Sage Creek (25 page)

Yesterday she’d come with her master list in hand and done a meticulous final check of the sacks and tubs and tins and barrels of ingredients all neatly stacked in the storage room on floor-to-ceiling shelves.

Sugar,
check
. Raisins, almonds, butter.
Check
. Honey, yeast.
Check, check, check, check, check.

When she’d turned her attention to the ingredients for the cafe side of the menu, where she’d be serving a soup, two sandwiches, and a specialty salad daily, it had hit her.

This was really happening. A Bun in the Oven was finally opening.

Nerves had fluttered through her like a million insect wings flapping in her blood. She’d felt this way when her very first Sweet Sensations opened too. And that had been a huge success, she’d reminded herself.

Now as she stood in the empty bakery, the long first day ahead of her, she wondered.

Could she do it again? Here, in Lonesome Way?

She closed her eyes for a moment. It would be awful to fail in her home town. Rumors persisted about certain people boycotting the bakery because it opened so quickly after Roy’s closed up.

But she couldn’t allow herself to dwell on that. There was too much to do. And an ever dwindling amount of time in which to do it.

Get to work,
she told herself, and turned her attention to the first order of business—baking bread. When the bell chimed over the front door at six A.M., she hurried out front in time to see her grandmother padding toward the counter holding a white and blue milk pitcher brimming with spray roses, fluffy pink carnations, asters, and daisies all clustered around a sunflower.

Gran held the flowers out toward her with the same sweet smile she wore when she pulled a pan of brownies from the oven.

“These are for good luck. Not that you need any, dear. You know how to make your own luck.”

“Oh, Gran. They’re gorgeous.” Flooded with a rush of emotions, she pressed a kiss to her grandmother’s cheek, which, as usual, smelled of Pond’s cream and gardenias.

“I’m so proud of you,” Gran whispered.

Sophie hugged her, then straightened, the butterflies returning to her stomach as she set the milk pitcher on the counter. “Don’t be proud yet. See if I survive today. And if any customers return tomorrow. That’s the real test.”

“Oh, you’ll survive. You come from a long line of strong women. It’s in your blood.” Gran’s sneakers made a soft squeaky sound as she walked behind the counter, glancing this way and that, missing nothing as she took in all the changes to Roy’s Diner. Her smooth white braid trailed down her back, gleaming against her bright blue sweater.

“Look how much you’ve already accomplished.” She waved a hand at the cheery freshness of the bakery, the gleaming glass shelves waiting to be filled with pastries, the antique cash register polished and glinting in the afternoon light, the cappuccino machine installed behind the counter.

“You’re going to need to hire more people besides me and Karla, that’s my prediction. A Bun in the Oven is going to draw folks in droves.”

Then her gaze paused at the pictures framed on the walls.

Sophie had kept the same prints and paintings that had been here when the place was Roy’s. She’d re-matted and reframed the scenes of cattle, horses, and weathered old cabins in shiny black metal frames. They were familiar and nostalgic, summoning up images of Montana life, yet the frames made them fresh and contemporary.

“What a lovely idea.” Gran nodded approvingly. “Like keeping that old cash register. Mixing the old with the new.”

“Some connections are meant to be continued, not broken,” Sophie murmured.

She’d thought about it often as she’d worked on the redesign.

How the past and the present were inextricably linked, for better or worse. This new space she’d created, this bakery, had its roots in the long-standing diner that held warm memories for everyone in town, herself included. She wanted something of Roy’s to remain—even as A Bun in the Oven tried to carve a place for itself.

Maybe the homey spirit of the diner could live on within these walls. Sophie had given them new life and her own touch, but she hoped some of the love and energy Lil and Roy had expended here would remain.

Gran headed toward the kitchen, her face beaming. “It’s charming. Just the way a bakery should look.”

The next few hours were a blur, and later, Sophie would barely even remember filling the cases with loaves of sourdough and honey whole wheat bread, raspberry Danishes, blueberry pies, chocolate chip pecan cookies, crunchy almond bars, and thick slices of lemon pound cake.

And cinnamon buns. Trays and trays of cinnamon buns.

Karla arrived at 8:50 and the first customer came through the door at nine A.M. on the dot just as Sophie hurried out from the kitchen.

He was tall, dark, and handsome and regarded her seriously from beneath the brim of his hat.

“Morning, ma’am. I’ll take five of those cinnamon buns there, and a dozen of those cookies. Got myself some hard-working wranglers with a sweet tooth, every one of ’em.”

“I’ll handle this,” Sophie told Karla, without taking her eyes from Rafe. Karla glanced back and forth between them with a dawning smile, and then busied herself setting out cream and skim milk in clear pitchers beside the cappuccino machine.

“My very first customer,” Sophie murmured as she counted out the fragrant cinnamon buns and cookies into white paper sacks.

“And your favorite one, I hope.”

“You’re definitely in the running.” She met his eyes and smiled as the now familiar tingles shot through her. Rafe always looked good, but today he looked especially good in a navy polo shirt and jeans, his dark hair almost touching his shoulders, his eyes warm and amused on hers.

When she looked at him, she remembered the way that magnificent rock-hard body felt beneath her fingertips, the way she felt when he touched her, but she carefully pushed away the thoughts.

Today was not a day to be distracted. Rafe could distract her without even trying. But she needed to be sharp, cool, professional.

His next words, quietly spoken as Karla disappeared into the kitchen, captured her attention, though in a completely different way.

“I just came from meeting with the sheriff.”

Her heart jumped. “He talked to Crenshaw?”

Rafe nodded. “Crenshaw claims he was at a casino over in Bozeman Saturday night. From five o’clock until after ten, playing poker. But so far, Hodge hasn’t found anyone to confirm it. The manager, the bartender on duty that night, the waitresses, and the regulars—not one of them remembered seeing him.”

