no longer in the mood for show tunes anyway—a rare thing for her since she usually loved the upbeat tempos and easy-to-recall lyrics she’d known since she was young. Cruise ships were a mecca for such nostalgia, and since there was a show every night, she didn’t worry about missing out on too much.

Pete and Shawn seemed to be getting along, which helped her feel less guilty about ditching them, though she wondered if either of them would have gone to the show if not for her being excited about it. She’d have to find a way to make it up to them later.

Instead of going to the show, she went to the coffee counter on deck seven and ordered a hot cocoa, then wandered over to the photo gallery, which was just a hallway displaying all the welcome pictures taken by the ship photographers that were available for purchase.

The welcome photos from yesterday were organized by time of arrival in half-hour intervals. She and Breanna had arrived at 1:45, and Sadie found their picture quickly. She frowned at how wide her hips looked and immediately determined never to wear those shorts again. She turned the picture around and returned it to its place on the rack, indicating she wasn’t planning to purchase it. She found Pete and Shawn’s picture in the 3:30 to 4:00 section and decided to buy that one. Seeing the two of them together made her a little misty-eyed.

She was on her way to the counter when she caught a flash of black and pink braids from the other end of the hallway. Sadie turned her head quickly and made eye contact with the woman for a split second before the woman turned and began walking away, casting an anxious look over her shoulder after just a few steps.

Sadie followed her without considering whether it was a good idea. She wouldn’t need to get answers from Shawn if she could get them from this woman instead. But why was the woman in a hurry to get away? There were so many other people around that Sadie refrained from calling out to the woman, but she really wanted to.

“Ma’am!” someone said behind her. “Excuse me, ma’am!”

She looked over her shoulder as the cashier from the photo gallery walked toward her with his hand outstretched.

“You must pay for your photograph.”

Sadie realized she still had Pete and Shawn’s welcome photo in her hand. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, handing it to him. She caught another flash of braids as the woman turned the corner into the foyer area in front of the elevators. “I’ll come back and pay for it in a minute,” she said over her shoulder as she began heading in the woman’s direction.

The staff member said something Sadie didn’t hear as she increased her pace, earning a curious look from a few of her fellow passengers who seemed shocked to see someone hurrying at all; this was a cruise after all.

Sadie turned the corner to see the woman one last time just as the elevator doors closed. She ran to push the button, hoping to reach the elevator quickly enough that the doors would open before the car left the deck, but she was too late.

“Biscuits,” she muttered under her breath, then stepped back to watch the digital display above the elevator. It stopped on deck eleven, but did that mean the woman had gotten off? Or had someone else gotten on?

Another elevator opened in response to her button pushing, but she ignored it, waiting until the doors had closed before she pushed the button again. Two more elevators had come and gone before the original elevator finally returned after making a stop on deck nine. The woman with braids wasn’t inside, rather there were two Caucasian women with perfect makeup and tailored clothes.

“Did you get on at deck eleven, by chance?” Sadie asked.

“I did,” the younger of the two said.

“Did you see a black woman, with black and pink braids?”

“Don’t you mean African-American?” the older woman said. Her age was difficult to determine, and Sadie guessed she had a plastic surgeon on retainer.

Sadie was embarrassed to have inadvertently used the wrong terminology. “Yes, sorry, African-American. She just went up on this elevator.”

“And you’re waiting for her?”

“Yes, kind of. Did you see her?”

“She got off when I got on,” the younger woman said with a cute drawling accent. “On deck eleven, like I said.”

“Thank you,” Sadie said, then stepped back so the doors would close.

“Aren’t you coming?” the older woman asked. Sadie thought she might be trying to raise her eyebrows—there was the faintest crease toward the top of her forehead—but the Botox made the expression awkward.

“No, I’m sorry. I’m going up. Thank you for your help, though.”

As soon as the doors closed, Sadie hit the button again, this time getting into the first elevator going up and hitting the button for deck eleven. It was the same level where she’d seen Shawn talking to the woman yesterday afternoon. Did that mean something? Was this woman’s cabin on deck eleven?

She spent fifteen minutes walking forward to aft in search of the mysterious woman, only to give up when a steward turning down beds on the starboard-aft side started looking at her funny on her third pass. She smiled at him and took the stairs down to deck seven, where she headed back to the photo gallery. She graciously thanked the clerk for holding on to the photo of Pete and Shawn and then explained she needed to buy another photo before he rang her up.