Always the Baker, Never the Bride Read online

  Jackson arched an eyebrow at his sister, but the rest of the glare he’d been planning fell short in the light of the charming grin she flashed at him.

  “You are a very bossy woman.”

  “I know I am, pumpkin. Now get along downstairs.”

  Jackson planted a peck on Madeline’s cheek as he passed.

  When he finally made it down near the kitchen, the scrape of furniture drew his immediate attention. Inside, Emma Travis was giving directions while two workmen hoisted a heavy metal island across the floor.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked Georgiann, who was standing back and watching from the sidelines.

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” Emma said. “I just thought I’d help you get this part of the kitchen set up for easier use.”

  “Did you?”

  “Chef Morelli’s kitchen is perfect for what he does,” she explained. “But in here, for the purposes of baking, it’s all wrong. The prep station is on the opposite side of the room, too far away from the refrigeration unit. Wedding cakes, in particular, can sometimes weigh up to a hundred pounds or more, and you’re not going to want to have to transport them across the length of the room to get them chilled. And the cupboard for the—”

  “I have an idea,” Jackson interrupted. “Why don’t we let the person who is offered the job, and actually accepts it, set up the kitchen the way they want it?”

  “Oh. I … uh …”

  “Jackson, this is not Ms. Travis’s fault,” his sister objected. “I asked for her opinion, and then called Frank and his carpenter in from the dining room for their help moving things around so I could see what she meant.”

  “She’s got a good point about the flow in here, Mr. Drake.”

  Jackson turned and looked the workman squarely in the eye. “Thank you, Frank. And this would be your professional opinion based on all your experience as a baker?”

  “Well, no. But I’m a contractor. I’ve built more than a hundred commercial kitchens.”

  Jackson felt something thud inside him. He wondered if he might have to hire Emma Travis, just so he could be around on the off chance that she was ever wrong about anything.

  “Why don’t we go sit down and have a chat, Ms. Travis?”

  “Emma.”

  Her hazel-green eyes hinted at a twinkle before she dragged them away from him. He noticed a slight tremble to her hands as she ran them through her dark brown hair and then folded them in her lap when they settled across from one another in the dining room. He couldn’t seem to catch her eye as she fidgeted and darted her attention from the draperies to the doorway to the carpet.

  “Something else that doesn’t look quite right, Emma?”

  “Oh. No. I was just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “About your linen delivery service. They shouldn’t have been allowed to just drop the delivery in the lobby and leave like that. I was thinking that if I were you, I’d fire them and sign a contract with Indelibles down in Dunwoody. They have great prices and color selection. With them, you could have your tables dressed in one color for brunch, for instance, and then another for more elegant dinners.”

  “I didn’t see anything on your résumé that would indicate any job experience running a restaurant,” Jackson noted. “Yet you seem to be an expert on this topic, as well as many others.”

  “The Avery Chronicles,” she replied, and the sliver of a smile that she delivered charmed Jackson to the very core.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Avery Travis. That’s my mother.”

  “Avery Travis from Savannah?”

  “Well, she grew up in Savannah, so … yes. The very same. She’s the queen of fundraisers, worthy causes, and cotillions. You can’t be her daughter without picking up a vast array of useless information about hosting parties, setting up buffets, and assembling celebrity auctions.”

  Avery Travis. Emma Rae Travis’s mother? It seemed almost impossible.

  “You are a wealth of surprising knowledge and information, Ms. Travis.”

  “Emma.”

  “I assume my sisters have filled you in on the destiny of this endeavor?”

  “They have.”

  “And your thoughts?”

  “I think it fills a niche that no one really knew was there. It’s quite brilliant, actually. Who else in Atlanta has a hotel where you can have your bridal shower, the rehearsal dinner, your wedding, reception, and your honeymoon if you want to, all in one location?”

  “And this is something you would like to be connected with? Help build this business and make it thrive?”

  “I would. Very much.”

