Wedding Cake Wishes (6 page)

Caroline waved away the decorator's concern with a brush of her hand. “Don't worry. We'll be fine. We've got this under control.” She turned back to Logan. “At least I hope Logan does.”

Though the frenzy of activity continued around them, staff members took turns sending curious glances at their temporary bosses.

Caroline gestured toward the sink and then turned back to Logan. Her wide-eyed expression of an ingenue made him fight back a grin. He would have to razz her later for pouring her act on so thick. The woman who never needed anything from anyone was offering him the chance to come to the rescue in front of the whole staff.

“I'll take a look first, and then I'll call in a professional if it's going to be too big a job.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” she said.

He still half expected Caroline to stand around, watching him and second-guessing his work. Instead, she headed to the office. Though she was probably just
helping him establish a position of authority so she could leave without guilt when she found a new job, he still appreciated her vote of confidence.

He turned back to the staff, who all pretended not to be watching. “Just let me get my tools.”

His tool belt was just where he'd left it in the tall cabinet inside the storage room. Good thing he'd thought to leave tools and a pair of coveralls there the other day. He'd learned the hard way that his motorcycle needed a tune-up soon.

After pulling on the coveralls, he returned with a bucket and his tools, scooting on his back under the sink. Around him, he could hear the whir of beaters, the chatter of voices and even the jingle of bells, announcing customers, but he stayed focused on the task at hand. Caroline believed he could handle the job, and there was no way he wouldn't earn that belief.

Good thing for him the job wasn't a big one: just a blob of chocolate goo turning the sink trap into a confectioner's dam. Somehow he managed to open up the trap and chisel out the blockage without being drowned by the tidal wave once it broke loose.

He had just pushed out from beneath the sink and had turned to collect the bucket filled with nasty water when he heard approaching footsteps.

“How's life in the bakery business, little brother?” Matthew asked.

“Some days are better than others.” His smile probably looked forced, but he didn't care. He was frustrated that the family continued to check up on him at the bakery.

Matthew gestured toward the bucket. “I take it today is one of the worse ones?”

“It's definitely having its moments.” Instead of waiting for Matthew to give some excuse about why he was there, Logan hefted the bucket and carried it toward the storage room where he would pour it down the utility sink.

Matthew followed him down the hall but paused when Caroline came out of the office.

“Oh, Matthew. I didn't know you were here.” She glanced to the kitchen and then back at him. “Did you come to check up on us?”

Logan rounded the corner as fast as he could and poured the bucket into the sink. He was glad they couldn't see him because it would have been impossible to hide his grin. Leave it to Caroline Scott to lay it all on the line.

Clearly she'd caught his brother off guard because he cleared his throat a few times before he answered.

“Uh. Well, I heard you're doing your first weddings today, so I wanted to come by and…ah…see if there was anything the rest of us could do to help out.”

Logan set the empty bucket inside the sink and then crossed back to stand next to Caroline. “Hey, thanks for the offer, but everything seems to be under control. We'll have these cakes off to the receptions in no time.”

Logan shouldn't have let it bother him that Matthew didn't look convinced, but he did. He waited for Caroline to contradict him and to insist that they accept his brother's help. Matthew was, after all, the other firstborn overachiever in their families, the only Warren brother she would trust to do a job to her expectations.

“He's right, Matthew.” At Logan's surprised glance, she grinned. “We had a problem with the sink this
morning, but Logan took care of it in no time. Otherwise, everything's moving like clockwork.”

Matthew took another look down the hall to the kitchen and then turned back to them. “Well, that's great. Glad to hear it. I have to pick up more cleaning supplies for Haley, anyway.”

“You know she's not supposed to be working with harsh cleaners,” Caroline said. “It's not good for the baby.”

But Matthew only chuckled at that. “Oh, I know. Haley knows it, too. That's why she's having
me
use them instead, while she drinks lemonade and plays in the sandbox with Lizzie.”

Though he laughed with the others, Logan couldn't help sneaking a peek at Caroline. Just when he thought he'd figured her out, she surprised him again. It crossed his mind to wonder why he continued to expect the worst of her, but he decided not to analyze that. He probably wouldn't like what he found if he did.

“My baby sister.” Caroline smiled with pride. “I taught her well.”

As soon as his brother headed out the door again, Logan turned back to her.

“You seemed awfully certain. You haven't even been back in the kitchen. How do you know I fixed the sink?”

“Didn't you?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“But nothing. I've seen you and your brothers fix anything from a running toilet to a window-sized hole in a ceiling.” She drew her eyebrows together. “Have you forgotten last Christmas when we fixed up that house for the Denton family?”

“How could I forget that? That place was a disaster when we started working.”