“So what happens now?”

“Hodge says he’ll dig a little deeper on Crenshaw, but . . .” He shrugged. “There’s no other suspects. No evidence. So unless someone can place Buck in Lonesome Way that night and prove he’s lying about being in Bozeman, Hodge doesn’t have much to go on.”

“I still can’t think of any reason he’d slit my tires. Or why anyone else would. But it can’t be a coincidence that someone’s gone after my car twice now—”

She broke off as she saw several wranglers in chambray shirts, jeans, and worn, dusty boots; Lissie, Martha, and Dorothy; and several other women she recognized from the library fund-raiser meeting headed toward her door.

“I do believe my morning rush is about to start.”

Glancing over his shoulder, he turned back with a smile. “Catch you later. How about supper tonight, you, me, and Ivy at the Double Cross? We can celebrate your first day.”

It took her by surprise, but in the best possible way. “You’re on,” she heard herself say before the bell tinkled over the door and customers began to stream in.

After that, the day flew by like a spinning kaleidoscope. At lunchtime, there was actually a wait for tables and booths, and the chatter of customers mingled with the aromas of the bakery to create a pleasant hum of activity centered around people, coffee, food.

Naturally, Doug Hartigan came in when things were at their most hectic. Sophie was giving Karla a hand at the counter, since there was a line outside the door. She watched Hartigan avidly scan the contents of all of her glass cases as if looking for something in particular—and not finding it. He placed an order for a turkey sandwich on sourdough and a slice of blueberry pie.

“Sophie, do you have any brown sugar chews?” he asked quietly as she was ringing up Erma Wilkins from Top to Toe.

Idiot. If she had them, wouldn’t they be on display?

“No.” She handed Erma her bowl of soup and a cinnamon bun and gave her change back from a twentydollar bill.

“My great-aunt Deedee used to make brown sugar chews when we visited her in Tennessee.” The man sounded wistful. “They were always my favorite. I was wondering if you ever plan to have them on the menu.”

Not a chance in hell,
Sophie thought. “Not planning on it.” She kept her voice as neutral as she could. “Will there be anything else?”

“No, uh, nothing else.” She saw disappointment in his eyes before he lowered them and dug out his wallet.
Perhaps not only about the chews,
Sophie thought, but she couldn’t be sure. Then she forgot all about Doug Hartigan and his brown sugar chews as a rowdy family of six, all tourists, stepped up to the counter and placed the biggest order of the day.

When there was a small lull at two o’clock in the afternoon—only one customer in a half hour—she forced both Gran and Karla to sit down at a table for their sandwiches and bowls of hearty bean soup. She, in the meantime, grabbed coffee and, later, a roast beef sandwich, in between whipping up more cookies, almond bars, and with Gran’s help, another cake.

“Middle school and high school lets out at two forty-five.” Gran’s braid had a few loose strands, but other than that she looked calm and together and totally in her element. “If I don’t miss my bet, a lot of those kids—the ones who would have normally gone to Roy’s for Cokes, fries, burgers, or pie, will head over here and check us out.”

I hope so,
Sophie thought. Not just because it would be good for business. She wanted to see Ivy, see how her first day of middle school had gone. It was a big step, and to Ivy, still a child, but tilting toward tweendom, it probably felt huge. It would take a while before she learned that every step in life, both big and small, was filled with both pitfalls and promise.

As Sophie crossed the bakery to the front door a short time later, stepped outside a moment into the sunny September air, and gazed up Main Street toward the middle and high school, she hoped that Ivy had found her first day filled with more of the latter than the former.

A horde of middle schoolers were tramping along Main Street with their backpacks and roller blades and athletic shoes, their voices shrill as they called to each other and swarmed toward A Bun in the Oven in noisy groups of twos, threes, and fours.

She scanned them more than once, searching for a certain slender eleven-year-old with a mop of bright curls, but there was no sign of Ivy.

Chapter Twenty

Sixth grade sucked. There was
so
much homework—more than she had in a whole week of elementary school. The teachers were a lot stricter than they’d been in fifth grade. And she and Shannon had only two classes together out of the whole day, though at least she had three with Val.

Still, thank heavens for
lunch.

Ivy was rushing to meet Shannon and Val after the final bell rang, but she’d lost her locker combination somewhere in her backpack, and she couldn’t find it for ten whole minutes.

She texted Shannon to wait for her—they were going to A Bun in the Oven, and she couldn’t wait to see Sophie and how the bakery looked and everything—but just as she grabbed her history book from her locker, her cell rang and she knew—not that she knew how she knew, she just did—who it was going to be.

“Baby, I’m going to be another couple of weeks,” her mom said, without even saying hello first. Disappointment stabbed through Ivy.

“It can’t be helped,” her mom continued quickly. “I need more money to make the trip, so I gotta work another few weeks is all. I don’t want you to worry, baby. Just wait a little longer. You haven’t told your dad anything, have you, sweet girl?”

“No.” She’d almost said “No, Mom,” which would’ve been a big mistake, because Susie Tyler was only two lockers away and she’d have noticed that Ivy said “No, Mom” on the phone and she’d tell everyone and everyone would be talking about it, because they all knew Ivy didn’t have a mom. At least, not a mom who lived in Lonesome Way.

“Why so long? I mean, can’t it be sooner?” How much money did it take to drive to Lonesome Way? She couldn’t believe she’d have to wait
weeks
, and keep the secret even longer. It felt like a big iron anchor around her neck, keeping this secret from her dad, from everyone. And she was annoyed about the timing of the phone call too. Right now, when she was late and had to meet her friends, and maybe they wouldn’t wait for her, and it was hard to talk when other kids were around....