  “When can you start?”

  “I think I already did,” she said with a grin. “Now, can I go back in there and have my kitchen set up the way I like it?”

  “Stop by my office afterward,” Jackson suggested. “We’ll talk about salary, staff, and calibrate our expectations.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said, hopping to her feet and extending her hand toward him. “I’m really excited about coming to work at The Tanglewood. You won’t regret hiring me.”

  Jackson shook her hand and smiled. “Is that a promise?”

  “Yes, sir. It is.”

  “We’ll get along just fine then.”

  The Top Ten Most Popular Wedding Themes

  Whimsical or fairy tale

  Holiday focus (such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day)

  Victorian or medieval setting

  Hollywood glamour

  Beach or seaside

  English garden

  Winter wonderland

  Black & white ball

  Hawaiian or luau

  Sports-related

  4

  Baseball.” Emma repeated it again just to be certain. “They want a baseball-themed wedding?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you, yes. They are Atlanta Braves fanatics, and they met at one of the games,” Jackson explained, and then he leaned back in the leather chair behind his desk until it creaked. “My sister Madeline is going to be working as an overall coordinator for the weddings. She’ll sync everything up for these events as they unfold. Any further details can be had by talking to her.”

  Emma had the distinct impression that she’d been dismissed. She didn’t know whether to hop up and run out of the room, or switch to one of the dozen other topics she’d brought with her to the first meeting with her brand-new boss.

  “Was there something else?” he asked, running a hand through his thick hair.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “A whole lot of something elses, actually.”

  “Can you give me the abbreviated version, then? Or maybe it’s something Maddie can handle? My plate is a little full today.”

  The skin on her face and chest heated up like someone had switched on the burner.

  “I thought this was a status meeting,” she said in controlled-courtesy mode.

  Jackson sighed. “That would indicate that I know what our status is. And I don’t quite have a handle on that at the moment.”

  Emma took a deep breath and held it. When she finally released it, she did so with slow and deliberate consistency.

  “You called this meeting,” she reminded him. “Perhaps you have questions for me?”

  “No.”

  A long moment of silence ticked between them.

  “No?” she clarified.

  “Not right now. No.”

  “Can I ask why I’m here?”

  Jackson propped both elbows on the desk, and then dropped his face into his hands and rubbed it briskly. When he finally lifted his gaze again, his mouth tilted into half a smile.

  “You are here, Ms. Travis, because I’m told you’re the best. Beyond that, I’m afraid … I’ve got nothin’.”

  Emma couldn’t help herself, and she popped out a chuckle in rhythmic spurts. She stood up and leaned across the desk, touching him firmly on the shoulder. “Honesty is good.”

  This time, it was Jackson’s tu
rn to laugh. “I apologize, Emma. I’m in a little over my head at the moment. And I’m not accustomed to being in over my head.”

  “I sense that,” she replied. She stood, folded her arms, and faced him. “What can I do to help?”

  He screwed up his mouth and narrowed his eyes. “I have no idea.”

  “Well, when you do,” she offered with a nod toward the door, “I’m just downstairs.”

  Emma emerged from Jackson’s office to find Susannah wide-eyed and hurrying toward her. Placing one finger over her lips, she nodded Emma toward the hallway in a conspiratorial fervor and, outside the door, Susannah looped her arm through Emma’s and led her toward the elevator.

  “Our boss is in a pickle,” she told her. “There’s a meeting in the courtyard in ten minutes to talk about it.”

  “Thank goodness,” Emma returned.

  The Tanglewood was a box of sorts, all four sections of the historic building wrapping around a large, open brick courtyard. Tall, leafy trees were draped with strands of a thousand small lights and nearly as many tweeting birds with high-pitched little voices. Thick bars of sunlight forced their way through the branches from the bright blue Georgia sky, landing on the brick as if illuminating a portion of a stage that was ripe for the first act.

  “Oh good!” Georgiann exclaimed as they arrived. “Now we’re all here.”