“Then why would you wonder how I would know that you could fix a simple sink clog? If nothing else, the Warren guys are handy. I had no reason to worry.”

“Thanks.” But as understanding dawned, he crossed his arms. “Wait. You knew it was that simple, and you had me come in to handle it? Was it just so you could give me a chance to prove myself to the staff?”

“Not just that.” As she stared down at her hands, a small smile played on her lips. “I didn't want to get
my
hands dirty.”

“At least you had a good reason.”

“That and I was trying to follow the suggestion from a wise group called The Beatles that we all do better with some help from our friends.”

“Okay, this is going to be an odd day if you're going to start citing wisdom from
Sgt. Pepper
this early.”

“Next time I'll wait until after lunch.”

“Good. Now we have that settled.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

At the loud chatter coming from the kitchen, Logan started down the hall with Caroline at his heels. No matter what they'd just told his brother, it appeared that they would be putting out fires all day at the bakery, and he could only hope it wouldn't be literal fires.

“What do you think?” Kamie gestured like a game-show hostess to the three-tier wedding cake with fresh yellow flowers on top and leafy vines trailing down its sides. “It's done.”

The others, who had turned from their other activities, broke out in applause.

“Great job, ladies,” Logan told her. “I'm sure the bride and groom will be impressed.”

“As long as we get it and the other one to the receptions without damaging them,” Margie added.

“We will,” he assured them. “Those weddings—at least our part in them—will be perfect.”

“Yeah, perfect,” Caroline echoed.

When Logan glanced over at her, he expected her to be grinning, chuckling even. He wasn't disappointed. Mirth danced in her eyes, bringing a touch of light to their sapphire depths. But her smile changed then, becoming so warm and potent that Logan's knees nearly buckled.

He'd imagined the change; that had to be it. This wouldn't be the first time he'd misread signals from Caroline. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling. If anyone else had looked at him that way, or said some of the same things she'd said to him this morning, he would have been certain that person was flirting, but this was Caroline Scott. His instincts were off when it came to her, his tried-and-true methods for dealing with women as ineffective as a trip with all left turns.

He hadn't imagined it, he decided. She probably smiled that way with all of her friends. But if that was the case and he could expect more smiles like that in the coming weeks, he was especially glad to count himself among Caroline's friends.

“T
wo cakes today?”

Caroline smiled at the question that came out of Amy's mouth before Caroline and Logan had made it through the door of the new room in the hospital's rehabilitation center. The reality that Logan's mother was sitting up in a wheelchair made her smile even more.

She didn't even feel guilty for skipping the chance to spend another afternoon job-searching on her mother's interminably slow Internet connection. Hadn't somebody outlawed dial-up by now? Anyway, the chance to see Mrs. Warren out of bed was worth any job leads she missed.

“Well, somebody's having a good day,” Caroline said.

Amy looked great, too. She wore a fluffy bathrobe over her hospital gown, and her silver hair, though not styled the way she usually wore it, was clean and combed.

This room was bigger than the last one, with four beds instead of two, all for stroke patients or those recovering from other types of brain injuries. A woman in her late
fifties slept in the bed nearest the door, but the three remaining beds, including Amy's, were empty.

“Hi, beautiful.” Logan kissed his mother's cheek and then rubbed the side of his forefinger along her jawline. Lowering his hand, Logan helped Amy adjust the blanket in her lap so that her weaker left hand rested on top of the cloth.

Caroline swallowed, the intimate scene making her chest feel tight. Logan was such an attentive son, visiting his mother every day on his lunch hour and many evenings after work, as well. His tireless care for his mother—that had to be what had touched Caroline so deeply. So why did she suddenly wonder what it would feel like if hers were the cheek he'd kissed, if her face was the one he'd touched?

“Two?”

Caroline was grateful Amy had repeated the question, giving her the chance to avoid her own questions. They were becoming tougher and tougher to answer.

“Technically, it's three if you count the simple two-layer that Kamie finished up late this afternoon for tonight's ceremony at the assisted living center,” Logan told her. “Young love. Ain't it grand?”

“I thought it was sweet,” Caroline said, frowning at him. “Two widowed seniors in their eighties have found love again. You should have seen how cute they were when I went to the center to take their order.”

Surprised by her own words, Caroline stared at the floor. When had she become a romantic, anyway? Some women swooned over things like baby's breath, cathedral-length trains and proposals in horse-drawn carriages. She'd never been one of those women. So she was as mystified by her comment as she had been
over becoming misty-eyed when that sweet senior lady had described the pillbox hat she'd ordered for her wedding.

When she finally looked up again, Logan was grinning at her. Like always, he'd just been trying to get a rise out of his mother and her. But as his gaze moved to his mother again, that smile vanished. Though he blinked a few times, his eyes remained suspiciously shiny. Instead of the warning frown that Amy usually would have given her son after one of his facetious comments, she wore a blank expression, as if she'd missed the joke.

Caroline knew what he had to be thinking. The neurologist had warned them that some stroke patients lost their sense of humor or had other personality changes after a stroke. That couldn't happen to Mrs. Warren, not the woman who served laughter in daily doses in her home. The loss of Amy's sweet personality would be like a death of another kind.

Caroline couldn't help glancing at Logan again. She longed to gather her friend in her arms and tell him not to worry, but she couldn't offer that kind of assurance. No one could. Mrs. Warren was improving every day, but the doctors warned there would be limits on how far her recovery would go.

“Three is good. June now,” Amy said, returning to the earlier subject as she often did lately. She had a hard time following quick transitions in a conversation.

Logan cleared his throat, but he managed to smile at his mother. “Yes, it is June, Mom.”

“Biggest…wedding month,” she continued.

“We're doing fine,” he assured her. “Getting out
orders on time. Even bringing in new orders for fall weddings.”

“You should see it, Mrs. Warren. Ranger Logan's doing a great job.”

His gaze flicked to Caroline, and he gave her a look she couldn't read before he turned back to his mother. She hoped he didn't think she was trying to remind his mother that he was ill-suited for work at the bakery, because she hadn't meant that at all.

“We would be doing even better if you were back again,” Logan told her.

“Might not go back.”

“Of course you will.” Pulling a chair up next to Amy's wheelchair, Logan laid his fingers over her curled left hand. “You just have a few things to do here first.”

“So what did you do in physical therapy today?” Caroline asked, drawing another chair over and taking a seat. She glanced at Amy's bed, which was freshly made up with hospital corners. “Did they have you up walking?”

“Hard,” Amy said.

“Oh, I know it must be. But you did walk, right?”

“In the hall.”

“Mom, that's great,” Logan said, leaning over to press his cheek to hers. “I can't believe you didn't tell us that good news right away. You're making amazing progress.”

Amy only shrugged.

Logan glanced away, his Adam's apple shifting as he swallowed a few times before looking back.

A hospital employee brought a dining tray in then, giving them the chance to let the subject drop. Caroline didn't know what to say, anyway. She doubted Logan
would admit it, but his mother's progress had been slower than any of them had hoped.

Mrs. Warren's attitude worried her, as well. Caroline had always admired her for being so relentlessly positive, even after her husband left. Now she didn't have a positive thing to say. She no longer seemed to have hope.

Logan continued to praise his mother's small accomplishments as she fed herself with her good hand, and when she didn't notice the drip of chicken broth that landed on her chin, he dabbed it with a napkin.

“There you go. Good as new.”

But after he said it, his gaze darted to Caroline, his expression as stark and hopeless as his mother's words had been. They couldn't call anything about Amy's appearance or her new pessimistic attitude
as good as new
.

“Well, look who's already entertaining a crowd,” Dylan called from the doorway, where he stood with Jenna. Still dressed in her navy flight attendant uniform, Jenna waved as she entered the room.

“Yeah, it's quite a party in here.”

Logan turned to the window and pinched the bridge of his nose as he spoke, but when he turned back again, he had control over his emotions. Caroline and Jenna exchanged a knowing look, but in true guy form, Dylan pretended not to notice his brother's emotional moment.

Dylan sauntered across the room and leaned over to hug his mother.

“Two cakes today,” Amy told him as soon as he released her.

Logan shook his head as he stood and moved his
mother's tray table off to the side. Instead of sitting again, he gestured for Dylan to take his place. “No, Mom. Three. Remember?”

“Three,” she said, nodding her head.

“That's good news, Mom.” Dylan lowered into the seat next to her, taking her hand. “It is June, after all.”

“June,” she repeated.

As Dylan sat, he shot a glance at his younger brother and cleared his throat. “Since you two have already had a nice visit with Mom, why don't you get out of here and give us a turn.”

Moving closer to her fiancé, Jenna rested a hand on Dylan's shoulder and used the other hand to wave toward the door. “Yeah, you guys. Hit the road.”

“Isn't it bad enough that I'm twenty-four years old and my big brothers are still telling me what to do?” Logan stacked two smaller bowls on his mother's plate and put the cover on her dinner tray. “Now I have to let my
future
sister-in-law push me around, too?”

Though he protested, Logan couldn't seem to get out of the room fast enough. They said their goodbyes, and he hurried out of the room, leaving Caroline to follow gamely behind him. Once they'd passed through the heavy metal doors marking the exit from the rehabilitation department, Logan sagged against the wall. He squeezed his eyes shut and shoved his hands back through his hair.