  Norma wiped off the top of one of the bright-white bistro tables as Madeline appeared with a tray of china cups and a large flowered pot.

  “Sit down, you two,” Madeline urged them as Norma poured. “We’ve got tea now. It’s time to get down to business.”

  “Well, somebody has to,” Susannah chimed in.

  Emma peered into one face after another, all of them contorted with a mix of worry and amusement.

  Georgiann stepped into her Big Sister role and pointed her finger at Madeline. “Maddie, you start.”

  “Okay,” she complied, opening a leather portfolio and turning over page after page of notes. “We’ve got to make plans for the opening night party. And then we have seven confirmed weddings scheduled for the next three months after we open.”

  “What?” Emma interrupted. “I’ve only heard about one of them.”

  “I’ll go over them with you in detail,” Madeline promised. “But the first thing we have to do is decide on how we can make the most of our opening to let Atlanta know we’re here.”

  “Isn’t this something your brother should be tending to?” she asked with a gentle cringe punctuating the end of the question.

  The sisters all chuckled, and Susannah squeezed Emma’s hand.

  “Maybe we should give Emma a bit of background,” she suggested, and Georgiann nodded as if giving her permission.

  “Well,” Norma began, combing her already-perfect hair back with the tips of her fingers, just the way Jackson often did. “Desiree, my brother’s wife—”

  “He’s married?” Emma interrupted.

  “His late wife, sugah,” Georgiann offered.

  “Oh.”

  “She used to work here at The Tanglewood,” Norma went on.

  “It was a little boutique hotel back then,” Madeline added. “And Desiree was the assistant manager.”

  “She used to dream about buying this place and turning it into a wedding destination hotel,” Georgiann took over again. “She’d tell him all about her plans. Oh, they were just fantasies, of course, but Desi loved to dream about what she was going to do he-ah.”

  Susannah leaned closer to Emma, and her floral scent tickled Emma’s nostrils. “She died of cancer, just a couple of years ago.”

  Emma’s eyes widened, and then regret took the form of a salty glaze. “That’s awful.”

  “In her final days, Desi told Jack that it was her one and only regret in life,” Madeline drawled, “that she never followed through on those plans.”

  “So once she was gone and the grief was stranglin’ him like a weddin’ corset,” Georgiann piped up, “sure enough, this place went on the auction block for sale. Jackson hasn’t done three impulsive things in his whole entire life, but he snapped up The Tanglewood faster’n a gator snags meat.”

  “I think he thought it was a tribute to Desi’s memory,” Madeline told her, scrunching up her nose and pressing her turned-down lips together. “But the truth is Jack doesn’t know two licks about romance, so him operatin’ a weddin’ hotel?”

  “Well, that’s just about as crazy as tryin’ to milk a three-legged dog,” Georgiann finished.

  Well, that IS crazy, Emma thought. But she didn’t quite see the whole connection between milk and a handicapped canine.

  “I think he’s just realized he’s up a creek without a paddle,” Madeline explained. “And we’re makin’ it our jobs to help him row.”

  Emma nodded. Now that she could understand.

  “He’s hired that crazy chef. What’s his name, Susannah?”

  “Anton Morelli.”

  “Morelli. That’s it. Well, you just meet that man for twenty-seven seconds, and you know he’s gonna spot Jackson as a fish outta water in nothin’ flat. He’ll slice and filet that boy before the first appetizer is ever served in this place.” Madeline placed her hand around Emma’s wrist and looked her hard in the eye. “We’ve got to get things organized before he comes on board next week.”

  “What can I do to help?” she asked them.

  Georgiann smacked her hands on the tabletop and grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

  “We’ve got to make a plan for the opening gala,” Norma told them. “We need a theme and a plan.”

  “And it had better be a doozy,” Georgiann added. “Atlanta needs to get the new and improved Tanglewood Inn on their radar, and fast.”