“That was a rough one.” Caroline sighed and leaned on the wall.

“Ya think?” But Logan's lips lifted in a sad smile as he opened his eyes.

He waited, as if he expected her to say more, but
when she didn't, he shook his head. “I thought it would get easier seeing her like this.”

His voice was so thick with emotion that Caroline had to clasp her hands together to keep from grabbing him in a hug that would only embarrass him. He probably hated feeling vulnerable as much as she did.

“But she's doing so much better, Logan. You heard her. She was walking today. Walking! Three weeks ago you weren't even sure she would survive the stroke, and now she's sitting up and feeding herself and—”

Logan held up a hand to stop her speech. “And walking. I know.” He shook his head. “I don't know what I expected. Maybe that she would recover almost like Lazarus or something, and then we could all go out to lunch.”

She smiled at him because she realized that though he had phrased it in a funny way, he really had hoped, realistically or not, for a speedy miracle. “You told me yourself that her progress would be slow. Weren't you listening to yourself?”

He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I feel rotten for not being more appreciative. Not counting our blessings for how far Mom's come. But it's just that she's not…you know…she's not…”

“Herself?” Caroline supplied as her gaze met his. “I know what you mean.”

“She doesn't get the jokes. She doesn't laugh.” He swallowed visibly. “You know what the doctors said.”

“About personality changes? You don't know that that's going to happen. Not every stroke patient experiences those kinds of changes.”

He crossed his arms as if for self-protection and stared at the shiny linoleum of the hallway floor.
“What if it does happen? What if Mom's never the same person again?”

“She'll still be your mother.”

Caroline didn't mean for her words to come out so harshly, so she braced herself for whatever Logan would say next. Had she overstepped her boundaries? She might love Mrs. Warren, but this was Logan's mother. What kind of friend was she, anyway? He'd opened his feelings to her, and she'd stomped all over them.

“You're right.”

She wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly, so she looked at him, finding him staring back at her.

“Thanks. I needed to hear it.” Logan pushed his fingers through his hair again as he settled back against the wall, but he didn't seem as frustrated as he had earlier.

“The doctors also told you it's going to be months before we know what the extent of your mom's recovery is going to be. You'll just have to be patient.”

When Logan turned his wide-eyed expression on her, she chuckled. “I know. I know. That's tough advice to take from someone like me.”

“You can say that again.”

She grinned. “That's tough advice to—”

“Okay. Once was enough.” Gesturing for her to follow him, Logan started down the hall, but he glanced back over his shoulder at her. “Thanks again.”

She caught up to walk beside him. “You're welcome.”

Logan's step appeared lighter as they walked out of the hospital, and Caroline was glad for him. Unfortunately, her heart felt heavier. As sad as she'd been during the visit with Mrs. Warren, especially watching
her son's reaction to it, the time had been eye-opening for her. Before she'd been asking
when
Mrs. Warren would return to her bakery, but now she had to wonder
if
that would ever happen.

Did Logan even see it yet? She could only imagine how painful it would be for him to realize that his mother had survived the stroke only to lose her personality in the process. Was he ready to acknowledge that there might be other limitations to her recovery? That she might never return to work?

Caroline already knew the answer to that. Logan worked every day with the intensity of a man with hope and a deadline. How could she shatter his belief by telling him she didn't trust that his mother would even return? But she had to. Though Caroline would only be at the bakery a short while, Logan and his brothers would be left with a business to run. They had to decide what to do with Amy's Elite Treats if its namesake never returned to bake again.

 

“You finally set a date!”

Logan hadn't even reached Trina Scott's backyard, but he would have heard her exclamation from as far away as his downtown apartment. He unlocked the gate and found his family and the Scotts as they often were, in a crushing group hug.

Opposite that group, a picnic table had been covered with a vinyl tablecloth, and platters of food were spread over the length of it. Delicious smells seeped from the grill, making his stomach growl.

He was glad he'd let Mrs. Scott talk him into coming this time instead of excusing himself for another “date” at the park. Even if his mother couldn't be with them
today, she would still want the two families to enjoy time together, especially on a day when they could celebrate Dylan and Jenna's good news.

He scanned the faces of the friends and relatives around the yard, not even realizing he'd been searching for Caroline until he felt a thud of disappointment when she wasn't there. Where was she? If she was staying at her mother's house, how had she managed to avoid attending the cookout?

Just like each morning at the bakery, he couldn't help watching for her and waiting for that undeniable jolt as soon as she came into view. This wasn't good. No, not good.