  Two hours later, each of the women gathered around the courtyard bistro table had a list of responsibilities assigned to them. Even in the management of the meeting itself, Jackson Drake’s sisters were a well-oiled machine. Norma cleared the tea service while Madeline gathered their notes and Georgiann straightened the chairs. Emma was reminded of a synchronized swimming exhibition she’d once seen as they met up once again, said their hasty good-byes, and floated from the courtyard to the lobby before separating and going in three directions. The only thing missing were the swimsuits and bathing caps with matching rubber sunflowers on them.

  Susannah’s focus dragged to the lobby as an awkwardly tall gentleman emerged and looked around.

  “That’ll be Edward,” she said, gathering her notes and poking her pen behind her ear.

  “Edward?”

  “Jackson’s ten-thirty,” she replied as she scurried toward the door. Then she tossed her hand into the air and wiggled her fingers as she sang, “Hotel insurance.”

  Emma folded her notes and, on her way back to the kitchen, tucked them into the file folder of impending weddings that Madeline had provided. She’d want to go over them with Fee when she arrived for her first official day in the employ of The Tanglewood Inn. Emma glanced at her watch and wondered what Fee’s take on the place would be.

  Less than an hour. Not nearly enough time to file down the jagged edges around her.

  Emma took a slow stroll down the wide hallway from the lobby that led toward the restaurant and kitchens. Two swinging doors stood before her, both of them freshly painted white, identical with their round acrylic windows and stainless-steel kick plates, not a smudge in sight. She smiled as she softly nudged the one on the right, taking such pleasure in the gentle whoosh as the door separated from the rubber insulation around the jamb. On the other side: Emma’s personal nirvana.

  Two rows of stainless-steel work tables reached all the way down the length of the kitchen, like a shiny highway stretched across the desert at dawn. A perfect row of glass-paned cabinets framed with glossy hunter green trim sported brushed silver pulls. Bakeware was stacked inside a floor-to-ceiling cupboard, peeking out at her from behind a rectangle of streak-free glass. Emma tugged open one of the dozen drawers and brushed her ha
nd along the variety of stainless-steel spoons positioned neatly like a museum display. She admired the bright apple-red tiles behind the deep porcelain sinks; a perfect match to the small diamonds of detail spotting the reflective black and white checkerboard floor.

  At the other end of the kitchen sat an office (a cubbyhole really) open to the kitchen with one glass wall and three others freshly painted cream. The room was just big enough for a small desk, two upholstered chairs from the restaurant, and a mint green four-drawer file cabinet. It was small, but it was hers. She’d never had a kitchen and an office before. Just the sight of it made her feel all trembly and official inside.

  “Ahhh-gguh!”

  Emma turned just as Fee dropped two enormous canvas bags to the kitchen floor with a clunk and leaned against the doorway looking stunned. She shook her head slightly, and then clutched her own throat, propping her mouth open into a perfect round O.

  “This is our kitchen??”

  “It is,” Emma grinned. “Isn’t it just—”

  “Yes. It is,” Fee replied on a sigh. “It really is.”

  Fee hopped from foot to foot and then skittered across the length of the room toward Emma. The two of them smashed into something that resembled an embrace, and then they began to jump up and down in perfect unison.

  “We are going to be baking here, Em,” Fee told her, as if Emma didn’t already know. “Here. In this kitchen.”

  “Yes, we are!”

  Both palms upright, two slaps, two more slaps returned, a couple of quick hip bumps, and “Hoo-yeah!” in unison. Their private language for celebrating the score.

  “And not a comb-over in sight,” Fee added, referring to their former boss’s questionable hairstyle.

  “Nope. Our new employer has a full head of gorgeous hair,” Emma beamed. “Wait until you—”

  The kerplunk of the swinging door drew them to immediate silence as they both spun around and faced the man standing in the doorway. His comb-over inspired a wayward snicker from Fee, and Emma punched her in the ribs with her elbow.